at the front has materially reduced the wastage of men to the line of
communications.
Since the latter part of October, 1914, the whole of the medical
arrangements have been in the hands of Surgeon General Sir A.T.
Sloggett, C.M.G., K.H.S., under whom Surgeon General T.P. Woodhouse and
Surgeon General T.J. O'Donnell have been responsible for the
organization on the line of communications and at the front
respectively.
12. The exceptional and peculiar conditions brought about by the weather
have caused large demands to be made upon the resources and skill of the
Royal Engineers.
Every kind of expedient has had to be thought out and adopted to keep
the lines of trenches and defense work effective.
The Royal Engineers have shown themselves as capable of overcoming the
ravages caused by violent rain and floods as they have been throughout
in neutralizing the effect of the enemy's artillery.
In this connection I wish particularly to mention the excellent services
performed by my Chief Engineer, Brig. Gen. G.H. Fowke, who has been
indefatigable in supervising all such work. His ingenuity and skill have
been most valuable in the local construction of the various expedients
which experience has shown to be necessary in prolonged trench warfare.
13. I have no reason to modify in any material degree my views of the
general military situation, as expressed in my dispatch of Nov. 20,
1914.
14. I have once more gratefully to acknowledge the valuable help and
support I have received throughout this period from Gen. Foch, Gen.
D'Urbal, and Gen. Maud'huy of the French Army. I have the honor to be,
your Lordship's most obedient servant,
J.D.P. FRENCH, Field Marshal, Commanding in Chief, the British Army in
the Field.
The Cathedral of Rheims
BY EMILE VERHAEREN
(From Les Blés Mouvants)
Done into English verse by Joyce Kilmer.
He who walks through the meadows of Champagne
At noon in Fall, when leaves like gold appear,
Sees it draw near
Like some great mountain set upon the plain,
From radiant dawn until the close of day,
Nearer it grows
To him who goes
Across the country. When tall towers lay
Their shadowy pall
Upon his way,
He enters, where
The solid stone is hollowed deep by all
Its centuries of beauty and of prayer.
Ancient French temple! thou whose hundred Kings
Watch over thee, emblazoned on thy walls,
Tell me, within thy memory-hallowed halls
What chant of triumph, or what war-song rings?
Thou hast known Clovis and his Frankish train,
Whose mighty hand Saint Remy's hand did keep
And in thy spacious vault perhaps may sleep
An echo of the voice of Charlemagne.
For God thou hast known fear, when from His side
Men wandered, seeking alien shrines and new,
But still the sky was bountiful and blue
And thou wast crowned with France's love and pride.
Sacred thou art, from pinnacle to base;
And in thy panes of gold and scarlet glass
The setting sun sees thousandfold his face;
Sorrow and joy, in stately silence pass
Across thy walls, the shadow and the light;
Around thy lofty pillars, tapers white
Illuminate, with delicate sharp flames,
The brows of saints with venerable names,
And in the night erect a fiery wall,
A great but silent fervor burns in all
Those simple folk who kneel, pathetic, dumb,
And know that down below, beside the Rhine--
Cannon, horses, soldiers, flags in line--
With blare of trumpets, mighty armies come.
Suddenly, each knows fear:
Swift rumors pass, that every one must hear,
The hostile banners blaze against the sky
And by the embassies mobs rage and cry.
Now war has come, and peace is at an end,
On Paris town the German troops descend.
They turned back, and driven to Champagne.
And now, as to so many weary men,
The glorious temple gives them welcome, when,
It meets them at the bottom of the plain.
At once, they set their cannon in its way.
There is no gable now, nor wall
That does not suffer, night and day,
As shot and shell in crushing torrents fall,
The stricken tocsin quivers through the tower;
The triple nave, the apse, the lonely choir
Are circled, hour by hour,
With thundering bands of fire
And Death is scattered broadcast among men.
