But Germany does not merely talk. She has been indulging in drastic
reprisals in consequence of Mr. Winston Churchill's memorandum on the
captured submarine crews. As a result 39 imprisoned British officers,
carefully selected, have been subjected to solitary confinement under
distressing conditions in return for Mr. Churchill's having hinted at
possible severities which were never carried out. Moral: Do not threaten
unless you mean to act. The retirement of Mr. Churchill to the seclusion of
the Duchy of Lancaster and the appointment of Mr. Balfour to the First
Lordship of the Admiralty afford hope that the release of the Thirty-Nine
from their special hardship will not be unduly postponed. The Coalition
Government is shaking down. A Ministry of Munitions has been created, with
Mr. Lloyd George in charge; and members of the Cabinet have decided to pool
their salaries with a view to their being divided equally. Mr. McKenna has
made his first appearance as Chancellor of the Exchequer and introduced a
Bill authorising the raising of a War Loan unlimited in extent, but, being
a man of moderate views, will be satisfied if nine hundred millions are
forthcoming. Lord Haldane has been succeeded in the Lord Chancellorship by
Lord Buckmaster, having caused by one unfortunate phrase a complete
oblivion of all the services rendered by his creation of the Territorial
system. The cry for "more men" has now changed to one for "more shells,"
and certain newspapers, always in search of a scapegoat, have entered on a
campaign directed against Lord Kitchener, the very man whom a few short
months ago they hailed as the saviour of the situation. Finding that the
public cannot live on their hot air, they are doing their best to make our
flesh creep and keep our feet cold. Let us hope that K. of K. will find the
Garter some slight protection against this hitting below the belt.
The Russian retreat continues, but there is no _débâcle._ Greece shows
signs of returning sanity in the restoration to power of her one strong
man, M. Venizelos. If there were a few more like him then (to adapt Porson)
"the Germanised Greek would be sadly to seek." As it is, he flourishes
exceedingly, under the patronage of a Prussianised Court.
In Gallipoli the deadly struggle goes on; our foothold has been
strengthened by bitter fighting and our lines pushed forward for three
miles by a few hundred yards--a big advance in modern trench warfare.
Blazing heat and a plague of flies add to the discomforts of our men, but a
new glory has been added to the ever growing vocabulary of the war in
"Anzac." There is a lull on the Western front, if such a word properly can
be applied to the ceaseless activities of the war of position, of daily
_strafe_ and counter-_strafe_.
At home, khaki weddings are becoming common form. By an inversion of the
old order the bride is now eclipsed by the bridegroom:
'Tis well: the lack of fine array
Best fits a sacrificial altar;
Her man to-morrow joins the fray,
And yet she does not falter;
Simple her gown, but still we see
The bride in all her bravery.
Society is losing much of its snap through the political truce. It is all
very well to talk of the lion lying down with the lamb, but of course it
makes life a distinctly duller business both for the lion and the lamb when
each has lost his or her dearest enemy. For the rest, there is a brisk
trade in anti-gas respirators, "lonely soldiers" are becoming victimised by
fair correspondents, and a new day has been added to the week--flag day.
Proverb for the month, suggested by the activities of the Imperial
infanticide: "The hand that wrecks the cradle rules the world."
_July, 1915_.
The last month of the first year of the war brings no promise of a speedy
end; it is not a month of great battles on land or sea, but rather of omens
and foreshadowings, good and evil. To the omens of victory belongs the
sinking of the _Pommern_, named after the great maritime province, so
long coveted by the Brandenburgers, the makers of Prussia and the true
begetters of Prussianism. Of good omen, too, has been the "clean sweep"
made by General Botha in German South-West Africa, where the enemy
surrendered unconditionally on July 9. And though the menace of the U-boat
grows daily, there _may_ be limits to America's seemingly
inexhaustible forbearance. There are happily none to the fortitude of our
bluejackets and trawlers.
Pundits in the Press, fortified by warnings from generals in various Home
Commands, display an increasing preoccupation with the likelihood of
invasion by sea. Mr. Punch naturally inclines to a sceptical attitude,
swayed by long adherence to the views of the Blue Water School and the
incredulousness of correspondents engaged in guarding likely spots on the
East Coast. With runaway raids by sea we are already acquainted, and their
growing frequency from the air is responsible for various suggested
precautions, official and otherwise--pails of sand and masks and
anti-asphyxiation mixtures--which are not viewed with much sympathy in the
trenches. _There_ the men meet the most disconcerting situations--as,
for example, the problem of spending a night in a flooded meadow occupied
by a thunderstorm--with irrelevant songs or fantasias on the mouth-organ.
