Mr. Punch's History of the Great War Part 7

When the Kaiser was at Windsor in 1891 he told the Eton College Volunteers he was glad to see so many of them taking an interest in the study of arms, and hoped that if ever they had to draw their swords in earnest they would use them to some purpose for their country. Now that there are three thousand Etonians at the front he is beginning to be sorry he spoke. The Kaiser, by his own confession, is sorry in another way. He has told a Socialist deputy, "with tears in his eyes," that he was sincerely sorry for France, which was "the greatest disappointment of his life." Even crocodiles sometimes speak the truth unwittingly. Meanwhile the Hamburg _Fremdenblatt_ a.s.serts that, "We Germans would gladly follow the Kaiser's lead through the very gates of h.e.l.l, were it necessary." The qualification is surely superfluous, in the light of the murder of the heroic English hospital matron, Edith Cavell, at Brussels on October 12.

Her life was one long act of mercy. She died with unshaken fort.i.tude after the mockery of a trial on a charge of having a.s.sisted fugitive British and Belgian prisoners to escape. But her great offence was that she was English. The names of her chief a.s.sa.s.sins are General Baron von Biasing, the Governor of Brussels, General von Sauberschweig, the Military Governor, and the Baron von der Lancken, the Head of the Political Department. Many years will pa.s.s before the echoes of that volley fired at dawn in a Brussels prison yard will die away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LANDLADY; "'Ere's the Zeppelins, sir!" LODGER: "Right-o! Put 'em down outside."]

A new phase has been reached in the Conscription controversy, and the burning question appears to be whether the necessary men are to be compelled to volunteer or persuaded to be compulsorily enrolled. One of our novelist military experts, who is not always lucky with figures, though he thoroughly enjoys them, is alleged to have discovered that there are no more men than can be raised by conscription, but that the same does not, of course, apply to the voluntary system.

The _Daily Mail_ asks, "Have we a Foreign Office?" We understand that a search-party is going carefully through Carmelite House. We have certainly got a Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, so efficient in the discharge of his duties that he has made himself an accomplished landscape painter in three months.

A visitor to a remote East Anglian village in search of rest has found recreation in discussing with the inhabitants the Great War, of which he found some of them had heard. "Them there Zett'lins," said one old woman, "I almost shruk as I heerd the mucky varmints a-shovellin' on the coals--dare, dare! How my pore heart did beat!" And an onlooker, who had seen a bomb drop near a church, informed the visitor that it "fared to him like the body of the chach a-floatin' away--that it did and all! It made a clangin' like a covey of lorries with their innards broke loose." Another inhabitant said that he had two boys fighting. "One on 'em is in France, wherever that might be, and Jimmy's in that hare old Dardelles." He couldn't rightly say when the elder had gone out, "but it might be a yare ago come muck-spreadin'."

_November_, 1915.

More money and more men is still the cry. The war is now costing five millions a day, and the new vote of credit for 400,000,000 will only carry us on till the middle of February. This is "Derby's Day," and the new Director of Recruiting inspires confidence in his ability to make good, in spite of the Jeremiads of Lord Courtney and Lord Loreburn. The lot of a Coalition Government is never easy, and public opinion clamours not for Jeremiahs but for Jonahs to lighten the Ship of State. Mr. Winston Churchill, wearying of his sinecure at the Duchy of Lancaster, has resigned office, explained himself in a long speech, and rejoined his regiment at the Western front. Lord Fisher, whose doubts and hesitations about the Dardanelles expedition were referred to by the late First Lord, has been content to leave his record of sixty-one years' service in the hands of his countrymen. In the briefest maiden speech ever delivered in either House he stated that it was "unfitting to make personal explanations affecting the national interest when my country is in the midst of a great war." Here at least the traditions of the "Silent Service" have been worthily maintained, just as they are maintained by the Port Officer R.N.R. at an Oriental seaport, a thousand miles from the front, out of the limelight, with no chance of glory, with fever from morn till night, who "worries along by the grace of G.o.d and the blessing of cheap cheroots."

In Flanders the rain has begun its winter session, and, as a military humorist put it, trench warfare is becoming a constant drain. The problem of parapet mending has been reduced to arithmetical form _a la_ Colenso, as follows: "If two inches of rain per diem brings down one quarter of a company's parapet, and one company, working about twenty-six hours per diem, can revet one-eighth of a company's parapet, how long will your trenches last--given the additional premisses that no revetments to speak of are to be had, and that two inches of rain is only a minimum ration?" The infantryman finds the men of the R.F.C. interesting and stimulating companions. "These airy fellows talk of war as if it were a day's shooting, and they the c.o.c.k pheasants with the best of the fun up aloft. Upon my word, the hen who hatched such birds should be a proud, if anxious, mother." The same correspondent sends a pleasant account of the mutual estimates of French and English, prompted by their experiences as brothers in arms. "Our idea of our Ally as a soldier is that his _elan_ and gay courage are very much more remarkable even than supposed; but for the dull, heavy work of continued warfare there is wanted, if we may say so without offence, the more stolid qualities of the English. On the other hand, the French opinion of their Ally as a soldier is that his dash and devilment are really astonishing, even to the most expectant critic; but for the sordid, monotonous strain of this trench business it needs (a thousand pardons!) the duller persistence of the French."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PERSUADING OF TINO]

In Greece the quick change of Premiers proceeds with kaleidoscopic rapidity. The att.i.tude of the successive Prime Ministers has been described as (1) Tender and affectionate neutrality toward the Entente Powers; (2) Malevolent impartiality toward the Central Powers; (3) Inert cupidity toward all the belligerent Powers; (4) Genial inability; (5) Strict pusillanimity.

