The War on All Fronts: England's Effort Part 9

VII

AN EPILOGUE

_August 16, 1916._

I

It is now three months since I finished the six preceding Letters, written in response to an urgent call from America; nor did I then antic.i.p.ate any renewal of my work. But while a French translation of the six Letters has been pa.s.sing through the Press, an appeal has been made to me from France to add an Epilogue, or supplementary Letter, briefly recapitulating the outstanding facts or events which in those three months have marked the British share in the war, and played their part in the immense transformation of the general outlook which has taken place during those months. Not an easy task! One thinks first of one's own inadequacy; and then remembers, as before, that one is a unit in a nation under orders. I must therefore do what I can. And perhaps other readers, also, of this little book, in America and England, as they look back over the ever-changing scene of the war, will not find this renewed attempt to summarise Britain's part in it as it has developed up to the present date (August 16, 1916) unwelcome. The outstanding facts of the last three months, as I see them, are, for Great Britain:--

1. The immense increase in the output of British Munitions of War;

2. The Naval Battle of Jutland;

3. The Allied offensive on the Somme.

The first and third of these events are, of course, so far as the latter concerns Great Britain, the natural and logical outcome of that "England's Effort" of which I tried--how imperfectly!--to give a connected account three months ago.

At that time the ever-mounting British effort, though it had reached colossal dimensions, though everybody aware of it was full of a steadily growing confidence as to its final result, had still to be tested by those greater actions to which it was meant to lead. After the local failures at the Dardanelles, and in Mesopotamia, Great Britain was again, for a time, everywhere on the defensive, though it was a very vigorous and active defensive; and the magnificent stand made by the French at Verdun was not only covering France herself with glory, and kindling the hearts of all who love her throughout the world, but under its shield the new armies of Great Britain were still being steadily perfected, and wonderfully armed; time was being given to Russia for reorganisation and re-equipment, and time was all she wanted; while Germany, vainly dashing her strength in men and guns against the heights of Verdun, in the hope of provoking her enemies on the Western front to a premature offensive, doomed to exhaustion before it had achieved its end, was met by the iron resolve of both the French and British Governments, advised by the French and British Commanders in the field, to begin that offensive only at their own time and place, when the initiative was theirs, and everything was ready.

But the scene has greatly altered. Let me take Munitions first. In February, it will be remembered by those who have read the preceding Letters, I was a visitor, by the kindness of the Ministry of Munitions, then in Mr. Lloyd George's hands, to a portion of the munitions field--in the Midlands, on the Tyne, and on the Clyde. At that moment, Great Britain, as far as armament was concerned, was in the mid-stream of a gigantic movement which had begun in the summer of 1915, set going by the kindling energy of Mr. Lloyd George, and seconded by the roused strength of a nation which was not the industrial pioneer of the whole modern world for nothing, however keenly others, during the last half-century, have pressed upon--or in some regions pa.s.sed--her. Everywhere I found new workshops already filled with workers, a large proportion of them women, already turning out a ma.s.s of sh.e.l.l which would have seemed incredible to soldiers and civilians alike during the first months of the war; while the tale of howitzers, trench-mortars, machine-guns, and the rest, was running up week by week, in the vast extensions already added to the other works.

But everywhere, too, I saw huge, empty workshops, waiting for their machines, or just setting them up; and everywhere the air was full of rumours of the new industrial forces--above all, of the armies of women--that were to be brought to bear. New towns were being built for them; their workplaces and their tools were being got ready for them, as in that vast filling factory--or rather town--on the Clyde which I described in my third Letter. But in many quarters they were not yet there; only one heard, as it were, the tramp of their advancing feet.

But to-day! Those great empty workshops that I saw in February, in the making, or the furnishing, are now full of workers and machines; and thousands like them all over the country. Last night (Aug. 15), the new Minister of Munitions, Mr. Montagu, who, a few weeks ago, succeeded Mr.

