Chapter 10

Far too much fuss has been made about trying to stop Messrs. Ramsay MacDonald and Jowett from leaving England. So far as we can gather they did not threaten to return to this country afterwards. There is no end to the woes of Pacificists, conscientious or otherwise. The Press campaign against young men of military age engaged in Government offices is causing some of them sleepless days. Even on the stage the "conchy" is not safe.

The King has done a popular act in abolishing the German titles held by members of his family, and Mr. Kennedy Jones has won widespread approval by declaring that beer is a food.

Lord Devonport's retirement from the post of Food Controller has been received with equanimity. There is a touch of imagination, almost of romance, in the appointment of his successor, the redoubtable Lord Rhondda, who as "D.A." was alternately the bogy and idol of the Welsh miners, and who, after being the head of the greatest profit-making enterprise in the Welsh coalfields, is now summoned to carry on war against the profiteers in the provision trade.

In Germany a number of lunatics have been called up for military service, and the annual report of one institution at Stettin states that "the asylums are proud that their inmates are allowed to serve their Fatherland." It appears, however, that the results are not always satisfactory, though no complaints have been heard on our side.

_July_, 1917.

The War, so Lord Northcliffe has informed the Washington Red Cross Committee, has only just begun. Whether this utterance be regarded as a statement of fact or an explosion of rhetoric, it has at least one merit. The United States cannot but regard it as a happy coincidence that their entry into the War synchronises with the initial operations. The dog-days are always busy times for the Dogs of War, and the last month of the third year opened with the new Russian Offensive under Brusiloff, and closed with the beginning of the Third Battle of Ypres. The War in the air and under the sea rages with unabated intensity, and in both Houses the policy of unmitigated reprisals on German cities has found strenuous advocates. But Lord Derby, our new Minister of War, will have none of it. British aeroplanes shall only be employed in bombing where some distinctly military object is to be achieved. But this decision does not involve any slackness in defensive measures. We have learned how to deal with the Zepp, and now we are going to attend to the Gotha. As for the U-boats, the Admiralty says little but does much. And we are adding to vigilance, valour, and the resources of applied science the further aid of agriculture.

In the old days the Kaiser was once described as "indefatigably changing Chancellors and uniforms." Dr. Bethmann-Hollweg has now gone the way of his greater predecessors--Bismarck and Caprivi, Prince Hohenlohe and Prince Bülow.

The Princes and the Peers depart, and the Doctors are following suit. Bethmann-Hollweg, immortalised by one fatal phrase, has been at last hunted from office by the extremists whom he sought to restrain, and Dr. Michaelis, a second-rate administrator, of negligible antecedents, succeeds to his uneasy chair, while the Kaiser maintains his pose as the friend of the people. He has congratulated his Bayreuth Dragoons on their prowess, which has given joy "to old Fritz up in Elysian fields":

Perhaps; but what if he is down below? In any case, what we should like to know Is how his modern namesake, Private Fritz, Enjoys the fun of being blown to bits Because his Emperor has lost his wits.

_Delirant reges_: but there are bright exceptions. On July 17 our King in Council decreed that the Royal House should be known henceforth as the House of Windsor. Parliament has been flooded with the backwash of the Mesopotamia Commission, and at last on third thoughts the Government has decided not to set up a new tribunal to try the persons affected by the Report. Mr. Austen Chamberlain has resigned office amid general regret. The Government have refused, "on the representations of the Foreign Secretary," to accept the twice proffered resignation of Lord Hardinge. The plain person is driven to the conclusion that if there are no unsinkable ships there are some unsinkable officials. For the rest the question mainly agitating Members has been "to warn or not to warn." The Lord Mayor has announced that he will not ring the great bell of St. Paul's; but the Home Secretary states that the public will be warned in future when an air raid is actually imminent.

During these visitations there is nothing handier than a comfortable and capacious Cave, but the Home Secretary has his limitations. When Mr. King asked him to be more careful about interning alien friends without trial, since he (Mr. King) had just heard of the great reception accorded in Petrograd to one Trotsky on his release from internment, Sir George Cave replied that he was sorry he had never heard of Trotsky.

Lord Rhondda reigns in Lord Devonport's place, and will doubtless profit by his predecessor's experience. It is a thankless job, but the great body of the nation is determined that he shall have fair play and will support him through thick and thin in any policy, however drastic, that he may recommend to their reason and their patriotism. This business of food-controlling is new to us as well as to him, but we are willing to be led, and we are even willing to be driven, and we are grateful to him for having engaged his reputation and skill and firmness in the task of leading or driving us.

