"
"How will it end?" I asked him.
"I see no end to it," he answered. "It is the suicide of nations.
Germany is strong, and England is strong, and France is strong. It is
impossible for one side to crush the other, so when is the end to
come?"
I met many other prisoners then and a year afterward who could see no
end of the massacre. They believed the war would go on until living
humanity on all sides revolted from the unceasing sacrifice. In the
autumn of 1918, when at last the end came in sight, by German defeat,
unexpected a few months before even by the greatest optimist in the
British armies, the German soldiers were glad. They did not care how
the war ended so long as it ended. Defeat? What did that matter? Was
it worse to be defeated than for the race to perish by bleeding to
death?
XVIII
The struggle for the Pozieres ridge and High Wood lasted from the
beginning of August until the middle of September--six weeks of
fighting as desperate as any in the history of the world until that
time.
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