Once again the month of the War-God has been true to its name. March, opening in suspense, with the Kaiser and his Chancellor still talking of peace, has closed in a crisis of acute anxiety for the Allies. The expected has happened; the long-advertised German attack has been delivered in the West, and the war of movement has begun.

Breaking through the Fifth British Army, in five days the Germans have advanced twenty-five miles, to within artillery range of Amiens and the main lateral railway behind the British lines. Bapaume and PÉronne have fallen. The Americans have entered the war in the firing line. It is the beginning of the end, the supreme test of the soul of the nation:

The little things of which we lately chattered--
The dearth of taxis or the dawn of Spring;
Themes we discussed as though they really mattered,
Like rationed meat or raiders on the wing;--
How thin it seems to-day, this vacant prattle,
Drowned by the thunder rolling in the West,
Voice of the great arbitrament of battle
That puts our temper to the final test.
Thither our eyes are turned, our hearts are straining,
Where those we love, whose courage laughs at fear,
Amid the storm of steel around them raining,
Go to their death for all we hold most dear.
New-born of this supremest hour of trial,
In quiet confidence shall be our strength,
Fixed on a faith that will not take denial
Nor doubt that we have found our soul at length.
O England, staunch of nerve and strong of sinew,
Best when you face the odds and stand at bay;
Now show a watching world what stuff is in you!
Now make your soldiers proud of you to-day!

Of our soldiers we at home cannot be too proud, from Field-Marshal to officer's servant. As one of Mr. Punch's correspondents at the front writes: "Dawn to me hereafter will not be personified as a rosy-fingered damsel or a lovely swift-footed deity, but as a sturdy little man in khaki, crimson-eared with cold, heralded and escorted by frozen wafts of outer air, bearing in one knobby fist a pair of boots, and in the other a tin mug of black and smoking tea." As for the charities and courtesies of war, as interpreted by our soldiers, Mr. Punch can wish for no better illustration than in these lines on "The German graves":

I wonder are there roses still
In Ablain St. Nazaire,
And crosses girt with daffodil
In that old garden there.
I wonder if the long grass waves
With wild-flowers just the same,
Where Germans made their soldiers' graves
Before the English came?
The English set those crosses straight
And kept the legends clean;
The English made the wicket-gate
And left the garden green;
And now who knows what regiments dwell
In Ablain St. Nazaire?
But I would have them guard as well
The graves we guarded there.
And when at last the Prussians pass
Among those mounds and see
The reverent cornflowers crowd the grass
Because of you and me,
They'll give, perhaps, one humble thought
To all the "English fools"
Who fought as never men have fought
But somehow kept the rules.

MADE IN GERMANY
CIVILISATION: "What's that supposed to represent?"
IMPERIAL ARTIST: "Why, 'Peace,' of course."
CIVILISATION: "Well, I don't recognise it--and I never shall."

To turn from the crowning ordeal of our Armies to the activities of British politicians on the eve of the great German attack is not a soul-animating experience. Indeed, the efforts of Messrs. Snowden and Trevelyan, Pringle and King almost justify the assumption that Hindenburg would have launched his offensive earlier but for his desire not to interfere with the great offensive conducted by his friends on the Westminster front. Our anti-patriots, however, are placed in a dilemma. They were bound to side with Germany, because of their rooted belief that England always must be wrong. They were bound to hail the Bolshevik self-determinators because of their entirely sound views on peace at any price. But now their two loves are fighting like cats. Hence the problem: "Which am I (both can't well be right), Pro-German or Pro-Trotskyite?" Discussions of pig shortage, commandeered premises, the relations of the Government and Press, and the duties of the Directors of Propaganda leave us cold or impatient. But members of all parties have been united in genuine grief over the death of Mr. John Redmond, snatched away just when his distracted country most needed his moderating influence. For in their anxiety not to interfere with the deliberations of those patriotic Irishmen who are trying to settle how Ireland shall be governed in the future, the Government are allowing it to become ungovernable by anybody. A new and agreeable Parliamentary innovation has been introduced by Sir Eric Geddes in the shape of an immense diagram showing the downward tendency of the U-boat activities. Other orators might with advantage follow this method. Indeed, there are some whose speeches would be more enjoyable if they were all diagrams. As for that pledge of the New Citizenship, the Education Bill, the debate on the second reading has been such a long eulogy of its author that Mr. Fisher would be well advised to offer a propitiatory sacrifice to Nemesis.

BY SPECIAL REQUEST
CUSTOMER: "Here, waiter, take a coupon off this and ask the band to play five-penn'orth of 'The Roast Beef of Old England.'"

Compulsory rationing is now an established fact, and the temporary disappearance of marmalade from the breakfast table has called forth many a cri de coeur. As one lyrist puts it:

Let Beef and Butter, Rolls and Rabbits fade,
But give me back my love, my Marmalade.

And another has addressed this touching vow to margarine:

Whether the years prove fat or lean
This vow I here rehearse:
I take you, dearest Margarine,
For butter or for worse.

It is reported that the Government's standard suits for men's wear will soon be available. One is occasionally tempted to hope that women's costumes might be similarly standardised.