The War has its _grandes heures_, its colossal glories and disasters, but the tragedy of the "little things" affects the mind of the simple soldier with a peculiar force--the "little gardens rooted up, the same as might be ours"; "the little 'ouses all in 'eaps, the same as might be mine"; and worst of all, "the little kids, as might 'ave been our own." Apropos of resentment, England has lost first place in Germany, for America is said to be the most hated country now. The "morning hate" of the German family with ragtime obbligato must be a terrible thing! General von Blume, it is true, says that America's intervention is no more than "a straw." But which straw? The last?

It is reported that ex-King Constantine is to receive £20,000 a year unemployment benefit, and Mr. Punch, in prophetic vein, pictures him as offering advice to his illustrious brother-in-law:

Were it not wise, dear William, ere the day When Revolution goes for crowns and things, To cut your loss betimes and come this way And start a coterie of exiled Kings?

In the words of a valued correspondent (a temporary captain suddenly summoned from the trenches to the Staff), "there is this to be said about being at war--you never know what is going to happen to you next."

_August, 1917_.

With the opening of the fourth year of the War Freedom renews her vow, fortified by the aid of the "Gigantic Daughter of the West," and undaunted by the collapse of our Eastern Ally, brought about by anarchy, German gold and the fraternisation of Russian and German soldiers. The Kaiser, making the most of this timely boon, has once more been following in Bellona's train (her _train de luxe_) in search of cheap _réclame_ on the Galician front, to witness the triumphs of his new Ally, Revolutionary Russia:

But though she fail us in the final test, Not there, not there, my child, the end shall be, But where, without your option, France and we Have made our own arrangements in the West.

It is another story on the Western Front, where the British are closing in on the wrecked remains of Lens, and the Crown Prince's chance of breaking hearts along "The Ladies' Way" grows more and more remote.

A recent resolution of the Reichstag has been welcomed by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald as the solemn pronouncement of a sovereign people, only requiring the endorsement of the British Government to produce an immediate and equitable peace. But not much was left of this pleasant theory after Mr. Asquith had dealt it a few sledge-hammer blows. "So far as we know," he said, "the influence of the Reichstag, not only upon the composition but upon the policy of the German Government, remains what it always has been--a practically negligible quantity."

The Reminiscences of Mr. Gerard, the late German Ambassador in Berlin, are causing much perturbation in German Court circles. In one of his conversations with Mr. Gerard, the Kaiser told him "there is no longer any International Law."

Little scraps of paper, Little drops of ink, Make the Kaiser caper And the Nations think.

The real voice of Labour is not that of the delegates who want to go to the International Socialist Conference at Stockholm to talk to Fritz, but of the Tommy who, after a short "leaf," goes cheerfully back to France to fight him. And the fomenters of class hatred will not find much support from the "men in blue." Mr. Punch has had occasion to rebuke the levity of smart fashionables who visit the wounded and weary them by idiotic questions. He is glad to show the other side of the picture in the tribute paid to the V.A.D. of the proper sort:

There's an angel in our ward as keeps a-flittin' to and fro, With fifty eyes upon 'er wherever she may go; She's as pretty as a picture, and as bright as mercury, And she wears the cap and apron of a V.A.D.

The Matron she is gracious, and the Sister she is kind, But they wasn't born just yesterday, and lets you know their mind; The M.O. and the Padre is as thoughtful as can be, But they ain't so good to look at as our V.A.D.

Not like them that wash a teacup in an orficer's canteen, And then "Engaged in War Work" in the weekly Press is seen; She's on the trot from morn to night and busy as a bee, And there's 'eaps of wounded Tommies bless that V.A.D.

Our Grand Fleet keeps its strenuous, unceasing vigil in the North Sea. But we must not forget the merchant mariners now serving under the Windsor House Flag in the North Atlantic trade:

"We sweep a bit and we fight a bit--an' that's what we like the best-- But a towin' job or a salvage job, they all go in with the rest; When we ain't too busy upsettin' old Fritz an' 'is frightfulness blockade A bit of all sorts don't come amiss in the North Atlantic trade."

"And who's your skipper, and what is he like?" "Oh, well, if you want to know, I'm sailing under a hard-case mate as I sailed with years ago; 'E's big as a bucko an' full o' beans, the same as 'e used to be When I knowed 'im last in the windbag days when first I followed the sea. 'E was worth two men at the lee fore brace, an' three at the bunt of a sail; 'E'd a voice you could 'ear to the royal yards in the teeth of a Cape 'Orn gale; But now 'e's a full-blown lootenant, an' wears the twisted braid, Commandin' one of 'is Majesty's ships in the North Atlantic trade."

