The month of the War god has again justified its name and its traditions. Both entry and exit have been leonine. The new submarine "frightfulness" began on the 1st, and the battle round Verdun, in which the fate of Paris, to say the least, is involved, has raged with unabated fury throughout the entire month.

Germany's junior partners, Turkey and Bulgaria, are for the moment more concerned with bleeding Germany than with shedding their blood for her; Enver Pasha is reported to have gone to pay a visit to the tomb of the Prophet at Medina; Portugal, our oldest ally, is now officially at war with Germany, and the dogs of frightfulness are already toasting "der Tagus."

On our share of the Western front there is still what is nominally described as a "lull." But, as a young Officer writes, "you must not imagine that life here is all honey. Even here we do a bit for our eight-and-sixpence." Once upon a time billets were billets. They now very often admit of being shelled with equal exactitude from due in front and due in rear, and water is laid on throughout. "It is a fact well known to all our most widely circulated photographic dailies that the German gunners waste a power of ammunition. The only criticism I have to make is that I wish they would waste it more carefully. The way they go strewing the stuff about around us is such that they're bound to hit someone or something before long. Still, we have only two more days in these trenches, and they seldom give us more than ten thousand shells a day."

TO THE GLORY OF FRANCE
Verdun, February-March, 1916

Letters from second-lieutenants seldom go beyond a gentle reminder that their life is not an Elysium. They offer a strange contrast to the activities of Parliamentary grousers and scapegoat hunters. If the Germans were in occupation of the Black Country, if Oxford were being daily shelled as Rheims is, and if with a favouring breeze London could hear the dull rumble of the bombardment as Paris can, one wonders if Members would still be encumbering the Order-paper with the vexatious trivialities that now find place there, or emitting what a patriotic Labour Member picturesquely described as "the croakings and bleatings of the fatted lambs who have besmirched their country." Per contra we welcome the optimism of Mr. Asquith in discussing new Votes of Credit, though he reminds us of Micawber calculating his indebtedness for the benefit of Traddles. It will be remembered that when the famous IOU had been handed over, Copperfield remarked, "I am persuaded not only that this was quite the same to Mr. Micawber as paying the money, but that Traddles himself hardly knew the difference until he had had time to think about it." Then we have had the surprising but welcome experience of Mr. Tim Healy championing the Government against Sir John Simon's attack on the Military Service Bill; and have listened to Lord Montagu of Beaulieu's urgent plea in the Lords for unity of air control, a proposal which Lord Haldane declared could not be adopted without some "violent thinking." Most remarkable of all has been Mr. Churchill's intervention in the debate on the Naval Estimates, his gloomy review of the situation--Mr. Churchill is always a pessimist when out of office--and the marvellous magnanimity of his suggestion that Lord Fisher should be reinstated at the Admiralty, on the ground that his former antagonist was the only possible First Sea Lord. Mr. Balfour dealt so faithfully with these criticisms and suggestions that there seems to be no truth in the report that Mr. Churchill has been asked to join the Government as Minister of Admonitions. A new and coruscating star has swum into our Parliamentary ken in the shape of the Member for Mid-Herts, and astronomers have labelled it "Pegasus [Greek: pi beta]." When the House of Commons passed the Bill prohibiting duels it ought to have made an exception in favour of its own Members. Nothing would have done more to raise the tone of debate, for offenders against decorum would gradually have eliminated one another. Yet Parliament has its merits, not the least of them being the scope it still affords for hereditary talent. Lord Derby, at the moment the most prominent man on the Home Front after the Premier, is the grandson of the "Rupert of Debate," and the new Minister of Blockade enters on his duties close on fifty years after another Lord Robert Cecil entered the Cabinet of Lord Derby. So history repeats itself with a difference. In spite of the Coalition, or perhaps because of it, the old strife of Whigs and Tories has revived, though the lines of cleavage are quite different from what they were. Thus the new Tories are the men who believe that the War is going to be decided by battles in Flanders and the North Sea, and would sacrifice everything for victory, even the privilege of abusing the Government. The new Whigs are the men who consider that the House of Commons is the decisive arena, and that even the defeat of the Germans would be dearly purchased at the cost of the individual's right to say and do what he pleased.

"He's kicked the Corporal!"

"He's kicked the Vet.!!"

After the exhibition of Mr. Augustus John's portrait of Mr. Lloyd George, the most startling personal event of the month has been the dismissal of Grand Admiral Tirpitz. According to one account, he resigned because he could not take the German Fleet out. According to another, it was because he could no longer take the German people in.

At Oxford the Hebdomadal Council have suspended the filling of the Professorship of Modern Greek for six months. Apparently there is no one about just now who understands the modern Greek. A French correspondent puts it somewhat differently:
"La GrÈce Antique: Hellas. La GrÈce Moderne: HÉlas!"