Mr. Punch's History of the Great War Part 10

[Ill.u.s.tration: HELD:]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WANTED--A ST. PATRICK

ST. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL: "I'm afraid I'm not so smart as my brother-saint at dealing with this kind of thing. I'm apt to take reptiles too lightly."]

Even Sir Edward Carson admitted that Mr. Birrell had been well intentioned and had done his best. By the middle of the month Mr. Asquith had gone to Ireland, in the hope of discovering some arrangement for the future which would commend itself to all parties. By the 25th he was back in his place after nine days in Dublin. But he had no panacea of his own to prescribe; no cut-and-dried plan for the regeneration of Ireland. All he could say was that Mr. Lloyd George had been deputed by the Cabinet to confer with the various Irish leaders, and the choice is generally approved. If anyone knows how to handle high explosives without causing a premature concussion it should be the Minister of Munitions.

Ireland has dominated the political scene at home, for it is impossible not to connect our new commitments across St. George's Channel with the introduction and pa.s.sing of the new Military Service Bill establishing compulsion for all men, married or single--always excepting Ireland. The question of man-power is paramount. Mr. Asquith is at last convinced that "Wait and See" must yield to "Do it Now": that the nation won't have the sword of Damocles hanging over its head any longer, but will have compulsion in its hand at once. On the progress of the War Mr. Asquith has said little in Open Session, but any omission on his part has been made good by Mr. Churchill, now home on unlimited leave, who has spoken at great length on the proper use of armies.

Mr. Arthur Ponsonby and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, who raised the question of Peace on Empire Day, urging the Government to open negotiations with Germany, have elicited from the Foreign Secretary the deliberate statement that the only terms of peace which the German Government had ever put forward were the terms of victory for Germany, and that we could not reason with the German people so long as they were fed with lies.

Mr. Henry James, who so n.o.bly repaid the hospitality England was proud to show him by adopting her nationality in her hour of greatest need, said shortly before his death that nothing grieved him more than the constant loss of England's "best blood, seed and breed." The mothers of England "give their sons," but they know that the choice did not rest with them:

We did not give you--all unasked you went, Sons of a greater motherhood than ours; To our proud hearts your young brief lives were lent, Then swept beyond us by resistless powers.

Only we hear, when we have lost our all, That far clear call.

But how can the grief be measured of those

Whose best, Eager to serve a higher quest And in the Great Cause know the joy of battle, Gallant and young, by traitor hands, Leagued with a foe from alien lands, Struck down in cold blood, fell like butchered cattle?

Though Ireland is not for the moment a source of humour she contrives to be the cause of it in others. A daily paper tells us that Sir Robert Chalmers is to be "Permanent Under-Secretary of Ireland _pro tem_." Another daily paper, the _Daily Mail,_ to be precise, has discovered a new test of valour: "Mr. h.e.l.lish, a regular reader of the _Daily Mail_ for years, was awarded the V.C. last month for conspicuous bravery."

_June, 1916_.

At last the long vigil in the North Sea has ended in the glorious if indecisive battle of Jutland, the greatest sea fight since Trafalgar. Yet was it indecisive? After the momentary dismay caused by the first Admiralty _communique_ with its over-estimate of our losses, public confidence, shaken where it was strongest, has been restored by further information and by the admissions of the enemy. We have to mourn the loss of many ships, still more the loss of splendid ships' companies and their heroic captains.

We can sympathise with the cruel disappointment of those who, after bearing the brunt of the action, were robbed of the opportunity of overwhelming their enemy by failing light and the exigencies of a strategy governed in the last resort by political caution. But look at the sequel. The German Fleet, badly battered, retires to port; and despite the paeans of exultation from their Admirals, Kaiser, and Imperial Chancellor, remains there throughout the month. Will it ever come out again? Meanwhile, Wilhelmshaven is closed indefinitely, and n.o.body is allowed to see those sheep in Wolff's clothing--the "victorious fleet." The true verdict, so far as we can judge, may be expressed in homely phrase: The British Navy has taken a knock but given a harder one. We can stand it and they can't.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LOST CHIEF

In Memory of Field-Marshal Earl Kitchener, Maker of Armies]

