‘We were lifelong lovers and admirers of a Germany which, it seems now, never really existed except in our dreams. In the article ‘A New Reformation,’ which I published in theNineteenth Centuryin 1889, in answer to Mr. Gladstone’s critique ofRobert Elsmere, and in many later utterances, I have rendered whole-hearted homage to that critical and philosophical Germany which I took to be the real Germany, and hailed as the home of liberal and humane ideas. And now! In that amazing manifesto of the German Professors at the opening of the War, there were names of men—that of Adolf Harnack, for instance—which had never been mentioned in English scholarly circles before August, 1914, except with sympathy and admiration, even by those who sharply differed from the views they represented. We held them to be servants of truth, incapable therefore of acquiescence in a tyrannous lie. We held them also to be scholars, incapable therefore of falsifying facts and ignoring documents in their own interest. But in that astonishing manifesto, not only was the cry of Belgium wholly repulsed, but those very men who had taught Europe to respect evidence and to deal scrupulously with documents, when it was a question of Classical antiquity, or early Christianity, now, when it was a question of justifying the crime of their country, of defending the Government of which they were the salaried officials, threw evidence and documents to the winds. How many of those who signed the professorial manifesto had ever read the British White Paper, and the French Yellow Book, or, if they had read them, had ever given to those damning records of Germany’s attack on Europe, and of the vain efforts of the Allies to hold her back, one fraction of that honest and impartial study of which a newly discovered Greek inscription, or afragment of a lost Gospel, would have been certain at their hands?”
‘We were lifelong lovers and admirers of a Germany which, it seems now, never really existed except in our dreams. In the article ‘A New Reformation,’ which I published in theNineteenth Centuryin 1889, in answer to Mr. Gladstone’s critique ofRobert Elsmere, and in many later utterances, I have rendered whole-hearted homage to that critical and philosophical Germany which I took to be the real Germany, and hailed as the home of liberal and humane ideas. And now! In that amazing manifesto of the German Professors at the opening of the War, there were names of men—that of Adolf Harnack, for instance—which had never been mentioned in English scholarly circles before August, 1914, except with sympathy and admiration, even by those who sharply differed from the views they represented. We held them to be servants of truth, incapable therefore of acquiescence in a tyrannous lie. We held them also to be scholars, incapable therefore of falsifying facts and ignoring documents in their own interest. But in that astonishing manifesto, not only was the cry of Belgium wholly repulsed, but those very men who had taught Europe to respect evidence and to deal scrupulously with documents, when it was a question of Classical antiquity, or early Christianity, now, when it was a question of justifying the crime of their country, of defending the Government of which they were the salaried officials, threw evidence and documents to the winds. How many of those who signed the professorial manifesto had ever read the British White Paper, and the French Yellow Book, or, if they had read them, had ever given to those damning records of Germany’s attack on Europe, and of the vain efforts of the Allies to hold her back, one fraction of that honest and impartial study of which a newly discovered Greek inscription, or afragment of a lost Gospel, would have been certain at their hands?”
It was this feeling of the betrayal of high standards and ideals which had meant much to her in earlier life, coupled with the emergence of a native ferocity unguessed before (forwehad not lived through 1870), that went so deep with Mrs. Ward. But there were at least no personal friendships to break. With France, on the other hand, her ties had, as we know, been close and intimate from the beginning, so that her heart went out to the trials and agonies of her French friends with a peculiar poignancy. M. Chevrillon, her principal correspondent, gave her in a series of letters, from November, 1914, onwards, a wonderful picture of the sufferings, the heroisms and the moods of France; she replied—to this lover of Meredith!—with her reading of the English scene:
“STOCKS,”November 23, 1914.‘We are indeed no less absorbed in the War than you. And yet, perhaps, there is not thatunrelentingpressure on nerve and recollection in this country, ‘set in the silver sea’ and so far inviolate, which there must be for you, who have this cruel and powerful enemy at your gates and in your midst, and can never forget the fact for a moment. That, of course, is the explanation of the recent slackening of recruiting here. The classes to whom education and social life have taught imagination are miserable and shamed before these great football gatherings, which bring no recruits—‘but my people do not understand, and Israel doth not consider. They have eyes and see not; ears have they but they hear not.’ One little raid on the East Coast—a village burnt, a few hundred men killed on English soil—then indeed we should see an England in arms. Meanwhile, compared with any England we have ever seen, itisan England in arms. Every town of any size has its camp, the roads are full of soldiers, and they are billeted in our houses. No such sight, of course, has ever been seen in our day. And yet how quickly one accustoms oneself to it, and to all the other accompaniments of war! The new recruitsare mostly excellent material. Dorothy and I motored over early one morning last week to Aston Clinton Park to see the King inspect a large gathering of recruits. It was a beautiful morning, with the misty Chilterns looking down upon the wide stretches of the park, and the bodies of drilling men. The King must have been up early, for he had inspected the camp at ten (thirty-five miles from London) and was in the park by eleven. There was no ceremony whatever, and only a few neighbours and children looking on. It had been elaborately announced that he would inspect troops that day in Norfolk! The men were only in the early stages, but they were mostly of fine physique—miners from Northumberland a great many of them. The difficulty is officers. They have to accept them now, either so young, or so elderly! And these well-to-do workmen of twenty-five or thirty don’t like being ordered about by lads of nineteen. But the lads of nineteen are shaping, too, very fast.“We are so sorry for your poor niece, and for all the other sufferers you tell us of. I have five nephews fighting, and of course innumerable friends. Arnold is in Egypt with his Yeomanry. One dreads to openThe Times, day after day. The most tragic loss I know so far is that of the Edward Cecils’ only boy—grandson of the late Lord Salisbury, and Admiral Maxse, the Beauchamp ofBeauchamp’s Career. I saw him last as a delightful chattering boy of eleven—so clever, so handsome, just what Beauchamp might have been at his age! He was missing on September 2, and was only announced as killed two days ago.”
“STOCKS,”November 23, 1914.
‘We are indeed no less absorbed in the War than you. And yet, perhaps, there is not thatunrelentingpressure on nerve and recollection in this country, ‘set in the silver sea’ and so far inviolate, which there must be for you, who have this cruel and powerful enemy at your gates and in your midst, and can never forget the fact for a moment. That, of course, is the explanation of the recent slackening of recruiting here. The classes to whom education and social life have taught imagination are miserable and shamed before these great football gatherings, which bring no recruits—‘but my people do not understand, and Israel doth not consider. They have eyes and see not; ears have they but they hear not.’ One little raid on the East Coast—a village burnt, a few hundred men killed on English soil—then indeed we should see an England in arms. Meanwhile, compared with any England we have ever seen, itisan England in arms. Every town of any size has its camp, the roads are full of soldiers, and they are billeted in our houses. No such sight, of course, has ever been seen in our day. And yet how quickly one accustoms oneself to it, and to all the other accompaniments of war! The new recruitsare mostly excellent material. Dorothy and I motored over early one morning last week to Aston Clinton Park to see the King inspect a large gathering of recruits. It was a beautiful morning, with the misty Chilterns looking down upon the wide stretches of the park, and the bodies of drilling men. The King must have been up early, for he had inspected the camp at ten (thirty-five miles from London) and was in the park by eleven. There was no ceremony whatever, and only a few neighbours and children looking on. It had been elaborately announced that he would inspect troops that day in Norfolk! The men were only in the early stages, but they were mostly of fine physique—miners from Northumberland a great many of them. The difficulty is officers. They have to accept them now, either so young, or so elderly! And these well-to-do workmen of twenty-five or thirty don’t like being ordered about by lads of nineteen. But the lads of nineteen are shaping, too, very fast.
