has never been tried. But the very difficulties constitute for America
also an immense opportunity. We have had nations give their lives and
the blood of their children for a position of supremacy and superiority.
But we are in a position of superiority and supremacy which for the most
part would be welcomed by the world as a whole and which would not
demand of America the blood of one of her children. It would demand some
enthusiasm, some moral courage, some sustained effort, faith, patience,
and persistence. It would establish new standards in, and let us hope a
new kind of, international rivalry.
One word as to a starting point and a possible line of progress. The
first move toward the ending of this present war may come from America.
The President of the United States will probably act as mediator. The
terms of peace will probably be settled in Washington. Part of the terms
of peace to be exacted by the Allies will probably be, as I have already
hinted, some sort of assurance against future danger from German
militarist aggression.
The German, rightly or wrongly, does not believe that he has been the
aggressor--it is not a question at all of whether he is right or wrong;
it is a question of what he believes. And he believes quite honestly and
sincerely that he is merely defending himself. So what he will be mainly
concerned about in the future is his security from the victorious
Allies.
Around this point much of the discussion at the conclusion of this
present war will range. If it is to be a real peace and not a truce an
attempt will have to be made to give to each party security from the
other, and the question will then arise whether America will come into
that combination or not. I have already indicated that I think she
should not come in, certainly I do not think she will come in, with the
offer of military aid. But if she stays out of it altogether she will
have withdrawn from this world congress that must sit at the end of the
war a mediating influence which may go far to render it nugatory.
And when, after it may be somewhat weary preliminaries, an international
council of conciliation is established to frame the general basis of
the new alliance between the civilized powers for mutual protection
along the lines indicated, America, if she is to play her part in
securing the peace of the world, must be ready to throw at least her
moral and economic weight into the common stock, the common moral and
economic forces which will act against the common enemy, whoever he may
happen to be.
That does not involve taking sides, as I showed in my last article. The
policeman does not decide which of two quarrelers is right; he merely
decides that the stronger shall not use his power against the weaker. He
goes to the aid of the weaker, and then later the community deals with
the one who is the real aggressor. One may admit, if you will, that at
present there is no international law, and that it may not be possible
to create one. But we can at least exact that there shall be an inquiry,
a stay; and more often than not that alone would suffice to solve the
difficulty without the application of definite law.
It is just up to that point that the United States should at this stage
be ready to commit herself in the general council of conciliation,
namely, to say this: "We shall throw our weight against any power that
refuses to give civilization an opportunity at least of examining and
finding out what the facts of the dispute are. After due examination we
may reserve the right to withdraw from any further interference between
such power and its antagonist. But, at least, we pledge ourselves to
secure that by throwing the weight of such non-military influence as we
may have on to the side of the weaker." That is the point at which a new
society of nations would begin, as it is the point at which a society of
individuals has begun. And it is for the purpose of giving effect to her
undertaking in that one regard that America should become the centre of
a definite organization of that world State which has already cut
athwart all frontiers and traversed all seas.
It is not easy without apparent hyperbole to write of the service which
America would thus render to mankind. She would have discovered a new
sanction for human justice, would have made human society a reality. She
would have done something immeasurably greater, immeasurably more
beneficent than any of the conquests recorded in the long story of man's
mostly futile struggles. The democracy of America would have done
something which the despots and the conquerors of all time, from
Alexander and Caesar to Napoleon and the Kaiser, have found to be
impossible. Dangerous as I believe national vanity to be, America would,
I think, find in the pride of this achievement--this American leadership
of the human race--a glory that would not be vain, a world victory which
the world would welcome.
SIR CHRISTOPHER CRADOCK.
By JOHN E. DOLSON.
Through the fog of the fight we could dimly see,
As ever the flame from the big guns flashed,
That Cradock was doomed, yet his men and he,
With their plates shot to junk, and their turrets smashed,
Their ship heeled over, her funnels gone,
Were fearlessly, doggedly fighting on.
