WIPERS AND THE LEAGUE
Vol. I. No. 7. Published Quarterly. April, 1923.
The Ypres League pronounces its name as it is spelled I sometimes wish that it had
called itself the Wipers League from the start, for I believe that title would have
expressed clearly what the League stands forand Wipers is not slangit is the
good old pronunciation sed by the men of Kent through all those centuries in which
taey s nt their wool to the Central Cloth Hall of Flanders. Call it Ypres or Wipers, the
name stands for and will represent as long as history lasts the extraordinary, stubborn
tenacity of a generation of Britishers bred in all parts of the Empirea generation which
our critics had thought to be lacking in purpose aid lacking in wül.
The Salient was created, as we say, by mere chance. A few hours more or a few
hours less in October, 1914, and we should have held a fine position over-looking the
Lys, or we should have had no Ypres at all. As it was, chance seems to have determined
to gi e us every opportunity of showing the stubborn stuff we are made of. Every member
of the League knows at first hand or by hearsay the amenities of that fearsome position
overlooked and enfiladed, without natural cover and deep ii mud. We held it and
succeeded in holding it from start to finish of the war, just because everyone concerned
decided on his own individual account to hold it. I am thinking, as I write this, of the
spring of 1915 and the Second Battle. An old doctor, working in a cushy spot well behind
the line, had no means of knowing what was in the minds of the commanders, but what
I did know was that the men took two or three separate wounds before they came back
to the ambulance. Each man turned himself into two or three men we were outnumbered
but that didn't countand we saved the Channel ports and a deal of trouble for England.
All of us know about the skill and daring and dash of the First Battle, of the almost
intolerable exertions of the Third Battle, of the physical miseries of the periods of waiting
with that constant ripple of fire.
Throughout the war Wipers stood for tenacity. I do not know why anyone else
joined the Ypres League, but I know perfectly well why I joined itit was to lend a hand
in commemorating the tenacity, honouring the devotion, celebrating the final success of
my comrades who held the Salient. And you who actually held the line, you need not
pretend that you will not be pleased, 40 years on," to find that the defence of the Salient
is honoured and not forgotten.
Now as to the Ypres League and its present case. It is my private opinion that
there has been too much League about it and too little Ypres that the end has
been obscured too much by the means. If my view is correct, then Nemesis has been
just, for there is no doubt about it that the League, launching last year into, what may