“We are so sorry for your poor niece, and for all the other sufferers you tell us of. I have five nephews fighting, and of course innumerable friends. Arnold is in Egypt with his Yeomanry. One dreads to openThe Times, day after day. The most tragic loss I know so far is that of the Edward Cecils’ only boy—grandson of the late Lord Salisbury, and Admiral Maxse, the Beauchamp ofBeauchamp’s Career. I saw him last as a delightful chattering boy of eleven—so clever, so handsome, just what Beauchamp might have been at his age! He was missing on September 2, and was only announced as killed two days ago.”
The first year and a half of the War was a time of great anxiety and strain for Mrs. Ward, both in the literary and the practical fields. Besides her unremitting literary work she pushed through, by means of the “Joint Advisory Committee,” an exhaustive inquiry into the working of the existing system of soldiers’ pensions and pressed certain recommendations, as a result, upon the War Office; she was confronted by a partial falling-off in the subscriptions to her Play Centres, and was obliged to introduce economies and curtailments which cost her much anxious thought; she converted the Settlement into a temporary hostel forBelgian Refugees; and, above all, she carried through, between October, 1914, and the summer of 1915, a complete reorganization of the Passmore Edwards Settlement, converting it from a men’s into a women’s settlement. There were many reasons, even apart from the growing pressure on men of military age to enlist in the New Armies, which had for some time made such a change desirable in the eyes of Mrs. Ward and of a majority of the Council; chief among these being the need for a body of trained voluntary workers to carry out, for St. Pancras, the mass of social legislation that had been passed since the foundation of the Settlement, and to take their part in the work of School Care Committees, Schools for Mothers and so forth. Male Residents, being occupied with their own work during the day, were not available for such things; but amongst women it was believed that a body possessing sufficient leisure and enthusiasm for social service to make a real mark in the life of the neighbourhood, would not be difficult to find. The change was not accomplished without strenuous opposition from the existing Warden and some of the Residents, but Mrs. Ward went methodically to work, getting the Council to appoint a Committee with powers to inquire and report. She found also that her old friend and supporter, the Duke of Bedford, was strongly in favour of the change, and would be ready to provide, for three years, about two-thirds of the annual sum required for the maintenance of a Women’s Settlement. This argument was decisive, and the Council finally adopted the Report of the Special Committee in May, 1915. Mrs. Ward had the happiness of seeing, during the remaining years of the War, her hopes for the usefulness of the new venture very largely fulfilled, under the able guidance of Miss Hilda Oakeley, who was appointed Warden of the Settlement in August, 1915.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Ward felt herself in danger of seeing her usual means of livelihood cut from beneath her feet during this first period of the War. For one result of the vast upheaval in our social conditions was that the circulation of all novels went down with a run, and it was not until the War had made a certain dismal routine of its own, in the needs of hospitals, munition-centres, soldiers’ and officers’ clubs and the like, that the national taste for thereading of fiction reasserted itself. Till then Mrs. Ward relied mainly on her American public, which was still untouched; but the pressure of work was never for an instant relaxed, and fortunately she still found her greatest solace and relief from present cares in the writing of books. “I never felt more inclined to spin tales, which is a great comfort,” she wrote in January, 1915, but as yet she could not face the thought of weaving the War into their fabric, and took refuge instead in the summer of that year in the making of a story of Oxford life, as she had known it in her youth—an occupation that gave her a quiet joy, providing a “wind-warm space” into which she could retreat from the horrors of the outer world. The compulsory retrenchments of the War years came also to her aid, in reducing thepersonnelemployed at Stocks, while Stocks itself was usually let in the summer and Grosvenor Place in the winter; but still the struggle was an arduous one, leaving its mark upon her in the growing whiteness of her hair, the growing fragility and pallor of her look. Sleeplessness became an ever greater difficulty in these years, but on the other hand her old complaint in the right side had grown less troublesome, so that standing and walking were more possible than of old. Had it not been for this improvement she would have been physically incapable of carrying out the task laid upon her, swiftly and unexpectedly, in January, 1916, when Theodore Roosevelt wrote to her from Oyster Bay to beg her to tell America what England was doing in the War.
December 27, 1915.MYDEARMRS. WARD,—The War has been, on the whole, well presented in America from the French side. We do not think justice has been done to the English side. I attribute this in part to the rather odd working of the censorship in hands not accustomed to the censorship. I wish that some writer like yourself could, in a series of articles, put vividly before our people what the English people are doing, what the actual life of the men in the trenches is, what is actually being done by the straight and decent capitalist, who is not concerned with making a profit, but with serving his country, and by the straight anddecent labouring man, who is not thinking of striking for higher wages, but is trying to help his comrades in the trenches. What I would like our people to visualize is the effort, the resolution and the self-sacrifice of the English men and women who are determined to see this war through. Just at present England is in much the same strait that we were in in our Civil War toward the end of 1862, and during the opening months of 1863. That was the time when we needed to have our case put before the people of England—when men as diverse as Gladstone, Carlyle and the after-time Marquis of Salisbury were all strongly against us. There is not a human being more fitted to present this matter as it should be presented than you are. I do hope you will undertake the task.Faithfully yours,THEODOREROOSEVELT.
December 27, 1915.
MYDEARMRS. WARD,—
The War has been, on the whole, well presented in America from the French side. We do not think justice has been done to the English side. I attribute this in part to the rather odd working of the censorship in hands not accustomed to the censorship. I wish that some writer like yourself could, in a series of articles, put vividly before our people what the English people are doing, what the actual life of the men in the trenches is, what is actually being done by the straight and decent capitalist, who is not concerned with making a profit, but with serving his country, and by the straight anddecent labouring man, who is not thinking of striking for higher wages, but is trying to help his comrades in the trenches. What I would like our people to visualize is the effort, the resolution and the self-sacrifice of the English men and women who are determined to see this war through. Just at present England is in much the same strait that we were in in our Civil War toward the end of 1862, and during the opening months of 1863. That was the time when we needed to have our case put before the people of England—when men as diverse as Gladstone, Carlyle and the after-time Marquis of Salisbury were all strongly against us. There is not a human being more fitted to present this matter as it should be presented than you are. I do hope you will undertake the task.
Faithfully yours,THEODOREROOSEVELT.
The letter reached Mrs. Ward at Stocks on Monday, January 10, 1916, by the evening post. She felt at once that she must respond to such a call, though the manner of doing so was still dim to her. But she consulted her friends, C. F. G. Masterman and Sir Gilbert Parker, at “Wellington House” (at that time the Government Propaganda Department), and found that they took Mr. Roosevelt’s letter quite as seriously as she did herself. They showed her specimens of what the American papers were saying about England, her blunders, her slackers and her shirkers, till Mrs. Ward thrilled to the task and felt a longing to be up and at it. The next step was to see Sir Edward Grey (then Foreign Minister), to whom she had also sent a copy of the letter. He asked her to come to his house in Eccleston Square, whither accordingly she went early on January 20.
“They showed me into the dining-room,” she wrote to J. P. T., “and he came down to say that he had asked Lord Robert Cecil and Sir Arthur Nicolson to come too, and that they were upstairs. So then we went into his library sitting-room, a charming room full of books, and there were the other two. They all took Roosevelt’s letter very seriously, and there is no question but that I must do my best to carry it out. I simply felt after Edward Grey had spoken his mind that, money or nomoney, strength or fatigue, I was under orders and must just go on. I said that I should like to go to France, just for the sake of giving some life and colour to the articles—and that a novelist could not work from films, however good. They agreed.‘‘And would you like to have a look at the Fleet?’ said Lord Robert.‘I said that I had not ventured to suggest it, but that of course anything that gave picturesqueness and novelty—i.e. a woman being allowed to visit the Fleet—would help the articles.‘I gave a little outline of what I proposed, beginning with the unpreparedness of England. On that Edward Grey spoke at some length—the utter absence of any wish for war in this country, or thought of war. Even those centres that had suffered most from German competition had never thought of war. No one wished for it. I thought of his long, long struggle for peace. It was pathetic to hear him talking so simply—with such complete conviction.“I was rather more than half an hour with them. Sir Edward took me downstairs, said it was ‘good of me’ to be willing to undertake it, and I went off feeling the die was cast.”
