Chapter 12

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

_February, 1918_.

"Watchman, what of the night?" The hours pass 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 régime is already deeply stained with the massacre 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 circumstantial inaccuracies. The enemy's successes in the field--the occupation of Reval and the recapture of Trebizond--are the direct outcome of the Russian _débâcle_. 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 canal) 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.

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.

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.

Food at the front is another matter, and Mr. Punch is glad to print the tribute of one of his war-poets to the "Cookers":

The Company Cook is no great fighter, And there's never a medal for _him_ to wear, Though he camps in the shell-swept waste, poor blighter, And many a cook has "copped it" there; But the boys go over on beans and bacon, And Tommy is best when Tommy has dined, So here's to the Cookers, the plucky old Cookers, And the sooty old Cooks that waddle behind.

"It is Germany," says a German paper, "who will speak the last word in this War." Yes, and the last word will be "Kamerad!" But that word will be spoken in spite of many pseudo-war-workers on the Home Front.

Among the many wonders of the War one of the most wonderful is the sailor-man, three times, four times, five times torpedoed, who yet wants to sail once more. But there is one thing that he never wants to do again--to "pal" with Fritz the square-head:

"When peace is signed and treaties made an' trade begins again, There's some'll shake a German's 'and an' never see the stain; But _not me_," says Dan the sailor-man, "not me, as God's on high-- Lord knows it's bitter in an open boat to see your shipmates die."

Among the ignoble curiosities of the time we note the following advertisements in a Manchester newspaper of "wants" in our "indispensable" industries: "Tennis ball inflators, cutters and makers" and "Caramel wrappers"; while a Brighton paper has "Wanted, two dozen living flies weekly during the remainder of winter for two Italian frogs."

The situation in Ireland remains unchanged, and suggests the following historical division of eras. (1) Pagan era; (2) Christian era; (3) De Valera.

_March, 1918_.

Once again the month of the War-God has been true to its name. March, opening in suspense, with the Kaiser and his Chancellor still talking of peace, has closed in a crisis of acute anxiety for the Allies. The expected has happened; the long-advertised German attack has been delivered in the West, and the war of movement has begun.

Breaking through the Fifth British Army, in five days the Germans have advanced twenty-five miles, to within artillery range of Amiens and the main lateral railway behind the British lines. Bapaume and Péronne have fallen. The Americans have entered the war in the firing line. It is the beginning of the end, the supreme test of the soul of the nation:

The little things of which we lately chattered-- The dearth of taxis or the dawn of Spring; Themes we discussed as though they really mattered, Like rationed meat or raiders on the wing;--

How thin it seems to-day, this vacant prattle, Drowned by the thunder rolling in the West, Voice of the great arbitrament of battle That puts our temper to the final test.

Thither our eyes are turned, our hearts are straining, Where those we love, whose courage laughs at fear, Amid the storm of steel around them raining, Go to their death for all we hold most dear.

New-born of this supremest hour of trial, In quiet confidence shall be our strength, Fixed on a faith that will not take denial Nor doubt that we have found our soul at length.

O England, staunch of nerve and strong of sinew, Best when you face the odds and stand at bay; Now show a watching world what stuff is in you! Now make your soldiers proud of you to-day!

Of our soldiers we at home cannot be too proud, from Field-Marshal to officer's servant. As one of Mr. Punch's correspondents at the front writes: "Dawn to me hereafter will not be personified as a rosy-fingered damsel or a lovely swift-footed deity, but as a sturdy little man in khaki, crimson-eared with cold, heralded and escorted by frozen wafts of outer air, bearing in one knobby fist a pair of boots, and in the other a tin mug of black and smoking tea." As for the charities and courtesies of war, as interpreted by our soldiers, Mr. Punch can wish for no better illustration than in these lines on "The German graves":

I wonder are there roses still In Ablain St. Nazaire, And crosses girt with daffodil In that old garden there. I wonder if the long grass waves With wild-flowers just the same, Where Germans made their soldiers' graves Before the English came?

The English set those crosses straight And kept the legends clean; The English made the wicket-gate And left the garden green; And now who knows what regiments dwell In Ablain St. Nazaire? But I would have them guard as well The graves we guarded there.

And when at last the Prussians pass Among those mounds and see The reverent cornflowers crowd the grass Because of you and me, They'll give, perhaps, one humble thought To all the "English fools" Who fought as never men have fought But somehow kept the rules.

To turn from the crowning ordeal of our Armies to the activities of British politicians on the eve of the great German attack is not a soul-animating experience. Indeed, the efforts of Messrs. Snowden and Trevelyan, Pringle and King almost justify the assumption that Hindenburg would have launched his offensive earlier but for his desire not to interfere with the great offensive conducted by his friends on the Westminster front. Our anti-patriots, however, are placed in a dilemma. They were bound to side with Germany, because of their rooted belief that England always must be wrong. They were bound to hail the Bolshevik self-determinators because of their entirely sound views on peace at any price. But now their two loves are fighting like cats. Hence the problem: "Which am I (both can't well be right), Pro-German or Pro-Trotskyite?" Discussions of pig shortage, commandeered premises, the relations of the Government and Press, and the duties of the Directors of Propaganda leave us cold or impatient. But members of all parties have been united in genuine grief over the death of Mr. John Redmond, snatched away just when his distracted country most needed his moderating influence. For in their anxiety not to interfere with the deliberations of those patriotic Irishmen who are trying to settle how Ireland shall be governed in the future, the Government are allowing it to become ungovernable by anybody. A new and agreeable Parliamentary innovation has been introduced by Sir Eric Geddes in the shape of an immense diagram showing the downward tendency of the U-boat activities. Other orators might with advantage follow this method. Indeed, there are some whose speeches would be more enjoyable if they were all diagrams. As for that pledge of the New Citizenship, the Education Bill, the debate on the second reading has been such a long eulogy of its author that Mr. Fisher would be well advised to offer a propitiatory sacrifice to Nemesis.

Compulsory rationing is now an established fact, and the temporary disappearance of marmalade from the breakfast table has called forth many a _cri de coeur_. As one lyrist puts it:

Let Beef and Butter, Rolls and Rabbits fade, But give me back my love, my Marmalade.

And another has addressed this touching vow to margarine:

Whether the years prove fat or lean This vow I here rehearse: I take you, dearest Margarine, For butter or for worse.

It is reported that the Government's standard suits for men's wear will soon be available. One is occasionally tempted to hope that women's costumes might be similarly standardised.

The German Press announces the death of the notorious "Captain of Koepenick," and the _Cologne Gazette_ refers to him as "the only man who ever succeeded in making the German Army look ridiculous." This is the kind of subtle flattery that the Hohenzollerns really appreciate.

_April, 1918_.

We have reached the darkest hours of the War and the clouds have not yet lifted, though the rate of the German advance has already begun to slow down. On the 11th the enemy broke through at Armentières and pushed their advantage till another wedge was driven into the British line. On the 12th Sir Douglas Haig issued his historic order: "With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind depend alike upon the conduct of each one of us at the critical moment." The Amiens line being under fire, it was impossible to bring French reinforcements north in time to save Kemmel Hill and stave off the menace to the Channel ports. The tale of our losses is grievous, and for thousands and thousands of families nothing can ever be the same again. The ordeal of Paris has been renewed by shelling from the German long-distance gun, the last and most sensational of German surprise-packets. These are indeed dark days, yet already lit by hopeful omens--the closer union of the Allies, the appointment of the greatest French military genius, General Foch, as Generalissimo of the Allied Forces, and his calm assurance that we have as yet lost "nothing vital." America is pouring men into France and, without waiting to complete the independent organisation of her Army, has chivalrously sent her troops forward to be brigaded with French and British units. Even now there are optimists, who are not fools, who maintain that Germany has shot her last bolt and knows that she is losing. It is at least remarkable that German newspapers are daily excusing the failure of their offensive to secure all its objectives. There is clearly something wrong with the time-table and, in the race of Man Power, time is on the side of the Allies.

Truth, long gagged and disguised, is coming to light in Germany. This has been the month of the Lichnowsky disclosures--the Memoir of their Ambassador, vindicating British diplomacy and saddling Germany with the responsibility for the War. The time of publication is indeed unfortunate for the Kaiser, who has been telling us how bitterly he hates war.

For now from German lips the world may know Facts that should want some skill for their confounding-- How Potsdam forced alike on friend and foe A war of Potsdam's sole compounding.

How you, who itched to see the bright sword lunged, Still bleating peace like innocent lambs in clover, In all that bloody business you were plunged Up to your neck and something over.

And, having fed on little else but lies, Your people, with the hollow place grown larger Now that the truth has cut off these supplies, May want your head upon a charger.

And what has England's answer been, apart from the stubborn and heroic resistance of her men on the Western Front? The answer is to be found in the immediate resolve to raise the age limit for service to 50, still more in the glorious exploit of Zeebrugge and Ostend, in the incredible valour of the men who volunteered for and carried through what is perhaps the most astonishing and audacious enterprise in the annals of the Navy.

The pageantry of war has gone, but here at least is a magnificence of achievement and self-sacrifice on the epic scale which beggars description and transcends praise. The hornet's nest that has pestered us so long, if not rooted out, has been badly damaged; our sailors, dead and living, have once more proved themselves masters of the impossible.

