Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 Part 14

I was taken down one afternoon to Hatfield Park to see a demonstration of a certain flame-producing arrangement, of which they had ordered large numbers. This was a pleasant outing, and the demonstration was interesting enough in itself; but the elaborate contrivance seemed to me totally unsuited to the conditions on the Russian front, because the flame was only projected eighty yards--one was quite comfortable a hundred and fifty yards straight in front of the projector--and the device was only adapted to conditions such as had existed in the Gallipoli Peninsula and as held good at a very few points on the Western Front, where the opposing trenches happened to be quite close together. As a matter of fact, the contrivance had been found of very little use when tried by us in the field. Strong recommendations came to hand shortly afterwards from some of our officers accredited to the Russian armies that a goodly supply of trench mortars should be sent out, and particularly of the invaluable Stokes mortars; it was foreseen by the applicants that, once the pattern was available, these could easily be constructed locally in Russia. But one encountered the greatest difficulty in inducing the delegation in this country to have anything to say to the Stokes mortar, because of its comparatively short range. And yet the range of the very oldest pattern of Stokes mortar was five times that of the flame projector, upon which material and time and labour and tonnage were being wasted.

Then, again, there arose the question of tanks. Now a tank could not possibly at that time have been got along the Murmansk railway without squashing the whole track down for good and all into the marshes across which the permanent way was conveyed by precarious and provisional processes. Needless to say, we had no tanks to spare to be kept reposing idle for months at ports and congested junctions, awaiting transport to Vilna or Podolia. But as they could not get tanks, nor transport them if they were to secure some in this country, the Russians were anxious to procure drawings and specifications of these new-fangled engines of war. There was no reasonable likelihood of such a contraption ever being turned out in Russia owing to lack of raw material and to manufacturing difficulties, even supposing drawings and all the rest of it to be available. There were secrets in connection with the internals of a tank which must be zealously guarded. Under the circ.u.mstances, I suggested to the General Staff, when putting forward a request on behalf of the Commission for the paper stuff, that faked drawings and details should be furnished to keep the Russians quiet. This was done; but what was furnished would not have bluffed a novice in a select seminary for young ladies of weak intellect. So I sent the rubbish off to General Poole (who was representing this country out there in connection with the munitions that were arriving), telling him the facts of the case and leaving him to do as he thought fit. I was thus able to say, when pressed by the Commission, that this valuable doc.u.mentary material had already been sent straight to Poole. No doubt he put it all in the wastepaper-basket.

Sir A. Stern mentions in his book that he deemed it expedient to hand over a "child's drawing and incorrect details." It is satisfactory to find that he thought of adopting the exact course which I had proposed when originally putting forward the request on behalf of the Russians.

That reminds me of a droll incident that occurred in connection with a Russian delegate quite early in the war. We had no clear understanding with our Allies at that date with regard to the allocation of material between us, nor as to the imperative necessity of preventing anything in the shape of compet.i.tion in the British markets amongst us partners. The War Office had a certain article in mind that was being produced somewhere up north--at Manchester, I think, but anyway we will call it Manchester. The Russians happened to be after the same thing, and, without our knowing it, one of their officers who was in this country was about to enter into negotiations with the people up north with a view to securing it, and in due course he proceeded to Manchester with the purchase in view. But he was of an inquisitive disposition; he managed to get into some place or other to which he did not possess the entree. So, being a foreigner, he was promptly run in, and he spent about twenty-four hours incarcerated in some lock-up before he could establish his credentials. During that very twenty-four hours a representative of the War Office appeared in Manchester and snapped up what the captive was after.

The Russian Military Attache came to the War Office to enter a strong protest at the outrage of which his brother officer had been the victim. He evidently meant to kick up no end of a row, and he had just got into his stride and was going strong and well, when he suddenly went off into a tempest of giggles. He saw the humour of the situation. He was fully persuaded that we had deliberately arrested his friend so as to get him out of the way while we managed to push the deal through ourselves, and he evidently gave us gratifying credit for being so wide-awake. It was not the slightest use our explaining that this was one of those coincidences in real life which are stranger than fiction, that we had been wholly unaware that the Russian officer was even thinking about the article that we had secured, that we knew nothing whatever about him or his adventures.

The Military Attache was politeness itself; but he evidently did not believe a word we said--who, under the circ.u.mstances, would? Still, we had come out top-dog in the business, so we left it at that.