“They showed me into the dining-room,” she wrote to J. P. T., “and he came down to say that he had asked Lord Robert Cecil and Sir Arthur Nicolson to come too, and that they were upstairs. So then we went into his library sitting-room, a charming room full of books, and there were the other two. They all took Roosevelt’s letter very seriously, and there is no question but that I must do my best to carry it out. I simply felt after Edward Grey had spoken his mind that, money or nomoney, strength or fatigue, I was under orders and must just go on. I said that I should like to go to France, just for the sake of giving some life and colour to the articles—and that a novelist could not work from films, however good. They agreed.
‘‘And would you like to have a look at the Fleet?’ said Lord Robert.
‘I said that I had not ventured to suggest it, but that of course anything that gave picturesqueness and novelty—i.e. a woman being allowed to visit the Fleet—would help the articles.
‘I gave a little outline of what I proposed, beginning with the unpreparedness of England. On that Edward Grey spoke at some length—the utter absence of any wish for war in this country, or thought of war. Even those centres that had suffered most from German competition had never thought of war. No one wished for it. I thought of his long, long struggle for peace. It was pathetic to hear him talking so simply—with such complete conviction.
“I was rather more than half an hour with them. Sir Edward took me downstairs, said it was ‘good of me’ to be willing to undertake it, and I went off feeling the die was cast.”
A luncheon with Mr. Lloyd George—then Minister of Munitions—who gladly offered her every possible facility for seeing the great munition-centres that had by that time altered the face of England, and the plan for carrying out her task began to shape itself in her mind. A tour of ten days or so through the principal munition-works, ranging from Birmingham to the Clyde, then a dash to the Fleet, lying in the Firth of Cromarty, then south once more and across the Straits to see the “back of the Army” in France. It may be imagined what busy co-ordination of arrangements was necessary between the Ministry of Munitions, the Admiralty and the War Office, before all the details of the tour were settled, but by the aid of “Wellington House” all was hustled through in a short time, so that Mrs. Ward was off on her round of the great towns by January 31. To her, of course, the human interest of the scene was the all-important thing—the spectacle of the mixture of classes in the vast factories, the high-school mistresses, the parsons,the tailors’ and drapers’ assistants handling their machines as lovingly as the born engineers—the enormous sheds-full of women and girls of many diverse types working together with one common impulse, and protesting against the cutting down of their twelve hours’ day! She was taken everywhere and shown everything (accompanied this time by Miss Churcher), seeing in the space of ten days the munition-works at Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Darlington, Middlesbrough, Newcastle and the Clyde. Then she returned home for a few days, to fix her impressions in an ordered mass of notes, before leaving again on February 15 for the far north, armed with an Admiralty permit and an invitation from Sir John Jellicoe to spend a couple of nights in his house at Invergordon.
It was, of course, an unheard-of thing for a woman to visit the Fleet in war-time, but, once the barriers passed, the sailors were so glad to see her! Withdrawn from the common life in their iron, sleepless world, they welcomed this break in their routine as much as she did the chance it gave her of a wholly unique experience. She told the tale of her adventures both in a letter to Mr. Ward and in notes written down at the time:
“February 16, 1916.“Such a journey! Heavy snow-storm in the night, and we were held up for three hours on the highest part of the line between Kingussie and Aviemore. But at Invergordon a group of naval officers appeared. A great swell [Sir Thomas Jerram] detached himself and came up to me. ‘Mrs. Ward? Sir John has asked me to look after you.’ We twinkled at each other, both seeing the comedy of the situation. ‘Now then, what can I do for you? Will you be at Invergordon pier to-morrow at eleven? and come and lunch with me on the Flagship? Then afterwards you shall see the destroyers come in and anything else we can show you. Will that suit you?’ So he disappears and I journey on to Kildary, five miles, with a jolly young sailor just returned from catching contraband in the North Sea, and going up to Thurso in charge of the mail.”
“February 16, 1916.
“Such a journey! Heavy snow-storm in the night, and we were held up for three hours on the highest part of the line between Kingussie and Aviemore. But at Invergordon a group of naval officers appeared. A great swell [Sir Thomas Jerram] detached himself and came up to me. ‘Mrs. Ward? Sir John has asked me to look after you.’ We twinkled at each other, both seeing the comedy of the situation. ‘Now then, what can I do for you? Will you be at Invergordon pier to-morrow at eleven? and come and lunch with me on the Flagship? Then afterwards you shall see the destroyers come in and anything else we can show you. Will that suit you?’ So he disappears and I journey on to Kildary, five miles, with a jolly young sailor just returned from catching contraband in the North Sea, and going up to Thurso in charge of the mail.”
She spent a quiet evening at Sir John Jellicoe’s house (the Admiral himself being away). Her notes continue the story:
‘Looked out into the snowy moonlight—the Frith steely grey—the hills opposite black and white—a pale sky—black shapes on the water—no lights except from a ship on the inlet (the hospital ship).‘Next day—an open car—bitterly cold—through the snow and wind. At the pier—a young officer, Admiral Jerram’s Flag Lieutenant. ‘The Admiral wished to know if you would like him to take you round the Fleet. If so, we will pick him up at the Flagship.’ The barge—very comfortable—with a cabin—and an outer seat—sped through the water. We stopped at the Flagship and the Admiral stepped in. We sped on past theErin—one of the Turkish cruisers impounded at the beginning of the war—theIron Duke, theCenturion,Monarch,Thunderer—to the hospital shipChina. The Admiral pointed out the three cruisers near the entrance to the harbour—under Sir Robert Arbuthnot—also the hull of the poorNatal—with buoys at either end—two men walking on her.‘At luncheon—Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Jerram on my left, Sir Robert Arbuthnot, commanding the cruiser squadron, on my right. Captain Field and Mrs. Field. Commander Goldie—Flag Lieutenant Boissier, and a couple of other officers and their wives.‘In the barge I had shown the Admiral Roosevelt’s letter. Sir Robert Arbuthnot spoke to me about it at luncheon, and very kindly. They all seemed to feel that it was a tough task, not of my seeking, and showed wonderful sympathy and understanding. After lunch Captain Field was told off to show me the ship. Thrilling to see a ship in war-time, that might be in action any moment. The loading of the guns—the wireless rooms—the look down to the engine deck—the anchor held by the three great chains—the middies’ quarters—the officers’ ward-room. The brains of the ship—men trained to transmit signals from the fire-control above to all parts of the ship, directing the guns. The middies’ chests—great black and grey boxes—holding all a middy’s worldly goods. He opens one—shows the photos inside.—The senior middy, a fair-haired boy, like Humphry Sandwith—the others younger. Their pleasant room, with its pictures, magazines and books. Spaces where the wounded can be temporarily placed during action.‘The chart of the North Sea, and the ship-stations. Lines radiating out in all directions—every dot on them a ship.‘After going through the ship we went to look at the destroyer which the Admiral had ordered alongside. Commanded by Mr. Leveson-Gower, son of the Lord Granville who was Foreign Secretary, and nephew of ‘Freddy.’ The two torpedo tubes on the destroyer are moved to the side, so that we see how it discharges them. The guns very small—the whole ship, which carries 100 men, seems almost on the water-line—is constantly a-wash except for the cabin and the bridge. But on a dark night in the high seas, ‘we are always so glad to see them!—they are the guards of the big ships—or we are the hens, and they are the chickens.’‘Naval character—the close relations between officers and men necessitated by the ship’s life. ‘The men are splendid.’ How good they are to the officers—‘have a cup of coffee, sir, and lie down a bit.’—Splendidly healthy—in spite of the habitually broken sleep. Thursday afternoons (making and mending)—practically the naval half-holiday.“Talk at tea with Captain and Mrs. Field and Boissier and Commander Goldie. They praise the book,Naval Occasions. No sentiment possible in the Navy—in speech. The life could not be endured often, unless it werejested through. Men meet and part with a laugh—absurdity of sentimental accounts. Life on a destroyer—these young fellows absolute masters—their talk when they come in—‘By Jove, I nearly lost the ship last night—awful sea—I was right on the rocks.’—Their life is always in their hands.”