Lloyd George, now Minister for War, rendered an account of his department up to date, which amazed even the House of Commons, and will surely stir the minds of men throughout the British Empire with a just and reasonable pride. The "effete" and "degenerate" nation has roused herself indeed!

Here is the bare resume of the Minister's statement:--

_Ammunition._--The British output of ammunition at the beginning of the war was intended for an army of 200,000 men.

Naturally, the output rose steadily throughout the first year of war.

_But_--the same output which in 1914-15 took 12 months to produce could now be produced--

As to 18-pounder ammunition, in 3 weeks " Field howitzer " in 2 weeks " Medium gun and howitzer ammunition, in 11 days " Heavy sh.e.l.l, in 4 days

We are sending over to France _every week as_ much as the whole pre-war stock of land service ammunition in the country.

As to _guns_, I would ask my readers to turn back to the second and third chapters in this little book, which show something of the human side and the daily detail of this great business, and then to look at this summary:--

_Every month, now_, we are turning out nearly twice as many big guns as were in existence for land service--i.e., not naval guns--when the Ministry of Munitions came into being (June, 1915).

Between June, 1915, and June, 1916, the monthly output of _heavy guns_ has increased _6-fold_--and the present output will soon be doubled.

For every 100 _eighteen-pounders_ turned out in the first 10 months of the war, we are now turning out 500.

We are producing 18 times as many _machine-guns_.

Of _rifles_--the most difficult of all war material to produce quickly in large quant.i.ties--our weekly home production is now 3 times as great as it was a year ago. We are supplying our Army overseas with rifles and machine-guns entirely from home sources.

Of _small-arms ammunition_ our output is 3 times as great as a year ago.

We are producing 66 times as much _high explosive_ as at the beginning of 1915; and our output of _bombs_ is 33 times as great as it was last year.

At the same time, what is Great Britain doing _for her Allies_?

The loss of her Northern Provinces, absorbed by the German invasion, has deprived France of three-quarters of her steel. We are now sending to France _one-third of the whole British production of sh.e.l.l-steel_.

We are also supplying the Allies with the _const.i.tuents of high explosive_ in very large quant.i.ties, prepared by our National factories.

We are sending to the Allies _millions of tons of coal and c.o.ke every month_, large quant.i.ties of machinery, and 20 per cent. of our whole production of machine tools (indispensable to sh.e.l.l manufacture).

We are supplying Russia with millions of pairs of Army boots.

And in the matter of ammunition, we have not only enormously increased the quant.i.ty produced--we have greatly improved its quality. The testimony of the French experts--themselves masters in these arts of death--as conveyed through M. Thomas, is emphatic. The new British heavy guns are "admirably made"--"most accurate"--"most efficient."

Meanwhile a whole series of chemical problems with regard to high explosives have been undertaken and solved by Lord Moulton's department.

If it was ever true that science was neglected by the War Office, it is certainly true no longer; and the soldiers at the front, who have to make practical use of what our scientific chemists and our explosive factories at home are producing, are entirely satisfied.

For that, as Mr. Montagu points out, is the sole and supreme test. How has the vast activity of the new Ministry of Munitions--an activity which the nation owes--let me repeat it--to the initiative, the compelling energy, of Mr. Lloyd George--affected our armies in the field?

The final answer to that question is not yet. The Somme offensive is still hammering at the German gates; I shall presently give an outline of its course from its opening on July 1st down to the present. But meanwhile what can be said is this.

The expenditure of ammunition which enabled us to sweep through the German first lines, in the opening days of this July, almost with ease, was colossal beyond all precedent. The total amount of heavy guns and ammunition manufactured by Great Britain in the first ten months of the war, from August, 1914, to June 1, 1915, would not have kept the British bombardment on the Somme going _for a single day_. That gives some idea of it.

Can we keep it up? The German papers have been consoling themselves with the reflection that so huge an effort must have exhausted our supplies. On the contrary, says Mr. Montagu. _The output of the factories, week by week, now covers the expenditure in the field_. No fear now, that as at Loos, as at Neuve Chapelle, and as on a thousand other smaller occasions, British success in the field should be crippled and stopped by shortage of gun and sh.e.l.l!