It must not be supposed that things never went wrong in spite of the elaborate system that we were adopting for transferring war material to Archangel under our control. Late in the autumn of 1916 I extracted out of von Donop a 9.2-inch howitzer and mounting all complete--he did not part readily with his goods--so as to send them on ahead and to afford the Russians an opportunity of learning the points of this ordnance, in antic.i.p.ation of the arrival of a regular consignment of the weapons which had been promised for a later date. But part of the concern somehow found its way into one ship and the rest of it into another ship, and one of the ships managed to get rid of her propeller in the North Sea, drifted aimlessly for a whole month, was believed to have foundered, and was eventually discovered and towed ignominiously back to one of our northern ports. She was lucky not to meet with a U-boat during her wanderings. The result was that the Russians received either a howitzer and no mounting or a mounting and no howitzer, I forget which, and the whole bag of tricks was not a.s.sembled at its destination until after part of the regular consignment of 9.2-inch howitzers had arrived in Petrograd about April.

In connection with this business of shipping goods to our eastern Ally, it should be mentioned that the sealing up of the port of Archangel and of the White Sea in general from about mid-November until well on in May--the exact period varied in different seasons, and depended to some extent upon the direction of the wind--complicated the problem. Some forty of our ships had been embedded in ice for months in these waters in the winter of 1915-16, and the Admiralty were taking no risks this time. It was not a question merely of getting a vessel to its destination, but also a question of getting her discharged and out of the trap before it snapped-to. That a railway had not been constructed to Murmansk years before, ill.u.s.trates the torpor and lack of enterprise of the ruling cla.s.ses in Russia.

Although Archangel is icebound somewhat longer, the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia likewise become impa.s.sable for navigation during the winter; so that for some months of the year maritime communication between northern portions of the empire and the outer world was almost necessarily to a great extent cut off. And yet all the time there existed a fine natural harbour of great extent on the Arctic coast which was never frozen over, simply asking to be made use of. Not until a state of affairs, which ought to have been foreseen, arose in actual war--the Baltic and exit from the Black Sea barred by hostile belligerents--was anything done. A British company was trying hard to obtain powers to construct a railway to Murmansk at the time of the outbreak of hostilities; but a line was not completed till more than two years had elapsed and was then of the most ramshackle character.

It was not only from the United Kingdom and from France that war material and other goods were being conveyed by sea to Russia, but also from America; and it was infinitely preferable for these latter to take the easterly route to the northern ports of the empire, than for them to take the westerly route across the Pacific to Vladivostok, involving a subsequent journey of thousands of miles along a railway that was very deficient in rolling stock. Matters in connection with Lord Kitchener's contracts in the United States were in the hands of Messrs. Morgan on the farther side of the Atlantic, with a Rus...o...b..itish Commission on the spot watching developments.

Responsibilities in connection with the transactions in this country had come under charge of the Ministry of Munitions. My branch noted progress, kept the General Staff informed, and represented the War Office in connection with the subject when questions arose. Experience of these huge American contracts fully bore out what had occurred at home in connection with the expansion of munitions production on the part of the War Office after the outbreak of war--only in a somewhat exaggerated form. Whereas in this country output began to intensify rapidly within twelve months and the credit was appropriated by Mr.

Lloyd George, owing to intensification for which the War Office was solely responsible taking place after the setting up of the Munitions Ministry, output only began really to sprout in the United States about sixteen months after the start. All, however (as already mentioned in the last chapter), was full of promise when the crash of the Revolution came to nullify what had been achieved.

Up to the date of that disastrous event, and even for a few weeks subsequently, one did one's best to accelerate the supply and the despatch of war material from this country to Archangel and, after the closing of that great port by ice, Murmansk, which was just beginning to serve as an avenue into the country owing to the completion--after a fashion--of its unstable railway. The Milner Mission had been as profuse in its pledges as it had been erratic in its antic.i.p.ations, and had committed itself to somewhat comprehensive engagements in connection with the furnishing of further war material. So that, almost synchronizing with the downfall of the Romanoff dynasty and the setting up of a new regime, this country found itself let in for diverting munitions of all sorts, in addition to what had already been promised, to an Ally in whom trust could no longer be placed. On one occasion in the course of the winter I had defeated the combined forces of Sir W. Robertson and the Master-General of the Ordnance before the War Cabinet over the question of deflecting a few howitzers to Russia. But one's point of view underwent a transformation subsequent to the dire events of March in Petrograd. So far from pushing the claims of the revolutionary government for war material, it then seemed expedient to act as a drag on the wheel, and to take the side of the C.I.G.S. and General Furse when Lord Milner from time to time pressed the question of sending out armament. The War Office deprecated depriving our own troops of munitions for the sake of trying to bolster up armies that were disintegrating apace owing to the action of Kerensky and his like. It was very disappointing--apart from the threatening political situation, prospects had seemed so good in Russia. But all the endeavours that had been made to a.s.sist during the previous few months were evidently going to be to no purpose. Just when the despatch of what our Ally required had been got on a thoroughly sound footing, the organization was to prove of no avail.

