If we could imagine a being from another planet dropped suddenly on this
old earth of ours and left with the aid of maps to figure out for
himself the real position of the world-war, we could readily imagine
that it would seem to him that the Germans were winning "hands down."
Perhaps there would be a good deal of excuse for such a belief.
He would see, in the first place, that the Germans had overrun and
captured the whole of Belgium except one very small portion. He would
see that the greater part of Northern France was in their undisputed
possession. He would see that they had driven the Russians from Poland
and penetrated far within the boundaries of Russia proper.
He would also see that they had almost completely conquered or cajoled
the Balkan States, and that German trains were running from the North
Sea to Constantinople. He would see them holding apparently impregnable
lines of defences against forces at least as strong as their own--
probably much stronger. He would see them or their Allies holding up
British forces in Persia and in Mesopotamia. He would see the Italians
apparently firmly held along the mountainous boundaries of the Austrian
Empire. He would see that a great British army had been driven out of
Gallipoli. He would unquestionably come to the conclusion that the
cause of the Allies was a lost cause, and would probably conclude that
the best thing they could do would be to make a speedy peace on the best
terms the victors could be induced to grant.
And he would be unquestionably wrong in his deduction, even though we
admit the accuracy of his facts.
For, like the thoughtless and the whimperers among us, he would for want
of knowledge leave out of his consideration certain hard facts which,
properly considered, would reverse his judgment. Like the thoughtless
and the whimperers, he would judge too much from mere appearances and
would fail to see the real essential things. He would fail to see the
wood for the trees; he would mistake the shadow for the substance. Just
so the German people to-day are making the mistake of thinking that the
occupation of enemy territory, a mere temporary advantage gained through
treacherous preparation for war at a time when they professed to be
working for peace, constitutes the victory that must be theirs before
they could hope to gain the world-dominion upon which, as we now know,
their hearts and the hearts of their rulers have been set for the last
forty years.
For eighteen months the civilised world has been struggling against the
most formidable menace to its liberties by which it has ever been faced.
For eighteen months we have seen the enemy apparently going on from
triumph to triumph. We have seen the devastation of Belgium, the
crucifixion of a little people whose only wish was that they should be
allowed to live their happy lives in peace, and whose only crime was
that they dared to resist the Prussian bully. We have seen the
martyrdom of Poland. We have seen the very heart of France--
incomparable Paris--threatened with destruction.
We have seen the stately memorials of a great civilisation, such as
Germany has never known and never can know, wrecked and plundered. We
have seen innocent civilians murdered in hundreds, women and children
sent to death or a far worse fate. We have seen the ruin of Serbia. We
have lost thousands of our best and bravest sons. We have seen the
tragic failure in the Gallipoli Peninsula--itself a mere incident of the
world-war, yet one of the greatest military undertakings upon which we
have ever embarked. We have failed conspicuously to protect the little
nations in whose cause we drew the sword, and who have gone down in ruin
under the iron heel of a ferocious tyranny beside which the worst
oppression of historic times seems mild in comparison. Can it be a
matter of wonder if the cry, "How long, O Lord, how long?" goes up from
the fainting heart of outraged civilisation?
Yet the darkest hour is ever the herald of the dawn; and if to-day we
try with a single mind to penetrate the fog and mystery with which this
greatest of all wars is surrounded, we shall see that there is really
and truly a rift in the clouds. No doubt we have still many days of
storm and stress before us. The end is not yet. But, in the noble
language of the King, the goal is drawing into sight. The sun of
victory is not yet shining fully upon us, but none the less the dawn is
at hand. Already its first faint gleams are breaking in upon our eyes;
there are abundant signs, if we lift up our hearts and our courage, that
the long period of gloom and depression is passing away.
Properly to understand the position as it exists to-day we must look
backward to the years 1870 and 1871, for in those years was born the
spirit of aggression and arrogance which ever since has been the driving
power of Germany. After years of preparation, when so far as possible
everything was ready, Germany fell suddenly upon a France torn by
internal dissensions, weak through want of preparation, and utterly
unready for war. Naturally there could be but one end to such a
conflict, and a few short months saw France helpless beneath the heel of
the invader. Germany emerged from that war with almost incalculable
profit, firmly imbued with the idea that she was invincible, and
convinced that at any moment she chose she could reach out her greedy
hands and grasp the sceptre of European domination. Then, as she
thought, she could with safety enter upon a conflict with an England
which had grown over-rich and perhaps over-lazy. Then the real enemy
could be crushed, and the world-dominion of which her megalomaniac
rulers dreamed would be within her grasp.