"And what is the ship you're sailin' in?" "Oh, she's a bit of a terror. She ain't no bloomin' levvyathan, an' that's no fatal error! She scoops the seas like a gravy spoon when the gales are up an' blowin', But Fritz 'e loves 'er above a bit when 'er fightin' fangs are showin'. The liners go their stately way an' the cruisers take their ease, But where would they be if it wasn't for us with the water up to our knees? We're wadin' when their soles are wet, we're swimmin' when they wade, For I tell you small craft gets it a treat in the North Atlantic trade!"

"An' what is the port you're plying to?" "When the last long trick is done There'll some come back to the old 'ome port--'ere's 'opin' I'll be one; But some 'ave made a new landfall, an' sighted another shore, An' it ain't no use to watch for them, for they won't come 'ome no more. There ain't no harbour dues to pay when once they're over the bar, Moored bow and stern in a quiet berth where the lost three-deckers are. An' there's Nelson 'oldin' is' one 'and out an' welcomin' them that's made The roads o' Glory an' the Port of Death in the North Atlantic trade."

Parliament has devoted many hours of talk to the discussion of Mr. Henderson's visit to Paris in company with Mr. Ramsay MacDonald to attend a Conference of French and Russian Socialists. As member of the War Cabinet and Secretary of the Labour Party he seems to have resembled one of those twin salad bottles from which oil and vinegar can be dispensed alternately but not together. The attempt to combine the two functions could only end as it began--in a double fiasco. Mr. Henderson has resigned, and Mr. Winston Churchill has been appointed Minister of Munitions. Many reasons have been assigned for his reinclusion in the Ministry. Some say that it was done to muzzle Mr. MacCallum Scott, hitherto one of the most pertinacious of questionists, who, as Mr. Churchill's private secretary, is now debarred by Parliamentary etiquette from the exercise of these inquisitorial functions. Others say it was done to muzzle Mr. Churchill. Contrary to expectation, Mr. Churchill has succeeded in piloting the Munitions of War Bill through its remaining stages in double quick time. Its progress was accelerated by his willingness to abolish the leaving certificate, which a workman hitherto had to procure before changing one job for another. Having had unequalled experience in this respect, he is convinced that the leaving certificate is a useless formality.

Food stocks going up, thanks to the energy of the farmers and the economy of consumers; German submarines going down, thanks to the Navy; Russia recovering herself; Britain and France advancing hand in hand on the Western Front, and our enemies fumbling for peace--that was the gist of the message with which the Prime Minister sped the parting Commons. "I have resigned," Mr. Kennedy Jones tells us, "because there is no further need for my services." Several politicians are of opinion that this was not a valid reason. A boy of eighteen recently told a Stratford magistrate that he had given up his job because he only got twenty-five shillings a week. The question of wages is becoming acute in Germany too, and it is announced that all salaries in the Diplomatic Service have been reduced. We always said that frightfulness didn't really pay.

_September, 1917_.

Thanks to the collapse of the Russian armies and "fraternisation," Germany has occupied Riga. But her chief exploits of late must be looked for outside the sphere of military operations. She has added a new phrase to the vocabulary of frightfulness, _spurlos versenkt_ in the instructions to her submarine commanders for dealing with neutral merchantmen. As for the position into which Sweden has been lured by allowing her diplomatic agents to assist Germany's secret service, Mr. Punch would hardly go the length of saying that it justifies the revision of the National Anthem so as to read, "Confound their Scandi-knavish tricks." But he finds it hard to accept Sweden's professions of official rectitude, and so does President Wilson.

The German Press accuses the United States of having stolen the cipher key of the Luxburg dispatches. It is this sort of thing that is gradually convincing Germany that it is beneath her dignity to fight with a nation like America. And the growing conviction in the United States that there can be no peace with the Hohenzollerns only tends to fortify this view in Court circles. The Kaiser's protestations of his love for his people become more strident every day.

In Russia the Provisional Government has been dissolved and a Republic proclaimed. If eloquence can save the situation, Mr. Kerensky is the man to do it; but so far the men of few words have gone farthest in the war. A "History of the Russian Revolution" has already been published. The pen may not be mightier than the sword to-day, but it manages to keep ahead of it.

