Brothers-in-arms

From ‘The new crusade’, 25 May 1918: It is curious to think how great must soon have been the spiritual gulf between the new generation in Great Britain and the United States if the latter had remained in prosperous isolation. In five years we should have ceased to understand each other’s jokes, in ten we should scarcely have spoken the same language. But now the tide is setting just as mightily towards a complete and perfect sympathy. A whole generation of Americans will have been our brothers-in-arms… The possibilities of the new brotherhood are almost boundless. If anything could make us welcome the continuance of the war for another year, it would be the thought that only through such tempering can the new bond be forged and the new force come to perfection.