Part 1 — CHAPTER V. GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR. (continued 3)

But the most interesting part of the proceedings in the Upper House was the further statement (Nov. 26) by Earl Kitchener on the progress of the war in the past six weeks. He mentioned that the delay caused by the British expedition to Antwerp in the release of its German besiegers just gave Sir John French time to prevent the Germans reaching the northern coast of France; that the British cavalry divisions, extended for seven miles of front in trenches, threw back the fierce attacks of a German Army Corps for more than two days; that Sir John French's position was attacked at one time by eleven army corps, and that on November 11 a supreme—but unsuccessful—effort was made by the Prussian Guard to force its way through the British lines, and carry them at all costs by sheer weight of numbers. The British troops before Ypres, after fourteen days and nights in the trenches, had been relieved by French reinforcements, and several Territorial battalions had joined. The British losses, though heavy, were slight in comparison with the German. He acknowledged the "tenacity and endurance," and the high fighting qualities of the French Army, and the pluck and gallantry of the Belgian Army and the King, and he mentioned that on the Eastern front the Russians had checked and defeated the Germans, inflicting on them heavier losses than they had ever sustained before. After referring to the operations against Turkey, he said that the publication of news must be governed by the needs of the French Army, the larger force, but the Government desired to keep nothing back which could not be utilised by the enemy. The difficulties of providing and equipping the new Army were being successfully met, and he felt confident that further calls on the manhood of England would be responded to in a manner and spirit which would ensure the prosecution of the war to its successful conclusion. Later, Earl Kitchener said that recruits were coming in at the rate of 30,000 weekly besides the regiments then being formed by different localities; and the Lord Chancellor promised that information should be given in the future as to the action of civilians during invasion.