If a nation has determined upon war, there is never any lack of excuse,
and Germany chose her time well. Her blow fell at a time when no single
one of the Allies was prepared for war. That fact alone fixes
absolutely the responsibility for the present appalling conflict, and in
the days to come the unanimous verdict of history will be that the War
was deliberately provoked by Germany through sheer greed and lust of
power.
For, be it remembered, there was no legitimate ambition before Germany
which she was not perfectly free to enjoy. Her trade was free and
unhampered, the seas were as open to her use as to our own, she
possessed vast colonial dominions which gave her every opportunity for
all the legitimate expansion of which she could dream for centuries to
come. She had grown rich and prosperous in the exercise of the freedom
which she has ever been the first to deny to others. No one menaced her
or sought to do her injury. But she was the _nouveau riche_ among the
nations. She had been poisoned for a long course of years with the
false doctrine that the German was something essentially superior to the
peoples of other races, and she owes her approaching downfall, which is
as certain as the rising of to-morrow's sun, to the blind teachers of
the blind who have imbued her with that spirit of envy and arrogance
which may be as fatal to a nation as to an individual.
We all know only too well what happened when war broke out. Germany,
with her armies trained to the hour after years of patient preparation,
with her forces ready to the last man and the last gun, shamelessly
broke her plighted word with the invasion of Belgium. She had counted
that there, at least, she would meet with no resistance; she could not
realise that a little people, even to save its honour, would dare to
oppose the onrush of her countless hordes. In that she made her first
and, perhaps, her greatest mistake. Just as she thought that England
would not draw the sword for a "scrap of paper," so she thought that
Belgium would not dare to resist.
We know now that she was wrong; we know, too, that the heroism of the
Belgians surely saved Europe in those first days by gaining the
priceless time which enabled France and England to throw their scanty
forces across the path of the invader, which led ultimately to the great
battle of the Marne, that titanic conflict which surely and decisively
smashed once and for ever the German plans. In spite of all that has
happened since, in spite of the apparent victories Germany has won, in
spite of the territories she has occupied, the defeat of the Marne
marked the beginning of her final overthrow.
But the peril was appalling. France, Russia, and Britain were alike
unprepared for war, short of men, short of munitions, short of
everything which would have enabled them at once to meet the common
enemy on anything like equal terms. The days are gone for ever when
victory can be won by men alone; modern war is too machine-like in its
developments, the importance of supplies and organisation is far too
great to give a poorly equipped army the slightest chance of success.
Not men alone, but munitions are the secret of success to-day, and every
single advantage that Germany has won since war broke out has been won
by her superiority in mechanical equipment. Her men, considered
individually, are certainly not the equals of either the French or the
Russians or the British; they have neither the dash of the French, nor
the dogged courage and endurance of the Russians, nor the personal
_sang-froid_ and cool initiative of the British. But Germany had the
numbers and the equipment, and to numbers and equipment alone she owes
such successes as she has gained.
Caught unprepared at the outset of war, the Allies were naturally in a
position which must well have seemed hopeless. Germany reaped to the
full the advantages which she had sought in long preparation for war
under the guise of peace. Her armies plunged forward with resistless
momentum until they were within sight of the very gates of Paris, and in
the eyes of the world it was merely a matter of time as to when she
would occupy the French capital. Then came Von Kluck's amazing blunder,
the swift stroke of the French and British against the German right
wing, and the precipitate retreat which led to the defeat at the Marne.
From that day, in spite of apparent successes, the fortunes of Germany
have been on the wane.
There was no mistake about the reply of civilisation to the German
menace. France, Russia, and England threw down the guage in the most
unmistakable terms in the historic declaration that neither would
conclude a separate peace without the others. That, we have now to
recognise, is one of the main facts which must operate most powerfully
in bringing about the final defeat of Germany. In no particular can she
hope to rival the resources of the Allies, and so long as the Allies
hang together they are unmistakably on the road to final victory. It is
for this reason that at the present moment it is the main object of
German diplomacy to sow distrust and suspicion among the partners in the
Quadruple Entente. Their one and only hope--and they know it--is to
provoke a quarrel among the Allies which would not merely rob the Allies
of all hope of final victory, but would give the Huns and their dupes a
reasonable chance--indeed, more than a reasonable chance--of snatching
triumph from the very jaws of defeat.
There is a school of croakers very much in evidence in England at
present who can see nothing of good in anything which their own country
has done and is doing. They remind one of Gilbert's
Idiot who praises in enthusiastic tone
Each century but this, and every country but his own.
