Chapter Five.Britain’s Unshakable Resolve.This War has brought many changes, and will bring many more. But it has brought one for which we cannot be too grateful, one which we may even think in the days to come was the justification and the reward for all the lives and all the treasure which the great struggle has demanded and will yet demand from us.It has made of us one people. And when I say one people, I am not referring merely to the inhabitants of these small islands, which Britons all the world over will ever regard, as they have ever regarded, as “home.” I include the great dominions over the seas—Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, and India, with their many races and many people who live and enjoy their lives under the benign shelter of the British flag.Nothing the world has ever seen is equal in grandeur, and in the lesson it has taught us, to the majestic uprising of the British peoples when the first shock of war burst upon a startled world in those early days—how long ago they seem to-day!—of August, 1914. From the Tropics to the Poles not a dissentient voice was heard. It is not too much to say that the entire British Empire, which many of us had perhaps come to regard as somewhat a shadowy entity, leaped to arms with a unanimity which not only surprised us, but, as we have every reason to know, startled and bewildered our enemies.Of our own people here at home we were always sure, provided they could be induced to realise the magnitude of the great struggle before them. Of that, from the earliest days of the violation of Belgium, there was never the slightest doubt. The British people are, and have always been, peculiarly sensitive to the sanctity of their pledged word; not for nothing have we earned the reputation that the Englishman’s word is as good as his bond. And when our people realised that Germany, with a cynical disregard of international honour and good faith to which history happily offers few parallels, had deliberately attacked Belgium, there was at once an explosion of cold rage which, could the Germans but have understood it, would have convinced them that the British Empire was in this War, for good or ill, until a final settlement had been reached which would mean either absolute triumph or absolute annihilation.We know, as a matter of fact, that England’s decision to fight over a “scrap of paper” produced something akin to stupefaction in Berlin; we know also that it produced an outburst of hate which found its ultimate expression in the fatuous “Gott strafe England” which has become the by-word of the world as an expression of impotent rage and spite. We may take that as the greatest compliment an honest nation has ever received from a people to whom such a thing as honour and good faith is not only unknown, but is unimaginable. Knowing nothing of national honour themselves, the Germans were naturally unable to forecast accurately the course of action of either Belgium or Britain. From both of them they have received a much-needed lesson, which I have no doubt will be still further driven home by the stern logic of the events which are even now shaping dimly before our eyes.It was just this consideration of national honour which brought not only England in particular, but the whole Empire, into the field as one man. Great armies sprang into existence before our very eyes. From every quarter of the globe offers of men, money, and supplies of all kinds were poured into our lap with a profusion which was as surprising as it was gratifying. We witnessed, in fact, what required a great national peril to bring to birth, the nascence of the British Empire as a fighting force. And anyone who fails to see that that fact will have a very profound influence upon the future history of the world must be blind indeed to the real significance of events.The Empire has found itself. That is the one cardinal lesson which, above all others, stands out as the greatest feature of the world-war. Will anyone believe that Germany, with all the advantages she possesses in the matter of organisation and long preparation for war, could in the long last vanquish Britain, solidly united, armed to the teeth, her deficiencies at last made good, and ready to shed the last drop of her blood and spend her last shilling in defence of the glorious heritage which has been won in a thousand years of strife and struggle? If she stood alone to-day, without a single Ally in the world, Britain would never give up the struggle which has been thrust upon her. But she is not alone. She has powerful Allies who are as resolute as she is herself, who realise as fully as she does all that is implied in the threat of German domination, and who are as fully determined as she that “the Prussian ulcer” shall be cut once and for all from the body politic of civilisation.Dealing for a moment with Great Britain alone, I do not hesitate to here say that our people are united in this great quarrel as they have never been united before.In our other wars we have always had parties, more or less strong, but never negligible, which seemed to see in the enemy an object for friendship more attractive than our own people. We have always had parties which, if not openly, at least covertly, seemed to incline to the side of our foes. We all remember the South African campaign, when a very large and influential section of the Liberal Party went out of its way to champion the cause of Paul Kruger.We do not need—and I have no desire—to dwell upon that unhappy time; many of those who then made a great mistake have to-day atoned for their error by their splendid efforts to vindicate the cause of Britain and civilisation in the present struggle. I mention the fact only to show that to-day there is no pro-German party in this country which carries the slightest weight. The pro-German element is conspicuous by its absence; it is represented only by a small rabble of discredited cranks and self-advertisers for whom the nation has shown its contempt in unmistakable fashion. The heart of the nation as a whole is sound, and it is firmly determined that Germany’s eternal attempts to annoy and provoke her neighbours shall be once and for all suppressed.I shall deal elsewhere with Germany’s colossal blunders in regard to the War; I will content myself with saying here that her first and greatest mistake was in regard to the British Empire. She did not think we would fight, but if we did she thought there would be revolution in Ireland and India, and a sudden dropping off of our Colonial Dominions, leaving us so weak and so torn with internal dissensions that we should be in no shape to oppose her triumphal progress over the bodies of her enemies.Over three million volunteers have rallied to the Colours in reply to the German challenge. Ireland to-day, dropping all her historic feuds, is practically solid for the Empire, and her sons, as ever, have shown their glorious deeds under the British flag. India, with one voice and heart, has rallied to the Empire; her men have given their blood without stint in our cause, her princes have poured out their treasure like water in our service, proud and glad to make what return they could for the blessings they have enjoyed under British rule. The deeds of the Canadians, the Australians, the New Zealanders, have added a new and imperishable tradition to British history. The bloodstained soil of the Gallipoli Peninsula will remain for all time hallowed by the glory of the men of Anzac, who, not once, but time and again, wrested seemingly impossible triumphs from the very jaws of death and defeat.They failed, it is true, to win the last and greatest victory, but the story of their failure is more glorious than the story of many successes, and so long as our race and our language endure the tale of the landing at Suvla and the fight for the heights overlooking the Dardanelles will be told as an example of what human flesh and blood can achieve and endure. There is nothing greater or nobler in all our history; and while our Empire can produce such men as those who for long months faced the Turks in Gallipoli, we can be sure that in the British Empire the world will have a force to be reckoned with.Turn to South Africa. There were those among us who felt after the Boer War that Britain was making a dangerous experiment in conferring absolute self-government upon those who but a short time before had been our implacable enemies. But the result was a triumph for British principles of liberty and of trust in the essential justice and equity of our rule. From the first, General Botha, our ablest and most chivalrous antagonist in the war, showed absolute and unshakable loyalty to the people who had put their trust in him. He was followed nobly by the great mass of the people of South Africa, Dutch as well as English; and when De Wet’s misguided rebellion broke out it was suppressed with a swift efficiency which elicited unstinted admiration, not unmixed, it must be admitted, with surprise. Later we were to see the Union of South Africa playing a gallant part in the expulsion of German rule from the adjoining territories.All this surely must have been a bitter pill for the Kaiser to swallow. We know how he encouraged Kruger in his revolt against the British; we know how confidently he had counted on disaffection in South Africa to add to our difficulties; we can imagine his joy when De Wet and his irreconcilables raised the standard of revolt, even though their motive was much more hostility to the English than love for the German.We know he looked upon Ireland as hopelessly disloyal and ready to fling off for ever, perhaps with German help, the hated yoke of the Saxon. We know he looked upon India as seething with discontent and eager to fling herself into the arms of anyone who would give a hand in ejecting the brutal British Raj. We know he looked upon our Dominions as ripe fruit ready to drop off the parent tree at the slightest shake. We know he looked upon ourselves as a decadent nation, grown rich and indolent, caring for nothing but ease, and wrapped in a sloth from which we could never awaken until it was too late. And, lo! upon the first touch of war the weapons he had hoped to use shivered to fragments in his hand, the hopes he had fondly entertained turned to Dead Sea ashes in his mouth.With one heart, one mind, and one unshakable purpose, the British Empire rushed to war. Swept away in an instant were those bad old party squabbles, those bad old party cries, with which our nation is prone to amuse itself in times of peace to the exclusion, perhaps, of more vital things. We seemed so desperately in earnest about our internal quarrels that perhaps we could not expect the continental nations, least of all the Germans, to realise that, for all our dispute, we are still one nation, that we are still animated by precisely the same spirit that has made England great, overlain though it may be by the dust and cobwebs that have grown up in a century of freedom from war on a great scale.We do not perhaps quite understand ourselves; it would be certainly too much to expect the Germans to understand us, for they have shown an utter inability to understand any type of mentality but their own. Had they been better acquainted with our idiosyncrasies, I do not say that war would have been averted, but it would certainly have been postponed until Germany felt herself to be still stronger afloat and ashore, when the task of defeating her would have been even harder and more prolonged. So that perhaps we have reason to be thankful that, as the struggle had to come—and of that there cannot be the slightest doubt—it should have come early rather than late; we may have reason to be thankful, despite all the miseries and losses which the War has caused, that it was prematurely precipitated by German arrogance and greed and blindness. How much greater would have been her chances of success if she had been content to wait for, say, another five or ten years, when her prospects of meeting the British Fleet on something like equal terms would have been vastly improved!And if our nation has closed its ranks and determined that this War shall be fought to the only finish consistent with the continued existence of civilisation as we understand it, what shall we say of our Allies? What tribute can be too great for the matchless heroism of France? How can we praise too highly the dogged courage of the Russian soldier, which has time and again saved the situation in the West by a display of self-sacrifice of which the world can offer few parallels?What words can express all we owe to gallant little Serbia and Montenegro, crushed beneath the heel of the invader, yet destined to arise with their lustre undimmed and shining brighter than ever? How can we show our appreciation of what Belgium, the greatest martyr of all, has done for the sacred cause of liberty? Who can measure our debt to Italy, flinging herself into the great battle of freedom, not at a time when victory seemed assured, but when the clouds were thickest and our hopes at their lowest ebb?Can we detect any sign of weakening in the Allies’ stern resolve? Assuredly not. Bound together by a sacred pact to make no terms with the enemy which shall not be acceptable to all, they will go on from strength to strength, growing daily in power and resources, moved by one mind and by one purpose, till the time comes for the dealing of the last great blow which shall shatter finally and for ever Teutonic aspirations to rule the world. If signs of weakness there be—and they are not wanting—they are not to be found in the ranks of Germany’s enemies. Rather are they to be found in the camp of the enemy himself. From all parts of the Teutonic Empires and their Allied nations come the signs which tell of war-weariness, of a growing conviction that further conquests are impossible, that the War has become a struggle for existence, that the enemy is knocking ever more and more loudly at the gate.The scales are beginning to fall from the eyes of the German people. They are yet far from convinced that all is lost, but at least they are beginning to be sure that nothing is to be gained. No longer do we hear the boastful assertion that all their losses shall be made good by huge indemnities to be extracted from their crushed and beaten foes. A new note is being sounded of the need for sacrifice; new warnings are ever being given that Germany’s war will have to be paid for by Germany, and not by the rest of the world. It is too early to say that German resolution is seriously weakened; it is not too soon to say that the German people are beginning to realise at last the strength of the combinations they have aroused against themselves.On the other hand, the temper of the Allies, their confidence in their cause, and their ability to make that cause good has never stood so high. They have learned the lesson they needed eighteen months ago—that the War will be something far more serious and more terrible than they anticipated, that much remains to be done, that many sacrifices will have to be made before success crowns their efforts. But in learning that lesson they have also learned their own strength. They have learned, too, to trust one another, to see that the cause of one is the cause of all. And in the thoroughness with which they learn that lesson lies the strongest pledge for a happy issue. The Allies cannot be defeated so long as they remain true to themselves and to each other, so long as they remain bound together by the bonds of loyalty and constancy to a great and a sacred cause. That they are so bound to-day none can dispute; that they will remain so bound to the end it would be treason to them and to ourselves to doubt. Not to one but to each of the Allies in turn have the Germans gone with their insulting attempts to buy a separate peace, to achieve by sheer bribery what they have failed to achieve by force of arms in spite of all their “victories.” By each of their opponents in turn they have been spurned with contempt. Russia simply tore up their clumsy tenders of treason without deigning even to reply. And, as we have since learned, even gallant little Belgium, torn and ravished as few countries have ever been torn and ravished in the world’s history, spurned an offer which would have given her back much of what she had lost, but would have lost for her the priceless possession for which she fought—her national honour.With these object-lessons before her eyes, perhaps in the days to come even Germany, who has shown herself so thoroughly oblivious to what honour and conscience mean, may realise that there are nations in the world to whom there are better and higher things than mere wealth and power, that there are principles which soar far above material considerations, that she is face to face with something which is at present far beyond her comprehension, and that something far mightier than the mightiest cannon ever forged in the furnaces of Krupps’ is working for her downfall. That something is the moral sense of the world at large, of which, as yet, the Germans have not the slightest understanding. The German, even in the midst of his successes and triumphs, is faced by a resolution at least as great as his own, he is faced by men whose hearts are aflame with the sacred fire of liberty, he is faced by men to whom honour and good faith are all in all. And in the face of that combination even the boasted might and efficiency of Germany will go down at last, in the fullness of time, in hopeless and irretrievable ruin.
