THE OPENING OF THE WAR
There can be no doubt that if Germany had confined her operations to
an attack upon France without any infraction of Belgian neutrality,
the situation in Great Britain would have been extraordinarily
difficult. The Government was the most democratic that has ever been
known in our political history, and it owed its power to an
electorate, many of whom were passionate advocates for peace at
almost any conceivable price. The preparations for naval war,
necessitated by the ever-growing German power, had been accompanied
and occasionally retarded by a constant murmur of remonstrance which
swelled periodically into a menacing expostulation. McKenna and
Churchill found their only opponents in the members of their own
party, who persistently refused to look obvious facts in the face,
and impatiently swept aside the figures of the German armaments while
they indulged in vague and amiable aspirations towards international
friendship. This large and energetic party would certainly have most
strenuously resisted British interference in a Continental war. The
statesmen who foresaw that the conquest of France would surely lead
to the conquest of Britain {32} might have carried the country with
them, but none the less they would have gone to war with such an
incubus upon them as the traitorous Charles James Fox and his party
had been in the days of Napoleon. A disunited British against a
united German Empire would have been a grievous disadvantage, be our
allies who they might, for, as Shakespeare sang, "If England to
herself be true," it is then only that she is formidable.
This great misfortune, however, was obviated by the policy of
Germany. The most peace-loving Briton could not face the national
dishonour which would have been eternally branded upon him had his
country without an effort allowed its guarantee to be treated as
waste paper by a great military nation. The whole people were welded
into one, and save for a few freakish individuals who obeyed their
own perversity of mind or passion for notoriety, the country was
united as it has never been in history. A just war seemed to touch
the land with some magic wand, which healed all dissensions and
merged into one national whole those vivid controversies which are,
in fact, a sign rather of intense vitality than of degeneration. In
a moment the faddist forgot his fad, the capitalist his grievance
against taxation, the Labour man his feud against Capital, the Tory
his hatred of the Government, even the woman her craving for the
vote. A political millennium seemed to have dawned. Best and most
important of all was the evident sign that the work done of late
years to win the friendship of Ireland had not been in vain. If the
mere promise of domestic institutions has ranged all responsible
Irishmen upon one side on the day of battle, what may we not hope for
ourselves {33} and for the Empire when they have been fully
established and Time has alleviated the last lingering memories of an
evil past? It is true that at a later period of the war this fair
prospect was somewhat overcast by an insane rebellion, in which the
wrongs of Ireland, once formidable and now trivial, were allowed by a
colossal selfishness to outweigh the martyrdom of Belgium and the
mutilation of France. Still the fact remains (and it must sustain us
in our future efforts for conciliation) that never before have we had
the representative nationalists of Ireland as our allies in a great
struggle.
The leaders of the Unionist party, Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Bonar Law,
had already, on August 2, signified to the Government that they
considered Britain to be honour-bound to France, and would support
without hesitation every practical step to give effect to the
alliance. Fortified by this assurance, the Government could go
strongly forward. But after the Belgian infraction, its position was
that of the executive of a united nation. Sir Edward Grey's analysis
in Parliament of the causes which had brought us to war convinced the
reason and claimed the sympathy of every political party, and even
the most fervent advocates of peace found themselves silenced in the
presence of the huge German aggression which could never admit of a
peace founded upon mutual respect and equality, but only of that
which comes from ascendancy on the one side and helplessness upon the
other.
Should Britain ever be led into an unjust war, she will soon learn it
from the fearless voices of her children. The independent young
nations which are rising under the red-crossed flag will not be
dragged, {34} in the train of the Mother-Country, into any enterprise
of which their conscience does not approve. But
now their assent was whole-hearted. They were
vehement in their approval of the firm stand made for the pledged
word of the nation. From every quarter of the world deep answered
deep in its assurance that the sword should not be sheathed until the
wrong was righted and avenged.
Strong, earnest Canada sent her 30,000 men, with her promise of more.
Fiery Australia and New Zealand prepared as many, Maori vying with
white man in his loyalty to the flag. South Africa, under the
splendid leadership of Botha, began to arm, to speak with the foe in
her own gates. India poured forth money and men with a lavish
generosity which can never be forgotten in this country. The throb
of loyalty to the old land passed through every smallest Dependency,
and then beyond the frontier to those further lands which had known
us as a just and kindly neighbour. Newfoundland voted a contingent.