Out-speeded, out-metaled, out-ranged, out-shot
By heavier guns, they were not out-fought.
Those men--with the age-old British phlegm,
That has conquered and held the seas for them,
And the courage that causes the death-struck man
To rise on his mangled stumps and try,
With one last shot from his heated gun,
To score a hit ere his spirit fly,
Then sink in the welter of red, and die
With the sighting squint fixed on his dead, glazed eye--
Accepted death as part of the plan.
So the guns belched flame till the fight had run
Into night; and now, in the distance dim,
We could see, by the flashes, the dull, dark loom
Of their hull, as it bore toward the Port of Doom,
Away on the water's misty rim--
Cradock and his few hundred men,
Never, in time, to be seen again.
While into the darkness their great shells streamed,
Little the valiant Germans dreamed
That Cradock was teaching them how to go
When the fate their daring, itself, had sealed,
Waiting, as yet, o'er the ocean's verge,
To their eyes undaunted would stand revealed;
And, snared by a swifter, stronger foe,
Out-classed, out-metaled, out-ranged, out-shot
By heavier guns, but not out-fought,
They, too, would sink in the sheltering surge.
Battle of the Suez Canal
A First-Hand Account of the Unsuccessful Turkish Invasion
[From The London Times, Feb. 19, 1915.]
ISMAILIA, Feb. 10.
Though skirmishing had taken place between the enemy's reconnoitring
parties and our outposts during the latter part of January, the main
attack was not developed until Feb. 2, when the enemy began to move
toward the Ismailia Ferry. They met a reconnoitring party of Indian
troops of all arms, and a desultory engagement ensued, to which a
violent sand storm put a sudden end about 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
The main attacking force pushed forward toward its destination after
nightfall. From twenty-five to thirty galvanized iron pontoon boats,
seven and a half meters in length, which had been dragged in carts
across the desert, were hauled by hand toward the water, with one or two
rafts made of kerosene tins in a wooden frame. All was ready for the
attack.
The first warning of the enemy's approach was given by a sentry of a
mountain battery, who heard, to him, an unknown tongue across the water.
The noise soon increased. It would seem that Mudjah Ideen ("Holy
Warriors")--said to be mostly old Tripoli fighters--accompanied the
pontoon section and regulars of the Seventy-fifth Regiment, for loud
exhortations often in Arabic of "Brothers die for the faith; we can die
but once," betrayed the enthusiastic irregular.
The Egyptians waited till the Turks were pushing their boats into the
water; then the Maxims attached to the battery suddenly spoke and the
guns opened with case at point-blank range at the men and boats crowded
under the steep bank opposite them.
Immediately, a violent fire broke out on both sides of the canal, the
enemy replying to the rifles and machine gun fire and the battery on our
bank. Around the guns it was impossible to stand up, but the gunners
stuck to the work, inflicting terrible punishment.
A little torpedo boat with a crew of thirteen patrolling the canal
dashed up and landed a party of four officers and men to the south of
Tussum, who climbed up the eastern bank and found themselves in a
Turkish trench, and escaped by a miracle with the news. Promptly the
midget dashed in between the fires and enfiladed the eastern bank amid a
hail of bullets, and destroyed several pontoon boats lying unlaunched on
the bank. It continued to harass the enemy, though two officers and two
men were wounded.
As the dark, cloudy night lightened toward dawn fresh forces came into
action. The Turks, who occupied the outer, or day, line of the Tussum
post, advanced, covered by artillery, against the Indian troops holding
the inner, or night, position, while an Arab regiment advanced against
the Indian troops at the Serapeum post.
The warships on the canal and lake joined in the fray. The enemy brought
some six batteries of field guns into action from the slopes west of
Kataib-el-Kheil. Shells admirably fused made fine practice at all the
visible targets, but failed to find the battery above mentioned, which,
with some help from a detachment of infantry, beat down the fire of the
riflemen on the opposite bank and inflicted heavy losses on the hostile
supports advancing toward the canal. A chance salvo wounded four men of
the battery, but it ran more risk from a party of about twenty of the
enemy who had crossed the canal in the dark and sniped the gunners from
the rear till they were finally rounded up by the Indian cavalry and
compelled to surrender.