On the Report of the War Loan Obligations Bill next day (Nov. 27) important statements were made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the First Lord of the Admiralty, reviewing the financial and naval position respectively. The former said that the Government had taken unprecedented responsibilities in the interest of the mechanism of international trade. In the Napoleonic wars practically all the countries were self-contained; Great Britain's total imports and exports amounted in value to some 86,000,000l.; in 1912 their value exceeded 1,400,000,000l. The international trade in the Napoleonic wars amounted to perhaps 200,000,000l.; in 1913 it was valued at 3,000,000,000l., and Great Britain provided the capital to raise and move the produce, and carried half the produce, of the world. Transactions between merchants in China and the United States, for instance, were paid for by bills of exchange on London. Very little of the business was done with gold; London in 1913 received 50,000,000l. in gold and paid out 45,000,000l. All this delicate paper machinery crashed into a war affecting two-thirds of the world. There was inevitable confusion, and a deadlock, due to a failure of remittances from abroad to cover bills representing 350,000,000l. to 400,000,000l. There was a complete breakdown of the exchanges, as if a shell had broken an aqueduct; Argentina owed Great Britain 400,000,000l., but the latter could not buy a single cargo of frozen meat. Had the machine been left broken, the general distress in Great Britain would have been unutterable. The Government had to save British industry, commerce, and labour. They had invited the assistance of men of great experience, and eventually had set up a permanent advisory Committee. He acknowledged the great assistance rendered by Mr. Chamberlain, Lords St. Aldwyn and Revelstoke, and the Lord Chief Justice, the latter, with Sir John Bradbury, constituting a Court of Appeal. They decided that something must be done at once to avert a run on the banks, and declared a limited moratorium, and then decided to advance to the banks Treasury notes up to 20 per cent. of their deposits. At first the banks availed themselves of this currency facility to the extent of 13,000,000l.; the sum outstanding was only 244,000l. The currency notes of 1l. and 10s. outstanding amounted to 33,892,000l., 25,696,000l. being in 1l. notes. Next, the Government guaranteed the payment of all bills accepted by British houses, giving them a reasonable time to collect them. Great Britain had assets of some 4,000,000,000l. of good foreign securities, and some 13,000,000,000l. worth of collieries, mines, factories, etc., at home; to allow its credit to remain doubtful for some 350,000,000l., all or nearly all owing to British subjects, would have been criminal. By these three steps the unimpeachable character of the British bill of exchange had been guaranteed, and a financial catastrophe, probably without parallel, avoided. But they had to discriminate between bills, and experts could do so instinctively; and for this reason facilities had been partly refused in the case of Mr. Crisp, of which Sir A. Markham (L., Notts) had complained earlier in the debate. Only one member of an accepting house had been on the Committee of the Bank of England which examined the bills, and his business was with a neutral country. They discounted 57,000l. of Mr. Crisp's bills, but as collateral security for another 200,000l. he tendered only securities worth 72,000l. Only 50,000,000l. of bills, or about one-ninth of the total, would have to be put aside as dealing with belligerent countries or for analogous reasons. The loss would depend on the length and the issue of the war. Before ending the moratorium they had to consider: (1) the business specially affected by the war, such as the Scottish fishing industry, whose case they met by the Courts (Emergency Powers) Bill (p. 196); (2) the restoration of the foreign exchanges, which they effected by restoring the old-machinery, releasing the endorsers and drawers of Bills, and retaining simply the liability of the acceptors; (3) the restoration of the Stock Exchange, where the difficulty was that 70,000,000l. or 80,000,000l. of securities were hypothecated in respect of debts incurred before the war began. Had the banks pressed for these debts, the securities would have been placed on the market, their value would have been deplorably reduced, and the State, now the sole borrower, could have raised money only at incredible rates. The Government had left the banks to make their own arrangements with the Stock Exchange, but had agreed to advance 60 per cent. of the value of the securities on July 29 on condition that the banks undertook not to put their securities on the market till six months after the war; and had arranged that the Stock Exchange should only open with the sanction of the Treasury and under conditions to be imposed by it in the public interest. Not one application had been made for Government credit, either in respect of this arrangement or of a similar guarantee through which the Liverpool Cotton Exchange had been reopened. Provincial traders who had been sending goods to the Continent on credit, without receiving bills of exchange, had been promised Government assistance to the extent of 50 per cent. of the credit value of the interest, on condition that the local banks, who knew their men, undertook 25 per cent. Applications amounting to 16,000,000l. had come in in respect of these debts, and the Government hoped to do something at the earliest possible moment. Britain was still supreme in international commerce, its money market was better than any other, the gold at the Bank had risen during the war from 26,000,000l. to 85,500,000l. and they had raised in all 440,000,000l. with the Stock Exchange closed. The loan of 350,000,000l. (p. 236) had been over-subscribed, and there had been nearly 100,000 applications for small amounts, so the sum had been raised without any of the German expedients for raising a smaller loan at a higher interest. Unemployment had gone down, confidence had been restored, British credit had stood the strain, the market had been less affected than any in the world. The raising of the loan gave him confidence that British credit was built on foundations that no foreseeable contingency could destroy.

In the subsequent debate Mr. Austen Chamberlain paid special tributes to the services of the Bank of England, its Governor, its ex-Governor (Mr. Cole), and Lord Revelstoke; the President of the Board of Agriculture gave particulars of a proposed scheme for the manufacture of aniline dyes, hitherto made exclusively in Germany—the consumers to subscribe 3,000,000l., the Government, subject to certain conditions as to control, to guarantee debenture interest on another 1,500,000l.; and Mr. Bonar Law endorsed this scheme and criticised, in moderate terms, the recent purchase by the Government of 18,000,000l. worth of sugar, and the total prohibition of the import of sugar in consequence. The Home Secretary explained that the sole aim was to prevent sugar coming from neutral countries and being replaced there by German sugar. The Bill was subsequently read a third time.

