Mr. Punch’s correspondents at the Front have an incorrigible habit of euphemism and levity.  Even when things go well they are never betrayed into heroics, but adhere to the schoolboy formula of “not half bad,” just as in the blackest hours they would not admit that things were more than “pretty beastly.”  Yet sometimes they deviate for a moment into really enlightening comment.  No better summary of the situation as it stands in the third year of the War can be given than in the words of the faithful “Watch-dog,” who has long been on duty in trench and dug-out and crater-hole:—­

“This War has ceased to become an occupation befitting a gentleman—­gentleman, that is, of the true Prussian breed.  It was a happy and honourable task so long as it consisted of civilising the world at large with high explosive, poisonous gas and burning oil, and the world at large was not too ready to answer back.  To persist in this stern business, in face of the foolish and ignoble obstinacy of the adversary, required great courage and strength of mind; but the Prussian is essentially courageous and strong.  Things came to a pretty pass, however, when the wicked adversary made himself some guns and shells and took to being stern on his own.  People who behave like that, especially after they have been conquered, are not to be mixed with—­anything to keep aloof from such.  One had to leave Combles, one had to leave Thiepval, one may even have to leave Bapaume to avoid the pest; these nasty French and English persons, with their disgusting tanks, intrude everywhere nowadays.”  The German engineer is being hoist with his own petard: 

  Yet you may suck sweet solace from the thought
   That not in vain the seed was sown,
  That half the recent havoc we have wrought
   Was based on methods all your own;
  And smile to hear our heavy batteries
  Pound you with imitation’s purest flatteries.

Yet, at best, this is sorry comfort for the Kaiser.

[Illustration:  THE REJUVENATING EFFECT OF ZEPPELINS]

It is not a picnic for the men in our front line.  Reports that the situation is “normal” or “quiet” or “uneventful” represent more or less correctly what is happening at G.H.Q., Divisional Headquarters, Brigade Headquarters, or even Battalion Headquarters.  They represent understatement to the nth when applied to the front trenches.  But listen again to the “Watch-dog.”  He admits that some of our diamonds are not smooth, but adds “for myself I welcome every touch of nature in these our warriors.  It is good to be in the midst of them, for they thrive as never before, and their comforts are few enough these wet bloody days.”

The Crown Prince, after seven months of ineffective carnage before Verdun, has been giving an interview to an American ex-clergyman, representing the Hearst anti-British newspapers, in which he appears in the light of a tender-hearted philanthropist, longing for peace, mercy, and the delights of home-life.  Mr. Lloyd George, in an interview with an American journalist, has defined our policy as that of delivering a “knock out” to Prussian military despotism, a pugilistic metaphor which has wounded some of our Pacificists.  Our Zeppelin bag is growing; Count Zeppelin has sworn to destroy London or die, but now that John Bull is getting his eye in, the oath savours of suicide.