They are, of course, always with us, but at the present moment they are
more than usually aggressive, and we notice them perhaps more than is
good for us. They are the chief source of that dangerous form of
pessimism which we see exemplifying itself in a constant belittling of
the enormous efforts and the enormous sacrifices which this country has
made. According to these mischievous propagandists, nothing we do or
have done can possibly be sufficient or right. The effects of this
perpetual "calamity howling" on our own people is bad enough; it is far
worse upon the peoples of the Allied countries and the neutrals,
because, not understanding our national peculiarities, they are apt to
take us at a wholly absurd valuation and to think that, as our own
people are constantly accusing us of slackness in a war in which we have
so much at stake, there must be something in the charge. If plenty of
mud is thrown, some of it is tolerably sure to stick, and there can be
no doubt that the perpetual depreciation of British efforts by people in
this country has had a most dangerous effect, and has, in fact, played
the German game to perfection both here and abroad.
Those who wish to form an adequate realisation of what Britain has
really done in the cause of civilisation should try to take a longer
view, and try also to throw their minds backward to the condition of
affairs which existed when the declaration of war came eighteen months
ago. They should try, in fact, to learn something of the lessons taught
by our past history.
We can start with the indisputable and undisputed fact that so far as
the war on land was concerned this country was entirely unprepared to
take up the role it has since assumed. That is a proposition which not
even the Germans, who are so ready to accuse England of having caused
the War, can very well dispute. Throughout our history we have been a
naval and not a military Power, though it is of course true that, judged
by the standards of other days, we have now and again put forward very
considerable military efforts.
But it was many a long year since British troops had fought on the
Continent of Europe, and it is safe to assume that the great majority of
people in this country, had they been asked, would have replied without
hesitation that we should never again take part in the land fighting in
a continental war.
Now it must be obvious to anyone who takes the trouble to give the
matter a moment's thought that, for the purposes of war as it is
understood by the great military nations of Europe, the British Army as
it existed in August, 1914, was hopelessly inadequate. Our real
strength lay on the sea, where it has always lain. It is true that, for
its size, the British force which was thrown into Flanders in the early
days of the struggle was perhaps the most perfectly trained and equipped
army that ever took the field.
But no one will contend that it was adequate in size, and we know that
the Germans regarded it as a "contemptible little army" that was to be
brushed aside with hardly an effort by the German hordes. It consisted
of perhaps 120,000 men, and undoubtedly, as our French friends have
generously admitted, it played a part worthy of "the best and highest
traditions" of our race. But it was not an army on the continental
scale.
What has been done since? How have we taken up the task of creating
forces which might be regarded as commensurate to meet the menace by
which civilisation found itself faced?
Our "contemptible little army," thanks to the genius of Lord Kitchener,
has grown until to-day it numbers something in the neighbourhood of four
million men. That is a fact which the world knows and recognises, and
in itself alone it is sufficient to refute the contention of those who
are to be found preaching in and out of season that Britain's efforts
have been lamentably inadequate. Great armies are not to be made in a
day or a year, they do not spring fully armed from the earth, and the
fact that we, a naval rather than a military Power, have in the course
of eighteen months raised and equipped forces on such a scale ought to
be sufficient to confound those shallow critics who are eternally
bewailing our supposed "slackness," which, as a matter of fact, has no
existence outside their own disordered imaginations. I do not believe
there is to be found to-day a military writer whose opinion is of any
value who would not agree that the effort which Britain has made is one
of the most stupendous in all military history.
In France, in Russia, and in Italy everyone whose authority is regarded
as having any substantial basis is agreed on the point, and the Germans
themselves, however they may affect to sneer at our army of "hirelings,"
know a great deal too much about military matters not to recognise that
one of the very gravest of their perils is the growing military power of
England. That power will be exercised to the full when the time comes,
and it will assuredly be found to be of the very greatest importance in
bringing about the overthrow of German hopes and ambitions.
We all know--the whole world knows--why the military power of England
has not yet reached its full majesty. We all know that in the War of
to-day a superabundance of munitions is demanded which none could have
expected from the history of the past. Every form of military stores--
guns, rifles, shell, ammunition--all must be provided on a scale of
colossal magnitude.
It is the fact that Germany alone of all the warring nations partly
realised this, and in her careful preparations for a war of her own
seeking, for which she chose her own time, accumulated in the days of
peace such enormous reserves of munitions as she hoped would render her
to a large extent independent of manufacture during the actual period of
fighting. It is certain that Germany hoped to overthrow Russia and
France in a series of swift, brief attacks without trenching dangerously
upon her reserve stocks. We know now that she was wrong; but we know,
too, that she came within an ace of success.
That she realised her error and embarked upon the manufacture of
munitions on a vast scale is true, but none the less it is also true
that she cannot hope to compete in this respect with the united
resources of the Allies once they get into their full stride. Slowly,
perhaps, but none the less surely, she is being overtaken even in the
department which she made almost exclusively her own, and the day is
coming when she will have not the remotest prospect of keeping up an
adequate reply to the storm of high explosives which will break upon her
lines east, west, north, and south. When that day comes--and it may be
nearer than most of us think--we shall see the swiftest of changes in
the present position of the War. There will be an end at last to the
long deadlock in which we and our Allies have been forced to act on the
defensive.
Already, indeed, the change is in sight. Germany to-day, in spite of
her frantic struggles, is absolutely and firmly held in a ring of steel.
She is, in every real sense of the word, on the defensive; her
spasmodic attacks are purely defensive in their origin and conception,
and the steadily increasing pressure of her foes must sooner or later
find and break through some weak spot in lines which are already
seriously extended and must soon wear thin.
I do not pretend for a moment that everything has gone as well as we
could wish; I do not pretend that there have not been mistakes, delays,
lack of decision, lack of foresight. No war was ever fought without
mistakes; we are not a race of supermen. But I do say that we have made
such an effort as has perhaps never been made in history before to meet
a series of conditions of which neither we in particular nor the world
at large has ever experienced.
The nation that could wage war without making mistakes would very
speedily dominate the world.
If the Germans had not made mistakes at least as great as those of the
Allies, they would long ago have won a supreme and crushing victory
which would have left the whole of Europe prostrate at their feet.
Whereas what do we see to-day? The plain, unalterable fact is that in
her sudden assault upon nations wholly unprepared for it Germany has not
won a single success of the nature which is decisive. She did not
succeed in "knocking out" either of the enemies who really count, and
she soon found herself condemned to a long and dragging war of the very
nature which all her experts, for years past, have admitted must be
fatal to German hopes and ambitions. Germany has always postulated for
success swift and shattering blows; she believed she could deal such
blows at her enemies in detail before she was defeated by a prepared
unity against which she must be powerless. She hoped to shatter France
before the slow-moving Russians could get into their stride, and leave
her ruined and crushed while she turned to meet the menace from the
East. She counted on winning the hegemony of Europe before she could be
checked by a combination ready to meet her on more than level terms.
There she made the first and greatest of her mistakes, a mistake from
the effects of which she can never recover.
And will anyone contend that, in bringing the German design to hopeless
ruin, Britain has not played a worthy part? Will anyone be found bold
enough to assert that the position on the Continent to-day would not
have been very widely different if Britain had chosen the ignoble part
and refused to unsheath the sword in defence of those great principles
for which our forefathers in all ages have been ready to fight and to
die? Will anyone venture to express a doubt that, but for the
assistance of Britain, France must have been crushed? And, with France
helpless and Britain neutral, what would have been Russia's chance of
escaping disaster?
I need hardly say that I do not put these suggestions forward with any
idea of belittling the part--the very great and very heroic part--which
has been played in the great world-tragedy by France and Russia. But I
do seriously suggest--and French and Russian writers have been the first
generously to admit it--that England's assistance has made their
campaigns possible.
If we have not done the terrific fighting which has been done by France
and Russia, we have at least borne a very respectable share in the fray;
we can leave others to speak for us on this score. But we have
supported our Allies in other fields; we have, to a very large extent,
found the sinews of war; we have made of our land the workshop of the
Allies, and poured out a stream of munitions which has been of the
utmost value, even if it has not made all the difference between victory
and defeat. And, above all and beyond all, we have, by our sea power,
practically carried the campaigns of our Allies on our backs. Thanks to
our unchallenged supremacy afloat, the Allies have been able to move in
all parts of the world with a security unknown in any other war in
history. While the German Fleet skulks in the fastnesses of the Kiel
Canal, and the German flag has disappeared from the ocean highways of
the world, the ships of the Allies move almost unhindered on their daily
business, the endless supplies of men and munitions go to and fro
unchallenged except by the lurking submarines of the enemy, which, for
all their boastings, are powerless to affect vitally the ultimate issue
or to do more than inflict damage which, compared with the targets
offered them, is practically of no significance.
Has our country anything to be ashamed of in the contribution it has
thus made to the war for the liberation of civilisation from the
domination of brute force? Assuredly not. And when in the fullness of
time the opportunity is offered us for a more striking demonstration of
what British world-power means, I am confident that we shall see ample
proof that the spirit and temper of our race is as fine as ever, and
that we shall play a worthy part in the final overthrow of the common
enemy. In the meantime let us make an end of the constant stream of
self-depreciation which is far removed from real modesty and
self-respect; let us do our part in that stern and silent temper which
has for all time been part of our great heritage.
Stern work lies before us; the long-drawn agony is not yet even
approaching its close. But we can best help forward the end if we
approach our task not with empty boasting, not with perpetual
whimperings and self-reproach, but with the cool courage and dogged
determination which have carried us so far through the worst dangers
that have threatened us in the past, and which, if we play our part
without faltering, will yet bring us to a triumphant issue from the
perils which beset us to-day.