‘Looked out into the snowy moonlight—the Frith steely grey—the hills opposite black and white—a pale sky—black shapes on the water—no lights except from a ship on the inlet (the hospital ship).
‘Next day—an open car—bitterly cold—through the snow and wind. At the pier—a young officer, Admiral Jerram’s Flag Lieutenant. ‘The Admiral wished to know if you would like him to take you round the Fleet. If so, we will pick him up at the Flagship.’ The barge—very comfortable—with a cabin—and an outer seat—sped through the water. We stopped at the Flagship and the Admiral stepped in. We sped on past theErin—one of the Turkish cruisers impounded at the beginning of the war—theIron Duke, theCenturion,Monarch,Thunderer—to the hospital shipChina. The Admiral pointed out the three cruisers near the entrance to the harbour—under Sir Robert Arbuthnot—also the hull of the poorNatal—with buoys at either end—two men walking on her.
‘At luncheon—Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Jerram on my left, Sir Robert Arbuthnot, commanding the cruiser squadron, on my right. Captain Field and Mrs. Field. Commander Goldie—Flag Lieutenant Boissier, and a couple of other officers and their wives.
‘In the barge I had shown the Admiral Roosevelt’s letter. Sir Robert Arbuthnot spoke to me about it at luncheon, and very kindly. They all seemed to feel that it was a tough task, not of my seeking, and showed wonderful sympathy and understanding. After lunch Captain Field was told off to show me the ship. Thrilling to see a ship in war-time, that might be in action any moment. The loading of the guns—the wireless rooms—the look down to the engine deck—the anchor held by the three great chains—the middies’ quarters—the officers’ ward-room. The brains of the ship—men trained to transmit signals from the fire-control above to all parts of the ship, directing the guns. The middies’ chests—great black and grey boxes—holding all a middy’s worldly goods. He opens one—shows the photos inside.—The senior middy, a fair-haired boy, like Humphry Sandwith—the others younger. Their pleasant room, with its pictures, magazines and books. Spaces where the wounded can be temporarily placed during action.
‘The chart of the North Sea, and the ship-stations. Lines radiating out in all directions—every dot on them a ship.
‘After going through the ship we went to look at the destroyer which the Admiral had ordered alongside. Commanded by Mr. Leveson-Gower, son of the Lord Granville who was Foreign Secretary, and nephew of ‘Freddy.’ The two torpedo tubes on the destroyer are moved to the side, so that we see how it discharges them. The guns very small—the whole ship, which carries 100 men, seems almost on the water-line—is constantly a-wash except for the cabin and the bridge. But on a dark night in the high seas, ‘we are always so glad to see them!—they are the guards of the big ships—or we are the hens, and they are the chickens.’
‘Naval character—the close relations between officers and men necessitated by the ship’s life. ‘The men are splendid.’ How good they are to the officers—‘have a cup of coffee, sir, and lie down a bit.’—Splendidly healthy—in spite of the habitually broken sleep. Thursday afternoons (making and mending)—practically the naval half-holiday.
“Talk at tea with Captain and Mrs. Field and Boissier and Commander Goldie. They praise the book,Naval Occasions. No sentiment possible in the Navy—in speech. The life could not be endured often, unless it werejested through. Men meet and part with a laugh—absurdity of sentimental accounts. Life on a destroyer—these young fellows absolute masters—their talk when they come in—‘By Jove, I nearly lost the ship last night—awful sea—I was right on the rocks.’—Their life is always in their hands.”
Writing a week later to “Aunt Fan,” she added one further remark about the Captain of the ship—“so quietly full of care for his men—and so certain, one could see, that Germany would never actually give in without trying something desperate against our fleet.” Little more than three months later, Germany tried her desperate stroke, tried it and lost, but at what a cost to English sailormen! The noble officer who had sat next to Mrs. Ward at luncheon in the Admiral’s flagship, Sir Robert Arbuthnot, went down with his battle-cruiser, while on either side of him occurred the losses which shook, for one terrible day, England’s faith in her fleet. Mrs. Ward wrote on June 6 to Katharine Lyttelton:
“Yes, indeed, Sir Robert Arbuthnot’s cruiser squadron was at Cromarty when I was there, and he sat next me at luncheon on the Flagship. Iparticularlyliked him—one of those modest, efficient naval men whose absolute courage and nerve, no less than their absolute humanity, one would trust in any emergency. I remember Sir Thomas Jerram, on my other side, saying in my ear—‘The man to your right is one of the most rising men in the Navy.’ And the line of cruisers in front of the Dreadnoughts, as I saw them in the February dawn, stretching towards the harbour entrance, will always remain with me.”
“Yes, indeed, Sir Robert Arbuthnot’s cruiser squadron was at Cromarty when I was there, and he sat next me at luncheon on the Flagship. Iparticularlyliked him—one of those modest, efficient naval men whose absolute courage and nerve, no less than their absolute humanity, one would trust in any emergency. I remember Sir Thomas Jerram, on my other side, saying in my ear—‘The man to your right is one of the most rising men in the Navy.’ And the line of cruisers in front of the Dreadnoughts, as I saw them in the February dawn, stretching towards the harbour entrance, will always remain with me.”
Meanwhile the preparations for her journey to France had been pushed forward by “Wellington House,” so that only four days after her return from Invergordon all was ready for her departure for Le Havre. She went (this time with Dorothy) as the guest of the Foreign Office, recommended by them to the good offices of the Army. She was first to be given some idea of the vast organization of the Base at Le Havre, and then sent on by motor to Rouen, Abbeville, Étaples and Boulogne. A programme representing almost every branch of the unending activities of the “Back of the Army” had been worked out for her, but she was warned that she could not be allowed to enter the “War Zone.” Once in France, however, it was not long before this prohibition broke down, though not through any importunity of hers.
The marvellous spectacle unrolled itself before her, quietly and methodically, while her guides expounded to her the meaning of what she saw and the bearing of every movement at the Base upon the lives of the men in the front line. General Asser himself, commanding at Le Havre, devoted a whole afternoon to taking her through the docks and store-sheds of the port, “so that one had a dim idea,” as she wrote to her husband, “of the amazing organization that has sprung up here. It explains a good deal, too, of the five millions a day!” But as a matter of fact, the thing which impressed her most at Le Havre was the ‘make-over department,’ where all the rubbish brought down from the Front, from bully-beef tins to broken boots, was collected together and boiled down (metaphorically speaking)into something useful, so that many thousands a week were thus saved to the taxpayer at home. “All the creation of Colonel Davies, who has saved the Government thousands and thousands of pounds. Such a thing has never been done before!” Similarly, at Rouen (whither she drove on February 26—fifty miles—through blinding snow) she was fascinated by the motor-transport department—“the biggest thing of its kind in France—the creation of one man, Colonel Barnes, who started with ‘two balls of string and a packet of nails,’ and is now dealing with 40,000 vehicles.”
Another snowy and Arctic drive from Rouen to Dieppe, and on to Abbeville, where a wonderful piece of news awaited them.
To T. H. W.“February 29, 1916....“After lunch Colonel Schofield [their guide] went out to find the British Headquarters and report. Dorothy and I went up to the cathedral, and on emerging from it met the Colonel with another officer, who introduced himself as Colonel Dalrymple White, M.P. ‘I have news for you, Mrs. Ward, which I think will change your plans!’ I looked at him rather aghast, wondering if I was to be suddenly sent home! ‘There is an invitation for you from G.H.Q., and we have been telephoning about, trying to find you. Great luck that Colonel Schofield looked in just now.’ Whereupon it appeared that ‘by the wish of the Foreign Office,’ G.H.Q. had invited me for two days, and that an officer would call for me at Boulogne on Wednesday morning, and take me to the place which no one here mentions but with bated breath, and which I will not write! [St. Omer.] I was naturally thrilled, but I confess I am in terror of being in their way, and also of not being able to write anything the least adequate to such an opportunity. However it could not of course be refused.”
To T. H. W.
“February 29, 1916.
...“After lunch Colonel Schofield [their guide] went out to find the British Headquarters and report. Dorothy and I went up to the cathedral, and on emerging from it met the Colonel with another officer, who introduced himself as Colonel Dalrymple White, M.P. ‘I have news for you, Mrs. Ward, which I think will change your plans!’ I looked at him rather aghast, wondering if I was to be suddenly sent home! ‘There is an invitation for you from G.H.Q., and we have been telephoning about, trying to find you. Great luck that Colonel Schofield looked in just now.’ Whereupon it appeared that ‘by the wish of the Foreign Office,’ G.H.Q. had invited me for two days, and that an officer would call for me at Boulogne on Wednesday morning, and take me to the place which no one here mentions but with bated breath, and which I will not write! [St. Omer.] I was naturally thrilled, but I confess I am in terror of being in their way, and also of not being able to write anything the least adequate to such an opportunity. However it could not of course be refused.”
A long day at Étaples intervened between this little scene and the arrival at G.H.Q.—a day devoted not only to an inspection of some of the great hospitals, but also to a more unusual experience. Étaples was the scene of a huge training-camp where troops from England received theirfinal “polish” before going up to the Front; amongst other things, they were taught how to throw bombs, and Mrs. Ward was taken to see them do it. “We climb to the very top of the slope,” she wrote in her journal at the time, “and over its crest to see some live bomb-practice. A hollow in the sand, three dummy figures twenty yards away—a parapet and a young soldier with three different bombs, that explode by a time-fuse. He throws—we crouch low behind the parapet of sand-bags—a few seconds, then a fierce report. We rise. One of the dummy figures is half wrecked, only a few fragments of the bomb surviving. One thinks of it descending in a group of men, and one remembers the huge hospitals behind us. War begins to seem to me more and more horrible and intolerable.”
The next day, March 1, they were taken in charge at Boulogne by Captain H. C. Roberts, sent thither by G.H.Q. to fetch them, and motored through a more spring-like land to St. Omer, where they took up their quarters for two nights in the “Visitors’ Château” (the Château de la Tour Blanche). Captain Roberts said that his orders were to take them as near to the battle-line as he safely could, and accordingly they started out early in the afternoon in the direction of Richebourg St. Vaast, calling on the way at Merville, the headquarters of General Pinney and the 35th Division. The General came out to see his visitors and said that, having an hour to spare, he would take them to the Line himself. He and Mrs. Ward went ahead in the General’s car, Dorothy and Captain Roberts following behind. At Richebourg St. Vaast the road became so much broken by shell-holes that they got out and walked, and General Pinney informed Mrs. Ward calmly that she was now “actually in the battle,” for the British guns were bellowing from behind them. Early the next morning she wrote down the following notes of what ensued:
‘Richebourg St. Vaast—a ruined village, the church in fragments—a few walls and arches standing. The crucifix on a bit of wall untouched. Just beyond, General Pinney captured a gunner and heard that a battery was close by to our right. We were led there through seas of mud. Two bright-faced young officers. One gives me a hand through the mud, and down into the dug-out of the gun. There it is—its muzzle just showing in the dark,nine or ten shells lying in front of it. One is put in. We stand back and put our fingers in our ears. An old artillery-man says ‘Look straight at the gun, ma’am.’ It fires—the cartridge-case drops out. The shock not so great as I had imagined. Has the shell fallen on a German trench, and with what result! They give us the cartridge-case to take home.‘After firing the gun we walked on along the road. General Pinney talks of taking us to the entrance of the communication-trench. But Captain Roberts is obviously nervous. The battery we have just left crashes away behind us, and the firing generally seems to grow hotter. I suggest turning back, and Captain Roberts approves. ‘You have been nearer the actual fighting than any woman has been in this war—not even a nurse has been so close,’ says the General. Neuve Chapelle a mile and a half away to the north behind some tall poplars. In front within a mile, first some ruined buildings—immediately beyond them our trenches—then the Germans, within a hundred yards of each other.“As we were going up, we had seen parties of men sitting along the edge of the fields, with their rifles and field kit beside them, waiting for sunset. Now, as we return, and the sun is sinking fast to the horizon, we pass them—platoon after platoon—at intervals—going up towards the trenches. The spacing of these groups along the road, and the timing of them, is a difficult piece of staff-work. The faces of the men quiet and cheerful, a little subdued whistling here and there—but generally serious. And how young! ‘War,’ says the General beside me, ‘is crass folly!crassfolly! nothing else. We want new forms of religion—the old seem to have failed us. Miracle and dogma are no use. We want a new prophet, a new Messiah!’”
‘Richebourg St. Vaast—a ruined village, the church in fragments—a few walls and arches standing. The crucifix on a bit of wall untouched. Just beyond, General Pinney captured a gunner and heard that a battery was close by to our right. We were led there through seas of mud. Two bright-faced young officers. One gives me a hand through the mud, and down into the dug-out of the gun. There it is—its muzzle just showing in the dark,nine or ten shells lying in front of it. One is put in. We stand back and put our fingers in our ears. An old artillery-man says ‘Look straight at the gun, ma’am.’ It fires—the cartridge-case drops out. The shock not so great as I had imagined. Has the shell fallen on a German trench, and with what result! They give us the cartridge-case to take home.
‘After firing the gun we walked on along the road. General Pinney talks of taking us to the entrance of the communication-trench. But Captain Roberts is obviously nervous. The battery we have just left crashes away behind us, and the firing generally seems to grow hotter. I suggest turning back, and Captain Roberts approves. ‘You have been nearer the actual fighting than any woman has been in this war—not even a nurse has been so close,’ says the General. Neuve Chapelle a mile and a half away to the north behind some tall poplars. In front within a mile, first some ruined buildings—immediately beyond them our trenches—then the Germans, within a hundred yards of each other.
“As we were going up, we had seen parties of men sitting along the edge of the fields, with their rifles and field kit beside them, waiting for sunset. Now, as we return, and the sun is sinking fast to the horizon, we pass them—platoon after platoon—at intervals—going up towards the trenches. The spacing of these groups along the road, and the timing of them, is a difficult piece of staff-work. The faces of the men quiet and cheerful, a little subdued whistling here and there—but generally serious. And how young! ‘War,’ says the General beside me, ‘is crass folly!crassfolly! nothing else. We want new forms of religion—the old seem to have failed us. Miracle and dogma are no use. We want a new prophet, a new Messiah!’”
Mrs. Ward left her new friend with a feeling of astonishment at having found so kindred a spirit in so strange a scene.
