returned as a commissioner in the service of the Crown. It was a very
extraordinary experience; indeed, I felt like a new Rip Van Winkle, for
nearly all my old chiefs and colleagues were dead, and another
generation had arisen. I can only say that I was deeply touched by the
reception which I received throughout the country. It was with strange
feelings that almost on the very spot where I helped to read the
proclamation of annexation of the Transvaal, in 1877, and with my own
hands hoisted the British flag over the land, I listened to my health
being proposed by the Dutch Chief Justice of the Transvaal territory,
once more a part of the British Empire. Such was my greeting everywhere.
Three and thirty years before I had left the shores of Africa, believing
that soon or late the British power was doomed to failure and probably
to extinction there. When I left them again, six months ago, it was with
the glad knowledge that, by the united wish of the inhabitants of South
Africa, it was re-established, never again to pass away. It is a
wonderful thing for a man in his own lifetime to see a country pass
through so many vicissitudes, and in the end to appear in the face of
the world no longer as England's enemy, but as a constituent part of the
great British Empire, one of her best friends and supporters, glorying
in her flag, which now floats from Cape Agalhas to the Zambesi, and soon
will float over those contingent regions that have been seized by the
mailed fist of Germany.
*Capt. Mark Haggard's Death in Battle*
_To the Editor of The [London] Times_:
Sir: In various papers throughout England has appeared a letter, or part
of a letter, written by Private C. Derry of the Second Battalion, Welsh
Regiment. It concerns the fall of my much-loved nephew, Capt. Mark
Haggard, of the same regiment, on Sept. 13 in the battle of the Aisne.
Since this letter has been published and, vivid, pathetic, and
pride-inspiring as it is, does not tell all the tale, I have been
requested, on behalf of Mark's mother, young widow, and other members of
our family, to give the rest of it as it was collected by them from the
lips of Lieut. Somerset, who lay wounded by him when he died. Therefore
I send this supplementary account to you in the hope that the other
journals which have printed the first part of the story will copy it
from your columns.
It seems that after he had given the order to fix bayonets, as told by
Private Derry, my nephew charged the German Maxims at the head of his
company, he and his soldier servant outrunning the other men. Arrived at
the Maxim in front of him, with the rifle which he was using as Derry
describes, he shot and killed
[Illustration: GERHART HAUPTMANN
_See Page_ 175]
[Illustration: LUDWIG FULDA.
_See Page 180_ ]
the three soldiers who were serving it, and then was seen "fighting and
laying out" the Germans with the butt end of his empty gun, "laughing"
as he did so, until he fell mortally wounded in the body and was carried
away by his servant.
His patient and heroic end is told by Private Derry, and I imagine that
the exhortation to "Stick it, Welsh!" which from time to time he uttered
in his agony, will not soon be forgotten in his regiment. Of that end we
who mourn him can only say in the simple words of Derry's letter, that
he "died as he had lived--an officer and a gentleman."
Perhaps it would not be inappropriate to add as a thought of consolation
to those throughout the land who day by day see their loved ones thus
devoured by the waste of war, that of a truth these do not vainly die.
Not only are they crowned with fame, but by the noble manner of their
end they give the lie to Bernhardi and his school, who tell us that we
English are an effete and worn-out people, befogged with mean ideals;
lost in selfishness and the lust of wealth and comfort. Moreover, the
history of these deeds of theirs will surely be as a beacon to those
destined to carry on the traditions of our race in that new England
which shall arise when the cause of freedom for which we must fight and
die has prevailed--to fall no more.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
H. RIDER HAGGARD.
Ditchingham, Norfolk, Oct. 9.
*An Anti-Christian War*
*By Robert Bridges.*
_To the Editor of The [London] Times_:
Sir: Since the beginning of this war the meaning of it has in one
respect considerably changed, and I hope that our people will see that
it is primarily a holy war. It is manifestly a war declared between
Christ and the devil.