[Illustration: FIRST TRAWLER SKIPPER (to friend who is due to sail by next
tide): "Are ye takin' any precautions against these submarines, Jock?"
SECOND SKIPPER: "Ay! Although I've been in the habit o' carryin' my bits of
bawbees wi' me, I went an' bankit them this mornin', an' I'm no taking ma
best oilskins or ma new seaboots."
FIRST SKIPPER; "Oh, _you're_ a'richt then. Ye'll hae practically
nothin' tae lose but yer life."]
Oh, there ain't no band to cheer us up, there ain't no Highland pipers
To keep our warlike ardure warm round New Chapelle and Wipers,
So--since there's nothing like a tune to glad the 'eart o' man,
Why Billy with his mouth-organ 'e does the best 'e can.
Wet, 'ungry, thirsty, 'ot or cold, whatever may betide 'im,
'E'll play upon the 'ob of 'ell while the breath is left inside 'im;
And when we march up Potsdam Street, and goose-step through Berlin,
Why Billy with 'is mouth-organ 'e'll play the Army in!
[Illustration: THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA
SINBAD THE KAISER: "This submarine business is going to get me into trouble
with America; but what can an All-Powerful do with a thing like this on his
back?"]
When officers come home on leave and find England standing where she did,
their views support the weather-beaten major who said that it was "worth
going to a little trouble and expense to keep _that_ intact." But you
can hardly expect people who live in trenches which have had to be rebuilt
twice daily for the last few months and are shelled at all hours of the day
or night, to compassionate the occasional trials of the home-keeping
bomb-dodger. The war, as it goes on, seems to bring out the best and the
worst that is in us. South Wales responded loyally to the call for
recruits, yet 200,000 miners are affected by the strike fever.
The House, where party strife for a brief space was hushed by mutual
consent, is now devastated by the energies of indiscreet, importunate,
egotistic or frankly disloyal question-mongers. We want a censorship of
Parliamentary Reports. The Press Bureau withholds records of shining
courage at the front lest they should enlighten the enemy, but gives full
publicity to those
Who give us words in lieu of deeds,
Content to blather while their country bleeds.
There is, however, some excuse for those importunates who wish to know on
what authority the Premier declared at Newcastle that neither our Allies
nor ourselves have been hampered by an insufficient supply of munitions. In
two months' fighting in Gallipoli our casualties have largely exceeded
those sustained by us during the whole of the Boer War. And financial
purists may be pardoned for their protests against extravagant expenditure
in view of the announcement that the war is now costing well over three
millions daily. The idea of National Registration has taken shape in a
Bill, which has passed its second reading. The notion of finding out what
everyone can do to help his country in her hour of need is excellent. But
the Government do not seem to have realised that half a million volunteer
soldiers have been waiting and ready for a job for the last six months:
And when at last you come and say
"What can you do? We ask for light
On any service you can pay,"
The answer is: "_You_ know all right,
And all this weary while you knew it;
The trouble was you wouldn't let us do it."
The German Press is not exactly the place where one expects to find
occasion for merriment. Yet listen to this from the _Neueste
Nachrichten_: "Our foes ask themselves continuously, How can we best get
at Germany's vital parts? What are her most vulnerable points? The answer
is, her humanity--her trustful honesty." Here, on the other hand, thousands
of people, by knocking months and years off their real age, have been
telling good straightforward lies for their country. At the Front euphemism
in describing hardship is mingled with circumlocution in official
terminology. Thus one C.O. is reported to refer to the enemy not as Germans
but "militant bodies of composite Teutonic origin."
A new and effectual cure for the conversion of pessimists at home has been
discovered. It is simply to out-do the prophets of ill at their own game.
The result is that they seek you out to tell you that an enemy submarine
has been sunk off the Scillies or that the Crown Prince is in the Tower. It
is the old story that optimists are those who have been associating with
pessimists and _vice versâ_. But seriousness is spreading. We are told
that even actresses are now being photographed with their mouths shut,
though one would have thought that at such a time all British
subjects--especially the "Odolisques" of the variety stage--ought to show
their teeth.
_August_, 1915.
