No one ever prayed harder for celestial fire than I did when I returned to London at the end of August, 1914 to throw myself into the task of linking up the Empire, now that the testing time had come. In those days, while I had flashes of religious faith, and while I tried with many back-slidings to keep in mind Ruskin's fine phrase, "The education of a knight was, first, to subdue his body, bring it into subjection and perfect strength, then to take Christ for his captain, and live as always in His Presence", my real religion was the British Commonwealth. I do not think there is any thrill of patriotic emotion that I have not experienced. As I watched Mussolini and Hitler at close quarters in recent years, I thought that the pre-war I would have felt quite at home in their deification of the State!

My patriotism prior to 1910 had much in common with the doctrines preached by Fascist and Nazi patriots. In those days I was not prepared to accept a greater objective than the furtherance of the interests of the British Commonwealth, apart from the task of bringing together the United States and the British Empire. Very few people reached the standard of patriotic fervour that I considered essential. Among the few were Cecil Rhodes, Albert Lord Grey, Lord Curzon, Alfred Deakin in Australia, "Dick" Seddon in New Zealand, and Lord Milner and Joseph Chamberlain at home ; while in the United States I considered that Theodore Roosevelt passed my test!

Curzon, in particular, seemed to me to grasp the spiritual grandeur of the Empire better than anyone apart from Cecil Rhodes. I remember how quickly my heart beat, when I first read the Viceroy's Calcutta speech in February, 1902, in which he referred to India's need of us and our need of India. "Let the Englishman and the Indian accept the consecration of a union that is so mysterious as to have in it something of the divine, and let our common ideal be a united country and a happier people." That was it. The world mission of the British Commonwealth was so mysterious as to have in it something of the divine. Curzon came home to receive the freedom of the City of London in 1904, shortly after I had joined Northcliffe's staff, after my postcard failure. In the mood of distrust of self, of wounded pride and of uncertainty as to my future in those early days at Carmelite House, it was balm to my soul to forget the recent past(1) and to lose myself and my worries by plunging into the flood of Curzon's eloquence at the Mansion House:

I am not one of those who think that we have built a mere fragile plank between East and West, which the roaring tides of Asia will presently sweep away. I do not think that our work is over or that it is drawing to an end. On the contrary, as the years roll by, the call seems to me more clear, the duty more imperative, the work more magnetic, the goal more sublime . . . . To me the message is carved in granite, it is hewn out of the rock of doom---that our work is righteous and that it shall endure."

When I returned from my Empire tour, alive in every fibre of my being with enthusiasm for Imperial unity and with the knowledge that destiny had linked me up with the self-governing Dominions as few Englishmen had been linked before, I started to organise my Empire movement with great fervour. The first materialisation of my idea, the tiny acorn which would one day be an oak tree, was the opening of our three modest rooms, which looked out on the new building containing the offices of the Australian Commonwealth, on the second floor of General Buildings, Aldwych, by the Lord Mayor on Empire Day, 1914.

I was still seeking for some tangible work to give the far-flung members of the Overseas Club, some work into which they could throw themselves, irrespective of creed, colour or class, something spectacular which would make the people in the Old Country understand that our fellow citizens across the seas were fully alive to our common heritage. As soon as the war broke out I realised that the longed-for opportunity had arrived, although in a manner I had never envisaged. The supreme task for all who had special ties with the outer Empire was to throw every ounce of energy into organising its effort, to forge fresh bonds of sentiment that would endure for all time.

The British Commonwealth was demonstrating by its action that the men of vision had been justified. Within its boundaries full scope was given to Dominion Nationalism. The miracle of the twentieth century had been achieved, the precursor of world unity one day. Independence and co-operation had been reconciled in one political system. Ireland had discarded agitation, a wave of patriotism was sweeping across Australia and New Zealand, British Canada was speaking in no uncertain terms. In South Africa Generals Botha and Smuts and their followers had been true to their word, they had stood by the British connection. From the first the Beyers Rebellion was destined to fail. I recalled talks with General Botha, ten months before at Pretoria, when he told me that if ever the Empire were assailed, such was his gratitude to Campbell-Bannerman for giving self-government to his country that he would be among the first to take up arms in its defence.(2)

I regarded myself in the light of an unofficial representative of the peoples of the Dominions and of the British communities in foreign countries. I considered that I understood their point of view. Owing to my Irish blood and upbringing I was often able to establish friendly relations with oversea folk, more rapidly than the hundred per-cent. Englishman. During the next two years, until I joined the Royal Flying Corps, there was not a day on which I was not in touch with my friends overseas, either by correspondence or when they came from the five continents to offer their services. There were great moments of elation---too deep to be put into words, despite the seemingly endless delays, disappointments and disillusionments in the conduct of the war in those early days.

The men and women I had met overseas were here. The call of the blood was a reality---the call was even greater than mere blood affinity. French-Canadians, Dutch-South Africans, Indians and Chinese, West Africans and West Indians were all joining in. Representatives of almost every calling, that I had met overseas, came to see me at Aldwych. Farmers from the Canadian West or Queensland, banana and coffee planters from the West Indies, fruit growers from the Transvaal and New Zealand, miners of diamonds, gold, coal and iron from South Africa, British Columbia and West Australia, ostrich farmers from Natal, lighthouse-keepers from lonely outposts on the high seas, sheep-shearers from the great Australian plains, cattle-hands from Rhodesia, officers and men in the Merchant Service---it was a marvellous medley from the Seven Seas. If Germany expected a breaking of the bonds of Empire, she was destined to disillusionment. Those links of sentiment were stronger than rivets of steel. Freedom could compel allegiance, but force never. The lessons of the American Revolution had been taken to heart.