This War has brought many changes, and will bring many more. But it has brought one for which we cannot be too grateful, one which we may even think in the days to come was the justification and the reward for all the lives and all the treasure which the great struggle has demanded and will yet demand from us.
It has made of us one people. And when I say one people, I am not referring merely to the inhabitants of these small islands, which Britons all the world over will ever regard, as they have ever regarded, as “home.” I include the great dominions over the seas—Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, and India, with their many races and many people who live and enjoy their lives under the benign shelter of the British flag.
Nothing the world has ever seen is equal in grandeur, and in the lesson it has taught us, to the majestic uprising of the British peoples when the first shock of war burst upon a startled world in those early days—how long ago they seem to-day!—of August, 1914. From the Tropics to the Poles not a dissentient voice was heard. It is not too much to say that the entire British Empire, which many of us had perhaps come to regard as somewhat a shadowy entity, leaped to arms with a unanimity which not only surprised us, but, as we have every reason to know, startled and bewildered our enemies.
Of our own people here at home we were always sure, provided they could be induced to realise the magnitude of the great struggle before them. Of that, from the earliest days of the violation of Belgium, there was never the slightest doubt. The British people are, and have always been, peculiarly sensitive to the sanctity of their pledged word; not for nothing have we earned the reputation that the Englishman’s word is as good as his bond. And when our people realised that Germany, with a cynical disregard of international honour and good faith to which history happily offers few parallels, had deliberately attacked Belgium, there was at once an explosion of cold rage which, could the Germans but have understood it, would have convinced them that the British Empire was in this War, for good or ill, until a final settlement had been reached which would mean either absolute triumph or absolute annihilation.
We know, as a matter of fact, that England’s decision to fight over a “scrap of paper” produced something akin to stupefaction in Berlin; we know also that it produced an outburst of hate which found its ultimate expression in the fatuous “Gott strafe England” which has become the by-word of the world as an expression of impotent rage and spite. We may take that as the greatest compliment an honest nation has ever received from a people to whom such a thing as honour and good faith is not only unknown, but is unimaginable. Knowing nothing of national honour themselves, the Germans were naturally unable to forecast accurately the course of action of either Belgium or Britain. From both of them they have received a much-needed lesson, which I have no doubt will be still further driven home by the stern logic of the events which are even now shaping dimly before our eyes.
It was just this consideration of national honour which brought not only England in particular, but the whole Empire, into the field as one man. Great armies sprang into existence before our very eyes. From every quarter of the globe offers of men, money, and supplies of all kinds were poured into our lap with a profusion which was as surprising as it was gratifying. We witnessed, in fact, what required a great national peril to bring to birth, the nascence of the British Empire as a fighting force. And anyone who fails to see that that fact will have a very profound influence upon the future history of the world must be blind indeed to the real significance of events.
The Empire has found itself. That is the one cardinal lesson which, above all others, stands out as the greatest feature of the world-war. Will anyone believe that Germany, with all the advantages she possesses in the matter of organisation and long preparation for war, could in the long last vanquish Britain, solidly united, armed to the teeth, her deficiencies at last made good, and ready to shed the last drop of her blood and spend her last shilling in defence of the glorious heritage which has been won in a thousand years of strife and struggle? If she stood alone to-day, without a single Ally in the world, Britain would never give up the struggle which has been thrust upon her. But she is not alone. She has powerful Allies who are as resolute as she is herself, who realise as fully as she does all that is implied in the threat of German domination, and who are as fully determined as she that “the Prussian ulcer” shall be cut once and for all from the body politic of civilisation.
Dealing for a moment with Great Britain alone, I do not hesitate to here say that our people are united in this great quarrel as they have never been united before.
In our other wars we have always had parties, more or less strong, but never negligible, which seemed to see in the enemy an object for friendship more attractive than our own people. We have always had parties which, if not openly, at least covertly, seemed to incline to the side of our foes. We all remember the South African campaign, when a very large and influential section of the Liberal Party went out of its way to champion the cause of Paul Kruger.
We do not need—and I have no desire—to dwell upon that unhappy time; many of those who then made a great mistake have to-day atoned for their error by their splendid efforts to vindicate the cause of Britain and civilisation in the present struggle. I mention the fact only to show that to-day there is no pro-German party in this country which carries the slightest weight. The pro-German element is conspicuous by its absence; it is represented only by a small rabble of discredited cranks and self-advertisers for whom the nation has shown its contempt in unmistakable fashion. The heart of the nation as a whole is sound, and it is firmly determined that Germany’s eternal attempts to annoy and provoke her neighbours shall be once and for all suppressed.
I shall deal elsewhere with Germany’s colossal blunders in regard to the War; I will content myself with saying here that her first and greatest mistake was in regard to the British Empire. She did not think we would fight, but if we did she thought there would be revolution in Ireland and India, and a sudden dropping off of our Colonial Dominions, leaving us so weak and so torn with internal dissensions that we should be in no shape to oppose her triumphal progress over the bodies of her enemies.
Over three million volunteers have rallied to the Colours in reply to the German challenge. Ireland to-day, dropping all her historic feuds, is practically solid for the Empire, and her sons, as ever, have shown their glorious deeds under the British flag. India, with one voice and heart, has rallied to the Empire; her men have given their blood without stint in our cause, her princes have poured out their treasure like water in our service, proud and glad to make what return they could for the blessings they have enjoyed under British rule. The deeds of the Canadians, the Australians, the New Zealanders, have added a new and imperishable tradition to British history. The bloodstained soil of the Gallipoli Peninsula will remain for all time hallowed by the glory of the men of Anzac, who, not once, but time and again, wrested seemingly impossible triumphs from the very jaws of death and defeat.
They failed, it is true, to win the last and greatest victory, but the story of their failure is more glorious than the story of many successes, and so long as our race and our language endure the tale of the landing at Suvla and the fight for the heights overlooking the Dardanelles will be told as an example of what human flesh and blood can achieve and endure. There is nothing greater or nobler in all our history; and while our Empire can produce such men as those who for long months faced the Turks in Gallipoli, we can be sure that in the British Empire the world will have a force to be reckoned with.
Turn to South Africa. There were those among us who felt after the Boer War that Britain was making a dangerous experiment in conferring absolute self-government upon those who but a short time before had been our implacable enemies. But the result was a triumph for British principles of liberty and of trust in the essential justice and equity of our rule. From the first, General Botha, our ablest and most chivalrous antagonist in the war, showed absolute and unshakable loyalty to the people who had put their trust in him. He was followed nobly by the great mass of the people of South Africa, Dutch as well as English; and when De Wet’s misguided rebellion broke out it was suppressed with a swift efficiency which elicited unstinted admiration, not unmixed, it must be admitted, with surprise. Later we were to see the Union of South Africa playing a gallant part in the expulsion of German rule from the adjoining territories.
All this surely must have been a bitter pill for the Kaiser to swallow. We know how he encouraged Kruger in his revolt against the British; we know how confidently he had counted on disaffection in South Africa to add to our difficulties; we can imagine his joy when De Wet and his irreconcilables raised the standard of revolt, even though their motive was much more hostility to the English than love for the German.
We know he looked upon Ireland as hopelessly disloyal and ready to fling off for ever, perhaps with German help, the hated yoke of the Saxon. We know he looked upon India as seething with discontent and eager to fling herself into the arms of anyone who would give a hand in ejecting the brutal British Raj. We know he looked upon our Dominions as ripe fruit ready to drop off the parent tree at the slightest shake. We know he looked upon ourselves as a decadent nation, grown rich and indolent, caring for nothing but ease, and wrapped in a sloth from which we could never awaken until it was too late. And, lo! upon the first touch of war the weapons he had hoped to use shivered to fragments in his hand, the hopes he had fondly entertained turned to Dead Sea ashes in his mouth.
With one heart, one mind, and one unshakable purpose, the British Empire rushed to war. Swept away in an instant were those bad old party squabbles, those bad old party cries, with which our nation is prone to amuse itself in times of peace to the exclusion, perhaps, of more vital things. We seemed so desperately in earnest about our internal quarrels that perhaps we could not expect the continental nations, least of all the Germans, to realise that, for all our dispute, we are still one nation, that we are still animated by precisely the same spirit that has made England great, overlain though it may be by the dust and cobwebs that have grown up in a century of freedom from war on a great scale.
We do not perhaps quite understand ourselves; it would be certainly too much to expect the Germans to understand us, for they have shown an utter inability to understand any type of mentality but their own. Had they been better acquainted with our idiosyncrasies, I do not say that war would have been averted, but it would certainly have been postponed until Germany felt herself to be still stronger afloat and ashore, when the task of defeating her would have been even harder and more prolonged. So that perhaps we have reason to be thankful that, as the struggle had to come—and of that there cannot be the slightest doubt—it should have come early rather than late; we may have reason to be thankful, despite all the miseries and losses which the War has caused, that it was prematurely precipitated by German arrogance and greed and blindness. How much greater would have been her chances of success if she had been content to wait for, say, another five or ten years, when her prospects of meeting the British Fleet on something like equal terms would have been vastly improved!
And if our nation has closed its ranks and determined that this War shall be fought to the only finish consistent with the continued existence of civilisation as we understand it, what shall we say of our Allies? What tribute can be too great for the matchless heroism of France? How can we praise too highly the dogged courage of the Russian soldier, which has time and again saved the situation in the West by a display of self-sacrifice of which the world can offer few parallels?
What words can express all we owe to gallant little Serbia and Montenegro, crushed beneath the heel of the invader, yet destined to arise with their lustre undimmed and shining brighter than ever? How can we show our appreciation of what Belgium, the greatest martyr of all, has done for the sacred cause of liberty? Who can measure our debt to Italy, flinging herself into the great battle of freedom, not at a time when victory seemed assured, but when the clouds were thickest and our hopes at their lowest ebb?
Can we detect any sign of weakening in the Allies’ stern resolve? Assuredly not. Bound together by a sacred pact to make no terms with the enemy which shall not be acceptable to all, they will go on from strength to strength, growing daily in power and resources, moved by one mind and by one purpose, till the time comes for the dealing of the last great blow which shall shatter finally and for ever Teutonic aspirations to rule the world. If signs of weakness there be—and they are not wanting—they are not to be found in the ranks of Germany’s enemies. Rather are they to be found in the camp of the enemy himself. From all parts of the Teutonic Empires and their Allied nations come the signs which tell of war-weariness, of a growing conviction that further conquests are impossible, that the War has become a struggle for existence, that the enemy is knocking ever more and more loudly at the gate.
The scales are beginning to fall from the eyes of the German people. They are yet far from convinced that all is lost, but at least they are beginning to be sure that nothing is to be gained. No longer do we hear the boastful assertion that all their losses shall be made good by huge indemnities to be extracted from their crushed and beaten foes. A new note is being sounded of the need for sacrifice; new warnings are ever being given that Germany’s war will have to be paid for by Germany, and not by the rest of the world. It is too early to say that German resolution is seriously weakened; it is not too soon to say that the German people are beginning to realise at last the strength of the combinations they have aroused against themselves.
