TEN YEARS AFTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 267, 10 November 1928, Page 9

TEN YEARS AFTER.

It will be ten years to-morrow morning since cease fire sounded. "The minutes passed slowly along the front. An occasional shell, an occasional burst of firing, told that peace was not'yet, but there were long spells of quiet, save in the American area. Officers had their watches in their hands, and tho troops waited with the same grave composure with which they had fought. Men were too weary and deadened for their imaginations to rise to the great moment, for it is not at the time, but long afterwards, that the human mind grasps the drama of a crisis. Suddenly, as the watch hands touched eleven there came a second of expectant silence, and the* a curious rippling sound which observers far behind the front likened to the noise of a great wind. It was the sound of men cheering from the Vosges to the ,sea. After that peace descended on the battlefield. A new era had dawned and the old world had passed away. What am I writing about? The war. ..What war? What wwrt No, perhaps I should not be so greatly surprised. Ten years have passed, and for us who remember the war, its long agonies, its hideous disappointments, its heartrending bereavements and complete victory, it is not very easy to* realise that a new generation has arisen to whom the war is a vague memory of childhood and something read about in books. At an Auckland house the' other day a friena related some of his war experiences to the children. "Was Mr. Brown at the same war as uncle Tom?" was a question asked afterwards. This seems curious to us, to whom there is only one war. A friend of mine who went to see the lilm of Coronel and the Falkland Islands battles told me how the passage of time had come home to her when she found that a young colleague knew nothing of either event. She promptly told her that the British seamen who fought there (and. remember two ships' crews perished to a man) helped to make it possible for her to live happily'; in a British country. . Such a change is inevitable, and it is well, that we should recognise this on the tenth anniversary of our deliverance. Ten years is a period that impresses the mind with the flight of And time will fly, and new generations tread, upon the heels of the old, making of the crisis that filled the hearts and minds of their ciders but a tale that is told. Looking back, we eldera can see not only that there was nothing to da. but to fight, but that there was nothing to do but to fight on until complete victory was won. We have recent confirmation from, the highest possible German source that nothing but surrender would have met our demands and ensured our safety. Even in the last weeks, when tbe Germans were in retreat, the military leadeo.-s thought of a truce only as an opportunity fior giving their armies breathing space and ff»entangling tho war-worn Allies in peace intrigues. So it went on, until the British reached Moms again, and the bells there played "TipperaryV and the wheel came full circle. Only those who were caught in the unspeakable relief of tliat week can know how I feel as I write this. In ten years much has happened. War.passinms have cooled. To expect old vows of eteaaal •enmity to bo kept is absurd. Even if we' of the older generation wished to keep them there would be the younger to ask us why the quarrels of the fathers should be visited on the childnen. Even Belgium has softened the inscription on the new Louvain Library, and among the cro'vvds who cheer German athletes must be many ivho ten years ago had banished Germany from civiliisation. We have the League of Nations, with G«ermany as a member, the Locarno Pact, and the agreement to outlaw war. All that is an achievement to be remembered as we keep the silence to-morrow, the silence that is the finest of tribmtes to the glorious dead. The concern of the yovujiger generation is with the present, not the past,'but it may be reasonably required to know the miain facts of the great struggle and victory, and, Tirith us, to remember with gratitude and humble piide. —CYEAI^O-