THE year 1915 was one of disillusionment. Optimism still persisted in high places(1) but the public became increasingly suspicious of its leaders as the chain of failures lengthened. From the personal standpoint the year had two important milestones for me. The Overseas Club became a real force in promoting the Empire's war effort. Our movement was now taken seriously, and its name was known around the seven seas and on the various fronts.

My idea of starting the English-Speaking Union(2) took concrete shape from the day in February, 1915, on which I had a long talk with Walter Hines Page at the American Embassy in Grosvenor Gardens. Page was delighted with the idea and said, " Once this darned war is over and I quit being a neutral I will help you to get a million members for your show in the U.S.A. But while the war is on, my hands are tied. My job is to keep our folks in Washington quiet. They still do not understand that civilisation is at stake." When I first met Walter Page nine years before and on subsequent occasions, he and his partner, F. N. Doubleday(3) and I used to talk about the relations of the British Empire and the United States. I appreciated Page's lack of side and his treatment of a much younger man on a basis of equality.

Few men felt the importance of a frank Anglo- American understanding more deeply than Page. His services to the cause of English-speaking friendship cannot be over-estimated. There was a small but growing band that considered British-American co-operation essential to civilisation. Amongst those who felt it most keenly were Arthur Balfour, the two Lord Greys,(4) Sinclair Kennedy of Boston, Moreton Frewen, Lord Bryce, W. T Stead, Charles Wallstein and Northcliffe. I have always regretted that Page left England shortly after the founding of the English-Speaking Union and that he did not live to see the fruition of the idea. Only those who knew Page's mind can understand the mental anguish he went through after the sinking of the Lusitania(5) till the United States joined the Allies. Those who loved America, as I did, went through many difficult moments in 1915. We were so close to the war that we could not understand Washington's detachment. For a time at least we felt there must be some hidden force keeping America apart from us. We knew that there was a very large section of opinion in the United States favourable to our cause, but we had no means of judging its strength.

President Woodrow Wilson's re-election to a second term of office in 1916, largely on the "ticket" that he had kept America out of the war", was a bitter pill. We had hoped that Mr. Theodore Roosevelt stood for the real America. In the autumn of 1915 the ex-President was in British Columbia. His tribute to the British Empire and the fervour with which he spoke of the Dominions was surely the voice of America. "The people of Canada, indeed of all the Dominions beyond the seas," he said, "have advanced immeasurably in the affection and respect of the American people because of the way in which they have rallied to the support of the grand old Motherland in the hour of her trial." "Mr. Roosevelt spoke, as we knew he would speak," wrote a correspondent at Victoria, B.C., "with a burning sense of the injustice of neutrality in a war waged on behalf of humanity."

Early in 1915 Germany's proposal to blockade Great Britain by means of her U-boats was openly discussed, although many refused to believe that she would thus wantonly risk involving herself with the neutral Powers. Admiral von Tirpitz, in an interview in the New York Sun, stated that "German submarines might declare war on all enemy merchant ships "---evidently an inspired announcement. At first the British Press refused to believe in deliberate "frightfulness." In the event of Germany embarking on a "warfare of unmitigated murder," the Spectator thus reassured its readers:

There is nothing, after all, to be greatly alarmed at in Admiral von Tirpitz's idea. It could not be carried out in any effectual sense, and we dare say it will not be attempted, since at the last moment the folly of it would probably be perceived. The torpedoing of a few merchant ships and the brutal murdering of innocent non-combatants would no doubt send up insurance rates, but the percentage of losses would at the worst be no higher than the Government had allowed for when the war began.

So much for prophecy! In 1915 we little thought that two years later Germany would be sinking nearly a million tons of British shipping in a month, and that in October, 1916, Admiral Jellicoe would issue a warning that if the wastage continued, "Great Britain might be compelled in the summer of 1917 to conclude a peace very different from what she had a right to expect."(6)

The possibility of the German submarine campaign involving the United States was mentioned in the following letter a few days after my talk with Page

87, Victoria Street,
London, S.W.1.
14 February, 1915

I know how pleased you will have been about the King becoming patron of the Overseas Club. It has been very much of an Overseas week for me and I have done and thought of little else. I lunched with Jim Murray Allison one day, the advertising director of The Times---such a nice fellow, and an Australian by birth---he has joined our Committee and is going to help me. He is the chief proprietor of Land and Water,(7) and is making about £10,000 a year from it.

We have £22 for our Aircraft Fund, but of course there has not been time for the appeal to reach the Empire so far. I don't anticipate anything like the success we have had with our Tobacco Fund, but still we should be able to collect enough money for one aeroplane. I have rather a heavy cold, caught on my way back from Paris.(8) . . I hear on all sides that the French are tremendously impressed with what we are doing and the way we have quietly worked away on our new armies. People here don't seem to fear these German submarine attacks on ordinary steamers, and as far as cross-Channel boats are concerned they would be sure to drown a number of Americans and other neutrals and then there would be no end of trouble for them. I hope the shorthorn sale will go off well and that your animals escaped U.21.(9) (Letter to Parents.)

So many of my war-time prophecies were false that it may be justifiable to draw attention to a forecast which proved to be correct:

Sandwich,              
Sunday, 21 February, 1915.

I came down here with Alan Erskine and we are staying in his little cottage. All Pegwell Bay was full of shipping yesterday, they say the steamers were all waiting for an escort of destroyers.(10) And to-day a water-plane was flying about looking for submarines. I am afraid we are bound to lose a good many merchant steamers, but unless the Germans are very careful thy will certainly be getting into trouble with the U.S.A. (11) . . . I am afraid things look bad on the Russian side and I only hope the Germans will not take Warsaw,(12) but apparently the Russians are badly equipped and till the ice breaks they cannot get ammunition from abroad . . . . At dinner there was Mrs. C. L., whose husband has been missing since Mons. Poor thing, she still hopes, or pretends she does. (Letter.)

Another letter written about this period says:

Kitchener certainly does not seem to be making himself overpopular . . . . I have seen a lot of interesting people, including some American journalists who have just returned from the German front. They all seem to think the war is going to be a very slow business. Apparently the Indians are no use at all in European warfare, I don't know what they will do with them . . . . I see there was a paragraph about the "dummy" ships in this morning's Observer. I wonder the censor let it pass. I have to go over to Paris at the end of the week. I expect sooner or later Northcliffe will appoint some permanent person there and I shall not be sorry except for financial reasons. (Letter to parents.)

Hotel Louvois, Paris.
6 March, 1915.

(Started in Pullman at Victoria Station.)

I came into this car ten minutes ago after all the fuss and bother of being examined for hidden letters.

Later.

Two destroyers escorted us most of the way. (Letter.)

87, Victoria Street, S.W.1.
March, 1915.

Our losses have been very heavy. We lost 12,000 at Neuve Chapelle.(13) I believe the German trenches after the bombardment were an awful sight---one man described them to me as being like "raspberry jam"---isn't it ghastly?

The Dardanelles(14) losses were quite expected, tho' I believe the

Admiralty think it is going to be very difficult. I hear we are sending a large number of troops there.

I was talking to Northcliife on the telephone yesterday and he still feels, as he always has, that it is going to be a very long business(15) He told me he is making himself unpopular as he says openly what a difficult task we have got ahead of us!

Lane(16) lunched with me one day last week. He has been at the Front in khaki in an ambulance detachment. He says the chief thing which struck him was how casual everything was. The peasants were hard at work in the fields and seemed to have got quite accustomed to bombs falling all round them. I hear the French Red Cross is in an awful state compared to ours. Northcliffe is going to take up an Anglo-American Red Cross scheme in the Paris Daily Mail to provide a Red Cross ambulances to go with one of the French army corps. (Letter to parents.)

The financial worries inseparable from a rapidly growing movement never left me.(17) Although large sums of money were passing through the Overseas Club's bank account at Courts, little of it was for our own running expenses. It was mostly earmarked for our war funds. I was very anxious to get enlarged premises where we could welcome our members from overseas and members of the Dominion Forces now coming to London in increasing numbers. Just when our financial worries were acute, I got a nice letter together with a cheque for £1,000 for furnishing our extended premises from my American multi-millionaire friend, Alexander Smith Cochran, who several times in my life came to my rescue.

Ritz-Carlton Hotel, New York.
21 March, 1915.     

Dear Wrench,

Both your letters came while I was away. I certainly do wish we could keep more in touch.

