THE ENGLISH POSITION
A Quiet London--The Call to Arms--No Mourning--The Zeppelin
Scare--German Spies--The German Landing--Kultur War Indemnities.
It is worth a winter trip across the Atlantic to stand with a London
audience and hear it respond to the call, "Are we downhearted?" with a
thunderous "NO!"
It is then you first realize that the British Empire is at war; and
what that war means; and that that Empire has piped to its defense a
free people inhabiting one fifth of the territory of the globe.
The British Empire has war upon its hands a major part of the time. It
may be in the Soudan; it may be in South Africa. From some quarter of
the globe war is almost always before the Empire. But a war summoning
the whole British Empire to arms on land and sea,--that has not been
dreamed of for a hundred years.
You expect to find in London an armed camp, the flags flying, the drums
beating, the troops marching; an excited people discussing causes and
effects of the military and naval programmes; military encampments with
white tents over the plains. But you find nothing of the sort. If you
attempt to motor in the country and figure on reaching a certain place
in two hours, you may find it takes you four, as you are very likely to
run into troops, companies, regiments, and armies in training, but
mostly without arms and only partially uniformed. They are trudging
the highways and the lanes of England from 5.30 A.M. until dusk,--rain
or shine. Here is Kitchener's army being put into condition, with no
fuss, feathers, or trumpet beats. The army is "rolling up" and
"hardening up." But not on the tented campus. It is quartered in the
towns and villages all over England, and board and lodging is regularly
paid by the government.
There are no noticeable drum beats over England; no displays of
bunting. Monuments, public buildings, and conspicuous corners, and,
most conspicuous of all, the glass fronts of the taxi-cabs, bear signs
calling the men of England to arms:--
"Fall in--Join the Army at once."
"Your King and Country need you. England expects that every man this
day will do his duty."
"Enlist for the duration of the War."
"Enlist for three years."
"You are needed to fight for Honor and the Country's defense."
"No price can be too high when Honor and Freedom are at stake."
"Who dies if England lives?"
"He gives twice who gives quickly--join at once."
"'More men and still more until the enemy is crushed.'--Lord Kitchener."
And many more of the same tenor. Beyond these you will see little
evidence in the London streets of an empire at war. Hotels are largely
empty; managers very polite; restaurants must close at 10. P.M.; no
after-theater supper at the hotels unless you are a guest. Men in
khaki uniforms are more conspicuous; and bandaged heads, slung arms,
and legs assisted by crutches are more noticeable than formerly.
The searchlights flash above the city; the street lights are shaded
overhead in foolish fancy as a protection from aeroplanes or
dirigibles. Curtains are closely drawn by police orders, in the houses
and railway trains.
Yet one of the airmen who had been over London at night told me that
the city was just as conspicuous as though it were wide open in
illumination. Indeed, there is a general call among the Londoners for
the police to let up and permit electric signs, lighted windows, and
more light in the streets. But the only answer that came early in
December was orders to turn down the lights further!
In Paris they turned on the lights, illuminated the streets, closed up
the museums and galleries, buried their art and sent the Venus de Milo
on a walk to some storage vault along with the banks' reserve gold.
London's museums and picture galleries are wide open, and the endeavor
to protect the streets from Germans peering down from above looks
childish. The great strategy of the Germans consists of talking across
the Channel about their plans for raiding England. I suspect that the
English military authorities do not object. It encourages enlistment.
When enlistment gets dull, the Germans stimulate it with some shells
thrown on the English coast.
There are only two or three new plays in London this season; the great
war-plays and dramas, and indeed the literature of this war, have yet
to be written. Nearly all the new presentations for which London is so
famous were set back on the shelf when the business of war started.
Most of the theater programs are revivals of old favorites, and a few
of the theaters are still closed. All that are open begin promptly at
8 P.M. Five hundred English actors have gone to the front.
You have to make the circuit to find the heart of England at war, but
you find it--horse, foot, and dragoons; men, women, and children. "Are
we downhearted?" answered by a thunderous "No!" Then again silence,
and turning down of the lights, and the steady work! work! work!
"Have you a bed here?" said Kitchener when he entered the War Office.
"Never heard of such a thing here," was the response.
"Get one," said Kitchener; "I have no time for clubs and hotels."
Not only Kitchener but the whole staff camped down in the office,
working days, nights, and Sundays, until Lady ---- turned over her
house nearby to Kitchener and his staff.
"Where is ----?" I asked of his next-door neighbor. The response was,
"Oh, he is at the War Office, and gets a Sunday home with his family
about once in six weeks." That family was not fifteen miles from
London.
When a citizen has been suddenly notified that where he could formerly
get a train for home every fifteen minutes, the railroad has been taken
for military service, and he must get his supper in town, there is not
the slightest word of complaint. He only wishes he could contribute
more to the Empire.
I spoke with Lord K., of B---- & Co., concerning the loss of his eldest
son, as I had known Lord K. for many years. The manner, the gesture,
the speech, in response, were all one, and brief; just an indication of
sacrifice that had to be made for the Empire; and that sacrifice had
only just begun; deaths in the family just honorable incidents in the
life of the Empire.
You see crutches and broken heads in London, but you will see no
mourning.
"Yes," said Lord C. to me, "the average income tax in England is now
doubled until it is one eighth, or about 12 1/2 per cent, but my
friends in the banking world have to pay an increasing supertax. I
know many who must now give one quarter of their income to the
government. They not only do it gladly, but expect it will be a half
next year, and they will contribute that just as gladly."
From the top to the bottom in the Empire, all that is asked at the
present time is a protected food and clothing supply, and everything
else can go into "the cauldron of war."
"Did you ever see anything like it?" said an American banker in London
to me. "Are n't these people wonderful? Did you ever see such
resolution, such steady work, such sacrifices, such unity of empire?"
It was indeed worth a winter's trip across the ocean to see it.
Although the newspapers complained of the censorship, there was only
one general complaint from the people in the British press. They
wanted to know what the regulations were, or were to be, concerning
self-defense when the Germans arrive in the country. Should a citizen
without uniform take up arms against the invaders? Had he a right
individually to shoot a German invader? Was the old rule that an
Englishman's home is his castle, and that he has the right to defend
it, now superseded by any rules of international warfare?
Some independent people of note were declaiming in the public prints
that any German invader of England was a thief and a robber and that
any weapons might be used to attack the invaders; and that there was no
rule of warfare that could prevent an Englishman defending his home by
any weapons against any foreign invaders.
Nevertheless the spirit of the people was, even under invasion, to
respect law and order and rules of warfare, and be guided by the
government as to all forms of individual or collective defenses. They
simply wanted the rules promulgated.
The English are reconciled to Zeppelin raids from Germany, and rather
expect them. But there is yet no unanimity in preparation or action.
The Rothschilds have put four feet of sand on the roof of their
building, but the amount of their gold in store must be incomparably
less than that in the Bank of England, where no precautions are visible.
Trenches by the beaches and barricades by the highways are noticeable
along the entire south and east coasts of England, but they are without
stores or equipment. You run across these trenches in the moonlight as
you journey about the country and for the moment you wonder for what
purpose somebody dug those long ditches by the shore, and what the
trench or irrigation scheme is. Your answer comes when you run
straight into a timber barricade across the highway nearby. Then you
look down the coast and see flashing searchlights, note the lights of
steamers passing up and down the coast, and reflect that there is no
universal law in war. The Channel steamers are carrying lights in the
war area, but the North Atlantic steamers still cross the ocean without
showing even port or starboard lights. The street cars moving in the
English coast cities must, of course, be lighted and the streets must
have some illuminant; but the railroad carriages, hotels, and private
houses must draw their curtains. Yet railroad terminals and piers must
have their lights, and harbors must have their searchlights. General
service lights must be ablaze, but individual glimmers must be
curtained. It reminds one of Cowper, the English poet, who, in the
same kennel, cut a big hole for his big dog and a little hole for the
pup.
The most talked-of war subject in England is the German spy system. It
is estimated there were between 30,000 and 40,000 German spies, and
many times this number of German reservists, in England at the outbreak
of the war. For years England has laughed over German theoretical
discussions of how best to invade England, and German studies of
English coast lines and country resources.
I heard years ago of a young Englishman who disputed in Berlin the
war-office plans of his father's estate. He declared that he thought
he ought to know the land where he was born and brought up as a boy,
and that there were only two springs of water thereon, instead of
three. The German general staff said their maps of England were
correct and were not based on English authority. The young man found
on his return to England that the German maps were correct and that his
father's estate had three springs whence men and horses could be
watered, although his family had never noted the existence of a third.
Two years ago some friends of mine were playing tennis in an English
village and inquired the occupation of two young Germans, who seemed to
be good tennis-players, but without family relations or settled
business.
