August, 1916.
The third year of the War opens well for the Allies; so well that the Kaiser has again issued a statement denying that he is responsible for it. The Big Push on the Somme goes on steadily, thanks to fine leadership, the steadfast heroism of the New Armies, and the loyal co-operation of the munition-workers at home, who have deferred their holiday rather than hamper their brothers in the trenches by a lessened output.
Here one fact may suffice as a sample. The weekly consumption of high explosives by the Army is now between eleven and twelve thousand times as much as it was in September, 1914. Yet when a lieutenant is asked to state what it is really like being along with the B.E.F. when it is in its pushful mood, he sedulously eschews heroics, and will not commit himself to saying more than that it's all right--that he doesn't think there is any cause for anxiety. "We seem to have ceased to have sensations out here. It is a matter of business; the only question is how long is it going to take to complete." So, too, with the Tommies. "Wonderful," declares the man in the ranks to persistent seekers after thrilling descriptions of war. "You never see the like. Across in them trenches there was real soda-water in bottles." To return to our lieutenant, he "simply can't help being a little sorry for the Boche now that his wild oats are coming home to roost." Even his poetic friends, formerly soulful and precious, take this restrained view. The Attributes of the Enemy are thus summed up by one trench bard:
If Boches laughed and Huns were gents,
They'd own their share of continents;
There'd be no fuss, and, what is more,
There wouldn't even be a war.
Whereas the end of all this tosh
Can only be there'll be no Boche.
THE BIG PUSH
MUNITION WORKER: "Well, I'm not taking a holiday myself just
yet, but I'm sending these kids of mine for a little trip on the
Continent."
Another poet, an R.F.C. man, adopts the same vein, void alike of hate or exultation:
Returning from my morning fly
I met a Fokker in the sky,
And, judging from its swift descent,
It had a nasty accident.
On thinking further of the same
I rather fear I was to blame.
It is easy to understand why the enemy nations find England so disappointing and unsatisfying to be at war with.
Italy, too, has had her Big Push on the Isonzo, capturing Monte Sabotino, which had defied her for fifteen months, and Gorizia--a triumph of scientific preparation and intrepid assault. The Austrian poison-gas attack on the Asiago plateau has been avenged, and the objectives of the long and ineffectual offensive of the previous winter carried with thousands of prisoners at a comparatively cheap price. To add to Austria's humiliation her armies on the Eastern Front have been placed under the Prussian Hindenburg. And Rumania has joined the Allies at the end of what has been a very bad month for the Central Empires. English newspapers have been excluded from Germany, and Berlin has added truthless to meatless days. But the Germans have long since found a substitute for veracity as well as for leather and butter and rubber and bread. They are said to have found a substitute for International Law, and it is an open secret that they are even now in search of a substitute for victory. We might even suggest a few more substitutes which have not yet been utilised. As, for example, a substitute for Verdun with the German flag flying over it; substitutes for several German Colonies; a substitute for Austria as an ally; and substitutes for Kultur and Organisation and Efficiency and World Power and the Mailed Fist and the Crown Prince and the Kaiser and the War and all the things that haven't come off.
Various momentous decisions have been arrived at in Parliament. The Cabinet are not to be cinematographed, and unnecessary taxi-whistling is to be suppressed, without any prejudice to the squealing of importunate chatterers below the gangway. Ireland has again dominated the Parliamentary scene; the Nationalists have resumed their freedom of action with attacks on Sir John Maxwell and martial law, and are displaying an embarrassing industry reminiscent of the 'Eighties. Mr. Ginnell has been removed by order of the Speaker; Mr. Duke has succeeded Mr. Birrell; and the discussion of three Irish Bills has bulked so large that one might almost forget we were at war. In such brief moments as could be spared from Irish affairs the Premier has proposed a fresh Vote of Credit for 450 millions, has introduced a Bill for extending the life of Parliament, and another establishing a new Register. The last has been unmercifully belaboured in debate, the Prime Minister himself describing it as "a halting, lopsided, temporary makeshift." The apparently insoluble problem is that of enabling soldiers in the trenches to exercise the franchise. Soldiers and sailors can very well wait for their votes, but not for their money, and the delays in providing pensions for discharged men have been condemned by members of all parties. So the War is not altogether forgotten by the House. Mr. Lloyd George, the new War Secretary, without wasting breath on the pessimistic comments of his colleague Mr. Churchill, has given an encouraging survey of the general situation. The cry has gone up that Mr. Hughes Must Come Back from Australia, and Mr. Swift MacNeill has been rewarded for his pertinacity by extracting a promise from Mr. Asquith that he will purge the Peerage of its enemy Dukes. Better still is the solemn assurance of the Premier that the Government are taking steps to discover the identity of all those who are in any way responsible for the judicial murder of Captain Fryatt--the worst instance of calculated atrocity against non-combatants since the murder of Nurse Cavell.