My vision of the Overseas Club was of the greatest brotherhood of service in the British Empire. I thought then that there was no limit to its development. In those days we included in our membership 180,000 associates who had bought our badge and pledged themselves to work for our aims. Our membership certificates were hanging on the walls of thousands of Empire homesteads. I looked forward to a membership of millions.

Sir Robert Baden-Powell took a great interest in our work. On Empire Day, 1918, he said:

That he looked upon the Overseas Club as an elder brother of the Boy Scouts' Association, and he hoped that one day they might be definitely affiliated as a junior branch. These two societies were born about the same time and were of equal numerical strength, were both Empire-wide and had much the same ideal and sympathies. The only difference was that one was for grownups and the other for the growing-ups.(3)

Very often kind friends congratulate me on the work of the overseas League, which is to-day the largest Empire movement. They little guess that compared with the high hopes I had in mind, the Overseas League, despite its £80,000 a year income, is but a shadow of what I expected. I have never made this admission in writing before. I thought then that I had started a movement as great as the Scouts. Presumably I had over-estimated my gifts as an organiser.

The service of others, of the citizens of the British Commonwealth was the essential for membership of the Overseas League. My conception of the Empire was not that of a British-run Empire. I knew from first-hand knowledge that there was a gigantic task to be performed in bringing together Englishmen and Irishmen, French and British Canadians, Dutch and British South Africans; apart from the even greater task of giving a conscious sense of citizenship to the millions living under the Union Jack. The Empire was too widely scattered and too varied in origin to be run by a handful of people who hailed from two small islands in the northern seas.

While I read my oversea correspondence, specially sent over to me from London, after the day's work on the Paris Daily Mail, in my bedroom at the Hotel Louvois in August, 1914, I was constantly thinking-out my plans for the future. I was eagerly awaiting the time when I could relinquish my Paris job and tackle the task in earnest. Entertaining and welcoming troops and visitors from Greater Britain and the British communities in foreign countries was one side of our work. But there was---to me---the greater task of linking up, by every possible means, the peoples living in each one of the seventy-five pieces of territory, dotted over the earth's surface, that made up the British Empire. To help to provide outlets for their enthusiasm and generosity, to make them realise, as never before, that they were members of one body---a body that would endure; to bring home to them the fact that we were carrying on a "holy war", a crusade against militarism and the rule of might---the battle between our concepts of liberty and justice and the forces of darkness.

Few can have had more communications from the various fronts and from the high seas than I did. There were ten thousand members of the Overseas Club serving. Through our various war funds we were sending hundreds of thousands of parcels of tobacco, hampers and comforts to the Forces. I wish I had made a collection of this correspondence. Alas, it has vanished in our various moves and extensions. I only kept some special letters that had personal value. There were, despite the cynics, great numbers of our men who during the first two years regarded the war as a crusade. An officer in H.M.S. Queen Mary, who subsequently lost his life in the battle of Jutland, wrote to me:

You know me well enough to know that I do not love war or the idea of killing anybody, or having my own friends killed or maimed for life ; but I tell you I'd rather see Great Britain a dungheap and every Briton killed, than fail to attain what we are fighting for in this war, and that is that nations should be allowed to go their own way peacefully as long as they do not hurt their neighbours, and that honour and solemn promises should mean what we always understood them to mean.

Christianity is at stake against the worship of Might, and that is only the old religion of Thor and Odin . . . . To me (and I believe all of us) this war is a spiritual war, like the old Crusades originally were to the men of the Middle Ages.

Doubtless every man in the thirties, who was not in the front-line trenches, went through difficult moments. Was he doing the utmost to help to win the war? I suppose there was not a week during those long fifty-one months in which I did not ask myself that question. In August, 1914, I decided that however strong my patriotic emotion my duty was to steer to success the Empire organisation that I had created work that I alone could do. I did not wish, however, to rely solely on my own judgment, so I discussed my position with men for whom I had a great admiration, such as Albert Lord Grey and Sir Arthur Lawley. They confirmed me in my decision. I informed the military authorities that I would carry on with my work until such time as they required my services. I also informed the Colonial Secretary of my position. On the national registration form on Monday, 16 August, 1915, I wrote "I am willing to undertake any work which would be of greater use to the country than that on which I am already engaged. The War Office has been informed to this effect." When the Derby scheme was put into operation I at once signed on in November, 1915, and received 2s. 6d. and a khaki armlet!

To remain in mufti and run the risk of being thought a shirker was part of the price every man in civilian clothes had to pay. On one occasion, when there was bad news from the front, I went round to seek a commission in a Guards regiment. On making application to the authorities I was informed that my services were more usefully employed in my present position.

Early in 1917, when every available man was required, my call, under the Derby scheme, came. I went to the Air Board and applied for a commission in the Kite Balloon Section in France, only to be told that two sections of the Royal Flying Corps wanted my services for organising work at home. From the national standpoint, the only difference in my changed status was that instead of working for the nation in an honorary capacity I received a subaltern's pay!