Still, there was always Roumania to be thought of, even if the problem of getting goods through to that country in face of the chaos which was rapidly making way in Russia was almost becoming insoluble. The French, like ourselves, were most anxious to afford succour to that stricken kingdom. Amongst other things, they requested us to send off to Moldavia a certain consignment (thirty, I think it was) of 6-inch howitzers, which M. Thomas declared Mr. Lloyd George had promised him for the French army. But the worst of it was, there was a difference of opinion in regard to this reputed undertaking. The stories of these two eminent public servants clashed in a very important particular, for our man strenuously denied ever having committed himself to the alleged engagement. On only one point, indeed, were the pair in full agreement, and this was that the discussion in connection with the matter had taken place after luncheon.

Bearing in mind Mr. Lloyd George's irrepressible pa.s.sion for pleasing, and taking the fact into account that generosity with what belongs to somebody else is in the United Kingdom recognized as the masterstroke of Radical statesmanship, there did seem to be just a last possibility of M. Thomas having right on his side. Still, expansiveness, fantasy and oblivion serve for epilogue to a grateful midday meal, and, when all is said and done, possession is nine points of the law--we had the howitzers, so it was for the other party to get them out of us. But we should, no doubt, have sent them out to our Roumanian friends in due course had it not become virtually impracticable to get such goods through from the North Russian ports by the date that the subject came up for final decision.

It has to be confessed that all of our Continental Allies were not quite so well disciplined in the matter of procuring goods in this country as were the Russians. As time went on and raw material and manufactured commodities began to run short in the United Kingdom, _traca.s.series_ would from time to time arise in connection with certain rules which had been laid down in the interests of us all. The delegations manifested a highly inconvenient bent for purchasing in the open market, which did not by any means suit our book, as such procedure tended to run up prices and to disturb equilibrium. The trade, moreover, was ready enough to meet them, and occasionally to let them have goods more quickly and even cheaper than they could be procured through the authorized channels. A firm att.i.tude had to be taken up in regard to this, even if it led to some misunderstandings.

In the case of one of our pals (who shall be nameless) it was like fly-fishing for oysters on the Horse Guards Parade to try to extract receipts for goods received; an embargo had, indeed, to be placed on further issues until overdue receipts were handed in.

But the United States representatives were always particularly considerate and helpful. When they came to be dealing with us on at least as great a scale as any other Ally, their delegates appreciated the position that this country was in, and they took full cognizance of the risks that we were incurring of running out of vital commodities altogether unless disposal of these was kept under rigid control. They always fell in readily with our requirements, inconvenient as some of these may have proved. Still, all our friends were alike in one respect--they were all of them intent upon getting their full money's worth. As a pillar of literary culture in khaki, indeed, remarked to me in this connection; "They must, like f.a.gin in the 'Merchant of Venice,' have their pound of flesh." Such difficulties as arose could generally be smoothed over by personal intercourse, and the head of the Commission Internationale de Ravitaillement could charm the most unruly member of his flock to eat out of his hand by dint of tact and kindness.

It was just at the time when I was acting as D.C.I.G.S. in the summer of 1917 that the French suddenly wired over to the War Office to request us to send representatives to Paris to discuss with them what we were prepared to let Greece have, now that the h.e.l.lenes had come down off the fence and were going to afford active a.s.sistance to the Allies in the Balkans, but stood in need of equipment and of supplies of all kinds. Had I been free at the time, I should have proposed to go even though our new friends wanted clothing, personal equipment, transport, animals and food--goods with which my branch had nothing to do--rather than munitions. As it was, a couple of senior officers went over who had no proper authority to act, and who hardly knew the ropes. The Commission Internationale de Ravitaillement was forgotten altogether, and as for the poor dear old Treasury, not only was that Department of State treated with scorn, but the Lords Commissioners were not even informed, when our delegates were retrieved from the Gay City, that a casual sort of agreement, which _inter alia_ involved appreciable financial obligations, had been entered into with our friends on the other side of the Channel. No determinate Convention of any kind or sort was drawn up or signed, what had been provisionally promised remained for a long time in a condition of ambiguity, and the transaction as a whole cannot be claimed as one of the cardinal achievements of the War Office during the course of the four years' conflict.

The French undertook to find almost all the requisite armament; that we did not mean to find any was about the only point that was clearly laid down during the Paris negotiations, although this was altered later. My branch was therefore little concerned in the business until, as has been mentioned on p. 216, the dilemma that various departments were in over the affair was thrust before the War Cabinet, and steps were taken to get something done. Even then, it took some weeks before we arrived at a clear understanding with the French and the Greeks as to what exactly we were going to provide, and before a proper Convention was tabled. Much time was therefore wasted, and time must not be wasted in time of war.

Then, when it had at last been established what goods this country was to provide, there was fresh and almost unaccountable dilatoriness in certain quarters in furnishing important commodities, although the military departments of the War Office grappled with their side of the problem and overcame serious difficulties with commendable despatch.

General R. Reade had been sent out to Athens to look after things at that end, and he with his a.s.sistants kept us fully informed of requirements and of progress; but he had to put up with a procrastination at this end which was unquestionably preventible. One has to face uphill jobs from time to time in the army; but in thirty-six years of active service I never wrestled with so uphill a job as that of trying, in the year of grace 1918, to get our share of the fitting out of the h.e.l.lenic forces fulfilled. The only thing to be said is that the French, who had easier problems to contend with and less to do than we had, were almost equally behindhand. But the result of it all was that, of the 200,000 troops whom, entirely apart from reserves, the Greek Government were prepared to ma.s.s on the fighting front if only they could be fitted out, barely half were actually in the field when (fortunately for those who were responsible for mismanaging the despatch of the requisite supplies from this country and from France) the Bulgarians realized that the game of the Central Powers was up, and they virtually threw up the sponge.

In so far as Serbia was concerned, a detailed Convention had been drawn up with the French in 1916, clearly indicating what the two respective Governments were to furnish for the service of Prince Alexander's war-worn troops. Under the terms of this agreement, we were concerned chiefly with the question of food and forage; but we also, needless to say, provided the bulk of the shipping on which the Serbian contingents depended for their existence. They, as it happened, came to be none too well equipped, and it was a pity perhaps that we had not undertaken somewhat heavier obligations in connection with these sorely tried Allies of ours and thereby ensured their being properly clothed. A fresh Convention was drawn up in London in September 1918, under which we accepted somewhat increased responsibilities, and Brigadier-General the Hon. C. G. Fortescue was sent out to look after matters in Macedonia in the Serbian interest.

The end came, however, before the arrangements made could exercise any appreciable effect during the actual fighting; but I believe that good work has been done since that date.

Considering the exceedingly burdensome character of our liabilities in connection with maintaining the a.s.sociated forces of the Entente in Macedonia for the s.p.a.ce of three years--for practical purposes we had to find pretty well all the food, and we had, moreover, to get the food (and almost everything else) to Salonika in our ships, which paid heavy toll to enemy submarines during the process--it was a faulty arrangement that the chief command out there was not reposed in British hands. To press for it would have been awkward, seeing that the chief command in the Dardanelles operations that had proved so abortive had rested with us; and it was, moreover, perfectly well known in Paris that the military authorities in this country looked askance at the whole business and that our Government entertained doubts on the subject. Had the operations been conducted by a British commander-in-chief they might not have been attended by greater success than they actually were, but, considering the strength of the mixed forces which remained locked up so long in this barren field of endeavour, they could hardly have proved less effective than they actually were for nearly three years.

CHAPTER XVII

THE PRESS

The constant newspaper attacks upon the War Office -- Often arise from misunderstandings or sheer ignorance -- The mistake made with regard to war correspondents at the start -- The pre-war intentions of the General Staff -- How they were set on one side -- Inconvenience of this from the War Office point of view -- A breach of faith -- The mischievous optimism of newspapers in the early days -- Tendency of the military authorities to conceal bad news -- Experts at fault in the Press -- Tendency to take the Press too seriously in this country -- Some of its blunders during the war -- A proposal to put German officer prisoners on board transports as a protection -- A silly mistake over the promotion of general-officers -- Why were tanks not adopted before the war! -- A paean about Sukhomlinoff -- A gross misstatement -- Temporary officers and high positions in the field -- A suggestion that the Press should censor itself in time of war -- Its absurdity -- The Press Bureau -- Some of its mistakes -- Information allowed to appear which should have been censored -- Difficulties of the censors -- The case of the sh.e.l.l shortage -- Difficulty of laying down rules for the guidance of the censors -- The Press and the air-raids -- A newspaper proprietor placed at the head of the Air Service -- The result -- The question of announcing names of units that have distinguished themselves -- Conclusion.

It is inevitable, perhaps, that a rather time-honoured War Office hand--thirteen years of it, covering different periods between 1887 and 1918--should entertain somewhat mixed feelings with regard to the Press. As long as I can remember, practically, the War Office has provided a sort of Aunt Sally for the young men of Fleet Street to take c.o.c.k-shies at when they can think of nothing else to edify their readers with, and uncommonly bad shots a good many of them have made.

a.s.sessment at the hands of the newspaper world confronts every public department. Nor can this in principle be objected to; healthy, well-informed criticism is both helpful and stimulating. But although many of the attacks delivered upon the War Office by the Fourth Estate, in the course of that perpetual guerilla warfare which is carried on by journalism in general against the central administration of the army, have been fully warranted, the fact remains that no small proportion of them has been based upon misapprehension, and that a good many of them can be put down to pure ignorance. Never has this been more apparent than during the progress of the Great War. But a reason for this suggests itself at once; many newspapers, no doubt, for the time being lost the services of members of their staff who possessed some qualification for expatiating upon military questions.

It has to be acknowledged that the Press was badly treated by the War Office and G.H.Q. at the outset. This circ.u.mstance may have contributed towards setting up relations during the contest between us in Whitehall and the world of journalism which were not always too cordial. The question of correspondents in the war zone naturally cropped up at a very early stage, and the decision arrived at, for better or for worse, was that none of them were to go. The wisdom of the att.i.tude taken up by the military authorities in this matter is a question of opinion; but my view was, and still is, that the newspapers were treated injudiciously and that the decision was wrong.

I was, indeed, placed in the uncomfortable position of administering a policy which I disliked, and which I believed to be entirely mistaken.

It, moreover, practically amounted to a breach of faith.

The General Staff had for some years prior to 1914 always intended that a reasonable number of correspondents should proceed to the front under official aegis on the outbreak of a European war. A regular organization for the purpose actually took shape automatically within the War Office, in concert with the Press, on mobilization. A small staff, under charge of a staff-officer who had been especially designated for the job two or three years before, with clerks, cars, and so on, came into being _pari pa.s.su_ with G.H.Q. of the Expeditionary Force on the historic 5th of August. The officer, Major A. G. Stuart, a man of attractive personality and forceful character, master of his profession and an ideal holder of the post, had been in control of the Press representatives at Army Manoeuvres in 1912 and 1913, and he was therefore personally acquainted with the gentlemen chosen to take the field. (He was unfortunately killed while serving on the staff in France, in the winter of 1915-16.) The General Staff had, moreover, gone out of their way to impress upon correspondents at manoeuvres that they ought to regard the operations in the light of instruction for themselves in duties which they would be performing in the event of actual hostilities. They were given confidential information with regard to the programme on the understanding that they would keep it to themselves, and they always played the game.

But when war came, all this went by the board. Leave for correspondents to go to the front, whether under official auspices or any other way, was refused, and the staff and the clerks and the cars abode idle in London under my wing. The Press world accepted this development philosophically for the opening two or three weeks, realizing that the moment when the Expeditionary Force was being spirited over to France was no time for visitors in the war zone. But after that the Fourth Estate became decidedly restive. Enterprising reporters proceeded to the theatre of war without permission, while experienced journalists, deluded by past promises, remained patiently behind hoping for the best. The old hounds, in fact, were kept in the kennel, while the young entry ran riot with no hunt servants to rate them. Some unauthorized representatives of the British Press were, it is true, arrested by the French, and had the French dealt with them in vertebrate fashion--decapitated them or sent them to the Devil's Island--we should have known where we were. But as the culprits were simply dismissed with a caution the situation became ridiculous, because no newspaper man bothers about marching to a dungeon with gyves upon his wrists and tarrying there for some hours without sustenance. It is part of the game. So the military authorities were openly flouted.

One result of the abrupt change of policy also was that, instead of the supervision of messages emanating from the front falling upon officers at G.H.Q. who were in a position to wrestle with them to good purpose, this task devolved upon the Press Bureau in London, which naturally could not perform the office nearly so well and which was, moreover, smothered under folios of journalistic matter originating in quarters other than the theatre of war. Furthermore, editors and managers and proprietors of our more prominent organs considered that we had broken our engagements--as, indeed, we had. At the very fall of the flag, the Press of the country was in my opinion gratuitously fitted out with a legitimate grievance. This could not but react hurtfully from that time forward upon the relations between the military authorities and British journalism as a whole.

There was one direction in which the Fourth Estate did serious mischief in the early days of the war. As being behind the scenes during those strenuous, apprehensive months, when the process of transforming the United Kingdom into a great military nation at the very time when the enemy was in the gate was making none too rapid progress, I have no hesitation in a.s.serting that one of the princ.i.p.al obstacles in the way was the excessive optimism of our Press. Every trifling success won by, or credited to, the Allies was hailed as a transcendent triumph and was placarded on misleading posters. When mishaps occurred--as they too often did--their seriousness was whittled down or ignored. The public took their cue only too readily from the newspapers, and the consequence was that a check was placed alike on recruiting and on the production of the war material which was urgently required for such troops as we could place in the field.

And yet, journalists could plead in excuse that they were in some measure following a lead set by the authorities. It has already been admitted in Chapter II. that a system of official secretiveness in connection with reverses was adopted, and that it did no good. This took the form of concealing, or at any rate minimizing, sets-back when these occurred--an entirely new att.i.tude for soldiers in this country to take up, and one which was to be deprecated. We should never have gathered together those swarms of volunteers in South Africa in 1900, volunteers drawn from the United Kingdom and from the Dominions and from the Colonies, had Stormberg and Magersfontein and Colenso been artistically camouflaged. The facts were blurted out. The Empire rose to the occasion. Hiding the truth in 1914-15 was a blunder from every point of view, because there never was the slightest fear of the people of this country losing heart. No doubt the incorporation of ordinances directed against the propagation of alarmist reports calculated to cause despondency, as part of the Defence of the Realm Act, was necessary. But one at times positively welcomed the appearance of well-informed jeremiads in the newspapers, as an antidote to the exultant cackle which was hindering a genuine, comprehensive, universal mobilization of our national resources in men and material.

This excessive optimism which did so much harm was, it should be observed, to some extent the handiwork of "experts" whose names carried a certain amount of weight, who turned out several columns of comment weekly, and whose opinions would have been well enough worth having had they been better acquainted with the actual facts. For one thing, they did not realize that the augmentation of our military forces was hampered by the virtual impossibility of synchronizing development in output of equipment and munitions with the expansion of numbers in the ranks. They were, moreover, entirely unaware of the unfortunate condition of the Russian armies in respect to war material; they imagined that those hosts were far larger numerically than the insufficiency of armament permitted, and they consequently greatly overrated the potentialities of our eastern Ally in the conflict. To such an extent, indeed, was one of them unintentionally deceiving his readers as to the position of affairs in that quarter that I wrote to him privately giving him an inkling of the situation; he gave that side of Europe a wide berth for a long time afterwards.

The mischief done in this matter rather influenced one against the Press, and perhaps made one all the more ready to take cognizance of its blunders and to accept its criticisms (when these were ill-informed) in bad part. Are we not, however, in any case rather disposed to take our journals too seriously, and is not one result of this that we have the Press that we deserve? Public men have to treat the journalistic world with respect, or it will undo them; but that does not apply to mere ordinary people. Yet we all bow the knee before it, submissively accept it at its own valuation, and consequently it fools us to the top of our bent. We believe what we see stated in our paper as a matter of course, unless we happen by some accident to know that the statement is totally contrary to the actual fact. The Fourth Estate is exalted into an acknowledged autocrat because it is allowed to have things all its own way; and your autocrat, whether he be a trade union official or he be a sceptred potentate or he be the President of a republic saddled with a paradoxical const.i.tution, is an anachronism in principle and is apt to be a curse in practice.

Autocracy is particularly to be deprecated in the case of the Press, seeing that here we have what is in reality the most widespread trade union in the country. Journalism harbours its internal squabbles and jealousies, no doubt, just as is the case with most great a.s.sociations; but, a.s.sail it from without, and it closes up its ranks as a nation rent with faction will on threat from some foreign foe.