The next day they were up betimes and on their way to Cassel and Westoutre, there to obtain permits, at the Canadian headquarters, for the ascent of the Scherpenberg Hill, in order that Mrs. Ward might behold Ypres and the Salient. There had been a British attack, that morning,in the region of the Ypres-Comines Canal; it had succeeded, and there was a sense of elation in the air. But, by an ironic chance, Mrs. Ward had heard by the mail that reached the Château a far different piece of news, and as she drove through the ruined Belgian villages—through Poperinghe and Locre—dodging and turning so as to avoid roads recently shelled, her mind was filled with one overmastering thought—the death of Henry James, her countryman.[34]
But now they are at the foot of the Scherpenberg Hill. Her journal continues:
‘A picket of soldiers belonging to the Canadian Division stops us, and we show our passes. Then we begin to mount the hill (about as steep as that above Stocks Cottage), but Captain Roberts pulls me up, and with various halts at last we are on the top, passing a dug-out for shelter in case of shells on the way. At the top a windmill—some Tommies playing football. Two stout lasses driving a rustic cart with two horses. We go to the windmill and, sheltering behind its supports (for nobody must be seen on the sky-line), look out north-east and east. Far away on the horizon the mists lift for a moment, and a great ghost looks out—the ruined tower of Ypres. You see that half its top is torn away. A flash! from what seem to be the ruins at its base. Another! It is the English guns speaking from the lines between us and Ypres—and as we watch, we see the columns of white smoke rising from the German lines as they burst. Then it is the German turn, and we see a couple of their shells bursting on our lines, between Vlamertinghe and Dickebusch. Hark—the rattle of the machine-guns from, as it were, a point just below us to the left, and again the roar of the howitzers. There, on the horizon, is the ridge of Messines, Wytschœte, and near by the hill and village of Kemmel, which has been shelled to bits. Along that distant ridge run the German trenches, line upon line. One can see them plainly without a glass. At last we are within actual sight of theGreat Aggression—the nation and the army which have defied the laws of God and man, and left their fresh and damning mark to all time on the history of Europeand on this old, old land on which we are looking. In front of us the Zillebeke Lake, beyond it Hooge—Hill 60 lost in the shadows, and that famous spot where, on the afternoon of November 11, the ‘thin red line’ withstood the onset of the Prussian Guard. The Salient lies there before us, and one’s heart trembles thinking of all the gallant life laid down there, and all the issues that have hung upon the fight for it.”
‘A picket of soldiers belonging to the Canadian Division stops us, and we show our passes. Then we begin to mount the hill (about as steep as that above Stocks Cottage), but Captain Roberts pulls me up, and with various halts at last we are on the top, passing a dug-out for shelter in case of shells on the way. At the top a windmill—some Tommies playing football. Two stout lasses driving a rustic cart with two horses. We go to the windmill and, sheltering behind its supports (for nobody must be seen on the sky-line), look out north-east and east. Far away on the horizon the mists lift for a moment, and a great ghost looks out—the ruined tower of Ypres. You see that half its top is torn away. A flash! from what seem to be the ruins at its base. Another! It is the English guns speaking from the lines between us and Ypres—and as we watch, we see the columns of white smoke rising from the German lines as they burst. Then it is the German turn, and we see a couple of their shells bursting on our lines, between Vlamertinghe and Dickebusch. Hark—the rattle of the machine-guns from, as it were, a point just below us to the left, and again the roar of the howitzers. There, on the horizon, is the ridge of Messines, Wytschœte, and near by the hill and village of Kemmel, which has been shelled to bits. Along that distant ridge run the German trenches, line upon line. One can see them plainly without a glass. At last we are within actual sight of theGreat Aggression—the nation and the army which have defied the laws of God and man, and left their fresh and damning mark to all time on the history of Europeand on this old, old land on which we are looking. In front of us the Zillebeke Lake, beyond it Hooge—Hill 60 lost in the shadows, and that famous spot where, on the afternoon of November 11, the ‘thin red line’ withstood the onset of the Prussian Guard. The Salient lies there before us, and one’s heart trembles thinking of all the gallant life laid down there, and all the issues that have hung upon the fight for it.”
So, with gas-helmets in hand, they retraced their steps down the hill, finding at the bottom that the kind Canadian sentries had cut steps for Mrs. Ward down the steep, slippery bank, and on to see General Plumer at Cassel. With him and with Lord Cavan—the future heroes of the Italian War—Mrs. Ward had half an hour’s memorable talk, returning afterwards to the Visitors’ Château in time to pack and depart that same evening for Boulogne. Next day they sailed in the “Leave boat”—“all swathed in life-belts, and the good boat escorted (so wrote D. M. W.) by a destroyer and a torpedo-boat, and ringed round with mine-sweepers!” In such pomp of modern war did Mrs. Ward return.
It now remained for her to put into shape the impressions gathered in these five breathless weeks, and this she did during some forty-five days of work at very high pressure, putting what she had to say into the form of “Letters to an American Friend.” The Letters were sent hot to the Press on the American side as quickly as Mrs. Ward could mail them, appearing in a number of newspapers controlled by one of the great “Syndicates”; then Scribner’s published them in book form at the end of May, with a preface by Mr. Choate. Here, with a little more leisure for revision, the little book, under the title ofEngland’s Effort, came out on June 8, incidentally giving to Mrs. Ward the pleasant opportunity of a renewal of her old acquaintance with Lord Rosebery, whom she had invited to write a preface to it. She went over, full of doubt, to Mentmore one May afternoon, having heard that he was there, “quite alone” (as she wrote to M. Chevrillon), “driving about in a high mid-Victorian phaeton, with a postilion!” Knowing that he was never strong, she fully expected a refusal, but found instead that he had already done what she asked, being deeply moved by the proofs that she had sent him.She was much touched, and the friendship was cemented, a few days later, by a return visit that he paid to Stocks, all in its May green, when he could not contain himself on the beauty of the place, or the incomparable advantages it possessed over “such a British Museum as Mentmore!”
England’s Effortreached a dejected world in the nick of time. Our national habit of “grousing” in public, and of hanging our dirty linen on every possible clothes-line, had naturally disposed both ourselves and the outer world to under-estimate our vast achievements. This little book set us right both with the home front and with our foreign critics. It penetrated into every corner of the world and was translated into every civilized language, while Mrs. Ward constantly received letters about it, not only from friends, but from total strangers—from dwellers in Mexico, South America, Japan, Australia and India, not to mention France and Italy, thanking her for her immense service, and expressing astonishment at the facts that she had brought to light. ThePreussische Jahrbücherreviewed it with great respect; the Japanese Ambassador, Viscount Chinda, was urgently recommended by King George to read it, and afterwards contributed a preface to the Japanese edition. And, as Principal Heberden of Brasenose reported to her, the burden of comment among his friends always ended with the feeling that “the most remarkable fact about the book is Mrs. Humphry Ward’s own astonishing effort. Certainly the nation owes her much, for no other author could have attracted so much attention in America.” A year later, it was asserted by many Americans, with every accent of conviction, that but forEngland’s Effortand the public opinion that it stirred, President Wilson might have delayed still longer than he did in bringing America in.
In all the business arrangements made for the “little book” in America, Mrs. Ward had had the constant help and support of her beloved cousin, Fred Whitridge, while in England not only the publication, but the voluminous arrangements for translation, were in the hands of Reginald Smith. By a cruel stroke of fate, both these devoted friends were taken from her in the same week—the last week of December, 1916—and Mrs. Ward was left to carry on as best she might, without “the tender humour and thefire of sense” in the “good eyes” of the one, or the wisdom, strength and kindness that had always been her portion in so rich a measure from the other. To Mrs. Smith (herself the daughter of George Murray Smith), she wrote after the funeral of “Mr. Reginald”:
“I watched in Oxford Street, till the car had passed northwards out of sight, and said good-bye with tears to that good man and faithful friend it bore away.... Your husband has been to me shelter and comfort, advice and help, through many years. I feel as if a great tree had fallen under whose boughs I had sheltered....”
“I watched in Oxford Street, till the car had passed northwards out of sight, and said good-bye with tears to that good man and faithful friend it bore away.... Your husband has been to me shelter and comfort, advice and help, through many years. I feel as if a great tree had fallen under whose boughs I had sheltered....”