The conduct of the German conscripts has demonstrated that they have
been instructed to adopt in full practice the theories of their
political philosophers, and that they have heartily consented to do this
and freely commit every cruelty that they think will terrorize the
people whom they intend to crush. The details of their actions are too
beastly to mention.
Their philosophers, as I read them, teach openly that the law of love is
silly and useless, but that brutal force and cruelty are the useful and
proper means of attaining success in all things. Shortly, you are not to
do to others as you wish they should do to you, but you should do
exactly what you wish they should not do to you; that is, you should cut
their throats and seize their property, and then you will get on.
As for these enlightened philosophers, their doctrines are plainly an
apostasy from the Gospel--and this they do not scruple to avow; and
their tenets are only a recrudescence or reassertion of the barbarism
which we hoped we had grown out of; it is all merely damnable. But it
seems to me that, judged only as utilitarian policy, it is stupid; and
that they blundered in neglecting the moral force (for that is also a
force) of the antagonism that they were bound to arouse in all gentle
minds, whether simple or cultured. It was stupid of them not to perceive
that their hellish principles would shock everything that is most
beloved and living in modern thought, both the "humanitarian" tendency
of the time and the respect which has grown up for the rights of
minorities and nationalities. Now, not to reckon with such things was
stupid, unless they can win temporary justification by immediate
success.
What success is possible for those who thus openly outrage humanity
remains to be seen; but they cannot be allowed the advantage of any
doubt as to what they are about. Those who fight for them will fight for
"the devil and all his works"; and those who fight against them will be
fighting in the holy cause of humanity and the law of love. If the
advocacy of their bad principles and their diabolical conduct do not set
the whole world against them, then the world is worse than I think. My
belief is that there are yet millions of their own countrymen who have
not bowed the knee to Satan, and who will be as much shocked as we are;
and that this internal moral disruption will much hamper them. This
morning I have a legal notice sent me from a German resident in England
announcing that he has changed his name, for shame (I suppose) of his
Fatherland.
All their apology throughout has been a clumsy tissue of
self-contradictory lies, and their occasional hypocrisy has been hastily
pretended and ill-conceived. The particular contention against us--that
we were betraying the cause of civilization by supporting the barbarous
Slav--does not come very convincingly from them if their apostle is
Nietzsche, while the Russian prophet is Tolstoy.
The infernal machine which has been scientifically preparing for the
last twenty-five years is now on its wild career like one of Mr. Wells's
inventions, and wherever it goes it will leave desolation behind it and
put all material progress back for at least half a century. There was
never anything in the world worthier of extermination, and it is the
plain duty of all civilized nations to unite to drive it back into its
home and exterminate it there. I am, &c.,
ROBERT BRIDGES.
Sept. 1.
*English Artists' Protest*
_Art lovers in Great Britain have drawn up a protest against the
vandalism of German soldiers. Copies of this protest have been sent
to the Comte de Lalaing, Belgian Minister in London; the American
Ambassador, with a humble request that it may be forwarded to the
President of the United States; and Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, Art
Adviser to the Belgian Government. Those who have signed include
well-known collectors, Trustees of the British Museum, the National
Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and the National Galleries
of Scotland; the Director and Principal Librarian of the British
Museum; the Directors of the National Gallery, the Victoria and
Albert Museum, and the National Galleries of Scotland and Ireland;
the Keepers of the Wallace Collection and the National Gallery of
British Art; Keepers in the British Museum; the Joint Honorary
Secretaries of the National Art Collections Fund, and many critics
and others prominent in the art world._
The whole civilized world has witnessed with horror the terrible effects
of modern warfare on helpless inhabitants of Belgium and France, and on
ancient buildings and other works of art which are the abiding monuments
of the piety and culture of their ancestors.
Some of the acts of the invading German army against buildings may be
defensible from the military standpoint; but it seems certain from
present information that in some signal instances, notably at Louvain
and Rheims, this defense cannot hold good against the mass of evidence
to the contrary.
