CHAPTER I_The Audacious War

E-text prepared by Al Haines

THE AUDACIOUS WAR

CLARENCE W. BARRON

Boston and New York

Houghton Mifflin Company

The Riverside Press Cambridge

1915

Published February 1915

THIRD IMPRESSION

IF!

Suppose 't were done!

The lanyard pulled on every shotted gun;

Into the wheeling death-clutch sent

Each millioned armament,

To grapple there

On land, on sea and under, and in air!

Suppose at last 't were come--

Now, while each bourse and shop and mill is dumb

And arsenals and dockyards hum,--

Now all complete, supreme,

That vast, Satanic dream!--

Each field were trampled, soaked,

Each stream dyed, choked,

Each leaguered city and blockaded port

Made famine's sport;

The empty wave

Made reeling dreadnought's grave;

Cathedral, castle, gallery, smoking fell

'Neath bomb and shell;

In deathlike trance

Lay industry, finance;

Two thousand years'

Bequest, achievement, saving, disappears

In blood and tears,

In widowed woe

That slum and palace equal know,

In civilization's suicide,--

What served thereby, what satisfied?

For justice, freedom, right, what wrought?

Naught!--

Save, after the great cataclysm, perhap

On the world's shaken map

New lines, more near or far,

Binding to king or czar

In festering hate

Some newly vassaled state;

And passion, lust and pride made satiate;

And just a trace

Of lingering smile on Satan's face!

--_Boston News Bureau Poet_.

This poem has been called the great poem of the war. It was written

just preceding the war, and published August 1 by the "Boston News

Bureau." Of it, and its author, Bartholomew P. Griffin, the following

was written by Rev. Francis G. Peabody: "The English poets, Bridges,

Kipling, Austin, and Noyes, have all tried to meet the need and all

have lamentably failed. I am proud not only that an American, but that

a Harvard man, should have risen to the occasion."

PREFACE

The Scotch have this proverb: "War brings poverty. Poverty brings

peace. Peace brings prosperity. Prosperity brings pride. And pride

brings war again." Shall the world settle down to the faith that there

is no redemption from an everlasting round of pride, war, poverty,

peace, prosperity, pride, and war again?

But it was not primarily to settle, or even study this problem that I

crossed the ocean and the English Channel in winter. As a journalist

publishing the _Wall Street Journal_, the _Boston News Bureau_, and the

_Philadelphia News Bureau_, and directing news-gathering for the

banking and financial communities, I deemed it my duty to ascertain at

close hand the financial factors in this war, and the financial results

therefrom.

I found myself on the other side, not only in the domain of the finance

encircling this war, but unexpectedly in close touch with diplomatic

and government circles. The whole of the war, its commercial causes,

its financial and military forces, its tremendous human sacrifices, the

conflicting principles of government, and the world-wide issues

involved, all lay out in clear facts and figures after I had gathered

by day and night from what appeared at first to be a tangled web.

I learned who made this war, and why at this time and for what

purposes, present and prospective; and from facts that could not be set

down categorically in papers of state. No papers, "white," "gray," or

"yellow," could present a picture of the war in its inception and the

reasons therefor.

There is no powerful organization over nations to keep the peace of

Europe or of the world, as nations are in organization over states, and

states over cities, to insure peace and justice, without strife or

human sacrifice.

The immediate causes of this war, and I believe they have not before

been presented on this side of the ocean, are connected with commercial

treaties, protective tariffs, and financial progress.

It may be wondered that in our country, which is the home of the

protective tariff system and boasts its great prosperity therefrom,

there has been as yet no presentation of the business causes beneath

this war. Our great journalists are trained to find interesting,

picturesque, and saleable news features from big events. Details of

war's atrocities and destructions are to most people of the greatest

human interest, and rightly so. As a country we have no international

policy, and European politics and policies have never interested us.

Germany is buttressed by tariffs and commercial treaties on every side.