The education of our New Armies is full of strange and noble surprises. Now it is an ex-shop boy converted into an R.H.A. driver. Or again it is a Tommy learning to appreciate the heroism of a French peasant woman:
'Er bloke's out scrappin' with the rest,
Pushin' a bay'net in Argonne;
She wears 'is photo on 'er breast,
"Mon Jean," she sez--the French for John.
She 'ears the guns boom night an' day;
She sees the shrapnel burstin' black;
The sweaty columns march away,
The stretchers bringin' of 'em back.
She ain't got no war-leggin's on;
'Er picture's never in the Press,
Out scoutin'. She finds breeks "no bon,"
An' carries on in last year's dress.
At dawn she tows a spotty cow
To graze upon the village green;
She plods for miles be'ind a plough,
An' takes our washin' in between.
She tills a patch o' spuds besides,
An' burnt like copper in the sun,
She tosses 'ay all day, then rides
The 'orse 'ome when the job is done.
The times is 'ard--I got me woes,
With blistered feet an' this an' that,
An' she's got 'ers, the good Lord knows,
Although she never chews the fat.
But when the Boche 'as gulped 'is pill,
An' crawled 'ome to 'is bloomin' Spree,
We'll go upon the bust, we will,
Madame an' Monsieur Jean an' me.
Or once more it is the young officer shaving himself in a captured German dug-out before an old looking-glass looted from a château by a dead German, and apologising to its rightful owner:
Madame, at the end of this long campaign,
When France comes into her own again
In the setting where only she can shine,
As you in your mirror of rare design--
Forgive me, who dare
In a German lair
To shave in your mirror at Pozières.
Then there are "lonely soldiers" in India, envious of their more fortunate comrades in Flanders, and soldiers quite the reverse of lonely during their well-earned leave.
THE CAPTAIN: "Your brother is doing splendidly in the Battalion. Before
long he'll be our best man."
THE SISTER: "Oh, Reginald! Really, this is so very sudden."
The education of those on the Home Front is also proceeding. There are some maids who announce the approach of Zeppelins as if they were ordinary visitors. There are others who politely decline to exchange a seat at an attic window for the security of the basement.
MISTRESS (coming to maid's room as the Zeppelins approach): "Jane!
Jane! Won't you come downstairs with the rest of us?"
LITTLE MAID: "Oh, thank you, Mum, but I can see beautiful from here,
Mum."
According to the German papers Prince Frederick Leopold of Prussia has been severely reprimanded by the Kaiser for permitting his wild swine to escape from their enclosure and damage neighbouring property. It would be interesting to know if Prince Leopold excused himself on the ground that he had merely followed the All Highest's distinguished example. When Princes are rebuked common editors cannot hope to escape censure. The editor of the Vorwärts has again been arrested, the reason given being that the newspaper does not truthfully represent Germany's position in the War. If the title of the organ is any indication of its contents the charge would appear to be more than justified.
September, 1916.
"IAN HAY" wrote a fine book on "The First Hundred Thousand"--the first batch of Kitchener's Army. Another book, equally glorious, remains to be written about another Hundred Thousand--the Sweepers of the Sea. And with them are to be reckoned the heroes of the little ships of whom we hear naught save the laconic record in a daily paper that "the small steamer ------ struck a mine yesterday and sank," and that all the crew were lost:
Who to the deep in ships go down,
Great marvels do behold,
But comes the day when some must drown
In the grey sea and cold.