One afternoon in September, 1914, just when I was weighing in my mind the claims of the various recently established War Funds and the most urgent needs of the troops in the coming winter, a man with a deep voice, a bald head, a ready sense of humour and an attractive personality, smoking a cigarette through an abnormally long holder, came into my office. An appointment had previously been made on the telephone for me with Mr. Walter Martin, of the Piccadilly tobacco firm. For an hour we plunged into the problem of organising an Overseas Club Tobacco Fund for the troops. We discussed the subject of producing leaflets asking our members overseas and their friends to give generously. Mr. Martin has one of the most prolific minds for devising methods of salesmanship that I have ever come across.

At the end of an hour we had drawn up our plan of campaign. After the first five minutes I knew that I had found just the kind of "human" fund I was seeking---a scheme that would establish contact between the soldier at the front and the resident overseas, that would give the men in the army constant reminders that they were in the thoughts of the peoples of the outer Empire. There and then we decided upon a very large circularising campaign. Mr Martin---"W.M." he is called by his friends---devised a leaflet that would have drawn blood from a stone. In moving language was set forth Tommy's longing for cigarettes. Each collecting list had space for fifty names. Every donor of a shilling or upwards entered his name and address. In each packet of cigarettes was enclosed an addressed postcard to the donor. All Tommy had to do was to write a few lines of thanks to his unknown friend.

The scheme caught on like wild-fire. Every foreign mail brought us larger and larger bundles of collecting lists and cash. Within sixteen months we had received donations from 254,958 people outside Great Britain. I made full use of my Press connections. The Times Weekly and the overseas edition of the Daily Mail gave generous and invaluable support. We mobilised as local agents the Press throughout the Empire. Money was remitted in every imaginable form of currency. Dirty bank notes, parcels of silver coins, postal orders and money orders from every country in the postal union came in a steady flow to my office. Subscribers sent us jewellery and trinkets to be sold. A farmer in Rhodesia put up an ox for auction and sent us the proceeds. The scheme advertised itself. Every postcard back from the trenches aroused fresh interest locally. We were inundated with demands for further collecting lists. There was hardly a village or hamlet in the British Empire, nor a foreign town with British residents or British sympathisers, that had not willing workers for our cause.

As the war advanced our methods improved. Canadian and Australian troops had their favourite brands of tobacco. Mr. Martin was ready for all emergencies. We purchased Canadian-manufactured tobacco from the Imperial Tobacco Company of Canada and Messrs. Tucketts, Hamilton, Ontario and in Australia obtained tobacco from W.D. & H.O. Wills (Australia) Limited. We had the largest card index of patriotic British subjects ever assembled. Before the end of the war we had received money from several millions of donors. The Overseas Tobacco Fund had enthusiastic supporters from Auckland to Athabasca, from Port Stanley to Portree. Martin constantly came to me with fresh ideas. Early in 1915 he suggested an appeal to the school-children in the elementary schools of the British Isles. We obtained the requisite permission from the authorities. A small coloured certificate, half the size of a postcard, was given to every child, with a request for a penny. In 1915 we collected over £10,000 in pennies on Empire Day from the children; in 1916, 2,848,806 children gave pennies. Postcards of thanks went direct from the trenches to the schools. The entire cost of organising was borne by the suppliers. Every shilling subscribed to the Fund went to the troops. A careful audit was made. Occasionally there were grumbles---perhaps the tobacco would not arrive in good condition---but on the whole the fund worked amazingly smoothly, largely due to Mr. Martin's genius for organising.

When at Boulogne I made a point of questioning the British soldiers I met as to whether they were plentifully supplied with smokes. The usual answer was to the effect that the Government weekly ration of tobacco lasted about a day. (Letter, November, 1915.)

I have never understood why "W.M." is not a multimillionaire. I am told he has made four fortunes and lost them. I have known few more generous men. His purse was ever open. No friend or employee ever went away empty-handed when business was good. During the war I went to Martin several times for charitable causes. I usually came away with a cheque for £500 or £1,000. No employer was ever more popular with his workpeople. He treated them as equals, and was always "W.M." to them.

Shortly after getting the Tobacco Fund established I turned my attention to the air. The provision of smokes was all very well, but we were engaged in a life-and-death struggle. Our society must seek to link up residents overseas with the Empire's war effort on the battlefield. Aviation was more or less in its infancy oversea. I cannot remember having seen any aircraft during my Empire tour 1912-1913. The idea suddenly occurred to me that nothing would make some of the smaller or more isolated sections of the Empire feel so linked up with the great events in Europe and in the East as aircraft named after their districts. Australia had her super-Dreadnought. Why should not Ceylon and St. Kitts have their aircraft?

A large number of aircraft were presented to the British Government as a result of the distribution of this leaflet.

The first aeroplane I ever saw. Wilbur Wright, the "Bird Man," flying at Pau, 1909.

I went to see the officials at the War Office in the early days of the war, and in January, 1915, I received a formal letter of approval from the Army Council.(4) I launched my appeal and within four months the first six aircraft were presented. Within a year we had collected £100,000. On hearing of the gift of our first machine, Lord Kitchener wrote to me:

War Office, Whitehall, SW.
17 May, 1915 Dear Sir,

I am gratified to hear of the prompt response to the appeal issued by the Overseas Club to its members and friends in all parts of His Majesty's Dominions overseas, which has already permitted the presentation of an aeroplane to the Royal Flying Corps.

