WWI Western Front Great Britain General Smuts Speech The Coming Victory 1917

Description

Check out our store under the "Military Collectibles" category for other similar vintage items and save on shipping!
Estate sale find, vintage original copy of The Coming Victory: A Speech Made by General Smuts on October 4, 1917.
Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts (1870-1950) was a South African statesman, military leader, and philosopher.  In addition to holding various cabinet posts, he served as prime minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 until 1924 and from 1939 until 1948.
In the Second Boer War, Smuts led a Boer commando for the Transvaal.  During the First World War, he led the armies of South Africa against Germany, capturing German South-West Africa.  He then commanded the British Army in East Africa.
From 1917 to 1919 he was also one of the members of the British Imperial War Cabinet, and he was instrumental in the founding of what became the Royal Air Force (RAF).  He was appointed as a field marshal in the British Army in 1941.  He was the only person to sign both of the peace treaties ending the First and Second World wars.  A statue of him was erected to commemorate him in London's Parliament Square.
Excerpt from The Coming Victory:
Take the Western front, where the flower of the German army is gathered to-day. One continuous retirement has been proceeding from the summer of last year, very slow, but very sure. Verdun, Champagne, Vimy, Arras, Mes sines, and so on. On that almost immovable line the manhood of Germany is slowly bleeding to death, and a tragedy of slaughter is being enacted which probably has no parallel in the history of the world. It is no question of great pushes. A war of machinery is largely immobile in nature. The movements are slow, but the results are all the more terrible and crushing.
To defeat Germany we, need not advance to the Rhine nor to her frontiers. One strip of country is as good as another if they will only make a stand.  I assure you that long before we have reached the German frontier or the line of the Rhine Germany will have sued for peace. Our military predominance on that front is no longer in question, and remember that it was on that very issue of military predominance that Germany challenged the whole world in August, 1914.
Softcover, product dimensions: approximately 5.5" X 8.25", 12 pages, approximate shipping weight: 4 ounces.
PLEASE SEE DESCRIPTION AND PHOTOS FOR ADDITIONAL DETAILS -  The booklet is in overall Fair to Good Minus used condition with issues, damp stains, signs of wear, creases, fading, edge tears, sunning and age toning, scuffs, scrapes, soiling, possible writing, no odors, please see images.
(C1B7-003)