Mr. Punch's History of the Great War Part 4

_March, 1915._

A new and possibly momentous chapter has opened in the history of the War by the attempt to force the Dardanelles. At the end of February the Allied Fleet bombarded the forts at the entrance, and landed a party of bluejackets. Since then these naval operations have been resumed, and our new crack battleship _Queen Elizabeth_ has joined in the attack. We have not got through the Narrows, and some sceptical critics are asking what we should do if we got through to Constantinople, without a land force. It is a great scheme, if it comes off; and the "only begetter" of it, if report is true, is Mr. Winston Churchill, the strategist of the Antwerp expedition, who now aspires to be the Dardanelson of our age.

Anyhow, the Sultan, lured on by the Imperial William o' the Wisp, is already capable of envying even his predecessor:

Abdul! I would that I had shared your plight, Or Europe seen my heels, Before the hour when Allah bound me tight To WILLIAM'S chariot-wheels!

Germany, always generous with other people's property, has begun to hint to Italy possibilities of compensation in the shape of certain portions of Austro-Hungarian territory. She has also declared that she is "fighting for the independence of the small nations," including, of course, Belgium. In further evidence of her humanity she has taken to spraying our soldiers in the West with flaming petrol and squirting boiling pitch over our Russian allies. It is positively a desecration of the word devil to apply it to the Germans whether on land, on or under water, or in the air.

We have begun to "push" on the Western front, and Neuve Chapelle has been captured, after a fierce battle and at terrible cost. Air raids are becoming common in East Anglia and U-boats unpleasantly active in the North Sea. Let us take off our hats to the mine-sweepers and trawlers, the new and splendid auxiliaries of the Royal Navy. Grimsby is indeed a "name to resound for ages" for what its fishermen have done and are doing in the war against mine and submarine:

Soles in the Silver Pit--an' there we'll let 'em lie; Cod on the Dogger--oh, we'll fetch 'em by an' by; War on the water--an' it's time to serve an' die, For there's wild work doin' on the North Sea ground.

An' it's "Wake up, Johnnie!" they want you at the trawlin'

(With your long sea-boots and your tarry old tarpaulin); All across the bitter seas duty comes a-callin'

In the Winter's weather off the North Sea ground.

It's well we've learned to laugh at fear--the sea has taught us how; It's well we've shaken hands with death--we'll not be strangers now, With death in every climbin' wave before the trawler's bow, An' the black sp.a.w.n swimmin' on the North Sea ground.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM O' THE WISP]

These brave men and their heroic brothers in the trenches are true sportsmen as well as patriots, not those who interpret the need of lightheartedness by the cult of "sport as usual" on the football field and the racecourse. And the example of the Universities shines with the same splendour. Of the scanty remnant that remain at Oxford and Cambridge all the physically fit have joined the O.T.C. Boat-race day has pa.s.sed, but the crews are gone to "keep it long" and "pull it through" elsewhere:

Not here their hour of great emprise; No mounting cheer towards Mortlake roars; Lulled to full tide the river lies Unfretted by the fighting oars; The long high toil of strenuous play Serves England elsewhere well to-day.

London changes daily. The sight of the female Jehu is becoming familiar; the lake in St. James's Park has been drained and the water-fowl driven to form a concentration camp by the sorry pool that remains beside the Whitehall Gate.

Spy-hunting is prevalent in East Anglia, but the amateurs have not achieved any convincing results. Spring poets are suffering from suspended animation; there is a slump in crocuses, snowdrops, daffodils and lambkins.

Their "musings always turn away to men who're arming for the fray." The clarion and the fife have ousted the pastoral ode. And our military and naval experts, hara.s.sed by the Censor, take refuge in psychology.

The _Kolnische Zeitung_ has published a whole article on "Mr. Punch."

The writer, a Herr Professor, finds our cartoons lacking in "modest refinement." Indeed, he goes so far as to say that the treatment of the Kaiser savours of blasphemy. One is so apt to forget that the Kaiser is a divinity, so p.r.o.ne to remember that Luther wrote, "We Germans are Germans, and Germans we will remain--that is to say, pigs and brutish animals." This was written in 1528: but "the example of the Middle Ages" is held up to-day by German leaders as the true fount of inspiration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WAR SPIRIT AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM

ARDENT EGYPTOLOGIST (who has lately joined the Civic Guard): "No, I seem to have lost my enthusiasm for this group since I noticed Bes-Hathor-Horus was out of step with the other two."]

_April_, 1915.

A hundred years ago Bismarck was born on April 1, the man who built with blood and iron, but now only the blood remains. Yet one may doubt whether even that strong and ruthless pilot would have commended the submarine crew who sank the liner _Falaba_ and laughed at the cries and struggles of drowning men and women. Sooner or later these crews are doomed to die the death of rats:

But you, who sent them out to do this shame; From whom they take their orders and their pay; For you--avenging wrath defers its claim, And Justice bides her day.