I have very few intimate friends whom one discusses ideals with as you and I are apt to do when we get together. I don't know how missed you when in London. The Marlborough Club told me you were away and so many, in fact most of my friends, were off that I didn't question it. I will gladly furnish the rooms and I don't want any tablet except that it was done by "an American friend." I feel that I have been in at the birth of your wonderfully successful organisation.

How splendidly your Colonies have stood by you, and now everyone talks Empire. It's splendid.

We are in a pitiful condition ourselves and it's hard not to be actually ashamed of our lack of policy. I'd infinitely rather be like Germany fighting for ideals however wrong we may judge them than in our position.

Do write me soon again and stick at your job until a plain duty faces you about going to the front.

Yours sincerely,                             
ALEC. SMITH COCHRAN.

 

87, Victoria Street, London, S.W.1.
Easter Sunday, 1915.

Sir Arthur Lawley,(18) such a high type of man, whom I had met before and who was ex-Governor of the Transvaal and West Australia, came to see me the other day about an emigration scheme. (19)

I lunched with Philip Kerr,(20) the editor of the Round Table, whom I had not seen since that time in Vancouver when he came to our O.S. meeting. He seemed very optimistic about things generally.

There are various rumours floating round, about the number of German submarines we have captured. Some people place it as high as 17.

On Tuesday I attended a meeting of Lord Grey's Committee to deal with the employment of disabled soldiers after the war, especially on the land. I am not sure how much practical result it will have. . .  Our Aircraft Fund has begun to move a little. We have £320 so far, so I really think we should be able to get enough for one aeroplane anyhow. We have been sending a great deal of literature about the war to neutral countries through our members. . . .

Everyone speaks so highly of our hospital arrangements. There has been very little disease in our ranks compared with the French. (Letter to parents.)

I often wonder whether the Allies would have won the war had not Northcliffe and Lloyd George sought to counteract the prevailing unfounded optimism. Week after week we read in our Press that "the news from the western theatre of the war has been distinctly good. The French and the British made considerable progress and are slowly but surely gaining ground." Nothing has struck me so much in paging through the newspaper and periodical files of the early war years as this facile optimism. The wish was certainly father to the thought. We read of allied advances and captured prisoners, but we rarely heard of the devastating effects of German counter-attacks.

It has only been possible with the aid of old diaries and letters to catch the atmosphere in which we lived during the first nine months of war, before Northcliffe's attack on Kitchener and on the shell shortage. It is so easy to be wise after the event. In those dramatic days, when the issue was in the balance, we still had a wholesome awe of the brass hat. The military leaders were for the most part far-sighted soldiers who obviously knew better than outside critics. They were in possession of the facts. They would certainly not sacrifice lives needlessly, indulge in undue optimism, under-estimate their foe, nor overestimate their own power. And yet this is exactly what many of them in all the allied countries did. In the days following Northcliffe's attack on Kitchener,(21) when the Daily Mail was being burnt in the Stock Exchange, when advertisers were cancelling their contracts in Northcliffe publications, when friends turned their eyes away when passing Northcliffe, I saw him on several occasions. He never showed to greater advantage. He was entirely single-minded. He was not playing for his own hand. He was sincerely convinced that Kitchener was a muddler, that the great organiser of the Sudan Campaign, whom he had largely helped to create in his papers after Omdurman, did not exist, that the whole British war effort lacked punch, that most of the Cabinet were useless in the existing emergency.

Northcliffe told me that despite the cost he knew his attack on Kitchener was justified: "I will continue to tell the truth in my papers." We talked about Kitchener, and he said European war was something very different from the warfare Kitchener had been accustomed to, that Kitchener could not depute, and that he insisted on keeping too much detail in his own hands. Northcliffe and I often discussed the veneration which is paid by the public to the occupants of high positions. I remember his telling me that as a young journalist of eighteen he went to see one of the "Mandarins of Fleet Street." With trepidation he went into the presence of the famous editor. When he listened to the great man he found that he was self-opinionated and garrulous and made of very ordinary clay. "Since then I have always been suspicious of the superman."

Northcliffe made me realise how frequently those in high places had no right to be there.. New men and new methods of carrying on the war were needed. In those days the High Commands of the various nations on the Western Front were indulging in "billy-goat tactics "---hitting away the strength of their armies against unbreakable walls "in a succession of sickening thuds."(22) The French, like the British, believed in the possibility of a break through, and among the incurable optimists was Joffre, the French Generalissimo, who expected the war to be over in 1915. La guerre d'usure had begun on the Western Front, and for many a long day the Allies duped themselves into believing that the Germans were suffering much heavier casualties than they were. Among the Allies there were, of course, dissensions. The British thought the French had let them down, while the French said that the British were ready to die "to the last Frenchman." Statements were also circulated to the effect that the English troops were not doing their share but letting the brunt fall on the Scottish, Irish and Dominion regiments. Likewise in Paris it was said, "In the French Army you see Arabs, Senegalese, Indians, Belgians, and English. You even see Frenchmen."(23)

Northcliffe's policy to tell the truth at all costs got him into serious trouble He was abused by the Government and by those who did not know how serious conditions really were. By the line of "defeatism" adopted by The Times and the Daily Mail he was held to be encouraging the enemy, to be depressing the spirits of the "home front," and still worse, "to be preventing balancing neutrals, who above all things wanted to be on the winning side," from joining the Allies. The suggestion was frequently made that the Government should use their powers under the Defence of the Realm Act in his case. There were lively debates in the House of Commons, but beyond letting off steam the members of the Government were afraid to apply drastic action to the Press Lord of Printing House Square.

The real reason the Government took no action was doubtless that the more virile members of the Cabinet, including Mr Lloyd George, knew that Northcliffe was right in his facts. In a democracy if you want the people to make a supreme effort you must tell the truth. In order to have influenced hesitating neutrals in 1915 more was needed than words! The neutral Powers were supplied with an unceasing stream of German propaganda. But more powerful than the statements of the German Press Bureau were the facts, and the facts in 1915 were such that the Balkan nations for the most part believed that the Central Powers were winning the war.

If Northcliffe had been prevented from telling the truth the war would only have been lengthened. Outsiders see most of the game, and the neutrals in 1915 and 1916 knew only too well how badly the Allies were faring, and Russia's approaching collapse was already being discussed. I give the following extracts from letters written in the spring of 1915:

Hotel Louvois, Paris,             
22 April, 1915.

We only saw one torpedo boat just as we left Folkestone. I had lunch at the Boulogne station buffet. While I was eating it a man called ------ came up to talk to me. The last time I saw him was walking down the main street of Suva, Fiji, over two years ago. He has a large Rolls Royce and ever since October drives the King's Messengers from Boulogne to Abbeville.

X., looking quite fat and very well, met me at Abbeville and came as far as Amiens. He is dreadfully bored. For two months he had been practically doing nothing, just superintending his men making a railway siding, and was very glad of a talk. As we were standing on Amiens platform a German aeroplane, a Taube, soared over the town ever so high up, right above our heads. It looked rather wonderful. The French aircraft guns were trying to hit it and the shrapnel, looking like little white clouds, kept bursting all round it but it got away. Amiens is only about 25 miles from the fighting. Apparently we seem to be doing well.

Hotel Louvois, Paris,       
24 April, 1915.

As usual Boulogne was humming with activity, soldiers, wounded, military trains, etc. A lot of wounded were arriving from "Hill 60," chiefly shrapnel wounds in the head. Many Territorials have been going over at night all these last weeks and they expect some of Kitchener's army to start this week I am told.

Everyone here seems quite convinced that Italy is coming in by 12 May. But there have been so many rumours like this before that one does not know what to believe. I have seen many more officers and soldiers this time without arms and legs, and a great number of women in black.

The feeling against the Germans is intensely bitter and I really think it is growing here.

On Thursday evening about 20 minutes after I had arrived Lane(24) walked into this hotel and dined with me. He has been down on the Riviera having a rest and is going on his lecture tour to America in 10 days' time. He says his last book has just been translated into German!

The following letter tells of the first use of gas in the war. The first German gas attack took place on 22 April, 1915. The use of "asphyxiating gases contrary to the most solemn pledges made by Germany at the Hague Conference" caused great indignation in the Allied countries. Sir John French spoke of the "long and deliberate preparation for the employment of devices contrary to the terms of the Hague Convention".(25)

87, Victoria Street, S.W.1.    
Sunday.

The Germans are certainly wonderful organisers and it does look as if it is going to be a very slow business, tho' I have never had any doubt as to the ultimate result.