Years ago I was told in Europe that the commercial treaties wrested

from France in 1871 were of more value to Germany than the billion

dollars of indemnity she took as her price to quit Paris. But I did

not realize until I was abroad this winter how European countries had

warred by tariffs, and that Germany and Russia were preparing for a

great clash at arms over the renewal of commercial and tariff treaties

which expire within two years, and which had been forced by Germany

upon Russia during the Japanese War.

German "Kultur" means German progress, commercially and financially.

German progress is by tariffs and commercial treaties. Her armies, her

arms, and her armaments, are to support this "Kultur" and this progress.

I believe I have told the story as it has never been told before. But

the facts cannot be drawn forth and properly set in review without some

presentation of the spirit of the peoples of the European nations.

If all the nations of Europe were of one language, the spirit, the soul

of each in its distinctive characteristics might stand out even more

prominently than to-day.

Then we could see even more clearly the spirit of brotherhood and

nationality that stands out resplendent as the soul of France. We

should see the spirit of empire and of trade, interknit with

administrative justice, as the soul of Great Britain. We should see

Germany an uncouth giant in the center of Europe, viewing all about him

with suspicion, and demanding to know why, as the youngest, sturdiest,

best organized, and hardest working European nation, he is not entitled

to overseas or world empire.

But few persons on this side have comprehended the relation of this

great war to the greatest commercial prizes in the world; the shores of

the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, with its Bagdad Railroad headed for the

Persian Gulf, Mesopotamia with its great oil-fields, undeveloped and a

source of power for the recreation of Palestine and all the lands

between the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and Asia.

The greatest study for Americans to-day is the spirit of nations as

shown in this war, and great lessons for the United States may be found

in the finance, business, patriotism, and justice that stand forth in

the British Empire as never before. She is rolling up a tremendous

war-power within her empire and throughout Europe, encircling the

German war-power. But she is likewise looking to her own people and

her own workers, filling her own factories and every laboring hand to

the full that she may keep her business and profits at home, and with

her business and profits and accumulated capital and income prosecute

the greatest war of history.

She is not unmindful in any respect of what the war may send her way.

In the breaking-away and the breaking-up of Turkey, she sees a clear

field for Egypt, the realization of the dream of Cecil Rhodes of the

development of the whole of Africa by a Cape to Cairo Railroad, and she

sees her own empire and peoples belting the world in power, usefulness,

and justice, and with a sweep and scope for enterprise and development

beyond all the previous dreams of this generation.

The United States, with hundreds of millions of banking reserves

released and giving base for a business expansion double any we have

had before, seems suddenly paralyzed in its business activities and,

comprehending only that the loaf of bread is a cent higher and a pound

of cotton a few cents lower, it is wondering on which side of its bread

the butter is to fall.

Meanwhile, it talks politics, asks if prosperity here is to come during

or after the war; and having little comprehension of the meaning of the

national throbs that on the other side of the globe are pulsating the

world into a new era of light, liberty, and expansion by individual

labor, it refuses to take up its daily home-task and go forward.

In the hope that these pages may be useful to my fellow countrymen in

giving them the facts of this war, its commercial causes, its financial

progress, its sacrifice in humanity,--sacrifice that could not be

demanded but for a greater future,--these papers are taken, as

completed in my financial publications in this month of February, and

placed before the reading community in book form, as requested in

hundreds of personal letters.

They were never conceived or written with any idea of their permanent

preservation. They were prepared for the banking community, which

demands news-facts and figures discriminatingly presented. The banker

wants the truth; he will make his own argument and reach his own

conclusions.

The reader will readily see that these chapters are day-to-day issues

aiming to present that news from the standpoint of finance. But under

all sound finance must be primarily the truth of humanity. They do not

claim to be from beginning to end a harmonious book-presentation of the

war, but it is believed that they contain the essential fundamental

war-facts; and the aim was to present them in most condensed expression.

They cover the first six months of this most Audacious War. Whether it

is to continue for another six months or another sixteen months is not

so material as the character of the peace and what is to follow.

No greater problem can be placed before the world than that of how the

peace of nations may be maintained. Having cleared my own mind upon

this subject, I submit it in the final chapter, which naturally follows

after that treating of the lessons for the United States from this war.