The response of the hostess was: "Oh, they are just two German spies of
good education and charming manner looking over the country here, and
we find them very useful in making up our tennis tournaments." It was
looked upon as just a part of the German map-making plans, and England
was an open book for anybody to map. Baedeker published the
guide-books of the world: why should n't the Germans make all the maps
of the world,--especially if German map-making were cheaper than
English map-making?
A banker friend of mine found two young Germans in his village, with no
other occupation than motoring the country over and making notes and
sketches of cross-roads, railroad junction-points, important buildings,
bridges, etc. He thought the authorities ought to know what was going
on, but received a polite invitation from the local police to mind his
own business. When once he lost his way on a motor-car trip, and ran
across these fellows, he was very glad to get the right directions for
the shortest way home. They knew more about the roads of that country
than did the people who were born there.
About 20,000 German spies and reservists are in detention camps on the
west coast, and on the islands. Even the German prisoners are kept
away from the east coast, where it is expected the Germans may
eventually struggle for their landing.
I have not the slightest confidence in any invasion of England by
Germany, but I do not understand why German Zeppelins do not move in
the darkness over the British Isles and drop a few bombs about the
country at important places. It may be that the German Emperor is
right in his calculation that such action would do very little damage,
and would strengthen tremendously the enlistments and war-expansion
plans of the English.
When West Hartlepool, Whitby, and Scarborough were bombarded by the
German warships on the morning of December 16, the English excitement
concerning it was only a small part of what an American would have
expected. Not far from this bombarded coast is a summer resort town,
where for many years a legend has existed that when in some future age
England decayed and Germany came in, this would be the first
landing-point.
An Englishman two or three years ago took it upon himself to find out
how far this legend might have its base in any near invasion. He
looked up the record and found that all the leading summer hotels and
strategic points were in the hands of Germans. Then one day he quickly
addressed his German waiter in his native tongue, demanding to know
where his post was in that town in the event of hostilities. Promptly
the German replied, "Down at the schoolhouse!" Further investigation
showed that every reservist had his allotted place before and after the
landing, and his place in the civic organization to follow. The
Germans had also compiled lists of the people of property in that
vicinity and exactly the character and amount of resources that could
be commandeered from them.
If the Germans were free to map England, why should they not be free to
map all its resources, individually as well as collectively?
I know a building in the heart of the London financial district that
carries on its roof a Zeppelin-destroyer gun. A few days before I was
last in this building a fine-looking fellow in khaki uniform entered in
haste and asked the janitor to show him to the roof that he might
quickly inspect that gun and see that everything was in order, as raids
might be expected at any moment. Of course, he was taken to the roof,
and his inspection quickly completed. Ten minutes later the London
police were there to inquire for a man in khaki uniform.
The English officer said, "Very singular, we are ten minutes behind
that fellow everywhere. He is the cleverest of all the German spies,
and we are not able to catch him!"
If that spy had been caught in his English uniform inspecting English
defenses, would not everything have been kept quiet in the endeavor to
pick up the lines of his foreign communications?
In writing home from England, even to my family, toward the close of
1914, I thought it just as well to be brief and not too definite with
any information. I had seen some of the censorship regulations and
envelopes resealed with a paper bearing heavy black letters, "Opened by
censor," with the number of the censor, showing that there are more
than one hundred people engaged in this work; and also directions from
the censorship that "responses to this inquiry must be submitted,"
etc., etc.
Nobody could believe until this war broke out and there descended upon
peaceful Belgium not only armies and demands for their shelter,
maintenance and food, and drink, but also huge demands for financial
indemnification--war tax levies upon cities, towns, and provinces, with
individuals held as hostages for their payment--that German war plans
meant the looting, not only of nations and states, but of individual
fortunes and properties.
It now seems that the march to Paris through Belgium and the imposition
of a huge redemption tax upon Paris and France were but the
preliminaries to larger demands upon London and England.
Indeed, judged by the demands upon Belgium, the German plans
contemplated the transfer of the wealth of France and the British
Empire to Germany; and such enslavement of these peoples as would make
Germany rich, powerful and triumphant for many generations, if not
forever, over the whole habitable globe. The German minister at
Washington sounded a true German note when he asked who should question
the right of Germany to take Canada and the British possessions in
North America. Were they not at war, and if Germany were able, should
she not possess them?
It had been understood before this war that countries were invaded
under ideas of national defense. But possession of countries for the
absorption of their wealth and the enslavement of their people, to work
thereafter for the victors, was believed a barbarism from which this
world had long ago emerged in the struggle for the freedom of the
individual.