With fresh enemy battalions, as well as batteries, constantly arriving from Russia, the Italians have been hard pressed; but their great assault on San Gabriele has saved the Bainsizza plateau. The Italian success has been remarkable, but the Russian collapse has prevented it from being pushed home. On the Western front no great events are recorded, but the mills of death grind on with ever-increasing assistance from the resources of applied science and the new art of _camouflage_. Yet the dominion of din and death and discomfort is still unable to impair our soldiers' capacity of extracting amusement from trivialities.

The weather has been so persistently wet that it looks as if this year the Channel had decided to swim Great Britain. A correspondent, in a list of improbable events on an "extraordinary day" at the front, gives as the culminating entry, "It did not rain on the day of the offensive."

When Parliament is not sitting and trying to make us "sit up," and when war news is scant, old people at home sometimes fall into a mood of wistful reverie, and contrast the Germany they once knew with the Germany of to-day.

A LOST LAND

A childhood land of mountain ways, Where earthy gnomes and forest fays, Kind, foolish giants, gentle bears, Sport with the peasant as he fares Affrighted through the forest glades, And lead sweet, wistful little maids Lost in the woods, forlorn, alone, To princely lovers and a throne.

Dear haunted land of gorge and glen, Ah me! the dreams, the dreams of men!

A learned law of wise old books And men with meditative looks, Who move in quaint red-gabled towns, And sit in gravely-folded gowns, Divining in deep-laden speech The world's supreme arcana--each A homely god to listening youth, Eager to tear the veil of Truth;

Mild votaries of book and pen-- Alas, the dreams, the dreams of men!

A music land whose life is wrought In movements of melodious thought; In symphony, great wave on wave-- Or fugue elusive, swift and grave; A singing land, whose lyric rhymes Float on the air like village chimes; Music and verse--the deepest part Of a whole nation's thinking heart!

Oh land of Now, oh land of Then! Dear God! the dreams, the dreams of men!

Slave nation in a land of hate, Where are the things that made you great? Child-hearted once--oh, deep defiled, Dare you look now upon a child?

Your lore--a hideous mask wherein Self-worship hides its monstrous sin-- Music and verse, divinely wed-- How can these live where love is dead?

Oh depths beneath sweet human ken, God help the dreams, the dreams of men!

The Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, is preparing for a trip to the North Pole in 1918. Additional interest now attaches to this spot as being the only territory whose neutrality the Germans have omitted to violate. Apropos of neutrals, the crew of the U-boat interned at Cadiz has been allowed to land on giving their word of honour not to leave Spain during the continuance of the War. The mystery of how the word "honour" came into their possession is not explained. It is easier to explain that the Second Division, in which Mr. E.D. Morel is now serving, is not the one which fought at the battle of Mons.

_October, 1917_.

Another month of losses and gains. Against the breakthrough at Caporetto on the Isonzo we have to set the steady advance of Allenby on the Palestine front, and the decision arrived at by an extraordinary meeting of German Reichstag members that the Germans cannot hope for victory in the field. We see nothing extraordinary in this. The Reichstag may not yet be able to influence policy, but it is not blind to facts--to the terribly heavy losses involved in our enemy's desperate efforts to prevent us from occupying the ridges above the Ypres-Menin road, and so forcing him to face the winter on the low ground. Then, too, there has been the ominous mutiny of the German sailors at Kiel. The ringleaders have been executed, but they may have preferred death to another speech from the Kaiser. Dr. Michaelis, that "transient embarrassed phantom," has joined the ranks of the dismissed. No sooner had the _Berliner Tageblatt_ pointed out that "Dr. Michaelis was a good Chancellor as Chancellors go" than he went. Another of the German doctor politicians has been delivering his soul on the failure of Pro-German propaganda in memorable fashion. Dr. Dernburg, in _Deutsche Politik_, tells us that "steadfastness and righteousness are the qualities which the German people value in the highest degree, and which have brought it a good and honourable reputation in the whole world. When we make experiments in lies and deceptions, intrigue and low cunning, we suffer hopeless and brutal failure. Our lies are coarse and improbable, our ambiguity is pitiful simplicity. The history of the War proves this by a hundred examples. When our enemies poured all these things upon us like a hailstorm, and we convinced ourselves of the effectiveness of such tactics, we tried to imitate them. But these tactics will not fit the German. We are rough but moral, we are credulous but honest." Before this touching picture of the German Innocents very much abroad, the Machiavellian Briton can only take refuge in silent amazement.