The Seed of Empire by Fred M. White

It is only by slow degrees that the true story of Ypres and the stupendous result of the fight there is coming home to the world. For a long time the fog of war lay over the battlefield and the curtain has been lifted only inch by inch, despite the fact that not more than four hours separate the scene of the combat from London itself. These are the days when intelligence travels fast, yet weeks and months passed before the significance of that great struggle began to get home to the British people. They knew, of course, that fighting was going on, but they did not realise for a moment that a mere handful of men were engaged in what was really a life and death struggle on behalf of the Empire.

And yet there can be no question that the magnificent stand made at Ypres by French and his gallant men is entitled to rank with the decisive battles of the world, with Marathon and Cressy and Waterloo, with Moscow and Austerlitz. It broke for ever the German dream of the possession of the North Coast of France and the delirious idea of an onslaught upon England by way of Calais. It spoilt the pleasant scheme which was to include Northern France within the German Dominion and attach Belgium and her seaboard to Germany. It cost Prussia three hundred and seventy-five thousand of her finest troops. And it enabled Russia to concentrate and become a serious menace to the eastern frontier, so that a division of forces was necessary. In a word, it broke up the great conspiracy and showed the Kaiser and his friends plainly enough that the dream of half a century was no more than a mere nightmare. They might boast and brag and swagger as much as they liked, they could proudly point to the fact that they held Belgium and a large slice of France and that their own territory was intact, but at the same time they knew that the end was coming, and from that moment idle vapourings ceased and Germany began to talk as if an honourable peace was all that she could hope for.