Told in gallant deeds

Just before the war broke out, a friend of mine took her three grandchildren for a holiday to Wimereux, a French seaside place near Boulogne. They were quite little children, the youngest indeed being still a baby. On the day that my friend knew that war was certain she was naturally very anxious to get the children safely back to England.

That night she sent them to bed early, and she herself did not sit up late. On her way to her room she looked in on the children to see if they wanted anything. To her surprise, only the baby was in bed. The two elder ones had drawn up the blind and were looking out of the window on the sea.

“Oh, Granny!” they cried, “do come and look!”

My friend went and stood beside them, and there, spread out before her in the moonlight, she saw a most wonderful sight, one that no Englishwoman could look upon without a thrill of pride.

Beyond the fort built by Napoleon, beyond a rock on which stood a solitary French sentinel leaning on his rifle, the whole sea was covered with the British Fleet, ship after ship in regular lines—Dreadnoughts, cruisers, all with their attendant torpedo-boats, destroyers, and submarines.

There they lay, with none of the bravery of flags flying and bands playing, as when the King reviews his Fleet, but cold and vigilant, all stripped for action. Not a man could be seen on board—only the long guns.

The children, looking on, partly understood the silent strength of that great armada of warships, and they went back to bed contented with their grandmother’s promise to tell them all about it to-morrow.

Next morning the children ran to the window, but the British Fleet had gone, vanished as silently as it had come, and the sea was almost clear.

“What has happened? Why have the ships gone?” The children pressed my friend with eager questions, and as you will also want to put the same questions, I cannot do better than tell you what she told them.

The great war with Germany had begun, and the British Fleet had gone eastwards to the North Sea, there to watch for the German Fleet!

But the most wonderful thing was that now, after a hundred years, British soldiers were going to fight again on the Continent. Almost exactly a hundred years ago Wellington, aided by German troops, had finally crushed Napoleon on the field of Waterloo. But now the British and the French were fast friends, and they were going to fight shoulder to shoulder against the German hosts.

A great writer, who was even greater as a poet, George Meredith, wrote some noble lines on this new-found friendship. I quote one verse:

You must never think of the past as if it were something quite different from the present. In some ways this great war brings us much nearer the glorious old England which was always at war in Flanders, as Belgium was then called.

Those old heroical conflicts of long ago produced some wonderful books. Let us hope that the time will come when some great writer of the future will create as vividly real a man as Sterne’s Uncle Toby.

After being wounded at the siege of Namur, Uncle Toby spent his peaceful old age in following Marlborough’s army on his bowling-green. Sterne describes how the old man set up model fortifications with batteries, saps, ditches, and palisadoes, and so, with the help of maps and books as well as of Corporal Trim, his soldier servant, he was able to fight over again, not only his old battles but those that were still going on.

The Uncle Toby of the future will set up miniature pieces of artillery and tiny trenches in place of the batteries and palisadoes of the past. Let us hope, however, that he will be as noble-hearted and kindly a man as his famous predecessor.

When you are older, I hope you will read and re-read this wonderful book, which is called “Tristram Shandy.” I will only add here Uncle Toby’s defence of Britain at war, because it applies so well to the present War with Germany.

“What is War,” he asked, “what is it, when fought as ours has been, upon Principles of Liberty and Principles of Honour, what is it but the Getting together of Quiet and Harmless People with their Swords in their Hands, to keep the Ambitious and Turbulent within Bounds?”

I cannot help feeling rather sorry that most of you will not remember what the British Army was like before the days of khaki. I am rather sorry for myself that I cannot remember the time when our troops wore the occasionally beautiful, the always quaint, and the sometimes grotesque uniforms which you see in old pictures and engravings. At the Naval and Military Tournament every year some of the old picturesque uniforms and the curious old drill are revived. I remember, in particular, how Sir Mark Sykes with wonderful skill brought to life again before us in this way a company of the famous “Green Howards.”

Not much more than a hundred years ago, soldiers all wore pigtails, but both officers and men hated them, and when at last they were abolished, in 1808, some of the regiments actually made bonfires of their pigtails while others buried them!

The French still wear the blue and red uniform, and sad to say it is greatly owing to that fact that they have suffered so terribly from the German fire. It seems that an airman, even when flying very high, sees the bright patches of blue lying beneath him, when the British khaki, and even more the greenish-grey German uniform, would be quite invisible.

Many of you, I am sure, have been to Boulogne, either to spend a happy summer holiday there, or when going through to some other part of France. Henceforth we shall all look upon the beautiful old French port with a new interest and a new respect. For there the British Expeditionary Force landed in August 1914.

Till that date Boulogne was chiefly famous as having been the “jumping-off place” from which Napoleon planned to make a victorious invasion of England. It was the Battle of Waterloo which saved us from that invasion. So Boulogne had a long and intimate acquaintance with British warriors, but never till this year in the guise of friends. The noble ghosts of these British warriors were evoked in splendid fashion in the following lines by Mr. Justin Huntly M‘Carthy:

I ought perhaps to explain that “Churchill’s smile” does not mean the smile of Mr. Winston Churchill, but of his great ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough. The Worm is of course an old name for the Dragon and stands in this case for Germany, and St. Denis is the old battle-cry of France, as St. George is that of England.

In spite of what people may tell you to the contrary, never believe that a secret cannot be kept. Honourable people always keep a secret. It shows how very many honourable people there must be, both in England and in France, when I tell you that the fact that this wonderful force of 110,000 men with all their guns and stores was being taken across to France, was never publicly revealed till Lord Kitchener allowed it to be announced in the newspapers.

And yet what was happening day by day and hour by hour must have been known to thousands of people in both countries. The reason for this secrecy was, as you can easily guess, to furnish a nice little surprise for the enemy. And that it was a real surprise for the enemy is proved by a German Army Order, which afterwards fell into our hands, referring to a rumour that a British force might be coming. That Army Order was dated August 21, after the whole force had landed!

I want you particularly to understand also that it is a difficult job to take an army of horse and foot and guns across even so short a bit of sea as the English Channel. It takes many big ships, called transports, and they have to be most carefully guarded by warships while they are crossing.

Never forget that if it had not been for the British Navy the Army could never have got across the Channel safely. Nor could the constant stream of fresh troops and horses and food and shells and cartridges and all the other hundred and one things that an army needs in the field of battle.

Everything possible was done to prevent the enemy from knowing about the force which was being sent against him. The regiments left their depots in ignorance of where they were being sent. Even the drivers of the engines which drew the trains to Southampton were not told their destination beforehand. Most wonderful of all, the captain of each ship bearing a thousand or more soldiers started out from Southampton not knowing whither he was bound till he was ten miles from shore. Then he opened a sealed envelope containing his orders. Of course everyone had a shrewd suspicion, but there was no talking, no gossip.

Equally in the dark were the people of Boulogne, though they must have known great events were astir, for they could not help seeing some of the preparations which had to be made for receiving such an army.

Before he left our shores each soldier received a message from the King and a message from Lord Kitchener. This is the whole of the King’s message:

“You are leaving home to fight for the safety and honour of my Empire. Belgium, which country we are pledged to defend, has been attacked, and France is about to be invaded by the same powerful foe. I have implicit confidence in you, my soldiers. Duty is your watchword and I know your duty will be nobly done. I shall follow your every moment with deepest interest and mark with eager satisfaction your daily progress. Indeed, your welfare will never be absent from my thoughts. I pray God to bless you and guard you and bring you back victorious.

“R. et I.” means “Rex et Imperator,” the Latin for King and Emperor, for the King is also Emperor of India.

The message from Lord Kitchener was a good deal longer, and I will only give you these sentences from what has been well described as the noblest message ever sent to fighting men:

“You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy.

“Remember that the honour of the British Empire depends on your individual conduct, and you can do your country no better service than in showing yourself in France and Belgium in the true character of a British soldier.

“Be invariably courteous, considerate, and kind. Always look upon looting as a disgraceful act. You are sure to meet with a welcome and to be trusted; your conduct must justify that welcome and that trust.

“Do your duty bravely. Fear God. Honour the King.

It was rather a fine touch of the French military authorities to set aside for the British Army the exact stretch of ground where Napoleon encamped his Expeditionary Force nearly a century before. The more we know about this war, the more wonderful a man Napoleon turns out to have been. Even in this matter of choosing the best and healthiest spot for a camp, the modern commanders could not do better than follow closely in his firm footsteps.

Those of us who have been to Boulogne must have driven or walked to the column which the town put up many years ago to the memory of England’s great enemy. How strange to think that British soldiers rested, before starting out on the most serious venture in their history, under the very shadow of that column!