Ceylon sent of her best. Little Fiji mustered her company of
fighting men, and even the mountains of Nepaul and the inaccessible
plateaux of Thibet were desirous of swelling that great host,
gathered from many races, but all under the one banner which meant to
each a just and liberal rule.
On the very eve of the outbreak of hostilities one man was added to
the home establishment whose presence was worth many army corps.
This was Lord Kitchener, whose boat was actually lying with steam up
to bear him away upon a foreign mission, when, at the last instant,
either the universal public demand or the good sense of the
Government recalled him to take supreme charge of the war. It was a
{35} strange and a novel situation that a soldier who was no party
politician should assume the role of War Minister in a political
Cabinet, but the times called for decided measures, and this was
among them. From that day onwards until the dark hour which called
him from his uncompleted task the passer-by who looked up at the
massive front of the War Office was gladdened by the thought that
somewhere in the heart of it those stern, immutable eyes were looking
out at Britain's enemies, and that clear, calculating brain was
working for their downfall. Slow, safe, methodical, remorseless,
carefully preparing the means at every stage that led him to the
distant but preordained end, he had shown, both in the Soudan and
South Africa, that the race of great British generals was not yet
extinct. He knew and trusted his instrument even as it knew and
trusted him.
That instrument was an army which was remarkably well prepared for
its work. It cannot be said that the Boer War had increased the
prestige of the British forces, though only those who have studied
the subject can realise how difficult was the task with which they
were then faced, or how considerable an achievement it was to bring
it to a success. But the campaign had left behind it a valuable
legacy, all the richer because so great a proportion of the land
forces had been drawn into the struggle. In 1914 a large proportion
of senior officers and a considerable number of non-commissioned
officers and reservists had passed through that ordeal, and learned
by experience what can be done, and, even more important, what cannot
be done, in face of modern rifles in skilful hands.
The lesson had been well pressed home after the {36} war, and every
general, from Lord Roberts downwards, had laid emphasis upon the
importance of cover and of accuracy of fire. Apart from the sound
technical training of the soldiers, the administration of the Army
had, after an experimental period, fallen into the hands of Lord
Haldane, who has left his mark more deeply than any one since
Cardwell upon the formation of the land forces. A debt of gratitude
is owing to him for his clear thought and his masterful dispositions.
Had he been a prophet as well as organiser, he would no doubt have
held his hand before he made the smallest decrease of our regular
forces; but, on the other hand, by turning our haphazard, amateurish
volunteers into the workman-like Territorials, in forming the
invaluable Officers' Training Corps which tapped our public schools
for something better than athletic talent, and in rigidly defining
our expeditionary corps and providing the special reserves for its
reinforcements, he did work for which he can never adequately be
thanked. The weapon which he had fashioned was now thrust into the
strong right hand of the new Minister of War.
It is well to survey this weapon before we show how it was used. The
total personnel of the Army with its reserves called up was about
370,000 men. Of this 160,000 were set aside as an expeditionary
force, but only a portion of this number could be counted as
immediately available on the outbreak of war, though the system of
mobilisation had been brought to a fine point. It was hoped that
three army corps numbering about 110,000 men, with two divisions of
cavalry, about 10,000 horsemen, would be immediately available, petty
numbers as compared with the millions of the Continent, but highly
trained {37} professional soldiers, capable, perhaps, of turning the
balance in the clash of equal hosts. The rest of the Regular Army
had to provide garrisons for India, Egypt, Gibraltar, and other
dependencies, but it was hoped that in time nearly all of it would be
available for service.
Behind these first-line troops was the special reserve, something
under 100,000 in number, who were the immediate reinforcements to
fill the gaps of battle. Next in order came the Territorials, whose
full complement was 340,000 men. Unhappily at this time they were
nearly 100,000 under strength, and there are many who think that if
the National Service League in their earnest campaign, which was
inspired by a clear vision of the coming danger, had insisted upon a
great enlargement of this constitutional force, instead of agitating
for a complete change which presented practical and political
difficulties, their efforts would have been more fruitful. These
troops were raw, inexperienced, and only enlisted for home service,
but with a fine spirit they set to work at once to make themselves
efficient, and the great majority signified their readiness to go
anywhere at the country's call. Many brigades were sent abroad at
once to relieve the regulars in Egypt and India, while others were
ready to join the fighting line on the Continent after a few months,
where, as will be shown, they acquitted themselves remarkably well.