Only in an international organization, with power to make decrees of

peace and enforce them, and with insurance of powers above those of all

dissenters, can we find the peace of nations as we have found the peace

of cities. This Audacious War has forced such an alliance as can yield

this power. Its transfer to the support of an International tribunal

can make and keep the peace of Europe and eventually of the world.

Then may the earth cease to be, in history, that steady round of

Prosperity, Pride, and War.

C. W. Barron.

February 15, 1915.

CONTENTS

I. THE WORLD'S GREATEST CONTEST

II. TARIFFS AND COMMERCE THE WAR CAUSES

III. THE POLITICAL CAUSES OF THE WAR

IV. PEACE PROPOSALS

V. FRANCE AND THE FRENCH

VI. THE POSITION OF FRANCE

VII. FRENCH FINANCE

VIII. THE BELGIAN SACRIFICE

IX. RUSSIA AND THE RUSSIANS

X. THE ENGLISH POSITION

XI. ENGLISH WAR FORCES

XII. ENGLISH WAR FINANCE

XIII. GERMAN RESOURCES

XIV. IS IT THE PEOPLE'S WAR?

XV. THE GERMAN POSITION

XVI. THE LESSONS FOR AMERICA

XVII. WHAT PEACE SHOULD MEAN

THE AUDACIOUS WAR

CHAPTER I

THE WORLD'S GREATEST CONTEST

The Censorship--The Warship "Audacious"--Mine or Torpedo?--The Battle

Line--War by Gasolene Motors--The Boys from Canada--The Audacity of it.

The war of 1914 is not only the greatest war in history but the

greatest in the political and economic sciences. Indeed, it is the

greatest war of all the sciences, for it involves all the known

sciences of earth, ocean, and the skies.

To get the military, the political, and especially the financial flavor

of this war, to study its probable duration and its financial

consequences, was the object of a trip to England and France from which

the writer has recently returned.

One can hear "war news" from the time he leaves the American coast and

begins to pick up the line of the British warships--England's far-flung

battle line--until he returns to the dock, but thorough investigation

would convince a trained news man that most of this war gossip is

erroneous.

This war is so vast and wide, from causes so powerful and deep, and

will be so far-reaching in its effects that no ill-considered or

partial statements concerning it should be made by any responsible

writer.

The difficulty of obtaining the exact facts by any ordinary methods is

very great. There is a strict supervision of all news, and to insure

that by news sources no "aid or comfort" is given to the enemy, a vast

amount of pertinent, legitimate, and harmless news and data is

necessarily suppressed. The censors are military men and not news men,

and act from the standpoint that a million facts had better be

suppressed than that a single report should be helpful to the enemy.

Only in Russia are reports of news men from the firing line allowed.

One hears abroad continually of the battle of the Marne, of the battle

of the Aisne, of the contest at Ypres, and the fight on the Yser, but

no outside man has yet been permitted to describe any of these in

detail, or to give the strategy, beginning, end, or boundaries of them,

or even the distinct casualties therefrom. Indeed, it is doubtful if

the official histories, when they are written, can do this, for these

are the emphasized portions of one great and continuous battle that

went on for more than one hundred days.

To illustrate the strength of the hand on the English war news, it may

be noted that there is no mention permitted in the English press of

such a ship as the "Audacious." Yet American papers with photographs

of the "Audacious" as she sinks in the ocean are sold in London and on

the Continent. Outside of London not ten per cent of the people know

anything concerning this boat or her finish.

This word "finish" would be disputed in any newspaper or well-informed

financial office in London where it is daily declared that although the

"Audacious" met with an accident, her guns have been raised and will go

aboard another ship of the same size, purchased, or just being

finished, and named the "Audacious." Indeed, I was informed on "good

authority" that the "Audacious" was afloat, had been towed into

Birkenhead and that the repairs to her bottom were nearly finished.

You can hear similar stories wherever the "accident" is discussed. I

have heard it so many times that I ought to believe it. Yet if one

hundred people separately and individually make assurances concerning

something of which they have no personal knowledge, it does not go down

with a true news man. I was able to run across a man who saw the

affair of the "Audacious." He laughed at the stories of shallow water

and raised guns. His position was such, both then and thereafter, that

I was sure that he knew and told me the truth.

