SECOND DITTO: "Can't call it to mind, somehow. Was it that little village
in the wood there down by the river, or was it that place with the
cathedral and all them factories?"]
Amongst other items of news we have to chronicle the appointment of Mr.
Arnold Bennett as a Director of Propaganda, the steady growth of
goat-keeping, and the exactions of taxi-drivers. It is now suggested that
if one of these pirates should charge you largely in excess of his legal
fare, you should tell him that you have nothing less than a five-pound
note. If you have an honest face and speak kindly he will probably accept
the amount.
[Illustration: THE SANDS RUN OUT]
Mr. Bonar Law has been making trips to and from France by aeroplane. The
report that a number of members of the Opposition have been invited by the
Admiralty to make a descent in a depth-charge turns out to be unfounded.
The prospects of peace are being discussed on public platforms, but, as
yet, with commendable discretion. Mr. Roberts, our excellent Minister of
Labour, has made bold to say that "the happenings of the last six weeks
justify us in the belief that peace is much nearer than it was during the
earlier part of the year." And a weekly paper has offered a prize of £500
to the reader who predicts the date when the War will end. Meanwhile,
Hanover is said to have made Hindenburg a birthday present of a house in
the neighbourhood of the Zoological Gardens in that city, and we suggest
that before this gift is incorporated in the peace-terms the words "the
neighbourhood of" should be deleted.
_November, 1918_.
The end has come with a swiftness that has outdone the hopes of the most
sanguine optimists. In the first eleven days of November we have seen
history in the making on a larger scale and with larger possibilities than
at any time since the age of Napoleon, perhaps since the world began.
[Illustration: VICTORY!]
To take the chief events in order, the Versailles Conference opened on the
1st; on the 3rd Austria gave in and the resolve of the German Naval High
Command to challenge the Grand Fleet in the North Sea was paralysed by the
mutiny at Kiel; on the 5th the Versailles Conference gave full powers to
Marshal Foch to arrange the terms of an armistice, and President Wilson
addressed the last of his Notes to Germany; on the 6th the American Army
reached Sedan; on the 9th Marshal Foch received Erzberger and the other
German Envoys, the Berlin Revolution broke out, and the Kaiser abdicated;
on the 10th the Kaiser fled to Holland, and the British reached Mons. The
wheel had come full circle. The Belgian, British, French, and American
Armies now formed a semi-circle from Ghent to Sedan, and threatened to
surround the German Armies already in retreat and crowded into the narrow
valley of the Meuse. Everything was ready for Foch's final attack; indeed,
he was on the point of attacking when the Germans, recognising that they
were faced with the prospect of a Sedan ten times greater than that of
1870, signed on November 11 an armistice which was equivalent to a military
capitulation, and gave Marshal Foch all that he wanted without the heavy
losses which further fighting would have undoubtedly involved. He had shown
himself the greatest military genius of the War. Here, in the words of one
of his former colleagues at the Ecole de Guerre, he proved himself free
from the stains which have so often tarnished great leaders in war, the
lust of conquest and personal ambition. Not only the Allies, but the whole
world owes an incalculable debt to this soldier of justice, compact of
reason and faith, imperturbable in adversity, self-effacing in the hour of
victory. Glorious also is the record of the other French Generals: the
strong-souled Pétain, hero of Verdun; the heroic Maunoury; Castlenau and
Mangin, Gouraud. Debeney, and Franchet d'Esperey, Captains Courageous,
worthy of France, her cause, and her indomitable _poilus_. In the
record of acknowledgment France stands first since her sacrifices and
losses have been heaviest, and she gave us in Foch the chief organiser of
victory, in Clemenceau the most inspiring example of intrepid
statesmanship. But the War could not have been won without England and the
Empire; without the ceaseless vigil in the North Sea; without the heroes of
Jutland and Coronel, of the Falkland Isles and Zeebrugge, of the Fleets
behind the Fleet; without the services of Smith-Dorrien at Mons, French at
Ypres; without the dogged endurance, the inflexible will and the
self-sacrificing loyalty of Haig; the dash of Maude and Allenby; the
steadfast leadership in defence and offence of Plumer and Byng, Home and
Rawlinson and Birdwood.
[Illustration: OUR MAN