On the other hand, the temper of the Allies, their confidence in their cause, and their ability to make that cause good has never stood so high. They have learned the lesson they needed eighteen months ago—that the War will be something far more serious and more terrible than they anticipated, that much remains to be done, that many sacrifices will have to be made before success crowns their efforts. But in learning that lesson they have also learned their own strength. They have learned, too, to trust one another, to see that the cause of one is the cause of all. And in the thoroughness with which they learn that lesson lies the strongest pledge for a happy issue. The Allies cannot be defeated so long as they remain true to themselves and to each other, so long as they remain bound together by the bonds of loyalty and constancy to a great and a sacred cause. That they are so bound to-day none can dispute; that they will remain so bound to the end it would be treason to them and to ourselves to doubt. Not to one but to each of the Allies in turn have the Germans gone with their insulting attempts to buy a separate peace, to achieve by sheer bribery what they have failed to achieve by force of arms in spite of all their “victories.” By each of their opponents in turn they have been spurned with contempt. Russia simply tore up their clumsy tenders of treason without deigning even to reply. And, as we have since learned, even gallant little Belgium, torn and ravished as few countries have ever been torn and ravished in the world’s history, spurned an offer which would have given her back much of what she had lost, but would have lost for her the priceless possession for which she fought—her national honour.
With these object-lessons before her eyes, perhaps in the days to come even Germany, who has shown herself so thoroughly oblivious to what honour and conscience mean, may realise that there are nations in the world to whom there are better and higher things than mere wealth and power, that there are principles which soar far above material considerations, that she is face to face with something which is at present far beyond her comprehension, and that something far mightier than the mightiest cannon ever forged in the furnaces of Krupps’ is working for her downfall. That something is the moral sense of the world at large, of which, as yet, the Germans have not the slightest understanding. The German, even in the midst of his successes and triumphs, is faced by a resolution at least as great as his own, he is faced by men whose hearts are aflame with the sacred fire of liberty, he is faced by men to whom honour and good faith are all in all. And in the face of that combination even the boasted might and efficiency of Germany will go down at last, in the fullness of time, in hopeless and irretrievable ruin.
Chapter Six.The Terror in Germany.I am most emphatically not one of those who think we ought to take for granted all the stories we get, often from German sources, of the condition of things in Germany.We know enough of German methods to know that for her own purposes she is capable of flying kites of varying types and shades; and one of the kites which was very prominently flown in the early days, comparatively speaking, of the War was the fiction that for her own brutal and illegal purposes England was “starving German babies” through the medium of her infamous (in German eyes) blockade.It mattered nothing to the Germans that in 1871 the blockade of Paris and the starvation of the civilian people was one of the principal means by which she enforced the capitulation. The Hun never likes his own medicine. What was, when applied to France in 1871, a stroke of German genius, becomes, when applied by the British Fleet to Germany in 1915, a crime so infamous as to call down all the vengeance of heaven upon the brutal English.In German eyes no weapon of war is legitimate if it is applied against the sacred persons of Germans; on the other hand, any and every device of the devil becomes a righteous punishment if it is used against Germany’s enemies. Surely never was any people in the world so lacking in a sense of proportion and common sense! There is no doubt, I think, that the first “starvation” cries which emanated from Germany were a cunningly devised plan to work upon the sympathies of neutrals and, in particular, upon the United States. There are always in every country a certain number of good, sentimental souls whose hearts are apt to run away with their heads, who are apt to think or act very much as their emotions lead them, and are entirely incapable of looking at more than one side of any question. It was to just these people and, of course, to the German people in America, that the first frantic “starvation” appeals were directed. I firmly believe that at that time there was little or no serious shortage in Germany, and that the outcry that was raised was merely a ruse to catch the sentimentalists’ attention. It succeeded to a certain extent, and it gave the “hyphenated” section of the American people an opportunity of which they took full advantage for renewed girdings against England. But neither then nor at any other time did it succeed in its real purpose, which was to procure by fair means or foul a relaxation of the British blockade.How serious that blockade was to become I do not believe the German people or the German rulers realised in the early days. I do not believe they realised that it was possible so completely to cut off their supplies as to produce anything like grave inconvenience, to say nothing of actual want. They have learned differently since! There is a growing volume of testimony from competent observers that the effectiveness of the British blockade is at last beginning to tell its story in Germany. The “bread cards,” the “butter cards,” the meatless days, the frantic appeals to the German people to give up the grease in which they love to bathe themselves at their meals, may be, as the Government pretends, merely a wise conservation of their resources. But if that is all, this “conservation of energy” is being carried out on a scale which is rapidly disheartening and discouraging the German people in every part of the Empire.The following extract from a Copenhagen paper no doubt puts the case so high as to be practically a burlesque, but it at least shows that countries adjoining Germany, and in free communication with her, understand that the shortage of food and other supplies is far more serious than the Germans are prepared to admit. A Reuter telegram from Copenhagen says:The Labour journal,Folkets Avis, publishes a letter from a business man who has just returned from a six months’ round tour of Germany, in which he describes the conditions there as more desperate than those in Paris in 1870. The writer is convinced that there is not now a living cat or dog in the whole of Germany, all having been eaten.Animal lovers trying to hide their pets have been betrayed by their neighbours and punished. Storks, swallows, starlings, and all kinds of wild birds have been systematically killed, and the result, he declares, will be felt in Scandinavian countries in the coming spring. All sea fowl have long since been exterminated.I have not much doubt that this extract gives far too gloomy a picture if it is intended to represent the condition of the great mass of the German people; I do not believe, though I should like to, that starvation has gone so far as this. But it is more than likely—indeed, I believe it is practically certain—that there is in it a considerable basis of truth.We have to remember that owing to the demoralisation of the German currency by the flood of paper money prices in Germany have gone up to an enormous extent, while at the same time, owing to the complete disappearance of her manufacturing and export business, wages have fallen in all but a few special trades. For this reason a large percentage of the population is feeling the pinch of want quite apart from any actual shortage of food in the country, and there may well be a good deal in the story of the Danish merchant that most of the wild birds, if not the very dogs and cats, have fallen victims to the necessity for obtaining food.It will be convenient if we consider the shortage of necessaries in Germany under various heads, the first of which is naturally the deficiency in the food supply, since that is likely to exercise the profoundest influence on the great mass of the people. On this point we have abundant evidence, not only from neutrals who have been able to move more or less freely about Germany, but, still more important, from English people who have returned after being liberated by exchange or otherwise.One and all are agreed that the German people are suffering from an actual shortage of food. It is not merely a question of prices, though these are far higher than they are in England, and the wealthy folk are still able to get almost all they want. There is, we are assured on evidence which it is practically impossible to ignore, a very serious shortage of many commodities of everyday use, the lack of which is severely felt, as, owing to the very high prices ruling, they are almost entirely beyond the reach of the people at large.Now, in considering the question of the food supplies of Germany, it is important to remember that in normal times Germany imports some forty per cent, of the fodder used for feeding her sheep and cattle, and it is the scarcity of fodder that has produced the present shortage of meat. That such a shortage exists we know from the ordinances made by the German Government providing for two, three, and even four meatless days per week for everyone in Germany. In the early days of the War, confident that the struggle would be a short one, the Germans took no special pains to keep up their supply of cattle. It was only after the battle of Flanders that they discovered their mistake, and that the question of the supply of meat was destined to be critical.Then came the panic legislation which led to the slaughtering of swine on an enormous scale. It was decided to devote all the available fodder to the feeding of cattle, since these would be the most difficult to replace after the War. Pigs were killeden masse, orders being given that the flesh was to be tinned to form a reserve. But it was soon found that even this was not sufficient to save the situation. Owing to the growing stringency of the blockade fodder for the cattle began to give out, and then it was decided to fatten pigs. In consequence the slaughter of cattle has increased enormously, and hence arises the growing shortage of milk, butter, and cheese.Now whatever may be the leakages in the British blockade, it is quite certain that only the barest fraction of Germany’s former imports is getting through; nothing can reach her directly oversea, and our trade agreements with neutral nations to prevent reshipment, even if they are not all that we could desire, are certainly having a very great effect. And it is certain that, despite smuggling on an unprecedented scale, Germany is very far from getting anything like all that she imperatively requires. The pinch is there, and it is growing, and that it is growing rapidly is shown by the increasing violence of the German threats against England and her incessant announcements that she is really getting ready for some new “frightfulness” that shall put all her previous efforts completely into the shade. We hear and note, but we are in no wise terrified.Frantic efforts are being made by the Germans to purchase and import cattle food of all descriptions, and in addition such fats as butter, lard, and margarine, the shortage of which has produced an enormous effect throughout the Empire. It is our business to see that she fails; and with our Navy given a free hand, I am confident that we can do so.We know how serious the shortage of bread has become; we know that no German can purchase bread without a “bread card,” and that the amount he can purchase is severely restricted. We know that he is ordered not to eat meat on certain days of the week. We know, too, that in various towns, even in Berlin itself, the maddened people have already broken out into “bread riots,” and that their mutinous gatherings have been dispersed by the police. Not even the well-drilled German will consent to go on indefinitely on an empty stomach. There have been cavalry charges in some towns, there have been violent riots in many, people have pillaged shops; “in fact,” says the German writer of a letter found on a prisoner, “we have a war at home as well as abroad.”Another letter sent from Munich to “cheer up” a prisoner at Oleron says, “Wherever we go, and wherever we may be, we see nothing and hear nothing except misery and poverty.” A letter from Greiben contains similar lamentations, and adds, “With all our strength we have accomplished nothing, and we shall soon be ruined.”Germany’s chief imports at present, secured, of course, by devious ways since she is unable to import anything directly, are cotton, wool, copper, lead, paraffin, rubber, nickel, oils, wheat, rye, and barley. These are all of vital necessity to her continued existence, not merely to her successful conduct of the War. With the food shortage growing day by day, she must import even larger and larger quantities, and unless she can do so the end is inevitable; a point must come at which German moral will simply go to pieces. Our blockade is hastening that moment. None the less, we have to remember that starvation alone will not bring Germany to subjection; she will always obtain and grow supplies to a certain extent, probably enough to stave off actual starvation on a scale which would induce her to sue for peace. We have to complete the process of attrition, valuable as it is, by force of arms, and only a decisive military defeat will put an end to German aims and ambitions. That is a cardinal fact of which we must never lose sight.There is hardly an article of food or drink for which the German chemists have not succeeded in finding more or less satisfactory substitutes. Bread is one of the best known instances. The German “kriegs-brod” or “war bread,” though it is nothing like so palatable or so nourishing as ordinary bread, is yet sufficient to sustain life, though there is reason to think it sets up digestive disorders. Similarly, a glance at the German papers will show dozens of advertisements offering substitutes for endless other articles of diet. These substitutes are very interesting; whether they are satisfying is another question, and one which we can leave the beleaguered Germans to find out for themselves. “Acorn coffee,” “artificial fats,” “artificial honeys,” wooden instead of leather shoes, “German tea” (whatever that may be), “egg substitute,” “wood meal,” sausage substitutes with “more than the nutritive qualities of beef”—these are only a few picked at random. No more convincing testimony to the value and effectiveness of the British blockade could be asked for. These are not the announcements of the German Government, intended to deceive, but the advertisements of business men who have to pay good solid German cash—or it may be notes!—for them. They speak more eloquently than any comment of ours could do.A good deal of surprise has been expressed that, in view of the undoubted shortage of many necessities in Germany, there has been no apparent falling-off in the equipment or supplies of the German Army. In reality this is not a matter that need disturb our judgment on the general question. We have to remember that Germany is organised on a military basis, and that the militarist party, who most decidedly hold the upper hand, will see to it that as long as there is a pound of food in the country it will not be the Army that will go short. In every department of German life everything is subordinated to the demands of the Army, and no one can question that this is the correct policy. Any serious shortage or discontent in the Army would bring the military structure crashing to the ground, and there can be no doubt that the shortage which exists will have to go much farther before its effects are felt in the field. It will come, beyond doubt, but it is more than likely that shortage of men will make itself felt first.The views of Abbé Wetterle on this point are worth quoting. He was before the War Deputy for Alsace in the Reichstag. When war broke out he escaped to France, and has lived there since. He considers that the Central Empires are already beaten.