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Welcome to Our Overseas Comrades.
Ypremimes
THE JOURNAL OF THE YPRES LEAGUE.
Vol. 2. No. 3. Published Quarterly. July, 1924.
By SIR PHILIP GIBBS, K.B.E.
The Ypres League gives a hearty welcome back to all old comrades of the Great War
who have come, or are coming, from overseas, with the British Empire Exhibition at
Wembley as a good excuse for a visit to England.
They will find many changes in London and in English life. The colour of khaki
has gone out of it. The Strand is no longer crowded with soldiers. The Canadians
will miss the old Beaver hut which was their rendezvous. There are no crowds of the old
kind round Charing Cross and Victoria, waiting for the leave trains. It-will seem to
Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and South Africans that something, perhaps,
has gone out of the spirit of the English folk since those days when friendships were
quickly made, when there was hospitality for any soldier from overseas, and when the
heart of the nation was filled with the spirit of sacrifice, loyalty, comradeship and suffering.
It is a quieter London, less emotional, without that rather forced gaiety by which the
stay-at-homes tried to give a good time to the men in the trenches, when the}' came back
for seven days leave. After the terrific thrill of those war days when every pulse beat
quickly, life has dulled down to its normal jog-trot of small interests and petty worries.
It may seem to visitors from overseas that political and industrial troubles, and the nagging
little cares of peace, have spoilt the splendid spirit which they saw in England when they
came here in the years of war. They may be tempted to believe that the War, and their
own service, have been quite forgotten.
Well, that is not quite true. It is inevitable that we are all more absorbed in present
difficulties than in past achievements, and that the spiritual emotion of a people engaged
in a life and death struggle has been followed by a dull reaction in the daily routine of
civilian work. But there is no real forgetfulness of that time of great ordeal. There is
among all the memories that are stored away in the heart of England an abiding gratitude
to the men of the Dominions who came over in those days to defend the Empire and
the Mother Country with a loyalty and courage beyond all words of praise. It may be
put to the test quite easily. Let any man from overseas who fought in France and
Flanders, Gallipoli or Palestine, get into conversation with any ex-Service man in England,
and he will find that the old spirit of comradeship is there to greet him. If any Canadian
says I was at Ypres," to any London man who was in that Salient, it will be enough
for friendship. An Australian who was at Pozières, a New Zealander who was at Bapaume,
a South African who fought in Delville Wood, will have the password to the secret places
of the English heart in which those names are unforgotten.