Later I learned that the "Audacious" was too far off the Irish coast to

permit of talk of shallow water, and that neither guns nor 30,000-ton

warships are raised from fifty-fathom depths.

Yet I am willing to narrate what has not been permitted publication in

England, and I think not elsewhere: that the mines about Lough Swilly,

along the Scotch and Irish coasts, and in the Irish Sea, were laid with

the assistance of English fishing-boats flying the English flag. These

boats had been captured by the Germans and impressed into this work.

There are also stories of Irish boats and Norwegian trawlers in this

work, but I secured no confirmation of such reports.

It is still unsettled in British Admiralty circles as to whether the

"Audacious" came in contact with a mine or torpedo from a German

submarine. Two of her crew report that they saw the wake of a torpedo.

Reports that the periscope of a submarine showed above the water I have

reason to reject.

English reports were suppressed--the admiralty claimed this right,

since there was no loss of life--in the belief that if the ship was

torpedoed by a submarine, the Germans would give out the first report,

and thereby be of assistance in determining the cause. But to-day the

Germans have their doubt as to where the "Audacious" is, and as to

whether or not she was ever really sunk.

Expert opinion is divided in authoritative circles in England as to the

cause of the disaster; but more than 400 mines have been swept up along

the Irish and Scotch coasts by the English mine sweepers.

While upon this subject, I ought to narrate that the study of this

topic has convinced me that the Germans have a long task if they hope

within a reasonable number of months to reduce by submarine torpedo

practice the efficiency of the English navy to a basis that will

warrant German warships coming forth to battle.

Every battleship is protected by four destroyers. Submarines, when

detected, are the most easily destroyed craft. They have no protection

against even a well-directed rifle bullet. Their whole protection is

that of invisibility. Their plan of operation is to reach a position

during the night, whence in the early morning they can single out an

unprotected warship or cruiser not in motion, and launch against her

side a well-directed torpedo, before being discovered.

The place for England's battleships is where they are: in the harbors

with their protecting nets down until they are called for in battle.

In motion or action, submarines have little show against them.

The Japanese at Port Arthur found that protecting nets picked up many

torpedoes and submarines. Since that time, torpedoes have been made

with cutting heads to pierce steel nets encircling the warships, but

their effectiveness has not so far been practically demonstrated.

It is Kitchener's idea to keep the enemy guessing. Therefore he was

rather pleased than otherwise when the story of Russians coming through

England from Archangel was told all over the world. The War Office

winked at the story and certainly had no objection to the Germans

getting a good dose of it. I think that story might have been helpful

at the time when the Allies were at their weakest, but they do not now

need Russians, or stories of Russians, from Archangel.

The story must also go by the board that a submarine north of Ireland

meant either a new type of boat that could go so far from Germany, or

an unknown base nearer Scotland.

Submarines as now built could go from Germany around the British Isles

and then across the Atlantic--in fair weather.

The eastern boundary of France divides itself into four very nearly

equal sections. Italy and Switzerland are the lower quarters of this

boundary line; and of the upper quarters Belgium is the larger and

Germany the smaller. The southern half of the German quarter boundary

is a mountain range and on the open sections stand the great

fortifications of France and Germany, regarded by both countries as

practically impregnable. The defence of France on the Belgian frontier

was the treaty which guaranteed the neutrality of the smaller country.

When Germany's conquering hosts came through Belgium, the war soon

became a battle of human beings rather than of fortifications. Neither

the French nor the Germans had learned from practical experience the

modern art of fighting human legions in ground trenches, but both sides

quickly betook themselves to this rabbit method of warfare.

To-day from Switzerland to the North Sea is a double wall of 4,000,000

men, all fighting, not only for their own existence but for the

existence of their nationality--their national ideals. They are

protected by aeroplanes, flying above, that keep watch of any large

movements.