It is generally acknowledged that in political life a formidable opposition in the legislature renders the government of the day all the more efficient. But the Press, in what may be called its corporate capacity, is not disciplined nor stimulated by any organized opposition at all, and the consequence is that it has perhaps got just a little too big for its boots. Judged by results in respect to its handling of military questions during the Great War, the Fourth Estate has not (taken as a whole, and lumping together journals of the meaner cla.s.s with the representative organs which have great financial resources to refresh them) proved itself quite so efficient an inst.i.tution as its protagonists claim it to be.

Before the war, one was disposed to accept as gospel the pontifical utterances of newspapers concerning matters with which one was unacquainted--the law, say, or economics, or art. But never again!

Journalists on occasion gave themselves away too badly during those years over warlike operations, army organization, and so forth, for one to let oneself be bluffed in future. Given the leisure, the inclination, and the necessary access to a large number of the organs of the Press, a libraryful of sc.r.a.p-books could have been got together, replete with gaffes and absurdities seriously and solemnly set out in print. One or two examples of such blunders may be given for purposes of ill.u.s.tration.

After a shameful U-boat outrage committed on a hospital ship, a London morning paper actually urged, in its first leader, that half a dozen German officers should be "sent to sea in every hospital ship _and in every transport_" (the italics are mine). Here was a case of an editor (surely editors read through the leaders which are supposed to give the considered opinion of the journal of which they are in charge) deliberately proposing that this country should play as dirty a trick as any Boche was ever guilty of. A belligerent has a perfect right to sink a transport in time of war, just as he has a perfect right to bomb a train full of enemy troops. The j.a.panese sank a Chinese transport at the outbreak of the war of 1894 in the Far East, causing serious loss of life; the vessel was conveying troops from Wei-hai-wei to the Korean coast. According to this newspaper, a hostile attack upon the flotilla of vessels of various sorts and kinds which conveyed our Expeditionary Force to France would have been as much an act of treachery and a breach of the customs of war, as would an attack upon the vessels covered by the Red Cross which brought the wounded back.

An Army Order in April 1918, again, laid down that promotion to the rank of general would in future be by selection, not by seniority. A number of newspapers of quite good standing thereupon promptly tumbled head over heels into a pitfall entirely of their own creation. They started an attack upon the War Office for not having recognized the principle of advancement in the higher grades of the army by merit sooner, having failed to notice that the Army Order concerned the question of promotion to the rank of full general. Of their own accord, and quite gratuitously, they exposed their ignorance of the fact that promotions to the ranks of brigadier-general, major-general and lieutenant-general had been effected by selection for several years previously; and they also exposed their ignorance of the fact that, up till the time of the Great War, there had never been any special importance attached to the rank of full general. In the South African War, when we had a far larger military force on active service than ever previously in our history, only three general officers of higher rank than lieutenant-general were employed--Lord Roberts, Sir R. Buller, and Lord Kitchener--and, although all three were in the field together, Lord Roberts was a field-marshal; when, later, Lord Kitchener was in supreme command he had no full general under him.

The Great War produced an entirely new condition of things, because we then came to have operating in the field, not merely one army but several armies, each consisting of several army corps, and each of those army corps commanded by a lieutenant-general. It was therefore convenient that the armies should be commanded by full generals, and the rank of full general suddenly a.s.sumed a real instead of merely a nominal importance. It thus became necessary to effect promotion to full general by selection instead of by seniority. n.o.body expects editors to know details of this kind; but it surely is their duty to investigate before starting on a crusade. In the case of people who knew the facts, this particular blunder merely made the newspapers that committed it look ridiculous; but the majority of those who read the drivel in all probability had no idea of the facts, and were led to imagine that promotions to the various ranks of general officer had hitherto all been a matter of seniority. It is an example of the way in which the public have been misled about the War Office by the Press for years past.

A year or so after the Armistice, one of the London evening papers, when criticizing the disinclination of the War Office to adopt new ideas in respect to devices for use in the field (a fair enough subject of discussion in itself), gave itself away by complaining that "tanks were not adopted before the war"! In that case the absurdity was so obvious that its effect upon most readers of the article probably was to make them regard the whole of it as rubbish, which was not correct. One wonders whether the following pa.s.sage, which appeared in the very early days of the war in one of our foremost newspapers, may not have had something to do with that entirely unwarranted confidence in the "steam-roller" on the Eastern Front which prevailed in England between August 1914 and May 1915: "I refer to General Sukhomlinoff, the Russian Kitchener, who is reorganizing the Russian armies. Thanks to him, the Tsar's armies are irreproachably equipped."