For galleons lost great bells do toll,
But now we must implore
God's ear for sunken Little Ships
Who are not heard of more.
When ships of war put out to sea,
They go with guns and mail,
That so the chance may equal be
Should foemen them assail;
But Little Ships men's errands run,
And are not clad for strife;
God's mercy, then, on Little Ships
Who cannot fight for life.
To warm and cure, to clothe and feed,
They stoutly put to sea,
And since that men of them had need
Made light of jeopardy;
Each in her hour her fate did meet,
Nor flinched nor made outcry;
God's love be with these Little Ships
Who could not choose but die.
To friar and nun, and every one
Who lives to save and tend,
Sisters were these whose work is done
And cometh thus to end;
Full well they knew what risk they ran
But still were strong to give;
God's grace for all the Little Ships
Who died that men might live.
September has brought us good tidings by land and air. Thiepval and Combles are ours, and the plague of the Zeppelins has been stayed. The downing of the Zepp at Cuffley by Lieutenant Robinson gave North London the most thrilling aerial spectacle ever witnessed. There has been much diversity of opinion as to the safest place to be in during a Zeppelin raid--under cover or in the open, on the top floor or in the basement; but recent experiences suggest that by far the most dangerous place on those occasions is in a Zeppelin. But perhaps the most momentous event of the month has been the coming of the Tanks, a most humorous and formidable addition to the fauna of the battlefield--half battleship, half caterpillar--which have given the Germans the surprise of their lives, a surprise all the more effective for being sudden and complete. The Germans, no doubt, have their surprise packets in store for us, but we can safely predict that they are not likely to be at once so comic and so efficient as these unlovely but painstaking monsters. As an officer at the front writes to a friend: "These animals look so dreadfully competent, I am quite sure they can swim. Thus, any day now, as you go to your business in the City, you may meet one of them trundling up Ludgate Hill, looking like nothing on earth and not behaving like a gentleman." As for the relations between the Allies in the field the same correspondent contributes some enlightening details. The French aren't English and the English aren't French, and difficulties are bound to arise. The course of true love never did run smooth. Here it started, as it generally does, with a rush; infatuation was succeeded by friction, and that in turn by the orthodox aftermath of reconciliation. "How do we stand now? We have settled down to one of those attachments which have such an eternity before them in the future that they permit of no gushing in the present." The War goes well on the Western Front, the worst news being the report that the Kaiser has undertaken to refrain in future from active participation in the conduct of military operations.
THE SWEEPERS OF THE SEA.
MR. PUNCH: "Risky work, isn't it?"
TRAWLER SKIPPER: "That's why there's a hundred thousand of
us doin' it."
Peace reigns at Westminster, where legislators are agreeably conspicuous by their absence. But other agencies are active. According to an advertisement in the Nation the Fabian Research Department have issued two Reports, "together with a Project for a Supernatural Authority that will Prevent War." The egg, on the authority of the Daily Mail, is "disappearing from our breakfast table," but even the humblest of us can still enjoy our daily mare's nest. The effect of the Zeppelin on the young has already been shown; but even the elderly own its stimulating influence.
THE REJUVENATING EFFECT OF ZEPPELINS
October, 1916.
Mr. Punch's correspondents at the Front have an incorrigible habit of euphemism and levity. Even when things go well they are never betrayed into heroics, but adhere to the schoolboy formula of "not half bad," just as in the blackest hours they would not admit that things were more than "pretty beastly." Yet sometimes they deviate for a moment into really enlightening comment. No better summary of the situation as it stands in the third year of the War can be given than in the words of the faithful "Watch-dog," who has long been on duty in trench and dug-out and crater-hole:--
"This War has ceased to become an occupation befitting a gentleman--gentleman, that is, of the true Prussian breed. It was a happy and honourable task so long as it consisted of civilising the world at large with high explosive, poisonous gas and burning oil, and the world at large was not too ready to answer back. To persist in this stern business, in face of the foolish and ignoble obstinacy of the adversary, required great courage and strength of mind; but the Prussian is essentially courageous and strong. Things came to a pretty pass, however, when the wicked adversary made himself some guns and shells and took to being stern on his own. People who behave like that, especially after they have been conquered, are not to be mixed with--anything to keep aloof from such. One had to leave Combles, one had to leave Thiepval, one may even have to leave Bapaume to avoid the pest; these nasty French and English persons, with their disgusting tanks, intrude everywhere nowadays." The German engineer is being hoist with his own petard:
Yet you may suck sweet solace from the thought
That not in vain the seed was sown,
That half the recent havoc we have wrought
Was based on methods all your own;
And smile to hear our heavy batteries
Pound you with imitation's purest flatteries.
Yet, at best, this is sorry comfort for the Kaiser.
It is not a picnic for the men in our front line. Reports that the situation is "normal" or "quiet" or "uneventful" represent more or less correctly what is happening at G.H.Q., Divisional Headquarters, Brigade Headquarters, or even Battalion Headquarters. They represent understatement to the nth when applied to the front trenches. But listen again to the "Watch-dog." He admits that some of our diamonds are not smooth, but adds "for myself I welcome every touch of nature in these our warriors. It is good to be in the midst of them, for they thrive as never before, and their comforts are few enough these wet bloody days."
The Crown Prince, after seven months of ineffective carnage before Verdun, has been giving an interview to an American ex-clergyman, representing the Hearst anti-British newspapers, in which he appears in the light of a tender-hearted philanthropist, longing for peace, mercy, and the delights of home-life. Mr. Lloyd George, in an interview with an American journalist, has defined our policy as that of delivering a "knock out" to Prussian military despotism, a pugilistic metaphor which has wounded some of our Pacificists. Our Zeppelin bag is growing; Count Zeppelin has sworn to destroy London or die, but now that John Bull is getting his eye in, the oath savours of suicide.
THE SUNLIGHT-LOSER
KAISER (as his sainted Grandfather's clock strikes three): "The
British are just putting their clocks back an hour. I wish I could
put ours back about three years."
The Allies have presented an ultimatum to Greece, but Mr. Asquith's appeal to the traditions of ancient Hellas is wasted on King Constantine, who, if he had lived in the days of Marathon and Salamis, would undoubtedly have been a pro-Persian. As for his future, Mr. Punch ventures on a prediction:
Tino, if some day Hellas should arise
A phoenix soaring from her present cinders,
Think not to share her passage to the skies
Or furnish purple copy for her Pindars;
You'll be in exile, if you don't take care,
Along with brother William, Lord knows where!
A couple of months ago, on the occasion of sharks appearing on the Atlantic coast of the U.S.A., it was freely intimated at the fashionable watering-places that there was such a thing as being too proud to bathe. Now a new and untimely irritant has turned up off the same shores in the shape of U-boats. Their advent is all the more inconsiderate in view of the impending Presidential Election, at which Mr. Wilson's claim is based on having kept America out of the War.
COMRADES IN VICTORY
Combles, September 26th
POILU: "Bravo, mon vieux!"
TOMMY: "Same to you, mate."
Members have returned to St. Stephen's refreshed by seven weeks' holiday, and the Nationalists have been recruiting their energies, but unfortunately nothing else, in Ireland. By way of signalising his restoration, after an apology, Mr. Ginnell handed in thirty-nine questions--the fruits of his enforced leisure. The woes of the interned Sinn Feiners who have been condemned to sleep in a disused distillery at Frongoch have been duly brought forward and the House invited to declare that "the system of government at present maintained in Ireland is inconsistent with the principles for which the Allies are fighting in Europe." The system of administration in Ireland is, and always has been, inconsistent with any settled principles whatsoever; but to propose such a motion now is equivalent to affirming that Ireland is being treated by Great Britain as Belgium and Poland and Serbia have been treated by Germany. Mr. Redmond made no attempt to prove this absurd thesis, but when he demanded that martial law should be withdrawn and the interned rebels let loose in a Home-ruled Ireland--while the embers of the rebellion were still dangerously smouldering--he asked too much even of that amicable and trustful beast, the British Lion. Mr. Duke is not exactly a sparkling orator, but he said one thing which needed saying, namely, that Irishmen ought to work out a scheme of Home Rule for themselves, and lay it before Parliament, instead of expecting Englishmen to do their work for them and then complaining of the result. In the division-lobby the Nationalists received the assistance of some forty or fifty British Members, who supported the motion, Mr. Punch suspects, more out of hatred of the Coalition than of love for Ireland. But they were easily out-voted by British Home Rulers alone. The impression left by the debate was that the Nationalist Members had a great deal more sympathy with the Sinn Feiners than they had with the innocent victims of the rebellion.
MOTHER: "Come away, Jimmy! Maybe it ain't properly stuffed."
The need of a War propaganda at home is illustrated by the answers to correspondents in the Leeds Mercury. "Reasonable questions" are invited, and here is one of the answers: "T.B.--No, it is not General Sir William Robertson, but the Rev. Sir William Robertson Nicoll who edits The British Weekly." But then, as another journal pathetically observes, "About nine-tenths of what we say is of no earthly importance to anybody." Further light is thrown on this confession by the claim of an Islington applicant for exemption: "Once I was a circus clown, but now I am on an evening newspaper."
We are grateful to Russia for her efforts, but, as our artist shows above, the plain person is apparently uncertain as to the quality of our Ally.
We are glad to learn that, on the suggestion of Mr. Asquith, the Lord Mayor's banquet will be "of a simple nature." Apropos of diet, an officer expecting leave writes: "My London programme is fixed; first a Turkish bath, and then a nice fried sole." History repeats itself. A fried sole was the luxury which officers who served in the Boer War declared that they enjoyed most of all after their campaigning.
November, 1916.
Francis Joseph of Austria has died on the tottering throne which has been his for nearly seventy years. In early days he had been hated, but he had shown valour. Later on he had shown wisdom, and had been pitied for his misfortunes. It was a crowning irony of fate which condemned him in old age to become the dupe and tool of an Assassin. He should have died before the War--certainly before the tragedy of Sarajevo.
The British Push has extended to the Ancre, and the Crown Prince, reduced to the position of a pawn in Hindenburg's game, maintains a precarious hold on the remote suburbs of Verdun. Well may he be sick, after nine months of futile carnage, of a name which already ranks in renown with Thermopylæ.
As the credit of the Crown Prince wanes, so the cult of Hindenburg waxes.
HINDENBURGITIS; OR, THE PRUSSIAN HOME MADE BEAUTIFUL
Monastir has been recaptured by the Serbians and French; but Germany has had her victories too, and, continuing her warfare against the Red Cross, has sunk two hospital ships. Germany's U-boat policy is going to win her the War. At least so Marshal Hindenburg says, and the view is shared by that surprising person the neutral journalist. But in the meantime it subjects the affections of the neutral sailorman to a severe trial.
King Constantine, however, remains unshaken in his devotion to German interests. He has also shown marked originality by making up a Cabinet exclusively composed of University Professors. But some critics scent in his action a hint of compulsory Ministerial Service, and predict Labour troubles.
At home we have to note the steady set of the tide of public opinion in favour of Food Control. The name of the Dictator is not yet declared, but the announcement cannot be long postponed. Whoever he may be, he is not to be envied. We have also to note the steady growth on every side of Government bungalows--the haunts (if some critics are to be believed) of the Great Uncombed, even of the Hidden Hand. The men of forty-one were not wanted last March. Mr. Lloyd George tells us that they are wanted now, or it would mean the loss of two Army Corps. The Germans, by the way, appear to be arriving at a just conception of their relative value. Lord Newton has informed the Lords that the enemy is prepared to release 600 English civilian prisoners in return for some 4,000 to 7,000 Germans. Parliament has developed a new grievance: Ministers have confided to Pressmen information denied to M.P.'s. And a cruel wrong has been done to Erin, according to Mr. Dillon, by the application of Greenwich time to Ireland, by which that country has been compelled to surrender its precious privilege of being twenty-five minutes behind the times. The injustice is so bitter that it has reconciled Mr. Dillon and Mr. Healy.
The Premier has hinted that if the House insisted on having fuller information than it receives at present another Secret Session might be held. When one considers the vital problems on which Parliament now concentrates its energies--the supply of cocaine to dentists, the withholding of pictures of the Tanks, etc.--one feels that there should be a Secret Session at least once a week. Indeed, if the House were to sit permanently with closed doors, unobserved and unreported, the country might be all the better for it.
A STRAIN ON THE AFFECTIONS
NORWEGIAN (to Swede): "What--you here, too. I thought
you were a friend of Germany?"
SWEDE: "I was."
It is the fashion in some quarters to make out that fathers do not realise the sacrifice made by their sons, but complacently acquiesce in it while they sit comfortably at home over the fire. Mr. Punch has not met these fathers. The fathers--and still more the mothers--that he knows recognise only too well the unpayable nature of their debt.
They held, against the storms of fate,
In war's tremendous game,
A little land inviolate
Within a world of flame.
They looked on scarred and ruined lands,
On shell-wrecked fields forlorn,
And gave to us, with open hands,
Full fields of yellow corn;
The silence wrought in wood and stone
Whose aisles our fathers trod;
The pines that stand apart, alone,
Like sentinels of God.
With generous hands they paid the price,
Unconscious of the cost,
But we must gauge the sacrifice
By all that they have lost.
The joy of young adventurous ways,
Of keen and undimmed sight,
The eager tramp through sunny days,
The dreamless sleep of night,
The happy hours that come and go,
In youth's untiring quest,
They gave, because they willed it so,
With some light-hearted jest.
No lavish love of future years,
No passionate regret,
No gift of sacrifice or tears
Can ever pay the debt.
Yet if ever you try to express this indebtedness to the wonderful young men who survive, they turn the whole thing into a jest and tell you, for example, that only two things really interest them, "Europe and their stomachs"--nothing in between matters.
PAT (examining fare): "May the divil destroy the Germans!"
SUB: "Well, they don't do you much harm, anyway. You don't get near
enough to 'em."
PAT: "Do they not, thin? Have they not kilt all the half-crown officers and left nothing but the shillin' ones?"
Guy Fawkes Day has come and gone without fireworks, pursuant to the Defence of the Realm Act. Even Parliament omitted to sit. Apropos of Secret Sessions, Lord Northcliffe has been accused of having had one all to himself and some five hundred other gentlemen at a club luncheon. The Daily Mail describes the debate on the subject as a "gross waste of time," which seems to come perilously near lèse-majesté! But then, as a writer in the Evening News--another Northcliffe paper--safely observes, "It is the failing of many people to say what they think without thinking."
December, 1916.
Rumania has unhappily given Germany the chance of a cheap and spectacular triumph--of which, after being badly pounded on the Somme, she was sorely in need. Here was a comparatively small nation, whom the Germans could crush under their heel as they had crushed Belgium and Serbia. So in Rumania they concentrated all the men they could spare from other fronts and put them under their best generals. Their first plans were thwarted, but eventually the big guns had their way and Bukarest fell. Then, after the usual display of bunting and joy-bells in Berlin, was the moment to make a noble offer of peace. The German peace overtures remind one of Mr. Punch's correspondents of the American advertisement: "If John Robinson, with whose wife I eloped six months ago, will take her back, all will be forgiven."
The shadowy proposals of those who preach humanity while they practise unrestricted frightfulness have not deceived the Allies. They know, and have let the enemy know, that they must go on until they have made sure of an enduring peace by reducing the Central Empires to impotence for evil.
When Mr. Asquith announced in the House on December 4 the King's approval of Reconstruction, few Members guessed that in twenty-four hours he would have ceased to be Prime Minister and that Mr. Lloyd George would have begun Cabinet-making. There has been much talk of intrigue. But John Bull doesn't care who leads the country so long as he leads it to victory. And as for Certain People Somewhere in France, we shall probably not be far wrong in interpreting their view of the present change as follows:
Thank God, we keep no politicians here;
Fighting's our game, not talking; all we ask
Is men and means to face the coming year
And consummate our task.
Give us the strongest leaders you can find,
Tory or Liberal, not a toss care we,
So they are swift to act and know their mind
Too well to wait and see.
THE RETURN OF THE MOCK TURTLE-DOVE
| KAISER | } | |
|---|---|---|
| } | (breathlessly): "Well?" | |
| BETHMANN-HOLLWEG | } |
THE BIRD: "Wouldn't even look at me!"
The ultimate verdict on Mr. Asquith's services to the State as Prime Minister for the first two and a half years of the War will not be founded on the Press Campaign which has helped to secure his downfall. But, as one of the most bitterly and unjustly assailed ex-Ministers has said, "personal reputations must wait till the end of the War." Meanwhile, we have a Premier who, whatever his faults, cannot be charged with supineness.
THE NEW CONDUCTOR
Opening of the 1917 Overture
Mr. Bonar Law, the new Leader of the House, has made his first appearance as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Moving a further Vote of Credit for 400 millions, he disclosed the fact that the daily cost of the War was nearer six than five millions. In regard to the peace proposals he found himself unable to better the late Prime Minister's statement that the Allies would require "adequate reparation for the past and adequate security for the future." In lucidity and dignity of statement Mr. Asquith was certainly above criticism. Lord Devonport has been appointed Food Controller and warned us of rigours to come. The most thrilling speech heard at Westminster this month has been that of Major Willie Redmond, fresh from the invigorating atmosphere of the front. While some seventy odd Nationalist Members are mainly occupied in brooding over Ireland's woes, two are serving in the trenches--William Redmond and Stephen Gwynn, both of them middle-aged men. O si sic omnes!
Our wounded need all their patience to put up with the curiosity of non-combatants. A lady, after asking a Tommy on leave what the stripes on his arm were for, being told that they were one for each time he was wounded, is reported to have observed, "Dear me! How extraordinary that you should be wounded three times in the same place!" Even real affection is not always happily expressed.
"Have you brought me any souvenirs?"
"Only this little bullet that the doctor took out of my side."
"I wish it had been a German helmet."
The tenderness with which King Constantine is still treated, even after the riot in Athens in which our bluejackets have been badly mishandled, is taxing the patience of moderate men. Mr. Punch, for example, exasperated by the cumulative effect of Tino's misdeeds, has been goaded into making a formidable forecast of surrender or exit:
You say your single aim is just to use
Your regal gifts for your beloved nation;
Why, then, I see the obvious line to choose,
Meaning, of course, the path of abdication;
Make up your so-called mind--I frankly would--
To leave your country for your country's good.
The German Emperor was prevented from being present at the funeral of the late Emperor Francis Joseph by a chill. One is tempted to think that in a lucid interval of self-criticism William of Hohenzollern may have wished to spare his aged victim this crowning mockery.
Motto for Meatless Days: "The time is out of joint." This is a raison de plus for establishing an Entente in the kitchen and getting Marianne to show Britannia how to cook a cabbage.
January, 1917.
Though the chariots of War still drive heavily, 1917 finds the Allies in good heart--"war-weary but war-hardened." The long agony of Verdun has ended in triumph for the French, and Great Britain has answered the Peace Talk of Berlin by calling a War Conference of the Empire. The New Year has brought us a new Prime Minister, a new Cabinet, a new style of Minister. Captains of Commerce are diverted from their own business for the benefit of the country. In spite of all rumours to the contrary Lord Northcliffe remains outside the new Government, but his interest in it is, at present, friendly. It is very well understood, however, that everyone must behave. And in this context Mr. Punch feels that a tribute is due to the outgoing Premier. Always reserved and intent, he discouraged Press gossip to such a degree as actually to have turned the key on the Tenth Muse. Interviewers had no chance. He came into office, held it and left it without a single concession to Demos' love of personalia.
THE DAWN OF DOUBT
GRETCHEN: "I wonder if this gentleman really is my good angel
after all!"
Germany has not yet changed her Chancellor, though he is being bitterly attacked for his "silly ideas of humanity"--and her rulers have certainly shown no change of heart. General von Bissing's retirement from Belgium is due to health, not repentance. The Kaiser still talks of his "conscience" and "courage" in freeing the world from the pressure which weighs upon all. He is still the same Kaiser and Constantine the same "Tino," who, as the Berliner Tageblatt bluntly remarks, "has as much right to be heard as a common criminal." Yet signs are not wanting of misgivings in the German people.
Mr. Wilson has launched a new phrase on the world--"Peace without Victory"; but War is not going to be ended by phrases, and the man who is doing more than anyone else to end it--the British infantryman--has no use for them:
The gunner rides on horseback, he lives in luxury,
The sapper has his dug-out as cushy as can be,
The flying man's a sportsman, but his home's a long way back,
In painted tent or straw-spread barn or cosy little shack;
Gunner and sapper and flying man (and each to his job say I)
Have tickled the Hun with mine or gun or bombed him from on high,
But the quiet work, and the dirty work, since ever the War began,
Is the work that never shows at all, the work of the infantryman.
The guns can pound the villages and smash the trenches in,
And the Hun is fain for home again when the T.M.B.s begin,
And the Vickers gun is a useful one to sweep a parapet,
But the real work is the work that's done with bomb and bayonet.
Load him down from heel to crown with tools and grub and kit,
He's always there where the fighting is--he's there unless he's hit;
Over the mud and the blasted earth he goes where the living can;
He's in at the death while he yet has breath, the British infantryman!
Trudge and slip on the shell-hole's lip, and fall in the clinging mire--
Steady in front, go steady! Close up there! Mind the wire!
Double behind where the pathways wind! Jump clear of the ditch, jump clear!
Lost touch at the back? Oh, halt in front! And duck when the shells come near!
Carrying parties all night long, all day in a muddy trench,
With your feet in the wet and your head in the rain and the sodden khaki's stench!
Then over the top in the morning, and onward all you can--
This is the work that wins the War, the work of the infantryman.
And if anyone should think that this means the permanent establishment of militarism in our midst let him be comforted by the saying of an old sergeant-major when asked to give a character of one of his men. "He's a good man in the trenches, and a good man in a scrap; but you'll never make a soldier of him." The new armies fight all the harder because they want to make an end not of this war but of all wars. As for the regulars, there is no need to enlarge on their valour. But it is pleasant to put on record the description of an officer's servant which has reached Mr. Punch from France: "Valet, cook, porter, boots, chamber-maid, ostler, carpenter, upholsterer, mechanic, inventor, needlewoman, coalheaver, diplomat, barber, linguist (home-made), clerk, universal provider, complete pantechnicon and infallible bodyguard, he is also a soldier, if a very old soldier, and a man of the most human kind."
Parliament is not sitting, but there is, unfortunately, no truth in the report that in order to provide billets for 5,000 new typists and incidentally to win the War, the Government has commandeered the Houses of Parliament. The Times Literary Supplement received 335 books of original verse in 1916, and it is rumoured that Mr. Edward Marsh may very shortly take up his duties as Minister of Poetry and the Fine Arts. Mr. Marsh has not yet decided whether he will appoint Mr. Asquith or Mr. Winston Churchill as his private secretary. Meanwhile, a full list of the private secretaries of the new private secretaries of the members of the new Government may at any moment be disclosed to a long suffering public.
On the Home Front the situation shows that a famous literary critic was also a true prophet:
O Matthew Arnold! You were right:
We need more Sweetness and more Light;
For till we break the brutal foe,
Our sugar's short, our lights are low.
The domestic problem daily grows more acute. A maid, who asked for a rise in her wages to which her mistress demurred, explained that the gentleman she walked out with had just got a job in a munition factory and she would be obliged to dress up to him.