The signatories of this protest claim that they are in no sense a
partisan body. Their contention in this matter is that the splendid
monuments of the arts of the Middle Ages which have been destroyed or
damaged are the inheritance of the whole world, and that it is the duty
of all civilized communities to endeavor to preserve them for the
benefit and instruction of posterity. While France and Belgium are
individually the poorer from such wanton destruction, the world at large
is no less impoverished.
On these grounds, therefore, we desire to express our strong indignation
and abhorrence at the gratuitous destruction of ancient buildings that
has marked the invasion of Belgium and France by the German Army, and we
wish to enter a protest in the strongest terms against the continuance
of so barbarous and reckless a policy. That it is the result of a
policy, and not of an accident, is shown by the similarity of the fate
of Louvain, Malines, Termonde, Senlis, and finally Rheims.
Many of us have had the opportunity of showing that our love and respect
for art are not bounded by our nationality, but we feel compelled to
publish to the world our horror and detestation of the barbarous acts
committed by the army that represents a country which has done so much
to promote and advance the study of art and its history.
The signatories are:
DEVONSHIRE.
CHOLMONDELEY.
LANSDOWNE.
FEVERSHAM.
MABEL FEVERSHAM.
LEICESTER.
LONSDALE.
NORMANTON.
NORTHBROOK.
PLYMOUTH.
DILLON.
ALINGTON.
D'ABERNON.
ISABEL SOMERSET.
FREDERICK L. COOK.
AUDLEY D. NEELD.
HERBERT RAPHAEL.
SIDNEY COLVIN.
MARTIN CONWAY.
CHARLES HOLROYD.
FREDERIC G. KENYON.
HUGH LANE.
FRANCIS BEAUFORT PALMER.
C. HERCULES READ.
CECIL HARCOURT SMITH.
ISIDORE SPIELMANN.
HERBERT B. TREE.
WHITWORTH WALLIS.
CHARLES AITKEN.
OTTO BEIT.
MAURICE W. BROCKWELL.
A.H. BUTTERY.
C.S. CARSTAIRS.
JAMES L. CAW.
HERBERT COOK.
D.H.S. CRANAGE.
LIONEL CUST.
CAMPBELL DODGSON.
CHARLES DOWDESWELL.
DAVID ERSKINE.
H.A.L. FISHER.
J.L. GARVIN.
PERCIVAL GASKELL.
ALGERNON GRAVES.
JAMES GREIG.
O. GUTEKUNST.
EDWARD HUTTON.
G.B. CROFT-LYONS.
D.S. MACCOLL.
ERIC MACLAGAN.
G. MAYER.
MORTIMER MENPES.
ALMERIC H. PAGET.
J.S.R. PHILLIPS.
G.N. COUNT PLUNKETT.
JANET ROSS.
ROBERT ROSS.
M.E. SADLER.
MARION SPIELMANN.
A.J. SULLEY.
D. CROAL THOMSON.
T. HUMPHRY WARD.
W.H. JAMES WEALE.
FREDERICK A. WHITE.
R.C. WITT.
*To Arms!*
*By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.*
Is it possible that there are still some of our people who do not
understand the causes of this war, and are ignorant of the great stakes
at issue which will speedily have so important a bearing upon the lives
of each and all of them? It is hard to believe it, and yet it is so
stated by some who profess to know. Let me try, in the shortest space
and in the clearest words that I can command, to lay before them both
the causes and the possible effects, and to implore them now, now, at
this very moment, before it is too late, to make those efforts and
sacrifices which the occasion demands. In Germany, every man from the
ages of sixteen to fifty-five is with the colors. The last man has been
called up. And yet we hear--we could not bear to see--that young
athletic men in this country are playing football or cricket, while our
streets are full of those who should be in our camps. All our lives have
been but a preparation for this supreme moment. All our future lives
will be determined by how we bear ourselves in these few months to come.
Shame, shame on the man who fails his country in this its hour of need!
I would not force him to serve. I could not think that the service of
such a man was of any avail. Let the country be served by free men, and
let them deal with the coward or the sluggard who flinches.