Supported by land naval artillery the Indian troops took the offensive.
The Serapeum garrison, which had stopped the enemy three-quarters of a
mile from the position, cleared its front, and the Tussum garrison by a
brilliant counter-attack drove the enemy back. Two battalions of
Anatolians of the Twenty-eighth Regiment were thrown vainly into the
fight. Our artillery gave them no chance, and by 3:30 in the afternoon a
third of the enemy, with the exception of a force that lay hid in bushy
hollows on the east bank between the two posts, were in full retreat,
leaving many dead, a large proportion of whom had been killed by
shrapnel.
Meanwhile the warships on the lake had been in action. A salvo from a
battleship woke up Ismailia early, and crowds of soldiers and some
civilians climbed every available sandhill to see what was doing till
the Turkish guns sent shells sufficiently near to convince them that it
was safer to watch from cover. A husband and wife took a carriage and
drove along the lake front, much peppered by shells, till near the old
French hospital, when they realized the danger and suddenly whisked
around and drove back full gallop to Ismailia.
But the enemy's fire did more than startle. At about 11 in the morning
two six-inch shells hit the Hardinge near the southern entrance of the
lake. The first damaged the funnel and the second burst inboard. Pilot
Carew, a gallant old merchant seaman, refused to go below when the
firing opened and lost a leg. Nine others were wounded. One or two
merchantmen were hit, but no lives were lost. A British gunboat was
struck.
Then came a dramatic duel between the Turkish big gun or guns and a
warship. The Turks fired just over and then just short of 9,000 yards.
The warship sent in a salvo of more six-inch shells than had been fired
that day.
During the morning the enemy moved toward Ismailia Ferry. The infantry
used the ground well, digging shelter pits as they advanced, and were
covered by a well-served battery. An officer, apparently a German,
exposed himself with the greatest daring, and watchers were interested
to see a yellow "pie dog," which also escaped, running about the
advancing line. Our artillery shot admirably and kept the enemy from
coming within 1,000 yards of the Indian outposts. In the afternoon the
demonstration--for it was no more--ceased but for a few shells fired as
"a nightcap." During the dark night that followed some of the enemy
approached the outpost line of the ferry position with a dog, but
nothing happened, and day found them gone.
At the same time as the fighting ceased at the ferry it died down at El
Kantara. There the Turks, after a plucky night attack, came to grief on
our wire entanglements. Another attempt to advance from the southeast
was forced back by an advance of the Indian troops. The attack, during
which it was necessary to advance on a narrow front over ground often
marshy with recent inundations against our strong position, never had a
chance. Indeed, the enemy was only engaged with our outpost line.
Late in the afternoon of the 3d there was sniping from the east bank
between Tussum and Serapeum and a man was killed in the tops of a
British battleship. Next morning the sniping was renewed, and the Indian
troops, moving out to search the ground, found several hundred of the
enemy in the hollow previously mentioned. During the fighting some of
the enemy, either by accident or design, held up their hands, while
others fired on the Punjabis, who were advancing to take the surrender,
and killed a British officer. A sharp fight with the cold steel
followed, and a British officer killed a Turkish officer with a sword
thrust in single combat. The body of a German officer with a white flag
was afterward found here, but there is no proof that the white flag was
used. Finally all the enemy were killed, captured, or put to flight.
With this the fighting ended, and the subsequent operations were
confined to "rounding up" prisoners and to the capture of a considerable
amount of military material left behind. The Turks who departed with
their guns and baggage during the night of the 3d still seemed to be
moving eastward.
So ended the battle of the Suez Canal. Our losses have been amazingly
small, totaling about 111 killed and wounded.
