The husbandman and his new help have undergone mutual transformation. And
our cadet battalions are making themselves very much at home at Oxford and
Cambridge.
[Illustration: CADET: "Really, from the way these College Authorities make
themselves at home you'd think the place belonged to them."]
The Navy still remains the silent Service, but, as the need for reticence
is being relaxed by the triumph of our arms, we are beginning to learn
something, though unofficially as yet, of that "plaything of the Navy and
nightmare of the Huns"--the Q-boat:
She can weave a web of magic for the unsuspecting foe,
She can scent the breath of Kultur leagues away,
She can hear a U-boat thinking in Atlantic depths below
And disintegrate it with a Martian ray;
She can feel her way by night
Through the minefield of the Bight;
She has all the tricks of science, grave and gay.
In the twinkle of a searchlight she can suffer a sea-change
From a collier to a _Shamrock_ under sail,
From a Hyper-super-Dreadnought, old Leviathan at range,
To a lightship or a whaler or a whale;
With some canvas and a spar
She can mock the morning star
As a haystack or the flotsam of a gale.
She's the derelict you chartered north of Flores outward-bound,
She's the iceberg that you sighted coming back,
She's the salt-rimed Biscay trawler heeling home to Plymouth Sound,
She's the phantom-ship that crossed the moon-beams' track;
She's the rock where none should be
In the Adriatic Sea,
She's the wisp of fog that haunts the Skagerrack.
Recognition of services faithfully done is an endless task; but Mr. Punch
is glad to print the valedictory tribute of one of the boys in blue to a
V.A.D.--a class that has come in for much undeserved criticism.
While willy-nilly I must go
A-hunting of the Hun,
You'll carry on--which now I know
(Although I've helped to rag you so)
Means great work greatly done.
Among the minor events of the month has been the christening of a baby by
the names of Grierson Plumer Haig French Smith-Dorrien, as its father
served under these generals. The idea is, no doubt, to prevent the child
when older from asking: "What did you do in the Great War, Daddy?"
England, as we have already said, endures its triumphs with composure. But
our printers are not altogether immune from excitement. An evening paper
informs us that "the dwifficuplties of passing from rigid trench warfare to
field warfare are gigantic and perhaps unsurmountable." And only our innate
sense of comradeship deters us from naming the distinguished contemporary
which recently published an article entitled: "The Importance of Bray."
_October, 1918_.
THE growing _crescendo_ of success has reached its climax in this, the
most wonderful month of our _annus mirabilis._ Every day brings
tidings of a new victory. St. Quentin, Cambrai, and Laon had all been
recaptured in the first fortnight. On the 17th Ostend, Lille, and Douai
were regained, Bruges was reoccupied on the 19th, and by the 20th the
Belgian Army under King Albert, reinforced by the French and Americans, and
with the Second British Army under General Plumer on the right, had
compelled the Germans to evacuate the whole coast of Flanders. The Battle
of Liberation, which began on the Marne in July, is now waged
uninterruptedly from the Meuse to the sea. Only in Lorraine has the advance
of the American Army been held up by the difficulties of the _terrain_
and the exceptionally stubborn resistance of the Germans.
Elsewhere the "war of movement" has gone on with unrelenting energy
according to Foch's plan, which suggests a revision of Pope:
Great Foch's law is by this rule exprest,
Prevent the coming, speed the parting pest.
The German, true to his character of the world's worst loser and winner,
leaves behind him all manner of booby-traps, some puerile, many diabolical,
which give our sappers plenty of work, cause a good many casualties, and
only confirm the resolve of the victors.
According to a German paper--the _Rhenish Westphalian
Gazette_--ex-criminals are being drafted into the German Army. But the
Allies propose to treat them without invidious distinction. The Crown
Prince recently observed that he had "many friends in the Entente
countries"; as a matter of fact, we seem to be getting them at the rate of
about twenty-five thousand a week. The criminals in the German Navy have
again been busy, adding to their previous exploits the sinking of the
passenger steamer _Leinster_, in the Irish Channel, with heavy loss of
life, the worst disaster of the kind since the torpedoing of the
_Lusitania_. Yet it is Germany that is the sinking ship. Ferdinand of
Bulgaria has joined the League of Abdication, and according to a Sofia
telegram, will devote himself to scientific pursuits. His only regret is
that the Allies thought of it first. Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse says
that his accession to the throne of Finland will not take place for two
years, and for the first time since his emergence into publicity we find
ourselves in agreement with this monarch-elect. Ludendorff has resigned.
Austria is suing for peace; Count Tisza asks: "Why not admit frankly that
we have lost the War?" The Italians have crossed the Piave, and the
Serbians have reached the Danube. Turkey has been granted an armistice, and
with the daily victories of the Allies comes the daily report that the
Kaiser has abdicated.
[Illustration: SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN
MARSHAL FOCH (to Messrs. Clemenceau, Wilson and Lloyd George): "If you're
going up that road, gentlemen, look out for booby-traps."]
Prince Max of Baden, the successor of Hertling in the Chancellorship, whose
appointment hardly bears out the promise of popular government, has issued
a pacific Manifesto which inspires an "Epitaph in anticipation":
In memory of poor Prince Max,
Who, posing as the friend of Pax,
Yet was not noticeably lax
In the true Teuton faith which hacks
Its way along; forbidden tracks,
Marks bloody dates on almanacs
And holds all promises as wax;
Breeding, where once we knew Hans Sachs,
A race of monomaniacs....
But now illusion's mirror cracks,
The radiant vision fades, the axe
Lies at the root. So farewell, Max!
Certain people have proclaimed their opinion that the German nation ought
not to be humiliated. When all is said, Mr. Punch saves his pity for our
murdered dead.
Parliament has met again, not that there is any very urgent need for their
labours just now. With a caution that seemed excessive Mr. Bonar Law has
thought it premature to discuss a military situation changing every
hour--though happily always for the better--or even to propose a formal
Vote of Thanks to men who are daily adding to their harvest of laurels. On
better grounds discussion of Mr. Wilson's famous "fourteen points" and of
demobilisation has been deprecated. The suggestion--made opportunely on
Trafalgar Day--for securing marks of distinction for our merchant seamen
gained a sympathetic hearing, and the proposal to make women eligible for
Parliament has been carried after a serious debate by an overwhelming
majority in which the _ci-devant_ anti-suffragists were as prominent
as the others. Five years ago such a motion would have furnished an orgy of
alleged humour, and been laughed out of the House. Mr. Dillon and his
colleagues have put a great many questions about the torpedoing of the
_Leinster_ and the lack of an escort. But it is unfortunate that their
tone suggested more indignation with the alleged laches of the Admiralty
than horror at the German crime. Irish indignation over the outrage,
according to a Nationalist M.P., is intense; but not to the point of
expressing itself in khaki.
[Illustration: Die Nacht am Rhein]
[Illustration: PROSPEROUS IRISH FARMER: "And what about the War, your
Riverence? Do ye think it will hould?"]
The woes of the Irish harvest labourers in England have not yet been fully
appreciated, and seem to demand a revised version of "Moira O'Neill's"
beautiful poem: