[1] There are ugly rumors that Produce Exchange patriots who burntThe Daily Mailfor exposing the "shells tragedy" are the importers of these excessively large stores and are selling them to "Holland"--and other "neutrals" adjacent to Germany at exorbitant profits.It is not change of governments, but ruthless change of system, which England requires. She has relegated a vast deal since the cleansing process set in, in August a year ago, but the scrap-heap clamors for more. It cries most insistently of all for obliteration of the fetish that politicians, lawyers and other amateurs are fit to conduct a government engaged in the most terrible combat of human history. Napoleon once said that a nation of lions led by a stag would be beaten by a nation of stags led by a lion. Britons claim to be a nation of lions. They contemplate the first year of the war and ask if they are to continue to be led along the path of disaster by stags. The Truth-Hiders quote Lincoln and deprecate "swapping horses while crossing a stream." Lord Willoughy de Broke effectually disposes of this "plea for incompetence in office" by telling the House of Lords that "whether such a course should be adopted depends on what sort of a horse a man has beneath him. If the horse is standing in the middle of the stream and seems as if he were going to lie down, the best thing is to get another." Englishmen admit that war like this demands wholesale reconstruction of national life, yet their government has substituted spasmodic patchwork for reconstruction. Instead of bold tearing-down and rebuilding, there has been nibbling and tinkering, and even then, too late. The people have waited for marching orders in countless directions, but the Government band has played nothing but a hesitation waltz. Take the drink evil, Britain's most malignant ulcer. Russia is not commonly looked to for economic or social inspiration, yet even she has wrestled with drink in a manner which puts England to shame. While the Czar was banishing vodka absolutely for the pestilence that it was, England's governors, fearful of Labor and "the trade" alike, temporized and enacted makeshifts which materially ameliorated the liquor menace without throttling its power for evil. They have made "treating" a misdemeanor, closed the saloons, both public and private, at 10 P.M., and restricted the hours when drink may be sold in London and the industrial districts. But clubmen, artisans and soldiers can get drunk to their heart's content as of yore. They have had only to rearrange their bibulous hours. Take the air defense muddle. "I, for one," wrote a Briton in October, protesting against the prevailing theory that the call of the hour, in the midst of the Zeppelin peril was "coolness," "am tired of being complimented on the calmness with which I behave in the presence of danger. It is no comfort to me that my death, if it occurs, will have no military importance. I want to be congratulated not on the stoicism with which I go to my funeral, but on my share in a system of government which affords effective protection to my country."Nothing could better stigmatize the epidemic of Self-Sufficiency which, in the writer's deliberate judgment, is primarily responsible for British failures in the war thus far.There has been too much congratulation and self-congratulation on the sang-froid with which John Bull can take punishment. He is a mighty gladiator, but cheery comfort from his seconds between rounds has failed on many an occasion to prevent a champion pugilist from being knocked out. It is not that England isincapableof defeating Germany. It is that she seemsunwillingto do so by throwing into the balance every atom of strength for which that prodigious task calls. For at least a decade before 1914 Britain's political ostriches, disarmament-mongers, professional pacifists and pro-Germans declined to recognize the German danger even when it was approaching with strides so brazen that almost the blind could see. They preferred the "valor of ignorance," thought Ballin and Harnack instead of Tirpitz and Bernhardi typified Modern Germany, continued to revel in the bliss of contemptuous self-confidence, and attempted to parley with a tiger which was crouching for the attack. I enter a modest claim to have done my own little share for eight years in the futile work of arousing Britain to the Teuton peril. I refer merely to my work at Berlin, in reporting military and naval developments--"Germany laid all her cards on the table," as Admiral von Tirpitz once said to me. When the crash came, Englishmen pinned their faith to their history. They were no match for "forty years of preparations," of course; but they always "started late" and "muddled through" their wars. The Crimea began in terror and ended in triumph. The South African affair was the same sort of thing. War with Germany would be no different. The race which had finished off Napoleon need have no qualms in tackling his pinchbeck successor. Britons admit that a year of war has dissipated nearly all their comfortable illusions, but signs are still wanting that there is nation-wide, deep-seated realization of the immensity of the ordeal and the dimensions of the sacrifices yet to be faced. On December 8, 1915, when the war was sixteen months old, Admiral Lord Charles Beresford wrote this letter toThe Times:"We are at present in a complex tangle of muddle and mismanagement. Our military campaigns are being conducted without any objective or plan. Policy only has been considered."In war a policy has to be enforced by the Navy and Army. The War Staffs have not been consulted as to whether they had the means in men and material for enforcing the different policies inaugurated by the Cabinet. Individuals have been consulted; combined opinion of War Staffs has not been sought. The result is disaster in nearly every direction."We have not taken full advantage of our mastery of the sea. In every department we observe doubt, hesitation, and procrastination. War requires quick decisions and prompt actions. The question of supplying recruits for the Army has been postponed once, and apparently may be postponed again. Unless a decision is come to immediately we shall be a year before the recruits joined under any new scheme can possibly be ready to take the field."The public is sick of the policy conveyed in the sentence 'Wait and see.' The danger to the Empire becomes more apparent every day. The country is waiting for a strong, clear lead. Our present methods will prolong the war indefinitely. If we continue hesitating without making up our minds on any single question connected with the war, we shall plunge straight into disaster."I, too, shall be a pessimist about England's chances to win the war only so long as she neglects togo to war. Mere command of the sea, it has been amply demonstrated, can not crush Germany. It can sorely inconvenience her and compel her to live on the ration basis, but it can not force what King George has called "a highly organized enemy" prematurely to make peace. When England has staked her all, I shall turn blithe optimist, for I believe that nothing else in the world can overthrow her savagely efficient antagonist. Germany has staked herall. Until England does likewise, they will not fight on even terms. When England, like Germany, has relentlessly marshaled every tithe of her national strength for war, subordinated all else to that purpose, harnessed to the chariot of Mars every conceivable resource at her command, pulverized caste distinctions, banned politics and politicians, and made the war and the winning of it the only thing the nation eats for, works for, dreams of, or wastes thought upon--then I shall feel constrained to feel assured that victory will perch, however distant the hour, on Liberty's and not on Tyranny's banners. The Anglo-German endurance test--into which the war will eventually resolve itself--can have but one issue. Germans know that. Their analytical mind long ago taught them that the dormant resources of the British Empire,once mobilized, would be invincible. But what is happening is precisely what the Germans counted upon: the irresolute British habit of mind, the "too late" system, the century-old cult of comfort and ease, the "Splendid Isolation" school of thought, which, when the hour of trial came, might be relied upon to cripple the effort to convert latent potentialities into an inconquerable organism. History will have names for all these things. It will call them Belgium, Serbia, Dardanelles and Salonica.The British people must triumph over themselves before they can break the Germans. Their inexhaustible moral and material assets must be commandeered and husbanded, if they are to accomplish their manifest destiny, and not merely be bragged about in the clubs of Pall Mall and the ostrich-farms of Fleet Street. If the world-wide realm on which the sun never sets can produce armies calculable only in millions, as it most assuredly is able to do, let them come forth, or be brought forth. If the wealth of the United Kingdom, India and the dominions oversea represents riches unmatched, as it does, let it be lavished exclusively on war, and not squandered in any other single direction. If common sense is the proudest of Anglo-Saxon virtues, let it prevail and sweep away governments which value votes more than men's lives and abolish a Censorship which treats Britons as if they were half-witted. If there must be calm at all costs, let it be the calm of high-pressure effort, and not the coolness of impotent resignation or casual performance. If faith must be placed in the efficacy of "attrition," let the process of "bleeding Germany white" be hastened by British achievements afield, lest "attrition," when the flags are furled, find the victor as emaciated as the vanquished.I forget neither Germany's wrecked military hopes and economic disintegration, nor the magnitude of Britain's service and accomplishment thus far. I regret only, along with England's other well-wishers, that her sacrifices have not resulted, as they so richly deserved to, in advancing the British cause farther toward the goal. I can not help thinking that, in many respects, it is wasted achievement, for the object which England and her Allies have set themselves is not merely the pinioning of Germany to fronts in Russia, France, Belgium and Greece beyond which she can not thrust herself. I am not unmindful of the glorious response of Britain's noblest sons, who sleep by their gallant thousands in the blood-manured soil of France, Belgium, Turkey and the Balkans, nor of the Trojan spirit in which the women of the Empire are giving their best and bravest, and weeping not. I mourn only because death and suffering leave triumph still so remote. The remorselessness with which the Reaper has stalked through the great families and homes of England is saddening, yet inspiring, evidence that the heart of Britain is sound. The immortal deeds of the Grenfells and the O'Learys and of all the one hundred thirty who have won Victoria Crosses are only the outstanding tokens of undying British heroism. But if sacrifice is not to continue to be cruelly in vain, there must be relentless regeneration of the purely material governance of British life, even more destructible of tradition and institutions than anything which has gone before. Of bulldog British determination to fight to a finish and to win there is no shadow of doubt. There is no Briton worthy of the name not ready to be beggared to that end. The sublimity of the cause for which England is bleeding is a more ennobling incentive than ever, for it has come to comprehend life or death for herself, as well as the liberation of Belgium. Spirituality has forfeited none of its pristine efficacy as an asset in war and bulwark in stress, but in our machine-gun era it must be backed by scientific efficiency and patriotism of deed before there can be imposed upon Germany that peace which is essential not only to British security, but to the world's happiness.FINIS*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKTHE ASSAULT***
[1] There are ugly rumors that Produce Exchange patriots who burntThe Daily Mailfor exposing the "shells tragedy" are the importers of these excessively large stores and are selling them to "Holland"--and other "neutrals" adjacent to Germany at exorbitant profits.
It is not change of governments, but ruthless change of system, which England requires. She has relegated a vast deal since the cleansing process set in, in August a year ago, but the scrap-heap clamors for more. It cries most insistently of all for obliteration of the fetish that politicians, lawyers and other amateurs are fit to conduct a government engaged in the most terrible combat of human history. Napoleon once said that a nation of lions led by a stag would be beaten by a nation of stags led by a lion. Britons claim to be a nation of lions. They contemplate the first year of the war and ask if they are to continue to be led along the path of disaster by stags. The Truth-Hiders quote Lincoln and deprecate "swapping horses while crossing a stream." Lord Willoughy de Broke effectually disposes of this "plea for incompetence in office" by telling the House of Lords that "whether such a course should be adopted depends on what sort of a horse a man has beneath him. If the horse is standing in the middle of the stream and seems as if he were going to lie down, the best thing is to get another." Englishmen admit that war like this demands wholesale reconstruction of national life, yet their government has substituted spasmodic patchwork for reconstruction. Instead of bold tearing-down and rebuilding, there has been nibbling and tinkering, and even then, too late. The people have waited for marching orders in countless directions, but the Government band has played nothing but a hesitation waltz. Take the drink evil, Britain's most malignant ulcer. Russia is not commonly looked to for economic or social inspiration, yet even she has wrestled with drink in a manner which puts England to shame. While the Czar was banishing vodka absolutely for the pestilence that it was, England's governors, fearful of Labor and "the trade" alike, temporized and enacted makeshifts which materially ameliorated the liquor menace without throttling its power for evil. They have made "treating" a misdemeanor, closed the saloons, both public and private, at 10 P.M., and restricted the hours when drink may be sold in London and the industrial districts. But clubmen, artisans and soldiers can get drunk to their heart's content as of yore. They have had only to rearrange their bibulous hours. Take the air defense muddle. "I, for one," wrote a Briton in October, protesting against the prevailing theory that the call of the hour, in the midst of the Zeppelin peril was "coolness," "am tired of being complimented on the calmness with which I behave in the presence of danger. It is no comfort to me that my death, if it occurs, will have no military importance. I want to be congratulated not on the stoicism with which I go to my funeral, but on my share in a system of government which affords effective protection to my country."
Nothing could better stigmatize the epidemic of Self-Sufficiency which, in the writer's deliberate judgment, is primarily responsible for British failures in the war thus far.There has been too much congratulation and self-congratulation on the sang-froid with which John Bull can take punishment. He is a mighty gladiator, but cheery comfort from his seconds between rounds has failed on many an occasion to prevent a champion pugilist from being knocked out. It is not that England isincapableof defeating Germany. It is that she seemsunwillingto do so by throwing into the balance every atom of strength for which that prodigious task calls. For at least a decade before 1914 Britain's political ostriches, disarmament-mongers, professional pacifists and pro-Germans declined to recognize the German danger even when it was approaching with strides so brazen that almost the blind could see. They preferred the "valor of ignorance," thought Ballin and Harnack instead of Tirpitz and Bernhardi typified Modern Germany, continued to revel in the bliss of contemptuous self-confidence, and attempted to parley with a tiger which was crouching for the attack. I enter a modest claim to have done my own little share for eight years in the futile work of arousing Britain to the Teuton peril. I refer merely to my work at Berlin, in reporting military and naval developments--"Germany laid all her cards on the table," as Admiral von Tirpitz once said to me. When the crash came, Englishmen pinned their faith to their history. They were no match for "forty years of preparations," of course; but they always "started late" and "muddled through" their wars. The Crimea began in terror and ended in triumph. The South African affair was the same sort of thing. War with Germany would be no different. The race which had finished off Napoleon need have no qualms in tackling his pinchbeck successor. Britons admit that a year of war has dissipated nearly all their comfortable illusions, but signs are still wanting that there is nation-wide, deep-seated realization of the immensity of the ordeal and the dimensions of the sacrifices yet to be faced. On December 8, 1915, when the war was sixteen months old, Admiral Lord Charles Beresford wrote this letter toThe Times:
"We are at present in a complex tangle of muddle and mismanagement. Our military campaigns are being conducted without any objective or plan. Policy only has been considered.
"In war a policy has to be enforced by the Navy and Army. The War Staffs have not been consulted as to whether they had the means in men and material for enforcing the different policies inaugurated by the Cabinet. Individuals have been consulted; combined opinion of War Staffs has not been sought. The result is disaster in nearly every direction.