On the adjournment, Lord Charles Beresford (U.) commented favourably, on the whole, on the naval position. The First Lord of the Admiralty, in reply, said that it was useless to discuss particular incidents, such as the battle off Chile, the loss of the Aboukir and her consorts, and the expedition to Antwerp, without the disclosure, at present impossible, of all the orders and the entire situation. The only rule as to publishing information was that the publication should not interfere with the operations of the war; and he expressed the gratitude of the Admiralty for the reserve shown by the Press. The incidents seen were a very small part of the work going on all over the world. The British Navy had been confronted in the event of war by four main perils—(1) surprise before it was in its war stations [which had been averted by the assemblage at Spithead]; (2) the escape of fast armed liners of the enemy, but only 1.9 per cent. of the mercantile marine had been lost, against an estimate before the war of 5 per cent.; (3) mines, but the limits of that danger could now be discerned and it was being further restricted and controlled; (4) submarines, a novel and very grave danger, but British power in submarines was far greater than German, and the only reason it could not produce greater results was the rarity of a target for attack. A fifth danger, oversea invasion, he dismissed curtly as an enterprise perilous for the invaders. Of British shipping 97 per cent. was plying, of German shipping less than 11 per cent. was plying or unaccounted for, and only ten German ships, it was believed, were trading on the seas, while the Germans were becoming deficient in war material. The results of the German policy of attrition so far were not unsatisfactory to Great Britain. The losses of submarines had been equal, but the German loss proportionately was much larger, the British vessels being more numerous; of destroyers, the British loss was nil, the German eight or ten; of the older armoured cruisers, it was six to two, but the British were three or four times more numerous, and therefore more frequently exposed to attack; in fast modern light cruisers,—the most important class of modern vessels,—the proportion had been 36 to 25; Britain had lost one-eighteenth, Germany one-fourth. The British additions, recent and future, would make the British strength beyond comparison greater. In Dreadnoughts British superiority at the start was just under 60 per cent.—36 to 21; by the end of 1915 Germany could not possibly have more than three besides; Great Britain should have fifteen, including two taken over from Turkey, and one from Chile, and could afford to lose a super-Dreadnought a month and yet be in about as good a position as at first. There was no attrition by wear and tear. The health of the Fleet was twice as good as in time of peace, and the conduct of the men almost perfect. There was no reason whatever for nervousness, anxiety, or alarm. We had powerful Allies on the seas, but, even were we single-handed indefinitely, we might go on drawing our supplies and transporting our troops as we pleased.

After a short speech of concurrence from Mr. Bonar Law the House adjourned till February 2.

The war legislation passed in the first instalment of this new Session included Bills to consolidate and amend the Defence of the Realm Acts, based on the experience gained during the war; providing pensions for soldiers and their dependants; enacting that acceptance of a commission in the Army or Navy ["office under the Crown"] by members of the Commons should not vacate their seats; providing that members of local authorities should not be disqualified by absence, if they were on naval or military service; facilitating land drainage (as a means of employment); and, notably, amending the Trading with the Enemy Act. This last measure set up a custodian of enemy property in the person of the Public Trustee (in England and Wales; other arrangements were made in Scotland and Ireland) to whom must now be paid all dividends, interest, or share of profits which would otherwise have gone to an alien enemy, for him to hold till after the war, The Bill contained also provisions against the transfer of enemy claims, or stock or shares, to neutrals, and against the transformation of German into British companies; and it made even an offer to trade with the enemy a criminal offence.

About ten days before the adjournment, the work of recruiting for the new armies had been facilitated through the commencement of the issue by the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee (representing all parties) of a circular to every householder in the United Kingdom, asking for the names of such members of the household as might be able to enlist.

Meanwhile, the war had been going well for Great Britain. The Germans had clearly been foiled in their attempts to break through in Flanders; Zeebrugge was heavily bombarded by a British squadron (Nov. 23) consisting of three small cruisers and some destroyers and torpedo boats, with the effect, it was hoped, of destroying the German preparations for its use as a base for submarines. The British positions before Ypres had been held, and the floods between Dixmude and Nieuport had rendered a German advance there impossible. In the Vosges the French were advancing slightly, elsewhere they were holding their own. A daring air raid on the Zeppelin airship factory at Friedrichshafen had been undertaken from French territory (Nov. 21) by Squadron Commander E. F. Briggs of the Royal Naval Air Service, with Flight Commander J. T. Babington and Flight Lieutenant S. V. Sippe, who dropped bombs on the factory under heavy fire, and, it was believed, did, considerable damage. Commander Briggs was wounded and captured; the others returned safely. (This startling raid of 250 miles, 120 of which were in enemy territory, caused a complaint from the Swiss Government that Swiss territory had been violated, a contention which the British Government denied.) Even more encouraging was the news from the Persian Gulf that the British and Indian troops which had landed at the mouth of the Shatt-el-Arab, after defeating the Turks on November 15 and 17, had occupied Basra on the 21st, only seventeen days from the declaration of war. At sea the large German submarine U 18 was rammed by a British patrol vessel, surrendered, and sank (Nov. 23). On the other hand, it was disquieting that a German submarine should have sunk two merchant vessels near Havre at three days' interval; and the terrible explosion of the Bulwark (p. 239), though the ship was almost obsolete, reduced the personnel of the Navy by some 750 men.

