THE WORLD’S GREATEST WAR
Wars as Mileposts—A Continent in Arms—How Canada Prepared for War—the
British Sentiment—Lord Kitchener’s Career—A Forceful Character
The history of the leading events in the nations of Europe during a
hundred years of the past, so far as they related to the decline of
autocratic power in the monarchs and the development of popular rights
and liberty, has been given in the preceding chapters, where it is
brought down to the close of the Balkan War and the opening of the
great war that succeeded in 1914. As regards this war, its story cannot
be told or even summarized in a chapter, but some indication of its
general character may be given.
WARS AS MILEPOSTS
Wars serve as convenient mileposts in the history of mankind. They deal
with the great struggles which break up the monotony of peace and bring
the nations into volcanic relations. They have been many and their
causes and effects various; strifes for spoil or dominion; savage
invasions of civilized lands; overflow of vast areas by conquering
tribes or nations. But among all the world has so far known there has
been none so stupendous in character, so portentous in purpose, so vast
in fighting multitudes, so terrible in bloodshed, as the one with which
we are here concerned, the lurid meeting of the nations on the
blood-stained fields of battle which broke upon the quiet of the world
with startling suddenness in the summer of 1914. Launched on the
borders of little Servia, it soon had the continent for its field of
action, and all but one of the greater nations of Europe for its
participants. It may therefore fitly be designated the Great War. Great
it was, alike in the number and strength of the Powers involved, in the
enormous array of armed men engaged, in the destructive power of the
weapons employed, in the loss of life and waste of wealth that attended
its earthquaking development.
In reading the history of the past we find it thickly strewn with
stories of fierce battles, a day, two days, rarely much longer in
extent, protracted intervals of marching and countermarching succeeding
before the armies again locked horns. Such was the case in the American
Civil War, in which the three days’ battle at Gettysburg was the
greatest in length, if the six days’ fighting before Richmond be taken
to constitute a succession of battles.
In the Russo-Japanese war much longer struggles took place. The armies
at Liaoyung fought for eight days and those before Mukden for twenty
days. But a more obstinate struggle still was that of September and
October, 1914, when two armies, stretched out over a line two hundred
miles or more in length, fought with ceaseless fury, by day and night
alike, for more than a month. On the moving picture screen of time this
vast conflict stands out without parallel in the world’s annals, the
most unyielding, incessant battling ever known.
A CONTINENT IN ARMS
In the giant warfare here described we behold a continent, well nigh a
world, in arms. Along the rivers north of Paris three powerful nations,
Germany, France and Britain, wrestled like mighty behemoths for
supremacy. Far eastward, on the borders of Russia, Austria and Germany,
two other great Powers, Russia and Austria, with German armies to aid
the latter, strove with equal fury for victory.
Thus raged the Great War. How many took part it is difficult to
estimate. Among the war tales of the past the most stupendous army on
record is that of Xerxes, said by Herodotus to number 2,317,600 men,
who marched from Asia to face defeat in the diminutive land of Greece.
How large this fabulously great army really was we shall never know,
but even at the figures given it was dwarfed by the hosts in arms in
the Great European War, in which between four and five million men
fought with fierceness unsurpassed.
The field of action of this mighty contest was not confined to Europe.
On the far-off border of Asia another Power, the warlike empire of
Japan, sent forth its soldiers to drive the Germans from China. In
Africa and on the South Pacific the colonists of Britain set other
forces in motion to invade the German colonial regions. From British
India sailed a strong array of dark-skinned warriors to take part in
the war in France. From Algeria and Senegal came hordes of sable
recruits for the French army, and from the cities and provinces of the
Dominion of Canada came still another army of ardent patriots eager to
aid the forces of their fatherland. We may well speak of the contest as
not one of a continent but of the entire world.
HOW CANADA PREPARED FOR WAR
The story of the patriotic ardor of the Canadians is of interest, as
given by a correspondent of the London GRAPHIC, who passed through the
Dominion after the opening of the war.
