April 14th, 1917.

DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,—­As the news comes flashing in, these April days, and all the world holds its breath to hear the latest messages from Arras and the Vimy ridge, it is natural that in the memory of a woman who, six weeks ago, was a spectator—­before the curtain rose—­of the actual scene of such events, every incident and figure of that past experience, as she looks back upon it, should gain a peculiar and shining intensity.

The battle of the Vimy Ridge [April 8th] is clearly going to be the second (the first was the German retreat on the Somme) of those “decisive events” determining this year the upshot of the war, to which the Commander-in-Chief, with so strong and just a confidence, directed the eyes of this country some three months ago.  When I was in the neighbourhood of the great battlefield—­one may say it now!—­the whole countryside was one vast preparation.  The signs of the coming attack were everywhere—­troops, guns, ammunition, food dumps, hospitals, air stations—­every actor and every property in the vast and tragic play were on the spot, ready for the moment and the word.

Yet, except in the Headquarters and Staff Councils of the Army nobody knew when the moment and the word would come, and nobody spoke of them.  The most careful and exact organisation for the great movement was going on.  No visitor would hear anything of it.  Only the nameless stir in the air, the faces of officers at Headquarters, the general alacrity, the endless work everywhere, prophesied the great things ahead.  Perpetual, highly organised, scientific drudgery is three parts of war, it seems, as men now wage it.  The Army, as I saw it, was at work—­desperately at work!—­but “dreaming on things to come.”

One delightful hour of that March day stands out for me in particular.  The strong, attractive presence of an Army Commander, whose name will be for ever linked with that of the battle of the Vimy ridge, surrounded by a group of distinguished officers; a long table, and a too brief stay; conversation that carries for me the thrill of the actual thing, close by, though it may not differ very much from wartalk at home:  these are the chief impressions that remain.  The General beside me, with that look in his kind eyes which seems to tell of nights shortened by hard work, says a few quietly confident things about the general situation, and then we discuss a problem which one of the party—­not a soldier—­starts.

Is it true or untrue that long habituation to the seeing or inflicting of pain and death, that the mere sights and sounds of the trenches tend with time to brutalise men, and will make them callous when they return to civil life?  Do men grow hard and violent in this furnace after a while, and will the national character suffer thereby in the future?  The General denies it strongly.  “I see no signs of it.  The kindness of the men to each other, to the wounded, whether British or German, to the French civilians, especially the women and children, is as marked as it ever was.  It is astonishing the good behaviour of the men in these French towns; it is the rarest thing in the world to get a complaint.”