Coming back from Paris last Sunday was really very interesting. In the first place we passed one train full of refugees from Poperinghe, that place the Germans had just started shelling. From our train I talked to one girl who said she had lived in a cellar for three months Then later on we passed two trains full of French wounded, straight from the north of Ypres, where the fighting had been so bad. Poor things, they looked in an awful state. They were chiefly "Turcos" who had been surprised by the German fumes. Then when I was at Boulogne a long train of our wounded arrived with a number of Canadians. They looked much battered about but much better cared for than the French. Everyone speaks so highly of our Red Cross arrangements.

Seeing just one day's batch of mails for the Front being taken up and sorted gave me some idea of the enormous task of keeping an army. All our transport arrangements and feeding, etc., are quite wonderful. No doubt due to the wonderful organising powers of Jack Cowan.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.1.

There is very little war news except that I hear over 20,000 troops have been going over every day last week. The first batch of Kitchener's Army.

Marlborough Club, Pall Mall, SW.        
16 May, 1915.

The chief piece of news as far as the Overseas Club is concerned is that I saw the Director of Military Aeronautics on Wednesday and arranged all the final details with him as regards the presentation of and purchase of our first aeroplane. On Thursday I sent him a cheque for £1,500, being the cost of "Overseas No. 1." Now that we have got one I hope that more will follow.

On Wednesday I went to see Lord Selborne to talk over the position of his League, which was started to buy a warship to be presented by Britons outside the Empire. They set out to get £380,000, and have only managed to collect £22,000 so far! I am trying to get them to work more closely with the O.S. Club and think I shall succeed.

Yesterday morning I took Lord Grey in my car up to the Agricultural Hall, Islington, to see the Exhibition organised by the Board of Trade to show how British manufacturers are able to supply practically everything hitherto made in Germany. The British manufacturer certainly seems to be bucking up.

The war news is good as far as the French are concerned, but we seem to be badly hampered on account of munitions. But I believe the Government are at last really stirring themselves. Everybody thought Italy was coming in and I really don't see how she can keep out. I think there is bound to be trouble there internally if she does. Just as I walked in thro' the hall door here the ex-King of Portugal walked out! I expect he is glad he is not in his own country!

The Overseas Club,                       
General Buildings, Aldwych,
London, W.C.2.          
10 May, 1915.

How terrible this Lusitania tragedy is. It really passes belief. Germany must be mad. I only hope we---as a nation---will keep our heads and will not stoop to unworthy methods just because she does.

87, Victoria Street, SW.                
Sunday, 23 May, 1915.

My great excitement has been our first aeroplane. I asked Northcliffe to come down to Farnborough to name it but at the last moment he said he could not come, at which I was much relieved in view of the feeling against him at the moment!(26) I got Hylda(27) to come down as she has always wanted to fly. The head inspector of the Royal Flying Corps at Farnborough is such a nice fellow. I should think he is only 34 or 35 and is a Colonel! He was one of the pioneers of flying in England and used to fly his own machine.

They were all frightfully pleased about the success of the O.S. scheme and especially so when I told them that we soon hoped to be able to present a second aeroplane and as a result of our efforts Gibraltar also has decided to give an aeroplane. So that makes three in all. I have had a very nice letter from Kitchener and also one from Lord Stamfordham with a message from the King and these I am going to make full use of in new literature I am getting out.

Overseas No. 1 was then pushed forward. Colonel Fulton asked Hylda if she would like to fly and she said she would love to. The pilot Captain Winfield-Smith did what Colonel Fulton called "stunts" in the air and after about a quarter of an hour brought it back to where we were standing. I mean to keep the fund open until further notice and hope to get an Imperial Air Flotilla together

Another exciting thing for me happened this week. For a long time I have been scheming to bring off some kind of co-operation with the recently-formed Patriotic League for Britons Overseas(28) (the Warship Fund) of which Lord Selborne is the Chairman. Well, at their Committee Meeting on Wednesday, Lord Selborne opened the meeting by saying very nice things about me and I was elected unanimously as joint Hon. Secretary and in future I am to run the whole thing at the O.S. offices ! It will mean ultimately absorption by the O.S. Club. This places me in a very strong position as to patriotic organisations overseas. At present there is a little rivalry between the two bodies in some parts of the world. It will be rather funny when the local secretaries of both societies get letters signed by me.

I think Northcliffe was injudicious in the manner of his attack on K. and he should have been more diplomatic, and also he is too inclined to ride rough-shod over people, but what he says about the shortage of shells is absolutely true. (Letters to parents.)

Cambridge Cottage,                        
Coombe Warren,                   
Kingston-on-Thames.     
30 May, 1915.

I was tremendously bucked by Hong Kong's donation of £4,500 to our Aircraft Fund. Just think, casually coming upon a cheque for this amount in the morning's mail I had another very nice letter from Lord Stamfordham expressing the King's thanks.

This week we are paying a cheque for £6,000 to the War Office for aeroplanes.

The storm about Northcliffe is slightly subsiding and he is as convinced as ever that he was right.(29) I hear Kitchener and Lloyd George had a great row, and if Northcliffe had not brought up the munitions question L. George threatened to do so in the House. Kitchener never told any of the Cabinet about the urgent appeals for shells he was getting from the front.

I fear the Russians have been doing frightfully badly. People seem to think that Premyzle(30)---I wish I could remember how to spell its name---will be retaken by the Germans.

The first Overseas Aeroplane at Farnborough, May, 1915. Lady des Voeux being taken for a flight after the naming ceremony. Captain Winfield Smith, the pilot, was killed six months later.

Queen Alexandra at the Royal Aircraft Factory, Farnborough, July 3rd, 1915, where she named four of the aeroplanes given through the Overseas Club to the Royal Flying Corps.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.         
June, 1915.

The Russians are having a very hard time of it and I only hope the Germans won't succeed in dividing them in two. If they do, it will mean that the war will drag on much longer. Lloyd George seems to be stirring things up wonderfully and there is no question that what Northcliffe has done has had a tremendously "invigorating" effect on the country. I am very glad you liked the Aircraft leaflets, we have sent out 100,000 so I hope they will have a good effect. I think they ought to, as everyone realises now that the war is going to be a long business.

I thought Lloyd George made a splendid speech and the country is beginning to wake up at last. All he says vindicates completely what Northcliffe said---it was only the way he said it.

The 1d. Empire Day Children's Fund is booming and amounts to over £10,000---all in pennies collected in one day, isn't it wonderful ? Over three and a half million children subscribed.(31)

I lunched one day with Murray Allison, advertising director of The Times, who was rather full of Northcliffe's injudiciousness.

London,                
26 June, 1915.

Queen Alexandra has promised to name several of our aeroplanes on Saturday next at Farnborough---the Aircraft Factory.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.

I was so much interested to hear F. had seen "my" film. It was so extraordinary seeing oneself walking about and all one's gestures.(32) I hardly think I should have recognised myself. I was amused at the way I moved my arms about. Queen Alexandra was as friendly as she could be and is extraordinarily well-preserved for her years. She took such an interest in everything. I had tea with her and Princess Victoria and she was absolutely simple and unaffected. She would not eat strawberries as she said she suffered from gout. She also told me she does not believe very much in Zeppelins and that Queen A. and she had met Count Zeppelin when staying in Copenhagen. Queen A. has still a very distinct foreign accent tho' Princess V. has none at all. I expect you saw the nice letter I got from Colonel Streatfeild.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.              
Sunday, 17 July, 1915.

On Thursday, Northcliffe was given a lunch at the Ritz Hotel on his 50th Birthday. He spoke afterwards and said that he intends to continue his policy of criticizing the Government till such a time as we apply ourselves as scientifically as Germany to carrying on the war. If only all this munition problem had been tackled six months ago, things would have been in a very different state.

I went to see Borden on Friday and he has promised to plant some of my maple seeds on the Canadian graves he is visiting in France this week. (Letters to parents.)

I received the following letter from Sir Robert Borden shortly afterwards. It refers to an idea which I had received in the first instance from Mr. Fane Sewell of Toronto.

Prime Minister's Office, Canada.            
Savoy Hotel, London.      
27 July, 1915.

I have learned with much interest of the idea of some Canadian members of the O.S.L. to plant Canadian maple seeds over the graves of Canadians in Flanders and France where practicable, and of your intention to arrange to plant an avenue of maples at Langemarcke after the war. The idea seems to me a very pleasing one, and I have no doubt that the relatives of all those who have fallen will appreciate your attempt to beautify the graves of those who have given their lives to the Empire. I have had much pleasure in planting some of the seeds myself.

Yours faithfully,                 
R. L. BORDEN.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.1.        
15 August, 1915.

Two more aeroplanes have been given. The Governor of Sierra Leone came in to see me, which shows what these officials are beginning to think of the Overseas Club.

Two days ago Russia telegraphed to the British Government, "Alliance in great danger unless you do something soon" which looks as if they are pretty nearly exhausted on their side. The chief danger seems to be of their making a separate peace,(33) but unless they are completely knocked out I personally don't think this will happen.(34) I think we may be in for another month or two of things getting worse and by next spring they should be getting better. (Letter.)

London.             
August, 1915.

Northcliffe says that by far the three strongest men in the Cabinet are Lloyd George, Balfour and Carson. I believe Balfour is doing splendidly at the Admiralty. I hear our Dardanelles losses have been dreadfully heavy.

I would not be surprised if before many months are passed someone else is appointed in place of French. I believe there is great dissatisfaction with him.(35)

The Russians are having an awful time of it and they will be out of it for twelve months, Northcliffe thinks. I only hope the Germans won't get to Petrograd. The Germans have had enormous losses. (Letter to parents.)

87, Victoria Street, S.W.                 
Sunday, 12 September, 1915.

All our troops are now taken over to France in small boats which only draw a few feet of water, so that they run the minimum risk against torpedoes from submarines.

On Wednesday afternoon the President of the Ceylon Association and six other people prominently connected with Ceylon came to see me formally to hand over the money for a Ceylon aeroplane.

Sunday, 26 September, 1915.

I see from the papers that our offensive has commenced. I only hope there won't be any bungling this time as there was before. We want a few victories to cheer us up. The Russians certainly seem to be doing better. One day last week the secretary of our Peking branch lunched with me. He gave a most interesting account of all the munitions pouring across the Siberian Railway from Japan to Russia. He was in Petrograd 10 days ago and said they all seemed fairly cheerful there!

87, Victoria Street, S.W.          
Sunday, 2 October, 1915.

I wish I knew what was happening in the Balkans. I have always mistrusted Bulgaria and it looks as it nothing could stop her from coming in against us.

I got another £4,000 for aeroplanes from Montreal.

Tobacco boomed last week. £2,600 received in 7 days!

(Letters to parents.)

Ledbury.(36)             
9 October, 1915.

Curtis's Ford car met me at the station and we rushed through the dark cool air and it was very refreshing. Curtis met me on the doorstep; beside him was a wounded Canadian officer and Sir Valentine Chirol, who was foreign editor of The Times till a year ago. There was a lot of war talk, all very depressing. To change our thoughts Curtis read out Pericles' speech and then some of Rupert Brooke's poems. (Letter.)

87, Victoria Street, S.W.           
14 October, 1915.

The whole staff is demoralised by Zeppelins and I can't get any work done. (Letter.)

87, Victoria Street, S.W.           
Sunday, 17 October, 1915.

I don't quite know what to tell you about the war, as I don't want to depress you and yet there is not much cheerful news. In the first place, though I am as convinced as ever that we are going to win in the end it is just as well that we should realise things as they are. I really do think that thanks very largely to Northcliffe people are beginning to wake up and to realise that we are fighting for our lives. I should much like to know what is going to happen at the Dardanelles---it is quite on the cards that we may have to give up that expedition(37) altogether, tho' evacuating it will be a frightfully difficult proposition. Anyhow, if only Serbia is able to hold out for the next 3 or 4 weeks, we may be able to stop the Germans, tho' it will be a very near thing. Chirol thought they were certain to break through but I hope he will prove wrong. Our submarines seem to be doing very well in the Baltic and that all helps.

I lunched with Valentine Williams, the Daily Mail Correspondent in Flanders, on Thursday. He told me that on the whole our men were splendid, but our staff work was frightfully poor compared to that of the Germans. A great deal depends on just how far Russia is able to re-equip her armies this winter. If only the Allies stick together and do not succumb to internal dissension by this time next year we should be wearing the Germans down: their reserves of men cannot be limitless.

On Wednesday I dined with Lady Rodd. German influence is still very strong in Italy among the upper classes, she says. Italy has been frightfully short of ammunition.

We are tremendously busy and everything going very well. 35 aeroplanes---£60,000 in cash, with several more promised. Tobacco Fund booming---£69,000 to date.

I don't see how we can put off National Service much longer.

Sunday, 21 October, 1915.

How dreadful about poor Francis Yeats-Brown, W. tells me now that they believe he is a prisoner with the Arabs. I only hope they will hand him over to the Turks, as otherwise I should not give much for his chances. I thought his letter was extremely interesting.(38)

I got back from Paris on Friday evening after my four days' visit. The steamer I crossed in on Friday evening had sighted an escaped mine the same morning. A number of our mines got loose during the recent storm. Everyone in France was rather pessimistic about Greece and it certainly looks like trouble. I hope the Government will take a strong hand---they have had enough lessons I should think. All the French soldiers now wear those little blue helmets. I gather that we are sending large reinforcements to the Near East.

On Wednesday night I dined with the Northcliffes. Everyone was rather gloomy. I think we are still in for a bad 5 or 6 months but I have never doubted what the outcome would be. Northcliffe showed us some of the iron money which is now being used in Germany. His neutral spy had only returned from Germany the day before; he says they have plenty of food but are very short of wool, rubber and fats. Nearly all the pigs were killed last winter and as a result they have no fats of any kind now! Northcliffe sees Carson and Lloyd George frequently. The bungles we have made in the Dardanelles and Balkans are beyond belief.

Another evening I dined with my American friend, Alexander Smith Cochran, who was up in London for a night. Just think, he has given 6 motor boats to the British Admiralty.

Sunday, 14 November, 1915.

The war news is still very serious and I don't think we can look for anything better for a long time. I think Greece's actions are most suspicious. Also I fear that it is by no means certain that Germany will not drag Persia in, as she did Turkey. And I know Northcliffe is nervous about Sweden, so we have got our work cut out.

The financing of the war is the real problem now, and I think we shall all have to cut down expenses drastically. Rich people over here are only beginning to think of cutting down.

Hotel Louvois, Paris.                
17 November, 1915.

I got through the Customs very quickly at Dieppe but it was five to eight before everyone was through and we did not reach Paris till 11, that is to say 14 hours from leaving London. Crossing the channel we passed two British submarines. When I got to Paris it was a lovely starlight night though freezing hard. There were no taxis so I drove in an open fiacre.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.             
Sunday, 28 November, 1915.

On Thursday I lunched with Northcliffe and Lady N. and as they were alone I had a very nice talk. He knows everything that is going on behind the scenes.

I hear we are going to evacuate the Dardanelles, but that the Government hopes the fall of Baghdad will take place soon so that it can be announced on the same day ! I only hope nothing will go wrong and that it will fall. I did not like the look of this last fight much and only hope the Turks have not got any unpleasant surprise awaiting us.

5 December, 1915.

I am dreadfully disappointed about the Baghdad news, only it is just what I expected from this Government of bunglers. How they could send an expedition up 600 miles into that country without sufficient reinforcements passes my comprehension. They never seem to take into account that everything may go wrong and make their preparations accordingly, as Napoleon did. I am quite convinced that sooner or later Asquith will have to go and in his place we will have to have a strong man.

My armlet was given to me on Wednesday and one day I wore it, but everyone stared and as I was the only person wearing one I took it of f! They ought to make the wearing compulsory, as otherwise everyone will wait for the other person to begin! It is a plain khaki armlet with a red crown on it.

"Armlet Sunday," 1915,
(12 December.).   

I counted 20 armlets in the streets to-day, so they are beginning to be worn, though for quite a number of days I wore mine and saw no one else. I am told that the recruiting these last few days has been very satisfactory---100,000 recruits yesterday.

On Tuesday I lunched with P. and had rather a furious argument with him about Northcliffe. Most people, I am glad to say, are coming round to see that Northcliffe has been right all along and that he has tried to tell the truth when it was v. unpopular to do so.

Sunday, 19 December, 1915.

On Tuesday I lunched with the Northcliffes quietly at St. James's Place. He had been spending the week-end with Lloyd George and Sunday evening with Carson---so he is in good company

Lloyd George said the other day, "We (the Government) deserve to be all turned out." I cannot help feeling that this Government cannot go on much longer. Everyone distrusts Asquith. Lord Derby would make a very good Premier I should think.

I see in this morning's Observer that Garvin now demands a change of Government. I hear terrible accounts of the Dardanelles and of our men being drowned like rats in traps in the gullys out there.

I lunched one day with Claude Johnson, the Managing Director of Rolls Royce. He told me of the new aeroplanes they are making for the Admiralty, 120 ft. long, to carry twelve or more men and a ton of explosives; and about 600 horse power. I only hope they will fly all right. (Letters to parents.)

A BOOK dealing with the War years might be accompanied by a diagram---similar to the chart hung up near the patient's bed in hospital---depicting the ups and downs, alternating between the high hopes and the deep depressions we went through.

At the beginning of 1916 the line of the chart would have taken a plunge downwards. The Empire received three heavy blows. The final evacuation of Gallipoli(1) early in January was the last stage in one of the greatest failures in the history of war. In Gallipoli we had always been too late. A few thousands of troops landed at the time of the original naval attack might have shortened the war by two years.(2) Mr. Churchill was right in his strategic conceptions but there was tragic delay at vital moments. Lord Kitchener and Mr. Asquith must bear their share of the blame for the failure,(3)

The Irish Rebellion took place on Easter Monday, 1916, and the prospect of the British lion and the Irish lamb lying down side by side in an era of perpetual peace vanished. The third disaster was the fall of Kut. The British Empire's prestige overseas was a matter which I regarded as peculiarly my own. Kut was a personal sorrow only second to the Irish Rebellion.

Great Britain never shows to better advantage than in times of depression. Twelve months later new men were in control and the British Commonwealth was preparing by new methods to counter the greatest danger(4) that ever assailed it. The temperature chart of the patient was no longer soaring dangerously and Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Bonar Law and Sir Maurice Hankey were busying themselves with plans for meeting the submarine menace by the introduction of the convoy system despite the opposition of the Admiralty.(5) Troops from overseas were now coming in a never-ending stream. I was frequently stopped in the street by men in the Dominion Forces recalling happier days overseas. "I was at your meeting in the Town Hall, Melbourne." "Do you remember addressing the 'boys' at a Canadian homestead at Halcyonia, Sask?" " I was one of the party that took you round the Premier Mine near Pretoria," or "I was your driver through the Buller Gorge in New Zealand."

In the whole war area there were no finer specimens of manhood than the Dominion troops. However bad the news, it was reassuring to meet these self-reliant fellow-citizens from the great open spaces of the Empire. The thought that the Empire might go under and that Germany might win never entered their minds. From the moment war was declared till Armistice Day they never doubted the result. Perhaps if the people of the Dominions could have seen the muddling in high places they would have been less confident.

Among my letters in 1916 are the following:

87, Victoria Street, S.W.               
Sunday, 2 January, 1916

What a terrible thing the sinking of the P. & O. Persia is---how America can go on shilly-shallying I can't conceive. You probably saw that John Montagu(6) is on board, poor fellow. I only hope he has not been drowned. And then the Natal blowing up like that the previous day, it is perfectly awful the way in which one gets accustomed to one disaster after another. Certainly Birdwood seems to have carried out the evacuation of the Dardanelles very cleverly.

I have a young Russian by name Zisserman coming to talk Russian with me two nights a week.

Sunday, 9 January, 1916.

I lunched with Northcliffe on Friday, Lady N., Rothermere and myself. N. is just as confident as ever that we are going to win, but he told us some very depressing things about the way things are mismanaged. He said the Natal was blown up by German spies while a Christmas party was taking place on board and a number of the officers' wives were killed. He thinks the German Fleet is bound to come out sooner or later. The food shortage in some parts of Germany is very real and discontent growing.

Hamilton Fyfe has been back from Petrograd for a few weeks' holiday and he says that on the entire Eastern front the Germans are holding up the Russians with thousands upon thousands of machine guns. All the German Eastern Army have been withdrawn from the front and have been comfortably refitting in Germany What organisers they are! I understand the French are getting rather tired of the war. Relations between them and ourselves have been strained once or twice, especially over the Serbian muddle.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.             
16 January, 1916.

 . . . Yes, I paid in the 15 sovereigns and I am sure the bank was glad to have them, as one practically never sees gold in us now.(7)

I went down to see Steel Maitland at the Colonial Office one day last week. I gathered that the Germans have managed to get a lot of ammunition into German East Africa, so I fear that will be a fairly, tough job. This ammunition has been brought in by American steamers which have managed to run the blockade. I saw Lord Warwick's son, Guy Brooke, one day at the Marlborough Club in his General's uniform. He said that at the moment our airplanes were quite outclassed by the Germans and that our losses in the Flying Corps have been terribly heavy lately, and all the new Rolls-Royce machines have been taken by the Navy.

There of course always is the fear that the allies may not stick together, but so far it certainly looks as if they would. Francis Rodd, just back from the front, lunched with me one day and he said that we are now firing off just four times as much ammunition as the Germans and that the British are all very sanguine on the Western Front.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.             
Sunday, 23 January, 1916.

Mrs. X. told me the details of Captain Wilson, M.P.'s capture from that Greek steamer with the government dispatches. You remember he was taken by an Austrian submarine and they got his official case with the Government documents inside. There was an American woman on board of very pronounced pro-ally sentiment. As soon as the submarine was sighted she went up to Wilson and said, Are you prepared to trust me ? If so, give me all the really important dispatches, which must under no circumstances fall into the enemy's hands." So he took the risk and gave them to her and she put them inside her dress. A minute afterwards the Austrian submarine officers came on board and arrested Wilson and his friend. Just before being arrested he threw his official leather cases overboard, in which there was nothing which really mattered and they floated off to be fished out in triumph by the Austrians The lady delivered the documents, which were of first-rate importance, at the War Office herself.

I had a meeting of Lionel Curtis's "United Workers" who are preaching the cutting off of every possible expense. They even go so far as to say we should not drink tea or coffee or anything which comes from abroad!

I went down to see Page, the American Ambassador. He was as helpful as ever.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.             
Sunday, 30 January, 1916.

I want to remember some of the things I heard from Northcliffe at lunch to-day. The Dutch journalist whose articles have been the sensation of the week, and who succeeded in dining with the Kaiser, was there. He is certainly a wonderful man.

Northcliffe has another correspondent who only six months ago spent a month employed as a workman in the Krupp factory at Essen. He says the Germans are entirely running Constantinople. Falkenhayn, the Chief of the German Staff, is the real brains fighting us, and he is a perfect marvel. The Turks are, of course, entirely misled as regards the progress of the war, and believe we are quite beaten.

One other thing I learnt was, just think, the Dutch inventor of the Fokker aeroplane offered his invention to the War Office some time ago and was turned down. Of course he at once went to Germany!

The outlook for our prisoners in Turkey is pretty bad as food is very short there. (Letters to parents.)

Hotel Louvois, Paris.        
2 February, 1916.

 . . . Drove up to the hotel at 11.15 last night after fourteen hours journey from London in a tumble-to-pieces old horse cab, reminiscent of Turkey 20 years ago. There are no mails to London for two days. . .  There was a very painted up Frenchwoman in furs on board with a black maid to act as a contrast!

The young wife of the proprietor of the hotel is looking very happy as her husband is just back from the Front for 6 days' leave. Just imagine what they must be feeling . . . . (Letter.)

87, Victoria Street, S.W.1.      
5 February, 1916.

I had an awful journey back from Paris. We left at quarter to eight in the morning and arrived at Victoria at 12.30 in the middle of the night---or just 17 hours. The passport formalities are endless and one spends hours standing about. We had a real bad crossing. We left Dieppe at 1.30 and got outside Folkestone at 5.30 but as there were military transports at the various landing places we were not allowed to come into the harbour till 9.30! For four hours we lay outside with a gale blowing and being rocked up and down. Most of the time we were standing in a line on deck thinking that every minute we should be allowed to go into harbour.

Paris was much more normal and quite different from the early days of the war. There were many more restaurants and theatres open.

They were all talking about Zeppelins, the damage was in the North-East of Paris in a working-class district. Paris is ever so much better lit up than London.(8) I believe their air defences are better than ours.

I only wish the Government would make Northcliffe Air Minister, if he would take the job. (Letter to parents.)

Peper Harow, Godalming.      
13 February, 1916.

I am sorry to say that Sir William Robertson, Chief of the General Staff, had to put off his visit at the last moment, as he had to go to Flanders. I should have loved to have met him as I believe he is a big man. He is the one man who is supposed to stand up to Kitchener and I believe he is appointing a lot of younger generals and officers in high places . . . . It is a marvellous morning, sun shining brightly on dewy ground and that fresh feeling in the air and a wonderful stillness except for cawing rooks---the feeling of latent life in the soil, and at the back of one's mind that tragedy in the mud of Flanders 250 miles away. (Letter.)

87, Victoria Street, S.W.           
20 February, 1916.

The Russians have certainly scored greatly by taking Erzerum. They must have laid their plans very well. It makes such a difference having been in the Anti-Caucasus and able to picture what that part of the world looks like. It certainly should ease the pressure on Kut, where poor General Townshend is. It would be dreadful if anything happened to him. I don't like the look of things there . . . . (9) (Letter to parents.)

The House at the End.                          
Farnham Common, Bucks.           
Sunday, 27 February, 1916.

I had promised to come down here several weeks ago to stay with Claude Johnson, the Managing Director of Rolls-Royce. He has always taken a great interest in the O.S. Club and has given me donations on several occasions. His firm is turning out a lot of these new large aeroplanes for the Government. He tells me that the average officer in the Flying Corps can't stand flying at the front for more than three months as his nerves go then.

Northcliffe has gone to Verdun at the invitation of the French Government. I only hope the French will be able to keep the Germans back.

We have just received the money for two more aeroplanes from the Gold Coast, £1,500 from the Chiefs and people of Eastern Krobo and £1,500 from the Head Chief, Chiefs and people of the New Juaben Settlement. It is wonderful thinking of all these natives, who a hundred years ago were practically savages, sending us all this help. (Letter to parents.)

28 February. 1916.

It was rather wonderful motoring up from Slough Station on Saturday evening in Claude Johnson's Rolls in the dark thro' a white silent world. It is snowing hard and everything is very still. We went to lunch yesterday with John Montagu, who was on the Persia. His secretary, whom I knew quite well, was on board and was drowned. At lunch I talked to her sister. John does not mind talking about his experiences at all. He was looking a good deal older. You couldn't go through all that without it affecting you. (Letter.)

One of my chief tasks in 1916 was starting the monthly magazine Overseas. Ever since my tour round the Empire in 1913 I was determined to start a magazine to enable me to keep in intimate touch with my friends overseas. I considered that our world-wide movement should have its own publication and be independent of any outside Press support. The opportunity came at the end of 1915. By the time I had received a commission in the Royal Flying Corps early in 1917 the magazine was firmly established.

The first issue was a slender publication of thirty-two pages, that could be carried in the side pocket of a man's coat. My old friend Joseph Thorp(10) got Macdonald Gill to design the cover with the picture of a galleon plunging through green and blue seas, which has become familiar throughout the Empire. Another friend, Jim Murray Allison, Australian by birth, one of the nicest men I ever knew, then advertising director of The Times, got me eight pages of advertising from some of the leading national advertisers.

Overseas summed up my ambitions for Empire Unity, but it also enabled me to preach an Imperialism which was synonymous with social service. I had been deeply influenced by Ruskin's teaching. Several years later when I met Gandhi I found veneration for Ruskin a great bond. His whole outlook was changed by reading Unto this Last. No book has ever meant so much to me as Fors Clavigera. For many years I was a member of the Guild of St. George, which Ruskin founded.

The publication of Overseas was in the first instance made possible by the generosity of my American friend Alexander Smith Cochran, who once again came to the rescue. On 8 December, 1915, I wrote in my diary:

"I was feeling very depressed about the 'Overseas' (the movement and magazine) and the difficulty of financing it." A fortnight later I received this letter from Cochran, the fairy godfather of the Overseas League and the English-speaking Union :(11)

Cambridge House,                         
Melton Mowbray,                  
20 December, 1915.

My dear Wrench,

I'm glad you wrote me what you most wanted for the Club and your work, for I like to feel I'm helping it and that I'm almost a founder of it through our talking it over when you were first getting it going. I think I'd like to start the Monthly for you and run it a year anyway and see how it pays or does good . . . So I'll send the cheque for £1,000, and you start it. I like the form of the "dummy."

Yours sincerely,                               
ALEC. SMITH COCHRAN.

I have often thought with gratitude of Alec Cochran's generous and timely help in the early days of my schemes. I wish he had lived to witness their full development. During the first four years of its existence Overseas published messages from the King, the Prince of Wales, and from almost every Empire leader.(12) Our pages have contained contributions on every sort of topic affecting the welfare of the British Commonwealth, from a message on "The distribution of the sexes of the Empire" by Mr. Bernard Shaw to the problem of "Six Hours a day" by the late Lord Leverhulme; from "A Tour through North America" by Sir Harry Lauder to "Blighty" by A. A. Milne. Overseas took up every cause aiming at making a reconstructed Britain---the New Jerusalem of our dreams, Housing, Slums, Public Ownership of the Drink Trade, Slaughter-house Reform, Garden Cities, the Welfare of the British Merchant Navy, the Provision of National Playgrounds, the Decimal System and Emigration. To look through its bound files is to obtain an excellent summary of the views of forward-looking minds since 1916.(13)

As the circle of readers of Overseas grew so did the interest taken in it in high places. The Government departments concerned with the task of making the Empire's effort better known abroad made constant use of us and I was frequently called into conference.

Extracts from letters written during this period are printed here:

87, Victoria Street, S.W.            
Sunday, 5 March, 1916.

 . . . One day last week I lunched with Horace Plunkett. He was very friendly and told me all about his recent trip to the U.S.A. He said that all of the present American Cabinet, with the exception of one, were out and out for the allies, and he seemed to think American intervention by no means out of the question.

The Overseas Club,                            
General Buildings, Aldwych, W.C.
Sunday, 2 April, 1916.

 . . . Tuesday night was the worst night I ever remember in London, an absolute blizzard with a snowstorm and such wind that one could hardly stand upright. I was by way of dining with Lady Wantage that evening and for over an hour tried to get a taxi but without success! So at the last moment I telephoned to say I couldn't come. I wrote to Lady Wantage telling her about it and had a message from her asking me to lunch on Thursday instead. She is always most friendly and takes such an interest in all that is going on. She told me that Milner, Austen Chamberlain and I were the three who did not turn up.

On Monday I went with a deputation to the Board of Education, about teaching Patriotism in the schools. It was got up by the Dean of Lincoln. We spent about an hour with Henderson, the President of the Board of Education, and I spoke for 5 minutes. I met Lionel Ford(14) and he was very friendly.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.              
Sunday, 9 April, 1916.

On Tuesday I lunched with Northcliffe, it was the first time I have seen him since he was at Verdun. Besides him and Lady N. there were Stanley Washburn, the American who is the Times correspondent with the Russian Army, and his wife, Arthur Lee, M.P., who is Lloyd George's right-hand man at the Ministry of Munitions, and myself.

Northcliffe told me that he had talked with the five chief generals in the French Army as to the possibility of either side ever breaking through in the West, owing to the power of defence having grown so strong, and three out of five said they did not think either side would ever break through there!

Everyone at lunch was full of the fate of the Government and did not feel that the present one could last long. Everyone seems to have lost faith in Bonar Law and I should not be surprised to see an entirely new group arise.

I fear things will go very hard with Townshend, I don't think he can last more than 2 weeks.(15) I fear the odds are against his being relieved, altho' I believe Sir William Robertson did tell Mrs. Townshend that he would be. The blunders in Mesopotamia are as bad as in Gallipoli.

Overseas Club matters have been most satisfactory. Our Aircraft Fund is now £100,000 and Tobacco Fund £118,000 and membership increasing all the while.  . . .

Offwell House, Honiton.     
20 April, 1916.

 . . . This is a very nice place, a long avenue and masses of daffodils.(16) Mrs. Harrison's sister from Woolwich Arsenal, where she is a Munition hand, is here. She works twelve hours every day and till two weeks ago they did not even have Sundays off. . .

The woods are wonderful and I picked primroses and wild violets. After dinner I got into argument with X and they all took her side, and I rather lashed out. The whole thing started by X describing the time she saw the German prisoners the other day and how she felt a feeling of revulsion from them. That kind of sentiment always annoys me and I argued on the lines that it was ridiculous to think that Germans were all black and that we were all white!

One of my bitterest experiences during the war was to sit by and hear my friends vilify the Germans. On one or two occasions, after the first bombing of Paris and London by aircraft, I got caught in the prevailing wave of detestation of our enemy's methods. But I had lived in Germany and knew the country intimately; I knew that my German friends couldn't over-night become a race of savages. Anyhow even if a case could be made out against the German High Command in the matter of the Belgian atrocities, what had the poor hard-working, self-respecting German lads, whom I saw as prisoners in France and England, to do with the nightmare of war in which they found themselves? They were just fellow human beings caught in the cataclysm.

In 1915 I regretted that the Government did not put Northcliffe in charge of our Air Force. At that period in the war he would, I am sure, have accepted the position for which he was so well qualified. But his attacks on the Asquith administration and Kitchener made such an appointment impossible. From the earliest days of motoring and flying he had been absorbed in new forms of locomotion. His restless nature would have found an outlet for his amazing energies ; incidentally he would have become so immersed in the urgent task of developing British air efficiency that he would have had less time for attacking the Government in other directions! When he was offered the position by Mr. Lloyd George in 1917, he had larger fish to fry. He had then, I am persuaded, a mental picture of himself as the supreme director of the British war effort as Prime Minister. But Northcliffe did not realise his shortcomings. His entire lack of political experience would never have fitted him for such a position. As a relentless critic of official inertia in the early years of the war and especially in making the nation air-minded he rendered conspicuous service.

With the growing frequency of German air raids and the increasing prowess of German aircraft, Northcliffe had his opportunity of arousing the public, already losing its confidence in British leadership at home and abroad, and he used it to full advantage. Certainly in 1916 he was considering the possibility of finding himself before long in charge of the Empire's air services. In my diary of February, 1916, I find an entry "The Chief talked to me on the telephone and said that if he took over the aircraft he would get me to work under him."

When the German air raids started I recalled the two occasions on which I had previously seen Zeppelins---on Lake Constance in 1900, when Graf Zeppelin was making his early experiments, and during my last visit to Germany four years previously, when I was staying at Bad Nauheim. In 1912 there was a daily Zeppelin service in operation between Frankfurt and Leipzig, and as we played golf on the Nauheim links the great shining silver cigar-shaped balloon used to pass over our heads. But I regarded it rather in the nature of a toy than as a weapon of war.

On the day following one of the worst air raids on London early in 1916 I walked with Northcliffe from the West End to the Times office. We left the roar of the traffic of Fleet Street by the griffin on guard at Temple Bar and went by way of Temple Fountain, a place of peace in a mad world. Save for the plump pigeons and the sparrows we were alone. Northcliffe was very fond of the Temple and used to keep his father's chambers as a link with the past. We had been talking of the air raid and the possibility of future raids on an undreamt of scale. He said "In this peaceful spot it is difficult to realise that before another two or three years are past all this part of London and all these lovely old buildings will have been wiped out. Our air defences are woefully inadequate." Northcliffe was so accustomed to publishing articles, written with a view to stirring the Government into action, that for the time being he hypnotised himself into believing their contents. He was then advocating "reprisals" to bring the Hun to his senses, a policy with which I was entirely out of sympathy. He was also engaged in helping Mr. Pemberton Billing into Parliament as an independent candidate. By every possible means he was seeking to arouse the electorate. Some of the articles which were printed in the Daily Mail on the subject were referred to in the Spectator as "injurious and inflammatory balderdash."

In a prominent column of the Daily Mail at this period there appeared the following letter. I cannot believe that the editor would have inserted it without Northcliffe's permission

Sir,

Do we want to stop these Zeppelin raids ? If we do, here is the remedy, let the Government announce that for every English civilian killed one German officer in our custody shall be taken to the Tower and shot; for every woman killed, two shot; for every child killed, three shot---not tortured, just humanely shot. We should hit at the class we are fighting against, and strike terror into traitor Germans here in high places, and, above all, strike at the class who are out to exterminate us. It is a mode they would understand.

But a policy of reprisals was a two-edged tool: our enemy could go one better. Anyhow, fortunately for the national honour, the Government refused to be stampeded into a policy of "frightfulness " which advocated the punishing of innocent German officer prisoners because of "wicked orders given by the German Government or wicked acts done by German Zeppelins." Later on in the year Northcliffe was carrying on attacks in other directions.

Mr. Arthur Balfour, at the Admiralty, incurred his displeasure. He thought that the First Lord was not carrying on the war at sea energetically enough ; and an article appeared in the Daily Mail entitled, "When is Mr. Balfour going to Greenwich Hospital ?" It was acts like these which disturbed those who admired Northcliffe's drive and the energy which he threw into stimulating the Government. Who could not help deploring the methods he employed to obtain his ends? When Mr. Balfour was being trounced by the Northcliffe Press my mind flew back ten years to the time when Northcliffe received his peerage at Mr. Balfour's hands. In justification of Northcliffe it must be remembered, however, that, to him, the one essential was to win the war and to achieve that end no consideration of past favours or personal friendship was allowed to intervene.

After the depressing events of the past six months---the prospects of the Central Powers never looked more brilliant than in the Spring of 1916---the barometer of Allied hopes began steadily to mount till the late autumn. Despite previous lessons, there was another wave of optimism in the summer. Several important events combined to restore our spirits the holding-up of the German attacks at Verdun ; the capture of Trebizond by the Russian Grand Duke Michael, and the success of General Brusiloff's offensive against the Austrians once again the Russian "steam-roller" was rolling in the right direction; and finally, the battle of Jutland.(17) On Sunday, 4 June, the day after the publication of the news of the battle of Jutland, I wrote to my parents:

Mitre Hotel,                                
Sadler Street,                        
Wells, Somerset.             
Sunday, 4 June, 1916.

It was terrible coming down to that awful naval news yesterday. Of course we don't know the details but we have had a bad smack in the face and I should think that everyone will insist on Jacky Fisher coming back. It also shows that the Germans have an enormous advantage with their Zeppelins.

I have no patience with the people who pretend it is nothing. It will have a greater effect on the country than anything which has happened since the war started.

Within two weeks of the Battle of Horn Reef, as we then called the naval engagement of Jutland, I had been affected by the prevailing optimism and had reconsidered my earlier views. I wrote :(18)

The overshadowing event of the past few, weeks has, of course, been the great North Sea Battle of Horn Reef, which has once again demonstrated that the Royal Navy has lost none of its dating and courage. At first, owing to a stupidly-worded Admiralty communication, it looked as if the engagement might have been legitimately regarded by the Germans as a German victory. Fuller information, however, has put quite another light on the affair, and while the victory may not have been as conclusive as we might have hoped, yet, as Mr. Balfour remarked, it will be some months, in all probability, before the German High Seas fleet again emerges from its protected minefields in the Heligoland Bight.

These extracts are taken from letters written in the spring and summer of 1916:

87, Victoria Street, S.W.            
Sunday, 7 May, 1916.

You must have felt dreadfully cut off not hearing for all those days and I am afraid that a number of my letters must have gone astray or been destroyed at the G.P.O.(19) How extraordinary it is that within two years you should have gone through two experiences like Nauheim and then this terrible Irish Rebellion I It was wonderful the way F. kept me posted with all that was going on, I really knew much more about what was happening than almost anyone else. I sent all his letters on to Northcliffe, who I know appreciated them.

I lunched with Northcliffe and Lady N. alone. He told me that Sir William Robertson is the man who has come strongest out of all the Recruiting shilly-shallying as he absolutely stood out for the number of men he wants. Apparently Kitchener has been very weak all through and could never make up his mind. I don't think this Government can last beyond September. I believe our defences against Zeppelins are far better now in the London area anyhow.

Thanks so much for getting me the Sinn Fein stamp, it will be most interesting to have in after years.

Hotel Tortoni,                         
Place Gambetta, Le Havre.
19 May, 1916.

I had a special note from the Southampton Scotland Yard man to the Inspector here and got thro' in five minutes and was driven up to the station, a mile or so away, by a woman coachman. Up on the red cliffs about 2-1/2 miles outside there is a restaurant and from it one gets a wonderful view of the harbour and the shipping. One can see quite clearly the masts and funnel of a big steamer which was submarined here the other day.

Hotel Louvois, Paris.          
21 May, 1916.

I am told night life is booming---I suppose the inevitable reaction after the horrors of the Front . . . . Lunched upstairs at the Ambassadeurs with two of the Paris D. Mail staff under branches of chestnut trees. Living in Paris for civilians is certainly very pleasant . . . . It is extraordinary the way people have settled down to war. After lunch we went for a couple of hours and watched the people playing tennis at the Racing Club de France!

Hotel Louvois, Paris.         
21 May, 1916.

Paris is almost entirely normal and I am afraid very few people here are practising war economy. I heard wonderful stories of a doctor who specialises in re-making faces that have been partially blown away. My informant, who is on the staff of the D.M., actually talked to a soldier whose nose, two lips, lower jaw and teeth were shot away. First he saw the photograph of the man as he was when he arrived They cut flesh from various parts of his body and made a jaw bone out of one of his ribs ! and made him a new nose which the doctor shaped out of his flesh with his own hands . . . . One is always seeing maimed soldiers walking about. They all say the losses on both sides in front of Verdun have been terribly heavy, it is inconceivable how the Germans keep it up all the time.