The causes of the war are only of moment to us, at this stage, in that
we gain more strength in our arms and more iron in our souls by a
knowledge that it is for all that is honorable and sacred for which we
fight. What really concerns us is that we are in a fight for our
national life, that we must fight through to the end, and that each and
all of us must help, in his own fashion, to the last ounce of his
strength, that this end may be victory. That is the essence of the
situation. It is not words and phrases that we need, but men, men--and
always more men. If words can bring the men then they are of avail. If
not they may well wait for the times to mend. But if there is a doubt in
the mind of any man as to the justice of his country's quarrel, then
even a writer may find work ready to his hand.
* * * * *
Let us cast our minds back upon the events which have led up to this
conflict. They may be divided into two separate classes, those which
prepared the general situation, and those which caused the special
quarrel. Each of these I will treat in its turn.
*Teuton Intoxication.*
It is a matter of common knowledge, one which a man must be blind and
deaf not to understand, that for many years Germany, intoxicated by her
success in war and by her increase of wealth, has regarded the British
Empire with eyes of jealousy and hatred. It has never been alleged by
those who gave expression to this almost universal national passion that
Great Britain had in any way, either historically or commercially, done
Germany a mischief. Even our most bitter traducers, when asked to give
any definite historical reasons for their dislike, were compelled to put
forward such ludicrous excuses as that the British had abandoned the
Prussian King in the year 1761, quite oblivious of the fact that the
same Prussian King had abandoned his own allies in the same war under
far more damaging circumstances, acting up to his own motto that no
promises are binding where the vital interests of a State are in
question. With all their malevolence they could give no examples of any
ill turn done by us until their deliberate policy had forced us into
antagonism. On the other hand, a long list of occasions could very
easily be compiled on which we had helped them in some common cause,
from the days of Marlborough to those of Blucher. Until the twentieth
century had turned they had no possible cause for political hatred
against us. In commerce our record was even more clear. Never in any way
had we interfered with that great development of trade which has turned
them from one of the poorest to one of the richest of European States.
Our markets were open to them untaxed, while our own manufactures paid
20 per cent. in Germany. The markets of India, of Egypt, and of every
portion of the empire which had no self-appointed tariff, were as open
to German goods as to British ones. Nothing could possibly have been
more generous than our commercial treatment. No doubt there was some
grumbling when cheap imitations of our own goods were occasionally found
to oust the originals from their markets. Such a feeling was but natural
and human. But in all matters of commerce, as in all matters political
before the dawn of this century, they have no shadow of a grievance
against us.
* * * * *
And yet they hated us with a most bitter hatred, a hatred which long
antedates the days when we were compelled to take a definite stand
against them. In all sorts of ways this hatred showed itself, in the
diatribes of professors, in the pages of books, in the columns of the
press. Usually it was a sullen, silent dislike. Sometimes it would flame
up suddenly into bitter utterance, as at the time of the unseemly
dispute around the deathbed of the Emperor's father, or on the occasion
of the Jameson Raid. And yet this bitter antagonism was in no way
reciprocated in this country. If a poll had been taken at any time up to
the end of the century as to which European country was our natural
ally, the vote would have gone overwhelmingly for Germany. "America
first and then Germany" would have been the verdict of nine men out of
ten. But then occurred two events which steadied the easy-going Briton,
and made him look more intently and with a more questioning gaze at his
distant cousin over the water. Those two events were the Boer war and
the building of the German fleet. The first showed us, to our amazement,
the bitter desire which Germany had to do us some mischief, the second
made us realize that she was forging a weapon with which that desire
might be fulfilled.
_The Boer War and Germany._
We are most of us old enough to remember the torrent of calumny and
insult which was showered upon us in the day of our temporary distress
by the nation to whom we had so often been a friend and an ally. It is
true that other nations treated us little better, and yet their
treatment hurt us less. The difference as it struck men at the time may
be summarized in this passage from a British writer of the period.