They are backed by 4,000,000 men in reserve and training who keep the

trenches filled with fighting men, as 10,000 to 20,000 daily retire to

mother earth, to the hospitals, or to the camps of the imprisoned. On

the North Sea and the English Channel they are supported by fleets of

battleships, cruisers, submarines, and torpedo boat destroyers that

occasionally "scrap" with each other, the German boats now and then

attacking the English coast and harbors and the English boats now and

then assisting to mow down the German troops when they approach too

near the coast. But the great dread and key to this naval warfare is

the modern submarine.

Submarines, aeroplanes, and motor busses are three elements of warfare

never before put to the test; and the greatest of these thus far is the

gasolene motor-car. By this alone Germany may be defeated. France and

England are rich in gasolene motor power, and supplies from America are

open to them. A year ago there were less than 90,000 motor-cars in

Germany, and Prince Henry started to encourage motoring to remedy this,

but the Germans are slow to respond in sport. Indeed they know little

of sport as the English understand it, of sportsman ethics or the sense

of fair play in either sport or war. They do not comprehend the

English applause for the captain of the "Emden" and stand aghast at the

idea that he would be received as a hero in England. When a daring

aeroplane flier in the performance of his duty has met with mishap and,

landed on German soil, he is not welcomed as a hero. He is struck and

kicked.

The German is not to be blamed. It is the way he has been educated to

"assert himself," as the Germans phrase it. Indeed, when the captain

of the "Emden" was taken prisoner and was congratulated by the

Australian commander for his gallant defense, he was so taken aback

that he had to walk away and think it over. He returned to thank his

adversary for his complimentary remarks. With true German scientific

instinct he had to find his defeat in a physical cause, remarking, "It

was fortunate for you that your first shot took away my speaking tubes."

The English are sports in war,--too sporty in fact. General Joffre

warned General French over and over again, "Your officers are too

audacious; you will soon have none to command," and his words proved

true. The English officers felt that the rules of the game called upon

them to lead their men. They became targets for the guns of the foe,

until one of the present embarrassments in England is the unprecedented

loss of officers.

This has now been changed and Kitchener insists that both officers and

men shall regard themselves as property of the Empire, that the

exposure of a single life to unnecessary hazard is a breach of

discipline. For this reason Victoria Crosses are not numerous, less

than two dozen having been conferred thus far; and it has been quietly

announced that no Victoria Crosses will be conferred for single acts of

bravery or where only one life is involved. It must be team work and

results affecting many.

For this reason also it has been decreed that the 33,000 Canadians in

training at Salisbury Plain shall not be put in the front until they

have learned discipline in place of the American initiative.

These Canadian boys receive their home pay of four shillings, or $1 per

day, while the English Tommy gets one quarter of this amount. The

Canadians are fine fellows, feeling their independence and anxious to

be on the firing line, but the War Office recognizes that soldierly

independence cannot be allowed in this war. It is not improbable that

the Canadian troops will eventually be dispersed that their strong

individual initiative may be thoroughly harnessed under the

organization before they are trusted in the trenches. They are not to

be permitted to go there to be shot at, but to use their splendid

physiques, fighting abilities, and patriotism--more British than the

English themselves--in strict organization.

This is not to be an audacious war on the part of the Allies. It is

first a defensive war in which the Germans are the heaviest losers. On

the part of the Germans it is an audacious war and its very audacity

has astounded the whole world. But Germany never meant to war against

the world collectively. That was the accident of her bad diplomacy.

The audaciousness of Prussian war conceptions began in the latter part

of the last century. They did not grow out of the war with the French

in 1870, for Bismarck's legacy to the German nation was a warning

against any war with Russia. The German scheme was concocted by the

successor of Bismarck himself, none other than Kaiser William II. He

planned a steady growth of German power that would first vanquish the

Slav of southeastern Europe and give Germany control through

Constantinople and Asia Minor to the Persian gulf; then, as opportunity

arose, a crushing of France and repression of Russia; and the overthrow

of the British empire; and then the end of the Monroe Doctrine, to be

followed by American tariffs dictated from Germany.

This seems so audacious a program as to be almost beyond comprehension

in America. Yet it will be made clear in the next chapter.