The tide of "frightfulness" rolls strong on land as on sea. The second battle of Ypres has begun and the enemy has resorted to the use of a new weapon--poison gas. He had already poisoned wells in South West Africa, but this is an uglier outcome of the harnessing of science to the Powers of Darkness. Italy grows restive in spite of the blandishments of Prince Bulow, and as the month closes we hear of the landing of the Allies in Gallipoli, just two months after the unsupported naval attempt to force the Dardanelles. British and Australian and New Zealand troops have achieved the impossible by incredible valour in face of murderous fire, and a foothold has been won at tremendous cost of heroic lives. Letters from the Western front continue cheerful, but it does not need much reading between the lines to realise the odds with which our officers and men have to contend, the endless discomfort and unending din. They are masters of a gallant art of metaphor which belittles the most appalling horrors of trench warfare; masters, too, of the art of extracting humorous relief from the most trivial incidents.

On the home front we have to contend with a dangerous ally of the enemy in Drink, and with the self-advertising politicians who do their bit by asking unnecessary questions. Sometimes, but rarely, they succeed in eliciting valuable information, as in Mr. Lloyd George's statement on the situation at the front. We have now six times as many men in the field as formed the original Expeditionary Force, and in the few days fighting round Neuve Chapelle almost as much ammunition was expended by our guns as in the whole of the two and three-quarter years of the Boer War.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HAUNTED SHIP

GHOST OF THE OLD PILOT: "I wonder if he would drop me _now!_"]

The Kaiser has been presented with another grandson, but it has not been broken to the poor little fellow who he is. It is also reported that the Kaiser has bestowed an Iron Cross on a learned pig--one of a very numerous cla.s.s.

_May, 1915_.

We often think that we must have got to the end of German "frightfulness,"

only to have our illusions promptly shattered by some fresh and amazing explosion of calculated ferocity. Last month it was poison gas; now it is the sinking of the _Lusitania_. Yet Mr. Punch had read the omens some seven and a half years ago, when the records established by that liner had created a jealousy in Germany which the Kaiser and his agents have now appeased, but at what a cost! The House of Commons is an odd place, unique in its characteristics. Looking round the benches when it rea.s.sembled on May 10th, and noting the tone and purport of the inquiries addressed to the First Lord, one might well suppose that nothing remarkable had happened since Parliament adjourned. The questions were numerous but all practical, and as unemotional as if they referred to outrages by a newly-discovered race of fiends in human shape peopling Mars or Saturn. The First Lord, equally undemonstrative, announced that the Board of Trade have ordered an inquiry into the circ.u.mstances attending the disaster. Pending the result, it would be premature to discuss the matter. Here we have the sublimation of officialism and national phlegm. Of the 1,200 victims who went down in this unarmed pa.s.senger ship about 200 were Americans. What will America say or do?

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN OMEN OF 1908

Reproduced from "Christmas Cards for Celebrities," in _Mr. Punch's Almanack_ of that year]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HAMLET U.S.A.

SCENE: The Ramparts of the White House.

PRESIDENT WILSON: "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!"

VOICE OF ROOSEVELT (_off_): "That's so!"]

In silence you have looked on felon blows, On butcher's work of which the waste lands reek!

Now in G.o.d's name, from Whom your greatness flows, Sister, will you not speak?

Many unofficial voices have been raised in horror, indignation, and even in loud calls for intervention. The leaven works, but President Wilson, though not unmoved, gives little sign of abandoning his philosophic neutrality.

In Europe it is otherwise. Italy has declared war on Austria; her people have driven the Government to take the path of freedom and honour and break the shackles of Germanism in finance, commerce and politics.

Italy has not declared war on Germany yet, but the fury of the German Press is unbounded, and for the moment Germany's overworked Professors of Hate have focused their energies on the new enemy, and its army of "vagabonds, convicts, ruffians and mandolin-players," conveniently forgetting that the spirit of Garibaldi is still an animating force, and that the King inherits the determination of his grandfather and namesake.

On the Western front the enemy has been repulsed at Ypres. Lord Kitchener has asked for another 300,000 men, and speaks confidently of our soon being able to make good the shortage of ammunition.

On the Eastern front the Grand Duke Nicholas has been forced to give ground; in Gallipoli slow progress is being made at heavy cost on land and sea. The Turk is a redoubtable trench fighter and sniper; the difficulties of the _terrain_ are indescribable, yet our men continue the epic struggle with unabated heroism. King Constantine of Greece, improved in health, construes his neutrality in terms of ever increasing benevolence to his brother-in-law the Kaiser.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (series of six panels) THE REWARD OF KULTUR]

At home the great event has been the formation of a Coalition Government--a two-handed sword, as we hope, to smite the enemy; while practical people regard it rather as a "Coal and Ammunition Government." The cost of the War is now Two Millions a day, and a new campaign of Posters and Publicity has been inaugurated to promote recruiting. Volunteers, with scant official recognition, continue their training on foot; the Hurst Park brigade continue their activities, mainly on rubber wheels. An evening paper announces:

VICTORY IN GALLIPOLI.

LATE WIRE FROM CHESTER.

Mr. Punch is prompted to comment:

For these our Army does its bit, While they in turn peruse Death's honour-roll (should time permit) After the Betting News.