“The news of the great war came like a bolt from the blue. The effect
was startling. The ordinary flow of Canadian life was suddenly
arrested. The customary routine seemed to stop dead still. The whole of
Canadian thought and much of the people’s energy were switched on to
the great staggering fact that Europe was at war, and the old country
fighting for its life. A most wonderful and touching patriotism welled
up in the heart of the Canadians. The air became electric with
excitement and enthusiasm. The prairie was indeed on fire. Passing
through English towns on my journey to London the calm and peaceful
demeanor of the people and the even flow of life seemed in strange
contrast with the land I had just left, where the population was
throbbing with loyal passion, and the war dominated the existence of
the inhabitants, high and low, from Victoria to Halifax. One Canadian
scene that remains impressed upon my mind was the sea of upturned faces
in front of the offices of the Calgary News Telegram—every ear
straining to the point where the war news was announced at intervals
through a megaphone.
“‘We stand shoulder to shoulder.’ Sir Robert Borden, the Premier, had
said, ‘with Britain and the other British Dominions in this quarrel,
and that duty we shall not fail to fulfil as the honor of Canada
demands.’ It is being fulfilled in a score of different ways, but
mainly in the practical spirit that is characteristic of the country.
The Dominion is the Empire’s granary, and through the granary doors, as
the Motherland knows, are passing huge gifts of food to the British
population. At the same time the stoppage of the export of all
foodstuffs to other countries is proposed.
“Soon the Dominion began to mobilize. Regiments seemed to spring up, as
if by magic, from the ground—not hordes of untrained men, but stalwart
horsemen, accustomed to the rifle and inured to a hard outdoor life.
The Germans will knock against another ‘bit of hard stuff’ when they
meet the Canadian contingents. One of the regiments carries the name of
the Princess Patricia, who, by the way, holds quite a unique position
in the hearts of the people. The popular Princess was, shortly after I
left, to have presented her regiment with their colors—worked by her
own hands.
“Londoners were happy in the knowledge that more such men could be
sent, if necessary, up to 200,000 in number—such was the earnestness of
the people. One met this practical earnestness in a dozen different
directions—in such facts, for instance, as the conversion of the great
Winnipeg Industrial Hall into a military training center—and not the
least significant feature in the situation is the manner in which the
prevalent enthusiasm had spread to the American inhabitants of the
country. The trade intimacy between the United States and the Dominion
was, indeed, constantly growing, and the many great American
manufacturing concerns which had planted themselves in Canada had
attained prosperity. It was pleasant and reassuring to think that this
had not weakened the ties of attachment to the old country. In the days
to succeed the war the Dominion can look back with pride upon the part
she bore in sustaining the arms of Mother England, and can take her
place with happy confidence and added strength as the eldest daughter
in the great family of British peoples.”
The enthusiasm thus indicated among the Canadians, which had its
outcome in the despatch of 323,000 sons of the dominion in late
September to the seat of war, to be quickly followed by a second
contingent, was paralleled in India, which sent to France 70,000 of its
dusky sons to join the struggling hosts. As for the remaining countries
of the British empire, Australia, South Africa, East Africa, etc., a
similar sentiment of loyalty prevailed, manifested there by the sending
of contingents or in expeditions against the German colonies in the
South Sea and in Africa. The whole empire was ready to support the
mother country.
Certainly the Kaiser of Germany, William the War Lord, had set loose in
the air a nest of hornets to sting his well-trained warriors. By his
side stood only Austria, a composite empire which soon found all its
strength too little to hold back the mighty Russian tide that swept
across its borders. Thus this one stalwart nation, with its weak
auxiliary, was forced to face now east, now west, against a continent
in arms. It is difficult to imagine that the Kaiser could have hoped to
succeed, despite the training of his people and the strength of his
artillery. “God fights with the heaviest battalions,” said one who
knew, and the weight of battalions, though at first on William’s side,
could not remain so.
THE BRITISH SENTIMENT
While the British people, with their lack of a system of militarism,
were not in condition to send large bodies of troops at once to the aid
of the mobilized French, they were soon ready to despatch a useful
contingent of trained men. Probably the German emperor counted upon the
disturbance in Ireland between the Ulsterites and the people of the
Catholic provinces to tie the hands of the government, but these people
at once suspended their hostile sentiments in favor of the larger needs
of their country. In England itself the militant suffragettes showed
equal patriotism, at once agreeing to desist from all acts of violence
and offering to aid their country to the extent of their powers.
LORD KITCHENER’S CAREER
The British government appointed Lord Kitchener, the hero of many
successful expeditions, Secretary of State for War, putting the whole
management of military affairs into his competent hands. His fitness
for this was thoroughly attested by his long and brilliant service, and
as the presence of Napoleon was said to be equal to an army, so was
that of this able military leader.
For those who are not familiar with Kitchener’s career a brief
statement concerning it may be useful. Born in 1850, Horatio Herbert
Kitchener entered the army in 1871, was in civil life 1874–82, then
returned to army duty. He took part in the Nile expedition of 1884 for
the rescue of General Gordon and commanded a brigade in the Suakim
campaign of 1888. Governor of Suakim 1886–88, adjutant-general of the
Egyptian army 1888–92, he was appointed to the command of this army,
with the Egyptian rank of Sirdar, in 1890.
His service in Egypt was during the period of the Mahdi outbreak, which
began in 1883, defeated all the armies sent to quell it, and for years
held the Sudan region of Egypt. In 1896 Kitchener set out for its
suppression, recovering Dongola, and organizing an expedition against
the Khalifa, the successor of the Mahdi. He defeated the Dervish army
of the Khalifa in April, 1898, and on September 2d of that year utterly
crushed the Dervish hosts at Omdurman, regaining the Sudan for Egypt
and Britain.
This exploit brought him the thanks of parliament and the title of
baron, with a grant of 30,000 pounds and a sword of honor. In 1899 he
went with Lord Roberts to South Africa as chief of staff, and on Lord
Roberts’ return in 1900 he succeeded him as commander-in-chief and
brought the Boer War to a successful conclusion. He was now made full
general, with the rank of viscount, and subsequently served as
commander-in-chief in India.
A FORCEFUL CHARACTER
In an illuminating article in COLLIER’S WEEKLY, the well-known Irish
journalist, T. P. O’Connor, thus brought out the character of the hero
of Khartoum:
“I attribute something of the Lord Kitchener we know to the fact that,
though English by blood, he spent the first years of his life in
wandering over the hills and looking down on the sea-tossed shores of
County Kerry. That tact which enabled him to settle the issue with
Marchand, the French explorer, at Fashoda, suggests some of the lessons
in the soft answer which Ireland can teach. You remember how, when it
was possible that a collision between him and Marchand might mean a war
between England and France, Lord Kitchener sent some fresh vegetables
and champagne to the daring French explorer, who had gone through the
hunger, thirst, and hardship of the desert for months. Marchand had to
go from Fashoda all the same, but he went with no personal grievance.
“If I look for the roots of Lord Kitchener’s greatness, I trace them to
intense ambition to succeed, to make the most of his
opportunities—above all, to the incessant desire to work and fill every
hour of his days with something done. He is sent as a youngster to
Palestine, through peril to life, through great privation, through
heart-breaking drudgery, he pursues his work until he has completed a
map of all western Palestine to the amazement and delight of his
employers. And he values this experience so largely because he learns
Arabic, and, above all, he learns the Arabic character. One of the
chroniclers of his career makes the apt observation that, while the
baton of the marshal is in every French soldier’s knapsack, Kitchener
found his coronet in the Arab grammar. But how many soldiers or men of
any class would have devoted the leisure hours of a fiercely active
task like Kitchener’s in Palestine to the study of one of the most
difficult of languages?
“Hard work, patience, and the utilization of every second of time, the
eagerness always to learn—these are the chief secrets of Lord
Kitchener’s enormous success in life. But the man who works himself is
ineffective in great things unless he has the gift to choose the men
who can work for him and with him. This choice of subordinates is one
of Lord Kitchener’s greatest powers. He nearly always has had the right
man in the right place. And his men return his confidence because he
gives them absolute confidence. He never thinks of asking a subordinate
whether he has done the job he has given him; he takes that for
granted, knowing his man; and he never worries his subordinates.
“This is one of the reasons why, though he works so terrifically, he
never is tired, never worried. He sits down at his desk at the War
Office for about ten hours a day; but he sits there calmly, isn’t
ringing at bells and shouting down pipes; he does it all so quietly
that it seems mere pastime; and the effect of this perfect tranquillity
produces an extraordinary result on those who work with him. They also
do their work easily, tranquilly, and without feeling it.
“A great soldier certainly; but perhaps a greater organizer than
anything else. This is his supreme quality, and for that quality there
is necessary, above all things, a clear, penetrating brain. He doesn’t
form any visions—as Napoleon used to complain of some of his marshals.
At school he was celebrated for his knowledge of mathematics, and
especially for his phenomenal rapidity in dealing with figures, and it
was not accident that so truly a scientific mind found its natural
place in the engineers. A mathematician, an engineer, a man of science,
a great accountant—these things he has been in all his enterprises. It
was these qualities that enabled him to make that astounding railway
which brought Cairo almost into touch with the Khalifa, who, with his
predecessor, the Mahdi, and with his tragically potent ally, the hungry
and all-devouring desert, had beaten back so many other attempts to
reach and to beat him.
“This man, who has fought such tremendous and historic battles and
confronted great odds, is yet a man who prefers a deal to a struggle;
and, though he can be so stern, has yet a diplomatic tact that gets him
and his country out of difficult hours. The nature, doubtless, is
complex, and stern determination and tenacity are part of it; but there
is also the other side, which is much forgotten—especially by that
class of writers who have to describe human character as rigidly
symmetrical and unnaturally harmonious.
“That cold and penetrating eye of his makes it impossible to imagine
anybody taking any liberties with Lord Kitchener; yet one of his
greatest qualities, at once useful and charming, is his accessibility.
Anybody who has anything to say to him can approach him; anybody who
has anything to teach him will find a ready and grateful learner. This
is one of the secrets of his extraordinary success and universal
popularity in Egypt. Lord Cromer was a great Egyptian ruler, and his
services are imperishable and gigantic; but Lord Cromer was the stern,
solitary, and inaccessible bureaucrat who worked innumerable hours
every day at his desk, never learned the Arabic language, and possibly
never quite grasped the Arab nature. Lord Kitchener is the cadi under
the tree. The mayor or the citizens of the little Arab village can come
to him, and the old soldier, and even the fellah, alone; and they will
find Lord Kitchener ready to listen and to talk to them in their own
tongue, to enter with gusto into the pettiest details of their daily
and squalid lives, and ready also to apply the remedy to such
grievances as commend themselves to his judgment.
“As an illustration of his accessibility, let me repeat a delicious
story which delighted all Egypt. An old peasant came out of the depths
of the land all the way to Cairo to see the great Kitchener, with the
complaint that his white mule had been stolen. The whole official
machinery was interrupted for a while, and the old fellah went back
with his white mule. You can fancy how that story was repeated in every
fellah cabin in the land, and how the devotion to Kitchener and trust
in his justice and in his sympathy went trumpet-tongued among this
race, downtrodden and neglected almost from the beginning of time.”
Such is the man who, when chosen to head the British War Department,
had his bed sent to the office, that he might be on duty day and night
if needed; who insisted that no raw recruits should be sent to the
front, but put them through a rigid system of drill and physical
exercise to toughen their muscles and fit them for the work of a
soldier; who said that there would be abundant time for fighting, as in
his judgment there was a year or more of war in prospect.