The confidence of the British military authorities was exhibited by the visit paid to the troops at the front by the King—the first such visit by a British monarch since George II fought at Dettingen in 1743. On Sunday, November 29, His Majesty crossed to France in a warship; he was met by the Prince of Wales on landing, and next day, after inspecting some of the base hospitals (including one for Indian troops) he reached the British general headquarters. During the three ensuing days (Dec. 1-3) he made a tour of the Army Corps, visiting their headquarters, meeting the generals and staffs, and inspecting all the troops not in the trenches, who were lined up, in large or small bodies, to greet him as he motored past. On December 1 he visited the Fourth Army Corps, and met President Poincaré, M. Viviani (the French Premier), and General Joffre, who accompanied him in his inspection; the last named he invested with the G.C.B., the two former dined with him. On December 2 he visited a Cavalry Corps and the Third Army Corps, and invested several French officers with British orders; on December 3 he invested Sir John French with the Order of Merit, inspected the First and Second Corps and some cavalry, and obtained a view of the battlefield, including Lille, Roubaix, and Ypres, where shells were bursting. On December 4 he made himself acquainted with the work of various departments of the Staff and of the auxiliary services; and he visited the Belgian headquarters and met King Albert on the last fragment of Belgian territory still unoccupied by the invader. On December 5 he saw the work of other auxiliary services, and visited the headquarters of the Royal Flying Corps. Throughout his visit this corps had "carried out a continuous aerial patrol" above him. That night he returned to England.

Before leaving, His Majesty issued a special order to the Army as follows:—

Officers, Non-commissioned Officers, and Men:

I am very glad to have been able to see my Army in the Field.

I much wished to do so, in order to gain a slight experience of the life you are leading.

I wish I could have spoken to you all, to express my admiration of the splendid manner in which you have fought and are still fighting against a powerful and relentless enemy.

By your discipline, pluck, and endurance, inspired by the indomitable regimental spirit, you have not only upheld the tradition of the British Army, but added fresh lustre to its history.

I was particularly impressed by your soldierly, healthy, cheerful appearance.

I cannot share in your trials, dangers, and successes, but I can assure you of the proud confidence and gratitude of myself and of your fellow-countrymen.

We follow you in our daily thoughts on your certain road to victory.

George, R.I.

General Headquarters, December 5, 1914.

The Prince of Wales, it must here be noted, had gone to the front at his own earnest desire six weeks earlier, and had proved himself, according to The Times military correspondent, "one of the keenest and hardest soldiers of the army." He was aide-de-camp to Sir John French; but he had had a varied experience, had visited the trenches, including those occupied by the Indian troops, and had been several times under fire.

Though few details as to the military operations were published, it seemed clear that the Germans would be dislodged only by much larger numbers; and enlistment was supposed to be hampered by the continuance of professional (Association) football. The matches attracted thousands, many of them, doubtless, needed by home industries, but these, it was contended, might have been better employed drilling than looking on; and the players were excellent military material, but were bound by contract to their clubs. Attempts to induce enlistment from among the crowds of spectators in London (Nov. 21) brought only one recruit. An International Football Conference (representing the nations of the United Kingdom) decided at the end of November to drop the "international" matches, but not the cup ties, i.e. the matches determining the competitors for the Association Challenge Cup, decided at the Crystal Palace in the spring. The Scottish delegates, after consulting the War Office, decided to abandon both sets of contests till after the war; but the Council of the Football Association confirmed the decision of the Conference (Dec. 7). Its course was defended, partly because the matches provided recreation for workers who could not be spared, partly in view of the financial needs of the clubs and the players. The Association, it was urged, had done something for recruiting, and had contributed to the various war funds. The formation of a Footballers' Battalion was authorised by the War Office; but the episode provided another argument for the advocates of compulsory service.

The naval element in the war, however, seemed at least as important as the military; and here the signs were promising. It was true that extensive preparations against a raid had been made in the last week of November, though little was said of them in the Press; and also that the Admiralty had notified (Dec. 4) that lighthouses and buoys in the Channel on the east of a line drawn from Selsey Bill to Cape Barfleur, might be altered or withdrawn, and signals in this area changed or discontinued, without notice, and had specified stations where pilots could be obtained for the ports or areas affected—arrangements probably motived by the activity of German submarines off Havre (p. 245); and that the German merchant cruiser Berlin, which had run into Trondhjem short of coal and had been interned there, was believed to have been laying oceanic mines. But these were only temporary inconveniences; and the country was inspirited (Dec. 10) by the news of a great German naval defeat off Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, on December 8. Vice-Admiral Sir F. Sturdee, who had recently been Chief of Staff at the Admiralty, and had been in London at the time of the action off Chile (p. 226), had left Devonport (as afterwards transpired) about November 15, and with a squadron of six cruisers, the Kent, Carnarvon, Cornwall, Glasgow, Bristol and Macedonia, the latter a converted P. and O. liner, and the battle cruisers Inflexible and Invincible, had arrived at Port Stanley (where they met the Canopus) on December 7 to coal, before searching for the German squadron. Next day this squadron approached Port Stanley, intending, it was said, to occupy it as a coaling station. It consisted of the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and three small cruisers, the Leipzig, Dresden, and Nürnberg, with a merchant cruiser, the Prinz Eitel Fritz, and two transports. On their approach the Canopus opened fire; the other British ships at once came out, chased the Germans for nearly six hours, and then engaged them. The battle cruisers, assisted by the Carnarvon, concentrated their fire, first on Admiral von Spee's ship, the Scharnhorst, which sank, refusing to cease firing, about 4 P.M.; next on the Gneisenau, which sank two hours afterwards. The German cruisers had meanwhile diverged southwards; but the Glasgow overtook the Leipzig, and, with the Cornwall, sank her, after some hours' fighting, at 9.15 P.M.; the Kent, meanwhile, came up with the Nürnberg, and sank her about 7.30 P.M.; while her crew were being picked up, the Dresden and Prinz Eitel Fritz got away. The Bristol and the Macedonia sank the two transports or supply ships, the Baden and Santa Ysabel, which had gone off to the west. The Dresden was reported shortly afterwards at Punta Arenas, Straits of Magellan, but had not been heard of again by the end of the year. Some 2,000 Germans were lost, and less than a dozen British.

Two days after this news was published, a daring feat was achieved at the mouth of the Dardanelles. The British submarine B 11, Lieut.-Commander Norman Holbrook, dived under five rows of mines, sank the Turkish battleship Messudiyeh, which was guarding a minefield, and returned in safety—a feat which seemed to indicate that the entrance was not quite impregnable. For this feat Lieut.-Commander Holbrook received the V.C.

But now it was the Germans' turn. At 8 A.M. on the morning of December 16 three German warships appeared off Hartlepool, and bombarded it from 8.15 to 8.50, killing seven and wounding fourteen of the Durham Light Infantry who were stationed there, and also killing or wounding many of the civil population, who crowded into the streets. About the same time a battle cruiser and an armoured cruiser bombarded Scarborough, damaging several churches, the Grand Hotel, and many smaller buildings, and, rather later, two ships—probably the same—fired a few shots at Whitby, aiming at the signal station, but damaging the famous ruined Abbey and several buildings, though the casualties here were few. The ships, at any rate off Hartlepool, were attacked by British patrol vessels, and a mist facilitated their escape. Five British seamen were killed, fifteen wounded; the rest of the injured were civilians, including many women and children. At Hartlepool the total of deaths eventually mounted to 119, though a few victims lingered for some weeks; at Scarborough seventeen were killed and about twenty seriously injured; at Whitby two were killed and two injured. People were killed in the streets, while dressing, or at breakfast; and several of the dead were young children.