The people of Boulogne—or one ought to say what was left of them, for of course their husbands, sons, and brothers were already at the front—gave our troops a most wonderful welcome. This was, however, but a foretaste of how they were to be treated in every district of France traversed by them. As many of our soldiers wrote home, they were in some cases almost killed with kindness.

Some of our troops were fortunate enough to remain at Boulogne ten days. Others only had a few hours’ rest before they were hurried up to the front. Yet others again left the camp full of high spirits, with laughter and happy au revoirs, to come back within a very few days wounded and on their way to hospital.

As you all know, the command of the British Force was given to Field-Marshal Sir John French, and you may like me to tell you something of this great soldier.

The first interesting thing about him is that, perhaps owing to the fact that his father was a naval officer, he served for a time in the Navy as a midshipman. Then he became a lieutenant in the Militia, or, as we should say now, the Territorials, and afterwards joined the 19th Hussars. He soon showed the splendid stuff he was made of, both in peace and in war. I think you will like to know that he was among those British officers who made the last desperate attempt to rescue General Gordon.

He is what is called a great cavalry leader, and it has been said that what Murat was to Napoleon, French proved himself to be to Roberts and to Kitchener during the South African War. If a service of great hazard and peril had to be performed, it was always French and his men who were asked to do it.

But what I want you to remember about Sir John French is, not only that he is a great soldier and a very brave man, but also that he is a singularly modest man. In each and all of his despatches during this great war he has always under-estimated his victories, in this setting an example which has not been followed by the enemy.

Sir John French has another very rare quality, and one which some famous military commanders have lacked, I mean the quality of generosity. There is not in his nature a touch of envy, or of that feeling which has sometimes made even very great men dislike and deplore any kind of rivalry. He has paid noble tributes to the officers working under him, and his commendation of his gallant army must have filled every man of them with a glow of pride and pleasure. Among the rank and file, who call him among themselves simply “Johnny,” he is almost worshipped, and they have the most absolute belief in his powers of leadership.

Like all great cavalry leaders, Sir John French is exceedingly fond of horses. He felt bitterly the death of a favourite charger which had carried him through the whole of the South African campaign, and which wore a medal round its neck recording its services. Sir John French had this good horse buried at Aldershot, and a memorial now marks the gallant charger’s grave.

You may be interested to learn that Napoleon’s charger, a small, thick-set barb, lives in many a noble painting. He spent his old age at the Jardin des Plantes, the “Zoo” of Paris, and used to be regularly visited by the members of his master’s Old Guard.

As for the Duke of Wellington’s famous horse, Copenhagen, familiar in many pictures, he was remarkable for his endurance, and however hard a day he had gone through—on one occasion Copenhagen carried the Iron Duke for sixteen hours at a stretch—he never refused his corn, which he used to eat very oddly, lying down. When he died of old age at Strathfieldsaye, he was buried with military honours.

Crimean Bob was for a long time the oldest horse in the British Army. He was a pretty, chestnut-coloured horse, and joined as a four-year-old in 1833. In 1842, he went on foreign service for the first time. He came back without a scratch, and embarked for the Crimea in 1854. He was ridden in the Charge of the Light Brigade—the story of which you know from Tennyson’s famous poem, “Half a league, half a league, half a league onward”—as well as all through the battles of the Alma and Inkerman. During the whole of the campaign he was never once struck off duty through sickness. On his return home he was carefully looked after at Cahir Barracks in Ireland till his death, which took place at an extraordinary old age.

Perhaps the thing which first made many of the country people in peaceful England understand that we were really at war, was what is called the “requisitioning” of horses. Supposing one of you had been leading a horse along a lane near home, you might, and almost certainly would, have been suddenly ordered to hand it over to be used for army purposes, of course at a fair price.

I heard of one venerable lady who was taking a nice drive, as she always did for an hour every afternoon. Her two fat horses were being driven, as always, by her fat old coachman, when suddenly an officer jumped out of a wood at the side of the road and politely requested her to hand them over!

The old lady was very much agitated, and the coachman pleaded that he might at least take his mistress home. “Yes, if you give me your word to have the horses back here within an hour.” “And what is to happen to me? It’s my living you’re taking away, sir!” “Oh, you can come too, and look after your horses!”

A pretty little story was told about the same time. A mare arrived at a well-known depot with other requisitioned animals. Tied round her neck was a label, with a tiny sprig of heather fastened by a piece of blue silk ribbon. The label bore the brief but pathetic message: “Sorry Lady has to leave us. Hope she will return to us safe and sound. With much love.”