“Germany is at the end of her tether, that is the truth,” he says. “She can no longer obtain credit, and the value of the mark is falling every day. After having mobilised ten million valid and invalid soldiers, Germany, whose losses number three and a half millions, and whose auxiliary services behind her lines require 1,700,000 men, can no longer fill the gaps in her Army, and her battle-line grows in extent every day. Famine stares her population in the face. By February or March at latest the lack of food will be severely felt. Riots have already taken place in her large cities, and they will gradually multiply and become more violent. Lack of men, lack of money, lack of food—such is the danger which threatens Germany.”Now we know very well that the German newspapers are controlled by the Government to an extent which is unknown in any other country in the world; not even the British censorship has such drastic powers. The columns of the German papers are therefore about the last place in which we should expect to find any inkling of the real situation as it exists in Germany to-day. It is the Government order that everything shall be paintedcouleur de rose. Yet even the German Press is becoming restive under the strain, and is beginning to say things which a very short time ago would have been impossible. Here is a telling extract from the Socialist paperVorwarts, one of the few of the German journals which has risked a good deal in its insistence upon letting out at least some of the truth. It says:In a few weeks the sowing and preparing of the fields for the new harvest will have begun, and upon that harvest everything will depend. The coming harvest is of immeasurable importance for the German people. Fantastic speculations as to great imports of foodstuffs from the Orient have now become silent. Germany depends during the duration of the War upon her own production of food... It is evident now that our much-praised organisation of our economic system is in no way so good as enthusiastic amateurs would like us to believe.This is not exactly the language of a conquering nation whose Chancellor declares that she has sufficient for all her needs, but I have no doubt that it represents the real situation and reflects the prevailing anxiety much more accurately than Dr Helfferich’s boasting speeches, which are undoubtedly meant for foreign consumption.It is not merely in the matter of food supply that Germans are face to face with conditions which are giving her leading men cause “furiously to think.” It is true it is what makes the most immediate impression on the public at large. But there are men in Germany who realise that there is a world to be faced when the War is over, and that as the days slip by Germany slips into a worse and worse position for meeting the conditions she will have to confront after the declaration of peace. I will first deal very briefly with some of the social aspects of Germany’s present condition.Germany’s terrific losses in killed and maimed men, coupled with the terrible drop in the birth-rate, which has fallen far lower than it did in the Franco-Prussian War, are causing the gravest anxiety among the German economic thinkers. Next to the fall in the birth-rate, the rate of mortality among newly-born children is causing alarm; and when we remember how admirable are the German arrangements for the preservation of infant life, we can realise that very grave causes must be at work to account for the existing state of things. That those causes are connected in some degree with the efficacy of the blockade is probable, but a greater contributory cause has been the general distress caused by the War, and the failure of the municipal authorities to provide the necessary relief.The pensions payable to the widows of German soldiers who have died in action are very small; distress and misery have entered the families where there are many children, and many of those are succumbing to the prevailing lack of food. To such a pitch has Germany been brought by the insane ambition of her rulers!Orphans in Germany now number 800,000, Many of these orphans must for years remain a tax upon the State; they will bebouches inutilesuntil they reach the wage-earning age, and they will provide after the War, just as they are providing at present, a problem which will tax Germany’s economic and administrative resources to the uttermost.Another problem with which the Germans will have to deal is the appalling increase in crime. In spite of the fact that a great proportion of the men of the country are serving with the Army, the statistics of crime make appalling reading, and offences of all kinds are especially numerous among children. The juvenile Hun behaves as a Hun to the manner born once he is removed from the stern parental control which in times of peace keeps him within what, for Germany, are reasonable bounds. And even in times of peace the figures of juvenile crime in Germany are terrible. In the year 1912 the following crimes were committed in Germany by boys between the ages of twelve and eighteen:Criminal assaults, 952.Murder and manslaughter, 107.Bodily injuries, 8978.Damages to property, 2938.These figuresfor boys aloneare far more than the entire total of such crimes ever committed in England. For instance, the yearly average of crimes of malicious and felonious wounding in England for the ten years 1900-1910 was 1,262; in Germany for the ten years 1897-1907 it was 172,153. And the population of Germany may be taken at 65,000,000, with that of England at 45,000,000. These statistics give us some idea of the real character of the nation which holds itself up as the apostle of “kultur” to the rest of the world, and shows us what blessings we might expect under Teutonic rule.It is naturally very difficult to get thoroughly reliable information as to the exact condition of things in Germany. Most of the “neutrals” whose stories appear in the English Press appear to be rather too apt to say the things which they think will best please English readers. None the less, their stories cannot all be invented, and we have valuable corroboration of many of them in the shape of reports published by neutral observers in the neutral Press—especially in countries where the prevailing sympathy tends to be pro-German—and from our own people who have returned from Germany.A particularly valuable example of the former comes from Copenhagen. Dr Halvdan Koht, one of the foremost Norwegian historians, is known for his distinctly pro-German leanings. Yet, after a prolonged stay in Germany, he draws in the Christiania newspaperSocial Demokraiena decidedly dismal picture of German life and of the state of public feeling in Germany. “The people are tired of the War” is his conclusion. It is true the whole country considers that Germany is safe, but the whole country has arrived at the conclusion that its adversaries, especially Great Britain, cannot be crushed. The fact that Great Britain is still in full possession of all her territories, that she cannot be attacked on land, and is less affected by the War than Germany is rapidly dawning on the whole people. Moreover, it is being realised that, in spite of her immense military strength, Germany will never be able to enforce a definite decision in her favour. Dr Koht interviewed a number of people of all classes on this subject, and all expressed similar views and heartfelt weariness of the War.On this subject I might also quote the view expressed by a lady who reached England recently, one of the first batch of the so-called “reprisal women” who, the Berlin authorities have decided, are eating too much meat and butter, and must therefore be sent home. “Germans are suffering agonies,” this lady said, “especially the poor people. They know, in spite of the lying Press, that their sufferings are merely beginning, and they are preparing themselves for more suffering until their rulers are forced to realise that the limits of endurance have been reached, and then sue for peace.” The Germans, she added, “are ready to bear the financial losses and the appalling losses in men, but life on rations is simply driving them insane. The bread cards at first amused them like children, as one more opportunity of obeying orders, of which they are so fond. Now they have butter cards, fat cards, and, in some places, petroleum cards.”I do not think we can disregard all the evidence that is rapidly accumulating as to the widespread distress in Germany to-day. And I do not think that that distress is likely to decrease. We have it on the authority of Mr Asquith that the tightening of the blockade is proceeding, and the tighter we pull the strangling knot which the British Navy has drawn round the German neck, the sooner we shall return to the days of peace.But, in the words of Lord Headley, “When Germany wobbles we must hit as hard as possible in the right place and in the right way. But let us make sure of our own set purpose and fixed resolve, that now that we have made up our minds, there shall be no indications of wobbling on our part.” That, I think, expresses the judgment of the nation as a whole. We do not want to sit down in the hope that the “war of attrition” will do our business for us. It is “the long push, the strong push, and the push all together” of Britain and her Allies which alone will bring us to a triumphant success. The “war of attrition” is helping to bring nearer the day when the great push will be possible, but of itself alone it will never compel victory over an enemy who—it would be foolish to think otherwise—will fight to the last gasp.
I am most emphatically not one of those who think we ought to take for granted all the stories we get, often from German sources, of the condition of things in Germany.
We know enough of German methods to know that for her own purposes she is capable of flying kites of varying types and shades; and one of the kites which was very prominently flown in the early days, comparatively speaking, of the War was the fiction that for her own brutal and illegal purposes England was “starving German babies” through the medium of her infamous (in German eyes) blockade.
It mattered nothing to the Germans that in 1871 the blockade of Paris and the starvation of the civilian people was one of the principal means by which she enforced the capitulation. The Hun never likes his own medicine. What was, when applied to France in 1871, a stroke of German genius, becomes, when applied by the British Fleet to Germany in 1915, a crime so infamous as to call down all the vengeance of heaven upon the brutal English.
In German eyes no weapon of war is legitimate if it is applied against the sacred persons of Germans; on the other hand, any and every device of the devil becomes a righteous punishment if it is used against Germany’s enemies. Surely never was any people in the world so lacking in a sense of proportion and common sense! There is no doubt, I think, that the first “starvation” cries which emanated from Germany were a cunningly devised plan to work upon the sympathies of neutrals and, in particular, upon the United States. There are always in every country a certain number of good, sentimental souls whose hearts are apt to run away with their heads, who are apt to think or act very much as their emotions lead them, and are entirely incapable of looking at more than one side of any question. It was to just these people and, of course, to the German people in America, that the first frantic “starvation” appeals were directed. I firmly believe that at that time there was little or no serious shortage in Germany, and that the outcry that was raised was merely a ruse to catch the sentimentalists’ attention. It succeeded to a certain extent, and it gave the “hyphenated” section of the American people an opportunity of which they took full advantage for renewed girdings against England. But neither then nor at any other time did it succeed in its real purpose, which was to procure by fair means or foul a relaxation of the British blockade.
How serious that blockade was to become I do not believe the German people or the German rulers realised in the early days. I do not believe they realised that it was possible so completely to cut off their supplies as to produce anything like grave inconvenience, to say nothing of actual want. They have learned differently since! There is a growing volume of testimony from competent observers that the effectiveness of the British blockade is at last beginning to tell its story in Germany. The “bread cards,” the “butter cards,” the meatless days, the frantic appeals to the German people to give up the grease in which they love to bathe themselves at their meals, may be, as the Government pretends, merely a wise conservation of their resources. But if that is all, this “conservation of energy” is being carried out on a scale which is rapidly disheartening and discouraging the German people in every part of the Empire.
The following extract from a Copenhagen paper no doubt puts the case so high as to be practically a burlesque, but it at least shows that countries adjoining Germany, and in free communication with her, understand that the shortage of food and other supplies is far more serious than the Germans are prepared to admit. A Reuter telegram from Copenhagen says:
The Labour journal,Folkets Avis, publishes a letter from a business man who has just returned from a six months’ round tour of Germany, in which he describes the conditions there as more desperate than those in Paris in 1870. The writer is convinced that there is not now a living cat or dog in the whole of Germany, all having been eaten.Animal lovers trying to hide their pets have been betrayed by their neighbours and punished. Storks, swallows, starlings, and all kinds of wild birds have been systematically killed, and the result, he declares, will be felt in Scandinavian countries in the coming spring. All sea fowl have long since been exterminated.
The Labour journal,Folkets Avis, publishes a letter from a business man who has just returned from a six months’ round tour of Germany, in which he describes the conditions there as more desperate than those in Paris in 1870. The writer is convinced that there is not now a living cat or dog in the whole of Germany, all having been eaten.
Animal lovers trying to hide their pets have been betrayed by their neighbours and punished. Storks, swallows, starlings, and all kinds of wild birds have been systematically killed, and the result, he declares, will be felt in Scandinavian countries in the coming spring. All sea fowl have long since been exterminated.
I have not much doubt that this extract gives far too gloomy a picture if it is intended to represent the condition of the great mass of the German people; I do not believe, though I should like to, that starvation has gone so far as this. But it is more than likely—indeed, I believe it is practically certain—that there is in it a considerable basis of truth.
We have to remember that owing to the demoralisation of the German currency by the flood of paper money prices in Germany have gone up to an enormous extent, while at the same time, owing to the complete disappearance of her manufacturing and export business, wages have fallen in all but a few special trades. For this reason a large percentage of the population is feeling the pinch of want quite apart from any actual shortage of food in the country, and there may well be a good deal in the story of the Danish merchant that most of the wild birds, if not the very dogs and cats, have fallen victims to the necessity for obtaining food.
It will be convenient if we consider the shortage of necessaries in Germany under various heads, the first of which is naturally the deficiency in the food supply, since that is likely to exercise the profoundest influence on the great mass of the people. On this point we have abundant evidence, not only from neutrals who have been able to move more or less freely about Germany, but, still more important, from English people who have returned after being liberated by exchange or otherwise.
One and all are agreed that the German people are suffering from an actual shortage of food. It is not merely a question of prices, though these are far higher than they are in England, and the wealthy folk are still able to get almost all they want. There is, we are assured on evidence which it is practically impossible to ignore, a very serious shortage of many commodities of everyday use, the lack of which is severely felt, as, owing to the very high prices ruling, they are almost entirely beyond the reach of the people at large.
Now, in considering the question of the food supplies of Germany, it is important to remember that in normal times Germany imports some forty per cent, of the fodder used for feeding her sheep and cattle, and it is the scarcity of fodder that has produced the present shortage of meat. That such a shortage exists we know from the ordinances made by the German Government providing for two, three, and even four meatless days per week for everyone in Germany. In the early days of the War, confident that the struggle would be a short one, the Germans took no special pains to keep up their supply of cattle. It was only after the battle of Flanders that they discovered their mistake, and that the question of the supply of meat was destined to be critical.
Then came the panic legislation which led to the slaughtering of swine on an enormous scale. It was decided to devote all the available fodder to the feeding of cattle, since these would be the most difficult to replace after the War. Pigs were killeden masse, orders being given that the flesh was to be tinned to form a reserve. But it was soon found that even this was not sufficient to save the situation. Owing to the growing stringency of the blockade fodder for the cattle began to give out, and then it was decided to fatten pigs. In consequence the slaughter of cattle has increased enormously, and hence arises the growing shortage of milk, butter, and cheese.
Now whatever may be the leakages in the British blockade, it is quite certain that only the barest fraction of Germany’s former imports is getting through; nothing can reach her directly oversea, and our trade agreements with neutral nations to prevent reshipment, even if they are not all that we could desire, are certainly having a very great effect. And it is certain that, despite smuggling on an unprecedented scale, Germany is very far from getting anything like all that she imperatively requires. The pinch is there, and it is growing, and that it is growing rapidly is shown by the increasing violence of the German threats against England and her incessant announcements that she is really getting ready for some new “frightfulness” that shall put all her previous efforts completely into the shade. We hear and note, but we are in no wise terrified.
Frantic efforts are being made by the Germans to purchase and import cattle food of all descriptions, and in addition such fats as butter, lard, and margarine, the shortage of which has produced an enormous effect throughout the Empire. It is our business to see that she fails; and with our Navy given a free hand, I am confident that we can do so.
We know how serious the shortage of bread has become; we know that no German can purchase bread without a “bread card,” and that the amount he can purchase is severely restricted. We know that he is ordered not to eat meat on certain days of the week. We know, too, that in various towns, even in Berlin itself, the maddened people have already broken out into “bread riots,” and that their mutinous gatherings have been dispersed by the police. Not even the well-drilled German will consent to go on indefinitely on an empty stomach. There have been cavalry charges in some towns, there have been violent riots in many, people have pillaged shops; “in fact,” says the German writer of a letter found on a prisoner, “we have a war at home as well as abroad.”
Another letter sent from Munich to “cheer up” a prisoner at Oleron says, “Wherever we go, and wherever we may be, we see nothing and hear nothing except misery and poverty.” A letter from Greiben contains similar lamentations, and adds, “With all our strength we have accomplished nothing, and we shall soon be ruined.”
Germany’s chief imports at present, secured, of course, by devious ways since she is unable to import anything directly, are cotton, wool, copper, lead, paraffin, rubber, nickel, oils, wheat, rye, and barley. These are all of vital necessity to her continued existence, not merely to her successful conduct of the War. With the food shortage growing day by day, she must import even larger and larger quantities, and unless she can do so the end is inevitable; a point must come at which German moral will simply go to pieces. Our blockade is hastening that moment. None the less, we have to remember that starvation alone will not bring Germany to subjection; she will always obtain and grow supplies to a certain extent, probably enough to stave off actual starvation on a scale which would induce her to sue for peace. We have to complete the process of attrition, valuable as it is, by force of arms, and only a decisive military defeat will put an end to German aims and ambitions. That is a cardinal fact of which we must never lose sight.
There is hardly an article of food or drink for which the German chemists have not succeeded in finding more or less satisfactory substitutes. Bread is one of the best known instances. The German “kriegs-brod” or “war bread,” though it is nothing like so palatable or so nourishing as ordinary bread, is yet sufficient to sustain life, though there is reason to think it sets up digestive disorders. Similarly, a glance at the German papers will show dozens of advertisements offering substitutes for endless other articles of diet. These substitutes are very interesting; whether they are satisfying is another question, and one which we can leave the beleaguered Germans to find out for themselves. “Acorn coffee,” “artificial fats,” “artificial honeys,” wooden instead of leather shoes, “German tea” (whatever that may be), “egg substitute,” “wood meal,” sausage substitutes with “more than the nutritive qualities of beef”—these are only a few picked at random. No more convincing testimony to the value and effectiveness of the British blockade could be asked for. These are not the announcements of the German Government, intended to deceive, but the advertisements of business men who have to pay good solid German cash—or it may be notes!—for them. They speak more eloquently than any comment of ours could do.
A good deal of surprise has been expressed that, in view of the undoubted shortage of many necessities in Germany, there has been no apparent falling-off in the equipment or supplies of the German Army. In reality this is not a matter that need disturb our judgment on the general question. We have to remember that Germany is organised on a military basis, and that the militarist party, who most decidedly hold the upper hand, will see to it that as long as there is a pound of food in the country it will not be the Army that will go short. In every department of German life everything is subordinated to the demands of the Army, and no one can question that this is the correct policy. Any serious shortage or discontent in the Army would bring the military structure crashing to the ground, and there can be no doubt that the shortage which exists will have to go much farther before its effects are felt in the field. It will come, beyond doubt, but it is more than likely that shortage of men will make itself felt first.
The views of Abbé Wetterle on this point are worth quoting. He was before the War Deputy for Alsace in the Reichstag. When war broke out he escaped to France, and has lived there since. He considers that the Central Empires are already beaten.
“Germany is at the end of her tether, that is the truth,” he says. “She can no longer obtain credit, and the value of the mark is falling every day. After having mobilised ten million valid and invalid soldiers, Germany, whose losses number three and a half millions, and whose auxiliary services behind her lines require 1,700,000 men, can no longer fill the gaps in her Army, and her battle-line grows in extent every day. Famine stares her population in the face. By February or March at latest the lack of food will be severely felt. Riots have already taken place in her large cities, and they will gradually multiply and become more violent. Lack of men, lack of money, lack of food—such is the danger which threatens Germany.”
“Germany is at the end of her tether, that is the truth,” he says. “She can no longer obtain credit, and the value of the mark is falling every day. After having mobilised ten million valid and invalid soldiers, Germany, whose losses number three and a half millions, and whose auxiliary services behind her lines require 1,700,000 men, can no longer fill the gaps in her Army, and her battle-line grows in extent every day. Famine stares her population in the face. By February or March at latest the lack of food will be severely felt. Riots have already taken place in her large cities, and they will gradually multiply and become more violent. Lack of men, lack of money, lack of food—such is the danger which threatens Germany.”
Now we know very well that the German newspapers are controlled by the Government to an extent which is unknown in any other country in the world; not even the British censorship has such drastic powers. The columns of the German papers are therefore about the last place in which we should expect to find any inkling of the real situation as it exists in Germany to-day. It is the Government order that everything shall be paintedcouleur de rose. Yet even the German Press is becoming restive under the strain, and is beginning to say things which a very short time ago would have been impossible. Here is a telling extract from the Socialist paperVorwarts, one of the few of the German journals which has risked a good deal in its insistence upon letting out at least some of the truth. It says:
In a few weeks the sowing and preparing of the fields for the new harvest will have begun, and upon that harvest everything will depend. The coming harvest is of immeasurable importance for the German people. Fantastic speculations as to great imports of foodstuffs from the Orient have now become silent. Germany depends during the duration of the War upon her own production of food... It is evident now that our much-praised organisation of our economic system is in no way so good as enthusiastic amateurs would like us to believe.
In a few weeks the sowing and preparing of the fields for the new harvest will have begun, and upon that harvest everything will depend. The coming harvest is of immeasurable importance for the German people. Fantastic speculations as to great imports of foodstuffs from the Orient have now become silent. Germany depends during the duration of the War upon her own production of food... It is evident now that our much-praised organisation of our economic system is in no way so good as enthusiastic amateurs would like us to believe.
This is not exactly the language of a conquering nation whose Chancellor declares that she has sufficient for all her needs, but I have no doubt that it represents the real situation and reflects the prevailing anxiety much more accurately than Dr Helfferich’s boasting speeches, which are undoubtedly meant for foreign consumption.
It is not merely in the matter of food supply that Germans are face to face with conditions which are giving her leading men cause “furiously to think.” It is true it is what makes the most immediate impression on the public at large. But there are men in Germany who realise that there is a world to be faced when the War is over, and that as the days slip by Germany slips into a worse and worse position for meeting the conditions she will have to confront after the declaration of peace. I will first deal very briefly with some of the social aspects of Germany’s present condition.
Germany’s terrific losses in killed and maimed men, coupled with the terrible drop in the birth-rate, which has fallen far lower than it did in the Franco-Prussian War, are causing the gravest anxiety among the German economic thinkers. Next to the fall in the birth-rate, the rate of mortality among newly-born children is causing alarm; and when we remember how admirable are the German arrangements for the preservation of infant life, we can realise that very grave causes must be at work to account for the existing state of things. That those causes are connected in some degree with the efficacy of the blockade is probable, but a greater contributory cause has been the general distress caused by the War, and the failure of the municipal authorities to provide the necessary relief.
The pensions payable to the widows of German soldiers who have died in action are very small; distress and misery have entered the families where there are many children, and many of those are succumbing to the prevailing lack of food. To such a pitch has Germany been brought by the insane ambition of her rulers!
Orphans in Germany now number 800,000, Many of these orphans must for years remain a tax upon the State; they will bebouches inutilesuntil they reach the wage-earning age, and they will provide after the War, just as they are providing at present, a problem which will tax Germany’s economic and administrative resources to the uttermost.
Another problem with which the Germans will have to deal is the appalling increase in crime. In spite of the fact that a great proportion of the men of the country are serving with the Army, the statistics of crime make appalling reading, and offences of all kinds are especially numerous among children. The juvenile Hun behaves as a Hun to the manner born once he is removed from the stern parental control which in times of peace keeps him within what, for Germany, are reasonable bounds. And even in times of peace the figures of juvenile crime in Germany are terrible. In the year 1912 the following crimes were committed in Germany by boys between the ages of twelve and eighteen:
Criminal assaults, 952.Murder and manslaughter, 107.Bodily injuries, 8978.Damages to property, 2938.
Criminal assaults, 952.Murder and manslaughter, 107.Bodily injuries, 8978.Damages to property, 2938.
These figuresfor boys aloneare far more than the entire total of such crimes ever committed in England. For instance, the yearly average of crimes of malicious and felonious wounding in England for the ten years 1900-1910 was 1,262; in Germany for the ten years 1897-1907 it was 172,153. And the population of Germany may be taken at 65,000,000, with that of England at 45,000,000. These statistics give us some idea of the real character of the nation which holds itself up as the apostle of “kultur” to the rest of the world, and shows us what blessings we might expect under Teutonic rule.
It is naturally very difficult to get thoroughly reliable information as to the exact condition of things in Germany. Most of the “neutrals” whose stories appear in the English Press appear to be rather too apt to say the things which they think will best please English readers. None the less, their stories cannot all be invented, and we have valuable corroboration of many of them in the shape of reports published by neutral observers in the neutral Press—especially in countries where the prevailing sympathy tends to be pro-German—and from our own people who have returned from Germany.
A particularly valuable example of the former comes from Copenhagen. Dr Halvdan Koht, one of the foremost Norwegian historians, is known for his distinctly pro-German leanings. Yet, after a prolonged stay in Germany, he draws in the Christiania newspaperSocial Demokraiena decidedly dismal picture of German life and of the state of public feeling in Germany. “The people are tired of the War” is his conclusion. It is true the whole country considers that Germany is safe, but the whole country has arrived at the conclusion that its adversaries, especially Great Britain, cannot be crushed. The fact that Great Britain is still in full possession of all her territories, that she cannot be attacked on land, and is less affected by the War than Germany is rapidly dawning on the whole people. Moreover, it is being realised that, in spite of her immense military strength, Germany will never be able to enforce a definite decision in her favour. Dr Koht interviewed a number of people of all classes on this subject, and all expressed similar views and heartfelt weariness of the War.
On this subject I might also quote the view expressed by a lady who reached England recently, one of the first batch of the so-called “reprisal women” who, the Berlin authorities have decided, are eating too much meat and butter, and must therefore be sent home. “Germans are suffering agonies,” this lady said, “especially the poor people. They know, in spite of the lying Press, that their sufferings are merely beginning, and they are preparing themselves for more suffering until their rulers are forced to realise that the limits of endurance have been reached, and then sue for peace.” The Germans, she added, “are ready to bear the financial losses and the appalling losses in men, but life on rations is simply driving them insane. The bread cards at first amused them like children, as one more opportunity of obeying orders, of which they are so fond. Now they have butter cards, fat cards, and, in some places, petroleum cards.”
I do not think we can disregard all the evidence that is rapidly accumulating as to the widespread distress in Germany to-day. And I do not think that that distress is likely to decrease. We have it on the authority of Mr Asquith that the tightening of the blockade is proceeding, and the tighter we pull the strangling knot which the British Navy has drawn round the German neck, the sooner we shall return to the days of peace.
But, in the words of Lord Headley, “When Germany wobbles we must hit as hard as possible in the right place and in the right way. But let us make sure of our own set purpose and fixed resolve, that now that we have made up our minds, there shall be no indications of wobbling on our part.” That, I think, expresses the judgment of the nation as a whole. We do not want to sit down in the hope that the “war of attrition” will do our business for us. It is “the long push, the strong push, and the push all together” of Britain and her Allies which alone will bring us to a triumphant success. The “war of attrition” is helping to bring nearer the day when the great push will be possible, but of itself alone it will never compel victory over an enemy who—it would be foolish to think otherwise—will fight to the last gasp.
Chapter Seven.Germany’s Bankrupt Future.I have no hesitation in saying that from our point of view one of the most encouraging features of the whole situation is the extraordinary collapse of German credit—extraordinary, I mean, in comparison with her apparent successes in the campaign on land. The heavy decline in the value of German and Austrian money in neutral countries is an absolutely unmistakable sign that the finances of our enemies are, after eighteen months of War, reaching a condition which before long must prove a source of the gravest embarrassment to the Central Powers.As I write, the exchange value of the sovereign in the United States is about two per cent, below normal, and the same condition exists in Holland and Scandinavia. Considering how much we have been buying abroad, such a trifling depreciation in our credit is a wonderful testimony to the stability of British institutions. But if we turn to German and Austrian currency we find that it has declined in value from twenty to thirty per cent. In other words, neutral countries are beginning to show themselves unwilling to take German money; and as Germany can now buy only from neutral countries, it is quite obvious that she not only has a difficulty in paying for her purchases, but that she has also to pay an exceedingly inflated price for them.My readers will remember the sensation that was caused when, owing to our heavy purchases of food and war material from America, the value of the sovereign dropped something like six per cent. That meant that for every hundred pounds we paid to America for goods bought we were losing six pounds owing to the fall in the exchange; and when it is recalled that our purchases were on a scale which involved hundreds of millions, it will be seen that the decline was a very serious matter for us. But so good was our credit that there was no difficulty in floating a huge loan in America, and the result was that the value of the sovereign at once appreciated, and it has never seriously dropped since; in fact, it has steadily risen. The process was helped by selling American securities, of which we hold huge sums. We can repeat both processes as often as we like in reason, because our credit is good, and our holdings of American securities are still enormous. Germany can do neither—firstly, because her credit is utterly impoverished, and, secondly, because, whatever she may sell, she and those with whom she would like to deal have no security that the goods would have more than a very slender chance of getting through the British blockade. Here, again, we see how our overwhelming sea power is helping the cause of the Allies. In spite of the huge sums we are spending, Germany is infinitely worse off than we are, and there is every reason to believe that the tremendous fall which her money is now experiencing means that her credit abroad is rapidly nearing the exhaustion point.The fall in the value of German money tends to show that our blockade is operating with increasing stringency and success. It seems probable enough that Germany can still manage to obtain through the neutral countries many of the things of which she has most pressing need. But apparently her export trade has been much more severely hit. She depends for this trade upon the import of raw materials, most of which are extremely bulky and quite unlikely to escape the unremitting vigilance of the British Navy. Consequently Germany finds herself unable to pay for her imports by the ordinary channels of international trade, and the difficulty of paying at all has become serious. Nearly all modern business is done on a paper basis; that is to say, on promises to pay—in other words, on credit—and credit obviously depends upon the financial stability of the concern or the nation which seeks thus to obtain goods. That is why the continued decline in the value of the paper mark shows the declining confidence of the neutral nations in Germany’s power to redeem her pledges when the time for payment comes. Germany’s ultimate solvency depends upon her ultimate victory, and we can see by the reluctance of the neutral nations to give credit to Germany that they are very far from satisfied with Germany’s prospect of coming out “on top.” And when neutral financiers come to the conclusion that the War will end in Germany’s absolute bankruptcy—that is, in her inability to pay more than a few shillings in the pound of her debts—the value of her paper promises will sink almost to vanishing point, and there will be such a financial crash as this world has never seen. The faith of the neutral in German stability is wavering already, while the Allies still hold the confidence of the world. That is a factor of supreme importance. The day will come when not a single neutral will trade with Germany except on a gold basis, and when that day dawns the utter collapse of the Central Powers will assuredly be close at hand.We have just seen a very striking evidence of Germany’s impoverishment in regard to the supply of wheat which Germany desired to purchase from Rumania. If there is one commodity which Germany needs more than any other to-day it is wheat. Rumania demanded that the wheat should be paid for in gold in Bucharest. The German and Austrian Governments offered anything and everything else except gold. They offered first ammunition, then paper, then Rumanian Treasury bonds, ammunition, and paper. The Rumanians, however, insisted upon gold, and the deal fell through for the simple reason that Germany had no gold to spare. Few instances have been more eloquent of the state to which Germany is reduced. And what Rumania says to-day the rest of the neutrals are likely enough to say to-morrow—“Either gold or no goods.” We can be quite sure that if Germany meets with a single great defeat in the operations which are assuredly near at hand, there will be a revulsion of feeling in the neutral countries which will render the demand for gold insistent. And if Germany cannot find gold to pay for the wheat she so sorely needs from Rumania, what are her prospects of finding it for other countries?Now the German method of financing the War has constituted one of the most extraordinary gambles known in the history of finance. She has piled up an enormous debt in paper. TheEconomistestimates the total of Germany’s war credits up to the end of December last at 1,500 million pounds sterling, and the average monthly war expenditure at 92.350 million pounds. Towards this Germany had raised up to September 15, 1915, 1,280 million pounds. In Germany these loans have been cited as a proof that financially the country is impregnable. But this assertion does not convince. The loans have been obtained only by wholesale inflation through borrowing on Treasury bills from the Reichsbank. The amount of these bills outstanding is carefully concealed from the world, but it is certainly enormous, and it seems to be rising rapidly again, though Germany’s third loan was floated quite recently. The amount of these bills on January 15 was estimated at 250 million pounds. It is easier to trace the amount of the inflation of the currency by paper, and by paper without any gold backing. Between July, 1914, and January 15, 1916, the amount of Reichsbank notes in circulation increased from 95 million pounds to 319 million pounds and the amount of Treasury notes from 7 million pounds to 16 million pounds, while another 54 million pounds in paper was added in the form of Loan Office notes. That is to say, since the outbreak of war the amount of paper currency has increased from 101 million pounds to 389 million pounds, or about 285 per cent. How much the financial position has been worsened by the extension of banking credits we do not know, as the bi-monthly statements of the great banks have, most significantly, been discontinued. It is true that during the same period the amount of gold in the Reichsbank has been increased by 55 million pounds. But a large part of this increase, it is believed, came from the reserve of the Austro-Hungarian Bank, and in any case it is not nearly sufficient to have the smallest effect in counteracting the flood of paper. The effects of the inflation of the currency and its debasement by the huge issues of paper money are seen in the rapid collapse of the mark and the equally rapid rise in prices which in Germany to-day is making the lives of the poorer people well-nigh unbearable. And it is most noteworthy that in those countries where Germany has been able to trade with the greatest freedom the collapse of German credit is most unmistakable. That is for Germany, as well as for ourselves, a grave and unmistakable fact; it is verily the writing on the wall. Germany has been weighed and found wanting in the balance of the neutral nations who are more friendly disposed towards her.To meet the expense of the War Germany has issued paper to her own population on a scale of which the world has had no experience. In return for the paper promises of the Government they have poured out with a lavish hand everything of which the Government stood in need, and it is impossible not to marvel at what is either patriotism or a very high order of gullibility carried to the extremest limits. In either case Germany’s people have lent to her vast sums for a mere paper security, quite apart from the amounts she has expended in other countries and which she will have to pay for in gold or exports, which come to the same thing. What, we may well ask, will be the position when, after the War, German merchants want money—not paper—to resume their trading with the rest of the world, to purchase the raw material upon which the very life of her commerce depends? How is the Government to raise the gigantic sums that will be required not merely to pay interest on this stupendous pile of debt, but to begin to form a sinking fund to pay it off?My own view—and it is shared by many others—is that Germany’s borrowings on such a stupendous scale were made possible only because the German people, convinced that they were really and truly the supermen they fancied themselves to be, were firmly persuaded that they were going to win the War “hands down.” They were assuredad nauseamthat speedy victory was certain, that France was to be instantly crushed and Russia crippled, that Britain could not intervene in anything like decisive fashion in time to save her Allies, and that the end of the War would come in a few months at most, with a triumphant Germany extorting untold millions in the shape of indemnities from her trampled and bleeding enemies. The War was to be, in fact, a highly profitable trade undertaking, in which Germany’s losses in killed and maimed were to be more than compensated for by increased wealth drawn from the coffers of her enemies, and especially England, the worst enemy of all.But the War has not quite “panned out” to schedule, and Germany is to-day rapidly realising the fact. “In my opinion,” said Lord Inchcape, speaking at the annual meeting of the National Provincial Bank of England, “Germany is already irretrievably beaten, and no one knows this better than she does herself.” That is a very strong expression of opinion from a man who is in a position to know what he speaks of when he deals with matters of finance. As I have said before, I do not believe that money alone can win the War, but there can be no reasonable doubt that the growing financial difficulties of Germany are swiftly bringing her to a position in which she will find it impossible to oppose with any hope of success the steadily growing power of the Allies. So much at least money can do and is doing, though the final blow must be dealt in decisive military action. Otherwise Germany will never be convinced that she is really and truly beaten, her people will be told again that they are unconquerable, and she will begin with all her wonderful organising powers to prepare for a renewed campaign of aggression in the future.I cannot see how Germany is to be preserved from national bankruptcy; I cannot conceive any means by which she can hope to pay off the enormous debt she has piled up. Her export trade is utterly smashed, and it must take years to get it back even if the Allies are foolish enough after the War to allow her the commercial privileges she has enjoyed in the past, which is most unlikely. Her losses in men and material have been stupendous, she is eating herself up, she is blazing away her piled-up wealth at a time when she cannot keep going even a fraction of her commerce to make up for the steady drain upon her. We at least are free to trade overseas to as great an extent as we can manufacture, and it is a very gratifying fact that the trade of the United Kingdom has in the past few months shown a steady increase; February showed an advance of 10 million pounds on the corresponding month of 1915. We are not losing our markets to the extent that Germany is, for the simple reason, again, that our Fleet can keep open our trade routes. And we have also to pay regard to the fact that the German is not going to be a popular individual for a good many years to come in any civilised country. At the best he is going to have a good deal of trouble to persuade any of the Allies to do business with him on any terms whatever; at the worst it is more than likely that he will find himself shut out completely by an overwhelming tariff from every British, French, Russian, Italian, and Japanese market. How, under such conditions, Germany will ever succeed in paying her debts I cannot understand.Borrowing in such a War as this is unavoidable for any of the belligerents; it is impossible to defray the stupendous cost out of income. The whole problem to be solved is whether it is possible to secure by taxation the interest on the increased debts and also a margin of revenue which during the War will help to pay for it, and after the War will provide a sinking fund to gradually pay off the sums borrowed. Germany’s paper system is all wrong, because, in the first place, she has not the gold to back it up, and, in the second place, because no provision has been made by taxation to raise sums sufficient to provide interest and sinking fund. Even before the War Germany’s yearly budgets have been showing a series of deficits, and with the stupendous amount she has added to her debts it is difficult to see how after the War is over she will be able to avoid defaulting. She will certainly not succeed in securing any indemnity as she did from France in 1871; she will far more probably find herself condemned to pay at least sufficient money to provide for the rehabilitation, so far as is possible, of Belgium.There is, it is true, one aspect of the case which is to some extent favourable to Germany. A great portion of her war debt—in fact, practically the whole of it—is held at home, and it is quite possible that at the end of the War the people who have entrusted her with their savings will find themselves told that they will have to wait indefinitely for their money. Repudiation on this scale would perhaps enable Germany to keep herself right with the rest of the world and avoid actual default in the international sense. But the effect on her own people would be appalling! Now it is a very remarkable fact that though the German Government has carefully kept from the mass of the people any real knowledge of the facts of the situation as we know it exists, it has during the past few months been allowing certain newspapers to warn the public in guarded terms of what is coming. TheBerliner Poststates openly that the situation is “terrifying.” That is a good deal