The raid was hailed with delight in Germany, where it was defended on the ground that the three towns were "fortified places"—which was hardly true even of Hartlepool; but in England it stimulated recruiting, and excited no panic. Probably all the five German battle cruisers were engaged; and, if so, only British battle cruisers could have overtaken them. British opinion was expressed by the First Lord of the Admiralty in a letter of sympathy to the Mayor of Scarborough, pointing out that the effectiveness of British naval pressure was proved by the frenzy of hatred it aroused in the enemy. The letter closed as follows:—

Practically the whole fast cruiser force of the German Navy, including some great ships vital to their fleet and utterly irreplaceable, has been risked for the passing pleasure of killing as many English people as possible, irrespective of sex, age, or condition, in the limited time available. To this act of military and political folly they were impelled by the violence of feelings which could find no other vent. This is very satisfactory, and should confirm us in our courses. Their hate is the measure of their fear. Its senseless expression is the proof of their impotence and the seal of their dishonour. Whatever feats of arms the German Navy may hereafter perform, the stigma of the baby-killers of Scarborough will brand its officers and men while sailors sail the seas.

Only a small proportion of the property injured was insured against war risk; but it was announced that the Government would compensate the sufferers.

A few days earlier (Dec. 12) Mr. Balfour, at a recruiting meeting at Bristol, had denounced the German effort at world-dominion as a crime against civilisation, which would not succeed while there was one cartridge or one stout heart left in Great Britain. The superman, if he appeared, might be left to the police; the super-State was absolutely inconsistent with the true notion of a great community of nations. The whole international future of the world, in his judgment, was hanging in the balance.

Such disregard of the ordinary usages of civilised warfare as was evinced by this bombardment tended to strengthen this attitude, and with it the national unity achieved at the outset of the war; and on its achievement Mr. Bonar Law threw fresh light in a speech at an informal meeting of Unionist chairmen and agents of Parliamentary constituencies held at the Hotel Cecil to consider the means of co-operation as to the war and other matters. He stated that on Sunday, August 2, he had sent the following letter to the Prime Minister:—

Dear Mr. Asquith,—Lord Lansdowne and I feel it our duty to inform you that in our opinion, as well as in that of all the colleagues whom we have been able to consult, it would be fatal to the honour and security of the United Kingdom to hesitate in supporting France and Russia at the present juncture; and we offer our unhesitating support to the Government in any measures they may consider necessary for that object.—Yours very truly,

A. Bonar Law.

The Opposition, he claimed, had kept this pledge in letter and spirit; and it was the first time in the history of English Parliamentary government that an Opposition had refrained from harassing Ministers. They had determined to make no criticism which might injure the country; perhaps, indeed, they had not criticised the Government enough. But he preferred this mistake to that of criticising too much. After referring to the patriotic reserve of the Press in publishing news, he said that the country could gain from the war only peace, and security for that peace in the future; and for this they must have a united nation. They could look forward to the future with complete confidence; never before had British soldiers shown such devotion and heroism, and the statements as to the insufficiency of recruiting were entirely unjustified. Great Britain had got, and would get, all the men she needed without resorting to compulsion.

For a short time this unity seemed again in danger through the refusal of a section of Liberals at Swansea to accept the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (pp. 27, 33, 109) as the successor of Sir D. Brynmor Jones, who had vacated his seat on appointment as Commissioner in Lunacy. A three-cornered contest was expected; but the Chancellor declined the nomination.

The unity of the Empire was not less notable. Gifts and offers of money or local produce had poured in since the war began from the Dominions, Crown Colonies, and Protectorates, for the use of the troops or for the relief funds; and the donors comprised not only the Governments, but local groups or associations, private firms, and the population as a whole. From the Dominions came flour and meat; Rhodesia sent tobacco; Jamaica cigarettes; Montserrat guava jelly; Mauritius sugar; South African farmers fruit and eggs; the Emirs of Nigeria gave 38,000l. which was applied to the military expenditure of the Protectorate; a body of Masai sent bullocks, the Kavirondo chiefs 3,000 goats; Niue, in the Cook Islands, sent 164l. to the Empire Defence Fund and offered 200 men, the chiefs describing their island as "a small child that stands up to help the Kingdom of George V." The Somali chiefs and those of Uganda expressed their strong desire to fight for the King.

