VICTORY!

To take the chief events in order, the Versailles Conference opened on the 1st; on the 3rd Austria gave in and the resolve of the German Naval High Command to challenge the Grand Fleet in the North Sea was paralysed by the mutiny at Kiel; on the 5th the Versailles Conference gave full powers to Marshal Foch to arrange the terms of an armistice, and President Wilson addressed the last of his Notes to Germany; on the 6th the American Army reached Sedan; on the 9th Marshal Foch received Erzberger and the other German Envoys, the Berlin Revolution broke out, and the Kaiser abdicated; on the 10th the Kaiser fled to Holland, and the British reached Mons. The wheel had come full circle. The Belgian, British, French, and American Armies now formed a semi-circle from Ghent to Sedan, and threatened to surround the German Armies already in retreat and crowded into the narrow valley of the Meuse. Everything was ready for Foch's final attack; indeed, he was on the point of attacking when the Germans, recognising that they were faced with the prospect of a Sedan ten times greater than that of 1870, signed on November 11 an armistice which was equivalent to a military capitulation, and gave Marshal Foch all that he wanted without the heavy losses which further fighting would have undoubtedly involved. He had shown himself the greatest military genius of the War. Here, in the words of one of his former colleagues at the Ecole de Guerre, he proved himself free from the stains which have so often tarnished great leaders in war, the lust of conquest and personal ambition. Not only the Allies, but the whole world owes an incalculable debt to this soldier of justice, compact of reason and faith, imperturbable in adversity, self-effacing in the hour of victory. Glorious also is the record of the other French Generals: the strong-souled PÉtain, hero of Verdun; the heroic Maunoury; Castlenau and Mangin, Gouraud, Debeney, and Franchet d'Esperey, Captains Courageous, worthy of France, her cause, and her indomitable poilus. In the record of acknowledgment France stands first since her sacrifices and losses have been heaviest, and she gave us in Foch the chief organiser of victory, in Clemenceau the most inspiring example of intrepid statesmanship. But the War could not have been won without England and the Empire; without the ceaseless vigil in the North Sea; without the heroes of Jutland and Coronel, of the Falkland Isles and Zeebrugge, of the Fleets behind the Fleet; without the services of Smith-Dorrien at Mons, French at Ypres; without the dogged endurance, the inflexible will and the self-sacrificing loyalty of Haig; the dash of Maude and Allenby; the steadfast leadership in defence and offence of Plumer and Byng, Horne and Rawlinson and Birdwood.

OUR MAN
With Mr. Punch's Grateful Compliments to Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.

THE FINAL
TOMMY;(ex-footballer): "We was just wipin' them off the face of the earth when Foch blows his whistle and shouts 'Temps!'"

These are only some of the heroes who have added to the glories of our blood and State, but the roll is endless--wonderful gunners and sappers and airmen and dispatch riders, devoted surgeons and heroic nurses, stretcher-bearers and ambulance drivers. But Mr. Punch's special heroes are the Second Lieutenants and the Tommy who went on winning the War all the time and never said that he was winning it until it was won.

As for the young officers, dead and living, their record is the best answer to the critics, mostly of the arm-chair type, who have chosen this time to assail our public school system. In the papers of one of them killed on August 28 there was found an article written in reply to "The Loom of Youth," ending with these words: "Perhaps the greatest consolation of these attacks on our greatest heritage in England (for we are the unique possessors of the Public Schools) is the conviction that they will have but little effect. Every public school boy is serving, and one in every six gives up his life. They cannot be such bad places after all."

Of the great mistakes made by Germany perhaps the greatest was in reckoning on the detachment of the Dominions. The Canadians have made answer on a hundred stricken fields before and after Vimy Ridge. Australia gave her goodliest at Gallipoli, crowning the imperishable glory of those who died there by her refusal to make a grievance of the apparent failure of the expedition, and by the amazing achievement of her troops in the last six months of the War.

The immortal dead, British, Australians, New Zealanders, who fell in the great adventure of the narrow straits are not forgotten in the hour of triumph.

