Series 03: John Brady Nash letters, January 1914-December 1915 - Page 510
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[Page 510]
as we and our predecessors have done.
When I read "Egypt and Australia" in the Melbourne Advocate I was quite pleased with. Was it published any where else in the press? I suppose that Mrs Knowles did the translation for the Melbourne paper.
Do not neglect to read Mr Balfours speech delivered at the opera house London on the 4th. August, it is of the best, I have read it in an issue of the Daily Express.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the capitulation of Metz in the year 1870, when the Germans fought the French. The event is fresh in my memory. Within the fortress of Metz, bazaine marshall [Marshal Bazaine] of France had 170,000, soldiers, and without putting up a fight he surrendered. It was a great blow to the military prestige of the nation and had great effect in bringing the fight to a speedy termination. In those days the army was a great one. Petrol traction had not then arrived, therefore great masses of men with their food could not be expeditiously taken from place to place. My parents with all others in those times followed the events of the war with the same anxiety as you do the present fighting, but they had not the personal interest that now pertains to each of us, our country was not then but an onlooker, and there was no need for casualty lists and the like. It was a great war confined to two peoples, strong for their time but in nothing being equal to the strength of the nations fighting this year of grace 1915.
This Sunday is the 15th August, the feast of the assumption of the B. V. M. I went to Mass at the Bassilica at 9.30 a.m., and to benediction at the Convent chappel at Zeitoun.
Good night. I have several other letters that await completion that they may be ready for the post in the morning. From here Monday is the day upon which it is best to have letters ready for giving to the postal officials, then there is no fear of missing any mail steamer that is going your way. May the best of fortune be with you now and always, and may the fair goddess Fortune fall deep in love with each of you.
To my friends please give my best wishes. To you go forth heaps of love and loads of kisses from
your loving and affectionate father
John B Nash
The Misses Nash
219 Macquarie Street
Sydney
New South Wales