Within a week of Jutland the Empire has been stirred to its depths by the tragic death of Lord Kitchener in the _Hampshire_, blown up by a mine off the Shetlands on her voyage to Archangel. On the eve of starting on his mission to Russia his last official act had been to meet his critics of the House of Commons face to face, reply to their questions and leave them silenced and admiring. On the day of the battle of Jutland these critics had moved the Prime Minister to declare that Lord Kitchener was personally ent.i.tled to the credit for the amazing expansion of the army. Sir Mark Sykes, no mean authority, a.s.serted that in Germany our War Secretary was feared as a great organiser, while in the East his name was one to conjure with; and Sir George Reid, a worthy representative of the Dominions, observed that his chief fault was that he was "not clever at circulating the cheap coin of calculated civilities which enable inferior men to rise to positions to which they are not ent.i.tled." These tributes were delivered in his lifetime; they deserve to be contrasted with the appreciations of those journalists who clamoured for his appointment, then clamoured for his dismissal, and profaned his pa.s.sing with their insincere eulogies. Three weeks of Recess elapsed before the Houses could render homage to the ill.u.s.trious dead. In the Lords the debt has been paid by a statesman, Lord Lansdowne, a soldier, Lord French, and a friend, Lord Derby. In the Commons the speeches were all touched with genuine emotion and the sense of personal loss. Through all these various tributes rang the note of duty well done, and Mr. Bonar Law did well to remind the House of the sure instinct which caused Lord Kitchener to realise at the very outset the gigantic nature of the present War. In a sense his loss is irreparable, yet his great work was accomplished before he died. Sometimes accused of expecting others to achieve the impossible, he had achieved it himself in the crowning miracle of his life, the improvisation of the New Armies.

The violation of Greek territory by the Bulgarian troops, as might be expected, has not led to any effective protest from King Constantine. On the contrary, one seems to hear this benevolent neutral deprecating any apology on the part of King Ferdinand: "Please make yourself at home. This is Liberty Hall."

It is otherwise with the irruption of the Russians under General Brusiloff.

His great offensive is a source of offence to the Austrians, who have good reason to complain that the "steam-roller" is exceeding the speed limit. Or to change the metaphor, the bear and his tormentor have changed places.

Ireland has receded a little from her place in the limelight, and though debates on martial law continue, and Irish members ask an inordinate number of questions arising out of the hot Easter week in Dublin, the temperature is no longer "98 in the shade" as a local wit described it at the time.

Ministers are extremely economical of information: the antic.i.p.ated settlement still hangs fire, and there are increasing fears that it will not hold water.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FAR-REACHING EFFECT OF THE RUSSIAN PUSH]

A number of professional fortune-tellers have been fined at Southend for having predicted Zeppelins. The fraudulent nature of their pretensions was sufficiently manifest, since even the authorities had been unable to foresee the Zeppelins until some time after they had arrived.

The discussions in Parliament and out of it of the way in which things get into the papers which oughtn't to, are dying down. A daily paper, however, has revived them by the headline, "Cabinet leekage." Now, why, in wonder, do they spell it in that way?

It is quite impossible to keep pace with all the new incarnations of women in war-time--'bus-conductress, ticket-collector, lift-girl, club waitress, post-woman, bank clerk, motor-driver, farm-labourer, guide, munition maker.

There is nothing new in the function of ministering angel: the myriad nurses in hospital here or abroad are only carrying out, though in greater numbers than ever before, what has always been woman's mission. But whenever he sees one of these new citizens, or hears fresh stories of their address and ability, Mr. Punch is proud and delighted. Perhaps in the past, even in the present, he may have been, or even still is, a little given to chaff Englishwomen for some of their foibles, and even their aspirations.

But he never doubted how splendid they were at heart; he never for a moment supposed they would be anything but ready and keen when the hour of need struck.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FARMER (who has got a lady-help in the dairy): "'Ullo, Missy, what in the world be ye doin'?"

LADY: "Well, you told me to water the cows, and I'm doing it. They don't seem to like it much."]

_July, 1916_.

On the home front we have long been accustomed to the sound of guns, small and great, but it has come from training camps and inspires confidence rather than anxiety. We have been spared the horrors of invasion, occupation, wholesale devastation. In certain areas the noise of bombs and anti-aircraft guns has grown increasingly familiar, and on our south-east and east coasts war from the air, on the sea, and under the sea has become more and more audible as the months pa.s.s by. But July has brought us a new experience--the sound fifty or sixty miles inland in peaceful rural England, amid glorious midsummer weather, of the continual throbbing night and day of the great guns on the Somme, where our first great offensive opened on the 1st, and has continued with solid and substantial gains, some set-backs, heavy losses for the Allies, still heavier for the enemy. Names of villages and towns, which hitherto have been to most of us mere names on the map, have now become luminous through shining deeds of glory and sacrifice--Contalmaison and Mametz, Delville Wood, Thiepval and Beaumont-Hamel, Serre and Pozieres.

The victory, for victory it is, has not been celebrated in the German way.

