Mr. Punch's History of the Great War Part 13

PAT: "Do they not, thin? Have they not kilt all the half-crown officers and left nothing but the shillin' ones?"]

Guy Fawkes Day has come and gone without fireworks, pursuant to the Defence of the Realm Act. Even Parliament omitted to sit. Apropos of Secret Sessions, Lord Northcliffe has been accused of having had one all to himself and some five hundred other gentlemen at a club luncheon. The _Daily Mail_ describes the debate on the subject as a "gross waste of time," which seems to come perilously near _lese-majeste!_ But then, as a writer in the _Evening News_--another Northcliffe paper--safely observes, "It is the failing of many people to say what they think without thinking."

_December, 1916_.

Rumania has unhappily given Germany the chance of a cheap and spectacular triumph--of which, after being badly pounded on the Somme, she was sorely in need. Here was a comparatively small nation, whom the Germans could crush under their heel as they had crushed Belgium and Serbia. So in Rumania they concentrated all the men they could spare from other fronts and put them under their best generals. Their first plans were thwarted, but eventually the big guns had their way and Bukarest fell. Then, after the usual display of bunting and joy-bells in Berlin, was the moment to make a n.o.ble offer of peace. The German peace overtures remind one of Mr.

Punch's correspondents of the American advertis.e.m.e.nt: "If John Robinson, with whose wife I eloped six months ago, will take her back, all will be forgiven."

The shadowy proposals of those who preach humanity while they practise unrestricted frightfulness have not deceived the Allies. They know, and have let the enemy know, that they must go on until they have made sure of an enduring peace by reducing the Central Empires to impotence for evil.

When Mr. Asquith announced in the House on December 4 the King's approval of Reconstruction, few Members guessed that in twenty-four hours he would have ceased to be Prime Minister and that Mr. Lloyd George would have begun Cabinet-making. There has been much talk of intrigue. But John Bull doesn't care who leads the country so long as he leads it to victory. And as for Certain People Somewhere in France, we shall probably not be far wrong in interpreting their view of the present change as follows:

Thank G.o.d, we keep no politicians here; Fighting's our game, not talking; all we ask Is men and means to face the coming year And consummate our task.

Give us the strongest leaders you can find, Tory or Liberal, not a toss care we, So they are swift to act and know their mind Too well to wait and see.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RETURN OF THE MOCK TURTLE-DOVE

KAISER } }(breathlessly): "Well?"

BETHMANN-HOLLWEG}

THE BIRD: "Wouldn't even look at me!"]

The ultimate verdict on Mr. Asquith's services to the State as Prime Minister for the first two and a half years of the War will not be founded on the Press Campaign which has helped to secure his downfall. But, as one of the most bitterly and unjustly a.s.sailed ex-Ministers has said, "personal reputations must wait till the end of the War." Meanwhile, we have a Premier who, whatever his faults, cannot be charged with supineness.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

THE NEW CONDUCTOR

Opening of the 1917 Overture]

Mr. Bonar Law, the new Leader of the House, has made his first appearance as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Moving a further Vote of Credit for 400 millions, he disclosed the fact that the daily cost of the War was nearer six than five millions. In regard to the peace proposals he found himself unable to better the late Prime Minister's statement that the Allies would require "adequate reparation for the past and adequate security for the future." In lucidity and dignity of statement Mr. Asquith was certainly above criticism. Lord Devonport has been appointed Food Controller and warned us of rigours to come. The most thrilling speech heard at Westminster this month has been that of Major Willie Redmond, fresh from the invigorating atmosphere of the front. While some seventy odd Nationalist Members are mainly occupied in brooding over Ireland's woes, two are serving in the trenches--William Redmond and Stephen Gwynn, both of them middle-aged men. _O si sic omnes_!

Our wounded need all their patience to put up with the curiosity of non-combatants. A lady, after asking a Tommy on leave what the stripes on his arm were for, being told that they were one for each time he was wounded, is reported to have observed, "Dear me! How extraordinary that you should be wounded three times in the same place!" Even real affection is not always happily expressed.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

"Have you brought me any souvenirs?"

"Only this little bullet that the doctor took out of my side."

"I wish it had been a German helmet."]

The tenderness with which King Constantine is still treated, even after the riot in Athens in which our bluejackets have been badly mishandled, is taxing the patience of moderate men. Mr. Punch, for example, exasperated by the c.u.mulative effect of Tino's misdeeds, has been goaded into making a formidable forecast of surrender or exit:

You say your single aim is just to use Your regal gifts for your beloved nation; Why, then, I see the obvious line to choose, Meaning, of course, the path of abdication; Make up your so-called mind--I frankly would-- To leave your country for your country's good.

The German Emperor was prevented from being present at the funeral of the late Emperor Francis Joseph by a chill. One is tempted to think that in a lucid interval of self-criticism William of Hohenzollern may have wished to spare his aged victim this crowning mockery.

