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Title: Britain's Deadly Peril
Are We Told the Truth?
Author: William Le Queux
Release Date: December 28, 2019 [eBook #61040]
Language: English
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BRITAIN'S DEADLY PERIL
Are we Told the Truth?
by
WILLIAM LE QUEUX
Author of "German Spies in England"
London
Stanley Paul & Co
31 Essex Street, Strand, W.C.
First published in 1915
Copyright in the United States of America by
William Le Queux, 1915
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
PAGE
The Unknown To-morrow 7
CHAPTER I
The Peril of "Muddling Through" 13
CHAPTER II
The Peril of Exploiting the Poor 31
CHAPTER III
The Peril of not Doing Enough 49
CHAPTER IV
The Peril of the Censorship 66
CHAPTER V
The Peril of the Press Bureau 81
CHAPTER VI
The Peril of the Enemy Alien 96
CHAPTER VII
The Peril of Deluding the Public 119
CHAPTER VIII
The Peril of Invasion 139
CHAPTER IX
The Peril of Apathy 148
CHAPTER X
The Peril of Stifling the Truth 160
CHAPTER XI
Facts to Remember 171
FOREWORD
THE UNKNOWN TO-MORROW
The following pages--written partly as a sequel to my book "German
Spies in England," which has met with such wide popular favour--are,
I desire to assure the reader, inspired solely by a stern spirit of
patriotism.
This is not a book of "scaremongerings," but of plain, hard,
indisputable facts.
It is a demand for the truth to be told, and a warning that, by the
present policy of secrecy and shuffle, a distinct feeling of distrust
has been aroused, and is growing more and more apparent. No sane man
will, of course, ask for any facts concerning the country's resources
or its intentions, or indeed any information upon a single point which,
in the remotest way, could be of any advantage to the barbaric hordes
who are ready to sweep upon us.
But what the British people to-day demand is a sound and definite
pronouncement which will take them, to a certain extent, into the
confidence of the Government--as apart from the War Office, against
which no single word of criticism should be raised--and at the same
time deal effectively with certain matters which, being little short of
public scandals, have irritated and inflamed public opinion at an hour
when every man in our Empire should put forth his whole strength for
his God, his King, and his country.
Germany is facing the present situation with a sound, businesslike
policy, without any vacillation, or any attempt to shift responsibility
from one Department of the State to another. Are we doing the same?
What rule or method can be discerned, for example, in a system which
allows news to appear in the papers in Scotland which is suppressed in
the newspapers in England? Why, indeed, should one paper in England be
permitted to print facts, and another, published half a mile away, be
debarred from printing the self-same words?
The public--who, since August 4th last, are no longer school-children
under the Head-Mastership of the Prime-Minister-for-the-Time-Being--are
now wondering what all this curious censorship means, and for what
reason such an unreliable institution--an institution not without its
own scandals, and employing a thousand persons of varying ideas and
warped notions--should have been established. They can quite understand
the urgent necessity of preventing a horde of war correspondents, at
the front, sending home all sorts of details regarding our movements
and intentions, but they cannot understand why a Government offer of
£100 reward, published on placards all over Scotland for information
regarding secret bases of petrol, should be forbidden to be even
mentioned in England.
They cannot understand why the Admiralty should issue a notice warning
the public that German spies, posing as British officers, are visiting
Government factories while at the same time the Under-Secretary for
War declares that all enemy aliens are known, and are constantly
under police surveillance. They cannot understand either why, in
face of the great imports of foodstuffs, and the patriotic movement
on the part of Canada and our Overseas Dominions concerning our wheat
supply, prices should have been allowed to increase so alarmingly, and
unscrupulous merchants should be permitted to exploit the poor as they
have done. They are mystified by the shifty shuttlecock policy which
is being pursued towards the question of enemy aliens, and the marked
disinclination of the authorities to make even the most superficial
inquiry regarding cases of suspected espionage, notwithstanding the
fact that German spies have actually been recognised among us by
refugees from Antwerp and other Belgian cities.
The truth, which cannot be disguised, is that by the Government's
present policy, and the amusing vagaries of its Press Censorship, the
public are daily growing more and more apathetic concerning the war.
While, on the one hand, we see recruiting appeals in all the clever
guises of smart modern advertising, yet on the other, by the action of
the authorities themselves, the man-in-the-street is being soothed into
the belief that all goes well, and that, in consequence, no more men
are needed and nobody need worry further.
We are told by many newspapers that Germany is at the end of her
tether: that food supplies are fast giving out, that she has lost
millions of men, that her people are frantic, that a "Stop the War"
party has already arisen in Berlin, and that the offensive on the
eastern frontier is broken. At home, the authorities would have
us believe that there is no possibility of invasion, that German
submarines are "pirates"--poor consolation indeed--that all alien
enemies are really a deserving hardworking class of dear good people,
and that there is no spy-peril. A year ago the British public would,
perhaps, have believed all this. To-day they refuse to do so. Why
they do not, I have here attempted to set out; I have tried to reveal
something of the perils which beset our nation, and to urge the reader
to pause and reflect for himself. Every word I have written in this
book, though I have been fearless and unsparing in my criticism, has
been written with an honest and patriotic intention, for I feel that it
is my duty, as an Englishman, in these days of national peril to take
up my pen--without political bias--solely for the public good.
I ask the reader to inquire for himself, to ascertain how cleverly
Germany has hoodwinked us, and to fix the blame upon those who
wilfully, and for political reasons, closed their eyes to the truth. I
would ask the reader to remember the formation in Germany--under the
guidance of the Kaiser--of the Society for the Promotion of Better
Relations between Germany and England, and how the Kaiser appointed,
as president, a certain Herr von Holleben. I would further ask the
reader to remember my modest effort to dispel the pretty illusion
placed before the British public by exposing, in _The Daily Telegraph_,
in March 1912, the fact that this very Herr von Holleben, posing as a
champion of peace, was actually the secret emissary sent by the Kaiser
to the United States in 1910, with orders to make an anti-English press
propaganda in that country! And a week after my exposure the Emperor
was compelled to dismiss him from his post.
Too long has dust been thrown in our eyes, both abroad and at home.
Let every Briton fighting for his country, and working for his
country's good, remember that even though there be a political
truce to-day, yet the Day of Awakening must dawn sooner or later.
On that day, with the conscience of the country fully stirred, the
harmless--but to-day powerless--voter will have something bitter and
poignant to say when he pays the bill. He will then recollect some hard
facts, and ask himself many plain questions. He will put to himself
calmly the problem whether the present German hatred of England is
not mainly due to the weak shuffling sentimentalism and opportunism
of Germanophils in high places. And he will then search out Britain's
betrayers, and place them in the pillory.
Assuredly, when the time comes, all these things--and many more--will
be remembered. And the dawn of the Unknown To-morrow will, I feel
assured, bring with it many astounding and drastic changes.
William Le Queux.
Devonshire Club, S.W.
_April 1915._
BRITAIN'S DEADLY PERIL
CHAPTER I
THE PERIL OF "MUDDLING THROUGH"
Has Britain, in the course of her long history, ever been prepared for
a great war? I do not believe she has; she certainly was not ready last
August, when the Kaiser launched his thunderbolt upon the world.
Perhaps, paradoxical as it may seem, this perpetual unreadiness may be,
in a sense, part of Britain's strength.
We are a people slow of speech, and slow to anger. It takes much--very
much--to rouse the British nation to put forth its full strength.
"Beware of the wrath of the man slow to anger" is a useful working
maxim, and it may be that the difficulty of arousing England is, in
some degree, a measure of her terrible power once she is awakened.
Twice or thrice, at least, within living memory we have been caught
all unready when a great crisis burst upon us--in the Crimea, in South
Africa, and now in the greatest world-conflict ever seen. Hitherto,
thanks to the amazing genius for improvisation which is characteristic
of our race, we have "muddled through" somehow, often sorely smitten,
sorely checked, but roused by reverses to further and greater efforts.
The bulldog tenacity that has ever been our salvation has been aroused
in time, and we have passed successfully through ordeals which might
have broken the spirit and crushed the resistance of nations whose
mental and physical fibre was less high and less enduring.
We have "muddled through" in the past: shall we "muddle through" again?
It is the merest truism--patent to all the world--that when Germany
declared war, we were quite unready for a contest. For years the nation
had turned a deaf ear to all warnings. The noble efforts of the late
Lord Roberts, who gave the last years of his illustrious life--despite
disappointments, and the rebuffs of people in high places who ought
to have known--nay, who did know--that his words were literally true,
passed unheeded.
Lord Roberts, the greatest soldier of the Victorian era, a man wise in
war, and of the most transcendent sincerity, was snubbed and almost
insulted, inside and outside the House of Commons, by a parcel of
upstarts who, in knowledge and experience of the world and of the
subject, were not fit to black his boots. "An alarmist and scaremonger"
was perhaps the least offensive name that these worthies could find for
him: and it was plainly hinted that he was an old man in his dotage.
Lulled into an unshakable complacency by the smooth assurances of
placeholders in comfortable jobs, the nation remained serenely asleep,
and never was a country less ready for the storm that burst upon us
last August. I had, in my writings--"The Invasion of England" and other
works--also endeavoured to awaken the public; but if they would not
listen to "Bobs," it was hardly surprising that they jeered at me.
I am speaking of the nation as a whole. To their eternal honour let it
be said that there were nevertheless some who, for years, had foreseen
the danger, and had done what lay in their power to meet it. Foremost
among these we must place Mr. Winston Churchill, and the group of
brilliant officers who are now the chiefs of the British Army on the
Continent. To them, at least, I hope history will do full justice.
It was no mere coincidence that just before the outbreak of war our
great fleet--the mightiest Armada that the world has ever seen--was
assembled at Spithead, ready, to the last shell and the last man, for
any eventuality.
It was no mere coincidence that the magnificent First Division at
Aldershot, trained to the minute by men who knew their business, were
engaged when war broke out in singularly appropriate "mobilisation
exercises." All honour to the men who foresaw the world-peril, and did
their utmost to make our pitiably insufficient forces ready, as far as
fitness and organisation could make them ready, for the great Day when
their courage and endurance were to be so severely tested.
But when all this is said and admitted, it is clear that our safety,
in the early days of the war, hung by a hair. Afloat, of course, we
were more than a match for anything Germany could do, and our Fleet
has locked our enemy in with a strangling grip that we hope is slowly
choking out her industrial and commercial life. Ashore, however, our
position was perilous in the extreme. Men's hair whitened visibly
during those awful days when the tiny British Army, fighting heroically
every step of the way against overwhelming odds, was driven ever back
and back until, on the banks of the Marne, it suddenly turned at bay
and, by sheer matchless valour, hurled the legions of the Kaiser back
to ruin and defeat. The retreat was stayed, the enemy was checked and
driven back, but the margin by which disaster was averted and turned
into triumph was so narrow that nothing but the most superb heroism on
the part of our gallant lads could have saved the situation. We had
neglected all warnings, and we narrowly escaped paying an appalling
price in the destruction of the flower of the British Army. With
insufficient forces, we had again "muddled through" by the dogged
valour of the British private.
To-day we are engaged in "muddling through" on a scale unexampled in
our history. The Government have taken power to raise the British
Army to a total of three million men. In our leisurely way we have
begun to make new armies in the face of an enemy who for fifty years
has been training every man to arms, in the face of an enemy who for
ten or fifteen years at least has been steadily, openly, and avowedly
preparing for the Day when he could venture, with some prospect of
success, to challenge the sea supremacy by which we live, and move, and
have our being, and lay our great Empire in the dust.
We neglected all warnings; we calmly ignored our enemy's avowed
intentions; we closed our eyes and jeered at all those who told the
truth; we deliberately, and of choice, elected to wait until war was
upon us to begin our usual process of "muddling through." Truly we
are an amazing people! Yet we should remember that the days when one
Englishman was better than ten foreigners have passed for ever.
Naturally, our preference for waiting till the battle opened before
we began to train for the fight led us into some of the most amazing
muddles that even our military history can boast of. When the tocsin of
war rang out, our young men poured to the colours from every town and
village in the country. Everybody but the War Office expected it. The
natural result followed: recruiting offices were simply "snowed under"
with men, and for weeks we saw the most amazing chaos. The flood of
men could neither be equipped nor housed, nor trained, and confusion
reigned supreme. We had an endless series of scandals at camps, into
which I do not propose to enter: probably, with all the goodwill in
the world, they were unavoidable. Still the flood of men poured in.
The War Office grew desperate. It was, clearly, beyond the capacity
of the organisation to handle the mass of recruits, and then the War
Office committed perhaps its greatest blunder. Unable to accept more
men, it raised the physical standard for recruits. No one seems to have
conceived the idea that it would have been better to take the names
of the men and call them up as they were needed. Naturally the public
seized upon the idea that enough men had been obtained, and there was
an instant slump in recruiting which, despite the most strenuous of
advertising campaigns--carried out on the methods of a vendor of patent
medicines--has, unfortunately, not yet been overcome.
Following, came a period of unexampled chaos at the training-centres.
Badly lodged, badly fed, clothed in ragged odds and ends of "uniforms,"
without rifles or bayonets, it is simply a marvel that the men stuck
to their duty, and it is surely a glowing testimony to their genuine
patriotism. I do not wish to rake up old scandals, and I am not going
to indulge in carping criticism of the authorities because they were
not able to handle matters with absolute smoothness when, each week,
they were getting very nearly a year's normal supply of recruits.
Confusion and chaos were bound to be, and I think the men--on the
whole--realised the difficulties, and made the best of a very trying
situation. But they were Britons! My object is simply to show how
serious was our peril through our unpreparedness. If our enemy, in that
time of preparation, could have struck a blow directly at us, we must,
inevitably, have gone under in utter ruin. Happily, our star was in the
ascendant. The magnificent heroism of Belgium, the noble recovery of
the French nation after their first disastrous surprise, the unexampled
valour of our Army, and the silent pressure of the Navy, saved us from
the peril that encompassed us. Once again we had "muddled through"
perhaps the worst part of our task.
No one can yet say that we are safe. This war is very far indeed from
being won, for there is yet much to do, and many grave perils still
threaten us. It is, perhaps, small consolation to know that most of
the perils we brought upon ourselves by our persistent and foolish
refusal to face plain and obvious facts: by our toleration of so-called
statesmen who, fascinated by the Kaiser's glib talk, came very near
to betraying England by their refusal to tell the country the truth,
or even, without telling the country, to make adequate preparations
to meet a danger which had been foreseen by every Chancellory in
Europe for years past. It can never be said that we were not warned,
plainly and unmistakably. The report of the amazing speech of the
Kaiser, which I have recorded elsewhere, I placed in the hands of the
British Secret Service as early as 1908, and the fact that it had been
delivered was soon abundantly verified by confidential inquiries in
official circles in Berlin. Yet, with the knowledge of that speech
before them, Ministers could still be found to assure us that Germany
was our firm and devoted friend!
The Kaiser, in the course of the secret speech in question, openly
outlined his policy and said:
"Our plans have been most carefully laid and prepared by our General
Staff. Preparations have been made to convey at a word a German army
of invasion of a strength able to cope with any and all the troops
that Great Britain can muster against us. It is too early yet to fix
the exact date when the blow shall be struck, but I will say this:
that we shall strike as soon as I have a sufficiently large fleet
of Zeppelins at my disposal. I have given orders for the hurried
construction of more airships of the improved Zeppelin type, and when
these are ready we shall destroy England's North Sea, Channel, and
Atlantic fleets, after which nothing on earth can prevent the landing
of our army on British soil and its triumphal march to London.
"You will desire to know how the outbreak of hostilities will be
brought about. I can assure you on this point. Certainly we shall
not have to go far to find a just cause for war. My army of spies,
scattered over Great Britain and France, as it is over North and South
America, as well as all the other parts of the world where German
interests may come to a clash with a foreign Power, will take good
care of that. I have issued already some time since secret orders that
will at the proper moment accomplish what we desire.
"I shall not rest and be satisfied until all the countries and
territories that once were German, or where greater numbers of my
former subjects now live, have become a part of the great mother
country, acknowledging me as their supreme lord in war and peace.
Even now I rule supreme in the United States, where almost one-half
of the population is either of German birth or of German descent, and
where three million German voters do my bidding at the Presidential
elections. No American Administration could remain in power against
the will of the German voters, who ... control the destinies of the
vast Republic beyond the sea.
"I have secured a strong foothold for Germany in the Near East, and
when the Turkish 'pilaf' pie will be partitioned, Asia Minor, Syria,
and Palestine--in short, the overland route to India--will become our
property. But to obtain this we must first crush England and France."
And, in the face of those words, we still went on money-grubbing and
pleasure-seeking!
If ever the British Empire, following other great Empires of the past,
plunges downward to rack and ruin, we may rest assured that the reason
will be our reliance on our ancient and stereotyped policy of "muddling
through."
I am glad to think that in the conduct of the present campaign we have
been spared those scandals of the baser type which, in the past, have
been such an unsavoury feature of almost every great war in which
we have been engaged. Minor instances of fraud and peculation, of
supplying doubtful food, etc., have no doubt occurred. Human nature
being what it is, it could hardly be expected that we could raise,
train, equip, and supply an army numbered by millions without some
unscrupulous and unpatriotic individuals seizing the opportunity to
line their pockets by unlawful means. We hear occasional stories of
huts unfit for human habitation, of food in camp hardly fit for human
consumption. On the whole, however, it is cordially agreed--and it is
only fair to say--that there has been an entire absence of the shocking
scandals of the type which revolted the nation during the Crimean
campaign. Much has been said about the War Office arrangement with Mr.
Meyer for the purchase of timber. But the main allegation, even in
this case, is that the War Office made an exceedingly bad and foolish
bargain, and Mr. Meyer an exceedingly good one. Indeed it is not even
suggested that the transaction involved anything in the nature of
fraud. It seems rather to be a plea that the purely commercial side of
war would be infinitely better conducted by committees of able business
men than by permanent officials of the War Office, who are, after all,
not very commercial.
Undoubtedly this is true. We should be spared a good deal of the
muddling and waste involved in our wars if, on the outbreak of
hostilities, the War Office promptly asked the leading business men
of the community to form committees and take over and manage for the
benefit of the nation the purely commercial branches of the work. Yet I
suppose, under our system of government, such an obvious common-sense
procedure as this could hardly be hoped for. We continue to leave vast
commercial undertakings in the hands of the men who are not bred in
business, with the result that money is wasted by millions, and so are
lucky if we are not swindled on a gigantic scale by the unscrupulous
contractors. It is usually in an army's food and clothing that scandals
of this nature are revealed, and it is only just to the War Office to
say that in this campaign, for once, food has been good and clothing
fair.
Most of our muddling, so far, has been of a nature tending to prolong
the duration of the war. Our persistent policy of unreadiness has
simply meant that for four, five, or six long months we have not been
ready to take the field with the forces imperatively necessary if the
Germans are to be hurled, neck and crop, out of Belgium and France
across the Rhine, and their country finally occupied and subjugated.
Already another new and graver peril is threatening us--the peril
of a premature and inconclusive peace. Already the voice of the
pacifist--that strangely constituted being to whom the person of the
enemy is always sacred--is being heard in the land. We heard it in the
Boer War from the writers and speakers paid by Germany. Already the
plea is going up that Germany must not be "crushed"--that Germany,
who has made Belgium a howling wilderness, who has massacred men,
women, and even little children, in sheer cold-blooded lust, shall be
treated with the mild consideration we extend to a brave and honourable
opponent. Sure it is, therefore, that if Britain retires from this
war with her avowed purpose unfulfilled, we shall have been guilty of
muddling compared with which the worst we have ever done in the past
will be the merest triviality.
If this war has proved one thing more clearly than another, it
has proved that the German is utterly and absolutely unfit to
exercise power, that he is restrained by no moral consideration from
perpetuating the most shocking abominations in pursuit of his aims,
that the most sacred obligations are as dust in the balance when they
conflict with his supposed interests. It has proved too, beyond the
shadow of a doubt, that England is the real object of Germany's foaming
hate. We are the enemy! France and Russia are merely incidental foes.
It is England that stands between Germany and the realisation of
her insane dream of world dominion, and unless Great Britain to-day
completes, with British thoroughness, the task to which she has set
her hand, this generation, and the generations that are to come, will
never be freed from the blighting shadow of Teutonic megalomania. It is
quite conceivable that a peace which would be satisfactory to Russia
and France would be profoundly unsatisfactory to us. Happily, the
Allies are solemnly bound to make peace jointly or not at all, and I
trust there will be no wavering on this point. For us there is but one
line of safety: the Germanic power for mischief must be finally and
irretrievably broken before Britain consents to sheathe the sword.
Against the prosecution of the war to its final and crushing end, the
bleating pacifists are already beginning to raise their puny voices. I
am not going to give these gentlemen the free advertisement that their
hearts delight in by mentioning them by name: it is not my desire to
assist, in the slightest degree, their pestilential activity. They
form one of those insignificant minorities who are inherently and
essentially unpatriotic. Their own country is invariably wrong, and
other countries are invariably right. To-day they are bleating, in
the few unimportant journals willing to publish their extraordinary
views, that Germany ought to be spared the vengeance called for by her
shameful neglect of all the laws of God and man.
Is there a reader of these lines who will heed them? Surely not.
Burke said it was impossible to draw up an indictment against a
nation: Germany has given him the lie. Our pro-German apologists and
pacifists are fond of laying the blame of every German atrocity, upon
the shoulders of that mysterious individual--the "Prussian militarist."
I reply--and my words are borne out by official evidence published in
my recent book "German Atrocities"--that the most shameful and brutal
deeds of the German Army, which, be it remembered, is the German people
in arms, are cordially approved by the mass of that degenerate nation.
The appalling record of German crime in Belgium, the entire policy of
"frightfulness" by land and sea, the murder of women and children at
Scarborough, the sack of Aerschot and of Louvain, the massacre of seven
hundred men, women, and children in Dinant, the piratical exploits of
the German submarines, are all hailed throughout Germany with shrieks
of hysterical glee. And why? Because it is recognised that, in the long
run and in the ultimate aim, they are a part and parcel of a policy
which has for its end the destruction of our own beloved Empire. Hatred
of Britain--the one foe--has been, for years, the mainspring that has
driven the German machine. The Germans do not hate the French, they do
not hate the Russians, they do not even hate the "beastly Belgians,"
whose country they have laid waste with fire and sword. The half-crazed
Lissauer shrieks aloud that Germans "have but one hate, and one
alone--England," and the mass of the German people applaud him to the
echo.
Very well, let us accept, as we do accept, the situation. Are we going
to neglect the plainest and most obvious warning ever given to a
nation, and permit ourselves to muddle into a peace that would be no
peace, but merely a truce in which Germany would bend her every energy
to the preparation of another bitter war of revenge?
Here lies one of the gravest perils by which our country is to-day
faced, and it is a peril immensely exaggerated by the foolish
peace-talk in which a section of malevolent busybodies are already
indulging. It is as certain as the rising of to-morrow's sun that,
when this war is over, Germany would, if the power were left within
her, embark at once on a new campaign of revenge. We have seen how,
for forty-five long years, the French have cherished in their hearts
the hope of recovering the fair provinces wrested from them in the
war of 1870-1871. And the French, be it remembered, are not a nation
capable of nourishing a long-continued national hatred. Generous,
proud, and intensely patriotic they are; malicious and revengeful they
emphatically are not. As patriotic in their own way as the French, the
Germans have shown themselves capable of a paroxysm of national hatred
to which history offers no parallel.
They have realised, with a sure instinct, that Britain, and Britain
alone, has stood in the way of the realisation of their grandiose
scheme of world-dominion, and it is certain that for long years
to come, possibly for centuries, they will, if we give them the
opportunity, plot our downfall and overthrow us. Are we to muddle the
business of making peace as we muddled the preparations for war? If we
do we shall, assuredly, deserve the worst fate that can be reserved for
a nation which deliberately shuts its eyes to the logic of plain and
demonstrable fact.
Germany can never be adequately punished for the crimes against God
and man which she has committed in Belgium and France. The ancient law
of "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is the only one under
which adequate punishment could be meted out, and whatever happens
we know that the soldiers of the Allies will never be guilty of the
unspeakable calendar of pillage and arson and murder which has made
the very name of "German" a byword throughout civilisation throughout
all the ages that are to come. However thoroughly she is humbled to
the dust, Germany will never taste the unspeakable horror that she
has brought upon the helpless and unoffending victims of her fury
and lust in Belgium and in parts of France. It may be that if they
fall into our hands we should hang, as they deserve to be hanged, the
official instigators of atrocities whose complicity could be clearly
proved--though we, to-day, give valets to the Huns at Donington Hall.
We cannot lay the cities of Germany in ruin, and massacre the civilian
population on the approved German plan. What we can do, and ought to
do, is to make sure that, at whatever cost of blood and treasure to us,
Germany is deprived of any further capacity to menace the peace of the
world. It is the plain and obvious duty of the Allies to see that the
hateful and purely German doctrine that might is the only right shall,
once and for all, be swept from the earth. It is for us to make good
the noble words of Mr. Asquith--that Britain will prosecute the war
to the finish. It is for us to see that there shall be no "muddling
through" when the treaty of peace is finally signed in Berlin.
When the war was forced upon us, the best business brains of this
country recognised that one of the surest and speediest means of
securing an efficient guarantee that Germany should not be able
to injure us in the future would be a strenuous effort to capture
her enormous foreign trade. Modern wars, it must be remembered, are
not merely a matter of the clash of arms on the stricken field. The
enormous ramifications of commercial undertakings, immeasurably greater
to-day than at any time in history, mean that, in the conduct of a
great campaign, economic weapons may be even more powerful than the
sword of the big battalions. This unquestionable fact has been fully
realised by our leading thinkers. Thoughtless people have been heard
to say that, if France and Russia wish to conclude peace, England must
necessarily join with them because she cannot carry on the war alone.
There could be no greater mistake.
Just so long as the British Fleet holds the command of the sea,
Germany's foreign trade is in the paralysing grip of an incubus which
cannot be shaken off. In the meantime, all the seas of all the world
are free to our ships and our commerce, and, though the volume of
world-trade is necessarily diminished by the war, there remains open to
British manufacturers an enormous field which has been tilled hitherto
mainly by German firms.
We may now ask ourselves whether our business men are taking full
advantage of this priceless opportunity offered them for building up
and consolidating a commercial position which in the future, when
the war is ended, will be strong enough to defy even the substantial
attacks of their German competitors. I sincerely wish I could see some
evidence of it. I wish I could feel that our business men of England
were looking ahead, studying methods and markets, and planning the
campaigns which, in the days to come, shall reach their full fruition.
But alas! they are not. We heard many empty words, when war broke out,
of the war on Germany's trade, but I am very much afraid--and my view
is shared by many business acquaintances--that the early enthusiasm of
"what we will do" has vanished, and that when the time for decisive
action comes we shall be found still relying upon the traditional but
fatal policy of "muddling through" which has for so long been typical
of British business as well as official methods.
We shall still, I fear, be found clinging to the antiquated and
worn-out business principles and stiff conventionalities which, during
the past few years, have enabled the German to oust us from markets
which for centuries we have been in the habit of regarding as our own
peculiar preserves. That, in view of the enormous importance of the
commercial warfare of to-day, I believe to be a very real peril.
King George's famous "Wake up, England!" is a cry as necessary to-day
as ever. I do not believe Germany will ever be able to pay adequate
indemnity for the appalling monetary losses she has brought upon us,
and if those losses are to be regained it can only be by the capture of
her overseas markets, and the diversion of her overseas profits into
British pockets. Shall we seize the opportunity or shall we "muddle
through"?
This is not a political book, for I am no politician, and, further,
to-day we have no politics--at least of the Radical and Conservative
type. "Britain for the Briton" should be our battle-cry. There is
one subject, however, which, even though it may appear to touch
upon politics, cannot be omitted from our consideration. If the war
has taught us many lessons, perhaps the greatest is its splendid
demonstration of the essential solidarity of the British Empire. We
all know that the German writers have preached the doctrine that the
British Empire was as ramshackle a concern as that of Austria-Hungary;
that it must fall to pieces at the first shock of war. To-day the
British Empire stands before the world linked together, literally, by a
bond of steel. From Canada, from Australia, from India, even--despite
a jarring note struck by German money--from South Africa, "the
well-forged link rings true." Germany to-day is very literally face to
face with the British Empire in arms, with resources in men and money
to which her own swaggering Empire are relatively puny, and with, I
hope and believe, a stern determination no less strong and enduring
than her own. The lesson assuredly will not be lost upon her: shall we
make sure that it is not lost upon us?
For some years past there has been a steadily growing opinion--stronger
in the Overseas Dominions, perhaps, than here at home--that the
British Empire should, in business affairs, be much more of a "family
concern" than it is. Either at home, or overseas, our Empire produces
practically everything which the complexity of our modern social and
industrial system demands. Commerce is the very life-blood of our
modern world: is it not time we took up in earnest the question of
doing our international business upon terms which should place our
own people, for the first time, in a position of definite advantage
over the stranger? Is it not time we undertook the task of welding the
Empire into a single system linked as closely by business ties as by
the ties of flesh and blood and sentiment? That, I believe, will be one
of the great questions which this war will leave us for solution.
In the past, Germany's chief weapon against us has been her commercial
enterprise and activity. It should now be part of our business to
prevent her harming us in the future, and, in the commercial field, the
strongest weapon in our armoury has hitherto remained unsheathed. Shall
we, in the days that are to come, do our imperial trading on a great
family scale--British goods the most favoured in British markets--or
shall we here again "muddle through" on a policy which gives the
stranger and the enemy alien at least as friendly a welcome as we
extend to our own sons?
Perhaps, in the days that are coming, that in itself will be a question
upon which the future of the British Empire will depend.
CHAPTER II
THE PERIL OF EXPLOITING THE POOR
No phenomenon of the present serious situation is more remarkable, or
of more urgent and vital concern to the nation, than the amazing rise
in food prices which we have witnessed during the past six months. At a
time when the British Navy dominates the trade routes, when the German
mercantile flag has been swept from every ocean highway in the world,
when the German "High Seas" fleet lies in shelter of the guns of the
Kiel Canal fortifications, we have seen food prices steadily mounting,
until to-day the purchasing power of the sovereign has declined to
somewhere in the neighbourhood of fifteen shillings, as compared with
the period immediately preceding the outbreak of hostilities.
Now this is a fact of the very gravest significance, and unless the
price of food falls it will inevitably be the precursor of very serious
events. Matters are moving so rapidly, at the time I write, that before
these lines appear in print they may well be confirmed by the logic of
events. Ominous mutterings are already heard, the spectre of labour
troubles has raised its ugly head, and, unless some _modus vivendi_ be
found, it seems more than probable that we shall witness a very serious
extension of the strikes which have already begun.
The most important of our domestic commodities are wheat, flour,
meat, sugar, and coal. Inquiries made by a Committee of the Cabinet
have shown that, as compared with the average prices ruling in the
three years before the war, the price of wheat and flour has risen by
something like 66 per cent.! Sugar has increased 43 per cent., coal
about 60 per cent., imported meat about 19 per cent., and British
meat 12 per cent. The rise in prices is falling upon the very poor
with a cruelty which can only be viewed with horror. Imagine, for
a moment, the plight of the working-class family with an income of
thirty shillings a week, and perhaps five or six mouths to feed. Even
in normal times their lot is not to be envied: food shortage is almost
inevitable. Suddenly they find that for a sovereign they can purchase
only fifteen shillings' worth of food. Hunger steps in at once: the
pinch of famine is felt acutely, and, thanks to the appalling price to
which coal has been forced, it is aggravated by intense suffering from
the cold, which ill-nurtured bodies are in no condition to resist.
I am not contending that there is any very abnormal amount of distress
throughout the country, taking the working-classes as a whole. Thanks
to the withdrawal of the huge numbers of men now serving in the Army,
the labour market, for once in a way, finds itself rather under than
over-stocked, and the ratio of unemployment is undoubtedly lower than
it has been for some considerable time. The better-paid artisans, whose
wages are decidedly above the average at the present moment, are not
suffering severely, even with the high prices now ruling. But they are
exasperated, and some of them are making all kinds of unpatriotic
threats, to which I shall allude presently.
The real sufferers, and there are too many of them, are the families
of the labouring classes of the lower grades, whose weekly wage is
small and whose families, as a rule, are correspondingly numerous.
At the best of times these people seldom achieve more than a bare
existence: at the present moment they are suffering terribly. Yet all
the consolation they get from the Government is the assurance that they
ought to be glad they did not live in the days of the Crimean War,
and the pious hope that "within a few weeks"--oh! beautifully elastic
term!--prices will come down--if we, by forcing the Dardanelles,
liberate the grain accumulated in the Black Sea ports. No doubt the
best possible arrangements have been made towards that issue, and
we all hope for a victorious end, but our immediate business is to
investigate the distress among the very poor, and to check the ominous
threats of labour troubles which have been freely bandied about and
have even been translated into action--or inaction--which has had the
effect of delaying some of the country's preparations for carrying on
the war.
The average retail prices paid by the working-classes for food in
eighty of the principal towns on March 9th and a year ago are compared
in the following table issued by the President of the Board of Trade:
Last Year Now
_s._ _d._ _s._ _d._
Bread, per 4 lbs. 0 5-1/2 0 7-3/4
Butter, per lb. 1 3-3/4 1 4-1/2
Jam, per lb. 0 5 0 5-3/4
Cheese, per lb. 0 8-3/4 0 10-1/4
Bacon (streaky), per lb. 0 11 1 0
Beef, English, per lb. 0 9-3/4 0 11
Beef, chilled or frozen, per lb. 0 7-1/4 0 8-3/4
Mutton, English, per lb. 0 10-1/4 0 11-1/4
Mutton, frozen, per lb. 0 6-3/4 0 8-1/4
Tea, per lb. 1 6 1 9-1/4
Sugar, granulated, per lb. 0 2 0 3-1/2
A few more facts. Though the matter was constantly referred to, yet
we had been at war for five months before the Government could be
prevailed upon to prohibit the exportation of cocoa; with what result?
In December, January, and February last our exports of cocoa to neutral
countries were 16,575,017 lbs., whilst for the corresponding period for
1913 the exports were but 3,584,003 lbs.! Before the war, Holland was
an _exporter_ of cocoa to this country; since the war she has been the
principal _importer_; and there is a mass of indisputable evidence to
show that nearly the whole of our exports of cocoa have found their way
to Germany through this channel.
The prohibition is now removed, so we may expect that the old game of
supplying the German Army with cocoa from England will begin again!
The German Army must also have tea. Let us see how we have supplied
it. During the first fortnight of war, export was restricted and
only 60,666 lbs. were sent out of the country, whereas for the
corresponding period of the previous year 179,143 lbs. were exported.
During the next three months the restrictions were removed, when no
less a quantity than 15,808,628 lbs. was sent away--the greater part
of it by roundabout channels to Germany--against 1,146,237 lbs. for
the corresponding period in 1913. After three months a modified
restriction was placed upon the export of tea, but after reckoning the
whole sum it is found that _during the time we have been at war we have
sent abroad over 20,000,000 lbs. of tea_, while in the corresponding
period of the previous year we sent only a little over 2,000,000 lbs.!
Now where has it gone? In August and September last, Germany received
from Holland 16,000,000 lbs. whereas in that period of 1913 she only
received 1,000,000 lbs. Tea is given as a stimulant to German troops in
the field, so we see how the British Government have been tricked into
_actually feeding the enemy_!
And again, let us see how the poor are being exploited by the policy of
those in high authority. At the outbreak of war the market price of tea
was 7-1/2_d._ per lb. As soon as exportation was allowed, the price was
raised to the buyer at home to 9_d._ Then when exports were restricted,
it fell to 8-1/4_d._ But as soon as the restrictions on exports were
removed altogether, the price rose until, to-day, the very commonest
leaf-tea fetches 10_d._ a lb.--a price never equalled, save in the
memories of octogenarians.
Who is to blame for this fattening of our enemies at the expense of the
poor? Let the reader put this question seriously to himself.
Generally speaking, of course, prices of all articles are regulated
by the ordinary laws of supply and demand; if the supply falls or the
demand increases, prices go up. But there is another factor which
sometimes comes into play which is very much in evidence at the present
moment--the existence of "rings" of unscrupulous financiers who, with
ample resources in cash and organisation, see in every national crisis
a heaven-sent opportunity of increasing their gains at the expense of
the suffering millions of the poor. It is quite evident, to my mind,
that something of the kind is going on to-day, as it has gone on in
every great war in history. The magnates of Mark Lane and the bulls of
the Chicago wheat pit care nothing for the miseries of the unknown and
unheeded millions whose daily bread may be shortened by their financial
jugglings. They are out to make money. It may be true, as Mr. Asquith
said, that we cannot control the price of wheat in America. But, at
least, it cannot be said that the price of bread to-day is due to
shortage of supply. During the last six months of 1914, as compared
with the last six months of 1913, there was actually a rise of 112,250
tons in the quantities of wheat, flour, and other grain equivalent
imported into this country. Where, then, can be the shortage, and what
explanation is there of the prevailing high prices except the fact that
large quantities of food are being deliberately held off the market in
order that _the price may be artificially enhanced_? This is not the
work of the small men, but of the big firms who can buy largely enough,
probably in combination, to control and dominate the market.
When the subject was recently debated in the House of Commons the
voice of the Labour member was heard unmistakably. Mr. Toothill said
bluntly that if it was impossible for the Government to prevent the
prices of food being "forced up" unduly, then it remained for Labour
members to request employers to meet the situation by an adequate
advance in wages. That request has since been made in unmistakable
terms. Mr. Clynes was even more emphatic. "Though the Labour party
were as anxious as any to keep trade going in the country," he said,
"it was clear to them that the truce in industry could not be continued
unless some effective relief were given in regard to the prices under
discussion." In other words, the Labour "organisers" will call for
strikes--perhaps hold up a large part of our war preparations--unless
the employers, most of whom are making no increased profit out of the
price of food, are prepared to shoulder the entire burden.
It is quite clear, to my mind, that the prices of food are being forced
up by gigantic unpatriotic combines, either in this country or abroad,
or both. I do not think that mere shortage of supply is sufficient
to account for the extraordinary advances that have taken place.
Whether the Government can take steps to defeat the wheat rings, as
they did to prevent the cornering of sugar, is a question with which
I am not concerned here. My purpose is merely to point out that the
constant rise in food prices, brought about by gangs of unscrupulous
speculators, is bringing about a condition of affairs fraught with
grave peril to our beloved country.
If we turn to coal we find the scandal ten times greater than in the
case of flour and meat. It is at least possible that agencies outside
our own country may be playing a great part in forcing up the prices of
food; they can have no effect upon the price of coal, which we produce
ourselves and of which we do not import an ounce. Coal to-day is simply
at famine prices. It is impossible to buy the best house coal for less
than 38_s._ per ton, while the cheapest is being sold at 34_s._ per
ton, and the very poor, who buy from the street-trolleys only inferior
coal and in small quantities, are being fleeced to the extent of 1_s._
11_d._ or 2_s._ per cwt. This is an exceedingly serious matter, and it
is not to be explained, even under present conditions, by the ordinary
laws of supply and demand. Why should coal in a village on the banks of
the Thames be actually cheaper than the corresponding quality of coal
when sold in London?
There can be only one answer--the London supply is in the hands of
the coal "ring" which has compelled all the London coal merchants
to come into line. So extensive and powerful is the organisation of
this ring, that the small men, unless they followed the lead of the
big dealers, would be immediately faced with ruin: they would not
only find it difficult to obtain coal at all, but would promptly be
undersold--as the Standard Oil Company undersold thousands of small
competitors--until they were compelled to put up their shutters.
The big coal men, the men who make the profit--and with their
ill-gotten gains will purchase Birthday honours later on--of course
blame the war for everything. The railways, they say, cannot handle the
coal; so much labour has been withdrawn for the Army that production
has fallen below the demand. But I am assured, on good authority,
that coal bought before the war, and delivered to London depots at
16_s._ or 17_s._ per ton, is being retailed to-day at between 36_s._
and 40_s._ per ton. The big dealers know that, cost what it may, the
public must have coal, and they are taking advantage of every plausible
excuse the war offers them to wring from the public the very highest
prices possible. "The right to exploit," in fact, is being pushed to
its logical extreme in the face of the country's distress, and the
worst sufferers, as usual, are the very poor, who for their pitiful
half-hundred-weights of inferior rubbish pay at a rate which would
be ample for the finest coal that could grace the grate of a West-End
drawing-room.
Can we shut our eyes to the fact that in this shameful exploiting of
the very poor by the unpatriotic lie all the elements of a very serious
danger? Let us not forget the noble services the working-classes of
Britain are rendering to our beloved country. They have given the
best and dearest of their manhood in the cause of the Empire, and it
is indeed a pitiful confession of weakness, and an ironic commentary
on the grandiose schemes of "social reform" with which they have been
tempted of late years, if the Government cannot or will not protect
them from the human leeches--the Birthday knights in the making--who
suck their ill-gotten gains from those least able to protect themselves.
The Government have promised an inquiry which may, if unusual
expedition is shown, make a "demonstration" with the coal-dealers just
about the time the warm weather arrives. Prices will then tumble, the
Government will solemnly pat itself upon the back for its successful
interference, and the coal merchants, having made small or large
fortunes as the case may be during the winter, will make a great virtue
of reducing their demands to oblige the Government. In the meantime,
the poor are being fleeced in the interests of an unscrupulous combine.
Is there no peril here to our beloved country? Are we not justified in
saying that the machinations of these gangs of unscrupulous capitalists
are rapidly tending to produce a condition of affairs which may, at
any moment, expose us to a social upheaval which would contain all the
germs of an unparalleled disaster?
Let the condition of affairs in certain sections of the labour world
speak in answer. I have already quoted the thinly-veiled threat of Mr.
Clynes. Others have gone beyond threats and have begun a war against
their country on their own account. There is an unmistakable tendency,
fostered as usual by agitators of the basest class, towards action
which is, in effect, helping the Germans against our brave soldiers
and sailors who are enduring hardships of war such as have not been
equalled since the days of the Crimea.
HOW WE SUPPLY THE GERMAN ARMY WITH FOOD
Exports of Cocoa to Neutral Countries (for the German Market)
Dec. 1, 1913, to Mar. 1, 1914 | Dec. 1, 1914, to Mar. 1, 1915
3,584,003 lbs. | 16,575,017 lbs.
Exports of Tea to Neutral Countries (for the German Market)
Dec. 1, 1913, to Mar. 1, 1914 | Dec. 1, 1914, to Mar. 1, 1915
1,146,237 lbs. | 15,808,628 lbs.
As I wrote these lines, strikes on a large scale had begun on the
Clyde and on the Tyne, two of our most important shipbuilding centres,
where great contracts--essential to the success of our arms--are being
carried on, and in the London Docks, where most of the food of London's
teeming millions is handled. London dockers, to the number of some
25,000, are agitating for a rise in wages; between 5,000 and 6,000 of
them have struck work at the Victoria and Albert Dock on the question,
forsooth, whether they shall be engaged inside the docks, or outside.
In other words, the expeditious handling of London's sorely needed
food is being jeopardised by a ridiculous squabble which one would
think half a dozen capable business men could settle in five minutes.
But here, as usual, the poorest are the victims of their own class.
In spite of the well-meaning but idiotic young women who have gone
about distributing white feathers to men who, in their opinion, ought
to have joined the Army, common-sense people will recognise that the
skilled workers in many trades are just as truly fighting the battles
of their country as if they were serving with the troops in Belgium
or France. If every able-bodied man joined the Army to-day the nation
would collapse for want of supplies to feed the fighting lines. It is
not my purpose here to discuss whether the men or the masters are right
in the disputes in the engineering trades. Probably the authorities
have not done enough to bring home to the men the knowledge that,
in executing Government work, they are in fact helping to fight the
country's battles. None the less the men who strike at the present
moment delay work which is absolutely essential to the safety of our
country. We know from Lord Kitchener's own lips that they have done so.
Our war organisation to-day may be divided into three parts--the Navy
fighting on the sea, the Army fighting on land, and the industrial
army providing supplies for the other two. It must be brought home
to the last named, by every device in our power, that their duties
are just as important to our success as the work of their brothers on
the storm-swept North Sea, or in the mud and slush and peril of the
trenches in Flanders. This war is very largely a war of supplies, and
our fighting must be done not only in the far-flung battle lines, but
in the factory and workshop, whose outputs are essential to the far
deadlier work which we ask of the men who are heroically facing the
shells and bullets of the common enemy.
Now there is no disguising the fact that the industrial army at home
contains far too large a percentage of "slackers."
That is the universal testimony of men who know. There are thousands
of workmen who will not keep full time, for the simple reason that
they are making more money than they really need and are so lazy
and unpatriotic that they will not make the extra effort which the
necessities of the situation so urgently demand. What we need to-day
is, above all things, determined hard work: we do not want to see our
fighting forces starved for want of material caused by the shirking
of the "slackers" or by unpatriotic disputes and squabbles. To-day we
are fighting for our lives. The privates of the industrial army ought
to realise that "slacking" or striking is just as much a criminal
offence as desertion in the face of the enemy would be in the case of
a soldier. It is true, as a recent writer has said, that "those who
fight industrially, working long hours in a spirit of high patriotism,
may not seem very heroic," but it is none the less the fact that they
are fighting: they are doing the work that is essential to our national
safety and welfare. Do they--at least do some of them--realise this?
The following extract from _Engineering_, the well-known technical
journal, shows very clearly that among certain classes of highly
paid workers there is a total disregard of our national necessity
which is positively appalling. As the result of a series of inquiries
_Engineering_ says:
"Every reply received indicates that there is slackness in many
trades. Be it remembered that high wages can be earned; for relatively
unskilled although somewhat arduous work, 30_s._ a day can be earned.
"Time-and-a-quarter to time-and-a-half is paid for Saturday afternoon
work, and double time for Sunday work. Men could earn from £7 to £10
per week--and pay no income-tax.
"Men will work on Saturday and Sunday, when they get handsomely paid,
but will absent themselves on other days or parts of days.
"The head of a firm, who has shown a splendid example in his work, and
is most kindly disposed to all workers, states in his reply to us:
'Our trouble is principally with the ironworkers, especially riveters,
who appear to have a definite standard of living, and who regulate
their wages accordingly; they seem to aim at making £3 per week: if
they can make this in four days, good and well; but if they can make
it in three days, better still.... The average working-man of to-day
does not wish to earn more money, and put by something for a 'rainy
day,' but is quite content to live from hand to mouth, so long as he
has as easy a time as possible."
What words are strong enough to condemn the action of such men who,
safe in their homes from the perils of the serving soldier, and
infinitely better paid than the man who daily risks his life in the
trenches, are ready deliberately to jeopardise the safety of our Empire
by taking advantage of the gravest crisis in our history to levy what
is nothing less than industrial blackmail? It cannot be pretended that
these men are under-paid: they can earn far more than many members of
the professional classes. Just as truly as the coal and wheat "rings"
are exploiting the miseries of the very poor, so these aristocrats of
the labour world are playing with the lives of their fellows and the
destinies of our Empire. They are helping the enemy just as surely as
the German who is fighting in his country's ranks. They are, in short,
taking advantage of a national danger to demand rates of pay which, in
times of safety and peace, they could not possibly secure.
For years past we have been striving to arrive at some means of
settling these unhappy labour disputes which have probably done more
harm to British trade than all the German competition of which we
have heard so much. In every district machinery has been set up for
conciliation and settlement where a settlement is sincerely desired by
both parties to a dispute. And if this machinery is not set in motion
at the present moment, it is because one party or the other is so blind
and self-willed that it would rather jeopardise the Empire than abate
a jot of its demands. Could anything be more heart-breaking to the men
who are fighting and dying in the trenches?
Whatever may be the merits of any dispute, there must be no stoppage
of War Office or Admiralty work at the present moment, and if any
body of men refuse at this juncture to submit their dispute to the
properly organised conciliation boards, and to abide by the result,
they are traitors in the fullest sense of the world. How serious the
crisis is, and how grave a peril it constitutes to our country, may be
judged from the fact that the Government found it necessary to appoint
a special Committee to inquire into the production in engineering and
shipbuilding establishments engaged in Government work. The Committee's
view of the case, which I venture to think will be endorsed by every
thinking man, may be judged by the following extract from their report:
"We are strongly of opinion that, during the present crisis, employers
and workmen should under no circumstances allow their differences to
result in a stoppage of work.
"Whatever may be the rights of the parties at normal times,
and whatever may be the methods considered necessary for the
maintenance and enforcement of these rights, we think there can be
no justification whatever for a resort to strikes or lockouts under
present conditions, when the resulting cessation of work would prevent
the production of ships, guns, equipment, stores, or other commodities
required by the Government for the purposes of the war."
The Committee went on to recommend that in cases where the parties
could not agree, the dispute should be referred to an impartial
tribunal, and the Government accordingly appointed a special Committee
to deal with any matters that might be brought before it.
I do not think it is possible to exaggerate the seriousness of the
danger with which we must be threatened if these unhappy disputes are
not brought to a close, and I know of no incident since the war began
that has shown us up in so unfavourable a light as compared with our
enemy. Whatever we may think of Germany's infamous methods; whatever
views we may hold of her monstrous mistakes; whatever our opinion may
be as to the final outcome of the war, we must, at least, grant to the
Germans the virtue of patriotism. The German Socialists are, it is
notorious, as strongly opposed to war as any people on earth. But they
have, since the great struggle began, shown themselves willing to sink
their personal views when the safety of the Fatherland is threatened
in what, to them, is a war of aggression, deliberately undertaken by
their enemies. We have heard, since the war began, a great deal of
wild and foolish talk about economic distress in Germany. We have been
told, simply because the German Government has wisely taken timely
precautions to prevent a possible shortage of food, that the German
nation is on the verge of starvation. But would Germany, who for seven
years prepared for war, overlook the vital question of her food supply?
Probably it is true that the industrial depression in Germany, thanks
to the destruction by our Navy of her overseas trade, is very much
worse than it is in England. But no one has yet suggested that the
Krupp workmen are threatening to come out on strike and paralyse the
defensive forces if their demands for higher wages are not instantly
conceded. It is more than probable that any one who suggested such a
course, even if he escaped the heavy hand of the Government, would
be speedily suppressed in very rough-and-ready fashion by his own
comrades. The Germans, at least, will tolerate no treachery in their
midst, and unless the leaders among the English trade unionists can
bring their men to a realisation of the wickedness involved in strikes
at the present moment, they will assuredly forfeit every vestige of
public respect and confidence.
I am not holding a brief either for the masters or the men. Let ample
inquiry be made, by all means, into the subject of the dispute. If the
masters raise any objection to either the sitting or the finding of
the Government Commission, they deserve all the blame that naturally
attaches to the strikers. The inquiry should be loyally accepted by
both sides, and its findings as loyally respected. _Prima facie_, men
who can earn the wages mentioned in the extract from _Engineering_
which I have already quoted are well off--far better off than their
comrades who are doing trench duty in France, and are free from the
hourly risk to which the fighting forces are exposed. There may be,
however, good and valid reasons why they should be paid even better.
If there are, the Government inquiry should find them out. But to stop
work now, to hold up the production of the ships, guns, and materials
necessary to carry on the war, is criminal, wicked, and unpatriotic in
the highest degree. It is setting an evil example only too likely to be
followed, and, if it is persisted in, may well be the first step of our
beloved nation on the downward road which leads to utter destruction.
Mr. Archibald Hurd, a writer always well informed, has summed up the
situation in the _Daily Telegraph_ in the following words, which are
worth quotation:
"The recruiting movement has shown that the great industrial
classes are not, as a whole, unconscious of the stake for which we
are fighting--the institutions which we cherish and our freedom.
Probably if the workers at home were reminded of the importance of
their labours, they would speedily fall into line--if not, well, the
resources of civilisation are not exhausted, and the Government should
be able to ensure that not an unnecessary day, or even hour, shall
be lost in pressing forward the work of equipping the new Fleet and
the new Army which is essential to our salvation. The Government is
exercising authority under martial law over Army and Navy; cannot it
get efficient control over the industrial army?
"In France and Germany these powers exist, and are employed. We are
not less committed to the great struggle than France and Germany."
Those are wise and weighty words, and it may be that they point the way
to a solution of what may become a very grave problem.
CHAPTER III
THE PERIL OF NOT DOING ENOUGH
The vast issues raised by the war make it a matter of most imperative
necessity that Great Britain and her Allies shall put forward, at the
earliest possible moment, the greatest and supremest efforts of which
they are capable, in order that the military power of the Austro-German
alliance should be definitely and completely crushed for ever.
It must never be forgotten that the prize for which Germany is fighting
is the mastership of Europe, the humbling of the power of Great
Britain, and the imposition of a definitely Teutonic "Kultur" over
the whole of Western civilisation. That the free and liberty-loving
British peoples should ever come under the heel of the Prussian Junker
spirit involves such a monstrous suppression of national thought and
feeling as to be almost unbelievable. Yet, assuredly, that would be
our fate and the fate of every nationality in Europe should Germany
emerge victorious from this Titanic struggle she has so rashly and
presumptuously provoked.
With our very existence as the ruling race at stake it is clear that
our own dear country cannot afford to be sparing in her efforts.
Whatever the cost; whatever the slaughter; whatever the action of our
Allies may be in the future, when the terrific out-pouring of wealth
will have bled Europe white, we, at least, cannot afford to falter. For
our own land, the struggle is really, and in very truth, a struggle of
life and death.
If we endure and win, civilisation, as we understand it to-day, will
be safe; if we lose, then Western civilisation and the British Empire
will go down together in the greatest cataclysm in human history. Now
are we doing everything in our power to avert the threatening peril?
Moreover--and this is of greatest importance--are our Allies persuaded
_that we are really making the great efforts the occasion demands_?
This gives us to pause.
Let us admit we are not, and we have never pretended to be, a military
nation in the sense that France, Russia, and Germany have been military
nations. We have been seamen for a thousand years, and the frontiers
of England are the salt waves which girdle our coasts. Seeking no
territory on the Continent of Europe, and unconcerned in European
disputes unless they directly--as in the present instance--threaten
our national existence, our armed forces have ever been regarded as
purely defensive, yet not aggressive. For our defence we have relied
on our naval power; perhaps in days gone by we have assumed, rather
too rashly, that we should never be called upon to take part in
land-fighting on a continental scale.
Even after the present war had broken out, it was possible for the
Parliamentary correspondent of a London Liberal paper to write that
certain Liberal Members of the House of Commons were protesting against
the sending of British troops to the Continent on the ground that they
were too few in number to exercise any influence in a European war!
Perish that thought for ever! I mention this amazing contention merely
to show how imperfectly the issues raised by the present conflict
were appreciated in the early days of the struggle. To-day we see the
establishment of the British Army raised by Parliamentary sanction to
3,000,000 men without a single protest being uttered against a figure
which, had it been even hinted at, a year ago would have been received
with yells of derision. Yet, in spite of that vast number, I still ask
"Are we doing enough?" In other words, looking calmly at the stupendous
gravity of the issues involved, is there any further effort we could
possibly make to shorten the duration of the war?
For eight months German agents, armed with German gold, have been
industriously propagating, in France and in Russia, the theory that
those countries were, in fact, pulling the chestnuts out of the fire
for England. German agents are everywhere. We were represented as
holding the comfortable view that our fleet was doing all that we could
reasonably be called upon to undertake; that, secure behind our sea
barriers, we were simply carrying on a policy of "business as usual"
with the minimum of effort and loss and the maximum of gain through
our principal competitors in the world's commerce being temporarily
disabled. The object of this manoeuvre was plain. Germany hoped to
sow the seeds of jealousy and discord, and to thrust a wedge into the
solid alliance against her. Now it is, to-day, beyond all question
that, to some extent at least, this manoeuvre was successful. A certain
proportion of people in both France and Russia, perhaps, grew restive.
In the best-informed circles it was, of course, fully recognised that
Britain, with her small standing Army, could not, by any possibility,
instantly fling huge forces into the field. The less well informed,
influenced by the German propaganda, began to think we were too
slow. This feeling began to gather strength, and it was not until M.
Millerand, the French Minister for War, whom I have known for years,
had actually visited England and seen the preparations that were in
progress, that French opinion, fully informed by a series of capable
articles in the French Press, settled down to the conviction that
England was really in earnest. Unquestionably, M. Millerand rendered
a most valuable service to the cause of the Allies by his outspoken
declarations, and he was fully supported by the responsible leaders
of French thought and opinion. The cleverly laid German plot failed,
and our Allies to-day realise that we have unsheathed our sword in the
deadliest earnest.
In spite of this, however, the thoughtful section of the public have
been asking themselves whether, in fact, our military action is not
slower than it should have been. Germany, we must remember, started
this war with all the tremendous advantage secured by years of steady
and patient preparation for a contest she was fully resolved to
precipitate as soon as she judged the moment opportune. She lost the
first trick in the game, thanks to the splendid heroism of Belgium,
the unexpected rapidity of the French and Russian mobilisation, and
lastly, the wholly surprising power with which Britain intervened in
the fray--the pebble in the cog-wheels of the German machinery.
The end of the first stage, represented, roughly, by the driving of
the Germans from the Marne to the Aisne, temporarily exhausted all the
combatants, and there followed a long period of comparative inaction,
during which all the parties to the quarrel, like boxers in distress,
sparred to gain their "second wind." Now just as Germany was better
prepared when the first round opened, so she was, necessarily, more
advanced in her preparations for the second stage. Thanks to her scheme
of training, there was a very real risk that her vast masses of new
levies would be ready before our own--and this has actually proved to
be the case.
New troops are to-day being poured on to both the eastern and western
fronts at a very rapid pace, probably more rapidly than our own. We
know that it was, in great part, their new levies that inflicted the
very severe reverse upon the Russians in East Prussia and undid, in
a single fortnight, months of steady and patient work by our Allies.
It is also probably true that Germany's immense superiority in fully
trained fighting men is steadily decreasing, owing partly to the
enormous losses she has sustained through her adherence to methods of
attack which are hopeless in the teeth of modern weapons. But she is
still very much ahead of what any one could have expected after seven
months of strenuous war, and we must ask ourselves very seriously
whether, by some tremendous national effort, it is not possible to
expedite the raising of our forces to the very maximum of which the
nation and the Empire are capable. It is not a question of cost: the
cost would be as nothing as compared with the havoc wrought by the
prolongation of the war. If there is anything more that we can do,
we ought, emphatically, to do it. It is our business to see that at
no single point in the conduct of the war are we out-stripped by any
effort the Germans can make.
Now it is a tolerably open secret that we are not to-day getting the
men we shall want before we can bring the war to a conclusion. Why?
When our men read of the utter disregard of the spy question, of the
glaring untruths told by Ministers in the House of Commons, of how we
are providing German barons with valets on prison ships--comfortable
liners, by the way--of the letting loose of German prisoners from
internment camps, and how German officers have actually been allowed,
recently, to depart from Tilbury to Holland to fight against us, is
it any wonder that they hesitate to come forward to do their share?
Let the reader ask himself. Are all Departments of the Government
patriotic? Is it not a fact that the public are daily being misled and
bamboozled? Let the reader examine the evidence and then think.
Now, though no figures as to the progress of recruiting have been
published for some months, it is practically certain that we are still
very far from the three million men we still assuredly require as a
minimum before victory, definite and unmistakable, crowns our effort.
I have not the slightest doubt that before this struggle ends we shall
see practically _the entire male population_ of the country called to
the colours in some capacity, and unfortunately that is an aspect of
the case which is certainly not yet recognised by the democracy as a
whole. We have done much, it is true. We have surprised our friends
and our enemies alike--perhaps we have even surprised ourselves--by
what has been achieved, but on the technical side of the war, under
the tremendous driving energy of Lord Kitchener, amazing progress has
been made in the provision of equipment, and the latest information I
have been able to obtain suggests that before long the early shortage
of guns, rifles, uniforms, and other war material will have been
entirely overcome, and that we shall be experiencing a shortage, not of
supplies--but alas! of men.
That day cannot be far off, and when it dawns the problem of raising
men will assume an urgency of which hitherto we have had no experience.
Up to now we have been content to tolerate the somewhat leisurely drift
of the young men to the colours for the simple reason that we had not
the facilities for training and equipping them. We cannot, and we must
not, tolerate any slackness in the future. The wastage of modern war is
appallingly beyond the average conception, and when our big new armies
take the field, that wastage will rise to stupendous figures. It must
be made good without the slightest delay by constant drafts of new,
fully trained men, and when that demand rises, as it inevitably will,
to a pitch of which we have hitherto had no experience, it will have
to be met. Can it be met by the leisurely methods with which we have
hitherto been content?
I do not think so for a moment, and I am convinced that our responsible
Ministers should at once take the country fully into their confidence
and tell us plainly and unmistakably what the man-in-the-street has
to expect. I have so profound an admiration for the men who have
voluntarily come forward in the hour of their country's need that I
hope, with all my heart, their example will be followed--and followed
quickly--to the full extent of our nation's needs. But I confess
I am not sanguine. The recent strikes in the engineering trade on
the Clyde have gone far to convince me that, even now, a very large
proportion of our industrial classes do not even to-day realise the
real seriousness of the position, for it is incredible that Britons
who understood that we are actually engaged in a struggle for our very
existence should seriously jeopardise and delay, through a miserable
industrial squabble, the supply of war material upon which the safety
of our Empire might depend. The strike on the Clyde was, to me, the
most evil symptom of apathy and lack of all patriotic instincts which
the war has brought forth; it was, to my mind, proof conclusive that
a section at least of our working-classes are entirely dead to the
great national impulse by which, in the past, the British people have
been so profoundly swayed. Is the Government doing enough to rekindle
those impulses? Has it taken the people fully and frankly into its
confidence? Above all, has it made it sufficiently clear to the masses
that we are not getting the men we need, and that unless those men come
forward voluntarily, some method of compulsory selection will become
inevitable?
No, it has not!
We come back to the question in which, I am firmly convinced, lies the
solution of many of our present difficulties--are we being told the
truth about the war? Has the nation had the clear, ringing call to
action that, unquestionably, it needs?
No, it has not!
I shall try to show, in the pages of this modest work, that the
country has not been given the information to which it is plainly
entitled respecting the actual military operations which have been
accomplished. It is certainly not too much to say that the country
has not been really definitely and clearly informed as to the measure
of the effort it will be called upon to make in the future. I am not
in the secrets of the War Office, and it is impossible to say what
the policy of the Government will be, or what trump cards they hold,
ready to play them when the real crisis comes. But there certainly is
an urgent and growing need for very plain speaking. I speak plainly
and without fear. We should like to be assured that the recruiting
problem, upon the solution of which our final success must depend, is
being dealt with on broad, wise, and statesmanlike lines, and that the
Government will shrink from no measure which shall ensure our absolute
military efficiency. I have no doubt that Lord Kitchener has a very
accurate estimate of the total number of men he proposes to put into
the field before the great forward movement begins, of the probable
total wastage, and of the period for which, on the present basis of
recruiting, that wastage can be made good.
The country would welcome some very definite and explicit statement,
either from Mr. Asquith or Lord Kitchener, as to the real position,
and as to whether the Government has absolute confidence that the
requirements of the military authorities can be met under the existing
condition of affairs. The time is, indeed, more than ripe for some
grave and solemn warning to the people if, as I believe, the effort we
have made up to now, great though it has undoubtedly been, has not been
sufficient. We to-day need an authoritative declaration on the subject.
There is far too strong a tendency, fostered by the undue reticence of
the irresponsible Press Bureau and the screeching "victories" of the
newspapers, to believe that things are going as well and smoothly as
we could wish; and though I would strenuously deprecate an attitude of
blank pessimism, the perils which hedge around a fatuous optimism are
very great.
My firm conviction, and I think my readers will share in it, is
that the great mass of public opinion is daily growing more and more
apathetic towards the war, and truly that is not the mental attitude
which will bring us with safety and credit through the tremendous
ordeal which lies before us. The Government is not doing enough to
drive home the fact that greater and still greater efforts will be
required before the spectre of Prussian domination is finally laid to
rest: the country at large, befogged by the newspapers, and sullenly
angry at being kept in the dark to an extent hitherto unheard of, is in
no mood to make the supreme sacrifices upon which final victory must
depend. We are, as a result, not exercising our full strength: we are
not doing enough, and our full strength will not be exerted until the
Government takes the public into its confidence and tells them exactly
what it requires and what it intends to have. That it would gain,
rather than lose, by doing so, I have not the slightest doubt, while
the gain to the world through the throwing into the scale of the solid
weight of a fully aroused Britain would be simply incalculable.
While writing this, came the extraordinarily belated news of the
decision of the Government to declare a strict blockade of the German
coasts. It has been a matter of supreme bewilderment to every student
of the war why this decision was not taken long before. Why should we
have failed for so long to use the very strongest weapon which our
indisputed control of the sea has placed in our hands, is one of those
things which "no fellah can understand." We have been foolish enough
to allow food, cotton, and certain other articles of "conditional
contraband" free access to Germany, and it is beyond question that in
so doing we have enormously prolonged the war. And all this, be it
remembered, at a time when Germany _was violating every law of God and
man_! Assume a reversal of the prevailing conditions: would Germany
have been so foolishly indulgent towards us? Would she have treated us
with more consideration than she showed towards the starving population
of Paris in 1871? The very fact of our long inaction in this respect
adds enormously to the strong suspicion that in other directions we
are not doing as much as we should. Lord Fisher is credited with
the saying, "The essence of war is violence: moderation in war is
imbecility. Hit first, hit hard, hit everywhere."
I think it is safe to say that in more than one direction we have
displayed an imbecility of moderation which has tended to encourage
the Germans in the supreme folly of imagining that they are at liberty
to play fast and loose with the opinion of the civilised world. Our
treatment of German spies and enemy aliens in our midst is a classic
example of our contemptuous tolerance of easily removable perils, just
as much as is our incredible folly in neglecting to make the fullest
use of our magnificent naval resources. Thanks to our tolerance, the
Germans have been freely importing food and cotton, with probably an
enormous quantity of copper smuggled through in the same ships. We
have paid in the blood and lives of our gallant soldiers, husbands,
brothers, lovers, while the Germans have laughed at us--and not without
justice--as a nation of silly dolts and imbeciles. Yet we have tardily
decided upon "retaliatory measures" which we were perfectly entitled to
take the instant war was declared, only under the pressure of Germany's
campaign of murder and piracy at sea! Are we doing enough in other
directions?
Equally belated, and equally calculated to give the impression
that we have been too slow in using our strength, is the attack
upon the Dardanelles. It has long been a mystery why, in view of
the tremendous results involved in such a blow at Germany's deluded
ally, this attack was not made earlier. We do not know, and the
Government do not enlighten us. But the delay has helped to send the
price of bread to famine prices through blocking up the Russian wheat
in the Black Sea ports; it has given the Turks and the Germans time
to enormously strengthen the defences, and has prevented us from
sending to our Russian friends that support in munitions of war of
which they undoubtedly stood in need. There may, of course, have been
good reasons for the delay, but if they exist, they have baffled the
investigation of the most competent military and naval critics. It must
never be forgotten that the reopening of the Dardanelles and the fall
of Constantinople must exercise a far more potent influence on the
progress of the war than, say, the relief of Antwerp--another example
of singularly belated effort! It must, in fact, transform the whole
position of the war and react with fatal effect through Turkey upon
her Allies. Yet the war had been in progress for seven months before a
serious attempt was made at what, directly Turkey joined in the war,
must have been one of the primary objects of the Allies. What added
price, I wonder, shall we be compelled to pay for that inexplicable
delay, not merely in the increased cost of the necessaries of life
at home and the expenses of the war abroad, but in the lives of our
fighting men? For it must not be forgotten that a decisive blow at
Turkey would do much to shorten the duration of the war. It would be a
serious blow at Germany, and would be more than likely to precipitate
the entrance into the struggle, on the side of the Allies, of Italy
and the wavering Balkan States. In hard cash, the war is costing us
nearly a million and a half a day. We have to pay it, sooner or later.
The loss of life is more serious than the loss of wealth, and there
is no doubt that both must be curtailed by any successful operation
against the Turks.
The Army has, beyond question, lost thousands of recruits of the very
best class owing to the parsimony displayed in the matter of making
provision for the dependents of men who join the fighting forces. The
scale originally proposed, it will be remembered, produced an outburst
of indignation, and it was very soon amended in the right direction,
but when all is said and done it operates with amazing injustice.
One of the most striking features of the war has been the splendid
patriotism shown by men who, in social rank, are decidedly above the
average standard of recruits.
Many comparatively rich men have joined the Army as privates, and
the roll descends in the social scale until we come down to the day
labourer. We draw no distinction between the loyalty and devotion of
any of our new soldiers, but it cannot be denied that the working of
the system of separate allowances is exceedingly unfair to the men of
the middle classes.
Financially, the family of the working-man is frequently better off
through the absence of the husband and father at the front than it
has ever been before--sometimes very much better off indeed. I am not
complaining of that. But when we ascend a little in the scale we find
a glaring inequality. The man earning, say, £250 a year, and having
a wife and one child, finds, too often, that the price he has to pay
for patriotism is to leave his family dependent upon the Government
allowance of 17_s._ 6_d._ per week. Is it a matter for wonder that so
many have hesitated to join? Can we praise too highly the patriotism
of those who, even under such circumstances, have answered the call of
duty?
The truth is that the whole system of separation allowances, framed to
meet the necessity of recruits of the ordinary standard, is inelastic
and unsuitable to a campaign which calls, or should call, the entire
nation to arms. It is throwing a great strain on a man's loyalty to ask
him to condemn his wife and family to what, in their circumstances,
amounts to semi-starvation, in order that he may serve his country,
particularly when he sees around him thousands of the young and healthy
at theatres and picture palaces, free from any domestic ties, who
persistently shut their eyes to their country's need, and whom nothing
short of some measure of compulsion would bring into the ranks. I am
not going to suggest that every man who joins the Army should be paid
the salary he could earn in civil life, but I think we are _not doing
nearly enough_ for thousands of well-bred and gently nurtured women who
have given up husbands and brothers in the sacred cause of freedom.
And now I come to perhaps the saddest feature of the war--the case
of the men who will return to England maimed and disabled in their
country's cause. That, for them, is supreme glory, though many of
them would have infinitely preferred giving their lives for their
country. They will come back to us in thousands, the maimed, the
halt, and the blind: pitiful wrecks of glorious manhood, with no hope
before them but to drag out the rest of their years in comparative
or absolute helplessness. Their health and their strength will have
gone; there will be no places for them in the world where men in
full health and strength fight the battle of life in the fields of
commerce and industry. _Are we doing enough_--have we, indeed, begun
to do anything--for these poor victims of war's fury, much more to be
pitied than the gallant men who sleep for ever where they fell on the
battle-fields of France and Belgium?
Too often in the past it has been the shame and the reproach of Britain
that she cast aside, like worn-out garments, the men who have spent
their health and strength in her cause. Have we not heard of Crimean
veterans dying in our workhouses? With all my heart I hope that, after
the war, we shall never again be open to that reproach and shame. We
must see that never again shall a great and wealthy Empire disgrace
itself by condemning its crippled heroes to the undying bitterness
of the workhouse during life, and the ignominy of a pauper's grave
after death. Cost what it may, the future of the unhappy men "broke in
our wars" must be the nation's peculiar care. I do not suggest--they
themselves would not desire it--that all our wounded should become
State pensioners _en masse_ and live out their lives in idleness.
The men who helped to fling back the Kaiser's barbaric hordes in the
terrible struggle at Ypres are not the men who will seek for mere
charity, even when it takes the form of a deserved reward for their
heroic deeds.
Speaking broadly, the State will have the responsibility of caring
for two classes of wounded men--those who are condemned to utter and
lifelong disablement and those who, less seriously crippled, are yet
unable to obtain employment in ordinary commercial or industrial life.
As to the former class, the duty of the State is clear: they must be
suitably maintained for the rest of their lives at the State's charges.
With regard to the second class, I do most sincerely hope that they
will not be thrown into the world with a small wounds pension and left
to sink or swim as fortune and their scattered abilities may dictate.
It is for us to remember that these men have given their health and
strength that we might live in safety and peace, and we shall be
covering ourselves with infamy if we fail to make proper provision for
them.
As I have already said, they do not want charity. They want work, and
I venture to here make an earnest appeal to the public to take up the
cause of these men with all its generous heart. First and foremost,
such of them as are capable should be given absolute preference in
Government and municipal offices, where there are thousands of posts
that can be filled even by men who are partially disabled. Every
employer of labour should make it his special duty to find positions
for as many of these men as possible: there are many places in business
houses that can be quite adequately filled by men of less than ordinary
physical efficiency. Most of all, however, I hope the Government will,
without delay, take up the great task of finding a way of setting
these men to useful work of some kind. In the past much has been done
in this direction by the various private agencies which interest
themselves in the care of discharged soldiers. A war of such magnitude
as the present, however, must bring in its wake a demand for work and
organisation on a scale far beyond private effort; and if the disabled
soldier is to be adequately cared for, only the resources of the State
can be equal to the need.
_Are we doing enough_, I ask again, for the gallant men who have served
us so well? There are those who fear that, comparatively speaking, the
war has only just begun. However this may be, the tale of casualties
and disablement rises day by day at a terrible pace, and there is a
growing need to set on foot an organisation which, when the time comes,
shall be ready to grapple at once with what will perhaps be the most
terrible legacy the war can leave us.
CHAPTER IV
THE PERIL OF THE CENSORSHIP
War brings into discussion many subjects upon which men differ widely
in their opinions, and the present war is no exception to the general
rule.
Amateur and expert alike argue on a thousand disputed points of
tactics, of strategy, and of policy: it has always been so: probably it
will be so for ever. But the censorship imposed by the Government, on
the outbreak of war, has achieved a record.
It has earned the unanimous and unsparing condemnation of everybody.
Men who have agreed on no other point shake hands upon this. For sheer,
blundering ineptitude, for blind inability to appreciate the mind and
temper of our countrymen, in its utter ignorance of the psychological
characteristics of the nation and of the Empire, to say nothing of the
rest of the world, the methods of the censorship, surely, approach very
closely the limits of human capacity for failure.
When I say "the censorship" I mean, of course, the system, speaking in
the broadest sense. It matters nothing whether the chief censor, for
the moment, be, by the circumstance of the day, Mr. F.E. Smith or Sir
Stanley Buckmaster. Both, I make no doubt, have done their difficult
work to the best of their ability, and have been loyally followed, to
the best of their several abilities, by their colleagues. The faults
and failures of the censorship have their roots elsewhere.
Now to avoid, at the outset, any possibility of misunderstanding, I
want to make it absolutely clear that in all the numerous criticisms
that have been levelled at the censorship, objection has been taken not
to the _fact_ that news is censored, but to the _methods_ employed and
to the extent to which the suppression of news has been carried.
I believe that no single newspaper in the British Isles has objected
to the censorship, as such. I am quite sure that the public would very
definitely condemn any demand that the censorship should be abolished.
Much as we all desire to learn the full story of the war, it is obvious
that to permit the indiscriminate publication of any and every story
sent over the wires, would be to make the enemy a present of much
information of almost priceless value. Early and accurate information
is of supreme importance in war time, and certainly no Englishman
worthy of the name would desire that the slightest advantage should be
offered to our country's enemies by the premature publication of news
which, on every military consideration, ought to be kept secret.
This is, unquestionably, the attitude of the great daily newspapers in
London and the provinces, which have been the worst sufferers by the
censor's eccentricities. They realise, quite clearly, the vital and
imperative necessity for the suppression of information which would be
of value to the enemy, and, as a matter of fact, the editors of the
principal journals exercise themselves a private censorship which is
quite rigid, and far more intelligently applied than the veto of the
official bureau. It would surprise a good many people to learn of the
vast amount of information which, by one channel or another, reaches
the offices of the great dailies long before the Press Bureau gives
a sign that it has even heard of the matters in question. The great
retreat from Mons is an excellent instance. It was known perfectly
well, at the time, that the entire British Expeditionary Force was in a
position of the gravest peril, and it is, perhaps, not too much to say
that had the public possessed the same knowledge there would have been
a degree of depression which would have made the "black week" of the
South African War gay and cheerful by comparison, even if there had not
been something very nearly approaching an actual panic.
But the secret was well and loyally kept within the walls of the
newspaper offices, as I, personally, think it should have been: I do
not blame the military authorities in the least for holding back the
fact that the position was one of extreme gravity. Bad news comes soon
enough in every war, and it would be senseless folly to create alarm
by telling people of dangers which, as in this case, may in the end be
averted. The public quarrel with the censorship rests on other, and
totally different, grounds.
That a strict censorship should be exercised over military news which
might prove of value to the enemy will be cheerfully admitted by every
one. We all know, despite official assurances to the contrary, that
German spies are still active in our midst, and, even now, there is--or
at any rate until quite recently there was--little or no difficulty in
sending information from this country to Germany. No one will cavil at
any restrictions necessary to prevent the enemy anticipating our plans
and movements, and if the censorship had not gone beyond this, no one
would have had any reason to complain.
What may perhaps be called the classic instance of the perils of
premature publication occurred during the Franco-Prussian War of
1870-71. In those days there was no censorship, and France, in
consequence, received a lesson so terrible that it is never likely
to be forgotten. It is more than likely, indeed, that it is directly
responsible for the merciless severity of the French censorship to-day.
A French journal published the news that MacMahon had changed the
direction in which his army was marching. The news was telegraphed
to England and published in the papers here. It at once came to the
attention of one of the officials of the German Embassy in London, who,
realising its importance, promptly cabled it to Germany. For Moltke the
news was simply priceless, and the altered dispositions he promptly
made resulted in MacMahon and his entire force capitulating at Metz.
Truly a terrible price to pay for the single indiscretion of a French
newspaper!
It is not to be denied that to some extent certain of the "smarter"
of the British newspapers are responsible for the severity of the
censorship in force to-day. In effect, the censorship of news in this
country dates from the last war in South Africa. Some of the English
journals, in their desire to secure "picture-stories," forgot that the
war correspondent has very great responsibilities quite apart from the
mere purveying of news.
The result was the birth of a war correspondent of an entirely new
type. The older men--the friends of my youth, Forbes, Burleigh, Howard
Russell, and the like--had seen and studied war in many phases: they
knew war, and distinguished with a sure instinct the news that was
permissible as well as interesting, from the news that was interesting
but _not_ permissible. Their work, because of their knowledge, showed
discipline and restraint, and it can be said, broadly, that they wrote
nothing which would advantage the enemy in the slightest degree.
In the war in South Africa we saw a tremendous change. Many of the
men sent out were simply able word-spinners, supremely innocent of
military knowledge, knowing absolutely nothing of military operations,
unable to judge whether a bit of news would be of value to the enemy
or not. Their business was to get "word-pictures"--and they got them.
In doing so they sealed the doom of the war correspondent. The feeble
and inefficient censorship established at Cape Town, for want of
intelligent guidance, did little or nothing to protect the Army, and
the result was that valuable information, published in London, was
promptly telegraphed to the Boer leaders by way of Lourenço Marques.
Many skilfully planned British movements, in consequence, went
hopelessly to pieces, and by the time war was over, Lord Roberts and
military men generally were fully agreed that, when the next war came,
it would be absolutely necessary to establish a censorship of a very
drastic nature.
We see that censorship in operation to-day, but far transcending
its proper function. It was established--or it should have been
established--for the sole purpose of preventing the publication of news
likely to be of value to the enemy. Had it stopped there, no one could
have complained.
I contend that in point of fact it has, throughout the war, operated
not merely to prevent the enemy getting news which it was highly
desirable should be kept from him, but to suppress news which the
British public--the most patriotic and level-headed public in all the
world--has every right to demand. We are not a nation of board-school
children or hysterical girls. Over and over again the British public
has shown that it can bear bad news with fortitude, just as it can
keep its head in victory. Those of us who still remember the terrible
"black week" in South Africa, with its full story of the horror of
defeat at Colenso, Magersfontein, and Stormberg, remember how the only
effect of the disaster was the ominous deepening of the grim British
determination to "see it through": the tightening of the lips and the
hardening of the jaws that meant unshakable resolve; the silent, dour,
British grip on the real essentials of the situation that, once and for
all, settled the fate of Kruger's ambitions.
Are Britons to-day so changed from the Britons of 1899 that they cannot
bear the truth; that they cannot face disaster; that they are indeed
the degenerates they have been labelled by boastful Germans? Perish the
thought! Britain is not decadent; she is to-day as strong and virile
as of old and her sons are proving it daily on the plains of Flanders,
as they proved it when they fought the Kaiser's hordes to a standstill
on the banks of the Marne during the "black week" of last autumn. Why
then _should_ the public be treated as puling infants spoon-fed on tiny
scraps of good news when it is happily available, and left in the bliss
of ignorance when things are not going quite so well?
From November 20th, 1914, up to February 17th, 1915--a period of three
months of intense anxiety and strain--not one single word of news
from the Commander-in-Chief of the greatest Army Britain has ever put
into the field was vouchsafed to the British public. For that, of
course, it is impossible to blame Sir John French. But the bare fact
is sufficient condemnation of the entirely unjustifiable methods of
secrecy with which we are waging a war on which the whole future of
our beloved nation and Empire depends. The public was left to imagine
that the war had reached something approaching a "deadlock." The
ever-mounting tale of casualties showed that, in very truth, there had
been, in that silent period of three months, fighting on a scale to
which this country has been a stranger for a century.
Will any one outside the Government contend that this absurd secrecy
can be justified, either by military necessity or by a well-meant but,
as I think, hopelessly mistaken regard for the feelings of the public?
We are not Germans that it should be necessary to lull us into a
lethargic sleep with stories of imaginary victories, or to refrain
from harrowing our souls when, as must happen in all wars, things
occasionally go wrong.
_We want the truth_, and we are entitled to have it!
I do not say that we have been deliberately told that which is not
true. I believe the authorities can be acquitted of any deliberate
falsification of news. But I do say, without hesitation, that much news
was kept back which the country was entitled to know, and which could
have been made public without the slightest prejudice to our military
position. At the same time, publication has been permitted of wholly
baseless stories, such as that of the great fight at La Bassée, to
which I will allude later, which the authorities must have known to be
unfounded.
It is not for us to criticise the policy of our gallant Allies, the
French. We must leave it to them to decide how much or how little
they will reveal to their own people. I contend, with all my heart,
that the British public should not have been fobbed off with the
studiously-guarded French official report, with its meaningless--so
far as the general public is concerned--daily recital of the capture
or loss of a trench here and there, or with the chatty disquisitions
of our amiable "Eye-Witness" at the British Headquarters, who manages
to convey the minimum of real information in the maximum of words. It
is highly interesting, I admit, to learn of that heroic soldier who
brained four Germans "on his own" with a shovel; it is very interesting
to read of the "nut" making his happy and elaborate war-time toilet
in the open air; and we are glad to hear all about German prisoners
lamenting the lack of food. But these things, and countless others of
which "Eye-Witness" has told us, are not the root of the matter. We
want the true story of the campaign, and the plain fact is that we do
not get it, and no one pretends that we get it.
Cheerful confidence is an excellent thing in war, as well as in all
other human undertakings. Blind optimism is a foolhardy absurdity;
blank pessimism is about as dangerous a frame of mind as can be
conceived. I am not quite sure, in my own mind, whether the methods of
the censorship are best calculated to promote dangerous optimism, or
the reverse, but I am perfectly certain that they are not calculated
to evoke that calm courage and iron resolve, in the face of known
perils, which is the best augury of victory in the long run. Probably
they produce a result varying according to the temperament of the
individual. One day you meet a man in the club who assures you that
everything is going well and that we have the Germans "in our pocket."
That is the foolishness of optimism, produced by the story of success
and the suppression of disagreeable truths.
Twenty-four hours later you meet a gloomy individual who assures you we
are no nearer beating the Germans than we were three months ago. That
is the depths of pessimism. Both frames of mind are derived from the
"official news" which the Government thinks fit to issue.
Here and there, if you are lucky, you meet the man who realises that we
are up against the biggest job the Empire has ever tackled, and that,
if we are to win through, the country must be plainly told the facts
and plainly warned that it is necessary to make the most strenuous
exertions of which we are capable. That is the man who forms his
opinions not from the practically worthless official news, but from
independent study of the whole gigantic problem. And that is the only
frame of mind which will enable us to win this war. It is a frame of
mind which the official news vouchsafed to us is not, in the least
degree, calculated to produce.
In the prosecution of a war of such magnitude as the present unhappy
conflict the public feeling of a truly democratic country such as ours
is of supreme importance. It is, in fact, the most valuable asset of
the military authorities, and it is a condition precedent for success
that the nation shall be frankly told the truth, so far as it can be
told without damage to our military interests.
Mr. Bonar Law, in the House of Commons, put the case in a nutshell when
he said that--
"He had felt, from the beginning of the war, that as much information
was not being given as might be given without damage to national
interests. Nothing could be worse for the country than to do what the
Japanese did--conceal disasters until the end of the war. He did not
say that there had been any concealment, but the one thing necessary
was to let the people of this and other countries feel that our
official news was true, and could be relied upon. He wondered whether
the House realised what a tremendous event the battle of Ypres, in
November, was. The British losses there, he thought, were bigger than
any battle in which purely English troops were engaged. It was a
terrible fight, against overwhelming odds, out of which British troops
came with tremendous honour. All the account they had had was Sir
John French's despatch. Surely the country could have more than that.
Whoever was in charge, when weighing the possible damage which might
be brought about by the giving of news, should also bear in mind the
great necessity for keeping people in this country as well informed as
possible."
That, I venture to think, is a perfectly fair and legitimate criticism.
The battle of Ypres was fought in November. Mr. Law was speaking in
February. Who can say what the country would have gained in recruiting,
in strength of determination, in everything that goes to make up the
_morale_ so necessary for the vigorous conduct of a great campaign, had
it been given, at once, an adequate description of the "terrible fight
against overwhelming odds" out of which the British Thomas Atkins came
with so much honour?
The military critics of our newspapers have, perhaps, been one of
the greatest failures of the entire campaign. One of them, on the
day before Namur fell, assured us that the place could hold out for
three months. Another asserted that the Russians would be in Berlin by
September 10th. Another, just before the Germans drove the Russians for
the second time out of East Prussia, declared that Russia's campaign
was virtually ended! Besides, all the so-called "histories" of the
war published have been utter failures. Personally, I do not think the
nation is greatly perturbed, at the present moment, about the conduct
of the actual military operations. No one is a politician to-day,
and there is every desire, happily, to support the Government in any
measure necessary to bring the war to a conclusion. We have not the
materials, even if it were desirable, to criticise the conduct or write
the history of the war, and we have no wish to do so. But we desire to
learn, and we have the _right_ to learn, the facts.
It has always been an unhappy characteristic of the military mind
that it has been quite unable, perhaps unwilling, to appreciate the
mentality of the mere civilian who only has to pay the bill, and look
as pleasant as possible under the ordeal. And I suspect, very strongly,
that it is just this feeling which lies at the root of a good deal of
what we have had to endure under the censorship. In its essence, the
censorship is a military precaution, perfectly proper and praiseworthy,
but only if applied according to the real needs of the situation.
Quite properly the military mind is impatient of the intrusion of the
civilian in purely military affairs, and I have no doubt whatever that
that fact explains the gratifying presence--in defiance of our long
usage and to the annoyance of a certain type of politician--of Lord
Kitchener at the War Office to-day. But military domination of the
war situation, however admirable from the military point of view, has
failed to take into sufficient account the purely civilian interest in
the progress of the war and the extent to which the military arm must
rely upon the civilian in carrying the war to a successful conclusion.
Our military organisation, rightly or wrongly, is based upon the
voluntary system. We cannot, under present conditions, obtain, as the
conscriptionist countries do, the recruits we require merely by calling
to the Colours, with a stroke of the pen, men who are liable for
service. We have to request, to persuade, to advertise, and to lead men
to see their duty and to do it. To enable us to do this satisfactorily,
public opinion must be kept well informed, must be stimulated by a
knowledge of the real situation. When war broke out, and volunteers
were called for, a tremendous wave of enthusiasm swept over the
country. The recruiting organisation broke down, and, as I have pointed
out, the Government found themselves with more men on their hands than
they could possibly train or equip at the moment. Instead of taking
men's names, telling them the exact facts, and sending them home to
wait till they could be called for, the War Office _raised the physical
standard for recruits_, and this dealt a blow at popular enthusiasm
from which it has never recovered. Recruiting dropped to an alarming
degree, and, so recently as February, Mr. Tennant, in the House of
Commons, despite the efforts that had been made in the meantime, was
forced to drop a pretty strong hint that "a little more energy" was
advisable.
Now the connection between the manner in which the recruiting question
was handled, and the general methods adopted by the censorship, is
a good deal closer than might be imagined at first sight. Both show
the same utter failure on the part of the military authorities to
appreciate the psychology of the civilian. Psychology, the science of
the public opinion of the nation, must, in any democratic country,
play a very large part in the successful conduct of a great war; and
in sympathetic understanding of the temper of the masses, our military
authorities, alike in regard to the censorship and recruiting question,
have been entirely outclassed by the autocratic officials of Germany. I
do not advocate German methods. The gospel of hate and lies--which has
kept German people at fever-heat--would fail entirely here. We need no
"Hymns of Hate" or lying bulletins to induce Britons to do their duty
if the needs of the situation are thoroughly brought home to them.
But we have to face this disquieting fact, that, whatever the methods
employed, the German people to-day are far more enthusiastic and
determined in their prosecution of the war than we are.
That is a plain and unmistakable truth. I do not believe the great mass
of the British public realises, even to-day, vitally and urgently, the
immense gravity of the situation, and for that I blame the narrow and
pedantic views that have kept the country in comparative ignorance of
the real facts of the situation.
We have been at war for eight months and we have not yet got the men
we require. Recruits have come forward in large numbers, it is true,
and are still coming forward. But there is a very distinct lack of
that splendid and enduring enthusiasm which a true realisation of the
facts would inevitably evoke. Priceless opportunities for stimulating
that enthusiasm have been, all along, lost by the persistent refusal to
allow the full story of British heroism and devotion to be told.
We can take the battle of Ypres as a single outstanding example. The
full story of that great fight would have done more for recruiting in a
week than all the displayed advertisements and elaborate placards with
which our walls are so profusely adorned could achieve in a month!
Sir John French's despatch, as a military record, bears the hall-mark
of military genius, but it is idle to pretend that it is a literary
document calculated to stir the blood and fire the imagination of our
countrymen. Admirable in its firm restraint from the military point of
view, it takes no account of the civilian imagination. That is not Sir
John French's business. He is a great soldier, and it is no reproach to
him that his despatch is not exactly what is required by the urgency
of the situation. Moreover, it came too late to exercise its full
effect. Had the story of Ypres been given to the public promptly, and
in the form in which it would have been cast by a graphic writer who
understood the subject with which he was dealing and the public for
whom he was writing, we should probably have been better off to-day
by thousands and thousands of the much-needed recruits. The failure
to take advantage of such a glorious opportunity for the stimulation
of enthusiasm by purely legitimate means, convicts our censorship
authorities of a total failure to appreciate the mentality of the
public whose supposed interests they serve.
And as with successes, so with failures. It is the peculiar
characteristic of the British people that either a great victory or
a great disaster has the immediate result of nerving them to fuller
efforts. We saw that in South Africa: it has been seen a hundred
times in our long history. Let us turn for a moment to the affair at
Givenchy on December 20th. Sir John French's despatch makes it clear
that the repulse of the Indian Division on that occasion was a very
serious matter, so serious, in fact, that it required the full effort
of the entire First Division, under Sir Douglas Haig, to restore the
position. Yet, at the time, the British public was very far from fully
informed of what had happened: much of our information, indeed, was
derived from German sources; and these sources being naturally suspect,
the magnitude of the operations was never realised.
There may have been excellent military reasons for concealing, for the
moment, the real position, though I strongly suspect that the Germans
were quite as well informed about it as we were. But there could be no
possible reason for concealing the fact from the public for a couple of
months, and thus losing another opportunity of powerfully stimulating
our national patriotism and determination.
CHAPTER V
THE PERIL OF THE PRESS BUREAU
It is one of the curses of our Parliamentary system that every piece of
criticism is immediately ascribed to either party or personal motives,
and politicians whose conduct or methods are impugned, for whatever
reason, promptly assume, and try to make others believe, that their
opponents are actuated by the usual party or personal methods.
At the present moment, happily, we have, for the first time within our
memory, no politics; the nation stands as one man in its resolve to
make an end of the Teutonic aggression against the peace of the world.
In the recent discussion in the House of Commons, however, Sir Stanley
Buckmaster, head of the Press Bureau, upon whom has fallen the rather
ruffled and uncomfortable mantle discarded by Mr. F.E. Smith, seems
to have interpreted the very unanimous criticism of the censorship as
a personal attack upon himself. As a brilliant lawyer, of course he
had no difficulty in making a brilliant reply to a fallacy originated
entirely in his own brain.
In very truth the personality of Sir Stanley Buckmaster concerns us
not at all. He is a loyal Englishman. He does not originate the news
which the Press Bureau deals out with such belated parsimony. No one
blames him for the fact that the nation is kept so completely in the
dark on the subject of the war. If it were possible for Sir Stanley
Buckmaster, personally, to censor every piece of news submitted to the
Press Bureau, there would, I venture to think, be a speedy end to the
system--or want of system--which permits an item of intelligence to be
published in Edinburgh or Liverpool, but not in London; and that the
speeches of Cabinet Ministers, reported in our papers verbatim, would
be allowed free passage to the United States or to the Colonies. I wish
here to do the head of the Press Bureau the justice to say that he is
an Englishman who knows his own mind, and has the courage of his own
convictions. Yet that does not alter the fact that the Press censorship
as a system has worked unevenly, with very little apparent method, and
with an amazing disregard of the best foreign and colonial opinion
which, all along, it has been our interest to keep fully informed of
the British side of the case.
When the subject was last before the House of Commons, some very
caustic things were said. Mr. Joseph King, the Radical member for North
Somerset, moved, and Sir William Byles, the Radical member for North
Salford, seconded, the following rather terse motion:
"That the action of the Press Bureau in restricting the freedom of the
Press, and in withholding information about the war, has been actuated
by no clear principle and has been calculated to cause suspicion and
discontent."
Now it will be noted that there is, in the first place, no possibility
of attributing this motion to political hostility. Both the mover
and the seconder are supporters of the Government, not merely at the
present moment, as of course all Englishmen are, but in the ordinary
course of nightly political warfare. Mr. King did not mince matters.
He roundly charged the Press Bureau with exercising inequality,
particularly in denying the publication in London of news permitted
to be published in the provinces and on the Continent. He pressed,
too, for the issue of an official statement two or three times a week.
This, of course, has since been granted, and it is a very decided
improvement. Mr. Joynson-Hicks, from the Conservative benches, very
truly emphasised the fact that the people of this country want the
truth, even if it meant bad news, and added that they also wanted to
hear about the heroism of our troops and the valorous deeds of any
individual regiments.
Sir Stanley Buckmaster, in reply, denied somewhat vehemently that he
had ever withheld, for five minutes, any information he had about the
war, and asserted that nothing had ever been issued from his office
that was not literally and absolutely true.
Now, as I have said, Sir Stanley Buckmaster's hide-bound department
does not originate news, and cannot be held responsible for either
the fullness or the accuracy of the official statements. When Sir
Stanley Buckmaster tells us that he has _never delayed_ news I accept
his word without demur. But when he says nothing has been issued from
his department which is not "literally and absolutely true," then I
ask him what he means by "literally and absolutely true"? If he means
that the news which his department has issued has contained no actual
misstatements on a point of fact, I believe his claim to be fully
justified. If he means, on the other hand, that the Press Bureau, or
those behind it, have told the nation the whole truth, he makes an
assertion which the nation with its gritted teeth to-day will decline,
and with very good reason, to accept. To quote Mr. Bonar Law's words
again: "from the beginning of the war as much information has not been
given as might have been given without damage to national interests."
To such full information as may be given without damage to national
interests the nation is entitled, and no amount of official sophistry
and hair-splitting can alter that plain and demonstrable fact.
Mr. King, in the resolution I have quoted, charged the head of the
Bureau with exercising inequality as between different newspapers. Now
this amounts to a charge of deliberate unfairness which it is very
difficult indeed to accept. The House of Commons, in fact, did not
accept it. None the less, the fact remains that not once or twice, but
over and over again, news has been allowed publication in one paper and
refused in another, not merely as between London and the provinces, but
as between London newspapers which are, necessarily, keen rivals. In
support of this assertion I will quote one of the strongest supporters
of the Government among the London newspapers--the _Daily Chronicle_.
There will be no question of political partisanship about this.
After quoting the views of the _Times_ and two Liberal papers--the
_Star_ and the _Westminster Gazette_--the _Daily Chronicle_ said:
"The methods of the Censor are, certainly, a little difficult to
understand. There reached this office yesterday afternoon, from our
correspondent at South Shields, a long story of the sinking of vessels
in the North Sea. It was submitted to us by the Censor, who made a
number of excisions in it. The telegram was returned to us with the
following note by our representative at the Press Bureau:
"'The Censor particularly requests that South Shields be not
mentioned, though we can state "from our East Coast correspondent."'
"In the meantime the evening newspapers appeared with accounts of some
occurrences in which most of the deletions made by the Censor in the
_Daily Chronicle_ report _were given_! The Censor made the following
remarks and excisions in the 'copy' submitted to him by the _Daily
Chronicle_ representative at the Press Bureau:
Excisions in "Daily Where the Forbidden Passages
Chronicle" Report Appeared
"Please do not mention Shields occurred in the reports
that this came from South in the _Star_ (three times),
Shields." (Note by the _Evening News_ (once), _Pall Mall
Censor.) Gazette_ (three times), _Globe_
(three times), _Evening Standard_
(three times), _Westminister
Gazette_ (once).
"Within twenty miles of _Star_ report stated: "The
the mouth of Shields harbour"-- trawler was sunk thirty miles
(passage eliminated). E.N.E. of the Tyne."
"Landed a cargo of fish This identical phrase, or its
at Grimsby." ("At Grimsby" effect, appeared in the _Star_,
was eliminated.) _Pall Mall Gazette_, _Globe_,
_Evening Standard_, _Westminister
Gazette_.
"Landed by North The North Shields trawler
Shields fishing steamer." was mentioned by the _Star_,
("North Shields" eliminated.) _Pall Mall Gazette_, _Globe_,
_Evening Standard_.
"Bound for Blyth." This phrase appeared in the
("Blyth" eliminated.) _Star_, _Pall Mall Gazette_,
_Globe_, and _Evening Standard_.
* * * * *
From the _Daily Chronicle_ A Central News telegram
Special Correspondent. from Paris ran as follows
(passed by Cable Censor):
_Paris, August 27th._ _Paris, Thursday_
The Ministry of War The following official
issued this afternoon the communiqué is issued to the Press
following note: "In the at 2.15 this afternoon: "In
region between----" (here the region between the Vosges
the Censor has cut out a and Nancy our troops continue
short passage) "our troops to progress."
continue to progress."
"Thus we were free to mention the offending passage on the
authority of the Central News Agency, but not on that of 'our own
correspondent'! What can be more ridiculous than this?"
The importance of the last portion of the _Daily Chronicle_ article
lies in the fact that we have here a clear case of mutilation of the
French _official_ despatch, which the French papers even were free to
publish!
The _Daily Chronicle_ also mentioned another case in which its special
correspondent in Paris sent a long despatch giving, on the authority of
M. Clemenceau, a statement published in Paris, that the 15th Army Corps
gave way in a moment of panic. The Censor refused permission to publish
it, but another journal published a quotation under the heading:
"French Soldiers who wavered: Officers and Men punished by Death."
I ought, in fairness, to say, in passing, that the instances quoted
above took place before Sir Stanley Buckmaster assumed control of the
Press Bureau, and that no responsibility attaches to him in respect of
any of them.
Now, bad as has been the effect of the censorship on public opinion at
home, it has been even worse abroad, and particularly in the United
States, where the German propaganda had full play, while the British
case was sternly withheld. The American Press has not hesitated to say
that our censors were incompetent and discriminated unfairly between
one paper and another. This was untrue in the sense in which it was
meant, but it was certainly unfortunate, to put it mildly, that the
news of the declaration of war was allowed to be issued by one New York
journal, and withheld for seven hours from the Associated Press, which
represents 9,000 American and Canadian newspapers. It was, perhaps,
still more unfortunate that even the speeches of Mr. Asquith and Sir
Edward Grey on the subject of the declaration of war should have been
similarly delayed. Why? Telegraphic reports of these speeches were
held up for _four days_ by the censors at cable offices and were then
"censored" before they were despatched. I ask, could mischievous and
bungling stupidity go farther than this?
Here is another case. In one of his speeches, Mr. Asquith, on a Friday
night in Dublin, announced that the Indian troops were, that day,
landing at Marseilles. The speech, and the statement, were reported
next day in the London newspapers. _After_ the publication of this, the
Press Bureau forbade any mention of the _landing_ of the Indian troops!
In the House of Commons, on September 10th, Mr. Sherwell exposed
another instance of the ridiculous vagaries of the unequal censorship.
In the _Daily Chronicle_, he said, there was published a brilliant
article by Mr. Philip Gibbs--who was with me during the first Balkan
campaign--describing the actual operations of Sir John French's army
up to the last few days. That article was published without comment
and without criticism in the _Daily Chronicle_, yet the cable censor
refused to allow it to be sent to the _New York Times_. Again why?
It is, or should be, the function of the Press Bureau not merely to
supply the public with accurate news, but to make sure that false
or misleading reports are promptly suppressed. The reason for this
is obvious. We do not wish to be depressed by unfounded stories of
disaster, nor do we wish to experience the inevitable reaction which
follows when we learn that we have been deluded by false news of a
great victory. Whatever may be the _raison d'être_ of the Press
Bureau, it is assuredly not maintained for the purpose of assisting in
the circulation of utterly futile fiction about the progress of the
campaign.
Again: _Are we told the truth?_
Early in January a report--passed of course by the Censor--appeared in
practically every newspaper in the country, and probably in thousands
of papers in all parts of the British Empire, announcing the capture by
the British troops of a very important German position at La Bassée.
The engagement was described as a brilliant one, in which the enemy
lost heavily; circumstantial details were added, and on the face of it
the news bore every indication of being based on trustworthy reports
from the fighting line. It is true that it was not official, but the
circumstances made it so important that, inasmuch as it had been passed
by the Censor, it was naturally assumed by every newspaper editor to be
accurate. A few days later every one was amazed to learn, from official
sources, that there was not a word of truth in the whole story! Yet the
Censor had actually passed it for publication. And so the public pay
their halfpennies to be gulled!
I say, without hesitation, that this incident casts the very gravest
reflection on the discretion and efficiency of the whole censorship.
To permit the publication of an utterly baseless story of this nature,
is simply to assist in hoaxing the public and the crying of false
news. We await the next hoax. We may have it to-morrow. Who knows? The
Censors in the matter are on the threshold of a dilemma. If the story
in question were true, it ought to have been published on official
authority without delay: as it was untrue, its publication should have
on no account been permitted.
Consider the circumstances. Sir John French, on November 20th, stated
that throughout the battle of Ypres-Armentières, the position at La
Bassée had defied all efforts at capture, and naturally the most
intense anxiety had been felt for news of a definite success in this
region. Yet the public, after hearing, by official sanction, the news
of a success which would clearly have resulted in the Germans being
driven pell-mell out of La Bassée, were calmly told, a few days later,
that the entire story was a lie. To my mind, and I think the reader
will agree with me, we could have no stronger illustration of the utter
futilities and farcical eccentricities of the censorship as it to-day
exists. Are we told the truth about the war? No, I declare--_We are
not!_
I will go a step farther. The suppression of news by the censorship is
bad enough, but what are we to think of a deliberate attempt to stifle
perfectly legitimate criticisms of Ministers and their methods?
As those who read these pages are aware, I have taken a prominent part
in the effort to bring home to the public the dire peril to which we
are exposed through the presence in our midst of hordes of uncontrolled
enemy aliens. I deal with this subject elsewhere, and I should not
mention it here except that it is connected in a very special way with
an attempt on the part of the Press Bureau to stifle public discussion
on a matter of the gravest importance.
The _Globe_ newspaper has, with commendable patriotism, devoted much
attention to the question of the presence of alien spies in our midst,
and, on many occasions, its correspondence and editorial columns have
contained valuable information and comments. On September 10th last
the _Globe_ published the following letter:
"Press Bureau,
"40, Charing Cross.
"_September 7th, 1914._
"Dear Sir,
"Mr. F.E. Smith desires me to draw your attention to a letter headed
'A German's Outburst,' which appeared in your issue of the 2nd
instant, and a facsimile of which appeared in your issue of the 4th
instant. This letter has received the notice of the Home Secretary,
who expresses the view that 'the articles and letters in the _Globe_
are causing something in the nature of a panic in the matter of spies'
and desires that they should be suppressed at once. In view of this
expression of opinion by the Home Secretary, Mr. Smith has no doubt
that you will refrain, in the future, from publishing articles or
letters of a similar description.
"Yours very truly,
"Harold Smith, _Secretary_."
Very properly, the _Globe_ pointed out that, in this matter, "nothing
less is at stake than the liberty of the Press to defend the public
interest and criticise the administrative acts of a Minister of the
Crown." The unwarrantable attempt of the Home Secretary, through the
Press Bureau, to suppress criticism of this nature, to stop the mouths
of those who insisted on warning the public of a peril which he has,
all along, blindly refused to see, raises a constitutional issue of the
very gravest kind. The _Globe_ promptly asked the Press Bureau under
what authority it claimed the "power to suppress the free expression
of opinion in the English press on subjects wholly unconnected with
military or naval movements." Mr. Harold Smith's reply was the amazing
assertion that such powers were conferred by the Defence of the Realm
Acts. He wrote:
"Press Bureau,
"40, Charing Cross.
"_September 8th, 1914._
"Dear Sir,
"I am instructed by Mr. F.E. Smith to acknowledge your letter of
to-day's date. On Mr. Smith's direction, I wrote you a letter, which,
on re-reading, you will perceive was intended to convey to you the
opinion of the Home Office, rather than an expressed intention
of censorship in this Bureau. You will, of course, use your own
discretion in the matter, but Mr. Smith thinks that a consideration
of the terms of the Defence of the Realm Acts (Nos. 1 and 2), and the
regulations made thereunder, will satisfy you that the Secretary of
State is not without the legal powers necessary to make his desire for
supervision effective.
"Yours faithfully,
"Harold Smith, _Secretary_."
This reads very much like a threat to try the editor of the _Globe_
by court-martial for the heinous offence of suggesting that Mr.
McKenna's handling of the spy-peril was not exactly what was required
by the exigencies of the public safety. I must say that when I read
the correspondence I was inclined to tremble for my own head! So
far, however, it is still safe upon my shoulders. I, as a patriotic
Englishman who has dared to speak his mind, have no intention of
desisting--even at the risk of being court-martialled--from the efforts
I have continued for so long to arouse my countrymen to a realisation
of the dangers to which we are exposed by the obstinate refusal of the
Government to face facts.
The privilege of the Press to criticise Ministers was boldly asserted
by the _Globe_, which, in a leading article, said:
"That correspondence ... raises issues directly affecting the
independence of the Press and its right to frank and unfettered
criticism. At the time when we are receiving from our ever-increasing
circle of readers many gratifying tributes to the sanity of our
views, and the informing character of our columns, we are accused of
publishing matter calculated to induce panic, and we have been called
upon to suppress at once the articles and letters directing attention
to the dangers arising from the lax methods of the Home Secretary in
dealing with the alien enemy in our midst."
After referring to a statement made by Mr. McKenna in the House of
Commons the previous day as likely "to do something to allay public
anxiety" on the subject, the _Globe_ proceeded:
"We are content with the knowledge that the attitude of the _Globe_
has done something to convince the Government of the widespread
feeling that the danger from the alien enemy we harbour is real, and
the fear justified. Here we should be content to leave the question
for the present, but for the attitude of the Home Secretary in seeking
to prevent comment and criticism on his administrative acts, coupled
with the veiled suggestion from the Press Bureau of power possessed
under an Emergency Act. This attempt at pressure is made through a
department set up for quite other and legitimate purposes.... If a
Government Department, under cover of an Order in Council made for a
wholly different purpose, is to shield itself from an exposure of its
inefficiency, a dangerous precedent is set up, dangerous alike to the
community and the Press."
We have to bear in mind, in this connection, that the Press Bureau
had just been reorganised. Mr. F. E. Smith had resigned, on leaving
for the front, and _the Home Secretary was the Minister responsible
to Parliament for its conduct_. At his request the Press Bureau
endeavoured to prevent the _Globe_ continuing to criticise his action,
or rather inaction. Well indeed might the _Globe_ say: "We must reserve
to ourselves the right, at all times, to give expression to views on
Ministerial policy and even to dare to criticise the action of the Home
Secretary." And I venture to say that, but for the jealousy inherent
among British newspapers, the _Globe_ would have had the unanimous
support of every metropolitan and provincial journal, every single one
of which was vitally affected by the Home Secretary's preposterous
claim.
The claim of the country for fuller information has been expressed in
many ways, and by many people, and it has been admitted by no less a
personage than Mr. Asquith himself. In the House of Commons early in
September Mr. Asquith said the Government felt "that the public is
entitled to prompt and authentic information of what has happened at
the front, and they are making arrangements which they hope will be
more adequate."
That was months ago, and, up to the present, very few signs of the
"prompt and authentic information" have been perceptible.
Even more significant is the following passage from the latest
despatches of Sir John French, which covered the period from November
20th to the beginning of February:
"I regard it as most unfortunate that circumstances have prevented
any account of many splendid instances of courage and endurance, in
the face of almost unparalleled hardship and fatigue of war, coming
regularly to the knowledge of the public."
Now I do not want to read into Sir John French's words a meaning that
he did not intend to convey, but this passage certainly strikes me, as
it has struck many others, as a very definite plea for the presence at
the front of duly accredited and responsible war correspondents.
And why not? News could be still censored so that no information of
value could reach the enemy. We should not be prejudiced one iota, but,
on the other hand, should get prompt and trustworthy news, written by
skilled journalists in a fashion that would make an irresistible appeal
to the manhood of Britain. And we should be far nearer than we are
to-day to learning "the truth about the war."
It has been urged, on behalf of the Press Bureau, that of late
matters have been very much improved. My journalistic friends tell
me that so far as the actual working is concerned this is a fact.
There has undoubtedly been less of the haphazard methods which were
characteristic of the early days. But there is still too much of what
the _Times_ very properly calls the "throttling" of permissible news,
and, in spite of the fact that two despatches a week are now published
from Sir John French, we are still in the dark as to the _real_ story
of the great campaign. Neither our successes nor our failures are
adequately described. We are still not told "the truth about the war."
And I cannot help saying that the deficiencies of the official
information are not made up by the tactics of certain sections of
the Press. There is too much of a tendency to magnify the good
and minimise the bad. There are too many "Great Victories" to be
altogether convincing. As the _Morning Post_ put it:
"There seems to be a large section of the public which takes its news
as an old charwoman takes her penn'orth of gin, 'for comfort.' And
some of our contemporaries seem to cater for this little weakness.
Every day there is a 'great advance' or a 'brilliant victory,' and
if a corporal's guard is captured or surrenders we have a flaming
announcement on all the posters."
It is very true. From the fiercest critics of the Press Bureau's
methods we do not to-day get "the truth about the war," even so far as
they know it. Even the _Daily News_ has been moved to raise a protest
against the present state of affairs, and as recently as March 15th
declared that the mind of authority "is being fed on selected facts
that convey a wholly false impression of things."
CHAPTER VI
THE PERIL OF THE ENEMY ALIEN
"_Every enemy alien is known, and is now under constant police
surveillance._"--Mr. Tennant, Under-Secretary for War, in the House of
Commons, March 3rd.
One of the gravest perils with which the country is still faced is that
of the enemy alien.
Notwithstanding all that has been written and said upon this most
serious question, Ministers are still content to pursue a shuttlecock
policy, in which there is very little satisfaction for any intelligent
patriot.
Each time the subject is brought up in the House of Commons there is
an apparent intention of the Government to wilfully throw dust into
the eyes of the public, and prevent the whole mystery of the official
protection afforded to our enemies being sifted to the bottom. A
disgraceful illustration of this was given on March 3rd, when Mr.
Joynson-Hicks moved:
"That in the opinion of this House it is desirable that the whole
administration of the Acts and Regulations concerning aliens and
suspected persons should be centred in the hands of one Minister, who
should be responsible to the House."
The debate which followed was illuminating. Sir Henry Dalziel, who
is strongly in favour of a Central Board to deal with spies among
us--a suggestion I made in my recent book "German Spies in England,"
as a satisfactory solution of the problem--said, in the course of a
splendid speech, that the Government knew that, at the present moment,
there was a settled spy-system, and there was no use denying it. As
the _Daily Telegraph_ on the following day pointed out, that there is
such a system is almost as natural an assumption as that the enemy
possesses an army service organisation or a Press censorship. I have
already pointed out, in various books I have written, that systematic
espionage is, and has been for many years, a most cherished part of
German war administration, developed with characteristic thoroughness.
The question is whether that department of the enemy's activity has, or
has not, been stamped out as regards this country; and it would be idle
to pretend that there is any public confidence that it has been stamped
out.
There is an absence of vigour and an absence of system about the
dealing with this source of danger, and I maintain that the national
safety requires the taking of this matter more seriously, and the
placing of it upon a satisfactory footing. The Government admitted
that, on March 3rd, _seven hundred male enemy aliens_ were living in
the East Coast prohibited area, and we know that arrangements for their
control are so futile as to leave, quite unmolested, some individuals
whose known connections expose them to the highest degree of suspicion.
Of one such notorious case, Mr. Bonar Law--who cannot, surely, be
accused of spy-mania--declared that he would as soon have allowed a
German army to land as allow the person in question to be at large in
this country. How the arrangement has worked in another particular
case was exposed in some detail by Mr. Butcher. The lady concerned is
closely related to more than one of those in power in Germany. Her
case was reported to the War Office. The War Office called upon the
General Officer commanding in the Northern District to take action. He
requested the police to make inquiries, and the Chief Constable of the
East Riding subsequently reported, "strongly recommending" the removal
of the lady from the prohibited area. The General accepted this advice,
and an order was made for her removal on January 25th. It was never
executed; and on February 7th it was withdrawn.
Such is one illustration of the utter hopelessness of the present state
of affairs. And yet, in face of it, Mr. Tennant, Under-Secretary for
War, actually rose and made the definite assertion _that every enemy
alien was known and constantly watched_!
Could any greater and more glaring official untruth be told?
Is every enemy alien known, I ask? Let us examine a case in point, one
in which I have made personal investigation, and to the truth of which
a dozen officers of His Majesty's service, and also civilians, are
ready to testify.
Investigations recently made in certain German quarters in London,
notably in the obscure foreign restaurants in the neighbourhood of
Tottenham Court Road, where men--many of them recently released from
internment-camps--and women meet nightly and toast to the Day of
Britain's destruction, revealed to me a startling fact. Here, posing
as an Italian and a neutral, I learnt facts regarding the movements
of German aircraft long before they were known either to our own
authorities or to the Press. For several weeks this fact, I confess,
caused me considerable thought. Some secret means of communication
must, I realised, exist between the enemy's camp and London, perhaps by
wireless, perhaps by the new German-laid cable, the shore-end of which
is at Bacton, in Norfolk, and which, eighteen months ago, in company
with the German telegraph-engineers, I assisted to test as it was laid
across the North Sea to Nordeney. In the archives of the Intelligence
Department of the War Office will be found my report, together with a
copy of the first message transmitted by the new cable from Norfolk to
Germany, a telegram from one of the Kaiser's sons who happened to be in
Scotland at the time, and addressed to the Emperor, which read: "Hurrah
for a strong navy!"--significant indeed in the light of recent events!
I was wondering if, by any secret means, this cable could be in
operation when, on the afternoon of February 23rd, an officer of the
Naval Armoured Car Squadron called upon me and invited me to assist in
hunting spies in Surrey. The suggestion sounded exciting. Signals had
been seen for a month or so past, flashed from a certain house high
upon the Surrey hills. Would I assist in locating them, and prosecuting
a full inquiry?
Within half an hour I was in a car speeding towards the point where
mystery brooded, and which we did not reach till after dark. A
gentleman living three miles across the valley, whose house commanded
full view of the house under suspicion--a large one with extensive
grounds--at once placed a room at our disposal, wherein we sat and
watched. In the whole of these investigations I was assisted by an
officer who was an expert in signalling and wireless, a signaller of
the service, two other officers equally expert in reading the Morse
code, while I myself have qualified both in Morse and wireless, and
hold the Postmaster-General's licence.
On the previous evening an all-night vigil had been kept, and messages
had been read, but I only here record my own experiences of this
exciting spy-hunt. On reaching our point of vantage I learned that
suspicion had first been aroused by a mysterious and intense white
light being shown from a window in the country mansion in question,
which was situated upon so strategic a point that it could be seen very
many miles in the direction of London. And there, sure enough, was the
one brilliant light--at all other windows of the house the blinds being
drawn--shining like a beacon all over the country. It had shone first
at 6.30 p.m. that night, and, as I watched, it showed till 6.48, when
it disappeared. After three minutes it was shown till 7.30 exactly,
when suddenly it signalled in Morse the code-letters "S.M." repeated
twice, and then disappeared till 9 o'clock, when again the same signal
was made. The light remained full on for ten minutes, and was then
suddenly switched off.
This was certainly remarkable. The officers with me--all experts in
signalling--were unanimous as to the two letters, and also to their
repetition. These signals, I learned, had been seen times without
number, but until the smart young officer who had called upon me had
noticed them, no action had been taken.
Having established that mysterious signalling was really in
progress, I set forth upon further investigation. Taking my own
signalling-apparatus, a very strong electric lamp with accumulators
and powerful reflectors, which would show for fifteen miles or more,
I got into the car with my companions--who were eager to assist--and,
having consulted ordnance-maps and compass, we went to a spot high-up
in an exposed position, where I anticipated the answering light from
the mansion might be seen.
We found ourselves in a private park, upon a spot which, by day,
commands an immense stretch of country, and from which it is said that
upon a clear day the Sussex coast can be seen. Here we erected our
signalling-apparatus and waited in patience. The night proved bitterly
cold, and as the hours crept slowly by, the sleet began to cut our
faces. Yet all our eyes were fixed upon that mysterious house which had
previously signalled.
For hours we waited in vain until, of a sudden, quite unexpectedly from
the direction of London, we saw another intense white light shining
from out the darkness. For a full half-hour it remained there, a beacon
like the other. Then suddenly it began winking, and this was the
code-message it sent:
"S.H.I.S. (pause) H. 5. (pause) S.H.I.S.F. (pause with the light full
on for two minutes). I.S. I.E. (pause) E.S.T. (light out)."
Turning my signal-lamp in its direction, I repeated the first portion
of the mysterious message, and then, pretending not to understand,
asked for a repetition. At once this was given, and, with my
companions, I received it perfectly clearly!
Sorely tempted as I was to signal further, I refrained for fear of
arousing suspicion, and, actuated by patriotic motives, we agreed at
once to prosecute our inquiry further, and then leave it to "the proper
authorities" to deal with the matter.
Through the whole of that night--an intensely cold one--we remained on
watch upon one of the highest points in Surrey, a spot which I do not
here indicate for obvious reasons--and not until the grey dawn at last
appeared did we relinquish our watchfulness.
All next day, assisted by the same young officer who had first noticed
the unusual lights, I spent in making confidential inquiry regarding
the mysterious house and elicited several interesting facts, one
being that the family, who were absent from the house showing the
lights, employed a servant who, though undoubtedly German--for, by a
ruse, I succeeded in obtaining the address of this person's family in
Germany--was posing as Swiss. That a brisk correspondence had been kept
up with persons in Germany was proved in rather a curious way, and by
long and diligent inquiry many other highly interesting facts were
elicited. With my young officer friend and a gentleman who rendered
us every assistance, placing his house and his car at our disposal,
we crept cautiously up to the house in the early hours one morning,
narrowly escaping savage dogs, while one adventure of my own was to
break through a boundary fence, only to find myself in somebody's
chicken-run!
That night was truly one of adventure. Nevertheless, it established
many things--one being that in the room whence the signals emanated was
a three-branch electrolier with unusually strong bulbs, while behind
it, set over the mantelshelf, was a mirror, or glazed picture, to act
as a reflector in the direction of London. The signals were, no doubt,
made by working the electric-light switch.
The following night saw us out again, for already reports received had
established a line of signals from a spot on the Kent coast to London
and farther north, other watchers being set in order to compare notes
with us. Again we watched the beacon-light on the mysterious house. We
saw those mysterious letters "S.M."--evidently of significance--winked
out in Morse, and together we watched the answering signals. All the
evening the light remained full on until at 1.30 a.m. we once more
watched "S.M." being sent, while soon after 2 a.m. the light went out.
In the fourteen exciting days and nights which followed, I motored many
hundreds of miles over Surrey, Sussex, and Kent, instituting inquiries
and making a number of amazing discoveries, not the least astounding of
which was that, only one hour prior to the reception of that message
on the first evening of our vigil--"H. 5"--five German aeroplanes
had actually set out from the Belgian coast towards England! That
secret information was being sent from the Kent coast to London was
now proved, not only at one point, but at several, where I have since
waited and watched, and, showing signals in the same code, have been at
once answered and repeated. And every night, until the hour of writing,
this same signalling from the coast to London is in progress, and has
been watched by responsible officers of His Majesty's Service.
After the first nights of vigilance, I had satisfied myself that
messages in code were being sent, so I reported--as a matter of
urgency--to the Intelligence Department of the War Office--that
department of which Mr. McKenna, on March 3rd, declared, "There is no
more efficient department of the State." The result was only what the
public might expect. Though this exposure was vouched for by experts in
signalling, men wearing His Majesty's uniform, all the notice taken of
it has been
_War Office,
Whitehall,
S.W._
27th February 1915.
_The Director of Military Operations presents his compliments to_ Mr.
W. Le Queux, _and begs to acknowledge, with thanks, the receipt of his
letter of the_ 25th inst. _which is receiving attention_.
a mere _printed acknowledgment_--reproduced above--that my report had
been received, while to my repeated appeals that proper inquiry be made
I have not even received a reply!
But further. While engaged in watching in another part of Surrey on the
night of March 3rd, certain officers of the Armoured Car Squadron, who
were keeping vigil upon the house of mystery, saw some green and white
rockets being discharged from the top of the hill. Their suspicions
aroused, they searched and presently found, not far from the house in
question, a powerful motor-car of German make containing three men.
The latter when challenged gave no satisfactory account of themselves,
therefore the officers held up the car while one of them telephoned to
the Admiralty for instructions. The reply received was "that they had
no right to detain the car!" But, even in face of this official policy
of do-nothing, they took off the car's powerful searchlight, which was
on a swivel, and sent it to the Admiralty for identification.
This plain straightforward statement of what is nightly in progress
can be substantiated by dozens of persons, and surely, in face of the
observations taken by service men themselves--the names of whom I will
readily place at the disposal of the Government--it is little short
of a public scandal that no attempt has been made to inquire into the
matter or to seize the line of spies simultaneously. It really seems
plain that to-day the enemy alien may work his evil will anywhere as
a spy. On the other hand, it is a most heinous offence for anybody to
ride a cycle without a back-lamp!
It will be remembered that in Norfolk it has been found, by Mr.
Holcombe Ingleby, M.P. for King's Lynn, that the Zeppelin raid on the
East Coast was directed by a mysterious motor-car with a searchlight.
Therefore the apathy of the Admiralty in not ordering full inquiry into
the case in question will strike the reader as extraordinary.
This is the sort of proceeding that gives force to the contention
of those supporting the motion of Mr. Joynson-Hicks in the House of
Commons, that the whole matter of spies ought to be placed in the
hands of a special authority devoted to it alone, and responsible to
Parliament. As things stand, the country is certainly in agreement with
Mr. Bonar Law in believing that the Government "have not sufficiently
realised the seriousness of this danger, and have not taken every step
to make it as small as possible." Most people will agree with Mr. John
S. Scrimgeour, who, commenting upon the shuffling of the Government,
said:
"Let the Press cease from blaming the strikers. Also let 'the men in
power' cease from their censuring, for very shame. Can I, or any man
in the street, believe that we are 'fighting for our lives' while
the enemy lives contentedly among us? Read the debate, and take as
samples mentioned therein--'Brother of the Governor of Liége,' 'German
Financial Houses,' and 'Baron von Bissing.' Don't make scapegoats of
these working-men, or even of the non-enlisting ones, while such is
the case. Neither they, nor any one else in his senses, can believe
in the seriousness of this 'life struggle' while the above state of
things continues. It is laughable--or deadly."
The Intelligence Department of the War Office--that Department so
belauded by Mr. McKenna--certainly did not display an excess of zeal in
the case of signalling in Surrey, for, to my two letters begging that
inquiry be made as a matter of urgency, I was not even vouchsafed the
courtesy of a reply. Yet I was not surprised, for in a case at the end
of January in which two supposed Belgian refugees, after living in one
of our biggest seaports and making many inquiries there, being about
to escape to Antwerp, I warned that same Department and urged that
they should be questioned before leaving London. I gave every detail,
even to the particular boat by which they were leaving for Flushing.
No notice, however, was taken of my report, and not until _three days
after they had left for the enemy's camp_ did I receive the usual
_printed acknowledgment_ that my report had been received!"
That night-signalling has long been in progress in the South of England
is shown by the following. Written by a well-known gentleman, it
reached me while engaged in my investigations in Surrey. He says:
"The following facts have been brought to my notice, and may be of
interest to you. In the first week of October six soldiers were out on
patrol duty around Folkestone looking for spies--always on night-duty.
"One night they saw Morse signalling going on on a hill along the sea
outside Folkestone. The signalling was in code. They divided into two
parties of three, and proceeded to surround the place. On approaching,
a shot was heard, and a bullet went through the black oilskin coat of
one man (they were all wearing these over their khaki). They went on
and discovered two Germans with a strong acetylene lamp, one of them
having a revolver with six chambers, and one discharged, also ten
spare rounds of ammunition.
"They secured them and took them to the police station, but all that
happened was that they were shut up in a concentration camp! This
story was told me by one of the six who were on duty, and assisted at
the capture."
To me, there is profound mystery in the present disinclination of
the Intelligence Department of the War Office to institute inquiry.
As a voluntary worker in that department under its splendid chief,
Col. G.W.M. Macdonogh--now, alas! transferred elsewhere--my modest
reports furnished from many places, at home and abroad, always received
immediate attention and a private letter of thanks written in the
Chief's own hand.
On the outbreak of war, however, red-tape instantly showed itself,
and I received a letter informing me that I must, in future, address
myself to the Director of Military Operations--the department which is
supposed to deal with spies.
I trust that the reader will accept my words when I say that I am
not criticising Lord Kitchener's very able administration. If I felt
confident that he, and he alone, was responsible for the surveillance
of enemy aliens in our midst, then I would instantly lay down my
pen upon the subject. But while the present grave peril continues,
and while the Government continue in their endeavour to bewilder
and mislead us by placing the onus first upon the police, then, in
turn, upon the Home Office--which, it must be remembered, made an
official statement early in the war and assured us that there were no
spies--then upon the War Office, then upon the Admiralty War Staff,
while they, in turn, shift the responsibility on to the shoulders of
the local police-constable in uniform, then I will continue to raise my
voice in protest, and urge upon the public to claim their right to know
the truth.
This enemy alien question is one of Britain's deadliest perils, and
yet, by reason of some mysterious influence in high quarters, Ministers
are straining every muscle to still delude and mislead the public.
These very men who are audacious enough to tell us that there are no
German spies in Great Britain are the same who, by that secret report
of the Kaiser's speech and his intention to make war upon us which I
furnished to the British Secret Service in 1908,[1] knew the truth,
yet nevertheless adopted a policy that was deliberately intended to
close the eyes of the British public and lull it to sleep, so that, in
August, our beloved nation nearly met with complete disaster.
But the British public to-day are no longer children, nor are they in
the mood to be trifled with and treated as such. The speeches made
by Mr. McKenna in the House of Commons on March 3rd have revealed to
us that the policy towards aliens is one of untruth and sham. The
debate has aroused an uneasiness in the country which will only be
restored with the greatest difficulty. To be deliberately told that
the Intelligence Department of the War Office is cognisant of every
enemy alien--in face of what I have just related--is to ask the public
to believe a fiction. And, surely, fiction is not what we want to-day.
We want hard fact--substantiated fact. We are not playing at war--as
so many people seem to think because of the splendid patriotism of the
sons of Britain--but we are fighting with all our force in defence of
our homes and our loved ones, who, if weak-kneed counsels prevail, will
most assuredly be butchered to make the Kaiser a German holiday.
That public opinion is highly angered in consequence of the refusal
of the Government to admit the danger of spies, and face the problem
in a proper spirit of sturdy patriotism, is shown by the great mass
of correspondence which has reached me in consequence of my exposures
in "German Spies in England." The letters I have received from all
classes, ranging from peers to working-men, testify to an astounding
state of affairs, and if the reader could but see some of this flood
of correspondence which has overwhelmed me, he would realise the
widespread fear of the peril of enemy aliens, and the public distrust
of the apathy of the Government towards it.
Surely this is not surprising, even if judged only by my own personal
experiences.
HOW THE PUBLIC ARE DELUDED!
_The "Times," February 17th_
The Secretary of the Admiralty makes the following announcement:
Information has been received that two persons, posing as an officer
and sergeant, and dressed in khaki, are going about the country
attempting to visit military works, etc.
They were last seen in the Midlands on the 6th instant, when they
effected an entry into the works of a firm who are doing engineer's
work for the Admiralty. They made certain inquiries as to the presence
or otherwise of anti-aircraft guns, which makes it probable that they
are foreign agents in disguise.
All contractors engaged on work for H.M. Navy are hereby notified with
a view to the apprehension of these individuals, and are advised that
no persons should be admitted to their works unless notice has been
received beforehand of their coming.
_The "Times," March 4th_
Mr. Tennant, Under-Secretary for War, during the debate in the
House of Commons upon the question of enemy aliens, raised by Mr.
Joynson-Hicks, said he could give the House the assurance that every
single enemy alien was _known_, and was _at the present moment_ under
constant police surveillance. He wished to inform the House and the
country that they had at the War Office a branch which included
the censorship and other services all directed to the one end of
safeguarding the country from the operations of undesirable persons.
It would not be right to speak publicly of the activities of that
branch, but it was doing most admirable service, and he repudiated
with all earnestness the suggestion that the department did not take
this matter of espionage with the utmost seriousness.
Let us further examine the facts. Mr. McKenna, in a speech made in the
House of Commons on November 26th on the subject, said: "The moment the
War Office has decided upon the policy, the Home Office places at the
disposal of the War Office the whole of its machinery." On March 3rd
the Home Secretary repeated that statement, and declared, in a retort
made to Mr. Joynson-Hicks, that he was not shirking responsibility, as
_he had never had any_! Now, if this be true, why did Mr. McKenna make
the communiqué to the Press soon after the outbreak of war, assuring us
that there were no spies in England, and that all the enemy aliens were
such dear good people? I commented upon it in the _Daily Telegraph_ on
the following day, and over my own name apologised to the public for
my past offence of daring to mention that such gentry had ever existed
among us. If Lord Kitchener were actually responsible, then one may ask
why had the Home Secretary felt himself called upon to tell the public
that pretty fairy-tale?
Now with regard to the danger of illicit wireless. Early in January
1914--seven months before the outbreak of war--being interested in
wireless myself, and president of a Wireless Association, my suspicions
were aroused regarding certain persons, some of them connected with an
amateur club in the neighbourhood of Hatton Garden. Having thoroughly
investigated the matter, and also having been able to inspect some of
the apparatus used by these persons, I made, on February 17th, 1914, a
report upon the whole matter to the Director of Military Intelligence,
pointing out the ease with which undesirable persons might use
wireless. The Director was absent on leave, and no action was taken in
the matter.
A month later I went to the Wireless Department of the General Post
Office, who had granted me my own licence, and was received there with
every courtesy and thanked for my report, which was regarded with
such seriousness that it was forwarded at once to the Admiralty, who
have wireless under their control. In due course the Admiralty gave
it over to the police to make inquiries, and the whole matter was, I
suppose--as is usual in such cases--dealt with and reported upon by a
constable in uniform.
Here let me record something further.
In February last I called at New Scotland Yard in order to endeavour to
get the police to make inquiry into two highly suspicious cases, one
of a person at Winchester, and the other concerning signal-lights seen
north-east of London in the Metropolitan District. I had interviews
with certain officials of the Special Department, and also with
one of the Assistant Commissioners, and after much prevarication I
gathered--not without surprise--that no action could be taken _without
the consent of the Home Office_! How this latter fact can be in
accordance with the Home Secretary's statement in the House of Commons
I confess I fail to see.
But I warn the Government that the alien peril--now that so many civil
persons have been released from the internment camps--is a serious and
growing one. The responsibility should, surely, not be placed upon,
or implied to rest upon, Lord Kitchener, who is so nobly performing a
gigantic task. If the public believed that he was really responsible,
then they, and myself, would at once maintain silence. The British
public believes in Lord Kitchener, and, as one man, will follow him to
the end. But it certainly will not believe or tolerate this see-saw
policy of false assurances and delusion, and the attempt to stifle
criticism--notably the case of the _Globe_--of which the Home Office
have been guilty. There is a rising feeling of wrath, as well as a
belief that the peril from within with which the country is faced--the
peril of the thousands of enemy aliens in our midst--most of whom are
not under control--together with the whole army of spies ready and
daily awaiting, in impatience, the signal to strike simultaneously--is
wilfully disregarded. Even the police themselves--no finer body of men
than whom exists anywhere in the world--openly express disgust at the
appalling neglect of the mysterious so-called "authorities" to deal
with the question with a firm and strong hand.
Naturally, the reader asks why is not inquiry made into cases of real
suspicion reported by responsible members of the community. I have
before me letters among others from peers, clergymen, solicitors,
justices of the peace, members of city councils, a well-known
shipowner, a Government contractor, Members of Parliament, baronets,
etc., all giving me cases of grave suspicion of spies, and all
deploring that no inquiry is made, application to the police being
fruitless, and asking my advice as to what quarter they should report
them.
All these reports, and many more, I will willingly place at the service
of a proper authority, appointed with powers to effectively deal
with the matter. At present, however, after my own experience as an
illustration of the sheer hopelessness of the situation, the reader
will not wonder that I am unable to give advice.
Could Germany's unscrupulous methods go farther than the scandal
exposed in America, in the late days of February, of how Captain
Boy-Ed, Naval Attaché of the German Embassy at Washington, and the
Kaiser's spy-master in the United States, endeavoured to induce the
man Stegler to cross to England and spy on behalf of Germany? In this,
Germany is unmasked. Captain Boy-Ed was looked upon as one of the
ablest German naval officers. He is tall and broad-shouldered, speaks
English fluently, and in order to Americanise his appearance has
shaved off his "Prince Henry" whiskers which German naval officers
traditionally affect. When he took up his duties at Washington he
was a man of about forty-five, and ranked in the German navy as
lieutenant-commander. But his career of usefulness as Naval Attaché,
with an office in the shipping quarters of New York, has been
irretrievably impaired by the charges of Stegler, whose wife produced
many letters in proof of the allegation that the attaché was the
mainspring of a conspiracy to secure English-speaking spies for service
to be rendered by German submarines and other German warships on the
British side of the Atlantic.
The plot, exposed in every paper in the United States, was a low
and cunning one, and quite in keeping with the methods of the men
of "Kultur." Mrs. Stegler, a courageous little woman from Georgia,
saw how her husband--an export clerk in New York--was being drawn
into the German net as a spy, and she stimulated her husband to give
the whole game away. To the United States police, Stegler, at his
wife's suggestion, was perfectly frank and open. He exposed the whole
dastardly plot. He stated that Captain Boy-Ed engineered the spy-plot
that cost Lody his life, and declared that in his dealings with the
attaché the matter of going to England as a spy progressed to a point
where the money that was to be paid to his wife for her support while
he was in England was discussed. Captain Boy-Ed, Stegler went on to
say, agreed to pay Mrs. Stegler £30 a month while he was in England,
and furthermore agreed that if the British discovered his mission and
he met the fate of Lody, Mrs. Stegler was to receive £30 a month from
the German Government as long as she lived!
Stegler said he told his wife of the agreement to pay to her the amount
named, and that she asked him what guarantee he could give that the
money would be paid as promised. At that time Mrs. Stegler did not know
the perilous nature of the mission that her husband had consented to
undertake. When Stegler reported fully to his American wife, and she
got from him the entire story of his proposed trip to England, she,
like a brave woman, determined to foil the conspiracy. Captain Boy-Ed
was not convincing regarding the payment to her for the services of
her husband as a spy by the German Government for life, and she told
her husband that the German Government would probably treat Captain
Boy-Ed's promise to pay as a "mere scrap of paper." Having been urged
to study the recent history of Belgium, Stegler confessed that he had
his doubts. Finally he resolved to reveal the existence of a plot to
supply German spies from New York.
Could any facts be more illuminating than these? Surely no man in
Great Britain, after reading this, can further doubt the existence of
German-American spies among us.
There is not, I think, a single reader of these pages who will not
agree with the words of that very able and well-informed writer who
veils his identity in the _Referee_ under the _nom-de-plume_ of
"Vanoc." On March 14th he wrote:
"This is no question of Party. I am not going to break the Party
truce. In the interests of the British Empire, however, I ask that
a list of all the men of German stock or of Hebrew-German stock who
have received distinctions, honours, titles, appointments, contracts,
or sinecures, both inside or outside the House of Commons, House of
Lords, and Privy Council, shall be prepared, printed, and circulated.
Also a list of Frenchmen, Russians, and Colonials so honoured. It is
also necessary for a clear understanding of the spy-question that
the public should know whether it is a fact that favoured German
individuals have contributed large sums to political Party funds
on both sides, and whether the tenderness that is shown Teutons or
Hebrew-Teutons decorated or rewarded with contracts, favours, or
distinctions is due to the obvious fact that if dangerous spies
were not allowed their freedom Party government would be exposed,
discredited, and abolished."
This is surely a demand which will be heartily supported by every one
who has the welfare of his country at heart. Too long have we been
misled by the bogus patriotism of supposed "naturalised" Germans, who,
in so many cases, have purchased honours with money filched from the
poor. "Vanoc" in his indictment goes on to say:
"The facts are incredible. I know of one case of a German actually
employed on Secret Service at the War Office. This German is the son
of the agent of a vast German enterprise engaged in making munitions
and guns for the destruction of the sons, brothers, and lovers of the
very Englishwomen who are now engaged most wisely and energetically
in waking the country to a sense of the spy-peril that lurks in our
midst. The British public does not understand a decimal point of a
tithe of the significance of the spy-peril. Nonsense is talked about
spies. Energy is concentrated on the little spies, who don't count.
Much German money is wasted on unintelligent spies. The British
officers to whom is entrusted the duty of spy-taking, if they are
outside the political influence which is poisonous to our national
life, are probably the best in the world. The big spies are still
potent in control of our national life."
Are we not, indeed, coddling the Hun?
Even the pampering of German officers at Donington Hall pales into
insignificance when we recollect that, upon Dr. Macnamara's admission,
£86,000 a month, or £1,000,000 per year, is being paid for the hire of
ships in which to intern German prisoners, and this is at a time when
the scarcity of shipping is sending up the cost of every necessity! The
Hague Convention, of course, forbids the use of gaols for prisoners
of war, yet have we not many nice comfortable workhouses, industrial
schools, and such-like institutions which could be utilised? We all
know how vilely the Germans are treating our officers and men who
are their prisoners, even depriving them of sufficient rations, and
forbidding tobacco, fruit, or tinned vegetables. With this in view, the
country are asking, and not without reason, why we should treat those
in our hands as welcome guests. Certainly our attitude has produced
disgust in the Dominions.
How Germany must be laughing at us! How the enemy aliens in certain
quarters of London are jeering at us, openly, and toasting to the
Day of our Downfall, I have already described. How the spies among
us--unknown in spite of Mr. Tennant's amazing assertion--must be
laughing in their sleeves and chuckling over the panic and disaster
for which they are waiting from day to day in the hope of achieving.
The signal--the appearance of Zeppelins over London--has not yet been
given. Whether it will ever be given we know not. All we know is that
an unscrupulous enemy, whose influence is widespread over our land,
working insidiously and in secret, has prepared for us a blow from
within our gates which, when it comes, will stagger even Mr. McKenna
himself.
With the example of how spies, in a hundred guises, have been found in
Belgium, in France, in Russia, in Egypt, and even in gallant little
Serbia, can any sane man believe that there are none to-day in Great
Britain? No. The public know it, and the Government know it, but the
latter are endeavouring to hoodwink those who demand action in the
House of Commons, just as they endeavour to mystify the members of the
public who present reports of suspicious cases.
The question is: _Are we here told the Truth?_
I leave it to the reader of the foregoing pages to form his own
conclusions, and to say whether he is satisfied to be further deluded
and mystified without raising his voice in protest for the truth to
be told, and the spy-peril to be dealt with by those fully capable of
doing so, instead of adopting methods which are daily playing into
Germany's hands and preparing us upon the altar of our own destruction.
I have here written the truth, and I leave it to the British public
themselves to judge me, and to judge those who, failing in their duty
at this grave crisis of our national history, are courting a disaster
worse than that which overtook poor stricken Belgium.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: For a full report of this astounding speech see "German
Spies in England," by William Le Queux, 1915.]
CHAPTER VII
THE PERIL OF DELUDING THE PUBLIC
As showing the trend of public opinion regarding the spy-peril, I may
perhaps be permitted to here give a few examples taken haphazard from
the huge mass of correspondence with which I have been daily flooded
since the publication of my exposure on that subject.
Many of my correspondents have, no doubt, made discoveries of
serious cases of espionage. Yet, as spies are nobody's business, the
authorities, in the majority of cases, have not even troubled to
inquire into the allegations made by responsible persons. I freely
admit that many wild reports have been written and circulated by
hysterical persons who believe that every twinkling light they see is
the flashing of signals, and that spies lurk in houses in every quiet
and lonely spot. It is so very easy to become affected with spy-mania,
especially when one recollects that every German abroad is patriotic,
and his first object is to become a secret agent of the Fatherland. In
this connection I have no more trust in the so-called "naturalised"
German than in the full-blooded and openly avowed Prussian. Once
a man is born a German he is always a German, and in taking out
naturalisation papers he is only deliberately cheating the country
which grants them, because, according to the Imperial law of his own
land, he cannot change his own nationality. So let us, once and for
all, dismiss for ever the hollow farce of naturalisation, for its very
act is one of fraud, and only attempted with some ulterior motive.
As regards "unnaturalised" Germans the inquirer may perhaps be
permitted to ask why Baron von Ow-Wachendorf, a lieutenant in the
Yellow Uhlans of Stuttgart, just under thirty years of age, was
permitted to practise running in Hyde Park so as to fit himself for his
military duties, and why was he on March 1st allowed to leave Tilbury
for Holland to fight against us? Again, has not Mr. Ronald McNeill put
rather a delicate problem before the Under-Secretary for War in asking,
in the House, whether Count Ergon von Bassewitz and his brother, Count
Adalbert von Bassewitz, were brought to England as prisoners of war;
whether either was formerly on the Staff of the Germany Embassy in
London, and well known in London Society; whether one, and which, of
the two brothers was recently set at liberty, and is now at large in
London; whether he was released on any and what conditions; and for
what reason this German officer, possessing exceptional opportunities
for obtaining information likely to be useful to the enemy, is allowed
freedom in England at the present time.
The man-in-the-street who has, in the past, laughed at the very idea
of spies--and quite justly, because he has been so cleverly misled
and bamboozled by official assurances--has now begun to see that
they do exist. He has read of a hundred cases abroad where spies
have formed a vanguard of the invading German armies, and how no
fewer than fifty-seven German spies were arrested and _convicted_ in
Switzerland during the month of August, therefore he cannot disguise
from himself that the same dastardly vanguard is already here among us.
Then he at once asks, and very naturally too, why do the authorities
officially protect them? What pro-German influence in high quarters
can be at work to connive at our undoing? It is that which is to-day
undermining public confidence. Compare our own methods with those of
methodical matter-of-fact Germany? Are we methodical; are we thorough?
The man-in-the-street who daily reads his newspaper--if he pauses or
reflects--sees quite plainly that instead of facing the alien peril,
those in authority prefer to allow us to sit upon the edge of the
volcano, and have, indeed, already actually prepared public opinion to
accept a disclaimer of responsibility if disaster happens. The whole
situation is truly appalling. Little wonder is it that, because I
should have dared to lay bare the canker in Britain's heart, I should
be written to by despairing hundreds who have lost all confidence in
certain of our rulers.
Some of these letters the reader may find of interest.
From one, written by a well-known gentleman living in Devonshire, I
take the following, which arouses a new reflection. He says:
"I may be wrong, but one important point seems to have been
overlooked, viz. the daily publication of somewhat cryptic messages
and advertisements appearing in the Personal Columns of the British
Press. For instance:
"'M.--Darling. Meet as arranged. Letter perfect. Should I also write?
To "the Day, and Kismet."--Vilpar.'
"Such a message may be, as doubtless it is, perfectly innocent; but
what is to prevent spies in our midst utilising this method of
communicating information to the enemy. The leading British newspapers
are received in Germany, and even the enclosed pseudo-medical
advertisement may be the message of a traitor. It seems to me that the
advertisement columns of our Press constitute the safest medium for
the transmission of information.
"Pray do not think I am suggesting that the British Press would
willingly lend their papers to such an infernal use, but unless they
are exercising the strictest precautions the loophole is there.
I am somewhat impressed by the number of refugees to be found in
these parts--Ilfracombe, Combe Martin, Lynton, etc., coast towns and
villages of perhaps minor strategic importance, but situated on the
Bristol Channel and facing important towns like Swansea, Cardiff, etc.
I notice particularly that their daily walks abroad are usually taken
along the coastal roads. I've never met them inland. Apologising for
the length of this letter and trusting that your splendid efforts will
in due time receive their well-deserved reward."
Here my correspondent has certainly touched upon a point which should
be investigated. We know that secret information is daily sent from
Great Britain to Berlin, and we also know some of the many methods
adopted.
Indeed, I have before me, as I write, a spy's letter sent from Watford
to Amsterdam, to be collected by a German agent and reforwarded to
Berlin. It is written upon a column of a London daily newspaper,
various letters of which are ticked in red ink in several ways,
some being underlined, some crossed, some dotted underneath--a very
ingenious code indeed--but one which has, happily, been decoded by an
expert. This newspaper, after the message had been written upon it,
had been placed in a newspaper-wrapper and addressed to an English
name in Amsterdam. This is but one of the methods. Another is the use
of invisible ink with which spies write their messages upon the pages
of newspapers and magazines. A third is, no doubt, the publication of
cryptic advertisements, as suggested by my correspondent.
HOW THE GOVERNMENT HAVE ADOPTED MR. LE QUEUX'S SUGGESTION
"_German Spies in England," by William Le Queux. Published February
17th, 1915._
The first step to stop the activity of spies should be the absolute
closing of the sea routes from these shores to all persons, excepting
those who are vouched for by the British Foreign Office. Assume that
the spy is here; how are we to prevent him getting out?
By closing the sea routes to all who could not produce to our Foreign
Office absolutely satisfactory guarantees of their _bona fides_. The
ordinary passport system is not sufficient; the Foreign Office should
demand, and see that it gets, not only a photograph, but a very clear
explanation of the business of every person who seeks to travel from
England to the Continent, backed by unimpeachable references from
responsible British individuals, banks, or firms.
In every single case of application for a passport it should be
personal, and the most stringent inquiries should be made. I see no
other means of putting an end to a danger which, whatever the official
apologists may say, is still acute, and shows no signs of diminishing.
Under the best of conditions some leakage may take place. But our
business is to see, by every means we can adopt, that the leakage is
reduced to the smallest possible proportions.
_"Daily Mail," March 11th, 1915._
Holiday-makers or business men who wish to travel to Holland now find
that their preliminary arrangements include much more than the purchase
of a rail and steamship ticket.
New regulations, which came into force on Monday, necessitate not
only a passport, but a special permit to travel from the Home Office.
Application for this permit must be made in person three clear days
before sailing. Passport, photograph, and certificate of registration
must be produced and the names and addresses of two British subjects
furnished as references.
The Home Office erected a special building for this department, which
was opened on Thursday last, the first day on which application could
be made. Before lunch over 250 applications had been received. By four
o'clock, the official hour for closing, nearly 500 persons had been
attended to, and the crowd was even then so great that the doors had to
be closed to prevent any more entering. Intending travellers included
British, French, and Dutch business men, but quite a large number of
Belgian refugees attended for permits to return to their country. The
Tilbury route was the only one open to them. Not all the applications
were granted. It is necessary to furnish reasonable and satisfactory
evidence as to the object of the journey, and some of the applicants
were unable to do this.
Of other means of communication, namely, night-signalling--of which
I have given my own personal experience in the previous chapter--my
correspondents send me many examples.
The same code-signal as a prefix--the letters "S.M."--are being seen at
points as far distant as Herne Bay and Alnwick, on both the Yorkshire
and Fifeshire coasts, above Sidmouth and at Ilfracombe. Dozens of
reports of night-signalling lie before me--not mere statements of
fancied lights, but facts vouched for by three and four reliable
witnesses. Yet, in face of it all, the authorities pooh-pooh it, and in
some counties we have been treated to the ludicrous spectacle of the
civil and military authorities falling at loggerheads over it!
Belgian refugees writing to me have, in more than one instance,
reported highly interesting facts. In one case an ex-detective of the
Antwerp police, now a refugee in England, has identified a well-known
German spy who was in Antwerp before the Germans entered there, and who
came to England in the guise of a refugee! This individual is now in
an important town in Essex, while my informant is living in the same
town. Surely such a case is one for searching inquiry, and the more so
because the suspect poses as an engineer, and is in the employ of a
firm of engineers who do not suspect the truth. But before whom is my
friend, the Belgian ex-detective, to place his information?
True, he might perhaps lay the information before the Chief Constable
of the County of Essex, but in his letter to me he asks, and quite
naturally, is it worth while? If the Intelligence Department of the
War Office--that Department so belauded in the House of Commons by Mr.
McKenna on March 3rd--refuses to investigate the case of signalling in
Surrey, cited in the last chapter, and vouched for by the officers
themselves, then what hope is there that they would listen to the
report of a mere refugee--even though he be an ex-detective?
As I turn over report after report before me I see another which seems
highly suspicious. A hard-up German doctor--his name, his address,
and many facts are given--living at a Kent coast town, where he was a
panel doctor, suddenly, on the outbreak of war, removes to another Kent
coast town not far from Dover, takes a large house with grounds high
up overlooking the sea, and retires from practice. My informant says
he has written to the Home Office about it, but as usual no notice has
been taken of his letter.
Another correspondent, a well-known shipowner, writing me from one of
our seaports in the north, asks why the German ex-consul should be
allowed to remain in that city and do shipping business ostensibly with
Rotterdam? By being allowed his freedom he can obtain full information
as to what is in progress at this very important Scotch port, and,
knowing as we do that every German consul is bound to send secret
information to Berlin at stated intervals, it requires but little
stretch of one's imagination to think what happens. But the matter has
already been reported to the police and found to be, as elsewhere,
nobody's business. Phew! One perspires to think of it!
Take another example--that of a German hotel-keeper who, living on
the coast north of the Firth of Forth, was proved to have tapped the
coast-guard telephone, and yet he was allowed to go free!
A lady, well known in London society, writes to me requesting me to
assist her, and says: "I have been working for five months to get a
very suspicious case looked into, and all the satisfaction I get
is that 'the party is being watched.' I _know_ to what extent this
same person has been working against my country and I should much
appreciate an interview with you. I could tell you very much that would
be of great benefit to the country, but it of course falls on deaf
ears--officially."
Another correspondent asks why Germans, naturalised or unnaturalised,
are allowed to live in the vicinity of Herne Bay when none are allowed
either at Westgate or Margate. In this connection it is curious that it
is from Herne Bay the mysterious night-signals already described first
appear, and are then transmitted to various parts of the country.
In another letter the grave danger of allowing foreign servants to
be employed at various hotels at Plymouth is pointed out, and it is
asked whether certain houses in that city are not hot-beds of German
intrigue. Now with regard to this aspect of affairs Mr. McKenna,
answering Mr. Fell in Parliament on March 10th, said he had no power
to impose conditions on the employment of waiters, British or alien,
and so the suggested notice outside hotels employing aliens was not
accepted.
From Tunbridge Wells two serious cases of suspicion are reported, and
near Tenterden, in Kent, there undoubtedly lives one of our "friends"
the night-signallers, while in a certain village in Sussex the husband
of the sub-postmistress is a German, whose father, a tradesman in a
neighbouring town, I hear, often freely ventilates his patriotism to
his Fatherland.
That the "pirate" submarines are receiving petrol in secret is an
undoubted fact. At Swansea recently a vessel bound for Havre was found
to have taken on board as part of her stores 400 gallons of petrol. She
was not a motor-boat, and the Customs authorities were very properly
suspicious, but the captain insisted that the petrol was wanted as
stores, and that there were no means by which we could prevent that
petrol going. Where did it go to? There were boats no doubt in the
neighbourhood which wanted petrol. _They were enemy submarines!_
Of isolated reports of espionage, and of the work of Germany's secret
agents, dozens lie before me, many of which certainly call for
strictest investigation. But who will do this work if the "authorities"
so steadily refuse, in order to bamboozle the public, to perform their
duty?
Some of these reports are accompanied by maps and plans. One is from
a well-known solicitor, who is trustee for an estate in Essex where,
adjoining, several men a month or so ago purchased a small holding
consisting of a homestead and a single acre of land. They asserted
that they had come from Canada, and having dug up the single acre in
question for the purpose of growing potatoes, as they say, they are
now living together, their movements being highly suspicious. On more
than one occasion mysterious explosions have been heard within the
house--which is a lonely one, and a long way from any other habitation.
The wife of a well-known Scotch Earl who has been diligent in
making various inquiries into suspicious cases in Scotland, and has
endeavoured to stir up the authorities to confirm the result of her
observations, has written to me in despair. She has done her best,
alas! without avail.
And again, in yet another case, the widow of an English Earl, whose
name is as a household word, has written to me reporting various
matters which have come to her notice and deploring that no heed has
been taken of her statements by the supine "powers-that-be."
Beside this pile of grave reports upon my table, I have opened a big
file of reports of cases of espionage which reached me during the year
1909. In the light of events to-day they are, indeed, astounding.
Here is one, the name and address of my correspondent I do not here
print, but it is at the disposal of the authorities. He says:
"Staying recently at North Queensferry I made the acquaintance of a
young German, who was there, he informed me, for quiet and health
reasons. He was a man of rather taciturn and what I put down to
eccentric disposition, for he spoke very little, and, from the time
he went away in the morning early, he never put in an appearance
until dusk. One day, as was my wont, I was sitting in the front
garden when I noticed a fair-sized red morocco notebook lying on the
grass. I picked it up, and on my opening it up, what was my surprise
and amazement to find that it was full to overflowing with sketches
and multitudinous information regarding the Firth of Forth. All the
small bays, buoys, etc., together with depth of water at the various
harbour entrances at high and low tide, were admirably set out. I
also found, neatly folded up, a letter addressed to my friend which
had contained an enclosure of money from the German Government. I
hesitated no longer, for I sent notebook, etc., to the authorities at
London. Three days after I had sent the letter off, a stranger called
to see my friend the German. They both left together, and I have never
heard any more about it since. The German's trunk still lies at North
Queensferry awaiting its owner's return."
The following reached me on March 11th:
"I note what you mention regarding Weybourne in Norfolk, and would
trespass on your time to relate an occurrence which took place about
the autumn of 1908, when I was living at Overstrand. I had walked
over to Weybourne and was about to return by train when two men,
dressed more or less as tramps, entered the station to take their
tickets; they were followed by a tall, handsome man, unmistakably a
German officer, who spoke to them, looked at their tickets and walked
straight up the platform. The men sat down on a bench to wait for
the train, and I took a seat near them with a view to overhearing
their conversation. It appeared to be in German dialect and little
intelligible. The officer, meanwhile, who had reached the end of the
platform, turned round and, quickening his steps, came and placed
himself directly in front of us: the men at once were silent, and the
officer remained where he was, casting many scowls in my direction. On
the following day I met him, on this occasion alone, on the pathway
leading from the 'Garden of Sleep' to Overstrand. He recognised me
at once, scowled once again, and passed on to the Overstrand Hotel.
I mentioned the subject to a gentleman resident in Overstrand, who
asked me to write an account of the matter to be placed before the
War Office, but I believe that my friend forgot to forward the paper.
A retired officer in Cromer informed me that the German officer
in question was well known as the head of the German spies in the
neighbourhood. Some questions happened to be asked in the House of
Commons that very week as to the existence of spies in Norfolk. The
Home Secretary, the present Lord Gladstone, I think, replied to these
in the manner which might be expected of him.
"From the first I recognised the fact that the men were spies. I
imagined that they had been surveying, at Weybourne, but in the light
of recent events I think a _gun emplacement_ or a _petrol store_ may
have been their 'objective.' The two men were rather undersized,
badly dressed, and more or less covered with mud, probably mechanics.
One I remember had extraordinary teeth, about the size of the
thickness of one's little finger. The officer, as I have said, was
a fine man, broad and well-proportioned, from thirty to forty years
of age. Oddly enough I thought that I recognised him recently on a
cinematograph film depicting the staff of the German Emperor. I left
the neighbourhood not long after, otherwise I should certainly have
made further investigations, convinced as I was of the shady nature
of these individuals. The officer, I am sure, recognised that I was a
detective."
Another report is from a steward on a liner, who writes:
"At the Queen's Hotel, at Leith, one day I overheard these words from
a man speaking in German. 'What's this! Your Highness's servants--when
did they come North?' Now one of these I have met several times. I
have travelled with him from Antwerp, and I was in his company between
Leith and London. He was of a cheerful disposition, and played the
violin well, but would not allow any one to go into his cabin, not
even the steward! One day, while he was playing to the passengers on
the promenade deck, and the sailors were washing down the poop deck, I
had to go into his berth to shut his port-hole; to my surprise I found
that he had been working out the draft of a plan, and was marking in
the coast defence stations, and all the information he had obtained
from the ship's officers and passengers. There were also various other
drawings of the Forth and other bridges, and plans of the sea coast
from the Firth of Forth to Yarmouth, while in his box were all kinds
of mathematical instruments, together with some envelopes addressed
to Count von X. [the name is given] of Bremen. He told me that he
was going to London for a year's engagement at a music hall, yet,
strangely enough, two weeks later I found this same German on the
Carron Company's steamer _Avon_ bound for Grangemouth. For some time
I lost all trace of him, but last October I met the same German at
the new Dock at Kirkcaldy, posing as a photographer. At that time the
name on his bag was H. Shindler. We had a drink together, but, on my
asking why he had changed his profession, he laughed mysteriously, and
admitted that he had made a long tour of England and Wales, taking
many interesting pictures. Each time I met him he had considerably
altered his appearance, and the last I saw of him was when I saw him
into the train on his way to Dunfermline."
Yet another I pick out at haphazard. It is from an actor whose name
is well known, and is, as are all the others, at the disposal of any
official inquirers. He writes to me:
"I was engaged to play in the 'panto' of 'Sinbad the Sailor.' We were
to rehearse and play a week at the 'Prince's Theatre,' Llandudno. I
was in the habit of visiting a certain barber's shop, and was always
attended to by a German assistant. He seemed a man of about forty
years of age, and his name was K---- [the actual name is given]. On
the first Saturday of my sojourn in the place I called at the shop,
along with another member of our company. When about to leave, my
'pal' and myself were rather startled by the 'attendant' inviting
the two of us to come for a drive on the following day, Sunday.
Naturally we accepted the invitation, at the same time thinking it
rather strange that a man earning say 30_s._ a week could afford such
a luxury as a drive. At noon, next day, my friend and I turned up at
the rendezvous, and sure enough our friend was there with a _landau_
and pair. This was certainly doing the 'big thing,' but more was to
follow.
"We drove to Conway, stabled there, and then went for a stroll round
the picturesque old castle. Our friend then proposed that we adjourn
for something to eat, so, as our appetites were a bit keen by this
time, we went to the 'White Hart Hotel.' Here another surprise awaited
us, for dinner was all set and ready. And what a dinner! My 'pal' and
I had visions of a huge bill, but on our friend squaring the amount we
sat in open-mouthed surprise.
"By this time we were anxious to know a little about our 'host,' but
not until he had had a few brandy-and-sodas did he tell us much. He
then said he had some estates in Germany, and ultimately confessed (in
strict confidence) that he held an important Government appointment.
After a few hours in Conway we drove back to Llandudno, and as our
friend of the 'soap and brush' was in a hilarious mood, nothing
would do but that we drive to his rooms. And what rooms! Fit for a
prince! We had a splendid supper followed by wine and cigars. He then
proceeded to show my friend and me a great number of photographs (all
taken by himself, he explained) of all the coast mountains and roads
for many miles around Llandudno. It was not till we mentioned the
affair to some gentlemen in Llandudno that we were informed that our
barber friend was, in all probability, a spy in the pay of the German
Government!"
Here is another, from a correspondent at Glasgow:
"Down by the shipping, along the Clydeside, are many barbers' shops,
etc., owned by foreigners, and in one of these I think I have spotted
an individual whose movements and behaviour entitle me to regard him
as a spy. The party in question is a German of middle age, a man of
remarkably refined appearance--in fact, not the class of man that one
would ordinarily associate with a barber's shop. One has but to engage
him in conversation to discover that he is no stupid foreigner, but a
man very much up to date as regards our methods and things happening
in this country. Our language, too, he speaks like a native, and, were
it not for his markedly Teutonic features, he might pass for one of
ourselves.
"What excited my suspicions first regarding this personage was the
fact that he was continually quizzing and putting to me questions
regarding my employment of a decidedly delicate nature, and conversing
freely on subjects about which I thought few people knew anything. I
also noticed, when in his shop, that he was most lavish in his remarks
to customers, especially to young engineers and draughtsmen who came
to him from the neighbouring shipbuilding yards, leading them on to
talk about matters concerning the Navy and shipbuilding; their work in
the various engineering shops and drawing offices; and the time likely
to be taken to complete this or that gunboat, etc. Indeed, with some
of these young engineers and draughtsmen I have not failed to notice
that he is particularly 'chummy,' and I also know, for a fact, that
on several occasions he has been 'up town' with them, visiting music
halls and theatres, and that they have spent many evenings together.
On these occasions no doubt, under the influence of liquor, many
confidences will have been exchanged, and many 'secrets' regarding
work and methods indiscreetly revealed.
"But so much for the above. On surmise alone my conclusions regarding
this man might have been entirely wrong, but for the fact that I,
one evening, met with a former employee of his, also a German, in
another barber's shop in the city. This youngster, evidently nursing a
grievance against his late employer for something or other, was quick
to unburden himself to me regarding him, and gave me the following
particulars. He said that his late master was not what he appeared to
be, and that his barbering was all a blind to cover something else; in
fact (and this he hinted pretty broadly) that his presence over here
in this country was for no good. He further said that he was still a
member of the German Army (although in appearance he looks to be long
past military service), and that regularly money was sent to him from
Berlin; that he was an agent for the bringing in to this country of
crowds of young Germans, male and female, who came over here to learn
our language and study our methods; that his shop was the rendezvous
for certain members of his own nationality, who met there periodically
at night for some secret purpose which he had never been able to
fathom; that he was often away from the shop for weeks at a time, no
one knew where, the business in his absence then being looked after
by a brother. In addition to the above, I may say that the walls of
his shop are positively crowded with pictures of such celebrities as
Lord Roberts, Lord Kitchener, General French, etc., etc., the face
of the Kaiser being a noticeable absentee, doubtless on purpose. He
likes you, too, to believe in his affection for this country, which he
openly parades, although I am told that in private he sneers at us, at
our soldiers and people. From the above, I think I have established my
case against this wily Teuton, who, while masquerading as a barber, is
yet all the time here for a totally different purpose, _i.e._ to spy
upon us."
How a German secret agent altered a British military message is told by
another of my correspondents, who says:
"The time of the incident was during the visit of the Kaiser to the
Earl of Lonsdale at Lowther Castle. I was employed at an hotel in
Keswick, and my duties were to look after a billiard-room. Among my
customers was a foreign gentleman, who was always rather inquisitive
if any military matter was under discussion, and our many chats
brought us on very friendly terms. Well, about the last week of the
Emperor's visit, the Earl of Lonsdale arranged a drive for the Emperor
and the house-party for the purpose of letting them see the English
Lake District. The route lay via Patterdale, Windermere, Thirlmere,
then on to Keswick, from there by train to Penrith, and again drive
the three or four miles back to Lowther Castle.
"It must be remembered that, the Emperor's visit being a private
one, military displays would be out of place, but on the day of
the above-mentioned drive a telegram was received from the officer
in command of the Penrith Volunteers asking if permission could be
granted for the volunteers to mount a guard of honour at the station
on the arrival of the Emperor's train at Penrith. Now, as I was going
up home to the 'Forge' I met my father coming to Keswick, and as he
seemed out of wind, I undertook to take his message, which was the
reply to the above 'wire.' The text of the answer only contained two
words, which were to the point: 'Certainly not,' and signed by the
commanding officer at headquarters. When I got within half a mile
of Keswick I was overtaken by my foreign acquaintance, who was on
a bicycle, and on his asking me why I was hurrying, I told him I
had a rather urgent 'wire' to send. He kindly undertook to have it
despatched, as he was passing the Post Office, and I unsuspectingly
consented. On the arrival of the royal train at Penrith you may judge
the surprise and disgust of the officers, some of whom had in private
travelled in the royal train to see the volunteers lining the station
approach! Inquiries were made--the post office authorities produced
the telegram, as handed in, with the word 'not' carefully erased,
making the message mean the opposite. I never from that day saw my
foreign friend again, but many times have wondered was it one of
the Kaiser's wishes to see if his agents could play a trick on the
volunteers for his own eyes to see!"
Here is a curious story of a German commercial spy, the writer of which
gives me his _bona fides_. He writes:
"In a glucose factory where I worked, the head of the firm had a
bookkeeper who went wrong. If that bookkeeper had never gone wrong, we
should never have known of the German who worked hard in England for
a whole year for nothing. One day the head--I'll call him Mr. Brown
for short--received a letter from a young German saying that he would
like to represent the glucose manufacturer among the merchants of this
country, whose trade, he said, he could secure. He said he would be
willing to postpone the consideration of salary pending the result of
his services. Well, Brown turned the German over to the bookkeeper,
who found that the German had splendid credentials from his own
country. So Brown told the bookkeeper to engage the German, and pay
him £40 a month to start. At the end of six months the German's
service had proved so satisfactory that Brown told his bookkeeper to
pay the German £50 a month till further notice; and three months later
the salary was again raised by Brown to £60. Along about the time the
German's year was up, he suddenly disappeared. That is, he failed
one morning to put in an appearance at the office at the usual time.
Brown noticed that morning that his bookkeeper, who was also cashier,
was extremely absent-minded and looked altogether unhappy. 'What's
the matter with you?' said Brown, addressing the bookkeeper. 'This
is the matter,' was the reply, and thereupon the bookkeeping cashier
laid before his employer a cheque for hundreds of pounds. It was made
payable to the order of the absent German, and was signed with the
personal signature of the bookkeeper. 'What's this mean?' asked Brown.
'It means,' said the wild-eyed bookkeeper, 'that I have never paid
that German his salary--not one penny in all the time he has been
here. He never asked for money, always had plenty, so I pocketed from
month to month the money due to him. But it's killing me. I didn't
need to do it. I just couldn't resist the temptation. I had money of
my own, and knew I could pay him any time. Yesterday when you said
that I must again raise his salary I realised for the first time the
enormity of the thing I was doing. I resolved to tell the German the
whole story this morning, and give him his money in full. This is the
cheque for the money I have stolen from him. I have money in the bank
to meet it. I want him to have it, I don't care what follows.' Brown,
gazing spellbound at his clerk, said: 'But I don't understand. Did
the German never ask for his salary?' 'No,' replied the bookkeeper.
'He always had money; he seemed only to want the situation--to be
connected with this house; he has some mysterious influence over the
German trade in this country.' A weather-beaten man in a sea-jacket an
hour or two later unceremoniously shuffled into the office. He handed
Brown a note, who read it aloud: 'I am aboard ship by this time,' the
letter said, 'bound for my country. Receive my sincere regrets at the
abrupt termination of our pleasant relations. Through connection with
your firm, I have found out the secret of glucose-making, and am going
back to impart it to the firm which I belong to in Germany. You owe me
nothing."
These few cases I print here because I think it but right to show that
both before the war, and since, the public have not been so utterly
blinded to the truth as the authorities had hoped.
Many of the other cases before me are of such a character that I do not
propose to reveal them to the public, still hoping against hope that
proper inquiry may be instituted by a reliable Board formed to deal
with the whole matter. And, for obvious reasons, premature mention of
them might defeat the ends of justice by warning the spies that their
"game" is known.
I here maintain that there is a peril--a very grave and imminent
peril--in attempting to further delude the public, and, by so doing,
further influence public opinion.
The seed of distrust in the Government has, alas! been sown in the
public mind, and each day, as the alien question is evaded, it takes a
firmer and firmer root.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PERIL OF INVASION
There are few questions upon which experts differ more profoundly than
that of a possible invasion of this country by Germans.
Here, in England, opinion may be roughly divided into two schools. It
is understood generally that the naval authorities assert that the
position of our Fleet is such that even a raid by say ten thousand
men, resolved to do us the greatest possible damage and cause the
maximum of alarm even if the penalty be annihilation, is out of the
question. On the other hand, the military authorities hold the view--a
view expressed to me by the late Lord Roberts--that it would be quite
possible for the Germans to land a force in Great Britain which would
do an enormous amount of damage, physically and morally, before it was
finally rounded up and destroyed by the overwhelming numbers of troops
we could fling against it.
What we think of the matter, however, is of less importance than what
the enemy thinks, and it is beyond question that, at any rate until
quite recently, the German War Staff regarded the invasion of England
as perfectly practicable, and had made elaborate plans for carrying out
their project.
When writing my forecast "The Invasion of England," in 1905, I received
the greatest advice and kind assistance from the late Lord Roberts, who
spent many hours with me, and who personally revised and elaborated the
German plan of campaign which I had supposed. Without his assistance
the book would never have been written. I am aware of the strong views
he held on the subject, and how indefatigable he was in endeavouring
to bring the grave peril of invasion home to an apathetic nation. Poor
"Bobs"! The public laughed at him and said: "Yes, of course. He is
getting so old!"
Old! When I came home from the last Balkan War I brought him some
souvenirs from the battle-fields of Macedonia, and he sent me a
telegram to meet him at 8 a.m. at a quiet West End hotel--where he was
in the habit of staying. I arrived at that hour and he grasped my hand,
welcomed me back from many months of a winter campaign with the Servian
headquarters staff, and, erect and smiling, said: "Now, let's talk.
I've already done my correspondence and had my breakfast. I was up at
half-past five,"--when I had been snoring!
Roberts was a soldier of the old school. He knew our national weakness,
and he knew our stubborn stone-wall resistance. After the outbreak of
war he told me that he would deplore racing, football, and cricket--our
national sports--while we were at death-grips with Germany, because,
as he put it, if we race and play games, the people will not take this
world-war seriously. Then he turned in his chair in my room, and,
looking me straight in the face, said: "What did I tell you, Le Queux,
when you were forecasting 'The Invasion'--that the British nation will
not be awakened by us--but only by a war upon them. They are at last
awakened. I will never seek to recall the past, but my duty is to do my
best for my King and my Country."
And so he died--cut off at a moment when he was claiming old friendship
of those from India whom he knew so well. The night before he left
England to go upon the journey to the front which proved fatal, he
wrote me a letter--which I still preserve--deploring the atrocities
which the Germans had committed in Belgium.
Ever since the war broke out we have heard of great concentration
of troops, and ships intended to carry them, at Wilhelmshaven and
Cuxhaven, a strong indication that something in the nature of a raid
was in contemplation. It is quite possible that opinion, both in
Germany and in this country, has been very profoundly modified by the
fate which befell the last baby-killing expedition launched against
our eastern coasts, which came to grief through the vigilance of
Admiral Beatty. The terrible mauling sustained by the German squadron,
the loss of the _Blucher_ and the battering of the _Seydlitz_ and
_Derfflinger_, may have done a good deal to drive home into the German
mind the conviction that in the face of an unbeaten--and to Germany
unbeatable--battle-fleet, the invasion of England would be, at the
very best, an undertaking of the most hazardous nature which would be
foredoomed to failure and in which the penalty would be annihilation.
Perhaps, however, the enemy are only waiting. We know from German
writings that the plans for the invasion of England have usually
postulated that our Fleet shall be, for the time being, absent from
the point of danger, probably out of home waters altogether, and that
the attack would be sprung upon us as a surprise. We do not know, and
we do not seek to know, the exact position of the British Fleet, but
we can be perfectly certain that, with the invention of wireless, the
moment at which the Germans might have sprung a surprise upon us has
gone for ever. There is good reason for believing that the Germans
intended to strike at us without any formal declaration of war, and
I have been informed, on good authority, that before war broke out,
certain dispositions had actually been made which were brought to
naught only by a singularly bold and daring manoeuvre on the part of
our naval authorities. No doubt, in the course of time, this incident,
with many others of a similar nature, will be made public. I can only
say at present that when the startling truth becomes known, further
evidence will be forthcoming that Germany deliberately planned the war,
and was ready to strike long before war was declared.
People who say that an invasion of our shores is impossible usually do
so with the reservation, expressed or implied, that the effort would be
unsuccessful--that is, that it could not succeed so far as to compel
Britain to make peace. But, even if the Germans believe this as firmly
as we do, it by no means follows that they may not make the attempt.
It is a part of the Germans' theory and practice to seek, by every
possible means, to create a panic, to do the utmost moral and material
damage by the most inhuman and revolting means, and it is more than
likely that they would hold the loss of even fifty or sixty thousand
men as cheap indeed, if, before they were destroyed, they could, if
only for a few days, vent German wrath and hatred on British towns and
on British people.
To say they could not do this would be exceedingly foolish. Few people
would be daring enough to say that it would be impossible for the
Germans, aided undoubtedly by spies on shore, to land suddenly in
the neighbourhood of one of the big East Coast towns a force strong
enough to overpower, for the moment, the local defences, and establish
itself--if only for a few days--in a position where it could lay waste
with fire and sword a very considerable section of country. And we must
never forget that, if ever the Germans get the chance, their atrocious
treatment of the British population will be a thousand times worse than
anything they have done in France and Belgium. That fact ought to sink
deeply into the public mind. A German Expedition into this country
would be undertaken with the one definite object of striking terror and
producing a panic which would force our Government to sue for peace. To
secure that end, the Germans would spare neither young nor old--every
man, woman, and child within their power would be slaughtered without
mercy, and without regard for age or sex. We have heard something,
though not all, of the infamies perpetrated by German troops upon the
helpless Belgians even before the world had realised how much Belgium
had done to foil their plans. And we must not overlook the fact that
certain German officers--enjoying the services of valets and other
luxuries at Donington Hall, fitted up by us at a cost of £13,000--were
those who ordered the wholesale massacre of women and children. We
relieve the poor Belgian refugees, and caress their murderers.
If the flood-gates of German hatred were opened upon us, what measure
would the enemy mete out to us who, as they now bitterly realise, have
stood between the Kaiser and his megalomaniac dreams? I do not think
we need be in any doubt as to what the German answer to that question
would be!
Recent events have made it vividly apparent that the Germans have
already reached a pitch of desperation in which they are willing to try
any and every scheme which, at whatever cost to themselves, offered a
prospect of injuring their enemies. They feel the steel net slowly, but
very surely, tightening around them; like caged wild beasts they are
flinging themselves frantically at the bars, now here, now there, in
mad paroxysms of rage. Their wonderful military machine, if it has not
absolutely broken down, is at any rate badly out of gear, though there
is a huge strength still left in it. Their vaunted fleet skulks behind
fortifications, and whenever it ventures to poke its head outside is
hit promptly and hit hard. Their boasted Zeppelins, which were to
lay ever so many "eggs" on London, have certainly, up to the time of
writing, failed utterly.
We frequently hear the man-in-the-street jeer at the Zeppelin peril,
and declare that it is only a "bogey" raised to frighten us. To a
certain extent I think it is, but the fact that Zeppelins have not yet
appeared over London is, surely, no reason why they should not come
and commit havoc and cause panic as the vanguard of the raid which may
be intended upon us. There is much in our apathy which is more than
foolish--it is criminal. Had the country, ten years ago, listened to
the warnings of Lord Roberts and others, instead of being immersed
in their own pleasure-seeking and money-grubbing, we should have had
no war. The public, who are happily to-day filled with a spirit of
patriotism because they have learnt wisdom by experience, now realise
their error. They see how utterly foolish they were to jeer at my
warnings in the _Daily Mail_; and by singing in the music halls "Are we
Down-'earted--No!" they have gallantly admitted it--as every Britisher
admits where he is wrong--and have come forward to stem the tide of
barbarians who threaten us.
As one who has done all that mortal man can do to try to bring home to
his country a sense of its own danger, and who, by the insidious action
of "those in power," narrowly escaped financial ruin for _daring_ to
be a patriot, I cast the past aside and rejoice in the fine spirit of
the younger generation of men, actuated by the fact that they are still
Britons.
But, after this war, there will be men--men whose names are to-day as
household words--who must be indicted before the nation for leading us
into the trap which Germany so cunningly prepared for us. Those are men
who knew, by the Kaiser's declaration in 1908, what was intended, and
while posing as British statesmen--save the mark!--lied to the public,
and told them that Germany was our best friend, and that war would
never be declared--"not in our time."
There will be a day, ere long, when the pro-German section of what
Britons foolishly call their "rulers"--certain members of that
administration who are now struggling to atone for their past follies
in being misled by the cunning of the enemy--will be arraigned and
swept out of the public ken, as they deserve to be. The blood of
a million mothers of sons in Great Britain boils at thoughts of
the ghastly truth, and the wholesale sacrifice of their dear ones,
because the diplomacy of Great Britain, with all its tinsel, its
paraphernalia of attachés, secretaries (first, second, and third), its
entertainments, its fine "residences," its whisperings and jugglings,
and its "conversations," was quite incapable of thwarting the German
plot.
By our own short-sightedness we have been led into this conflict, in
which the very lives of our dear ones and ourselves are at stake. Yet,
to-day, we in England have not fully realised that we are at war.
Illustrated papers publish fashion numbers, and the butterflies of the
fair sex rush to adorn themselves in the latest _mode_ from Paris--the
capital of a threatened nation! Stroll at any hour in any street in
London, or any of our big cities. Does anything remind the thoughtful
man that we are at war? No. Our theatres, music halls, and picture
palaces are full. Our restaurants are crowded, our night-clubs drive a
thriving trade--and nobody cares for to-morrow.
Why? Read the daily newspapers, and learn the lesson of how the public
are being daily deluded by false assertions that all is well, and that
we have great Imperial Germany--the country which has, for twenty
years, plotted against us--in the hollow of our hand.
The public are not told the real truth, and there lies the grave
scandal which must be apparent to every person in the country. But, I
ask, will the malevolent influence which is protecting the alien enemy
among us, and refusing to allow inquiry into spying, _ever permit the
truth to be told_?
Let the reader pause, and think.
Despite the cast-iron censorship, and the most docile Press the world
has ever seen, the German people must, on the other hand, to-day be
suspecting the truth. Germans may be braggarts, but they are not
fools, and it is safe to say that the hysterical spasms of hatred of
Great Britain--by which the entire nation seems to be convulsed--have
their origin in an ever-growing conviction of failure and a very
accurate perception of where that failure lies.
In this frame of mind they may venture on anything, and it is for this
reason that I believe they may yet, in spite of all that has happened,
attempt a desperate raid on these shores.
What are we doing to meet that peril?
CHAPTER IX
THE PERIL OF APATHY
There is an apathy towards any peril of invasion that is astounding.
Of our military measures, pure and simple, I shall say nothing except
that it is the bounden duty of every Briton to place implicit reliance
upon Lord Kitchener and the military authorities and, if necessary,
to assist them by every means in his power. We can do no good by
criticising measures of the true meaning of which we know nothing.
There are some other points, however, on which silence would
be culpable, and one of these is the amazing lack of any clear
instructions as to the duties of the civil population in the event of a
German attack.
Now it is perfectly obvious that one of the first things necessary in
the face of a German landing would be to get the civilian population
safely beyond the zones threatened by the invaders. It is simply
unthinkable that men, women, and children shall be left to the tender
mercies of the German hordes. Yet, so far as I am able to ascertain, no
steps have yet been taken to warn inhabitants at threatened points what
they shall do. They have been _advised_, it is true, to continue in
their customary avocations and to remain quietly at home. Does any sane
human being, remembering the treatment of Belgian civilians who just
did this, expect that such advice will be followed? We can take it for
granted that it will not, and I contend that in all districts along the
East Coast, where, it is practically certain, any attempt at landing
must be made, the inhabitants should at once be told, in the clearest
and most emphatic manner, just what is required of them, and the best
and quickest way to get out of harm's way, leaving as little behind
them as possible to be of any use to the invaders, and leaving a clear
field of operations for our own troops.
A century ago, when the peril of a French invasion overshadowed the
land, the most careful arrangements were made for removing the people
from the threatened areas, and the destruction of food and fodder. Is
there any reason why such arrangements should not be taken in hand
to-day, and the people made thoroughly familiar with all the conditions
necessary for carrying out a swift and systematic evacuation?
I am aware, of course, that already certain instructions have been
issued to Lord-lieutenants of the various counties in what may be
called the zone of possible invasion. But I contend that the public
at large should be told plainly what is expected of them. It is not
enough to say that when the moment of danger comes they should blindly
obey the local policeman. In the event of a withdrawal from any part
of the coast-line becoming necessary, it ought not to be possible that
the inhabitants should be taken by surprise; their course ought to be
mapped out for them quite clearly, and in advance, so that all will
know just what they have to do to get away with the minimum of delay
and without impeding the movements of our defensive forces. Whatever
we may say or do, the appearance off the British coast of a raiding
German force would be the signal for a rush inland, and there is every
reason to take steps for ensuring that that rush shall be orderly
and controlled, and in no sense a blind and panic flight which would
be alike unnecessary and disastrous. It may well be, and it is to be
hoped, that the danger will never come. That does not absolve us from
the necessity of being ready to meet it. War is an affair of surprises,
and Germany has sprung many surprises upon the world since last August.
The refusal of the War Office authorities to extend any sympathetic
consideration towards the new Civilian Corps, which are striving,
despite official discouragement, to fit themselves for the duty of home
defence in case the necessity should arise, is another instance of
the lack of imagination and insight which has shown itself in so many
ways during our conduct of the campaign. These Corps now number well
over a million men. All that the Army Council has done for them is to
extend to such of them as became affiliated to the Central Volunteer
Training Association the favour of official "recognition" which will
entitle them to rank as combatants in the event of invasion. Even that
recognition is coupled with a condition that has given the gravest
offence and which threatens, indeed, to go far towards paralysing the
movement altogether.
It is in the highest degree important, as will readily be admitted,
that these Corps should not interfere with recruiting for the Regular
Army. That the Volunteers themselves fully recognise. But to secure
this non-interference the Government have made it a condition of
recognition that any man under military age joining a Corps shall sign
a declaration that he will enlist in the Regular Army when called upon
unless he can show some good and sufficient reason why he should not do
so.
Here we have the cause of all the trouble. The Army Council, in spite
of all entreaties, obstinately refuses to state what constitutes a
good and sufficient reason for non-enlistment. One such reason, it is
admitted, is work on Government contracts. But it is impossible for us
to shut our eyes to the fact that there are many thousands of men of
military age and good physique who, however much they may desire to do
their duty, are fully absolved by family or business reasons from the
duty of joining the Regular Army. Many of them have dependents whom
it is simply impossible for them to leave to the blank poverty of the
official separation allowance; many of them are in businesses which
would go to rack and ruin in their absence; many of them are engaged on
work which is quite as important to the country as anything they could
do in the field, even though they may not be in Government employ. To
withdraw every able-bodied man from his employment would simply mean
that industry would be brought to a standstill, and as this country
must, to some extent, act as general provider for the Allies, it is,
plainly, our duty to keep business going as well as to fight.
Rightly or wrongly, this particular provision is looked upon as an
attempt to introduce a veiled form of compulsion. It has been pointed
out that there is no power to compel men to enlist, even if they have
signed such a declaration as is required. But the men, very properly,
say that Britain has gone to war in defence of her plighted word, and
that they are not prepared to give their word and then break it.
What is the result? Many thousands of capable men, fully excused by
their own consciences from the duty of joining the Regular Army, find
that, unless they are prepared to take up a false and wholly untenable
position, they are _not even allowed to train_ for the defence of
their country in such a grave crisis that all other considerations but
the safety of the Empire must go by the board. I am not writing of
the slackers who want to "swank about in uniform" at home when they
ought to be doing their duty in the trenches. I refer to the very
large body of genuinely patriotic men who, honestly and sincerely,
feel that, whatever their personal wishes may be, their duty at the
moment is to "keep things going" at home. For men over military age
the Volunteer Corps offer an opportunity of getting ready to strike a
blow for England's sake should the time ever come when every man who
can shoulder a rifle must take his place in the ranks. And it certainly
argues an amazing want of sympathy and foresight that, for the lack of
a few words of intelligible definition, a splendid body of men should
lose the only chance offered them of getting a measure of military
education which in time to come may be of priceless value.
No one complains that the Army Council does not immediately rush to
arm and equip the Volunteers. Undoubtedly, there is still much to be
done in the way of equipping the regular troops and accumulating the
vast reserves that will be required when the great forward move begins.
Much could be done even now, however, to encourage the Volunteers to
persevere with their training. It should not be beyond the power of the
military authorities, in the very near future, to arm and equip such
of the Corps as have attained a reasonable measure of efficiency in
simple military movements, and in shooting with the miniature rifle. At
the same time some clear definition ought to be forthcoming of what,
in the opinion of the Army Council, constitutes a valid reason, in the
case of a man of military age, for not joining the regular forces. It
is certain that when the time comes for the Allies to take a strong
offensive we shall be sending enormous numbers of trained men out of
the country, and, the wastage of war being what it is, huge drafts
will be constantly required to keep the fighting units up to full
strength. In the meantime large numbers of Territorials in this country
are chained to the irksome--though very necessary--duty of guarding
railways, bridges, and other important points liable to be attacked.
There seems to be no good reason why a great deal, if not the whole,
of this work should not be undertaken by Volunteers. This would free
great numbers of Territorials for more profitable forms of training and
would, undoubtedly, enable us to send far more men out of the country
if the necessity should arise.
If the Volunteers were regarded by those in authority with the proper
sympathy which their patriotism deserves, it would be seen that they
provide, in effect, a class of troops closely corresponding to the
German Landsturm, which is already taking its part in the war. It is
important to remember that, up to the present time, we have enlisted
none but picked men, every one of whom has had to pass a strict
medical and physical examination. We have left untouched, in fact,
our real reserves. Those reserves, apparently scorned by the official
authorities, are capable, if they receive adequate encouragement, of
providing an immense addition to our fighting forces.
No one pretends, of course, that the entire body of Volunteers whom we
see drilling and route-marching day by day are capable of the exertions
involved in a strenuous campaign. But a very large percentage of them
are quite capable of being made fit to serve in a home-defence army,
and it is a feeble and shortsighted policy to give them the official
cold shoulder and nip their enthusiasm in the bud. At the present
moment they cost nothing, and they are doing good and useful work. Is
it expecting too much to suggest that their work should be encouraged
with something a little more stimulating than a scarlet arm-band and a
form of "recognition" which, upon close analysis, will be found to mean
very little indeed?
There has been too strong a tendency in the past to praise, in
immoderate terms, German methods and German efficiency. But,
undoubtedly, there are certain things which we can learn from the
enemy, and one of them is the speed and energy with which the Germans,
at the present moment, are turning to their advantage popular
enthusiasm of exactly the same nature as that which has produced the
Volunteer movement here. It is a popular misconception that in a
conscriptionist country every man, without distinction, is swept into
the ranks for his allotted term. This is by no means the case. There
are many reasons for exemption, and a very large proportion of the
German people, when war broke out, had never done any military duty.
Travellers who have recently returned from Germany report that the
Volunteer movement there has made gigantic strides. Men have come
forward in thousands, and the Government, with German energy and
foresight, has pounced upon this splendid volume of material and is
rapidly licking it into shape. I don't believe, for one moment, the
highly coloured stories which represent Germany as being short of
rifles, ammunition, and other munitions of war: she has, apparently,
more than sufficient to arm her forces in the field and to permit her
_to arm her volunteers as well_.
Whether I am right or wrong, the German Government is taking full
advantage of the patriotic spirit of its subjects, and there does not
appear to be any good reason why our Government should not take a leaf
out of the enemy's book. If they would do so and help the Volunteer
movement by sympathy and encouragement, and the assurance that more
would be done at the earliest possible moment, we should be in a better
condition to meet an invasion than we are to-day, in that we should
have an enormous reserve of strength for use in case of emergency.
No doubt the military authorities, after the most careful study of
the subject, feel convinced that our safety is assured: my point is,
that in a matter of such gravity it is impossible to have too great
a margin of safety. It is no use blinking the fact that, despite the
efforts we have made, and are making, the time may come when the entire
manhood of the United Kingdom must be called upon to take part in a
deadly struggle for national existence. Trust-worthy reports state
that the Germans are actually arming something over four million fresh
troops--some of them have already been in action--and if this estimate
prove well founded, it is quite clear that the crisis of the world-war
is yet to come. I do not think any one will deny that when it does come
we shall need every man we can get.
Closely allied with the subject of invasion are the German methods
of "frightfulness" by means of their submarines and aircraft. Of the
latter, it would seem, we are justified in speaking with absolute
contempt. Three attempts at air raids on our shores have been made, and
though, unhappily, some innocent lives were lost through the enemy's
indiscriminate bomb-dropping, the military effect up to the day I pen
these lines has been absolutely nil, except to assist us in bringing
more recruits to the colours. Several of the vast, unwieldy Zeppelins,
of which the Germans boasted so loudly, have been lost either through
gunfire or in gales, while we have official authority for saying
that our own air-service is so incomparably superior to that of the
enemy that the German aviators, like the baby-killers of Scarborough,
seek safety in retreat directly they are confronted by the British
fliers. No doubt the German air-men have their value as scouts and
observers, but it is abundantly clear that, as a striking unit, they
are hopelessly outclassed. They have done nothing to compare with the
daring raids on Friedrichshafen and Düsseldorf, to say nothing of the
magnificent and devastating attack by the British and French air-men on
Zeebrugge, Ostend, and Antwerp.
The submarine menace stands on another and very different footing,
for the simple reason that luck, pure and simple, enters very largely
into the operations of the underwater craft. It is quite conceivable
that, favoured by fortune and with a conveniently hidden base of
supplies--one of which, a petrol-base, I indicated to the authorities
on March 15th--either afloat or ashore, submarines might do an enormous
amount of damage on our trade routes.
A few dramatic successes may, of course, produce a scare and send
insurance and freight rates soaring. Moreover, the submarine is
exceedingly difficult to attack: it presents a very tiny mark to
gunfire, and when it sights a hostile ship capable of attacking it, it
can always seek safety by submerging. But, when all is said and done,
the number of German submarines, given all the good fortune they could
wish, is quite inadequate seriously to threaten the main body of either
our commerce or our Navy.
We are told, and quite properly, nothing of the methods which the
Admiralty are adopting to deal with German pirates. But it will not
have escaped the public attention that the submarines have scored no
great success against British warships since the _Hawke_ was sunk
in the Channel. I think we may fairly conclude, therefore, that our
Admiralty have succeeded in devising new means of defence against the
new means of attack. We know that at the time of writing two enemy
submarines have been sunk by the Navy, and it seems fairly certain
that another was rammed and destroyed in the Channel by the steamer
_Thordis_. Whatever, therefore, may be our views on the general subject
of the war, it seems clear that we can safely treat the submarine
menace as the product of the super-heated Teutonic imagination.
We know of, and can guard against, the risks we run of any armed attack
from Germany. But there is another peril which will face us when the
war is over--a renewal of the commercial invasion which we have seen in
progress on a gigantic scale for years past.
We know how the British market has, for years, been flooded with
shoddy German imitations of British goods to the grave detriment of
our home trade. We know, too, how the German worker, over here "to
learn the language," has wormed himself into the confidence of the
foolish English employer, and has abused that confidence by keeping
his real principals--those in Germany--fully posted with every scrap
of commercial information which might help them to capture British
trade. We know, though we do not know the full story, that hundreds
of "British" companies have been, in fact, owned, organised, and
controlled solely by Germans. We know that for years German spies and
agents, ostensibly engaged in business here, have plotted our downfall.
Are we going to permit, when the war is over, a repetition of all this?
I confess I look upon this matter with the gravest uneasiness. It is
all very well to say that after the war Germans will be exceedingly
unpopular in every civilised community. That fact is not likely to keep
out the German, who is anything but thin-skinned. And, I regret to say,
there are only too many British employers who are likely to succumb to
the temptation to make use of cheap German labour, regardless of the
fact that they will thus be actively helping their country's enemies.
Germans to-day are carrying on business in this country with a freedom
which would startle the public, if it were known. I will mention
two instances which have come to my knowledge lately. The first is
the case of a company with an English name manufacturing certain
electric fittings. Up to the time the war broke out, every detail
of this company's business was regularly transmitted once a week to
Germany: copies of every invoice, every bill, every letter, were sent
over. Though the concern was registered as an "English" company, the
proprietorship and control were purely and wholly German. That concern
is carrying on business to-day, and in the city of London, protected,
no doubt, by its British registration. And the manager is an Englishman
who, before the war, explained very fully to my informant the entire
system on which the business was conducted.
The second case is similar, with the exception that the manager is a
German, at least in name and origin, who speaks perfect English, and
is still, or was very recently, conducting the business. In this case,
as in the first, every detail of the business was, before war broke
out, regularly reported to the head office of the firm in Germany. I
wonder whether English firms are being permitted to carry on business
in Berlin to-day!
Whether we shall go on after the war in the old haphazard style of
rule-of-thumb rests solely with public opinion. And if public opinion
will tolerate the employment of German waiters in our hotels in time
of war, I see very little likelihood of any effort to stay the German
invasion which will, assuredly, follow the declaration of peace. Then
we shall see again the unscrupulous campaign of commercial and military
espionage which has cost us dear in the past, and may cost us still
more in the future. Our foolish tolerance of the alien peril will be
used to facilitate the war of revenge for which our enemy will at once
begin to prepare.
CHAPTER X
THE PERIL OF STIFLING THE TRUTH
Ignorance of the real truth about the war--an ignorance purposely
imposed upon us by official red-tape--is, I am convinced, the gravest
peril by which our beloved country is faced at the present moment.
I say it is the gravest peril for the simple reason that it is the
root-peril from which spring all the rest. And this ignorance springs
not from official apathy, or from the public wilfully shutting its
eyes to disagreeable truths. It is born of the deliberate suppression
of unpleasant facts, of the deliberate and ridiculous exaggeration
of minor successes. In a word, it is the result of the public having
been fooled and bamboozled under the specious plea of safeguarding
our military interests. Are we children to believe such official
fairy-tales? The country is not being told the truth about the war.
I don't say, and I do not believe, that it is being fed with false
news of bogus victories. But untruths can as easily be conveyed by
suppression as by assertion, and no one who has studied the war with
any degree of attention can escape the impression that the news
presented to us day by day takes on, under official manipulation, a
colour very much more favourable than is warranted by the actual facts.
Day after day the Press Bureau, of course under official inspiration
from higher sources, issues statements in which the good news is unduly
emphasised and the bad unduly slurred over. Day by day a large section
of the Press helps on, with every ingenious device of big type and
sensational headlines, the official hoodwinking of the public. Many
pay their nimble halfpennies to be gulled. A naval engagement in which
our immensely superior forces crush the weaker squadron of the enemy
is blazoned forth as a "magnificent victory" for our fighting men,
when, in sober truth, the chief credit lies with the silent and utterly
forgotten strategist behind the scenes, whose cool brain worked out the
eternal problem of bringing adequate force to bear at exactly the right
time and in just exactly the right place.
I say no word to depreciate the heroism of our gallant bluejackets.
They would fight as coolly when they were going to inevitable
death--Cradock's men did in the _Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_--as if they
were in such overwhelming superiority that the business of destroying
the enemy was little more dangerous than the ordinary battle-practice.
My whole point is that by the skilful manipulation of facts a wholly
false impression is conveyed. There is, in truth, nothing "magnificent"
about beating a hopelessly inferior foe, and our sailors would be the
last to claim to be heroes under such conditions. It is, of course,
the business of our naval authorities to be ready whenever a German
squadron shows itself, to hit at once with such crushing superiority
of gunfire that there will be no need to hit again at the same object.
That can only be achieved by sound strategy, for which we are entitled
to claim and give the credit that is due. When our Navy has won a
decisive success against great odds we may be justified in talking
of a "magnificent" victory. To talk of any naval success of the
present war as a "magnificent victory" is simply to becloud the real,
essential, vital facts, and to assist in deceiving a public which is
being studiously kept in the dark.
By every means possible, short of downright lying of the German type,
the public is being lulled into a false and dangerous belief that all
is well--a blind optimism calculated to produce only the worst possible
results, a state of mental and physical apathy which has already
gone far to rob it of the energy and determination and driving force
which are absolutely necessary if we are to emerge in safety from the
greatest crisis that has faced our country in its thousand years of
stormy history.
As an example of what the public are told concerning the enemy, a good
illustration is afforded by a well-Known Sunday paper dated March 7th.
Here we find, among other headings in big type, the following: "Stake
of Life and Death!" "Germany's Frantic Appeal for Greater Efforts!"
"Russia's Hammer Blow." "German Offensive from East Prussia Ruined:
Losses 250,000 in a Month." "German Plans Foiled: Enemy's 3,000,000
Losses." "On Reduced Rations: German Troops Getting Less to Eat."
"Germany Cut Off from the Seas." "Germans Cut in Two: 15,000 Prisoners
and 'Rich Booty' Taken." "Killed to Last Man: Appalling Austrian
Losses." "The Verge of Famine: Bread Doles cut down again in Germany:
Frantic Efforts to Stave Off Starvation."
And yet, in the centre of the paper, next to the leader, we find a huge
advertisement headed "The Man to be Pitied," calling for recruits,
appealing to their patriotism, and urging them to "Enlist To-day."
Surely it is the reader who is to be pitied!
Again, we have wilfully neglected the formation of a healthy public
opinion in neutral countries. While Germany has, by every underhand
means in her power, by wireless lies, and by bribery of certain
newspapers in America and in Italy, created an opinion hostile to the
Allies, we have been content to sit by and allow the disgraceful plot
against us to proceed.
We have, all of us, read the screeches of the pro-German press in the
United States, and in Italy the scandal of how Germany has bribed
certain journals has already been publicly exposed. The Italians have
not been told the truth by us, as they should have been. In Italy the
greater section of the public are in favour of Great Britain and are
ready to take arms against the hated Tedesco, yet on the other hand we
have to face the insidious work of Germany's secret service and the
lure of German gold in a country where, unfortunately, few men, from
contadino to deputy, are above suspicion. We must not close our eyes
to the truth that in neutral countries Germany is working steadily
with all her underhand machinery of diplomacy, of the purchase of
newspapers, of bribery and corruption and the suborning of men in high
places. To what end? To secure the downfall of Great Britain!
I have myself been present at a private view of an amazing cinema film
prepared at the Kaiser's orders and sent to be exhibited in neutral
countries for the purpose of influencing opinion in favour of Germany.
The pictures have been taken in the fighting zone, both in Belgium and
in East Prussia. So cleverly have they been stage-managed that I here
confess, as I sat gazing at them, I actually began to wonder whether
the stories told of German barbarities were, after all, true! Pictures
were shown of a group of British prisoners laughing and smoking, though
in the hands of their captors; of the kind German soldiery distributing
soup, bread, etc., to the populace in a Belgian village; of soldiers
helping the Belgian peasantry re-arrange their homes; of a German
soldier giving some centimes to a little Belgian child; of great crowds
in Berlin singing German national songs in chorus; of the marvellous
organisation of the German army; of thousands upon thousands of troops
being reviewed by the Kaiser, who himself approaches you with a salute
and a kindly smile. It was a film that must, when shown in any neutral
country--as it is being shown to-day all over the world--create a
good impression regarding Germany, while people will naturally ask
themselves why has not England made a similar attempt, in order to
counteract such an insidious and clever illusion in the public mind.
Such a mischievous propaganda as that being pursued by Germany in all
neutral countries we cannot to-day afford to overlook. Our enemy's
intention is first to prepare public opinion, and then to produce
dissatisfaction among the Allies by sowing discord. And yet from the
eyes of the British nation the scales have not yet fallen! In our
apathy in this direction I foresee great risk.
With these facts in view it certainly behoves us to stir ourselves into
activity by endeavouring, ere it becomes too late, to combat Germany's
growing prestige among other nations in the world, a prestige which is
being kept up by a marvellous campaign of barefaced chicanery and fraud.
The dangerous delusion is prevalent in Great Britain that we are past
the crisis, that everything is going well and smoothly, perhaps even
that the war will soon be over. In some quarters, even in some official
quarters, people to-day are talking glibly of peace by the end of
July, not openly, of course, but in the places where men congregate
and exchange news "under the rose." The general public, taking its
cue from the only authorities it understands or has to rely upon, the
daily papers, naturally responds, with the eager desire of the human
mind to believe what it wishes to be true. Hence there has grown up a
comfortable sense of security, from which we shall assuredly experience
a very rude awakening.
For, let there be no mistake about it, the war is very far from ended;
indeed, despite our losses, we might almost say it has hardly yet
begun. For eight months we have been "getting ready to begin." To-day
we see Germany in possession of practically the whole of Belgium
and a large strip of Northern France. With the exception of a small
patch of Alsace, she preserves her own territory absolutely intact.
Her fortified lines extend from the coast of Belgium to the border
of Switzerland, and behind that seemingly impenetrable barrier she
is gathering fresh hosts of men ready for a desperate defence when
the moment comes, as come it must, for the launching of the Allies'
attack. On her Eastern frontiers she has at least held back the Russian
attack, she has freed East Prussia, and not a single soldier is to-day
on German soil. I ask any one who may be inclined to undue optimism
whether the situation is not one to call imperatively for the greatest
effort of which the British nation and the British Empire are capable?
We are assured by the official inspirers of optimism that time is on
the side of the Allies, and is working steadily against the Germans.
In a sense, of course, this is true, but it is not the whole truth.
I place not the slightest reliance upon the stories industriously
circulated from German sources of Germany being short of food; all the
evidence we can get from neutrals who have just returned from Germany
condemns them _in toto_. The Germans are a methodical and far-seeing
people, and no doubt they are very rightly looking ahead and prudently
conserving their resources. But that there is any real scarcity of
either food or munitions of war there is not a trace of reliable
evidence, and those journals, one of which I have quoted, which delight
to represent our enemy as being in a state of semi-starvation are doing
a very bad service to our country. The Germans can unquestionably hold
out for a very considerable time yet, and we are simply living in a
fool's paradise if we try to persuade ourselves to the contrary. If
it were true that Germany is really short of food, that our blockade
was absolutely effective, and that no further supplies could reach the
enemy until the next harvest, it might be true to say that time was on
the side of the Allies. But supposing, as I believe, that the tales of
food shortage have been deliberately spread by the Germans themselves
with the very definite object of working upon the sympathies of the
United States, what position are we in? Here, in truth, we come down to
a position of the very deepest gravity. It is a position which affects
the whole conduct and conclusion of the war, and which cannot fail to
exercise the most vital influence over our future.
Speaking at the Lord Mayor's banquet last November, Mr. Asquith said:
"We shall never sheathe the sword, which we have not lightly drawn,
until Belgium recovers in full measure all, and more than all, she
has sacrificed; until France is adequately secure against the menace
of aggression; until the rights of the smaller nationalities of Europe
are placed on an unassailable foundation; and until the military
domination of Prussia is wholly and finally destroyed."
Those noble words, in which the great soul of Britain is expressed in
half a dozen lines, should be driven into the heart and brain of the
Empire. For they are, indeed, a great and eloquent call to Britain to
be up and doing. Four months later, Mr. Asquith repeated them in the
House of Commons, adding:
"I hear sometimes whispers--they are hardly more than whispers--of
possible terms of peace. Peace is the greatest of all blessings,
but this is not the time to talk of peace. Those who do so, however
excellent their intentions, are, in my judgment, the victims, I will
not say of a wanton but a grievous self-delusion. The time to talk of
peace is when the great purposes for which we and our Allies embarked
upon this long and stormy voyage are within sight of accomplishment."
Every thinking man must realise the truth and force of what the
Premier said. The question inevitably follows--are we acting with such
swiftness and decision that we shall be in a position, before the
opportunity has passed, to make those words good?
There is a steadily growing volume of opinion among men who are in a
position to form a cool judgment that, partly for financial and partly
for physical reasons, a second winter campaign cannot possibly be
undertaken by any of the combatants engaged in the present struggle.
If that view be well founded, it follows that peace on some terms or
other will be concluded by October or November at the latest. We, more
than any other nation, depend upon the issue of this war to make our
existence, as a people and an Empire, safe for a hundred years to come.
Have we so energetically pushed on the preparations that, by the time
winter is upon us again, we shall, with the help of our gallant Allies,
have dealt Germany such a series of crushing blows as to compel her to
accept a peace which shall be satisfactory to us?
There, I believe, we have the question which it is vital for us to
answer. If the answer is in the negative, I say, without hesitation,
that time fights not with the Allies but with Germany. If, as many
people think, this war must end somehow before the next winter, we
must, by that time, either have crushed out the vicious system of
Prussian militarism, or we must resign ourselves to a patched-up peace,
which would be but a truce to prepare for a more terrible struggle
to come. Despite our most heroic resolves, it is doubtful whether,
under modern conditions of warfare, the money can be found for a very
prolonged campaign.
I do not forget, of course, that the Allies have undertaken not
to conclude a separate peace, and I have not the least doubt that
the bargain will be loyally kept. But we cannot lose sight of the
possibility that peace may come through the inability of the combatants
to continue the war, which it is calculated will by the autumn have
cost nine thousand millions of money. And we can take it for granted
that the task of subduing a Germany driven to desperation, standing
on the defensive, and fighting with the blind savagery of a cornered
rat, is going to be a long and troublesome business. We are assured
that the Allies can stand the financial strain better than Germany.
Possibly; but the point is that no one knows just how much strain
Germany can stand before she breaks, and in war it is only common
prudence to prepare for the worst that can befall. This is precisely
what we, most emphatically, are _not_ doing to-day. Thanks to the
reasons I have given--the chief of which is the unwarrantable official
secrecy and the wholly unjustifiable "cooking" of the news--the British
public is _not yet fully aroused to the deadly peril_ in which the
nation and the Empire stand.
The British people are, as they ever have been, slow of thought and
slower of action. They need much rousing. And in the present war it is
most emphatically true that the right way of rousing them has not been
used. Smooth stories never yet fired British blood. Let an Englishman
think things are going even tolerably well, and he is loth to disturb
himself to make them go still better. But tell him a story of disaster,
show him how his comrades fall and die in great fights against great
odds: bring it home to his slow-working mind that he really has his
back to the wall, and you fan at once into bright flame the smouldering
pride of race and caste that has done, and will yet do, some of the
greatest deeds that have rung in history. Is there, we may well ask,
another race in the world that would have wrested such glory from the
disaster at Mons? And the lads who fought the Germans to a standstill
in the great retreat did so because the very deadliness of the peril
that confronted them called out all that is greatest and noblest and
most enduring in our national character.
Is there no lesson our authorities at home can learn from that
deathless story? Are they so blind to all the plainest teachings of
history that they fail to realise that the British people cannot be
depressed and frightened into panic by bad news, though, such is
our insular self-confidence, we can be only too easily lulled into
optimism by good news? If the autocrats who spoon-feed the public with
carefully selected titbits truly understood the mental characteristics
of their own countrymen, they would surely realise that the best,
indeed the only, way to arouse the British race throughout the world
to a sense of the real magnitude of the task that lies before them
is to tell them the simple truth. We want no more of the glossing
over of unpleasant facts which seems to be one of the main objects of
the press censorship. We want the real truth, not merely because we
are, naturally, hungry for news, but because the real truth alone is
capable of stimulating Englishmen and Welshmen, Scotchmen and Irishmen,
the world over to take off their coats, turn up their sleeves, and
seriously devote their energies to giving the German bully a sound and
effective thrashing.
CHAPTER XI
FACTS TO REMEMBER
We have heard a good deal about "Business as usual": it would be well
if we heard a little more of the companion saw--"Do it now." For if
this campaign, for good or ill, is to finish before the snows of next
winter come, the need for an instant redoubling of our energies is
pressing beyond words.
In his gallant defence of the Press Bureau against overwhelming
odds--few people share his admiration for that most unhappy
institution--Sir Stanley Buckmaster denied that information was ever
"kept back." So far as I know no one has ever suggested that the Press
Bureau had anything to say about the circulation of official news: its
unhappily directed energies seem to operate in other directions. But
that it is keeping back news of the very gravest kind admits of no
shadow of doubt. The official reports have assured us of late, with
irritating frequency, that there is "nothin' doin'." Now and again we
hear of a trench being heroically captured. But we hear very little of
the reverse side of the picture, upon which the casualty lists, a month
or six weeks later, throw such a lurid light.
Time and again lately we have read in the casualty lists of battalions
losing anything from two hundred to four hundred men in killed or
wounded or "missing," which means, in effect, prisoners. Even the
Guards, our very finest regiments, have lost heavily in this last
disagreeable fashion: other regiments have lost even more heavily.
Now British soldiers do not surrender readily, and we can take it for
granted that when a large number of our men are made prisoners it
is not without very heavy fighting. One single daily paper recently
contained the names of very nearly two thousand officers and men
killed, or wounded, or missing, on certain dates in January. Where,
why, or how these men were lost we do not know, and we are told
absolutely nothing. The real fact is that the news is carefully
concealed under a tiny paragraph which announces that a line of
trenches which had been lost have been brilliantly recaptured. We are
glad, of course, to learn of the success, but would it not be well for
the nation to learn of the failure? Can it be supposed for an instant
that the Germans do not know? Is it giving away military information
of value to the enemy to publish here in Great Britain news with which
they are already perfectly well acquainted? Is it not rather that
in their anxiety to say smooth things the authorities deliberately
suppress the news of reverses, and tell us only the story of our
triumph?
The most injurious suppression of news by the Government has made its
effect felt in practically every single department of our public life
which has the remotest connection with the prosecution of the war.
Take recruiting as an example. Recruiting is mainly stimulated, such
is the curious temper of our people, either by a great victory or a
great disaster. Failing one or other of these, the flow of men sinks
to what we regard as "normal proportions," which means in effect that
the public is lukewarm on the subject. It is perfectly well known
that a specially heroic deed of a particular regiment will bring to
that regiment a flood of recruits, as was the case after the gallant
exploit of the London Scottish had been published to the world. And
what is true of the regiment, is true of the Army. Yet with all their
enthusiastic advertising for recruits, the military authorities have
neglected the quickest and easiest way of filling the ranks: instead
of telling our people in bold stirring words of the heroic deeds of
our individual regiments, they have, except in a few instances, fought
the war with a degree of anonymity which may be creditable to their
modesty, but does no tribute to their intelligence.
Turn the shield to the darker side: every reverse has stimulated
patriotism and brought more men to the colours. What, I wonder, was the
value of the Scarborough raid as compared with the recruiting posters?
The sense of insult bit deep, as it always does in the English mind.
The Kaiser's own particular insult--his jibing reference to "General
French's contemptible little Army"--probably did more to rouse the
fighting blood of our men than all the German attacks. The splendid
story of the retreat from Mons flushed our hearts to pride, and men
poured to the colours. Is there no lesson here for the wiseacres of
Whitehall? Does the knowledge that Englishmen may be led, but cannot be
driven, convey nothing to them? Are they unaware that the Englishman
is the worst servant in the world if he is not trusted, but the very
best if full confidence is extended to him? Can they not see that their
foolish policy of suppressing ugly facts is, day by day, breeding
greater distrust and apathy?
I confess to feeling very strongly on the Clyde strikes, which, for
a wretched industrial dispute--probably engineered by German secret
agents--held up war material of which we stood in the gravest need. I
cannot understand how Scotsmen, belonging to a nation which has proved
its glorious valour on a hundred hard-fought fields, could have ceased
work when they were assured that their claims would be investigated
by an impartial tribunal. The bare idea, to me, is as shocking as it
must be to most people. And I can only hope and believe that the action
the men took is mainly attributable to the simple fact that they did
not understand the real gravity of the position; that they did not
appreciate the desperate character of our need, and that they utterly
failed to realise that to cease work at such a time was as truly
desertion in the face of the enemy as if they had been soldiers on duty
in the trenches. I confess I would rather think this than put the cause
down to laziness, or lack of patriotism, or drink. But if this, indeed,
be the real cause--a lack of knowledge of the essential facts of the
situation--whom have we to thank? Those, surely, who have cozened a
great people with fair words; those, surely, who have spoken as though
our enemy were in desperate straits, that all goes well, and that the
war will soon be over.
With regard to the alien peril, it is a source of great gratification
to me that His Majesty's Government have adopted my suggestion of
closing the routes to Holland to all who cannot furnish to the Foreign
Office guarantees of their _bona fides_. In my book, "German Spies in
England," I suggested this course, and in addition, that the intending
traveller should apply personally for a permit, that he should furnish
a photograph of himself, his passport, his certificate of registration,
if an alien, and two references from responsible British individuals
stating the reason for the journey and the nature of the business to
be transacted. Within a fortnight of the publication of my suggestion
the Government adopted it, and have established a special department
at the Home Office for the purpose of interviewing all intending to
leave England for Holland. The regulations are now most stringent. And,
surely, not before they were required.
Thus one step has been taken to reduce the enemy alien peril. But more
remains to be done. If we wish to end it, once and for all, we should
follow the example of our Allies, the Russians, who were well aware of
the network of spies spread over their land. In Russia every German,
whether naturalised or not, has been interned, every German woman and
child has been sent out of the country, and all property belonging to
German companies, or individuals, has been confiscated for ever by the
Government.
One result of this confiscation is that factories in first-class
condition can now be purchased from the Russian Government for what the
bricks are worth. In addition, there is a fine upon all persons heard
speaking German in public. In the opinion of Russians, Germany was, as
in England, a kind of octopus, and now they have the opportunity they
have thrown it off for ever. Why should we still pursue the policy of
the kid-glove and allow the peril to daily increase when the Government
could, by a stroke of the pen, end it for ever, as Russia has done?
Now there is one remedy, and only one, for the national apathy. The
truth must be told, and with all earnestness I beg of my readers,
each as opportunity offers, to do all in his power to stimulate public
opinion in the right direction until the demand for the truth becomes
so universal, and so insistent, that no Government in this country can
afford to ignore it. Many Members of Parliament have appealed in vain;
the great newspapers have fought unweariedly for the cause of honesty
and common sense. The real remedy lies in the hands of the people.
Democracy may not bring us unmixed blessings, but it does, at least,
mean that, in the long run, the will of the people must rule. If the
people insist on the truth, the truth must be told, and in so insisting
the people of England, I firmly believe, will be doing a great work for
themselves, for our Empire, and for the cause of civilisation.
They will be working for the one thing necessary above all others to
hearten the strong, to strengthen the weak, to resolve the hesitation
of the doubters, to nerve Britons as a whole for a stupendous effort
which shall bring nearer, by many months, the final obliteration of the
greatest menace which has ever confronted civilisation--the infamous
doctrine that might is right, that faith and honour are but scraps of
paper, that necessity knows no law but the law of self-interest, that
the plighted word of a great nation can be heedlessly broken, and that
the moral reprobation of humanity counts for nothing against material
success.
THE END
_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury._
GERMAN SPIES IN ENGLAND
An Exposure: By William Le Queux
(60th THOUSAND) 1/- Net
What Great Men Think
THE LORD MAYOR OF LONDON says:--
"Your new book deserves the serious attention of the authorities, as it
vividly depicts a very grave national peril."
THE EARL OF HALSBURY says:--
"The public has not yet appreciated the extent to which Germany has
expended money and pains in spying. Your book will help to make it
known."
THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTH says:--
"Your book is most instructive. The national democratic movement
aroused by the war should be employed to expiate all hostile aliens,
from the highest to the lowest."
VISCOUNT GALWAY says:--
"Your book is most interesting. I sincerely hope it will cause more
attention to be paid to the danger to England from German spies."
THE EARL OF CRAWFORD says:--
"I am glad attention is being so prominently drawn to this most
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LORD LEITH OF FYVIE says:--
"Your book is most serviceable. The Emperor William's speech shows how
treacherously brutal is his madness for world power, and it opens the
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hope you will be able to demonstrate who are the degenerates who are
betraying their country by active sympathy and assistance to the enemy."
What the Press Thinks
_THE DAILY MAIL_ says:--
"It is a book which should be carefully studied from cover to cover.
The present arrangement for dealing with Spies Mr. Le Queux pronounces
altogether unsatisfactory."
_THE DAILY TELEGRAPH_ says:--
"The discovery of the German Spy system has, we believe, been made
in time, and Mr. Le Queux must take his share in the credit of the
discovery. His self-sacrificing energy is vindicated to the world.
The stories which he tells will come as an alarming revelation to the
public."
_THE GLOBE_ says:--
"The audacity of some German agents in England, as revealed by Mr. Le
Queux, is only equalled by their enterprise. Mr. Le Queux emphasises
the point that it is those rich Germans of the Schulenberg type, for
whom some one in our Government or administration seems to have so
unwholesome a tenderness, who are the most dangerous. There are many
astonishing statements in this most amazing book."
_THE PALL MALL GAZETTE_ says:--
"Mr. Le Queux has devoted special attention to German Spies, and his
book will be read with much interest."
_THE EVENING STANDARD_ says:--
"Mr. Le Queux has here written on Spies and spying, as sensational a
book as any of his romances. Indeed, it may be questioned whether Mr.
Le Queux would have gone the length of introducing into a fictional
plot so extraordinary a chapter as that in which he reports one of the
Kaiser's speeches."
_THE SCOTSMAN_ says:--
"Mr. Le Queux gives a résumé of espionage methods. He goes over the
recent Spy convictions, and describes a considerable number of other
cases, unpunished, which have come under his own observation. He has
certainly laboured hard to impress the danger of the German system of
spying on the mind of the British public, and gives several instances
of the ease with which communication with Germany can still be carried
out."
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gilt, with a coloured frontispiece and 16 other illustrations, 6/-._
This book, the predecessor of "By the Waters of Germany," was called at
the time of its original publication "one of the most original books of
travel ever published." It had at once a big success, but for some time
it has been quite out of print. Full of the vivid colour of Sicilian
life, it is a delightfully picturesque volume, half travel-book, half
story; and there is a sparkle in it, for the author writes as if glad
to be alive in her gorgeously beautiful surroundings.
THE NEW FRANCE, Being a History from the accession of Louis Philippe
in 1830 to the Revolution of 1848, with Appendices
By Alexandre Dumas. Translated into English, with an introduction and
notes by R.S. Garnett.
_In two volumes, Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, profusely illustrated with a
rare portrait of Dumas and other pictures after famous artists. 24/-
net._
The map of Europe is about to be altered. Before long we shall be
engaged in the marking out. This we can hardly follow with success
unless we possess an intelligent knowledge of the history of our
Allies. It is a curious fact that the present generation is always
ignorant of the history of that which preceded it. Everyone or nearly
everyone has read a history--Carlyle's or some other--of the French
Revolution of 1789 to 1800; very few seem versed in what followed and
culminated in the revolution of 1848, which was the continuation of the
first.
Both revolutions resulted from an idea--the idea of _the people_. In
1789 the people destroyed servitude, ignorance, privilege, monarchical
despotism; in 1848 they thrust aside representation by the few and
a Monarchy which served its own interests to the prejudice of the
country. It is impossible to understand the French Republic of to-day
unless the struggle in 1848 be studied: for every profound revolution
is an evolution.
A man of genius, the author of the most essentially French book, both
in its subject and treatment, that exists (its name is _The Three
Musketeers_) took part in this second revolution, and having taken part
in it, he wrote its history. Only instead of calling his book what
it was--a history of France for eighteen years--that is to say from
the accession of Louis Philippe in 1830 to his abdication in 1848--he
called it _The Last King of the French_. An unfortunate title, truly,
for while the book was yet a new one the "last King" was succeeded by a
man who, having been elected President, made himself Emperor. It will
easily be understood that a book with such a title by a republican
was not likely to be approved by the severe censorship of the Second
Empire. And, in fact, no new edition of the book has appeared for sixty
years, although its republican author was Alexandre Dumas.
During the present war the Germans have twice marched over his grave at
Villers Cotterets, near Soissons, where he sleeps with his brave father
General Alexandre Dumas. The first march was en route for Paris; the
second was before the pursuit of our own and the French armies, and
while these events were taking place the first translation of his long
neglected book was being printed in London. _Habent sua fata libelli._
Written when the fame of its brilliant author was at its height,
this book will be found eminently characteristic of him. Although a
history composed with scrupulous fidelity to facts, it is as amusing
as a romance. Wittily written, and abounding in life and colour, the
long narrative takes the reader into the battle-field, the Court and
the Hôtel de Ville with equal success. Dumas, who in his early days
occupied a desk in the prince's bureaux, but who resigned it when
the Duc d'Orleans became King of the French, relates much which it
is curious to read at the present time. To his text, as originally
published, are added as Appendices some papers from his pen relating to
the history of the time, which are unknown in England.
CROQUET
By the Rt. Hon. Lord Tollemache.
_Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, with 100 photographs and a large coloured plan
of the court, 10/6 net._
This work, intended both for the novice and for the skilled player,
explains in clear language the various methods, styles and shots
found after careful thought and practical experiences to have the
best results. It is thoroughly up-to-date, and includes, besides good
advice on the subject of "breaks," a treatise on the Either Ball Game,
explaining how to play it.
THE JOLLY DUCHESS: Harriot, Duchess of St. Albans. Fifty Years' Record
of Stage and Society (1787-1837)
By Charles E. Pearce, Author of "Polly Peachum," etc.
_Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, fully illustrated, 16/- net._
Mr. Charles E. Pearce tells in a lively, anecdotal style the story
of Harriot Mellon, who played merry, hoydenish parts before the
foot-lights a hundred years ago, until her fortunes were suddenly
changed by her amazing marriage to Thomas Coutts, the banker prince,
who died a few years later, leaving her a gigantic fortune. She then
married the Duke of St. Albans.
SIR HERBERT TREE AND THE MODERN THEATRE: A Discursive Biography
By Sidney Dark, Author of "The Man Who Would not be King," etc.
_Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, fully illustrated, 10/6 net._
Mr. Sidney Dark, the well-known literary and dramatic critic, has
written a fascinating character-study of Sir Herbert Tree both as actor
and as man, and he has used the striking personality of his subject as
a text for a comprehensive survey and criticism of the modern English
stage and its present tendencies. Mr. Dark's opinions have always been
distinctive and individual, and his new book is outspoken, witty, and
brilliantly expressed.
THE MASTER PROBLEM
By James Marchant, F.R.S. Ed., Author of "Dr. Paton," and editor of
"Prevention," etc. With an Introduction by the Rev. F.B. Meyer, D.D.
_Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 5/- net._
This book deals with the social evil, its causes and its remedies.
Necessarily, the writer is compelled to present many aspects of the
case, and to describe persons and scenes which he has encountered, as
Director of the National Council of Public Morals, in America, India,
Europe, the Colonies, etc.; the overruling object of the book, however,
is the more difficult and more useful task of discovering the root
causes of this vice and of suggesting lasting remedies.
THE FRIEND OF FREDERICK THE GREAT: The Last Earl Marischall of Scotland
By Edith E. Cuthell, F.R.Hist.S., Author of "A Vagabond Courtier," etc.
_Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, fully illustrated, 2 vols., 24/- net._
George Keith, a gallant young colonel of Life Guards under Marlborough
and Ormonde, fought at Sheriffmuir, led the ill-fated Jacobite
expedition from Spain, and was a prominent figure in all the Jacobite
plottings before and after the '45. He was the ambassador and friend of
Frederick the Great and the friend and correspondent of Voltaire, Hume,
Rousseau and d'Alembert. This excellent biography is to be followed
later by a work on James Keith, Frederick the Great's Field-Marshal,
who was killed in attempting to retrieve the reverse of Hochkeich.
GAIETY AND GEORGE GROSSMITH: Random Reflections on the Serious
Business of Enjoyment
By Stanley Naylor.
_Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, with a coloured frontispiece, and 50 other
illustrations, 5/- net._
Here is Mr. George Grossmith in his moments of leisure, laughing,
joking, relating anecdotes (personal and otherwise), criticising people
and places, and generally expressing a philosophy which has serious
truth behind it, but nevertheless bubbles over here and there with
humour. Through his "Boswell," Mr. Stanley Naylor, he talks of "Love
Making on the Stage and Off," "The Difference Between a Blood and a
Nut," "The Ladies of the Gaiety," and other similar subjects. Mr.
Grossmith in this book is as good as "Gee-Gee" at the Gaiety. What more
need be said?
THE HISTORY OF GRAVESEND: From Prehistoric times to the beginning of
the Twentieth Century
By Alex. J. Philip.
Edition limited to 365 sets, signed by the Author.
_In four vols., 9-3/4 × 6-1/2, bound in sealskin, fully illustrated,
12/6 net each volume._
The first volume of this important work is now ready. On historical
grounds it is of value not only to those interested in Gravesend and
its surroundings, but to the wider circle interested in the Britons,
Romans, and Anglo-Saxons, and their life in this country. It also deals
with the early history of the River Thames.
AUGUST STRINDBERG: The Spirit of Revolt
By L. Lind-af-Hageby.
_Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, with many illustrations, 6/- net._
This book tells Strindberg's biography, criticises and explains his
many writings, and describes truly yet sympathetically the struggles
and difficulties of his life and the representativeness and greatness
in him and his work. Miss Hageby has written a fascinating book on a
character of great interest.
NAPOLEON IN EXILE AT ELBA (1814-1815)
By Norwood Young, Author of "The Growth of Napoleon," etc.; with a
chapter on the Iconography by A.M. Broadley.
_Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, with coloured frontispiece and 50
illustrations_ (from the collection of A.M. Broadley), _21/- net_.
This work gives a most interesting account of Napoleon's residence
in the Isle of Elba after his abdication at Fontainebleau on April
11th, 1814. Both Mr. Young and Mr. A.M. Broadley are authorities on
Napoleonic history, and Mr. Broadley's unrivalled collection of MSS.
and illustrations has been drawn upon for much valuable information.
NAPOLEON IN EXILE AT ST. HELENA (1815-1821)
By Norwood Young, Author of "Napoleon in Exile at Elba," "The Story of
Rome," etc.
_In two volumes, demy 8vo, cloth gilt, with two coloured frontispieces
and one hundred illustrations_ (from the collection of A.M. Broadley),
_32/- net_.
A history of Napoleon's exile on the island of St. Helena after his
defeat at Waterloo, June 18th, 1815. The author is a very thorough
scholar and has spent four years' work on these two books on Napoleon
in Exile. He has studied his subject on the spot as well as in France
and England, and gives a very informative study of the least-known
period of Napoleon's life.
TRAINING FOR THE TRACK, FIELD & ROAD
By Harry Andrews, Official Trainer to the A.A.A., etc.
_Crown 8vo, cloth, with illustrations, 2/- net._
The athlete, "coming and come," has in this volume a training manual
from the brain and pen of our foremost athlete trainer to-day.
Every runner knows the name of Harry Andrews and his long list of
successes--headed by that wonderful exponent, Alfred Shrubb. It is,
however, for the self-training man that the Author explains the
needed preparation and methods for every running distance. This
most authoritative and up-to-date book should therefore prove of
immeasurable assistance to every athlete, amateur or professional,
throughout the Empire.
PAUL'S SIMPLICODE
_Crown 8vo, cloth, 1/- net._
A simple and thoroughly practical and efficient code for the use of
Travellers, Tourists, Business Men, Departmental Stores, Shopping by
Post, Colonial Emigrants, Lawyers, and the general public. Everyone
should use this, the cheapest code book published in English. A
sentence in a word.
THE MARIE TEMPEST BIRTHDAY BOOK
Giving an extract for each day of the year from the various parts
played by Miss Marie Tempest.
_Demy 18mo, cloth gilt, with an introductory appreciation and 9
portraits in photogravure, 1/6 net._
Miss Marie Tempest is undoubtedly one of the most popular actresses of
the English stage. She has created for herself a distinctive character,
into which is weaved much of her own personality, and the charm of that
personality is illustrated by these happy quotations from the parts
she has played. The illustrations, show her at various periods in her
theatrical career, while the introductory appreciation by Mr. Sidney
Dark is especially illuminating.
A GARLAND OF VERSE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
Edited by Alfred H. Miles.
_Handsome cloth gilt, 2/6 net._
A collection of verse for children. The pieces, selected from a wide
field, are graded to suit age and classified to facilitate reference,
and many new pieces are included to help nature-study and interest
children in collateral studies. Never before has an attempt been made
to cover in one volume such a wide range of pieces at so small a price.
THIS IS MY BIRTHDAY
By Anita Bartle. With an introduction by Israel Zangwill.
_Handsomely bound, gilt and gilt top, 756 pages, 2/6 net. Also in
various leather bindings._
This is a unique volume, being a birthday-book of the great, living
and dead, whether poets, artists, philosophers, statesmen, warriors,
or novelists. A page of beautiful and characteristic quotations is
appropriated to each name, and the page opposite is left blank for
the filling in of new names. Everyone likes to know the famous people
who were born on their natal day, and few will refuse to add their
signatures to such a birthday book as this. Mr. Zangwill has written a
charming introduction to the book, and there is a complete index.
STORIES OF THE KAISER AND HIS ANCESTORS
By Clare Jerrold, Author of "The Early Court of Queen Victoria," and
"The Married Life of Queen Victoria," etc.
_Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, with portraits, 2/6 net; paper, 2/- net._
In this book Mrs. Clare Jerrold presents in anecdotal fashion incidents
both tragic and comic in the career of the Kaiser Wilhelm and his
ancestors. The frank and fearless fashion in which Mrs. Jerrold has
dealt with events in her earlier books will pique curiosity as to this
new work, in which she shows the Kaiser as an extraordinary example of
heredity--most of his wildest vagaries being foreshadowed in the lives
and doings of his forebears.
A NEW SERIES OF RECITERS
96 pages large 4to, double-columns, clear type on good paper, handsome
cover design in three colours, 6d. net. Also in cloth, 1/- net.
THE FIRST FAVOURITE RECITER
Edited by Alfred H. Miles. Valuable Copyright and other Pieces by
Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Edwin Arnold, Austin Dobson, Sir W.S.
Gilbert, Edmund Gosse, Lord Lytton, Coulson Kernahan, Campbell
Rae-Brown, Tom Gallon, Artemus Ward, and other Poets, wits, and
Humorists.
Mr. Miles' successes in the reciter world are without parallel. Since
he took the field in 1882 with his A1 Series, he has been continually
scoring, reaching the boundary of civilisation with every hit. For
nearly 30 years he has played a famous game, and his score to date
is a million odd, not out! The secret is, he captains such wonderful
elevens, and places them with so much advantage in the field. Who could
not win with such teams as those named above?
_Uniform with the above in Style and Price_:
THE UP-TO-DATE RECITER
Edited by Alfred H. Miles. Valuable Copyright and other Pieces by
great Authors, including Hall Caine, Sir A. Conan Doyle, Robert
Buchanan, William Morris, Christina Rossetti, Lord Tennyson, Robert
Browning, Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Max Adeler, and other Poets and
Humorists.
"An ideal gift for your girls and youths for Christmas. It is just
as admirable a production for grown-ups, and many a pleasant hour
in the cold evenings can be spent by the fire with 'The Up-to-date
Reciter.'"--_Star._
"A very handy collection of recitations has been gathered here by Mr.
Alfred H. Miles. The Editor has aimed at including poems and prose
pieces which are not usually to be found in volumes of recitations, as
well as a few of the old favourites.... The grave and gay occasions are
equally well provided for. A sign of the times is here, too, shown by
the inclusion of such pieces as 'Woman and Work' and 'Woman,' both from
the chivalrous pen of the Editor."--_The Bookman._
"A marvellous production for sixpence, excellent in every
respect."--_Colonial Bookseller._
THE EVERYDAY SERIES
Edited by Gertrude Paul.
Books on Household Subjects, giving a recipe or hint for every day in
the year, including February 29th.
_In Crown 8vo, strongly bound, 1/- net each._
THE EVERYDAY SOUP BOOK
By G.P.
Recipes for soups, purées, and broths of every kind for a quiet dinner
at home or an aldermanic banquet.
THE EVERYDAY PUDDING BOOK
By F.K.
One of the most valuable cookery books in existence. It gives 366 ways
of making puddings.
THE EVERYDAY VEGETABLE BOOK
By F.K.
This includes sauces as well as vegetables and potatoes. It gives an
unexampled list of new and little-known recipes.
THE EVERYDAY ECONOMICAL COOKERY BOOK
By A.T.K.
"Very practical."--_Westminster Gazette._ "Really economical and
good."--_World._
THE EVERYDAY SAVOURY BOOK
By Marie Worth.
"A practical book of good recipes."--_Spectator._
CAMP COOKERY: A Book for Boy Scouts
By Lincoln Green.
_Crown 8vo, strongly bound, 6d. net._
This is the officially approved book for the Boy Scouts' Association,
and contains a clear account of the methods, materials, dishes, and
utensils appropriate to camp life. It also describes the construction
of an inexpensive cooking apparatus.
THE LAUGHTER LOVER'S VADE-MECUM
Good stories, epigrams, witty sayings, jokes, and rhymes. _In F'cap
8vo (6-1/8 × 3-1/8), cloth bound, round corners, 1/6 net; leather, 2/-
net_ (uniform with Diner's Out Vade-Mecum).
Whoever wishes to secure a repertoire of amusing stories and smart
sayings to be retailed for the delight of his family and friends,
cannot possibly do better than get "The Laughter Lover's Vade-Mecum";
and those who seek bright relief from worries little and big should
take advantage of the same advice.
THE DINER'S-OUT VADE-MECUM
A Pocket "What's What" on the Manners and Customs of Society
Functions, etc., etc. By Alfred H. Miles. _In Fcap. 8vo (6-1/8 ×
3-1/8), cloth bound, round corners, 1/6 net.; leather, 2/- net._
This handy book is intended to help the diffident and inexperienced
to the reasonable enjoyment of the social pleasures of society by
an elementary introduction to the rules which govern its functions,
public and private, at Dinners, Breakfasts, Luncheons, Teas, At Homes,
Receptions, Balls and Suppers, with hints on Etiquette, Deportment,
Dress, Conduct, After-Dinner Speaking, Entertainment, Story-Telling,
Toasts and Sentiments, etc., etc.
_A new Edition reset from new type._
COLE'S FUN DOCTOR
First series. One of the two funniest books in the world. By E.W.
Cole; _576 pp., cr. 8vo, cloth, 2/6_.
The mission of mirth is well understood, "Laugh and Grow Fat" is a
common proverb, and the healthiness of humour goes without saying.
This book, therefore, should find a place in every home library. It
is full of fun from beginning to end. Fun about babies; fun about bad
boys; fun about love, kissing, courting, proposing, flirting, marrying;
fun about clergymen, doctors, teachers; fun about lawyers, judges,
magistrates, jurymen, witnesses, thieves, vagabonds, etc., etc. It is
doubtful if any man living could read any page without bursting into a
hearty laugh.
COLE'S FUN DOCTOR
Second series. The other of the two funniest books in the world. By
E.W. Cole; _440 pp., crown 8vo, cloth, 2/6_.
Dr. Blues had an extensive practice until the Fun Doctor set up in
opposition, but now Fun Doctors are in requisition everywhere.
"The Second Series of _Cole's Fun Doctor_ is as good as the first.
It sparkles thoroughout, with laughs on every page, and will put
the glomiest curmudgeon into cheery spirits ... it is full of
fun."--_Evening Standard._
BALLADS OF BRAVE WOMEN. Records of the Heroic in Thought, Action and
Endurance.
By Alfred H. Miles and other writers.
_Large crown 8vo, red limp, 1/- net; cloth, gilt, 1/6 net; paste
grain, gilt (boxed), 3/- net; Persian yapp, gilt top (boxed), 4/- net._
"Ballads of Brave Women" is a collection of Poems suitable for
recitation at women's meetings and at gatherings and entertainments of
a more general character. Its aim is to celebrate the bravery of women
as shown in the pages of history, on the field of war, in the battle of
life, in the cause of freedom, in the service of humanity, and in the
face of death.
The subjects dealt with embrace Loyalty, Patriotism, In War, In
Domestic Life, For Love, Self-Sacrifice, For Liberty, Labour, In
Danger, For Honour, The Care of the Sick, In Face of Death, etc., by
a selection of the world's greatest writers, and edited by Alfred H.
Miles.
"The attention which everything appertaining to the woman's movement
is just now receiving has induced Mr. Alfred H. Miles to collect and
edit these 'Ballads of Brave Women.' He has made an excellent choice,
and produced a useful record of tributes to woman's heroism in thought,
action and endurance."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
MY OWN RECITER
Alfred H. Miles. Original Poems, Ballads and Stories in Verse, Lyrical
and Dramatic, for Reading and Recitation. _Crown 8vo, 1/- net._
DRAWING-ROOM ENTERTAINMENTS
A book of new and original Monologues, Duologues, Dialogues, and
Playlets for Home and Platform use. By Catherine Evelyn, Clare
Shirley, Robert Overton, and other writers. Edited by Alfred H. Miles.
_In crown 8vo, red limp, 1/- net; cloth gilt, 1/6 net; paste grain,
gilt (boxed), 3/- net; Persian yapp, gilt (boxed), 4/- net._
_Extract from Editor's preface_, "The want of a collection of short
pieces for home use, which, while worthy of professional representation
shall not be too exacting for amateur rendering, and shall be well
within the limits of drawing-room resources, has often been pressed
upon the Editor, and the difficulty of securing such pieces has alone
delayed his issue of a collection.
"Performances may be given in drawing-rooms, school rooms, and lecture
halls, privately or for charitable purposes unconditionally, except
that the authorship and source _must_ be acknowledged on any printed
programmes that may be issued, but permission must be previously
secured from the Editor, who, in the interests of his contributors
reserves all dramatic rights for their performance in theatres and
music halls or by professionals for professional purposes."
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Two occurences of unpaired duouble quotation marks could not be
corrected with confidence.
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