England takes her triumphs as she takes defeats, without a sign of having turned a hair:

Yet we are proud because at last, at last We look upon the dawn of our desire; Because the weary waiting-time is pa.s.sed And we have tried our temper in the fire; And proving word by deed Have kept the faith we pledged to France at need.

But most because, from mine and desk and mart, Springing to face a task undreamed before, Our men, inspired to play their prentice part Like soldiers lessoned in the school of war, True to their breed and name, Went flawless through the fierce baptismal flame.

And he who brought these armies into life, And on them set the impress of his will-- Could he be moved by sound of mortal strife, There where he lies, their Captain, cold and still Under the shrouding tide, How would his great heart stir and glow with pride!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "TWO HEADS WITH BUT A SINGLE THOUGHT"

FIRST HEAD: "What prospects?" SECOND HEAD: "Rotten." FIRST HEAD: "Same here."]

The results of the battle of the Somme are shown in a variety of ways: by the reticence and admissions of the German Press, by its efforts to divert attention to the exploits of the commercial submarine cruiser _Deutschland_; above all, by the Kaiser's fresh explosions of piety.

"The Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be." There is no further sign of his fleet, which remains crippled by its "victory." Nor can he, still less his Ally, draw comfort from the situation on the Russian or Italian fronts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WELL DONE, THE NEW ARMY]

Mr. Punch finds the usual difficulty in getting any details from his correspondents when they have been or are in the thick of the fighting.

Practically all that they have to say is that there was a "d.a.m.ned noise,"

that breakfast was delayed by the "morning hate," or that an angry sub besought a weary O.C. "to ask our gunners not to serve faults into our front line wire." One of them, however, a very wise young man, ventures on the prediction that the War will last well into 1918. As the result of a brief leave he has learned an important truth. "In England they a.s.sume that you, having just arrived from France, _know_. When you return to France, it is a.s.sumed that you, having just arrived from England, _know_."

In Parliament Ireland is beginning to suffer from a rival in unenviable notoriety. Mesopotamia does not smell particularly sweet just now, but that may add to its usefulness as a red herring. Geographers are said to have some difficulty in defining its exact boundaries, but the Government are probably quite convinced that it is situate between the Devil and the Deep Sea. Two Special Commissions are to be set up to inquire into the Mesopotamian and Dardanelles Expeditions. Public opinion has been painfully stirred by the harrowing details which have come to light of the preventible sufferings endured by British troops. From their point of view the supply of their medical needs, now guaranteed, is worth a wilderness of Special Commissions. But Ireland still holds the floor, though Mr. Asquith is frugal of information as to the prospective Irish Bill and has deprecated discussion of the Hardinge Report, the most scarifying public doc.u.ment of our times. The Lords, unembarra.s.sed by any embargo, have discussed the Report in a spirit which must make Mr. Birrell thank his stars that he got in his confession first. But why, he may ask, should he be judged by Lord Hardinge, himself a prospective defendant at the bar of public opinion?

Following the lead of a certain section of the Press, certain Members have begun to wax vocal on the subject of reprisals, uninterned Aliens, and the Hidden Hand. Their appeals to the Home Office to go on the spy-trail have not met with much sympathy so far. An alleged Austrian taxi-driver has turned out to be a harmless Scotsman with an impediment in his speech. More interesting has been the sudden re-emergence of Mr. John Burns. He sank without a trace two years ago, but has now bobbed up to denounce the proposal to strengthen the Charing Cross railway-bridge. We could have wished that he had been ready to "keep the bridge" in another sense; but at least he has been a silent Pacificist. Mr. Winston Churchill, when his journalistic labours permit, has contributed to the debates, and Lord Haldane has again delivered his famous lecture on the defects of English education. But for Parliamentary sagacity _in excelsis_ commend us to Mr. McCallum Scott. He is seriously perturbed about the shortage of sausage-skins and, in spite of the bland a.s.surance of Mr. Harcourt that supplies are ample, is alleged to be planning a fresh campaign with the a.s.sistance of Mr. Hogge. Another shortage has given rise to no anxiety, but rather the reverse. In a police court it was recently stated that there are no longer any tramps in England. Evidently the appeal of that stirring old song, "Tramp! tramp! tramp! the boys are marching," has not been without its effect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CONJURER (unconscious of the approach of hostile aircraft): "Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, I want you to watch me closely."]

Yet another endurable shortage is reported from the seaside, where an old sailor on the local sea front has been lamenting the spiritual starvation brought about by the war. "Why," he said, "for the first time for twenty years we ain't got no performing fleas down here." And performers, when they do come, are not always successful in riveting the attention of their audience.

_August, 1916_.