Motto for Meatless Days: "The time is out of joint." This is a _raison de plus_ for establishing an _Entente_ in the kitchen and getting Marianne to show Britannia how to cook a cabbage.

_January, 1917_.

Though the chariots of War still drive heavily, 1917 finds the Allies in good heart--"war-weary but war-hardened." The long agony of Verdun has ended in triumph for the French, and Great Britain has answered the Peace Talk of Berlin by calling a War Conference of the Empire. The New Year has brought us a new Prime Minister, a new Cabinet, a new style of Minister.

Captains of Commerce are diverted from their own business for the benefit of the country. In spite of all rumours to the contrary Lord Northcliffe remains outside the new Government, but his interest in it is, at present, friendly. It is very well understood, however, that everyone must behave.

And in this context Mr. Punch feels that a tribute is due to the outgoing Premier. Always reserved and intent, he discouraged Press gossip to such a degree as actually to have turned the key on the Tenth Muse. Interviewers had no chance. He came into office, held it and left it without a single concession to Demos' love of personalia.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DAWN OF DOUBT

GRETCHEN: "I wonder if this gentleman really is my good angel after all!"]

Germany has not yet changed her Chancellor, though he is being bitterly attacked for his "silly ideas of humanity"--and her rulers have certainly shown no change of heart. General von Bissing's retirement from Belgium is due to health, not repentance. The Kaiser still talks of his "conscience"

and "courage" in freeing the world from the pressure which weighs upon all.

He is still the same Kaiser and Constantine the same "Tino," who, as the _Berliner Tageblatt_ bluntly remarks, "has as much right to be heard as a common criminal." Yet signs are not wanting of misgivings in the German people.

Mr. Wilson has launched a new phrase on the world--"Peace without Victory"; but War is not going to be ended by phrases, and the man who is doing more than anyone else to end it--the British infantryman--has no use for them:

The gunner rides on horseback, he lives in luxury, The sapper has his dug-out as cushy as can be, The flying man's a sportsman, but his home's a long way back, In painted tent or straw-spread barn or cosy little shack; Gunner and sapper and flying man (and each to his job say I) Have tickled the Hun with mine or gun or bombed him from on high, But the quiet work, and the dirty work, since ever the War began, Is the work that never shows at all, the work of the infantryman.

The guns can pound the villages and smash the trenches in, And the Hun is fain for home again when the T.M.B.s begin, And the Vickers gun is a useful one to sweep a parapet, But the real work is the work that's done with bomb and bayonet.

Load him down from heel to crown with tools and grub and kit, He's always there where the fighting is--he's there unless he's. .h.i.t; Over the mud and the blasted earth he goes where the living can; He's in at the death while he yet has breath, the British infantryman!

Trudge and slip on the sh.e.l.l-hole's lip, and fall in the clinging mire-- Steady in front, go steady! Close up there! Mind the wire!

Double behind where the pathways wind! Jump clear of the ditch, jump clear!

Lost touch at the back? Oh, halt in front! And duck when the sh.e.l.ls come near!

Carrying parties all night long, all day in a muddy trench, With your feet in the wet and your head in the rain and the sodden khaki's stench!

Then over the top in the morning, and onward all you can-- This is the work that wins the War, the work of the infantryman.

And if anyone should think that this means the permanent establishment of militarism in our midst let him be comforted by the saying of an old sergeant-major when asked to give a character of one of his men. "He's a good man in the trenches, and a good man in a sc.r.a.p; but you'll never make a soldier of him." The new armies fight all the harder because they want to make an end not of this war but of all wars. As for the regulars, there is no need to enlarge on their valour. But it is pleasant to put on record the description of an officer's servant which has reached Mr. Punch from France: "Valet, cook, porter, boots, chamber-maid, ostler, carpenter, upholsterer, mechanic, inventor, needlewoman, coalheaver, diplomat, barber, linguist (home-made), clerk, universal provider, complete pantechnicon and infallible bodyguard, he is also a soldier, if a very old soldier, and a man of the most human kind."

Parliament is not sitting, but there is, unfortunately, no truth in the report that in order to provide billets for 5,000 new typists and incidentally to win the War, the Government has commandeered the Houses of Parliament. The _Times Literary Supplement_ received 335 books of original verse in 1916, and it is rumoured that Mr. Edward Marsh may very shortly take up his duties as Minister of Poetry and the Fine Arts. Mr.

Marsh has not yet decided whether he will appoint Mr. Asquith or Mr.

Winston Churchill as his private secretary. Meanwhile, a full list of the private secretaries of the new private secretaries of the members of the new Government may at any moment be disclosed to a long suffering public.

On the Home Front the situation shows that a famous literary critic was also a true prophet:

O Matthew Arnold! You were right: We need more Sweetness and more Light; For till we break the brutal foe, Our sugar's short, our lights are low.

The domestic problem daily grows more acute. A maid, who asked for a rise in her wages to which her mistress demurred, explained that the gentleman she walked out with had just got a job in a munition factory and she would be obliged to dress up to him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: