The Spirit Of The English
When I left England for home I had just returned from France and
had motored many miles in both countries. Everywhere in this
greatest crisis of the century I found the people of England showing
the most undaunted and splendid spirit. To their common enemy they
are presenting an unbroken front. The civilian is playing his part just
as loyally as the soldier, the women as bravely as the men.
They appreciate that not only their own existence is threatened, but
the future peace and welfare of the world require that the military
party of Germany must be wiped out. That is their burden, and with
the heroic Belgians to inspire them, without a whimper or a whine of
self-pity, they are bearing their burden.
Every one in England is making sacrifices great and small. As long
ago as the middle of September it was so cold along the Aisne that I
have seen the French, sooner than move away from the open fires
they had made, risk the falling shells. Since then it has grown much
colder, and Kitchener issued an invitation to the English people to
send in what blankets they could spare for the army in the field and in
reserve. The idea was to dye the blankets khaki and then turn them
over to the supply department. In one week, so eagerly did the
people respond to this appeal, Kitchener had to publish a card stating
that no more blankets were needed. He had received over half a
million.
The reply to Kitchener's appeal for recruits was as prompt and
generous. The men came so rapidly that the standard for enlistment
was raised. That is, I believe, in the history of warfare without
precedent. Nations often have lowered their requirements for
enlistment, but after war was once well under way to make recruiting
more difficult is new. The sacrifices are made by every class.
There is no business enterprise of any sort that has not shown itself
unselfish. This is true of the greengrocery, the bank, the department
store, the Cotton Exchange. Each of these has sent employees to the
front, and while they are away is paying their wages and, on the
chance of their return, holding their places open. Men who are not
accepted as recruits are enrolled as special constables. They are
those who could not, without facing ruin, neglect their business. They
have signed on as policemen, and each night for four hours patrol the
posts of the regular bobbies who have gone to the front.
The ingenuity shown in finding ways in which to help the army is
equalled only by the enthusiasm with which these suggestions are
met. Just before his death at the front, Lord Roberts called upon all
racing-men, yachtsmen, and big-game shots to send him, for the use
of the officers in the field, their field-glasses. The response was
amazingly generous.
Other people gave their pens. The men whose names are best
known to you in British literature are at the service of the government
and at this moment are writing exclusively for the Foreign Office. They
are engaged in answering the special pleading of the Germans and in
writing monographs, appeals for recruits, explanations of why
England is at war. They do not sign what they write. They are, of
course, not paid for what they write. They have their reward in
knowing that to direct public opinion fairly will be as effective in
bringing this war to a close as is sticking bayonets into Uhlans.
The stage, as well as literature, has found many ways in which it can
serve the army. One theatre is giving all the money taken in at the
door to the Red Cross; all of them admit men in uniform free, or at
half price, and a long list of actors have gone to the front. Among
them are several who are well known in America. Robert Lorraine has
received an officer's commission in the Royal Flying Corps, and Guy
Standing in the navy. The former is reported among the wounded.
Gerald du Maurier has organized a reserve battalion of actors, artists,
and musicians.
There is not a day passes that the most prominent members of the
theatrical world are not giving their services free to benefit
performances in aid of Belgian refugees, Red Cross societies, or to
some one of the funds under royal patronage. Whether their talent is
to act or dance, they are using it to help along the army. Seymour
Hicks and Edward Knoblauch in one week wrote a play called
"England Expects," which was an appeal in dramatic form for recruits,
and each night the play was produced recruits crowded over the
footlights.
The old sergeants are needed to drill the new material and cannot be
spared for recruiting. And so members of Parliament and members of
the cabinet travel all over the United Kingdom--and certainly these
days it is united--on that service. Even the prime minister and the first
lord of the admiralty, Winston Churchill, work overtime in addressing
public meetings and making stirring appeals to the young men. And
wherever you go you see the young men by the thousands marching,
drilling, going through setting-up exercises. The public parks, golf-
links, even private parks like Bedford Square, are filled with them, and
in Green Park, facing the long beds of geraniums, are lines of cavalry
horses and the khaki tents of the troopers.
Every one is helping. Each day the King and Queen and Princess
Mary review troops or visit the wounded in some hospital; and the day
before sailing, while passing Buckingham Palace, I watched the
young Prince of Wales change the guard. In a businesslike manner
he was listening to the sentries repeat their orders; and in turn a
young sergeant, also in a most businesslike manner, was in whispers
coaching the boy officer in the proper manner to guard the home of
his royal parents. Since then the young prince has gone to the front
and is fighting for his country. And the King is in France with his
soldiers.
As the song says, all the heroes do not go to war, and the warriors at
the front are not the only ones this war has turned out-of-doors. The
number of Englishwomen who have left their homes that the Red
Cross may have the use of them for the wounded would fill a long roll
of honor. Some give an entire house, like Mrs. Waldorf Astor, who
has loaned to the wounded Cliveden, one of the best-known and
most beautiful places on the Thames. Others can give only a room.
But all over England the convalescents have been billeted in private
houses and made nobly welcome.
Even the children of England are helping. The Boy Scouts, one of the
most remarkable developments of this decade, has in this war scored
a triumph of organization. This is equally true of the Boy Scouts in
Belgium and France. In England military duties of the most serious
nature have been intrusted to them. On the east coast they have
taken the place of the coast guards, and all over England they are
patrolling railroad junctions, guarding bridges, and carrying
despatches. Even if the young men who are now drilling in the parks
and the Boy Scouts never reach Berlin nor cross the Channel, the
training and sense of responsibility that they are now enjoying are all
for their future good.
They are coming out of this war better men, not because they have
been taught the manual of arms, but in spite of that fact. What they
have learned is much more than that. Each of them has, for an ideal,
whether you call it a flag, or a king, or a geographical position on the
map, offered his life, and for that ideal has trained his body and
sacrificed his pleasures, and each of them is the better for it. And
when peace comes his country will be the richer and the more
powerful.