[Illustration: Showing the Turkish points of concentration in Palestine
and the principal routes leading thence to the Suez Canal. The
intervening desert Peninsula of Sinai constitutes a formidable obstacle
to an invading force. Inset is a map of the Ottoman Empire showing in
the northeast the Caucasus, where the Turks were routed by the Russians,
who later advanced on Erzerum and Tabriz. The British expedition in the
Persian Gulf region occupied Basra and was on Feb. 1, 1915, at Kurna,
the point of confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates.]
Our opponents have probably lost nearly 3,000 men. The Indian troops
bore the brunt of the fighting and were well supported by the British
and French warships and by the Egyptian troops. The Turks fought bravely
and their artillery shot well if unluckily, but the intentions of the
higher command are still a puzzle to British officers.
Did Djemal Pasha intend to try to break through our position under cover
of demonstrations along a front over ninety miles in length with a total
force, perhaps, of 25,000 men, or was he attempting a reconnoissance in
force? If the former is the case, he must have had a low idea of British
leadership or an amazing belief in the readiness and ability of
sympathizers in Egypt to support the Turk. Certainly he was misinformed
as to our positions, and on the 4th we buried on the eastern bank the
bodies of two men, apparently Syrians or Egyptians, who were found with
their hands tied and their eyes bandaged. Probably they were guides who
had been summarily killed, having unwittingly led the enemy astray. If,
on the other hand, Djemal Pasha was attempting a reconnoissance, it was
a costly business and gave General Wilson a very handsome victory.
Till the last week of January there had been some doubt as to the road
by which the Ottoman Commander in Chief in Syria intended to advance on
the canal. Before the end of the month it was quite clear that what was
then believed to be the Turkish advanced guard, having marched with
admirable rapidity from Beersheba via El Auja, Djebel Libni, and
Djifjaffa, was concentrating in the valleys just east of
Kataib-el-Kheil, a group of hills lying about ten miles east of the
canal, where it enters Lake Timsah. A smaller column detached from this
force was sighted in the hills east of Ismailia Ferry. Smaller bodies
had appeared in the neighborhood of El Kantara and between Suez and the
Bitter Lakes.
The attacks on our advanced posts at El Kantara on the night of Jan. 26
and 27, and at Kubri, near Suez, on the following night, were beaten
off. Hostile guns fired occasional shells, while our warships returned
the compliment at any hostile column that seemed to offer a good target,
and our aeroplanes dropped bombs when they had the chance; but in
general the enemy kept a long distance off and was tantalizing. Our
launches and boats, which were constantly patrolling the canal, could
see him methodically intrenching just out of range of the naval guns.
By the night of Feb. 1 the enemy had prepared his plan of attack. To
judge both from his movements during the next two days and the documents
found on prisoners and slain, it was proposed to attack El Kantara while
making a demonstration at El Ferdan, further south, and prevent
reinforcements at the first-named post. The demonstration at Ismailia
Ferry by the right wing of the Kataib-el-Kheil force which had been
partly refused till then in order to prevent a counter-attack from the
ferry, was designed to occupy the attention of the Ismailia garrison,
while the main attack was delivered between the Tussum post, eight miles
south of Ismailia, and the Serapeum post, some three miles further
south. Eshref Bey's highly irregular force in the meantime was to
demonstrate near Suez.
The selection of the Tussum and Serapeum section as the principal
objective was dictated both by the consideration that success here would
bring the Turks a few miles from Ismailia, and by the information
received from patrols that the west bank of the canal between the posts,
both of which may be described as bridgeheads, were unoccupied by our
troops. The west bank between the posts is steep and marked by a long,
narrow belt of trees. The east bank also falls steeply to the canal, but
behind it are numerous hollows, full of brushwood, which give good
cover. Here the enemy's advanced parties established themselves and
intrenched before the main attack was delivered.
A Full-Fledged Socialist State
While Germany's Trade and Credit Are Holding Their Breath
By J. Laurence Laughlin
[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 9, 1915.]