of an admission for a people who a few months ago were setting out, as they themselves said, on a conquest of the world, and were going to extort the cost from their beaten enemies. Warning the German people that they must be prepared for very bad times, thePostgoes on to say:Even the highest war indemnity that is thinkable cannot preserve us from a stupendous addition to the Imperial Budget for 1916-17. Without war damages we shall have to reckon upon an increase in the yearly taxation of at least four milliards of marks. From a technical point of view alone such amount cannot be procured immediately by taxation. From the political point of view it would be a great mistake if the population was not gradually acquainted with the situation, which, looked upon as a whole, has something terrifying about it.Only by slowly being made accustomed to it can the situation become softened for the people. Probably the State Secretary for Finance, when he introduces his proposals for the new taxation, will give as near as possible a review of what the annual deficit will be. German people will only then be able to understand what wounds the War has made and what great measures will be necessary for years to come to heal them. At present the greatest part of the people probably has no idea of the situation.It is perhaps permissible to ask, in view of this outburst, what the German people, deluded and hoodwinked for so long, are likely to say when the full facts break upon their minds. It will be noted that theBerliner Postdeals with the financial situation apart from the war expenses, and finds very little comfort in it. The German people will find still less to be exultant about when the whole truth appears, as sooner or later it must, for it cannot be hidden much longer. Up to the present Germany has imposed practically no new taxes; they will be on a crushing scale when the German people have to set themselves to pay the damages involved in the conflagration which they so wantonly provoked.But, doubters will ask, are we in any better case? I will quote in answer Sir George Paish, one of our leading financial authorities. “We may confidently expect,” he recently declared, “that the nation after the War will have as much capital for investment as before the War.”In twelve months of war Great Britain has been able to buy and to pay for nearly 900 million pounds of Colonial and foreign produce and goods for home consumption and for war purposes. In addition she has found something like 350 million pounds of money for her Allies, Colonies, and customers. She has met her own war expenses, amounting to 1,000 million pounds, exclusive of the 350 million pounds supplied to her Allies and Colonies for war purposes. This great amount of money has been found with surprising ease. But it is during the current year that we shall feel the severest strain. We have to maintain upon the seas a Fleet even more powerful than that of last year, to provide our Allies, Colonies, and friends with at least 400 million pounds in loans, and to support in the field forces numbering nearly four million men, which will cost anything up to 2,000 million pounds. And in spite of these gigantic liabilities we find to-day that British credit stands practically unimpaired, while that of Germany is rapidly falling, and may soon vanish altogether. If the War has done nothing else, it has given the world such an example of financial stability as has never been seen.It is the deliberate opinion of Sir George Paish that our position after the War will be just about where we stood at the beginning. We shall have sold a great many of our foreign securities, but, on the other hand, we shall have bought others from our Allies, customers, and Colonies, and, on balance, neither our home nor our foreign wealth will have been appreciably reduced. What we shall have lost will be our new savings. This loss amounts already to about 600 million pounds; if the War lasts another year it will have reached 1,000 million pounds in comparison with what our wealth would have been but for the War.Of course, we shall have created a great debt. Already our debt, including the pre-war debt, is about 2,200 million pounds, and the debt charge and current Government expenses are about 300 million pounds. But it must be remembered that some 100 million pounds of this is interest which accrues to British investors, and that a large part of this interest will still be available for new capital purposes. Our losses in men will be grievous. But it must be recalled that one lesson of the War is that the whole nation is learning to work harder and more efficiently and that, in consequence, it is very doubtful whether our productive capacity has been seriously, if at all, reduced. When our men return from the War we shall have an enormous supply of labour available, and for the full employment of that labour we shall be able to find the capital. Will Germany be in anything like so favourable a position?The bold and courageous policy of Mr McKenna in grappling adequately with the problem of finance has secured the emphatic approval of the entire nation. New burdens have been cheerfully shouldered; the country has shown unmistakably that it is prepared to make any sacrifices to win the War, and we have seen the income-tax doubled with far less protest than would have been aroused by the addition of a penny a few years ago. The nation has set itself to meet the cost of the War in the only possible way, by reducing all unnecessary expenditure, public and private, and devoting itself to the maintenance of our essential services, anxious only that so long as efficiency is secured money shall not be spared. We have boldly faced the enormous additional taxation rendered necessary by the gigantic war expenditure, and therein we have a tremendous advantage over Germany, who is only now beginning to consider the new taxes that will be required, and does not seem particularly gratified by the prospect with which she finds herself faced. Ominous mutterings of the coming storm are already to be heard, and when that storm breaks not even the iron discipline with which the Prussians have dragooned the entire German people will suffice to protect them from the wrath of those whom they have so grossly deceived. I do not know whether the German Government will dare to attempt to impose anything like the taxation which would be necessary to make provision for the war debt, but I am at least certain that as matters stand in Germany to-day the people have neither the will nor the ability to find the money. They have been fed with lying assurances that the money is to be found by someone else, and their rage and disappointment when they find out how they have been deceived will, beyond doubt, lead to consequences little foreseen by the light-hearted blunderers who set half the world in flames eighteen months ago.I do not think that either now or in the future we need fear any comparison between the financial position of Britain and of her enemy. We are, and always have been, a far wealthier nation than the Germans; our credit is good, while Germany’s is tottering to complete collapse; our resources in capital are as yet not seriously touched; our trade, even though its volume be diminished by the withdrawal of men for the Army and for munition making, still goes on as far as we can carry it. The real financial strength of the British Empire has as yet not been fully marshalled for the fray, and should the day ever come when money must be found beyond the resources of ordinary taxation there are vast reservoirs of strength which will yield supplies in abundance. For we are in this War to win—let there be no mistake about that—and to gain a complete and lasting victory there is no sacrifice that our people, properly instructed, will refuse to make. “To the last man and the last shilling” if necessary must be our motto. Our people ask only for a definite and a strong lead; if they get that, we need have no fear of the outcome of the greatest struggle we have ever been called upon to wage.
I have no hesitation in saying that from our point of view one of the most encouraging features of the whole situation is the extraordinary collapse of German credit—extraordinary, I mean, in comparison with her apparent successes in the campaign on land. The heavy decline in the value of German and Austrian money in neutral countries is an absolutely unmistakable sign that the finances of our enemies are, after eighteen months of War, reaching a condition which before long must prove a source of the gravest embarrassment to the Central Powers.
As I write, the exchange value of the sovereign in the United States is about two per cent, below normal, and the same condition exists in Holland and Scandinavia. Considering how much we have been buying abroad, such a trifling depreciation in our credit is a wonderful testimony to the stability of British institutions. But if we turn to German and Austrian currency we find that it has declined in value from twenty to thirty per cent. In other words, neutral countries are beginning to show themselves unwilling to take German money; and as Germany can now buy only from neutral countries, it is quite obvious that she not only has a difficulty in paying for her purchases, but that she has also to pay an exceedingly inflated price for them.
My readers will remember the sensation that was caused when, owing to our heavy purchases of food and war material from America, the value of the sovereign dropped something like six per cent. That meant that for every hundred pounds we paid to America for goods bought we were losing six pounds owing to the fall in the exchange; and when it is recalled that our purchases were on a scale which involved hundreds of millions, it will be seen that the decline was a very serious matter for us. But so good was our credit that there was no difficulty in floating a huge loan in America, and the result was that the value of the sovereign at once appreciated, and it has never seriously dropped since; in fact, it has steadily risen. The process was helped by selling American securities, of which we hold huge sums. We can repeat both processes as often as we like in reason, because our credit is good, and our holdings of American securities are still enormous. Germany can do neither—firstly, because her credit is utterly impoverished, and, secondly, because, whatever she may sell, she and those with whom she would like to deal have no security that the goods would have more than a very slender chance of getting through the British blockade. Here, again, we see how our overwhelming sea power is helping the cause of the Allies. In spite of the huge sums we are spending, Germany is infinitely worse off than we are, and there is every reason to believe that the tremendous fall which her money is now experiencing means that her credit abroad is rapidly nearing the exhaustion point.
The fall in the value of German money tends to show that our blockade is operating with increasing stringency and success. It seems probable enough that Germany can still manage to obtain through the neutral countries many of the things of which she has most pressing need. But apparently her export trade has been much more severely hit. She depends for this trade upon the import of raw materials, most of which are extremely bulky and quite unlikely to escape the unremitting vigilance of the British Navy. Consequently Germany finds herself unable to pay for her imports by the ordinary channels of international trade, and the difficulty of paying at all has become serious. Nearly all modern business is done on a paper basis; that is to say, on promises to pay—in other words, on credit—and credit obviously depends upon the financial stability of the concern or the nation which seeks thus to obtain goods. That is why the continued decline in the value of the paper mark shows the declining confidence of the neutral nations in Germany’s power to redeem her pledges when the time for payment comes. Germany’s ultimate solvency depends upon her ultimate victory, and we can see by the reluctance of the neutral nations to give credit to Germany that they are very far from satisfied with Germany’s prospect of coming out “on top.” And when neutral financiers come to the conclusion that the War will end in Germany’s absolute bankruptcy—that is, in her inability to pay more than a few shillings in the pound of her debts—the value of her paper promises will sink almost to vanishing point, and there will be such a financial crash as this world has never seen. The faith of the neutral in German stability is wavering already, while the Allies still hold the confidence of the world. That is a factor of supreme importance. The day will come when not a single neutral will trade with Germany except on a gold basis, and when that day dawns the utter collapse of the Central Powers will assuredly be close at hand.
We have just seen a very striking evidence of Germany’s impoverishment in regard to the supply of wheat which Germany desired to purchase from Rumania. If there is one commodity which Germany needs more than any other to-day it is wheat. Rumania demanded that the wheat should be paid for in gold in Bucharest. The German and Austrian Governments offered anything and everything else except gold. They offered first ammunition, then paper, then Rumanian Treasury bonds, ammunition, and paper. The Rumanians, however, insisted upon gold, and the deal fell through for the simple reason that Germany had no gold to spare. Few instances have been more eloquent of the state to which Germany is reduced. And what Rumania says to-day the rest of the neutrals are likely enough to say to-morrow—“Either gold or no goods.” We can be quite sure that if Germany meets with a single great defeat in the operations which are assuredly near at hand, there will be a revulsion of feeling in the neutral countries which will render the demand for gold insistent. And if Germany cannot find gold to pay for the wheat she so sorely needs from Rumania, what are her prospects of finding it for other countries?
Now the German method of financing the War has constituted one of the most extraordinary gambles known in the history of finance. She has piled up an enormous debt in paper. TheEconomistestimates the total of Germany’s war credits up to the end of December last at 1,500 million pounds sterling, and the average monthly war expenditure at 92.350 million pounds. Towards this Germany had raised up to September 15, 1915, 1,280 million pounds. In Germany these loans have been cited as a proof that financially the country is impregnable. But this assertion does not convince. The loans have been obtained only by wholesale inflation through borrowing on Treasury bills from the Reichsbank. The amount of these bills outstanding is carefully concealed from the world, but it is certainly enormous, and it seems to be rising rapidly again, though Germany’s third loan was floated quite recently. The amount of these bills on January 15 was estimated at 250 million pounds. It is easier to trace the amount of the inflation of the currency by paper, and by paper without any gold backing. Between July, 1914, and January 15, 1916, the amount of Reichsbank notes in circulation increased from 95 million pounds to 319 million pounds and the amount of Treasury notes from 7 million pounds to 16 million pounds, while another 54 million pounds in paper was added in the form of Loan Office notes. That is to say, since the outbreak of war the amount of paper currency has increased from 101 million pounds to 389 million pounds, or about 285 per cent. How much the financial position has been worsened by the extension of banking credits we do not know, as the bi-monthly statements of the great banks have, most significantly, been discontinued. It is true that during the same period the amount of gold in the Reichsbank has been increased by 55 million pounds. But a large part of this increase, it is believed, came from the reserve of the Austro-Hungarian Bank, and in any case it is not nearly sufficient to have the smallest effect in counteracting the flood of paper. The effects of the inflation of the currency and its debasement by the huge issues of paper money are seen in the rapid collapse of the mark and the equally rapid rise in prices which in Germany to-day is making the lives of the poorer people well-nigh unbearable. And it is most noteworthy that in those countries where Germany has been able to trade with the greatest freedom the collapse of German credit is most unmistakable. That is for Germany, as well as for ourselves, a grave and unmistakable fact; it is verily the writing on the wall. Germany has been weighed and found wanting in the balance of the neutral nations who are more friendly disposed towards her.
