Mr. Punch's History of the Great War Part 20

ORDERLY SERGEANT: "Lights out, there."

VOICE FROM THE HUT: "It's the moon, Sergint."

ORDERLY SERGEANT: "I don't give a d--- what it is. Put it out!"]

The disquieting activities of the "giddy Gotha" involve drastic enforcement of the lighting orders, and the moon is still an object of suspicion.

Pessimists and those critics who are never content unless each day brings a spectacular success, seem to have taken for their motto: "It's not what I mean, but what I say, that matters." But the moods of the non-combatant are truly chameleonic. Civilians summoned to the War Office pa.s.s from confidence to abas.e.m.e.nt, and from abas.e.m.e.nt to megalomania in the s.p.a.ce of half an hour.

Turkey, it appears, has sent an urgent appeal to Berlin for funds. The disaster to the _Goeben_ can be endured, since the Sultan can now declare a foresh.o.r.e claim, and do a little salvage profiteering; but Palestine is another matter. Since General Allenby's advance "running"

expenses have swallowed up a formidable total. The War is teaching us many things, including geography. We are taking a lively interest in the Ukraine, and the newspapers daily add to our stock of interesting knowledge. Apropos of General Allenby's entry into Jerusalem, we learn that "the predominance of the tar brush in the streets added to the brightness of the scene," and in connection with his return to Cairo, that "the MacCabean Boy Scouts" took part in the reception--presumably the Cadet Corps of the Jordan Highlanders. But the most rea.s.suring news comes from the enemy Press. "It is simply a miracle," says the _Cologne Gazette_, "that the Germans have so loyally stood by their leaders," and for once we are wholly in agreement with our German contemporary.

If Mr. Punch may exert his privilege of turning abruptly to grave from gay, the claim may be allowed on behalf of the youngest generation, already remembered in the chronicle of last month.

CHILDREN OF CONSOLATION

By the red road of storm and stress Their fathers' footsteps trod, They come, a cloud of witnesses, The messengers of G.o.d.

Cradled upon some radiant gleam, Like living hopes they lie, The rainbow beauty of a dream Against a stormy sky.

Before the tears of love were dried, Or anguish comfort knew, The gates of home were opened wide To let the pilgrims through.

Pledges of faith, divinely fair, From peaceful worlds above Against the onslaught of despair They hold the fort of love.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

THE CIVILIAN AND THE WAR OFFICE

I am bidden to the War Office.

I depart for it.

I approach it.

I enter.

I am not observed.

I am still not observed.

I am observed.

I am spoken to (and still live).

I continue to be spoken to.

I am spoken to quite nicely.

I am shaken hands with.

I take my leave.]

_February, 1918_.

"Watchman, what of the night?" The hours pa.s.s amid the clash of rumours and discordant voices--optimist, pessimist, pacificist. Only in the answer of the fighting man, who knows and says little, but is ready for anything, do we find the best remedy for impatience and misgiving:

"Soldier, what of the night?"

"Vainly ye question of me; I know not, I hear not nor see; The voice of the prophet is dumb Here in the heart of the fight.

I count the hours on their way; I know not when morning shall come; Enough that I work for the day."

The first Brest-Litovsk Treaty has been signed, followed in nine days by the German invasion of Russia, an apt comment on what an English paper, by a misprint which is really an inspiration, calls "the Brest Nogotiations."

The record of the Bolshevist regime is already deeply stained with the ma.s.sacre of the innocents, but Lenin and Trotsky can plead an august example. More than fourteen thousand British non-combatants--men, women and children--have been murdered by the Kaiser's command. And the rigorous suppression of the strikes in Berlin furnishes a useful test of his recent avowals of sympathy with democratic ideals. By way of a set-off the German Press Bureau has circulated a legend of civil war in London, bristling with circ.u.mstantial inaccuracies. The enemy's successes in the field--the occupation of Reval and the recapture of Trebizond--are the direct outcome of the Russian _debacle_. Our capture of Jericho marks a further stage in a sustained triumph of good generalship and hard fighting, which verifies an old prophecy current among the Arabs in Palestine and Syria, viz. that when the waters of the Nile flow into Palestine, a prophet from the West will drive the Turk out of the Arab countries. The first part of the prophecy was fulfilled by the pipe-line which has brought Nile water (taken from the fresh-water ca.n.a.l) for the use of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force across the Sinai desert to the neighbourhood of Gaza.

The second part was fulfilled by the fact that General Allenby's name is rendered in Arabic by exactly the same letters which form the words "El Nebi," i.e. the Prophet.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

THE LIBERATORS

FIRST BOLSHEVIK: "Let me see; we've made an end of Law, Credit, Treaties, the Army and the Navy. Is there anything else to abolish?"

SECOND BOLSHEVIK: "What about War?"

FIRST BOLSHEVIK: "Good! And Peace too. Away with both of 'em!"]

At home we have seen the end of the seventh session of a Parliament which by its own rash Act should have committed suicide two years ago. Truly the Kaiser has a lot to answer for. On the last day but one of the session 184 questions were put, the information extracted from Ministers being, as usual, in inverse ratio to the curiosity of the questioners. The opening of the eighth session showed no change in this respect. The debate on the Address degenerated into a series of personal attacks on the Premier by members who, not without high example, regard this as the easiest road to fame. The only persons who have a right to congratulate themselves on the discussion are the members of the German General Staff, who may not have learned anything that they did not know before, but have undoubtedly had certain shrewd suspicions confirmed. Mr. Bonar Law, in one of his engaging bursts of self-revelation, observed that he had no more interest in this Prime Minister than he had in the last; but the House generally seemed to agree with Mr. Adamson, the Labour leader, who, before changing horses again, wanted to be sure that he was going to get a better team. A week later, on the day on which the Prince of Wales took his seat in the Lords, Lord Derby endeavoured to explain why the Government had parted with Sir William Robertson, the Chief of the Imperial Staff, and replaced him by General Wilson. It is hard to say whether the Peers were convinced.

Simultaneously in the House of Commons the Prime Minister was engaged in the same task, but with greater success. Mr. Lloyd George has no equal in the art of persuading an audience to share his faith in himself. How far our military chiefs approved the recent decision of the Versailles Conference is not known. But everyone applauds the patriotic self-effacement of Sir William Robertson in silently accepting the Eastern Command at home.

In Parliament the question of food has been discussed in both Houses with the greatest gusto. Throughout the country it is the chief topic of conversation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SECRET DIPLOMACY

WIFE: "George, there are two strange men digging up the garden."

GEORGE: "It's all right, dear. A brainy idea of mine to get the garden dug up. I wrote an anonymous letter to the Food Controller and told him there was a large box of food buried there."

WIFE: "Heavens! But there _is_!"]

To the ordinary queues we now have to add processions of conscientious disgorgers patriotically evading prosecution. The problem "Is tea a food or is it not?" convulses our Courts, and the axioms of Euclid call for revision as follows:

"Parallel lines are those which in a queue, if only produced far enough, never mean meat."

"If there be two queues outside two different butchers' shops, and the length and the breadth of one queue be equal to the length and breadth of the other queue, each to each, but the supplies in one shop are greater than the supplies in the other shop, then the persons in the one queue will get more meat than those in the other queue, which is absurd, and Rhondda ought to see about it."

All the same, Lord Rhondda is a stout fellow who goes on his way with an imperviousness to criticism--criticism that is often selfish and contemptible--which augurs well for his ultimate success in the most thankless of all jobs.