The enthusiasm for the war rapidly sent the numbers of the
Territorials up to nearly half a million. In addition to these
troops there was the promise of 70,000 highly trained men (one
quarter of whom were British regulars) from India. Canada,
Australia, and New Zealand came forward to offer some 60,000 {38} men
between them, with the promise of as many more as should be called
for. Brave and hardy, these were splendid raw material, though their
actual technical training was not, save in some special corps, more
advanced than that of the British Territorials. Altogether, the
British War Lord could see, at the very beginning of hostilities,
nearly 1,000,000 of men ready to his hand, though in very different
stages of efficiency.
But already he had conceived the idea of a campaign of attrition,
and, looking forward into the years, he was convinced that these
forces were insufficient. Some entirely new cadres must be
organised, which should have no limitations, but be as reliable an
instrument as the regular forces of the Crown. With a prescience
which found no counterpart either among our friends or our foes he
fixed three years as a probable term for the war, and he made
preparation accordingly. Early in August he called for half a
million fresh volunteers for the war, and early in October he had got
them. Still unsatisfied, he called for yet another half-million, and
before Christmas his numbers were again complete. It was a wonderful
autumn and winter in Britain. Every common and green was loud with
the cries of the instructors, and bare with the tramp of the men.
Nothing has ever been seen in the world's history which can compare
in patriotic effort with that rally to the flag, for no bounty was
offered, and no compulsion used. The spirit of the men was
extraordinarily high. Regiments were filled with gentlemen who gave
up every amenity of life in order to face an arduous and dangerous
campaign, while even greater patriotism was shown by the countless
thousands of {39} miners, artisans, and other well-paid workmen who
sacrificed high wages and a home life in order to serve for an
indefinite time upon the humble pay of the soldier, leaving, very
often, a wife and children in straitened circumstances behind them.
It is at such times that a democratic country reaps the rich fruits
of its democracy, for if you make the land such that it is good to
live in, so also does it become good to die for. These forces could
not be ready, even with the best of wills, and the most intensive
culture, before the summer of 1915, but at that date, including her
sea forces, Great Britain had not less than 2,000,000 volunteers
under arms and ready for immediate use, a number which had risen to
4,000,000 by the end of that year, and 5,000,000 by the spring of
1916.
So much for the wise provisions of Lord Kitchener, which would have
been useless had they not been supported by a stern and
self-sacrificing national spirit. The crisis was met with a cold
determination which gave some superficial observers the impression
that the nation was listless, when it was, in truth, far too earnest
for mere shoutings or flag-waving. "Wakened at last!" cried some
foreign cartoon when a German outrage aroused the country for an
instant to some visible gleam of wrath. A deeper observer might have
known that a country which finds 5,000,000 volunteer fighters, and
which, instead of putting the expenses of the war upon future
generations, as was done by Germany, elects to meet a considerable
proportion of them by present taxation, is in grim earnest from the
start. The income tax was doubled without a remonstrance by a
unanimous vote of the Commons, thus finding an extra £40,000,000 a
year for the prosecution of the war. Other taxes {40} were levied by
which the working classes bore their fair share of the burden, and
they also elicited no complaints. Before Christmas no less than
£450,000,000 had been raised by a loan, a gigantic financial effort
which was easily borne at a charge of 4 per cent.
But if Britain was able to face the future with confidence, both in
finance and in her military preparation, it was entirely to her
silent, invisible, but most efficient Navy that she owed it. By wise
foresight the Grand Fleet, numbering some 400 vessels, had been
assembled for Royal inspection before the storm broke and when it was
but a rising cloud-bank upon the horizon. This all-important move
has been attributed to Prince Louis of Battenberg, First Sea Lord of
the Admiralty, but it could not have been done without the hearty
concurrence and cooperation of Mr. Winston Churchill, who should
share the honour, even as he would have shared the blame had we been
caught unawares. The so-called inspection had hardly been completed
at Spithead before war was upon us, and the Fleet, ready manned,
provisioned, and armed, moved straight away to take up its war
stations. The main fighting squadrons vanished into a strategic mist
from which they did not emerge for very many months, but it was
understood that they were assembled at centres like Scapa Flow and
Cromarty Firth which were outside the radius of the German
torpedo-boats and smaller submarines, while they were near enough to
the enemy's ports to be able to bring him to action should he emerge.
Numerous patrols of small vessels were let loose in the North Sea to
keep in touch with our opponents, {41} who were well known to be both
daring and active. It is said that no less than 3000 ships, large
and small, were flying the white ensign of St. George. A portion of
these were told off for the protection of the great commercial
sea-routes, and for the hunting down of some score of German cruisers
which were known to be at sea. Some of these gave a very good
account of themselves and others were innocuous; but the net result
in loss, which had been discounted in advance as 5 per cent of the
merchant fleet at sea, worked out at less than half that figure, and,
by the new year, the marauders had been practically exterminated.
Now as always--but now more than ever in the past--it was absolutely
vital to hold the seas. Who wins the sea wins Britain. Of every
five loaves in the country four come to us from abroad, and our
position in meat is no better. It is victory or starvation when we
fight upon the sea. It is ill to play for such stakes, however safe
the game--worse still when it is a game where the value of some of
the cards is unknown. We have little to fear from a raid, nothing
from invasion, everything from interference with our commerce. It is
one of the points in which our party politics, which blind so many
people to reason, might well have brought absolute ruin upon the
country. The cultivation of British food supplies should never have
been a question of free trade or protection, but rather of vital
national insurance.
Had the war come ten years later we might have been in deadly danger,
owing to the rapidly growing power of the submarine. These engines
turned upon our food-carriers might well have starved us out,
especially if we had continued our national folly in {42} being
scared by bogeys from building a Channel tunnel. But by a merciful
Providence the struggle came at a moment when the submarine was half
developed, and had not yet reached either the speed or the range of
action which would make it the determining factor in a war. As it
was, the fruits of submarine warfare, in spite of a wise and timely
warning on the eve of hostilities by Admiral Sir Percy Scott,
astonished the public, but the mischief done was a very small thing
compared to the possibilities which have to be most carefully guarded
against in the future.
In their present stage of development, the submarine could only
annoy. With the great fleet in existence and with the shipbuilding
facilities of Great Britain, nothing could vitally harm her save the
loss of a pitched battle. The British superiority was rather in her
small craft than in her large ones, but in capital ships she was able
to place in line at the beginning of the war enough to give a
sufficient margin of insurance. There was never any tendency to
under-rate the excellence of the hostile ships, nor the courage and
efficiency of the men. It was well understood that when they came
out they would give a good account of themselves, and also that they
would not come out until the circumstances seemed propitious. They
were under a disadvantage in that the Russian fleet, though small,
was not negligible, and therefore some portion of the German force on
sea as well as on land had always to face eastwards. Also the
British had the French for their allies, and, though the great ships
of the latter were nearly all in the Mediterranean, a swarm of small
craft was ready to buzz out of her western ports should the war come
down-channel.
{43}
Yet another advantage lay with the British in that their geographical
position put a six-hundred-mile-long breakwater right across the
entrance to Germany, leaving only two sally-ports north and south by
which commerce could enter or raiders escape. The result was the
immediate utter annihilation of Germany's sea-borne commerce.
Altogether it must be admitted that Germany was grievously
handicapped at sea, and that she deserves the more credit for
whatever she accomplished, save when, as on land, she transgressed
and degraded the recognised laws of civilised warfare. It is time
now to turn to those military events upon the Continent which were
the precursors of that British campaign which is the subject of this
volume.
Want of space and accurate material make it impossible to do justice
here to the deeds of our Allies, but an attempt must be made to
indicate briefly the main phases of the struggle abroad, since its
course reacted continually upon the British operations. It may be
shortly stated, then, that so far as the western theatre of war was
concerned, hostilities commenced by two movements, one an attack by
the French upon the occupants of those lost provinces for which they
had mourned during forty-four years, and the other the advance of the
Germans over the Belgian frontier.
The former was a matter of no great importance. It took two distinct
lines, the one from the Belfort region into Alsace, and the other
from Nancy as a centre into Lorraine. The Alsatian venture gained
some ground which was never wholly lost, and was adorned by one small
victory near Mulhausen before it was checked by the German defence.
The Lorraine {44} advance had also some initial success, but was
finally thrown back on August 20 in a severe action in which the
French were defeated. Luneville, across the French frontier, was
occupied by the Germans, but they made no headway, and their
subsequent attempts upon Nancy were repulsed by the army of General
Castelnau. General Pau, a fiery, one-armed septuagenarian, was the
French leader in the Alsatian invasion, but it was soon realised by
General Joffre that he and the bulk of his men would be more useful
at the vital point upon the northern frontier, to which early in
September they were transferred.
The main drama, however, quickly unfolded upon the Belgian frontier.
Speed and secrecy were vital to the German plans. On July 31, before
any declaration of war, and while the German representative at
Brussels was perjuring his soul in his country's service by
representing that no infringement was possible, three German army
corps, the seventh, ninth, and tenth, fully mobilised and highly
equipped, were moving up from their quarters so as to be ready for a
treacherous pounce upon their little neighbour whom they were pledged
to defend. Von Emmich was in command. On the night of Saturday,
August 1, the vanguard of the German armies, using motor traffic
followed by trains, burst through the neutral Duchy of Luxemburg, and
on August 3 they were over the Belgian line at Verviers. The
long-meditated crime had been done, and, with loud appeals to God,
Germany began her fatal campaign by deliberate perjury and arrogant
disdain for treaties. God accepted the appeal, and swiftly showed
how the weakest State with absolute right upon its side may bring to
naught all the crafty plottings of the strong.
{45}
For time was the essence of the situation. For this the innumerable
motors, for this the light equipment and the lack of transport. It
was on, on, at top speed, that there be no hindrance in the path of
the great hosts that soon would be closing up behind. But time was
life and death for the French also, with their slower mobilisation,
their backward preparation, and their expectations from Great
Britain. Time was the precious gift which little Belgium gave to the
Allies. She gave them days and days, and every day worth an army
corps. The Germans had crossed the Meuse, had taken Vise, and then
had rushed at Liége, even as the Japanese had rushed at Port Arthur.
With all their military lore, they had not learned the lesson which
was taught so clearly in 1904--that a fortress is taken by skill and
not by violence alone.
Leman, a great soldier, defended the forts built by Brialmont. Both
defender and designer were justified of their work. On August 5 the
seventh German Corps attempted to rush the gaps between the forts.
These gaps were three miles wide, but were filled with entrenched
infantry. The attack was boldly pressed home, but it completely
failed. The German loss was considerable. Two other corps were
called up, and again on August 7 the attack was renewed, but with no
better result. The defenders fought as befitted the descendants of
those Belgae whom Caesar pronounced to be the bravest of the Gauls,
or of that Walloon Guard which had so great a mediaeval reputation.
There were 25,000 in the town and 120,000 outside, but they were
still outside at the end of the assault.
Liége, however, had one fatal weakness. Its {46} garrison was far
too small to cover the ground. With twelve forts three miles apart
it is clear that there were intervals of, roughly, thirty-six miles
to be covered, and that a garrison of 25,000 men, when you had
deducted the gunners for the forts, hardly left the thinnest skirmish
line to cover the ground. So long as the Germans attacked upon a
narrow front they could be held. The instant that they spread out
there were bound to be places where they could march almost unopposed
into the town. This was what occurred. The town was penetrated, but
the forts were intact. General Leman, meanwhile, seeing that the
town itself was indefensible, had sent the garrison out before the
place was surrounded. Many a Belgian soldier fought upon the Yser
and helped to turn the tide of that crowning conflict who would have
been a prisoner in Germany had it not been for the foresight and the
decision of General Leman.
The Germans were in the town upon the 8th, but the forts still held
out and the general advance was grievously impeded. Day followed
day, and each beyond price to the Allies. Germany had secretly
prepared certain monstrous engines of war--one more proof, if proof
were needed, that the conflict had been prearranged and deliberately
provoked. These were huge cannon of a dimension never before
cast--42 centimetres in bore. More mobile and hardly less effective
were some smaller howitzers of 28-centimetre calibre said to have
come from the Austrian foundries at Skoda. Brialmont, when he
erected his concrete and iron cupolas, had not foreseen the Thor's
hammer which would be brought to crush them. One after another they
were smashed like {47} eggs. The heroic Leman was dug out from under
the debris of the last fort and lived to tell of his miraculous
escape. Liége was at last in the hands of the invaders. But already
the second week of August was at an end--the British were crowding
into France, the French line was thickening along the frontier--all
was well with the Allies. Little David had left a grievous mark upon
Goliath.
The German mobilisation was now complete, and the whole vast host,
over a million strong, poured over the frontier. Never was seen such
an army, so accurate and scientific in its general conception, so
perfect in its detail. Nothing had been omitted from its equipment
which the most thorough of nations, after years of careful
preparation, could devise. In motor transport, artillery, machine
guns, and all the technique of war they were unrivalled. The men
themselves were of high heart and grand physique. By some twisted
process of reasoning founded upon false information they had been
persuaded that this most aggressive and unnecessary of wars was in
some way a war of self-defence, for it was put to them that unless
they attacked their neighbours now, their neighbours would certainly
some day or other attack them. Hence, they were filled with
patriotic ardour and a real conviction that they were protecting
their beloved Fatherland. One could not but admire their
self-sacrificing devotion, though in the dry light of truth and
reason they stood forth as the tools of tyranny, the champions of
barbarous political reaction and the bullies of Europe. It was an
ominous fact that the troops were provided in advance with incendiary
discs for the firing of dwellings, which shows that the orgy of
destruction {48} and cruelty which disgraced the name of the German
Army in Belgium and in the north of France was prearranged by some
central force, whose responsibility in this matter can only be
described as terrific. They brought the world of Christ back to the
days of Odin, and changed a civilised campaign to an inroad of pagan
Danes. This wicked central force could only be the Chief Staff of
the Army, and in the last instance the Emperor himself. Had Napoleon
conducted his campaigns with as little scruple as William II., it can
safely be said that Europe as we know it would hardly exist to-day,
and the monuments of antiquity and learning would have been wiped
from the face of the globe. It is an evil precedent to be expunged
from the records for ever--all the more evil because it was practised
by a strong nation on a weak one and on a defenceless people by one
which had pledged themselves to defend them. That it was in no wise
caused by any actions upon the part of the Belgians is clearly proved
by the fact that similar atrocities were committed by the German Army
the moment they crossed the frontiers both of France and of Poland.
The Allies had more than they expected from Liége. They had less
from Namur. The grey-green tide of German invasion had swept the
Belgian resistance before it, had flooded into Brussels, and had been
dammed for only a very few days by the great frontier fortress,
though it was counted as stronger than Liége. The fact was that the
Germans had now learned their lesson. Never again would they imagine
that the _Furor Teutonicus_ alone could carry a walled city. The
fatal guns were brought up again and the forts were crushed with
mechanical precision, while the defenders between the forts, after
{49} enduring for ten hours a severe shelling, withdrew from their
trenches. On August 22 the fortress surrendered, some of General
Michel's garrison being taken, but a considerable proportion
effecting its retreat with the French Army which had come up to
support the town. By the third week of August the remains of the
Belgian forces had taken refuge in Antwerp, and the Germans, having
made a wide sweep with their right wing through Brussels, were
descending in a two-hundred-mile line upon Northern France.
The French plans had in truth been somewhat disarranged by the
Belgian resistance, for the chivalrous spirit of the nation would not
permit that their gallant friends be unsupported. Fresh dispositions
had been made, but the sudden fall of Namur brought them to naught.
Before that untoward event the French had won a small but indubitable
victory at Dinant, and had advanced their line from Namur on the
right to Charleroi on the left. With the fall of Namur their long
wall had lost its corner bastion, and they were at once vigorously
attacked by all the German armies, who forced the Sambre on August
22, carried Charleroi, and pushed the French back with considerable
loss of guns and prisoners along the whole line. There was defeat,
but there was nothing in the nature of a rout or of an envelopment.
The line fell back fighting tooth and nail, but none the less
Northern France was thrown open to the invaders. In this general
movement the British forces were involved, and we now turn to a more
particular and detailed account of what befell them during these most
momentous days.
{50}