This appeal found its way to a soldier’s heart, and he wrote from Woolwich to the Daily Sketch:

“I should be obliged if you would inform Ivy Clayton that her little horse has arrived here safe and well, and that she can rest assured that ‘Lady’ will receive every attention during her brief stay with us. Sincerely hoping that she will soon recover her pet,

But to return to Sir John French and his officers. This word “officer” is so familiar that I do not suppose anyone of you has ever stopped to think what it means.

The ideal officer is gallant, intelligent, and energetic. He is aware that influence over his men is not obtained by discipline alone, but by kindness, firmness, and good sense. He explains to a certain extent to the men under him the reasons for his orders. He does not require of them the blind obedience which is exacted by the German officer. In fact, I cannot do better than quote the description given by a certain corporal in an old comedy called The Poor Gentleman:

“A good officer, do you see, cannot help being a kind-hearted man. Ship an officer, we will say, with his company to a foreign climate; he lands and endures heat, cold, and fatigue, hunger, thirst, sickness; now marching over the burning plain, now up to his knees in wet in the trench; how could a man suffer such hardships with a parcel of honest fellows under his command, and not learn to feel for his fellow-creatures?”

It is because our officers are good officers that the men follow them to the death. It is because they are not only firm and just, but also kind, that they are loved, honoured, and obeyed. A soldier never fails his officer if he has confidence in him, and if he knows he will never be asked for undue exertion unless the good of the service requires it.

During the passage across the Channel of our Expeditionary Force many wonderful deeds of daring were done by our brave airmen. One such was considered so remarkable as to be told in the official news later despatched from the front, and it is, I think, difficult to beat for cool courage.

During one of the airship patrols it became necessary to change a propeller blade of one of the engines. The captain feared it would be necessary to descend for this purpose, but two of the crew immediately volunteered to carry out this difficult task in the air. Climbing out on to the bracket, carrying the propeller shafting, they completed the hazardous work of changing the blade 2000 feet above the sea.

It was a long time before some of us realised that not only England, Scotland, and Ireland, but also the Greater Britain on which the sun never sets, had gone to war. Gallant deeds are being performed every day all over the Empire, and it is only by accident that we hear of some of them. The War enormously increased their number.

Take, for instance, the magnificent courage shown by Mr. Saxby Wellacott, the son of the Vicar of Totnes. This young man is not a soldier but a civilian attached to the Public Works Department at Accra, in West Africa. Yet he played an active part in the operations of the Field Force which added Togoland to our Empire early in August. The Germans put up a good fight. They mined the roads and railways and electrified the wire entanglements; but it is also reported that they used dum-dum bullets, which as you know is not fair fighting.

Mr. Wellacott, together with two French officers and thirty Senegalese troops, advanced on a river called the Chra. The Germans blew up a bridge and opened fire on the tiny allied force with three Maxim guns and a couple of hundred rifles. The firing went on for two hours, and Mr. Wellacott got left behind. He managed, however, to get back to his motor-cycle, started it and rode it for five miles with a wounded man in the side-car. Most wonderful of all, he succeeded in carrying the motor-cycle over two bridges, though it weighed six hundredweight. At last to his great joy he found the main column but rest was not for him yet. The Allied forces had to fight all day the next day, achieving victory the following morning.

The Germans were foolish enough to think when the war broke out that there would be terrible trouble in Ireland, a rebellion in India, and that the great Dominions—Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa—would seize the opportunity to desert the Empire.

As a matter of fact, the very opposite of these things happened. Irishmen of all parties rushed to enlist. A great wave of passionate loyalty swept over India. Her Princes and her peoples poured out their offerings of men and money. Regiments of magnificent native soldiers—Rajputs, Sikhs, Gurkhas, Pathans—were granted the dearest wish of their hearts, namely to fight shoulder to shoulder with our white troops.

As for the Dominions, most valuable help in men and money was instantly offered by Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and gratefully accepted by the Mother Country. South Africa’s help was not less valuable, for the Union Government undertook to conquer the German colonies on the East and the West.

