Vol. I, No. 1.
October, 1921.
EDITORIAL.
T
O-DAY less than three years have elapsed since the Great War came
to an end only three years ago Europe still reverberated to the thunder
of a thousand guns, and the civilian of to-day, going on his peaceful way,
then found battle as his. daily occupation, and Death as an ever-present
companion.
The storm and stress of the industrial troubles that have swept over England almost
continuously since the Armistice was signed on that fateful day in November, 1918, have
unfortunately combined to push the memory of those days into the background for some.
War was a terrible thingit spelt empty places in many homes, and its after-effects
have brought poverty and misery to many ex-service men but the comradeship at
arms of the millions who fought for Britain and the upholding of a great ideal is a thing
that will never be forgotten. It stands out in one's memory like a lighthouse in the murk
and gloom of the storm of war.
There were those amongst us who fought under the shadow of the Holy Places in
far-off Syriathere were those who marched amid the ruins of dead empires to the city
of the caliphsthere were others who fell in their thousands in the effort to reach
Byzantium, Constantinople of to-daythere were yet others who fought and fell on the
seven seas of the world but to England on the whole, the War is summed up in the
one word Ypres," the gate of Flanders.
Almost every soldier who fought on the Western Front sométime or other found
himself a warden of the gate to Calais almost every man who fought for England in France
or Belgium has been a Veteran of the Bloody Salient."
Do you remember that wardenship cost two hundred and fifty thousand lives
In the defence of the pathway to Calais and the sea as many fell as if the whole population
of Nottingham or Newcas'tle had been wiped out.
i It would be a pity if the spirit of comradeship which had its birth in those days
of death and destruction should ever be allowed to die out.
It is not merely that those who stayed at homewho kept the home fires burning
must remember what was done for them and for England by the wardens of Ypres,
but that the men themselves who took part in the continuous battle that raged round
the salient for four years, must also keep an ever-living memory of their fellowshipnot
only fellowship with the glorious army of the dead, but with those who, with them, are
survivors.