It remains to trace in brief retrospect the record of "the months
between"--a period of test and trial almost as severe as that of the War.
Having steadfastly declined the solution of a Peace without Victory, the
Allies entered last November on the transitional period of Victory without
Peace. The fighting was ended in the main theatres of war, the Kaiser and
Crown Prince, discrowned and discredited, had sought refuge in exile, the
great German War machine had been smashed, and demobilisation began at a
rate which led to inevitable congestion and disappointment. The prosaic
village blacksmith was not far out when, in reply to the vicar's pious hope
that the time had come to beat our sword into a ploughshare, he observed,
"Well, I don't know, sir. Speaking as a blacksmith of forty-five years'
experience, I may tell you it can't be done." "The whole position is
provisional," said the _Times_ at the end of November. If Germany,
Austria, and Russia were to be fed, how was it to be done without
disregarding the prior claims of Serbia and Roumania? Even at home the food
question still continued to agitate the public mind.
The General Election of December, 1918, which followed the dissolution of
the longest Parliament since the days of Charles II., was a striking, if
temporary proof, of the persistence of the rationing principle. It proved a
triumph for the Coalition "Coupon" and for Mr. Lloyd George; the extremists
and Pacificists were snowed under; Mr. Asquith was rejected and his
followers reduced to a mere handful; Labour came back with an increased
representation, though not as great as it desired or deserved. The triumph
of the irreconcilables in Ireland was a foregone but sinister conclusion to
their activities in the War, and an ominous prelude to their subsequent
efforts to wreck the Pence. The pledges in regard to indemnities, the
treatment of the Kaiser, and conscription so lavishly given by the
Coalition Leaders caused no little misgiving at the time, and pledges, like
curses, have an awkward way of coming home to roost. Mr. Punch's views on
the Kaiser, expressed in his Christmas Epilogue, are worth recalling. Mr.
Punch did not clamour for the death penalty, or wish to hand him over to
the tender mercies of German Kultur. "The only fault he committed in German
eyes is that he lost the War, and I wouldn't have him punished for the
wrong offence--for something, indeed, which was our doing as much as his.
No, I think I would just put him out of the way of doing further harm, in
some distant penitentiary like the Devil's Island, and leave him to himself
to think it all over; as _Caponsacchi_ said of _Guido_ in 'The
Ring and the Book':
Not to die so much as slide out of life,
Pushed by the general horror and common hate
Low, lower--left o' the very edge of things."
[Illustration:
"Don't you think we ought to hang the Kaiser, Mrs. 'Arris?"
"It ain't the Kaiser I'm worrying about--it's the bloke what interjuiced
his war-bacon."]
[Illustration: REUNITED