Never was the writing of books the same joy to Mrs. Ward after this. Other publishers arose with whom she established, as was her wont, good and friendly relations, but with the death of Reginald Smith it was as if a veil had descended between her and this chief solace of her declining years.
Already, in the autumn of 1916, Mrs. Ward was thinking—in consultation with Wellington House—of a possible return to France, mainly in order, this time, to visit some of the regions behind the French front which had suffered most cruelly in 1914. She wished to bring home to the English-speaking world, which was apt to forget such things, some of the undying wrongs of France. M. Chevrillon obtained for her the ear of the French War Office, and meanwhile Mrs. Ward applied once more to Sir Edward Grey and to General Charteris, head of the British Intelligence Department in France (with whom she had made friends on her first journey) for permission to spend another two or three days behind the British front. Here, however, the difficulty arose that since Mrs. Ward’s first visit, some other ladies, readingEngland’s Effort, had been clamorous for the same privileges, so that the much-tried War Office had been obliged to lay down a rigid rule against the admission of “any more ladies,” as Sir Edward Grey wrote, “within the military zone of the British Armies.” Sir Edward did not think that any exception could be made, but not so General Charteris. On November 9, Lord Onslow, then serving in the War Office, wrote to Mrs. Ward that:
‘General Charteris fully recognizes the valuable effectwhich your first book produced upon the public, and would consequently expect similar results from a further work of yours. He is, therefore, disposed to do everything in his power to assist you, and he thinks it possible that perhaps an exception to the general rule might be made on public grounds. But it would have to be clearly understood that in the event of your being allowed to go, it would not constitute a precedent as regards any other ladies.”
‘General Charteris fully recognizes the valuable effectwhich your first book produced upon the public, and would consequently expect similar results from a further work of yours. He is, therefore, disposed to do everything in his power to assist you, and he thinks it possible that perhaps an exception to the general rule might be made on public grounds. But it would have to be clearly understood that in the event of your being allowed to go, it would not constitute a precedent as regards any other ladies.”
Permits, in the form of “Adjutant-General’s Passes,” were therefore issued to Mrs. Ward and her daughter for a visit to the British Military Zone from February 28 to March 4, 1917. They crossed direct to Boulogne, and were the guests of General Headquarters from the moment that they set foot in France.
Since their last visit, the Battle of the Somme had come and gone, and the German Army was in the act of retreating across that tortured belt of territory to the safe shelter of the Hindenburg Line, there to resist our pressure for another year. But, in these weeks of early spring, the elation of movement had gripped our Army; the Boche was in retreat; this must, thisshouldbe the deciding year! Mrs. Ward’s letters from the war zone are full of this spirit of hopefulness; not yet had Russia crumbled in pieces, not yet had the strength of the shortened German line revealed itself. Once more she was sent on two memorable days, from the Visitors’ Château at Agincourt, to points of vital interest on our line, first through St. Pol, Divion and Ranchicourt, to the wooded slope of the Bois de Bouvigny, whence she could gaze across at the Vimy Ridge, not yet stormed by the Canadians; then, on the second day, to the very centre of the Somme battlefield, where she stood in the midst of the world’s uttermost scene of desolation. Of the Bois de Bouvigny, Dorothy’s narrative, written down the same night, gives the following picture:
‘The car bumped slowly along a very rough track into the heart of the wood, and stopped when it could go no farther. We got out and walked on till soon we came to an open piece of grass-land, a rectangular wedge, as it were, driven from the eastern edge of the hill into the heart of the wood. We walked across it, facing east, and saw it was pitted with shell-holes, mostly old—butnot all. In particular, one very large one had fresh moist earth cast up all round it. Captain Fowler [their guide] asked Captain Bell a question about it, lightly, yet with a significantappuiin his tone—but the young man laughed off the question and implied that the Boches had grown tired of troubling that particular place. Meanwhile, the firing of our own guns behind and to the side of us was becoming more frequent, the noise greater. Just ahead, and to the right, the ground sloped to a valley, which we could not see, and where we were told lay Ablain St. Nazaire and Carençy. From this direction came the short, abrupt, but quite formidable reports of trench-mortars. Over against us, and slightly to the right, three or four ridges and folds of hill lay clearly distinguishable—of which the middle back was the famousVimy Ridge, partly held to this day by the Germans. Captain Bell, however, would not let us advance quite to the edge of the plateau, so that we never saw exactly how the ground dropped to the lower ground, neither did we see the crucifix of Notre Dame de Lorette at the end of the spur. All this bit had been the scene of terrific fighting in 1915, when it still formed part of the French line; it had been a fight at close quarters in the beautiful wood that closed in the open ground on which we stood, and we were told that many bodies of poor French soldiers still lay unburied in the wood. We turned soon to recross the bare space again, and as we did so, fresh guns of our own opened fire, and once more I heard that long-drawn scream of the shells over our heads that I got to know last year.”
‘The car bumped slowly along a very rough track into the heart of the wood, and stopped when it could go no farther. We got out and walked on till soon we came to an open piece of grass-land, a rectangular wedge, as it were, driven from the eastern edge of the hill into the heart of the wood. We walked across it, facing east, and saw it was pitted with shell-holes, mostly old—butnot all. In particular, one very large one had fresh moist earth cast up all round it. Captain Fowler [their guide] asked Captain Bell a question about it, lightly, yet with a significantappuiin his tone—but the young man laughed off the question and implied that the Boches had grown tired of troubling that particular place. Meanwhile, the firing of our own guns behind and to the side of us was becoming more frequent, the noise greater. Just ahead, and to the right, the ground sloped to a valley, which we could not see, and where we were told lay Ablain St. Nazaire and Carençy. From this direction came the short, abrupt, but quite formidable reports of trench-mortars. Over against us, and slightly to the right, three or four ridges and folds of hill lay clearly distinguishable—of which the middle back was the famousVimy Ridge, partly held to this day by the Germans. Captain Bell, however, would not let us advance quite to the edge of the plateau, so that we never saw exactly how the ground dropped to the lower ground, neither did we see the crucifix of Notre Dame de Lorette at the end of the spur. All this bit had been the scene of terrific fighting in 1915, when it still formed part of the French line; it had been a fight at close quarters in the beautiful wood that closed in the open ground on which we stood, and we were told that many bodies of poor French soldiers still lay unburied in the wood. We turned soon to recross the bare space again, and as we did so, fresh guns of our own opened fire, and once more I heard that long-drawn scream of the shells over our heads that I got to know last year.”
On both these days, the “things seen,” unforgettable as they were, were filled out by most interesting conversations with two of our Army Commanders—first with General Horne and then with Sir Henry Rawlinson, who entertained Mrs. Ward and her daughter with a kindness that had in it an element of pathos. Not often, in those stern days, did anyone of the gentler sex make and pour out their tea! And in the Chauffeurs’ Mess, the Scotch chauffeur, Sloan, who for the second time was in charge of Mrs. Ward, found himself the object of universal curiosity. “He told Captain Fowler,” wrote Mrs. Ward to her husband, “that they asked him innumerable questions about the two ladies—no one having ever seen such a phenomenon in these parts before. ‘They were varra puzzled,’ said Sloan, ‘they couldna mak’ it out. But I didna tell them. I left them thinkin’!’”