Lord Milner has gone so far in the House of Lords as to say that "such war news as is published has from first to last been seriously misleading." The Balkan intelligence that is allowed to reach us does not exactly deserve this censure. To call it misleading would be too high praise; it seldom rises beyond a level of blameless irrelevance. It is hardly a burlesque of the facts to say that a cable from Amsterdam informs us that the Copenhagen correspondent of the _Echo de Paris_ learns from Salonika, _via_ Lemnos and Nijni Novgorod, that in high official circles in Bukarest it is rumoured that in Constantinople the situation is considered grave; and then we are warned that too much credence must not be given to this report. The number of Censors at the Press Bureau being exactly forty, and their minute knowledge of English literature having been displayed on several occasions, it is said that Sir John Simon contemplates their incorporation as an Academy of "Immortals--for the duration of the War."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PADDY (who has had his periscope smashed by a bullet): "Sure there's seven years' bad luck for the poor devil that broke that, anyhow."]

Mr. Punch's Correspondent "Blanche" sends distressing details of some of the new complaints contracted by smart war workers. These include munition-wrists, sh.e.l.l-makers' crouch, neuro-committee-itis, and Zeppelin-eye through looking up into the sky too long with a telescope.

A great deal depends on what you look at and what you look through. Thus Mr. Walter Long says that when he reads carping criticisms upon the conduct of the War he looks through his window at the people in the street and is always surprised to see the quiet steadfast manner in which they are going about their business. It is a good plan, but not always successful. The Kaiser got his view of the Irish people through a Cas.e.m.e.nt, and it was entirely erroneous.

The _Cologne Gazette_ has stated that "there is in England no real soldiers' humour such as we have." Certainly we have nothing like it, though we confess to preferring the home-grown brand.

_December, 1915_

Kut and Ctesiphon, Ctesiphon and Kut. Thus may the events of the last month in Mesopotamia, no longer a "blessed word," be expressed in a bald formula, which takes no account of the unavailing heroism of General Townshend's small but splendid force. Things have not been going well in the East. The Allies have been unable to save Serbia, Monastir has fallen, and our lines have been withdrawn to Salonika. The experts are now divided into two camps, the Westerners and the Easterners, and the former, pointing to the evacuation of Gallipoli, are loud in their denunciations of costly "side-shows," and the folly of strengthening Germany's hold on Turkey by killing out the Turks, instead of concentrating all our forces on killing the Germans on the Western front. The time is not yet come to decide which is right. But all are agreed with the British officer who described the Australian soldier at Gallipoli as "the bravest thing G.o.d ever made," and so prompted these lines:

Bravest, where half a world of men Are brave beyond all earth's rewards, So stoutly none shall charge again Till the last breaking of the swords; Wounded or hale, won home from war, Or yonder by the Lone Pine laid; Give him his due for evermore-- "The bravest thing G.o.d ever made!"

Though the wings of the angel of Peace cannot be heard, peace kite-flying has already begun in Vienna, but Germany is anxious to represent it as unauthorised and improper. Mr. Henry Ford's voyage to Europe on the _Oscar II_ with a strangely a.s.sorted group of Pacificists does more credit to his heart than his head, and the conflicting elements in his party have earned for his ship the name of "The Tug of Peace." Anyhow, England is taking no risks on the strength of these irregular "overtures."

A vote has been pa.s.sed for a further increase of our "contemptible little Army" to four millions; and the manufacture of high explosive goes on in an ever-increasing ratio. Sir Douglas Haig has succeeded Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of our Armies in France; Sir William Robertson is the new Chief of Staff--Scotsmen both of the finest type--and the appointments are universally approved, even by the _Daily Mail_. The temper of the men in France is well hit off by an officer when he says that "Atkins is really best when an ordinary mortal might be contemplating suicide or desertion." And officers arriving on leave at Victoria at 2 A.M. are driven to the conclusion that they are sent back to England from time to time to check their optimism, which at the front survives even being sent to so-called rest camps in the middle of a malodorous marsh for nine hours'

military training _per diem_. The "philosophy of Thomas" is inscrutable, but no doubt he derives satisfaction from comparisons:

If we're standin' in two foot o' water, you see Quite likely the Boches are standin' in three; An' though the keen frost may be ticklin' our toes, 'Oo doubts that the Boches' 'ole bodies is froze?