By whom has this result been brought about? By that army of British workmen--and workwomen--which Mr. Lloyd George in little more than one short year has mobilised throughout the country. The Ministry of Munitions is now employing _three millions and a half of workers_--(a year ago it was not much more than a million and a half)--of whom 400,000 _are women_; and the staff of the Ministry has grown from 3,000--the figure given in my earlier letters--to 5,000, just as that army of women, which has sprung as it were out of the earth at the call of the nation, has almost doubled since I wrote in April last. Well may the new Minister say that our toilers in factory and forge have had some share in the glorious recent victories of Russia, Italy, and France! Our men and our women have contributed to the re-equipment of those gallant armies of Russia, which, a month or six weeks earlier than they were expected to move, have broken up the Austrian front, and will soon be once more in Western Poland, perhaps in East Prussia! The Italian Army has drawn from our workshops and learnt from our experiments. The Serbian Army has been re-formed and re-fitted.

Let us sum up. The Germans, with years of preparation behind them, made this war a war of machines. England, in that as in other matters, was taken by surprise. But our old and proud nation, which for generations led the machine industry of the world, as soon as it realised the challenge--and we were slow to realise it!--met it with an impatient and a fierce energy which is every month attaining a greater momentum and a more wonderful result. The apparently endless supply of munitions which now feeds the British front, and the _comparative_ lightness of the human cost at which the incredibly strong network of the German trenches on their whole first line system was battered into ruin, during the last days of June and the first days of July, 1916:--it is to effects like these that all that vast industrial effort throughout Great Britain, of which I saw and described a fragment three months ago, has now steadily and irresistibly brought us.

II

This then is perhaps the first point to notice in the landscape of the war, as we look back on the last three months. For on it everything else, Naval and Military, depends:--on the incredibly heightened output of British workshops, in all branches of war material, which has been attained since the summer of last year. In it, as I have just said, we see an _effect_ of a great cause--i.e., of the "effort" made by Great Britain, since the war broke out, to bring her military strength in men and munitions to a point, sufficient, in combination with the strength of her Allies, for victory over the Central Powers, who after long and deliberate preparation had wantonly broken the European peace. The "effort" was for us a new one, provoked by Germany, and it will have far-reaching civil consequences when the war is over.

In the great Naval victory now known as the Battle of Jutland, on the other hand, we have a fresh demonstration on a greater scale than ever before, of that old, that root fact, without which indeed the success of the Allied effort in other directions would be impossible--i.e., _the overwhelming strength of the British Navy_, and its mastery of the Sea.

In a few earlier pages of this book, I have described a visit which the British Admiralty allowed me to make in February last to a portion of the Fleet, then resting in a northern harbour. On that occasion, at the Vice-Admiral's luncheon-table, there sat beside me on my right, a tall spare man with the intent face of one to whom life has been a great arid strenuous adventure, accepted in no boyish mood, but rather in the spirit of the scientific explorer, pushing endlessly from one problem to the next, and pa.s.sionate for all experience that either unveils the world, or tests himself. We talked of the war, and my projected journey. "I envy you!" he said, his face lighting up. "I would give anything to see our Army in the field." My neighbour was Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Arbuthnot, commanding the First Cruiser Squadron, who went down with his flagship _H.M.S. Defence_, in the Battle of Jutland, on the 31st of May last, while pa.s.sing between the British and German fleets, under a very heavy fire.

"It is probable," said Admiral Jellicoe's despatch, "that Sir Robert Arbuthnot, during his engagement with the enemy's light cruisers, and in his desire to complete their destruction, was not aware of the approach of the enemy's heavy ships, owing to the mist, until he found himself in close proximity to the main fleet, and before he could withdraw his ships, they were caught under a heavy fire and disabled." So, between the fleets of Germany and England, amid the mists of the May evening, and the storm and smoke of battle, my courteous neighbour of three months before found, with all his shipmates, that grave in the "unharvested sea" which England never forgets to honour, and from which no sailor shrinks. At the same luncheon-table were two other Admirals and many junior Officers, who took part in the same great action; and looking back upon it, and upon the notes which I embodied in my first Letter, I see more vividly than ever how every act and thought of those brave and practised men, among whom I pa.s.sed those few--to me--memorable hours, were conditioned by an intense _expectation_, that trained prevision of what must come, which, in a special degree, both stirs and steadies the mind of the modern sailor.