GALLIPOLI

Qui procul hinc ante diem perierunt.
Ye unforgotten, that for a great dream died,
Whose failing sense darkened on peaks unwon,
Whose souls went forth upon the wine-dark tide
To seas beyond the sun,
Far off, far off, but ours and England's yet,
Know she has conquered! Live again, and let
The clamouring trumpets break oblivion!
Not as we dreamed, nor as you strove to do,
The strait is cloven, the crag is made our own;
The salt grey herbs have withered over you,
The stars of Spring gone down,
And your long loneliness has lain unstirred
By touch of home, unless some migrant bird
Flashed eastward from the white cliffs to the brown.
Hard by the nameless dust of Argive men,
Remembered and remote, like theirs of Troy,
Your sleep has been, nor can ye wake again
To any cry of joy;
Summers and snows have melted on the waves.
And past the noble silence of your graves
The merging waters narrow and deploy.
But not in vain, not all in vain, thank God;
All that you were and all you might have been
Was given to the cold effacing sod,
Unstrewn with garlands green;
The valour and the vision that were yours
Lie not with broken spears and fallen towers,
With glories perishable of all things seen.
Children of one dear land and every sea,
At last fulfilment comes--the night is o'er;
Now, as at Samothrace, swift Victory
Walks winged on the shore;
And England, deathless Mother of the dead,
Gathers, with lifted eyes and unbowed head,
Her silent sons into her arms once more.

Crowns and thrones have rocked and toppled of late, but our King and Queen, by their unsparing and unfaltering devotion to duty, by their simplicity of life and unerring instinct for saying and doing the right thing, have not only set a fine example, but strengthened their hold on the loyalty of all classes. And King Albert, who defied Germany at the outset, shared the dangers of his soldiers in retreat and disaster, and throughout the war proved an inspiration to his people, has been spared to lead them to victory and has gloriously come into his own again. His decision to resist Germany was perhaps the most heroic act of the War, and he has emerged from his tremendous ordeal with world-wide prestige and unabated distaste for the limelight. The liberation and resurrection of Belgium and Serbia have been two of the most splendid outcomes of the World War, as the dÉbÂcle in Russia and the martyrdom of Armenia have been its greatest tragedies.

ARMISTICE DAY
SMALL CHILD (excitedly): "Oh, Mother, what do you think? They've given us a whole holiday to-day in aid of the war."

And it is a source of unspeakable joy that our children are safe. For though to most of them their ignorance has been bliss, they have not escaped the horrors of a war in which non-combatants have suffered worse than ever before. Only the healing hand of time can allay the grief of those for whom there can be no reunion on earth with their nearest and dearest:

At last the dawn creeps in with golden fingers
Seeking my eyes, to bid them open wide
Upon a world at peace, where Sweetness lingers,
Where Terror is at rest and Hate has died.
Loud soon shall sound a pÆan of thanksgiving
From happy women, welcoming their men,
Life born anew of joy to see them living.
Mother of Pity, what shall I do then?

Of the people at large Mr. Punch cannot better the praise of one, the late Mr. Henry James, who was nothing if not critical, and who proved his love of England by adopting her citizenship in the darkest hour of her need: "They were about as good, above all, when it came to the stress, as could well be expected of people. They didn't know how good they were," and if they lacked imagination they stimulated it immensely in others.

Apart from some effervescence in the great cities, Armistice Day was celebrated without exultation or extravagance. In one village that we know of the church bells were rung by women. In London our deliverance was to many people marked in the most dramatic way by the breaking of his long silence by Big Ben:

Gone are the days when sleep alone could break
War's grim and tyrannous spells;
Now it is rest and joy to lie awake
And listen to the bells.

So the Great War ended. But there yet remained the most dramatic episode of all--the surrender of the German Fleet to Admiral Beatty at Scapa Flow--a surrender unprecedented in naval history, a great victory won without striking a blow, which yet brought no joy to our Grand Fleet. For our admirals and captains and bluejackets felt that the Germans had smirched the glory of the fighting men of the sea, hitherto maintained in untarnished splendour by all vanquished captains from the days of Carthage to those of Cervera and Cradock.

IN HONOUR OF THE BRITISH NAVY
To commemorate the surrender of the German Fleet