Professor Laughlin, who makes the following remarkable study
of the German financial emergency, was lecturer on political
economy in Berlin on the invitation of the Prussian Cultur
Ministerium in 1906, and since 1892 has been head of the
Department of Political Economy in the University of Chicago.
He is acknowledged to be one of the foremost American
economists and the views here expressed are based on wide
information.
In a great financial emergency conditions are immediately registered in
the monetary and credit mechanism. Although the German Government and
the Reichsbank had obviously been preparing for war long before, as soon
as mobilization was ordered there was a currency panic. The private
banks stopped payment in gold. Crowds then besieged the Reichsbank in
order to get its notes converted into gold. Then the Banking act was
suspended, so that the Reichsbank and private banks were freed from the
obligation to give out gold for notes. At once all notes went to a
discount in the shops as compared with gold. Thereupon, in summary
fashion, the Military Governor of Berlin declared the notes to be a full
legal tender and announced that any shop refusing to take them at par
would be punished by confiscation of goods.
In Germany, as is well known, the main currency is supplied by the
Reichsbank, covered by at least 33-1/3 per cent. in gold or silver, and
the remaining two-thirds by commercial paper. Immediately after the
outbreak of war there was a prodigious increase of loans at the
Reichsbank, in consequence of which borrowers received notes or deposit
accounts. Usually transactions are carried through by use of notes, and
not by checks, as with us. On July 23, 1914, the notes stood at
$472,500,000; deposits at $236,000,000; discounted bills and advances at
$200,000,000. On Aug. 31 notes had increased to $1,058,500,000; deposits
to $610,000,000; discounts and advances to $1,113,500,000, (by October
this amount was lowered to about $750,000,000.) On the latter date the
specie reserve stood at $409,500,000, or more than the legal one-third.
Loans had been increased 556 per cent.; notes 223 per cent., and
deposits 258 per cent. In short, $586,000,000 of notes had been issued
beyond the amount required in normal times, (July 23.) Clearly this
additional amount was not required by an increased exchange of goods,
but by those persons whose resources were tied up and who needed a means
of payment. The same was true of the large increase of deposits which
resulted from the larger loans. A liberal policy of discounting was
followed by which loans were given on the basis of securities or stocks
of goods on hand. That is, non-negotiable assets were converted into a
means of payment either in the form of notes or deposit credits.
At this juncture there was created a currency something after
the fashion of the Aldrich-Vreeland emergency notes in this
country. War credit banks were established by law to issue notes
(Darlehnskassenscheine) in denominations of 10, 15, 20, and 50 marks as
loans on stocks in trade and securities of all kinds, and were charged
6-1/2 per cent. interest. The goods on which these notes could be issued
were not removed, but stamped with a Government seal. While not a legal
tender, the notes were receivable at all imperial agencies. On
securities classed at the Reichsbank as Class I. loans could be made up
to 60 per cent. of their value as of July 31; as Class II., 40 per
cent.; on the other German securities bearing a fixed rate of return,
50 per cent.; on other German securities bearing a varying rate of
return, 40 per cent.; on Russian securities, a lower percentage. These
institutions, therefore, took up some of the burden that would otherwise
have fallen on the loan item of the Reichsbank. Hence the Reichsbank
account does not show the whole situation.
To this point the methods followed were much the same as in London. Then
came unusual happenings. In London for a few days the banks had wavered
as to maintaining gold payments, but only temporarily. In Berlin drastic
measures were undertaken to accumulate gold in the Reichsbank. Vienna
reports it to be well known that Germany had been for eighteen months
before straining every nerve to obtain gold. Whatever sums of gold were
included in the so-called "war chest" in Spandau (said to be
$30,000,000) were also deposited with the Reichsbank. Gold was even
smuggled across the borders of Holland on the persons of spies. Urgent
demands were made upon the people to turn in gold from patriotic
motives. In this way over $400,000,000 of gold was gathered by July,
1914; and by the end of the year, after five months of war, it had risen
to $523,000,000. Was Germany to maintain gold payments as well as Great
Britain?