Ordinary anniversaries lead to retrospect: after a year of the greatest of
all wars it is natural to indulge in a stock-taking of the national spirit,
and comforting to find that, in spite of disillusions and disappointments,
the alternation of exultations and agonies, the soul of the fighting men of
England remains unshaken and unconquerable. Three of the Great Powers of
Europe espoused the cause of Liberty a year ago; now there are four, and
the aid of Italy in engaging and detaching large Austrian forces enables us
to contemplate with greater equanimity a month of continuous Russian
withdrawal, and the tragic loss of Warsaw and the great fortresses of
Novo-Georgievsk and Brest-Litovsk. And if there is no outward sign of the
awakening of Germany, no slackening in frightfulness, no abatement in the
blasphemous and overweening confidence of her Ruler and his War-lords who
can tell whether they have not moments of self-distrust?
* * * * *
THE WAYSIDE CALVARY. August 4th, 1915.
Now with the full year Memory holds her tryst,
Heavy with such a tale of bitter loss
As never Earth has suffered since the Christ
Hung for us on the Cross.
If God, O Kaiser, makes the vision plain;
Gives you on some lone Calvary to see
The Man of Sorrows Who endured the pain
And died to set us free--
How will you face beneath its crown of thorn
That figure stark against the smoking skies,
The arms outstretched, the sacred head forlorn,
And those reproachful eyes?
How dare confront the false quest with the true,
Or think what gulfs between the ideals lie
Of Him Who died that men may live--and you
Who live that man may die?
Ah, turn your eyes away; He reads your heart;
Pass on and, having done your work abhorred,
Join hands with JUDAS in his place apart,
You who betrayed your Lord.
* * * * *
It is the way of modern war that we know little of what is going on, least
of all on sea. Some of our sailormen have had their chance in the
Heligoland Bight, off the Dogger Bank and Falkland Isles, and in the
Dardanelles. It is well that we should remember what we owe to the patient
vigil of their less fortunate comrades, the officers and men of the Grand
Fleet, and to the indefatigable and ubiquitous activities of the ships
officially classified as "Light Cruisers (Old)":
[Illustration: AFTER ONE YEAR]
From Pole unto Pole, all the oceans between,
Patrolling, protecting, unwearied, unseen,
By night or by noonday, the Navy is there,
And the out-of-date cruisers are doing their share,
The creaky old cruisers whose day is not done,
Built some time before Nineteen-hundred-and-one.
At any rate, we know for certain that British submarines have made their
way into the Baltic, a "sea change" extremely disquieting to the Germans,
who, for the rest, have suffered in a naval scrap in the Gulf of Riga with
the Russians. On the Western front our troops are suffering from two
plagues--large shells and little flies. These troubles have not prevented
them from scoring a small though costly success at Hooge. From Gallipoli
comes the news of fresh deeds of amazing heroism at Suvla Bay and Anzac.
The war of Notes goes on with unabated energy between Germany and the
U.S.A. At home a brief period has been set to the pernicious activities of
importunate inquisitors by the adjournment of the House till mid-September.
"Dr. Punch" is of opinion that the Mother of Parliaments is sorely in need
of a rest and needs every hour of a seven weeks' holiday. In the Thrift
campaign, which has now set in, everybody expects that everybody else
should do his duty; and the universal eruption of posters imploring us to
subscribe to the War Loan indicates the emergence of a new Art--that of
Government by advertisement. To the obvious appeals to duty, patriotism,
conscience, appeals to shame, appeals romantic and even facetious are now
added. It may be necessary, but the method is not dignified. All that can
be said is that "Govertisement," or government by advertisement, is better
than Government by the Press, a new terror with which we are daily
threatened.
Mr. Winston Churchill, the greatest of our quick-change political artists,
is said to be devoting his leisure to landscape painting. The particular
school that he favours is not publicly stated, but we have reason to
believe that he intends to be a Leader.
The Archbishop of Cologne says that, on being congratulated on his Eastern
successes, the Kaiser "turned his eyes to heaven with the most
indescribable expression of intense gratitude and religious fervour." Yes,
we can quite imagine that it beggared description. But there is no
difficulty in finding the right phrase for his address to the inhabitants
of Warsaw: "We wage war only against hostile troops, not against peaceful
citizens." It is not "_splendide mendax_." That is the due of boys who
overstate, and men who understate, their age in order to serve their
country in the field.
[Illustration: OFFICER (to boy of thirteen who, in his effort to get taken
on as a bugler, has given his age as sixteen): "Do you know where boys go
who tell lies?"