I was interested to learn that the aeroplane in question had been paid for by the generous donations of several thousands of British subjects overseas, and, as I understand that you are hoping to obtain the gift of an aeroplane from each part of the Empire, I sincerely wish you success in your efforts.

Yours very truly,
                                 (signed) KITCHENER.

I immediately got out 100,000 special leaflets with messages received from the King and Lord Kitchener. Few leaflets can have had bigger results. Week by week until the end of the war we presented one or more aeroplanes to the Forces. Apart from the two or three hundred aircraft we presented directly, our propaganda inspired many others to do likewise. Aircraft bearing inscriptions, Victoria, Hong Kong, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, Shanghai Race Club, The Springbok, Mount Lofty, A Devil Bird from Ceylon, went soaring over the enemy lines. When the original machines were destroyed, others were named after them, so the link between the far-off British communities and the battlefield was preserved throughout the war. My brain was whirling in my dreams about the first Overseas aeroplane, our new club rooms, and the granting of the King's patronage. I woke up at 4.30 and could not get to sleep again as my mind was so humming on these things." (Letter, May, 1915.)

Apart from our Aircraft and Tobacco Funds we wanted some central organisation that would deal with all the requests for relief and that would act as a clearing house between the oversea donors and the claimants for help. This extract is taken from an article(5) written by Lady des Voeux in January, 1918, in which she described how our Soldiers & Sailors' Fund, of which she was chairman, grew from very small beginnings to a turnover of £1,000 a week

I remember so well the commencement of our Soldiers and Sailors' Fund, the almost haphazard way in which it started over three years ago. Mr. Wrench had received a large consignment of cases of clothes from generous friends at Dunedin and Oamaru, New Zealand, and was most anxious that they should be disposed of to the best possible advantage. He asked me if I would undertake their distribution. This I gladly consented to do . . . . In those early days I dealt with all the correspondence, such as it was, myself, and I used to go out shopping every day, selecting the contents of the hampers and even making up the parcels myself. Now that we send out several hundreds of hampers daily, and two secretaries are kept busy dealing with the large correspondence, it is amusing to look back on that time.

Then began my cousin's intimate association with the Overseas League.(6) For twenty-one years in an honorary capacity, apart from holidays and periods of ill-health, she has never missed a day at headquarters. Voluntary effort is frequently considered unreliable. No paid worker has rendered greater service to the organisation in these twenty-one years. As Honorary Controller of our society she has won the friendship and respect of every member of the staff and of all who have met her. The secret of her great influence is that she never thinks of herself. For twenty-four years she has advised me at every stage of the Overseas League's development. The debt I owe to her I can never repay.

Cases of fruit from South African members, coffee beans from .Aden, cases of hospital supplies, large consignments of books from Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York,(7) kodaks, musical instruments, playing cards, gramophones, barber's outfits, a ventriloquist's doll---every kind of requisition from the troops was dealt with by our Fund, from a demand for a crucifix and a rosary to requests for fingerless gloves for the men on tank vessels and mine-sweepers.

The Overseas Club supported beds in very many of the Red Cross Hospitals. In a letter to our members overseas I described a visit to the Star and Garter Hospital, Richmond, in the summer of 1916:

ON my return to London I settled down in a service flat at 87, Victoria Street. The windows of my bedroom in Artillery Row faced the Army & Navy Stores, for many years a building of romance to my youthful mind.(1) After spending nearly five years under my cousins' roof, I felt the solitude of life in a flat, but what were one's personal problems in a rocking world? The war had a salutary way of giving a right perspective.

When I came to 87, Victoria Street I intended to stay twelve months. I actually remained till I migrated to Chelsea at the end of 1930. During the sixteen years at "No. 87" I changed my quarters three times. I started with a large but gloomy flat on the first floor, some years later because of a falling exchequer I moved to rooms on the third floor; finally, thanks to the comparative prosperity of post-war days I changed to a delightful flat overlooking Christ Church, Westminster. From my bedroom window I watched the little blobs of the swaying plane trees---"children of the Mist." To me plane trees look out of place in the country, it is to London they belong.

The inmates of 87, Victoria Street had their meals in two cheery red-curtained, red-carpeted coffee rooms on the sixth floor. There were decided advantages in a service flat if you took your meals in the public coffeeroom. Your loneliness assumed proper proportions. There were many other solitary people sitting at separate tables---human beings who, like you, for some reason or other were temporarily at least debarred from family life. Meals gave plentiful opportunity for the study of my fellows. What was the life-story of that bachelor, who had served his country in Asia for nearly four decades ? Why had he never married? Was a solitary flat in Victoria Street to be the final stage in his earthly pilgrimage? Why was that attractive widow with the sad face here? Surely she must have some friend with whom she could share this bit of the road? And that rubicund and hearty warrior with the infectious laugh, why was he to be found in the flotsam and jetsam of a London service flat?

I can call to mind a regular "cavalcade of ghosts" the sweet-faced spinster, whose tombstone I ran across years after under a red-berried yew in a churchyard in Kent; the man-about-town with the weak face and the predilection for neat whisky; the business-woman---a a new type of "bachelor girl" appeared upon the scenes early in the war---with the roving eye ; the elderly couple, overflowing with the milk of human kindness, whose only failing was a desire to impart their views on the war just at the moment when you yourself were disentangling the optimistic notices of the Press Bureau ; the young "newly-weds"---he on leave from the front, she fragrant and feminine---in those days we did not talk about sex appeal---whose happiness was always tempered by the knowledge that the sands of the hour-glass were running down ; the attractive middle-aged spinster, undoubtedly with a past ; the social reformer, whose fine features were always an inspiration. A curious cross-section of the big world thrown together for a time under one roof on this whirling planet, never again to be assembled on this side of the grave.