And then
That which was splendid with baptismal grace;
The stately arches soaring into space,
The transepts, columns, windows gray and gold,
The organ, in whose tones the ocean rolled,
The crypts, of mighty shades the dwelling places,
The Virgin's gentle hands, the Saints' pure faces,
All, even the pardoning hands of Christ the Lord
Were struck and broken by the wanton sword
Of sacrilegious lust.
O beauty slain, O glory in the dust!
Strong walls of faith, most basely overthrown!
The crawling flames, like adders glistening
Ate the white fabric of this lovely thing.
Now from its soul arose a piteous moan.
The soul that always loved the just and fair.
Granite and marble loud their woe confessed,
The silver monstrances that Pope has blessed.
The chalices and lamps and crosiers rare
Were seared and twisted by a flaming-breath;
The horror everywhere did rage and swell,
The guardian Saints into this furnace fell,
Their bitter tears and screams were stilled in death.
Around the flames armed hosts are skirmishing,
The burning sun reflects the lurid scene;
The German Army fighting for its life,
Rallies its torn and terrified left wing;
And, as they near this place
The imperial eagles see
Before them in their flight,
Here, in the solemn night,
The old cathedrals, to the years to be
Showing, with wounded arms, their own disgrace.
Music of War
By Rudyard Kipling
The following speech was delivered by Mr. Kipling on Jan. 27,
1915, at a meeting in London promoted by the Recruiting Bands
Committee, and held with the object of raising bands in the
London district as an aid to recruiting.
The most useful thing that a civilian can do in these busy days is to
speak as little as possible, and if he feels moved to write, to confine
his efforts to his check book. [Laughter.] But this is an exception to
that very sound rule. We do not know the present strength of the new
armies. Even if we did it would not be necessary to make it public. But
we may assume that there are several battalions in Great Britain which
were not in existence at the end of last July, and some of them are in
London. Nor is it any part of our national policy to explain how far
these battalions are prepared for the work which is ahead of them. They
were born quite rightly in silence. But that is no reason why they
should continue to walk in silence for the rest of their lives.
[Cheers.] Unfortunately up to the present most of them have been obliged
to walk in silence or to no better accompaniment than whistles and
concertinas and other meritorious but inadequate instruments of music
with which they have provided themselves. In the beginning this did not
matter so much. More urgent needs had to be met; but now that the new
armies are what they are, we who cannot assist them by joining their
ranks owe it to them to provide them with more worthy music for their
help, their gratification, and their honor. [Cheers.]
I am not a musician, so if I speak as a barbarian I must ask you and
several gentlemen on the platform here to forgive me. From the lowest
point of view a few drums and fifes in the battalion mean at least five
extra miles in a route march, quite apart from the fact that they can
swing a battalion back to quarters happy and composed in its mind, no
matter how wet or tired its body may be. Even when there is no route
marching, the mere come and go, the roll and flourishing of drums and
fifes around the barracks is as warming and cheering as the sight of a
fire in a room. A band, not necessarily a full band, but a band of a
dozen brasses and wood-winds, is immensely valuable in the district
where men are billeted. It revives memories, it quickens association, it
opens and unites the hearts of men more surely than any other appeal
can, and in this respect it aids recruiting perhaps more than any other
agency. I wonder whether I should say this--the tune that it employs and
the words that go with that tune are sometimes very remote from heroism
or devotion, but the magic and the compelling power is in them, and it
makes men's souls realize certain truths that their minds might doubt.