But one thing perhaps they had not foreseen--that by a combination of mishaps in the first reporting of the battle, the great action, which has really demonstrated, once and for all, the invincible supremacy of Great Britain at sea, which has reduced the German Fleet to months of impotence, put the invasion of these islands finally out of the question, and enabled the British blockade to be drawn round Germany with a yet closer and sterner hand, was made to appear, in the first announcements of it, almost a defeat. The news of our losses--our heavy losses--came first--came almost alone. The Admiralty, with the stern conscience of the British official mind, announced them as they came in--bluntly--with little or no qualification. A shock of alarm went through England! For what had we paid so sore a price? Was the return adequate, and not only to our safety, but to our prestige?

There were a few hours when both Great Britain--outside the handful of men who knew--and her friends throughout the world, hung on the answer.

Meanwhile the German lie, which converted a defeat for Germany into a "victory," got at least twenty-four hours' start, and the Imperial Chancellor made quick and st.u.r.dy use of it when he extracted a War Loan of 600,000,000 from a deluded and jubilant Reichstag. Then the news came in from one quarter after another of the six-mile battle-line, from one unit after another of the greatest sea-battle Britain had ever fought, and by the 3rd or 4th of June, England, drawing half-ironic breath over her own momentary misgiving, had realised the truth--first--that the German Fleet on the 31st had only escaped total destruction by the narrowest margin, and by the help of mist and darkness; secondly--that its losses were, relatively far greater, and in all probability, absolutely, greater than our own; thirdly--that after the British battle-fleet had severed the German navy from its base, the latter had been just able, under cover of darkness, to break round the British ships, and fly hard to shelter, pursued by our submarines and destroyers through the night, till it arrived at Wilhelmshaven a battered and broken host, incapable at least for months to come of any offensive action against Great Britain or her Allies. Impossible henceforth--for months to come--to send a German squadron sufficiently strong to hara.s.s Russia in the Baltic! Impossible to interfere successfully with the pa.s.sage of Britain's new armies across the seas! Impossible to dream any longer of invading English coasts! The British Fleet holds the North Sea more strongly than it has ever held it; and behind the barbed wire defences of Wilhelmshaven or Heligoland the German Fleet has been nursing its wounds.

Some ten weeks have pa.s.sed, and as these results have become plain to all the world, the German lie, or what remained of it, has begun to droop, even in the country of its birth. "Do not let us suppose," says Captain Persius--the most honest of German naval critics, in a recent article--"that we have shaken the sea-power of England. That would be foolishness." While Mr. Balfour, the most measured, the most veracious of men, speaking only a few days ago to the representatives of the Dominion Parliaments, who have been visiting England, says quietly--"the growth of our Navy, since the outbreak of war, which has gone on, and which at this moment is still going on, is something of which I do not believe the general public has the slightest conception."

For the general public has, indeed, but vague ideas of what is happening day by day and week by week in the great shipyards of the Clyde, the Tyne, and the Mersey. But there, all the same, the workmen--and workwomen--of Great Britain--(for women are taking an ever-increasing share in the lighter tasks of naval engineering)--are adding incessantly to the sea-power of this country, acquiescing in a Government control, a loosening of trade custom, a dilution and simplification of skilled labour, which could not have been dreamt of before the war. At the same time they are meeting the appeal of Ministers to give up or postpone the holidays they have so richly earned, for the sake of their sons and brothers in the trenches, with a dogged "aye, aye!" in which there is a note of profound understanding, of invincible and personal determination, but rarely heard in the early days of the war.