While the Empire thus drew together, two notable developments occurred in its foreign relations. The first was the formal change in the legal status of Egypt, which was declared to be—what it had long been in fact—a British Protectorate (Dec. 18). The Khedive Abbas, who had become an open enemy, and was in Constantinople, was deposed; his successor, Prince Kamel Pasha, received the title of Sultan; and a British Resident—Colonel Sir Arthur MacMahon—was appointed with the title of High Commissioner instead of, as formerly, Consul-General.

A more novel change was the despatch of a British envoy to the Vatican in the person of Sir Henry Howard, whose mission was to last till the end of the war. Its exact scope was not stated; but it seemed probable that the Pope, whose attempt to effect a truce at the front for Christmas had been frustrated by the opposition of Russia, intended in due time to offer his mediation; if so, the mission was easily intelligible. But it caused some misgiving, and not only among extreme Protestants; for it might conceivably be interpreted abroad as implying some sort of recognition of the temporal power of the Papacy.

It was commonly felt that one of the conditions of peace, whenever it might come, must be the punishment of the persons responsible for the outrages and breaches of the laws of war committed by German soldiers in Belgium and France. Much evidence of these had been collected and sifted, and on December 16 it was announced that a Committee had been appointed to consider this evidence. It was a very strong one: Viscount Bryce was the Chairman; the other members were Sir Frederick Pollock, Sir Edward Clarke, K.C., Sir Alfred Hopkinson, K.C., Prof. A. L. Fisher, an eminent historian, and Mr. Harold Cox, sometime M.P. for Bath, and editor of the Edinburgh Review.

Meanwhile it was clear that the end of the war could only be hastened by sending more men into the fighting line; and Mr. Bonar Law again spoke at recruiting demonstrations in his constituency of Bootle on December 21. He said that it had been evident for years that Germany was preparing for war with Great Britain as her final objective; because he knew it, he had said (A.R., 1911, p. 262) in the Commons that he did not believe in inevitable wars; if war came, it would be due to the want of human wisdom, and the best and perhaps the sole guarantee of peace was that one country should realise the strength of the other. He had thought that the rapid growth of Russian resources would deter Germany, but she had struck precisely because of its rapidity. Like Napoleon, she had aroused against herself the moral forces of the world. She had not merely ignored these moral forces, but despised them; hence her mistakes. The coast raid had made the British people realise that they were fighting, not a superman, but a wild beast. He eulogised the British Army; no army equal in size to the new Army had ever been raised by voluntary enlistment, nor could it have been so raised anywhere but in Great Britain. We should get all the men we needed, but, if not, compulsion would be demanded by the nation. The Earl of Derby, who also spoke, remarked that Prince Henry of Prussia, one of the heads of the German Navy, knew that Scarborough was defenceless, having visited it in 1912 as a guest.

It was unfortunate that, while so many efforts were being made to stimulate recruiting, the military authorities should have issued a circular implying that soldiers' wives would be under the special supervision of the police. This called forth indignant protests from local authorities and trade unions; but it was explained to mean that the police desired lists of the wives of soldiers, in order to treat them leniently should they be charged with drunkenness. Their increased leisure and their Government allowances tended to increase their temptations to this offence.