We were living in an entirely new world and the unexpected was always happening. The war of preconceived ideas did not exist. During my stay in France in August I had lived from day to day, a visit to the B.B.F. headquarters seemed part of the usual routine. We were so close to great events that we thought we must really know all that was happening, in reality we were woefully ignorant. In London the war seemed far away and there was an ominous silence about the British army. Temporarily at least the Press was powerless. Northcliffe fumed and fretted about the refusal to allow correspondents to keep the British public informed. To no avail. We were given daily doses of optimism by the Press Bureau. We read of continuous victories, but I was becoming sceptical. In the Paris press I had been nurtured on optimism, and in the course of twenty days the Germans had over-run Belgium and Northern France, and a whole string of French and Belgian towns and fortresses had gone down like ninepins before their massed hordes. The invaders were unpleasantly close to Paris. I was sure that the German military staff of supermen would capture it before many weeks had passed. Not that I ever doubted an ultimate allied victory. It was reassuring to know that "Great Britain, France, and Russia had undertaken not to conclude peace separately during the present war." While Great Britain and the Empire were getting ready their new armies, those millions of patient Russian peasants would keep both the Central Powers busy. Sooner or later I supposed that Russia would be able to put into the field an army of twelve millions.

At the end of August, 1914, we all looked to Russia. We had reason for our faith, for the greater part of Eastern Prussia was over-run by the Tsar's armies. An Austrian force of 120,000 had been heavily defeated on the Southern front. Telegrams from St. Petersburg were couched in optimistic terms. The Times printed a message from the Russian capital in which we read, "Eye-witnesses say that the German officers and men ran like rabbits, discarding their swords and even their clothes." Another day we learnt that the Tsar had offered a reward of £5,000 to the first Russian soldier to enter Berlin. As late as August 29th the Spectator wrote: "We should be by no means surprised if by the middle of September the Russians were able to threaten Berlin." Messages from Copenhagen told us that German refugees arriving from East Prussia described the position as hopeless. If the Russian giant, always a slow starter, was thus early showing his prowess, what might we not expect later on?

Then neutral papers reported from German sources a great German victory and 80,000 prisoners. British comment was guarded. We questioned these reports. We were told, "The effect of the victory seems to be local and the invasion of East Prussia is still proceeding." Thus did British Press optimists deal with Tannenberg, of which Mr. Cruttwell writes: "Few victories in history have been so crushingly complete . . . . Ludendorff named this masterpiece Tannenberg, to avenge the medieval overthrow of the Teutonic Knights by the Slavs."(2) The Russian losses to Germany were partially compensated for by the stupendous Austrian losses to Russia in the early months of the war.(3) Apart from their superb equipment, the strength of the Germans lay in the fact that they were one nation speaking one language. The war had temporarily, as with us, stilled internal dissensions. Austria-Hungary, on the other hand, was a hotch-potch of nationalities, of which Southern Slays and Czechs had racial affinity with their country's foes.

In the autumn of 1914 we began to learn of the ruthlessness of war. War to my generation implied campaigns on the Indian frontier, in Egypt or in South Africa. My ideas of European war were derived from panoramas of the Franco-Prussian conflict to be seen in continental cities. It was the war of tradition. Cavalry charged at the foe. When death came, it was a heroic death brought about by heroes on the other side. But war atrocities and "frightfulness" were something new.

With incredulity I read in the Allied Press of German atrocities in Belgium. The statements were, apparently however, well-documented; so liberal-minded a man as Lord Bryce, for whom I had a high regard, believed them after his investigations. Could these be my German officer friends with whom I had spent pleasant days after leaving school? I was bewildered and yet there appeared to be no doubt as to the authenticity of these statements. Surely no self-respecting Government would deliberately circulate lies about its opponents ?

It was only later on that I learnt that unsavoury events take place on all sides. Men in all battle areas performed acts we would prefer to forget. I am not seeking to minimise the tribulations and tortures of the Belgian people, but in drawing up a balance sheet of atrocities the jury must be impartial. Perhaps some day under international control a refutation of atrocity stories circulated during the war in all countries will be published ? I sincerely hope so. To this day there may be some who believe the story so widely circulated in Allied countries during the war, that the Germans melted down corpses in a factory to provide urgently-needed fats. In those early war days each country thought its cause was one-hundred-per-cent, right and our minds were supplied with a diet designed to arouse our passions against our foes.

Michel Corday(4) quotes a typical instance of tendentious war-time propaganda. La Liberté displayed satisfaction over a French air raid on Trier, expressing the hope that ancient monuments had been destroyed and many German civilians killed; and in another column of the same issue the account of a German air raid over the coast of Kent bore the heading "The Pirates." The barometer of hate mounted rapidly. Preconceived ideas were thrown to the winds. We swallowed any theory which would discredit our opponents.

Henceforth in the popular Press the Germans became "the Huns." We prepared for a grim struggle. In a letter to The Times Mr. Frederic Harrison wrote:

Be it understood that when the Allies have finally crushed this monstrous brood, the Kaiser---if indeed he choose to survive---shall be submitted to the degradation inflicted on poor Dreyfus. In the presence of Allied troops, let his blood-stained sword be broken on his craven back and the uniform and orders of which he is so childishly proud be stamped in the mire. And if he lives through it, St. Helena or Devil's Island might be his prison and his grave.

There were some who advocated that "ruthlessness" must be countered by greater "ruthlessness." The end justified the means.

By degrees the newspaper gradually came into its own. The desirability of having correspondents at the Front was recognised. Later on the authorities depended more and more on the Press to sustain the public morale. In order to stimulate its civilian population each country used its press to inculcate hate. Germany was not the only country to have its hymn of hate, although we did not have anything quite so bitter as Ernst Lissauer's chant against England, which appeared in Jugend. The following is an English translation

"You we will hate with a lasting hate;
We will never, never forego our hate
Hate by water and hate by land,
Hate of the head and hate of the hand,
Hate of the hammer and hate of the Crown,
Hate of seventy millions, choking down;
We love as one, we hate as one,
We have one foe, and one alone---
                     ENGLAND."

Everything was done to extol the prowess of your own side and cast a slur on your opponent. The following extract is taken from an early war book:(5) "I speak with knowledge of both English and German soldiers--- privates, 'non-coms,' and officers of rank, and I am firmly convinced that one British Tommy is the equal of three Germans of the same rank."

In every country people are hypnotised by the printed word. As a result of constant reiteration the newspaper reader comes to believe that his foe is brutal, a coward and inhumane. Inculcating hate is an easier job than inculcating love. There is hardly a country in Europe which has not at some time or other indulged in mass hatred. During the war, owing to the vastness of the issues at stake, we witnessed the inculcation of mass hatred on a grand scale. The foe was the "perfidious", "the pirate", "the vandal" ; the ally was "brave", "noble", "heroic". Once the German, Hungarian, Austrian and Anatolian peasant donned uniform he became the hated foe, "the Hun", "the despised Turk".

Self-interest became the justification for almost any act. The entry into the war of Turkey, Italy, Roumania and Bulgaria was determined by supposed self-interest. National advantage justified any course of action. If Germany first used poison gas in April, 1915, France had to her credit the introduction of liquid fire.(6) Each nation believed that right was on its side and prayed to the God of Hosts to advance its cause. The nations prayed for the success of their arms, for their brave soldiers, sailors and airmen. To pray for the suffering in enemy countries was the exception. Very often I longed to hear prayers for "them that despitefully use you."

Few of us in the autumn of 1914 had the clarity of vision of Norman Angell, who wrote in the Spectator on October 3, 1914:

Nearly everybody who discusses these matters at all has talked vaguely and generally of making this war the occasion for fundamental and thorough-going political reforms in Europe; but nobody begins, and everybody seems to assume that these reforms will come of themselves, without definite and constructive proposals, without discussion, without any disturbance of that inertia which heretofore has always been a guarantee that the old methods survive even cataclysms like that through which we are now passing. What we have proposed is that in the future provinces should not be transferred without some guarantee of the consent of the population ; that international engagements should in future have constitutional sanction ; that there should be some sincere attempts made to create a Council of Nations and to reduce armaments. These things may be Utopian and impracticable; but as someone remarked the other day, the choice seems to be between Utopia and Hell.

In September, 1914, it was difficult to get a coherent picture of the war. We were inadequately supplied with news. The mental fog which had enveloped me in Paris in August continued in London in September. I have read many war books, but I have never obtained an adequately clear picture of the momentous events that took place on the River Marne from 6-10 September. Mr. Cruttwell writes: "The Marne then was not a miracle as it appeared to amazed contemporaries, but a brilliant advantage rapidly snatched from the enemy's errors."(8) When Joffre, after continuous retreats, decided to strike, few thought that Paris could be saved. But the "miracle" happened. The Germans had overstretched themselves, two of their armies had lost touch and there was a gap of twenty miles between them. Their vital reserves were too far in the rear. On the 9th the German armies were in retreat. The Battle of the Marne had the effect of re-establishing our belief in the French military leaders, sadly shaken by the first month of the war. I mistrusted the good news. It did not seem possible that the German war machine could have made such a blunder, but undue optimism has wrecked many causes. Even the Germans were not immune from it. Ten days before the Battle of the Marne they had sent two corps from the West to the Eastern front, where "they arrived as idle spectators of the overwhelming victory which Ludendorff had achieved without their aid . . . their presence would probably have turned the scale at the Marne."(9) The Marne taught us that the German high command could make miscalculations. Henceforth there was always the hope that it might be caught napping again.

In looking through my war-time material, I find an article Northcliffe wrote for me in November, 1916.(10) It is interesting as showing his views on the Marne:

I have been studying the war problem for twenty years---here, in Germany, and in Austria. I suggest that the war will not end suddenly. This is not one war, but many wars, and there are yet further wars to come. In a military sense I hold that Germany was beaten at the moment Von Kluck's back was turned against Paris. Almost immediately after that event I happened to occupy the same hotel bedroom in which that not very successful German General had slept the night before he bolted from-----.

He left a good character there. He paid his bills, and made his staff pay their bills, though there was looting of the local museum, whose treasures were put into Red Cross ambulances and packed off to Germany. The people who saw the flight with his staff said that Von Kluck knew what the retreat meant. He has since been retired.

Since the main German scheme---the capture of Paris---failed, a scheme planned and replanned for forty-four years, all the rest of the German projects have been in the nature of makeshifts. Each subsequent makeshift involves fresh makeshifts in an endeavour to grab something like victory.

After that fateful fortnight in September the war of movement in the west was replaced by trench warfare. That long line of trenches from Alsace to the Belgian coast near Ostend became very familiar to all who studied maps of the battle area. After the battle of the Aisne many of the refugees who had poured into Paris from the north-east as the Germans advanced returned homewards. The cattle and sheep that had been driven along the toads to escape the invaders were driven back. On Saturday, 19 September, the Paris Daily Mail made its reappearance in the rue du Sentier. When I was there in November and December, Paris had taken on a new lease of life, it was no longer a city haunted by the fear of a repetition of 1870. Even such unpleasant news as the fall of Antwerp and Turkey's entry into the war did not really shake the "Paris front."

As an Englishman acquainted with Turkey, I was nonplussed by the events that led up to Turkey's joining of the Central Powers. The Germans played their cards with great skill, and in Marshal von Bieberstein they possessed a master-diplomat. But in the nineties the British held all the cards. When I was in Constantinople in 1899, British influence was still powerful. True, since the Kaiser's visit to Jerusalem and Stamboul, Germany was known to be making every effort to oust Great Britain in the affections of the Turks. Nevertheless, I recall a conversation-no doubt typical of Turkish feeling---when my father and I dined in mess, that year, with Turkish officers in Asia Minor. Our hosts told us they considered that Great Britain was Turkey's hereditary friend, and that it would be a bad day if their country ever turned to Germany as advocated by a certain clique. I vividly remember the occasion, as it was the first time that I had ever sat down to a meal at which a whole sheep on a huge platter formed part of the menu. I described the occasion in my diary in 1899: "We sat down to a real Turkish meal and were handed our food by the officers, as in Turkey the hosts always wait on their guests. We started with a whole sheep, and as I was very hungry I took two helps not knowing that we were to have five courses more as well as fruit!" The story of the Allied effort in the Balkans is one of continually missed opportunity.(11)

The check to German plans on the Marne inclined us to minimise German staying power and resourcefulness. In November the situation was gloomy enough. Turkey had declared for the Central Powers ; Cradock's squadron had been wiped out by Admiral von Spee off the coast of Chile ; the battle of Ypres was dragging on inconclusively in the mud of Flanders ; the superdreadnought Audacious had been sunk by a German mine off the coast of Northern Ireland ; the Russians had been hurled out of Eastern Prussia; and a cloud no larger than a man's hand had appeared on the Irish horizon. In the early months of the war the nations made little use of aircraft. The first British air raid into Germany took place on 23 September, 1914, and not till the end of December was a German air raid on England carried out. Few laymen in the autumn of 1914 realised the vital part aircraft would subsequently play in the war. When six Zeppelins scattered bombs on Antwerp in October, the Spectator put into words what many were thinking:

At present Zeppelins and other aircraft can do nothing in the way of bombardment which is really effective . . . . Here we may say that the Germans must really be in very desperate straits if, as is alleged, they are straining every nerve to prepare a hundred Zeppelins and other aircraft to hover over London and bombard our capital from the clouds . . . . The notion that the British people are going to be frightened or awed into submission, or that in any way the course of the war is to affected by pinpricks from the skies, is utterly ridiculous.(12)

When I first saw German "Taube" machines flying over Northern France behind the British lines, I thought of Wilbur Wright's words to me at Pau six years before--- that one of the chief uses of aircraft would be to act as the eyes of an army, and that if a war came there would be an undreamt of development in the flying arm. But I question whether even he and his brother Orville foresaw the phenomenal expansion of military and naval aircraft in so short a time. They had not reckoned on a Great War.

Early in August the layman expected that a great battle at sea would take place before long. Such was our confidence in the British Navy that we hoped for a modern Trafalgar, when our super-dreadnoughts would destroy the German would-be usurpers of Britannia's trident. It took us some time to understand that necessity demanded that the British margin of naval superiority should be kept intact so that it could exert a constant and unseen pressure upon the economic life of Germany from Scapa Flow, and that the whole cause of the Allies depended on the British Navy. The nation, however, unversed in high strategy, longed for the Nelson touch. Mr. Winston Churchill in a speech at Liverpool, said in September, 1914, to the laughter and plaudits of his audience : "If they (the German battleships) do not come out and fight they will have to be dug out like rats in a hole." At the time I deplored such words from the head of the British Navy. When the Battle of Jutland took place in 1916 the results must have been far different from Mr. Churchill's anticipations.(13)

The war in the mists and mud of Flanders was a grim business. On my journeys to Paris I saw trains and motor ambulances coming down from the Front, containing poor Tommies, the less seriously hurt with heads or arms in bandages, the severe cases on stretchers. Even when there was a lull in the fighting there was the daily stream of maimed and marred human beings. The appetite of the god of war was insatiable. I could understand the patriotic fervour of the poilu. He was willing to die pour la patrie, and to a lesser extent I could understand the British soldier being here to defend the sanctity of treaties. But these "Turcos" from Africa, what were they doing here? The quarrel with Germany had nothing to say to them. A Frenchwoman might well ask when she saw the Indians among the British troops, "Do you believe that they hate the Boches very bitterly?"(14) And when I first saw our Indian troops on European soil I felt unhappy. They looked so out of place. Were we justified in bringing Indian troops five thousand miles to fight our battles ? True, they were well paid and well treated, but I never got over the feeling. Our forces from the Dominions came of their own free will---an entirely different matter. But in 1914 every trained soldier was needed by the Allies in France, and qualms as to the advisibility of employing coloured troops in the European battle area were brushed aside. The news that the Indian troops had arrived at Marseilles caused lively satisfaction. The Times correspondent wrote:

How it (the Indian contingent) will immediately make its presence felt and prove of immense help to the Allies can best be realised by those who, like myself, have seen it on the march. I have been an observer of most of the European armies in peace and in war, but never have I seen troops with a finer entrain than those who swung past me on the roads in the environs of Marseilles this afternoon.