At home Parliament, resuming business after the Easter recess, began by giving a second Reading to a Drainage Bill, and ended its first sitting in an Irish bog. Ireland throughout the month has dominated the proceedings, aloof and irreconcilable, brooding over past wrongs, blind to the issues of the War and turning her back on its realities. Mr. Lloyd George's plan of making Home Rule contingent on compulsory service has been described by Mr. O'Brien as a declaration of war on Ireland. Another Nationalist Member, who at Question time urged on the War Office the necessity of according to its Irish employees exactly the same privileges and pay as were given to their British confrères, protested loudly a little later on against a Bill which _inter alia_ extends to Irishmen the privilege of joining in the fight for freedom. Mr. Asquith questioned the policy of embracing Ireland in the Bill unless you could get general consent. Mr. Bonar Law bluntly replied that if Ireland was not to be called upon to help in this time of stress there would be an end of Home Rule, and that if the House would not sanction Irish conscription it would have to get another Government. It remained for Lord Dunraven, before the passing of the Bill in the House of Lords, to produce as "a very ardent Home Ruler" the most ingenious excuse for his countrymen's unwillingness to fight that has yet been heard. Ireland, he tells us, has been contaminated by the British refugees who had fled to that country to escape military service.

The Prime Minister, in reviewing the military situation, has attributed the success of the Germans to their possessing the initiative and to the weather. Members have found it a little difficult to understand why, if even at the beginning of March the Allies were equal in numbers to the enemy on the West and if, thanks to the foresight of the Versailles Council, they knew in advance the strength and direction of the impending blow, they ever allowed the initiative to pass to the Germans. It is known that hundreds of thousands of men have been rushed out of England since the last week of March. Why, if Sir Douglas Haig asked for reserves, were they not sent sooner? These mysteries will be resolved some day. Meanwhile General Trenchard, late chief of the Air Staff, and by general consent an exceptionally brilliant and energetic officer, has retired into the limbo that temporarily contains Lord Jellicoe and Sir William Robertson. But Lord Rothermere (Lord Northcliffe's brother), who still retains the confidence of Mr. Pemberton Billing. remains, and all is well. The enemy possibly thinks it even better. "At least we should keep our heads," declared Mr. Pringle during the debate on the Man-Power Bill. We are not sure about this. It depends upon the heads.

It is a pity that the "New Oxford Dictionary" should have so nearly reached completion before the War and the emergence of hundreds of new words, now inevitably left out. The Air service has a new language of its own, witness the conversation faithfully reported by an expert:

SCENE: R.F.C. CLUB. TIME: EVERY TIME.

_First Pilot_. Why, it's Brown-Jones!

_Second Pilot_. Hullo, old thing! What are you doing now?

_First Pilot_. Oh, I'm down at Puddlemarsh teaching huns--monoavros, pups and dolphins.

_Second Pilot_. I'm on the same game, down at Mudbank--sop-two-seaters and camels. We've got an old tinside, too, for joy-riding.

_First Pilot_. You've given up the rumpety, then?

_Second Pilot_. Yes. I was getting ham-handed and mutton-fisted, flapping the old things every day; felt I wanted to stunt about a bit.

_First Pilot_. Have you ever butted up against Robinson-Smith at Mudbank? He was an ack-ee-o, but became a hun.

_Second Pilot_. Yes, he crashed a few days ago--on his first solo flip, taking off--tried to zoom, engine konked, bus stalled--sideslip--nose-dive. Not hurt, though. What's become of Smith-Jones? Do you know?

_First Pilot_. Oh, yes. He's on quirks and ack-ws. He tried spads, but got wind up. Have you seen the new-----?

_Second Pilot_. Yes, it's a dud bus--only does seventy-five on the ceiling. Too much stagger, and prop stops on a spin. Besides, I never did care for rotaries. Full of gadgets too.

_First Pilot_. Well, I must tootle off now. I'm flapping from Northbolt at dawn if my old airship's ready--came down there with a konking engine--plug trouble.

_Second Pilot_. Well, cheerio, old thing--weather looks dud--you're going to have it bumpy in the morning, if you're on a pup.

_First Pilot_, Bye-bye, you cheery old bean.

_[Exeunt._

The Emperor Karl of Austria, by his recent indiscretions, is winning for himself the new title of "His Epistolic Majesty." His suggestion that France ought to have Alsace-Lorraine has grated on the susceptibilities of his brother Wilhelm. But a new fastidiousness is to be noted in the Teuton character. "Polygamy," says an article in a German review, "is essential to the future of the German race, but a decent form must be found for it."

_May, 1918_.