"But it was very different with Germany," he says. "Again and again in
the world's history we have been the friends and the allies of these
people. It was so in the days of Marlborough, in those of the Great
Frederick, and in those of Napoleon. When we could not help them with
men we helped them with money. Our fleet has crushed their enemies. And
now, for the first time in history, we have had a chance of seeing who
were our friends in Europe, and nowhere have we met more hatred and more
slander than from the German press and the German people. Their most
respectable journals have not hesitated to represent the British
troops--troops every bit as humane and as highly disciplined as their
own--not only as committing outrages on person and property, but even as
murdering women and children.
"At first this unexpected phenomenon merely surprised the British
people, then it pained them, and finally, after two years of it, it has
roused a deep, enduring anger in their minds."
He goes on to say: "The continued attacks upon us have left an enduring
feeling of resentment, which will not and should not die away in this
generation. It is not too much to say that five years ago a complete
defeat of Germany in a European war would have certainly caused British
intervention. Public sentiment and racial affinity would never have
allowed us to see her really go to the wall. And now it is certain that
in our lifetime no British guinea and no soldier's life would under any
circumstances be spent for such an end. That is one strange result of
the Boer war, and in the long run it is possible that it may prove not
the least important."
* * * * *
Such was the prevailing mood of the nation when they perceived Germany,
under the lead of her Emperor, following up her expressions of enmity by
starting with restless energy to build up a formidable fleet, adding
programme to programme, out of all possible proportion to the German
commerce to be defended or to the German coastline exposed to attack.
Already vainglorious boasts were made that Germany was the successor to
Britain upon the seas. "The Admiral of the Atlantic greets the Admiral
of the Pacific," said the Kaiser later in a message to the Czar. What
was Britain to do under this growing menace? So long as she was isolated
the diplomacy of Germany might form some naval coalition against her.
She took the steps which were necessary for her own safety, and without
forming an alliance she composed her differences with France and Russia
and drew closer the friendship which united her with her old rival
across the Channel. The first fruit of the new German fleet was the
entente cordiale. We had found our enemy. It was necessary that we
should find our friends. Thus we were driven into our present
combination.
* * * * *
And now we had to justify our friendship. For the first time we were
compelled to openly oppose Germany in the deep and dangerous game of
world politics. They wished to see if our understanding was a reality or
a sham. Could they drive a wedge between us by showing that we were a
fair-weather friend whom any stress would alienate? Twice they tried it,
once in 1906 when they bullied France into a conference at Algeciras but
found that Britain was firm at her side, and again in 1911 when in a
time of profound peace they stirred up trouble by sending a gunboat to
Agadir, and pushed matters to the very edge of war. But no threats
induced Britain to be false to her mutual insurance with France. Now for
the third and most fatal time they have demanded that we forswear
ourselves and break our own bond lest a worse thing befall us. Blind and
foolish, did they not know by past experience that we would keep our
promise given? In their madness they have wrought an irremediable evil
to themselves, to us, and to all Europe.
I have shown that we have in very truth never injured nor desired to
injure Germany in commerce nor have we opposed her politically until her
own deliberate actions drove us into the camp of her opponents. But it
may well be asked why then did they dislike us, and why did they weave
hostile plots against us? It was that, as it seemed to them, and as
indeed it actually may have been, we, independently of our own wills,
stood between Germany and that world empire of which she dreamed. This
was caused by circumstances over which we had no control and which we
could not modify if we had wished to do so. Britain, through her
maritime power and the energy of her merchants and people, had become a
great world power when Germany was still unformed. Thus, when she had
grown to her full stature, she found that the choice places of the world
and those most fitted for the spread of a transplanted European race
were already filled up. It was not a matter which we could help nor
could we alter it, since Canada, Australia, and South Africa would not,
even if we could be imagined to have wished it, be transferred to German
rule. And yet the Germans chafed, and if we can put ourselves in their
places we may admit that it was galling that the surplus of their
manhood should go to build up the strength of an alien and possibly a
rival State. So far we could see their grievance, or, rather their
misfortune, since no one was in truth to blame in the matter. Had their
needs been openly and reasonably expressed, and had the two States moved
in concord in the matter, it is difficult to think that no helpful
solution of any kind could have been found.
*As Germans See England.*