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[Page 520]

MORAL QUALITIES

The truth is that character is the supreme arbiter of war. Marshal Foch insists that the qualities which ensure victory are moral qualities. "Ninety thousand conquered me", says he, "retire before ninety thousand conquering men only because they have had enough, because they no longer believe in victory, because they are demoralised, at the end of their moral resistance." Or, to give it Marshal Foch's mathematical expression, "victory - moral superiority in the conqueror; moral depression in the conquered."

Such is the equation which we are solving at last. It will be long, no doubt, before the solution is complete. But we have found, under the auspices of Marshal Foch, the true equivalent of victory, and its mathematical accuracy cannot be gain-said. And, for our own part, we can look back upon what our character has achieved with a calm satisfaction. We are not a boastful people. It is not in our temperament to make the best of ourselves.

So grimly silent have we been of our doings that it was long a favourite trick of our enemies to pretend that we were [indecipherable]

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