These hopes were never justified and before long the British High Command decided not to employ any more Indian troops in Europe. But ships were hurrying from other parts of the British Empire with living cargoes destined to play a vital part in the struggle, in whose coming I took a deep interest. The announcement that the first contingent of Canadians had arrived at Plymouth after a nineteen-day journey was glad tidings. The rally of Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Newfoundland to the aid of the Old Country, expected by those who knew the Dominions, came as a great surprise to our opponents.

In the daily casualty lists the names of friends and relatives began to appear. With apprehension we looked through the closely-printed columns. One of the first names of an intimate friend to appear in the casualty lists was that of Bevil Tollemache, who lived with me in rooms in Pimlico in 1907. He wrote me on the eve of sailing with his battalion of the Coldstream Guards, in which he held a commission

Victoria Barracks, Windsor.

I really believe I am off to-morrow. I am feeling quite thrilled at going off because the cause is right---but at the back of it all, and between you and I, it seems terribly sad that human beings should still have to fly at each other's throats. Still it seems that it is only by fighting that an end to it can be put.

Your old friend,                              
BEVIL TOLLEMACHE.

A month later poor Bevil was wounded and missing.

In the autumn of 1914 the major need was for men for Kitchener's armies. Northcliffe asked me to undertake the Press propaganda for the recruiting song written and composed for the occasion by Paul Rubens, "Your King and Country Want You" (published by Chappell & Co.), first sung by Miss Phyllis Dare at the Winter Garden, Bournemouth, on 4 September. Rubens---who was an old friend---and I had several meetings to discuss details. Miss Marie Tempest first sang it in London at the "Empire" on 7 September and a few days later Miss Phyllis Dare sang it at the "Victoria Palace." Prior to the first performance Rubens asked me to dine with him and Miss Phyllis Dare at Odone's restaurant for the launching of the campaign.

Life became increasingly difficult, as the months passed, for the man not in khaki. In the Northcliffe Press he was portrayed by "Poy" as a shirker and as "Cuthbert" the rabbit who scuttled down his hole. On the hoardings flaming posters of Kitchener pointing his finger at him were displayed, or perhaps a picture of a happy father surrounded by his children with the caption, "Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?" met his gaze. Another recruiting poster which was plentifully displayed was, "Remember this, if you don't go willingly to-day, you and your children, and your children's children, may have to go unwillingly to wars even more terrible than this one." In every music-hall and cinema appeals to the individual's patriotism were made. Before long a large campaign for recruits by poster and leaflet was made among British communities overseas, and I was asked by the authorities to take a hand in it. The Empire wanted every available man either on the home front or overseas.

I went over to Ireland at Christmas to spend a few days with my parents. During the South African War in 1899 we talked of "Black Christmas." Thirteen years later we were to get a better sense of proportion. We now knew what a black Christmas really was. The fate of the Empire was in the balance. After being in France and England a visit to Ireland, where the majority took but a luke-warm interest in the war, was depressing. In addition I was going through a period of spiritual barrenness. The light of my Faith was burning but dimly. The hecatombs of humanity were baffling. How could an all-powerful Deity permit so much suffering? Why should innocent human beings be asked to give their lives for objects which did not concern them? The only key to the nightmare of existence was the hope that the Armageddon now raging would put an end to war and suffering, as my friend Bevil Tollemache believed.

In England I was accustomed to the beauty and music of the Anglican service. The austerity of the Church of Ireland service left me unsatisfied. The ladies' choir sang admirably, the congregation joined in heartily. But my fellow-worshippers looked so well-to-do. The floodtide of life seemed to have rushed by and left Killiney Church in a backwater. The fact that many of my relations had a cocksure Faith only irritated me. They had apparently never been through long periods of doubt. They seemed to be exasperatingly certain of the Almighty's intentions. Even atrocities and war horrors did not shake them. The little church was full of light. The large windows let in light on all sides. I longed for mystery. The seeking soul does not want religion that assumes clarity where there is no clarity. I thought of countless churches with stained-glass windows high up in the walls, of dimness round the high altar. A poor spiritual cripple required the props of music, incense, a lighted altar, vestments---wings to escape into the Holy of Holies. Nevertheless, I admired Quakers and lowchurchmen who could pierce through to Reality without external aid.

Killacoona, Ballybrack, Co. Dublin.
27 December, 1914.

The service this morning was such a dreary one from my point of view, not a cross nor a crucifix nor candle. I longed for St. John's. All this lack of beauty over here gets on my nerves, though I know I should not be affected by externals like this. I loved the beautiful words of the psalm:

Yea, the waters had drowned us: and the stream had gone over our soul. . . .

Our soul is escaped even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler the snare is broken and we are delivered.

Our help standeth in the Name of the Lord: who bath made heaven and earth. (Letter.)