So 'ere's our philosophy, simple an' plain: Wotever we 'ates in the bloomin' campaign, 'Tis balm to our souls, as we grumble an' cuss, To feel that the Boches are 'atin' it wuss.

Hardest of all is the lot of the trooper in the trenches, who "thinks all day and dreams all night of a slap-bang, tally-ho! open fight," but for the time being "like a blinded mole toils in a furrow and lives in a hole."

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN UNAUTHORISED FLIRTATION

THE KAISER (to Austrian Emperor): "Franz! Franz! I'm surprised and pained."]

The National Thrift campaign is carried on with great earnestness in Parliament. Luxury, waste, unnecessary banquets, high legal salaries have all come under the lash of the economy hunters. Of the maxim that "Charity begins, at home," they have, however, so far shown no appreciation beyond abstaining from voting any addition to their salary of 400 a year. Mr.

Asquith's announcement that he takes his salary, and is going to continue taking it, has naturally lifted a great weight from the minds of these vicarious champions of economy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOMMY (finding a German prisoner who speaks English): "Look what you done to me, you blighters! 'Ere--'ave a cigarette?"]

Evidence of the chastened condition of the enemy is to be found in the statement on the official notepaper of Wolff's Telegraphic Bureau "that it a.s.sumes no responsibility of any kind for the accuracy of the news which it circulates." But there is no confirmation of the report that its dispatches will in future be known as "Lamb's Tales." The German Imperial Chancellor has replied to an appeal from a deputation of German Roman Catholics on behalf of the Armenians that "The German Government, in friendly communication with the Turkish Government, has been at constant pains to better the situation of Turkey's Christian subjects." Thanks to this friendly intervention, more than half a million Armenians will never suffer again from Turkish misrule.

Mr. Roosevelt has added to the picturesqueness of political invective by describing Mr. Wilson's last Presidential message as "worthy of a Byzantine logothete." It is not often that one finds a rough-rider and ex-cowboy who is able to tackle a don in his own lingo. But Tommy at the front manages to converse with the _poilu_ without any vocabulary at all:

I met a chap the other day a-roostin' in a trench, 'E didn't know a word of ours nor me a word of French, An' 'ow it was we managed--well, I cannot understand, But I never used the phrase-book, though I 'ad it in my hand.

I winked at 'im to start with; 'e grinned from ear to ear; An' 'e says "Tipperary," an' I says "Sooveneer"; 'E 'ad my only Woodbine, I 'ad 'is thin cigar, Which set the ball a-rollin', an' so--well, there you are!

I showed 'im next my wife an' kids, 'e up an' showed me 'is, Them funny little Frenchy kids with 'air all in a frizz; "Annette," 'e says, "Louise," 'e says, an' 'is tears began to fall; We was comrades when we parted, but we'd 'ardly spoke at all.

_January, 1916_.

The New Year brings us a mixed bag of tricks, good and bad. Our armies grow in numbers and efficiency, in men and munitions. The new Commander-in-Chief on the Western front, and his new Chief of Staff, inspire confidence in all ranks, combatant and non-combatant. John Ward, the Labour Member, hitherto a strong opponent of conscription, and now a full-blown Colonel, has hurried over from the front to defend the Compulsory Service Bill in a manly and animated speech, and the Bill, despite the "Pringling" and pacificism of a small but local minority, has pa.s.sed through Committee.

Against these encouraging omens we have to set the complete evacuation of Gallipoli, the scene of unparalleled heroism and unavailing sacrifice, the fall of Monastir, the overrunning of Serbia, labour troubles on the Clyde, and the ignominious exemption of Ireland from the Military Service Bill.

General Townshend, _rebus angustis animosus_--"in a tight place but full of beans"--is besieged in Kut, and the relieving forces have not been able to dislodge the Turks. Climate and weather and _terrain_ are all against us.

Humanitarian Pacificists are much impressed by Germany's piteous lamentations over the brutality of the blockade. In these appeals to America optimists detect signs of cracking. Cooler observers explain them as evidence of her policy of shamming dead.

English mothers who have lost their only sons cannot be expected to show sympathy for an Emperor who combines the professions of a Jekyll with the ferocity of a Hyde. Yet few of them would rewrite the record of these short lives; their pride is greater than their pain.

While the daily toll of life is heavy, War, shorn of its pomp and pageantry, drags wearily in the trenches. The Lovelace of to-day is a troglodyte, biding his time patiently, but often a prey to _ennui_.

This is how he writes to Lucasta to correct the portrait painted by her fancy:

Above, the sky is very grey, the world is very damp.

His light the sun denies by day, the moon by night her lamp; Across the landscape, soaked and sad, the dull guns answer back, And through the twilight's futile hush spasmodic rifles crack.

The papers haven't come to-day to show how England feels; The hours go lame and languidly between our Spartan meals; We've written letters till we're tired, with not a thing to tell Except that nothing's doing, weather beastly, writer well.

So when you feel for us out here--as well I know you will-- Then sympathise with thousands for their country sitting still; Don't picture battle-pieces by the lurid Press adored, But miles and miles of Britishers, in burrows, badly bored.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

FOR NEUTRALS