Further, no one, not even the Adjutant, can say for certain where the
soul of the battalion lives, but the expression of that soul is most
often found in the band. [Cheers.] It stands to reason that 1,200 men
whose lives are pledged to each other must have some common means of
expression, some common means of conveying their moods and their
thoughts to themselves and their world. The band feels the moods and
interprets the thoughts. A wise and sympathetic bandmaster--and the
masters that I have met have been that--can lift a battalion out of
depression, cheer it in sickness, and steady and recall it to itself in
times of almost unendurable stress. [Cheers.] You may remember a
beautiful poem by Sir Henry Newbolt, in which he describes how a
squadron of weary big dragoons were led to renewed effort by the strains
of a penny whistle and a child's drum taken from a toyshop in a wrecked
French town. I remember in India, in a cholera camp, where the men were
suffering very badly, the band of the Tenth Lincolns started a
regimental sing-song and went on with that queer, defiant tune, "The
Lincolnshire Poacher." It was their regimental march that the men had
heard a thousand times. There was nothing in it--nothing except all
England, all the East Coast, all the fun and daring and horse play of
young men bucketing about big pastures in the moonlight. But as it was
given, very softly at that bad time in that terrible camp of death, it
was the one thing in the world that could have restored, as it did
restore, shaken men back to their pride, humor, and self-control.
[Cheers.] This may be an extreme instance, but it is not an exceptional
one. Any man who has had anything to do with the service will tell you
that the battalion is better for music at every turn, happier, more
easily handled, with greater zest in its daily routine, if that routine
is sweetened with melody and rhythm--melody for the mind and rhythm for
the body.
Our new armies have been badly served in this essential. Of all the
admirable qualities which they have shown none is more wonderful than
the spirit which has carried them through the laborious and distasteful
groundwork of their calling without one note of music, except that which
the same indomitable spirit provided out of their own heads. We have all
seen them marching through the country, through the streets of London,
in absolute silence and the crowds through which they passed as silent
as themselves for the lack of the one medium that could convey and
glorify the thoughts that are in us all today.
We are a tongue-tied brood at the best. The bands can declare on our
behalf without shame and without shyness something of what we all feel
and help us to reach a hand toward the men who have risen up to save us.
In the beginning the more urgent requirements of the new armies overrode
all other considerations. Now we can get to work on some other
essentials. The War Office has authorized the formation of bands for
some of the London battalions, and we may hope presently to see the
permission extended throughout Great Britain. We must not, however,
cherish unbridled musical ambitions, because a full band means more than
forty pieces, and on that establishment we should even now require a
rather large number of men; but I think it might be possible to provide
drums and fifes for every battalion, full bands at the depots, and a
proportion of battalion bands on half, or even one-third,
establishments.
But this is not a matter to be settled by laymen; it must be discussed
seriously between bandmasters and musicians--present, past, and dug up.
[Laughter.] They may be trusted to give their services with enthusiasm.
We have had many proofs in the last six months that people only want to
know what the new army needs, and it will be gladly and cheerfully
given. The army needs music, its own music, for, more than in any other
calling, soldiers do not live by bread alone. From time immemorial the
man who offers his life for his land has been compassed at every turn of
his service with elaborate ceremonial and observance, of which music is
no small part, all carefully designed to support and uphold him. It is
not seemly and it is not expedient that any portion of that ritual
should be slurred or omitted now. [Cheers.]
[Illustration]
America and a New World State
How the United States May Take the Lead in the Formation of a World
Confederation for the Prevention of Future Wars
By Norman Angell
The object of this article is to show that however much
America may attempt to hold herself free in Europe she will
very deeply feel the effects, both material and moral, of
upheavals like that which is now shaking the old Continent;
that even though there be no aggressive action against her,
the militarization of Europe will force upon America also a
militarist development; and that she can best avoid these
dangers and secure her own safety and free development by
taking the lead in a new world policy which is briefly this:
To use her position to initiate and guide a grouping of all
the civilized powers having as its object the protection of
any one of its members that is the victim of aggression. The
aid to be given for such an object should not be, in the case
of the United States, military but economic, by means of the
definite organization of non-intercourse against the
recalcitrant power. America's position of geographical and
historical remoteness from European quarrels places her in a
particularly favorable position to direct this world
organization, and the fact of undertaking it would give her in
some sense the moral leadership of the western world, and make
her the centre of the World State of the future.
(COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY.)
I.
In the discussion of America's relation to the rest of the world we
have always assumed almost as an axiom that America has nothing to do
with Europe, is only in the faintest degree concerned with its politics
and developments, that by happy circumstance of geography and history we
are isolated and self-sufficing, able to look with calm detachment upon
the antics of the distant Europeans. When a European landed on these
shores we were pretty certain that he left Europe behind him; only quite
recently, indeed, have we realized that we were affected by what he
brought with him in the way of morals and traditions, and only now are
we beginning dimly to realize that what goes on on the other side of the
world can be any affair of ours. The famous query of a certain American
statesmen, "What has America to do with abroad?" probably represented at
bottom the feelings of most of us.
In so far as we established commercial relations with Europe at all, we
felt and still feel probably that they were relations of hostility, that
we were one commercial unit, Europe another, and that the two were in
competition. In thinking thus, of course, we merely accepted the view of
international politics common in Europe itself, the view, namely, that
nations are necessarily trade rivals--the commercial rivalry of Britain
and Germany is presumed to be one of the factors explaining the outbreak
of the present war. The idea that nations do thus compete together for
the world's trade is one of the axioms of all discussion in the field of
international politics.
Well, both these assumptions in the form in which we make them involve
very grave fallacies, the realization of which will shortly become
essential to the wise direction of this country's policy. If our policy,
in other words, is to be shrewd and enlightened, we must realize just
how both the views of international relationship that I have indicated
are wrong.
I will take first the more special one--that of the assumed necessary
rivalry of nations in trade--as its clearer understanding will help in
what is for us the larger problem of the general relationship of this
country to other civilized powers. I will therefore try and establish
first this proposition--that nations are not and can not be trade rivals
in the sense usually accepted; that, in other words, there is a
fundamental misconception in the prevailing picture of nations as
trading units--one might as well talk of red-haired people being the
trade rivals of black-haired people.
And I will then try and establish a second proposition, namely, that we
are intimately concerned with the condition of Europe, and are daily
becoming more so, owing to processes which have become an integral part
of our fight against nature, of the feeding and clothing of the world;
that we cannot much longer ignore the effects of those tendencies which
bind us to our neighbors; that the elementary consideration of
self-protection will sooner or later compel us to accept the facts and
recognize our part and lot in the struggles of Christendom; and that if
we are wise, we shall not take our part therein reluctantly, dragged at
the heels of forces we cannot resist, but will do so consciously,
anticipating events. In other words, we shall take advantage of such
measure of detachment as we do possess, to take the lead in a saner
organization of western civilization; we shall become the pivot and
centre of a new world State.
There is not the faintest hope of America taking this lead unless a push
or impetus is given to her action by a widespread public feeling, based
on the recognition of the fallacy of the two assumptions with which I
began this article. For if America really is independent of the rest of
the world, little concerned with what goes on therein, if she is in a
position to build a sort of Chinese wall about herself, and, secure in
her own strength, to develop a civilization and future of her own, still
more if the weakness and disintegration of foreign nations, however
unfortunate for them, is for America an opportunity of expanding trade
and opportunities, why then, of course, it would be the height of folly
for the United States to incur all the risks and uncertainties of an
adventure into the sea of foreign politics.
What as a matter of simple fact is the real nature of trade between
nations? If we are to have any clear notion at all as to just what truth
there is in the notion of the necessary commercial rivalry of States, we
must have some fairly clear notion of how the commercial relationship of
nations works. And that can best be illustrated by a supposititious
example. At the present time we are talking, for instance, of
"capturing" German or British or French trade.
Now, when we talk thus of "German" trade in the international field,
what do we mean? Here is the ironmaster in Essen making locomotives for
a light railway in an Argentine province, (the capital for which has
been subscribed in Paris)--which has become necessary because of the
export of wool to Bradford, where the trade has developed owing to sales
in the United States, due to high prices produced by the destruction of
sheep runs, owing to the agricultural development of the West.