"We have not taken full advantage of our mastery of the sea. In every department we observe doubt, hesitation, and procrastination. War requires quick decisions and prompt actions. The question of supplying recruits for the Army has been postponed once, and apparently may be postponed again. Unless a decision is come to immediately we shall be a year before the recruits joined under any new scheme can possibly be ready to take the field.
"The public is sick of the policy conveyed in the sentence 'Wait and see.' The danger to the Empire becomes more apparent every day. The country is waiting for a strong, clear lead. Our present methods will prolong the war indefinitely. If we continue hesitating without making up our minds on any single question connected with the war, we shall plunge straight into disaster."
I, too, shall be a pessimist about England's chances to win the war only so long as she neglects togo to war. Mere command of the sea, it has been amply demonstrated, can not crush Germany. It can sorely inconvenience her and compel her to live on the ration basis, but it can not force what King George has called "a highly organized enemy" prematurely to make peace. When England has staked her all, I shall turn blithe optimist, for I believe that nothing else in the world can overthrow her savagely efficient antagonist. Germany has staked herall. Until England does likewise, they will not fight on even terms. When England, like Germany, has relentlessly marshaled every tithe of her national strength for war, subordinated all else to that purpose, harnessed to the chariot of Mars every conceivable resource at her command, pulverized caste distinctions, banned politics and politicians, and made the war and the winning of it the only thing the nation eats for, works for, dreams of, or wastes thought upon--then I shall feel constrained to feel assured that victory will perch, however distant the hour, on Liberty's and not on Tyranny's banners. The Anglo-German endurance test--into which the war will eventually resolve itself--can have but one issue. Germans know that. Their analytical mind long ago taught them that the dormant resources of the British Empire,once mobilized, would be invincible. But what is happening is precisely what the Germans counted upon: the irresolute British habit of mind, the "too late" system, the century-old cult of comfort and ease, the "Splendid Isolation" school of thought, which, when the hour of trial came, might be relied upon to cripple the effort to convert latent potentialities into an inconquerable organism. History will have names for all these things. It will call them Belgium, Serbia, Dardanelles and Salonica.
The British people must triumph over themselves before they can break the Germans. Their inexhaustible moral and material assets must be commandeered and husbanded, if they are to accomplish their manifest destiny, and not merely be bragged about in the clubs of Pall Mall and the ostrich-farms of Fleet Street. If the world-wide realm on which the sun never sets can produce armies calculable only in millions, as it most assuredly is able to do, let them come forth, or be brought forth. If the wealth of the United Kingdom, India and the dominions oversea represents riches unmatched, as it does, let it be lavished exclusively on war, and not squandered in any other single direction. If common sense is the proudest of Anglo-Saxon virtues, let it prevail and sweep away governments which value votes more than men's lives and abolish a Censorship which treats Britons as if they were half-witted. If there must be calm at all costs, let it be the calm of high-pressure effort, and not the coolness of impotent resignation or casual performance. If faith must be placed in the efficacy of "attrition," let the process of "bleeding Germany white" be hastened by British achievements afield, lest "attrition," when the flags are furled, find the victor as emaciated as the vanquished.
I forget neither Germany's wrecked military hopes and economic disintegration, nor the magnitude of Britain's service and accomplishment thus far. I regret only, along with England's other well-wishers, that her sacrifices have not resulted, as they so richly deserved to, in advancing the British cause farther toward the goal. I can not help thinking that, in many respects, it is wasted achievement, for the object which England and her Allies have set themselves is not merely the pinioning of Germany to fronts in Russia, France, Belgium and Greece beyond which she can not thrust herself. I am not unmindful of the glorious response of Britain's noblest sons, who sleep by their gallant thousands in the blood-manured soil of France, Belgium, Turkey and the Balkans, nor of the Trojan spirit in which the women of the Empire are giving their best and bravest, and weeping not. I mourn only because death and suffering leave triumph still so remote. The remorselessness with which the Reaper has stalked through the great families and homes of England is saddening, yet inspiring, evidence that the heart of Britain is sound. The immortal deeds of the Grenfells and the O'Learys and of all the one hundred thirty who have won Victoria Crosses are only the outstanding tokens of undying British heroism. But if sacrifice is not to continue to be cruelly in vain, there must be relentless regeneration of the purely material governance of British life, even more destructible of tradition and institutions than anything which has gone before. Of bulldog British determination to fight to a finish and to win there is no shadow of doubt. There is no Briton worthy of the name not ready to be beggared to that end. The sublimity of the cause for which England is bleeding is a more ennobling incentive than ever, for it has come to comprehend life or death for herself, as well as the liberation of Belgium. Spirituality has forfeited none of its pristine efficacy as an asset in war and bulwark in stress, but in our machine-gun era it must be backed by scientific efficiency and patriotism of deed before there can be imposed upon Germany that peace which is essential not only to British security, but to the world's happiness.
FINIS
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKTHE ASSAULT***