Compare p. 283.

An article appeared in a leading Sunday newspaper in the spring of 1919, signalized by this amazing travesty of the actual facts. In a reference to our land forces of the early days of the struggle, the writer spoke of "armies sent to war lacking almost every modern requisite." Now, the Press generally manages to avoid grossly false statements of that kind when referring to individuals; if it does fall into such an error, the sequel is either an abject apology or else an uphill fight in the law courts followed by the payment of heavy damages. It is quite conceivable that the author of this unpardonable misrepresentation imagined himself to be telling the truth and that he erred out of sheer ignorance; but, if so, that merely serves to indicate how badly informed journalists often are of the matters which they are dealing with, when the question at issue happens to concern military subjects.

The expediency of affording greater opportunities to that great body of temporary officers who had joined up (many of them men of marked ability and advanced education), for occupying superior positions on the staff or for holding high command, was taken up warmly by a number of newspapers at the beginning of 1918. It is not proposed to discuss the theme on its merits--there was a good deal to be said for the contention. The matter is merely referred to because of the manner in which it was handled by the organs that were pressing it upon the notice of the public. Reference was very properly made to brains. But not one word was said about knowledge. Now, brains without knowledge may make an efficient Pressman--one is sometimes tempted to a.s.sume that the battalions of journalism are to some extent recruited from this source of supply. But brains without knowledge will no more make a superior staff officer who can be trusted, nor a commander of troops of all arms who will be able to make the most of them in face of the enemy, than will they make a successful physician or a proficient electrical engineer. It was also completely overlooked by the propagandists of this particular stunt that the experience which on every front, other than the Mesopotamian, temporary officers had been gaining was for practical purposes confined to trench warfare, and that, if a decision was ever going to be reached at all, it would be brought about under profoundly different tactical conditions from those which had been prevailing. The whole question hinged upon whether the requisite knowledge could be acquired, and upon what steps would be necessary to bring that desirable result about. The writers who dealt with the point perhaps recognized that brains were merely a means to the end, and not the end. But if they did, why did they fail ever even to mention the pinion upon which the whole question in reality hinged?

Journalists, when complaining of the censorship, have put forward the suggestion that this sort of thing ought to be left to the patriotism and honour of newspapers, that, if such a plan were adopted, the Press would of its own accord refrain from publishing any information that might be of value to the enemy in time of war, and that there would then be no need for any special official department dealing with this matter. That sounds plausible, but it will not stand examination for a moment. Granted that the great majority of editors and their staffs would never dream of wittingly disclosing information injurious to their country during hostilities, the fact remains that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link. If one journal, in its eagerness to attract, prints what ought to have been kept secret, the reticence of the remainder is of no avail. Nor is this merely a question of honour and patriotism. It is also a question of competence. Censorship responsibilities demand knowledge and call for certain qualifications which the personnel of the Press in general does not possess. A few editors, no doubt, could be trusted to do the work efficiently; but that claim to omniscience which is un.o.btrusively, but none the less insistently, put forward by the Fourth Estate has no solid foundation.

One of the lessons of the Great War has been that censorship is an extremely difficult operation to carry out even when in the hands of individuals well versed in the conditions that arise in times of national emergency. The idea that the Press could censor itself is ridiculous. That such a theory should ever have been put forward argues a strange inability to understand the essentials of the subject, and sets up a doctrine of infallibility in the world of journalism for which there is no justification.

The Press Bureau which was established at the commencement of the war was a civil department, entirely independent of the Admiralty and the War Office although it was in close touch with those inst.i.tutions, as also with the Foreign Office, the Board of Trade and other branches of the Government. In so far as the War Office was concerned, the Bureau dealt with the Operations Directorate, which was responsible for watching the censorship of newspapers in general, just as it was responsible for actually controlling the censorship of cables and foreign correspondence. As the primary _raison d'etre_ of newspapers is to provide their readers with news, it was inevitable that restrictions placed upon publication of information, however necessary they might be in the interest of the State, would hamper the activities of those in charge and be regarded as a nuisance. It was natural that the Press should chafe at the restraint and should be disposed to exaggerate the inconvenience to which it was put. But the public, it must be remembered, have heard only one side of the story.

The country has derived its information concerning the Press censorship from the Press itself--in other words, from what is to all intents and purposes a tainted source. The nation has had to decide on a subject of general interest on one-sided evidence.

In so far as the military share of the Press censorship was concerned, some of the groans of its victims were, no doubt, well justified.