About the middle of October, quite a little army came from Canada: horse, foot, gunners, sappers, all fully equipped. These splendid fellows are used to roughing it, and have their wits sharpened by Colonial life. They brought a great many pets and mascots—dogs, goats, birds, and so on—but the strangest of all was a little boy! He had been a paper boy, and he was so eager to come with the Canadians that one regiment smuggled him into their ship. By the time they landed in England the little chap had blossomed into a bugler!

I must tell you about the song sung by the Canadian cavalry contingent composed of British Columbian Rough Riders, as they rode through their beautiful country to the sea. This song soon became extraordinarily popular. Here are two verses:

These lines may not be very fine poetry, but they have the merit of letting us know exactly how those who sing them feel about this war.

Of course it took some time for the whole British Empire to get to work, but it was clear from the very beginning that the German hopes of trouble were absurd. I cannot help picturing to myself with some amusement what a shock it must have been to the Kaiser and his advisers when they began to understand what a blunder they had made. Instead of breaking up the British Empire, they had actually succeeded in drawing it closer together and making it very much stronger.

At home also you remember how the outbreak of war seemed to bring us all nearer together, rich and poor alike.

Lord Kitchener became Minister of War, and in response to his appeal hundreds of thousands of fine young men hastened to enlist. Party quarrels stopped like magic, and Conservatives and Liberals and Labour men alike joined together to do what they could to help. The younger members of Parliament went off to join the colours, while the older ones made speeches about the war and took their share of the work of relieving those on whom the war had brought much unmerited suffering.

The Prince of Wales started a great fund for helping people in distress. At the time when I write these words he had collected the enormous sum of nearly four millions. The Prince also joined the Grenadier Guards as a subaltern and trained with great enthusiasm. To his bitter disappointment Lord Kitchener did not consider him experienced enough to go to the front yet awhile.

King George was unwearied in visiting his troops in camp, and the wounded in hospital. This in addition to all the heavy daily work he had to do with his Ministers.

Unlike the Kaiser, our King did not boast and rush about making silly speeches. He just set to work and did his duty like the modest gentleman that he is, and the example of coolness and courage that he showed was an inspiration to the whole Empire.

Among all the people who helped on the outbreak of war, I do not think any did better than the Boy Scouts.

They did excellent work, especially in guarding railways and bridges, and about this I heard at the time an amusing story.

A man who was certainly old enough to know better resolved to play a practical joke on some Boy Scouts who were guarding an important railway bridge. Taking a little bag with him, he crept stealthily along the line. Soon the Scouts challenged him, and then this foolish man pretended to be a German! “Ach!” he cried, trying to imitate the German accent, “Liddle boys, I vill blow up zis bridge.” Here the Scouts interrupted him to such purpose that he had to spend a considerable time in hospital! There, let us hope, he repented of his silly joke.

Many hundreds of Boy Scouts did regular coastguard duty in place of the coastguards who were called away on active service. As the weather got cold the Scouts found themselves in urgent need of warm clothing, and Sir Robert Baden Powell, the Chief Scout, appealed for mittens, comforters, stockings, and so on.

Here I may say that every boy and girl ought to help in making such things. Your elders will tell you at any time what things are particularly wanted for the soldiers and sailors exposed to wind and rain and storm on land and sea.

An exciting story of a London boy who would not give his side away is that of Freddy Ascher, aged sixteen. Freddy was at school near Peronne, in Belgium, when the war broke out. One Sunday morning after church he decided to cycle to Peronne to look for Germans, who were said to be close by.

Just outside the town, two German soldiers on bicycles suddenly pounced on him and took him into the German lines. There he was searched, and from letters which he had from his parents, the German officers discovered that he was English, and of course they began questioning him as to where he had seen the English troops, and if any were near.

Now Freddy had seen some Lancers on the evening before, but he was not going to tell the Germans, whatever might happen to him, so he said he had no idea where the British were. “They must be where you have come from,” declared the German officer. But the boy stuck to it that he had not seen them, and the officer at last said: “We are going to keep you a week till you tell me something.”

“Of course I was a bit frightened,” said Freddy, “but I had resolved that I would never give away the English. They gave me a meal, and after two hours we started on the march. I had to walk between two German soldiers, and was told that if I ran away I should be shot. At the end of three days we got close to Mons. I had often cycled over the roads we went, and knew the country well. I was again questioned by officers as to where I had seen British troops, but I still said I had never seen any. And then an officer said: ‘We are going to let you go, but you must not come back through German lines.’”

They gave him back his bicycle, and two German soldiers took him a mile, and then told him to ride off.