A fresh stimulus to patriotic feeling, however, was provided by the group of air raids which marred Christmas peace in this amazing year. On Christmas Eve a British naval airman dropped twelve bombs on an airship shed in Brussels, inflicting, it was hoped, considerable damage on the Parseval airship it was believed to contain. On the same day a German aeroplane attempted to drop a bomb on Dover Castle, but missed its mark by some 400 yards, and, beyond a hole in a bed of cabbages and some broken windows, no damage was done. On Christmas Day another German aeroplane was sighted over Sheerness at 12.35 midday; aided by fog, it went up the Thames as far as Erith, probably to drop bombs on Woolwich Arsenal; but it was chased by three British aeroplanes and fired at by aircraft guns, and an exciting conflict took place within sight of Southend about 1.30; but it escaped, though probably the airman was mortally wounded. Earlier on that day a British raid of considerable significance had been made on Cuxhaven and the German warships lying off that port. Seven naval seaplanes, starting from a point near Heligoland, and escorted by H.M.S. Arethusa and Undaunted, two of the newest light cruisers, and by a destroyer flotilla and several submarines, dropped bombs on the warships and on "points of military significance." The escort was attacked by two Zeppelins and several hostile seaplanes and submarines, but the Zeppelins were easily put to flight, the seaplanes missed the British ships, and the submarines were avoided. None of the other German warships came out; the British ships remained three hours, and re-embarked three of the seven British airmen with their machines, three without them; the seventh, Flight-Commander Hewlett, disabled his machine, which had met with an accident, and was picked up by a Dutch trawler, and allowed some days later to return to England. It was believed that a Zeppelin had been hit, and that the raid, which caused great delight in England, had set up a corresponding degree of disquiet in Germany.

But these exciting episodes had no direct bearing on the fortunes of the war. Its ultimate outcome was likely to depend partly on the cohesive and combative power of the British Empire, partly on the attitude of the greater neutral nations, partly on the economic pressure exercised on Germany by the British Navy, and partly on the ability of Great Britain to adjust her trade to the new conditions imposed by the loss of her best customer and of the sources of supply of the components of many of her manufactured goods. On all these the outlook as the year closed was encouraging. The unity of the Empire had never been more conspicuously manifested, and, as the year closed, it was seen to extend even to the Sudan. Recruiting at home, in spite of the pessimists, was not officially regarded as unsatisfactory, and the difficulties in the equipment of the three (or more) new Armies were apparently being overcome. Meanwhile numbers of men past the military age or unable to enlist for other reasons were serving as special constables or organising themselves into bodies of auxiliary troops. There were signs that Italy and Roumania might soon be fighting on the side of the Allies in order to share in the heritage of the tottering Dual Monarchy; the sympathy of the great mass of the neutral nations was estranged from Germany, and the complaints of British interference with their trade were not regarded as giving ground for apprehending serious friction, even in the case of the American Note (post, For. Hist., Chap. VII.). At home, serious crime had become rare, and the economic outlook was unexpectedly hopeful. The sufferings predicted by Sir Edward Grey (p. 171) had not as yet been experienced; and unemployment, owing to the demands set up by the provision of the new Armies, was far less than it had commonly been in time of peace. It was seriously felt only in the cotton trade, in a few luxury trades, and in some of the fishing ports, owing to the interruption caused by the war and the loss of the German market for herrings. Pauperism in England and Wales had risen rapidly at the outset of the war; it had subsequently declined to a point only a little above the exceptionally low figures of a year earlier; in London it was actually below them. Doubtless this temporary prosperity was mainly due to an essentially unproductive consumption which would bring its own penalties; but it seemed probable that some compensation might be found for war losses in the capture of certain branches of German trade. A movement for the production in Great Britain of goods for which British consumers had hitherto been dependent on German or Austrian industry had been favoured by the Patents and Designs Act, through which British consumers were enabled to ignore the patent rights of alien enemies, and was energetically aided by the Board of Trade, which collected and supplied the fullest possible information as to the means of carrying out the processes, and providing the components, which had hitherto been left to German or Austrian industry alone. Business had begun to adapt itself to the new conditions, and the Stock Exchange was about to reopen. Finally, the Government had carried out a number of daring measures, which had collectively averted a colossal economic disaster. Some of these, notably its huge purchases of sugar and the subsequent prohibition of the importation of that commodity (Oct. 24, p. 243) in order to prevent the sale of the German surplus, were severely criticised by orthodox economists, and set up speculation as to the possibility of a complete change after the war in the financial and commercial policy of Great Britain. But as war measures they were generally received with acquiescence. On all grounds, therefore, the British nation felt itself entitled to look forward to the issue of the struggle with quiet confidence, and to possess its soul in patience until a vigorous offensive should become possible in the spring.

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