To meet the expense of the War Germany has issued paper to her own population on a scale of which the world has had no experience. In return for the paper promises of the Government they have poured out with a lavish hand everything of which the Government stood in need, and it is impossible not to marvel at what is either patriotism or a very high order of gullibility carried to the extremest limits. In either case Germany’s people have lent to her vast sums for a mere paper security, quite apart from the amounts she has expended in other countries and which she will have to pay for in gold or exports, which come to the same thing. What, we may well ask, will be the position when, after the War, German merchants want money—not paper—to resume their trading with the rest of the world, to purchase the raw material upon which the very life of her commerce depends? How is the Government to raise the gigantic sums that will be required not merely to pay interest on this stupendous pile of debt, but to begin to form a sinking fund to pay it off?
My own view—and it is shared by many others—is that Germany’s borrowings on such a stupendous scale were made possible only because the German people, convinced that they were really and truly the supermen they fancied themselves to be, were firmly persuaded that they were going to win the War “hands down.” They were assuredad nauseamthat speedy victory was certain, that France was to be instantly crushed and Russia crippled, that Britain could not intervene in anything like decisive fashion in time to save her Allies, and that the end of the War would come in a few months at most, with a triumphant Germany extorting untold millions in the shape of indemnities from her trampled and bleeding enemies. The War was to be, in fact, a highly profitable trade undertaking, in which Germany’s losses in killed and maimed were to be more than compensated for by increased wealth drawn from the coffers of her enemies, and especially England, the worst enemy of all.
But the War has not quite “panned out” to schedule, and Germany is to-day rapidly realising the fact. “In my opinion,” said Lord Inchcape, speaking at the annual meeting of the National Provincial Bank of England, “Germany is already irretrievably beaten, and no one knows this better than she does herself.” That is a very strong expression of opinion from a man who is in a position to know what he speaks of when he deals with matters of finance. As I have said before, I do not believe that money alone can win the War, but there can be no reasonable doubt that the growing financial difficulties of Germany are swiftly bringing her to a position in which she will find it impossible to oppose with any hope of success the steadily growing power of the Allies. So much at least money can do and is doing, though the final blow must be dealt in decisive military action. Otherwise Germany will never be convinced that she is really and truly beaten, her people will be told again that they are unconquerable, and she will begin with all her wonderful organising powers to prepare for a renewed campaign of aggression in the future.
I cannot see how Germany is to be preserved from national bankruptcy; I cannot conceive any means by which she can hope to pay off the enormous debt she has piled up. Her export trade is utterly smashed, and it must take years to get it back even if the Allies are foolish enough after the War to allow her the commercial privileges she has enjoyed in the past, which is most unlikely. Her losses in men and material have been stupendous, she is eating herself up, she is blazing away her piled-up wealth at a time when she cannot keep going even a fraction of her commerce to make up for the steady drain upon her. We at least are free to trade overseas to as great an extent as we can manufacture, and it is a very gratifying fact that the trade of the United Kingdom has in the past few months shown a steady increase; February showed an advance of 10 million pounds on the corresponding month of 1915. We are not losing our markets to the extent that Germany is, for the simple reason, again, that our Fleet can keep open our trade routes. And we have also to pay regard to the fact that the German is not going to be a popular individual for a good many years to come in any civilised country. At the best he is going to have a good deal of trouble to persuade any of the Allies to do business with him on any terms whatever; at the worst it is more than likely that he will find himself shut out completely by an overwhelming tariff from every British, French, Russian, Italian, and Japanese market. How, under such conditions, Germany will ever succeed in paying her debts I cannot understand.
Borrowing in such a War as this is unavoidable for any of the belligerents; it is impossible to defray the stupendous cost out of income. The whole problem to be solved is whether it is possible to secure by taxation the interest on the increased debts and also a margin of revenue which during the War will help to pay for it, and after the War will provide a sinking fund to gradually pay off the sums borrowed. Germany’s paper system is all wrong, because, in the first place, she has not the gold to back it up, and, in the second place, because no provision has been made by taxation to raise sums sufficient to provide interest and sinking fund. Even before the War Germany’s yearly budgets have been showing a series of deficits, and with the stupendous amount she has added to her debts it is difficult to see how after the War is over she will be able to avoid defaulting. She will certainly not succeed in securing any indemnity as she did from France in 1871; she will far more probably find herself condemned to pay at least sufficient money to provide for the rehabilitation, so far as is possible, of Belgium.
There is, it is true, one aspect of the case which is to some extent favourable to Germany. A great portion of her war debt—in fact, practically the whole of it—is held at home, and it is quite possible that at the end of the War the people who have entrusted her with their savings will find themselves told that they will have to wait indefinitely for their money. Repudiation on this scale would perhaps enable Germany to keep herself right with the rest of the world and avoid actual default in the international sense. But the effect on her own people would be appalling! Now it is a very remarkable fact that though the German Government has carefully kept from the mass of the people any real knowledge of the facts of the situation as we know it exists, it has during the past few months been allowing certain newspapers to warn the public in guarded terms of what is coming. TheBerliner Poststates openly that the situation is “terrifying.” That is a good deal of an admission for a people who a few months ago were setting out, as they themselves said, on a conquest of the world, and were going to extort the cost from their beaten enemies. Warning the German people that they must be prepared for very bad times, thePostgoes on to say:
Even the highest war indemnity that is thinkable cannot preserve us from a stupendous addition to the Imperial Budget for 1916-17. Without war damages we shall have to reckon upon an increase in the yearly taxation of at least four milliards of marks. From a technical point of view alone such amount cannot be procured immediately by taxation. From the political point of view it would be a great mistake if the population was not gradually acquainted with the situation, which, looked upon as a whole, has something terrifying about it.Only by slowly being made accustomed to it can the situation become softened for the people. Probably the State Secretary for Finance, when he introduces his proposals for the new taxation, will give as near as possible a review of what the annual deficit will be. German people will only then be able to understand what wounds the War has made and what great measures will be necessary for years to come to heal them. At present the greatest part of the people probably has no idea of the situation.
Even the highest war indemnity that is thinkable cannot preserve us from a stupendous addition to the Imperial Budget for 1916-17. Without war damages we shall have to reckon upon an increase in the yearly taxation of at least four milliards of marks. From a technical point of view alone such amount cannot be procured immediately by taxation. From the political point of view it would be a great mistake if the population was not gradually acquainted with the situation, which, looked upon as a whole, has something terrifying about it.
Only by slowly being made accustomed to it can the situation become softened for the people. Probably the State Secretary for Finance, when he introduces his proposals for the new taxation, will give as near as possible a review of what the annual deficit will be. German people will only then be able to understand what wounds the War has made and what great measures will be necessary for years to come to heal them. At present the greatest part of the people probably has no idea of the situation.
It is perhaps permissible to ask, in view of this outburst, what the German people, deluded and hoodwinked for so long, are likely to say when the full facts break upon their minds. It will be noted that theBerliner Postdeals with the financial situation apart from the war expenses, and finds very little comfort in it. The German people will find still less to be exultant about when the whole truth appears, as sooner or later it must, for it cannot be hidden much longer. Up to the present Germany has imposed practically no new taxes; they will be on a crushing scale when the German people have to set themselves to pay the damages involved in the conflagration which they so wantonly provoked.
But, doubters will ask, are we in any better case? I will quote in answer Sir George Paish, one of our leading financial authorities. “We may confidently expect,” he recently declared, “that the nation after the War will have as much capital for investment as before the War.”
In twelve months of war Great Britain has been able to buy and to pay for nearly 900 million pounds of Colonial and foreign produce and goods for home consumption and for war purposes. In addition she has found something like 350 million pounds of money for her Allies, Colonies, and customers. She has met her own war expenses, amounting to 1,000 million pounds, exclusive of the 350 million pounds supplied to her Allies and Colonies for war purposes. This great amount of money has been found with surprising ease. But it is during the current year that we shall feel the severest strain. We have to maintain upon the seas a Fleet even more powerful than that of last year, to provide our Allies, Colonies, and friends with at least 400 million pounds in loans, and to support in the field forces numbering nearly four million men, which will cost anything up to 2,000 million pounds. And in spite of these gigantic liabilities we find to-day that British credit stands practically unimpaired, while that of Germany is rapidly falling, and may soon vanish altogether. If the War has done nothing else, it has given the world such an example of financial stability as has never been seen.
It is the deliberate opinion of Sir George Paish that our position after the War will be just about where we stood at the beginning. We shall have sold a great many of our foreign securities, but, on the other hand, we shall have bought others from our Allies, customers, and Colonies, and, on balance, neither our home nor our foreign wealth will have been appreciably reduced. What we shall have lost will be our new savings. This loss amounts already to about 600 million pounds; if the War lasts another year it will have reached 1,000 million pounds in comparison with what our wealth would have been but for the War.
Of course, we shall have created a great debt. Already our debt, including the pre-war debt, is about 2,200 million pounds, and the debt charge and current Government expenses are about 300 million pounds. But it must be remembered that some 100 million pounds of this is interest which accrues to British investors, and that a large part of this interest will still be available for new capital purposes. Our losses in men will be grievous. But it must be recalled that one lesson of the War is that the whole nation is learning to work harder and more efficiently and that, in consequence, it is very doubtful whether our productive capacity has been seriously, if at all, reduced. When our men return from the War we shall have an enormous supply of labour available, and for the full employment of that labour we shall be able to find the capital. Will Germany be in anything like so favourable a position?
The bold and courageous policy of Mr McKenna in grappling adequately with the problem of finance has secured the emphatic approval of the entire nation. New burdens have been cheerfully shouldered; the country has shown unmistakably that it is prepared to make any sacrifices to win the War, and we have seen the income-tax doubled with far less protest than would have been aroused by the addition of a penny a few years ago. The nation has set itself to meet the cost of the War in the only possible way, by reducing all unnecessary expenditure, public and private, and devoting itself to the maintenance of our essential services, anxious only that so long as efficiency is secured money shall not be spared. We have boldly faced the enormous additional taxation rendered necessary by the gigantic war expenditure, and therein we have a tremendous advantage over Germany, who is only now beginning to consider the new taxes that will be required, and does not seem particularly gratified by the prospect with which she finds herself faced. Ominous mutterings of the coming storm are already to be heard, and when that storm breaks not even the iron discipline with which the Prussians have dragooned the entire German people will suffice to protect them from the wrath of those whom they have so grossly deceived. I do not know whether the German Government will dare to attempt to impose anything like the taxation which would be necessary to make provision for the war debt, but I am at least certain that as matters stand in Germany to-day the people have neither the will nor the ability to find the money. They have been fed with lying assurances that the money is to be found by someone else, and their rage and disappointment when they find out how they have been deceived will, beyond doubt, lead to consequences little foreseen by the light-hearted blunderers who set half the world in flames eighteen months ago.
I do not think that either now or in the future we need fear any comparison between the financial position of Britain and of her enemy. We are, and always have been, a far wealthier nation than the Germans; our credit is good, while Germany’s is tottering to complete collapse; our resources in capital are as yet not seriously touched; our trade, even though its volume be diminished by the withdrawal of men for the Army and for munition making, still goes on as far as we can carry it. The real financial strength of the British Empire has as yet not been fully marshalled for the fray, and should the day ever come when money must be found beyond the resources of ordinary taxation there are vast reservoirs of strength which will yield supplies in abundance. For we are in this War to win—let there be no mistake about that—and to gain a complete and lasting victory there is no sacrifice that our people, properly instructed, will refuse to make. “To the last man and the last shilling” if necessary must be our motto. Our people ask only for a definite and a strong lead; if they get that, we need have no fear of the outcome of the greatest struggle we have ever been called upon to wage.