But for the money found in Paris, (due, perhaps, to good crops in wine
and olives, sold mainly in London and New York,) and the wool needed by
the Bradford manufacturer, (who has found a market for blankets among
miners in Montana, who are smelting copper for a cable to China, which
is needed because the encouragement given to education by the Chinese
Republic has caused Chinese newspapers to print cable news from
Europe)--but for such factors as these, and a whole chain of equally
interdependent ones throughout the world, the ironmaster in Essen would
not have been able to sell his locomotives.
How, therefore, can you describe it as part of the trade of "Germany"
which is in competition with the trade of "Britain" or "France" or
"America"? But for the British, French, and American trade, it could not
have existed at all. You may say that if the Essen ironmaster could have
been prevented from selling his locomotives the order would have gone to
an American one.
[Illustration: H.M. PETER I
King of Servia]
[Illustration: WALTER H. PAGE
American Ambassador to Great Britain
_(Photo from Paul Thompson)_]
But this community of German workmen, called into existence by the
Argentina trade, maintains by its consumption of coffee a plantation in
Brazil, which buys its machinery in Chicago. The destruction,
therefore, of the Essen trade, while it might have given business to the
American locomotive maker, would have taken it from, say, an American
agricultural implement maker. The economic interests involved sort
themselves, irrespective of the national groupings. I have summarized
the whole process as follows, and the need for getting some of these
simple things straight is my excuse for quoting myself:
Co-operation between nations has become essential for the very
life of their peoples. But that co-operation does not take
place as between States at all. A trading corporation,
"Britain" does not buy cotton from another corporation,
"America." A manufacturer in Manchester strikes a bargain with
a merchant in Louisiana in order to keep a bargain with a dyer
in Germany, and three or a much larger number of parties enter
into virtual, or, perhaps, actual, contract, and form a
mutually dependent economic community, (numbering, it may be,
with the work people in the group of industries involved, some
millions of individuals)--an economic entity, so far as one
can exist, which does not include all organized society.
The special interests of such a community may become hostile
to those of another community, but it will almost certainly
not be a "national" one, but one of a like nature, say a
shipping ring or groups of international bankers or Stock
Exchange speculators. The frontiers of such communities do not
coincide with the areas in which operate the functions of the
State.
How could a State, say Britain, act on behalf of an economic
entity such as that just indicated? By pressure against
America or Germany? But the community against which the
British manufacturer in this case wants pressure exercised is
not "America" or "Germany"--both Americans and Germans are his
partners in the matter. He wants it exercised against the
shipping ring or the speculators or the bankers who are in
part British....
This establishes two things, therefore: The fact that the
political and economic units do not coincide, and the fact
which follows as a consequence--that action by political
authorities designed to control economic activities which take
no account of the limits of political jurisdiction is
necessarily irrelevant and ineffective.--(From "Arms and
Industry: A Study of the Foundations of International Polity."
Page 28. Putnams: New York.)
The fallacy of the idea that the groups we call nations must be in
conflict because they struggle together for bread and the means of
sustenance is demonstrated immediately when we recall the simple facts
of historical development. When, in the British Islands, the men of
Wessex were fighting with the men of Sussex, far more frequently and
bitterly than today the men of Germany fight with those of France, or
either with those of Russia, the separate States which formed the island
were struggling with one another for sustenance, just as the tribes
which inhabited the North American Continent at the time of our arrival
there were struggling with one another for the game and hunting grounds.
It was in both cases ultimately a "struggle for bread."
At that time, when Britain was composed of several separate States, that
struggled thus with one another for land and food, it supported with
great difficulty anything between one and two million inhabitants, just
as the vast spaces now occupied by the United States supported about a
hundred thousand, often subject to famine, frequently suffering great
shortage of food, able to secure just the barest existence of the
simplest kind.