Mrs. Ward left the British zone for Paris on March 4, and after three days of comparative rest there—renewing old acquaintance under strange new conditions—she put herself under the charge of a kind and energetic official of the “Maison de la Presse,” M. Ponsot, for her long-planned visit to the devastated regions of the Centre and East. Soissons, Reims and Verdun were pronounced too dangerous for her, but she went north to the ruins of Senlis, and heard from the lips of the old curé the horrible tale of the German panic there, in the early days of September, 1914, the burning of the town, the murder of the Maire and the other hostages, and of the frantic, insane excitement under which many of the German officers seemed to be labouring. Then it was the battlefield of the Ourcq, the scene of Maunoury’s fateful flank attack, which forced Von Kluck to halt and give battle at the Marne; a string of famous villages—Marcilly, Barcy, Etrépilly, Vareddes—seen, alas, under a blinding snow-storm, and at length the vision of the Marne itself, “winding, steely-grey, through the white landscape.” Mrs. Ward has described it all, in inimitable fashion, in the seventh and eighth Letters ofTowards the Goal, and has there told also the ghastly tale of the Hostages of Vareddes, which burnt itself upon her mind with the sharpness that only the sight of the actual scene could give. Then, leaving Paris by train for Nancy, she spent two days—seeing much of the stout-hearted Préfet, M. Mirman—in visiting the regions overwhelmed by the German invasion between August 20 and September 10, 1914—a period and a theatre of the War of which we English usually have but the dimmest idea. From the ruined farm of Léaumont she was shown, by a French staff officer, the whole scene of these operations, spread like a map before her, and became absorbed in the thrilling tale of the driving back of the Bavarians by General Castelnau and the First French Army. Then southward through the region from which the German wave had receded, but which still bore indelible marks of the invaders’ savage fear and hatred. InTowards the GoalMrs. Ward has told thetale of Gerbévillers and of the heroic Sœur Julie, who saved her “gros blessés” in the teeth of some demoralized German officers, who forced their way into the hospital. Here we can but give her general impressions of the scene, as she recorded them in a letter to Miss Arnold, written from Paris immediately afterwards:
“Lorraine was in some ways a spectacle to wring one’s heart, the ruined villages, theréfugiéseverywhere, and the faces of men and women who had lost their all and seen the worst horrors of human nature face to face. But there were many beautiful and consoling things. The marvellous view from a point near Lunéville of the eastern frontier, the French lines and the German, near the Forêt de Paroy—a group of some hundreds of French soldiers, near another point of the frontier, who, finding out that we were two English ladies, cheered us vigorously as we passed through them—the already famous Sœur Julie, of Gerbévillers, who had been a witness of all the German crimes there, and told the story inimitably, with native wit and Christian feeling—the beautiful return from Nancy on a spring day across France, from East to West, passing the great rivers, Meurthe, Meuse, Moselle, Marne—the warm welcome of the Lorrainers—these things we shall never forget.”
“Lorraine was in some ways a spectacle to wring one’s heart, the ruined villages, theréfugiéseverywhere, and the faces of men and women who had lost their all and seen the worst horrors of human nature face to face. But there were many beautiful and consoling things. The marvellous view from a point near Lunéville of the eastern frontier, the French lines and the German, near the Forêt de Paroy—a group of some hundreds of French soldiers, near another point of the frontier, who, finding out that we were two English ladies, cheered us vigorously as we passed through them—the already famous Sœur Julie, of Gerbévillers, who had been a witness of all the German crimes there, and told the story inimitably, with native wit and Christian feeling—the beautiful return from Nancy on a spring day across France, from East to West, passing the great rivers, Meurthe, Meuse, Moselle, Marne—the warm welcome of the Lorrainers—these things we shall never forget.”
A rapid return to England and then, in order that her impressions of the Fleet might not be behindhand, she was sent by special arrangement to see Commodore Tyrwhitt, at Harwich, there to realize the immense development of the smaller craft of the Navy, and to go “creeping and climbing,” as she describes it inTowards the Goal, about a submarine. Returning to Stocks to write her second series of “Letters”—now addressed without disguise to Mr. Roosevelt—it was not long before the news of America’s Declaration of War came in to cheer her, with an eager telephone-message from a daughter, left in London, that “Old Glory” was to be seen waving side by side with the Union Jack from the tower of the House of Lords. Now surely, the happy prophecies of her soldier-friends in France would be fulfilled: thismustbe the deciding year! But the months passed on; Vimy and Messines were ours, yet nothing followed, and in August, September, October, the agonizing struggle in the mud of Passchendæle sapped theendurance of the watchers at home more miserably than any other three months of the War. And there, on October 11, perished a lad of twenty, bearing a name that was heart of her heart to Mrs. Ward, Tom Arnold, the elder son of her brother, Dr. F. S. Arnold. He had lain wounded all night in a shell-hole, and when at length they bore him back to the Casualty Clearing-station, the little flame of life, though it flickered and shot upwards in hope, sank again into darkness. Tom was a lad to whose gentle soul all war was utterly abhorrent, yet he had “joined up” without question on the earliest possible day. Already Christopher and Arthur Selwyn, the splendid twins, were gone, and the sons of so many friends and neighbours, gentle and simple! About this time General Horne had invited her to come once more to France. “But it is not at all likely I shall go (she wrote)—though, perhaps, in the spring it might be, if the War goes on. Horrible, horrible thought! I am more and more conscious of its horror and hideousness every day. And yet after so much—after all these lives laid down—not to achieve the end, and a real ‘peace upon Israel’—would not that be worst of all?”
αὑτἁρ ἑμεὑ σχεδὁθεν μὁρος Ισταται ὡς ὁφελὁν γεχερἱ φἱλην τἡν σἡν χεἱρα λαβοὑσα θανεἱν.[35]DAMAGETUS.
THOSE who visited Mrs. Ward at Stocks during the later years of the War were wont to fasten upon any younger members of the family who happened to be there, to declare that Mrs. Ward was working herself to death and to plead that something must be done to stop her. And even as they said it they knew that their words were vain, for besides the perennial need to make a living, was not her country at war and were not the young men dying every day? Mrs. Ward was not of the temperament that forgot such things; hence her desire to throw her very best work into her “War books”—which owing to their low price and the special terms on which she allowed the Government to use them could never bring her anything like the same return as her novels.[36]She regarded themtherefore almost as an extra on her ordinary work, so that the pressure on her time was increased rather than diminished as the War years went on and her own age advanced. And the last of the series,Fields of Victory, was to make on her time and strength the greatest demands of all.
But the lighter side of her War labours was the intense and meticulous interest she took in the “War economies” devised by herself and Dorothy at Stocks. How they schemed and planned about the cutting of timber, the growing of potatoes, the making of jam and the sharing of the garden fruit with the village! Labour in the garden was reduced to a minimum, so that all the family must take their turn at planting out violas and verbenas, if the poor things were to be saved for use at all, while Mr. Wilkin, the well-beloved butler who had been with us for twenty years, mowed the lawn and split wood and performed many other unorthodox tasks until he too was called up, at 47, in the summer of 1918. Mrs. Ward could not plant verbenas, but she armed herself with a spud and might often be seen of an afternoon valiantly attacking the weeds in the rose-beds and paths. The links between her and the little estate seemed to grow ever stronger as she came to depend more and more directly on the produce of the soil, and when, in 1918, she established a cow on what had once been the cricket-ground her joy and pride in the productiveness of her new creature were a delight to all beholders. Her daughter Dorothy was at this time deep in the organisation of “Women on the Land”—a movement of considerable importance in Hertfordshire—, so that Mrs. Ward could study it at first hand and had many an absorbing conversation with one of the “gang-leaders,” Mrs. Bentwich, who made Stocks her headquarters for a time and delighted her hostess by her many-sided ability and by the picturesqueness of her attire. All this gave her many ideas for her four War novels—Missing,The War and Elizabeth,Cousin PhilipandHarvest, the last of which was to close the long list of her books.Missinghad a considerable popular success, for it sold 21,000 in America in the first two months of itsappearance, butElizabethandCousin Philipwere, I think, felt to be the most interesting of this series, owing to the admirable studies they presented of the type of young woman thrown up and moulded by the War. Mrs. Ward was by no means ashamed of her hard work as a novelist in these days.