Arthur Lee tells me that by the end of June the Russians will be much better off for ammunition.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.        
Sunday, 28 May, 1916.

I had a very interesting lunch with Sir Robert Hudson of the British Red Cross. Everyone was naturally very full of Ireland and we all hope there will be a settlement. I think the best plan will be to give Ireland Home Rule, leaving Ulster out of it. I believe both Carson and Redmond would be ready to come to terms and there may never again be such a chance of finding the Nationalists in a reasonable frame of mind.

The other day Northcliffe was shown round a museum they have at the Ministry of Munitions, by Lloyd George. One of the things he saw was a mine, or rather bomb thrower, which had been invented by an agricultural labourer ! He had the greatest difficulty in the first instance in getting anyone to look at his design.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.        
Sunday, 11 June, 1916.

The Russian advance has been splendid. It was badly needed as the Italians were in a very bad way, I believe, and all their big guns have been taken. I hope Germany won't take Verdun, though it certainly looks as if she were wearing the French down. I expect it will be our turn next for an offensive. Kitchener's death has been quite overshadowed. It was very tragic, but won't affect the war at all, as all the power had been taken out of his hands long ago. On Thursday I went on a deputation to Bonar Law with C. J. Stewart, the public trustee, Philip Kerr of the Round Table, Brand and one or two others concerning a scheme for pushing War Loan overseas.

The Irish business does not look quite so hopeful but all the same it would be a great thing if a settlement could be managed. I believe the Government is very anxious to settle the Irish question so as to be on really good terms with America and also there might be a chance of getting the Pope to try and get Austria away from Germany.

The Overseas Club,                  
Monday, 19 June, 1916.

 . . . I went down to stay with Claude Johnson at Burnham Beeches for the week. I heard a lot of war news. Among other things one of our newest Rolls-Royce aeroplanes through a mistake was taken by the pilot behind the German lines and lost to us two weeks ago.

I also had a satisfactory interview with the British Red Cross and we are bringing out a special Red Cross supplement to our magazine in August. I think it will be very good. It shows in a series of six illustrations the return of the wounded man from the trenches back to civil life, when he has been taught a trade.

The Russians have certainly done splendidly. I am told that the Austrian reserves of men are getting used up.

87, Victoria Street, SW.             
Sunday, 2 July, 1916.

. . . The big offensive seems to have started well.(20)

87, Victoria Street, S.W.          
Sunday, July, 1916.

 . . . I lunched quietly with Northcliffe and Lady N. on Thursday. Our losses have of course been very large but I believe that the General Staff is quite satisfied and the Germans seem to have been taken completely by surprise as far as the French offensive is concerned. The Russians are also doing splendidly, but there will be much terrible fighting before we really get the Germans pushed back.

The Decoy,                            
Poling, Arundel, Sussex.     
Sunday, 16 July, 1916.

 . . . The country all round is perfectly lovely and the house is a gem. It is very old and thatched but modernised, with funny little stairs and fascinating brick paths and a little garden full of hollyhocks, sweet williams, sweet peas, and candytuft all round, and as much in the country as the farm house at Little Gidding----a field of waving corn comes right to the door.

It is such a wonderful summer morning and I am writing with the windows wide open and the sun pouring into the house. The only sound the buzzing of bees. There is such a feeling of peace.

Yesterday was a perfect day and at 10.20 Thorp and I set out for a long walk thro' the woods and over the Downs. It was very hot but very lovely. We did not get back till 5.0 and had lunch of beer, bread and cheese in a village inn.

I spent a fortnight with my parents at Sidmouth in Devonshire. We stayed in lodgings facing a wide cricket field and then the sea. I was over-tired when I arrived and the change did me good, but always at the back of my mind was the question, "Am I entitled to take holidays when the world is rocking?" Still, a very heavy autumn's work awaited me and commonsense had to be used. I envied my friends in khaki in organising jobs. When they had their leave they could take it gladly and had no qualms about it.

Sidmouth, 8 August, 1916.

I think the delay in letters from England to France is due to the coming French offensive. Went for a lovely walk along the cliffs (I noticed masses of thyme, centaury, foxgloves still out, much gorse and bracken and purple heather), along a regular Devonshire lane to Salcombe Regis with a dear little churchyard. There was the tomb of the man who became vicar of the parish at the age of 25 and remained there as vicar for 63 years, he died in 1785. Then I came across this tombstone to a man and wife who lived to an old age. He died after a long married life on Nov. 12th, 1785, and she six days later on Nov. 18th, 1785 This is part of the wording:

Sidmouth, 9 August, 1916.

Read Lionel Curtis's book. There was one bit I wanted to show you about Henry the Navigator of Portugal, to whom all the great discoveries were indirectly due. He built a little chapel on a headland in Portugal near his observatory where the crews used to come and receive the Sacrament before setting out on their voyages of discovery. Wasn't it a wonderful way of starting?

M. told me a very harrowing story about an Irishman who is in the Indian Civil Service. The whole thing happened 7 or 8 years ago, but I never was properly horrified by the story before. I used to know him. He was married only a few years and devoted to his wife and she was "expecting" in three months' time. They were out in India together at the time. A dog jumped up and bit her face as she was bending down to pat him. Knowing the danger of hydrophobia there he took her down to the Pasteur Institute but it took them three days from where they were. Well, at the Institute they gave a her a 6 weeks' cure and on the last day, when they thought she was safe, she was suddenly unable to feel anything in her throat. At once he knew what that meant. The following day they read the Service together in the morning, she knowing she was going to die and that afternoon the doctor advised him not to see his wife again as it would be too painful. She died in agony on the following day and he nearly went out of his mind. (Letters.)

3 September, 1916.

Just think, Ethel(21) saw the Zeppelins from the roof at 2 a.m. I never heard a thing and slept peacefully through it all---and she saw the Zepp come down in flames.

Hotel Louvois, Paris,                 
Sunday, 10 September, 1916.

There was no boat for five days on account of the offensive and the wretched Tuesday's passengers were kept four days on board without being allowed to land. My friend in the Passport Department worked wonders despite 4 days' accumulation of passengers.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.              
Sunday, 27 September, 1916.

 . . . Everything seems to he going well and everyone in Paris was very pleased and expecting even better things during the next two months. There is no question but that the morale of the Germans is suffering and that the average British soldier is convinced that it is only a matter of months before he gets the Germans on the run, which is an enormous asset. I hear wonderful accounts of our airmen and aircraft. Excepting for the German-Bulgar offensive near Silistria which may develop, everything looks good for us. Eight hospital ships arrived at Southampton yesterday and of course we have had very heavy losses but I don't believe they are any greater than those of the Germans. The British are very popular in France just now and the Paris Daily Mail is doing an enormous business. Its present circulation is over 120,000 copies a day---about ten times its pre-war figure. (Letters to parents.)

Few events in 1916 gave greater encouragement---and rightly so---to the British Empire than the first use of the tanks on the Somme by the British Army on 15 September. The Germans had sprung several surprises on the Allies with their wonderful howitzers and with the use of poison gas ; but now Great Britain, that had never been regarded as a military power, for her element was the sea, was turning the tables on her foes and was making the greatest individual contribution to land warfare. The employment of tanks(22) greatly encouraged the infantry, although the value of the secret---so amazingly well-kept----was largely thrown away by their limited use.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.           
Sunday, 1 October, 1916.

I had a very interesting day with Northcliffe on Thursday. He sent for me to go down to him at Broadstairs and he was alone so I was able to have a good talk. He was five days with Douglas Haig and was tremendously impressed with him and says that at last we have found a great soldier.(23) The latter lives very simply and works very hard and is always ready to listen to new ideas. Northcliffe says that the whole organisation of the British Army in France now is a very wonderful thing. He has been on one of the new tanks and says it is just like being in a submarine as you go down into it! He says our men are greatly bucked up and have absolute confidence that sooner or later we shall get the Germans on the run. He lunched with Briand, the French Premier, who also believes in Douglas Haig, and said to Northcliffe, "Sir Douglas 'Aig est le seul général qui fait ce qu'il dit! "and even Joffre leans on him. Northcliffe says Cadorna, the Italian Generalissimo, is also a big man and reminds him of Pierpont Morgan; also that the King of Italy is a very nice little man. Altogether Northcliffe was very hopeful.

It is splendid about the 2 "Zepps" yesterday. We certainly are getting our air service much better.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.           
Sunday, 1 October, 1916.

I was talking to one of our members who was wounded on the 15th at Flers. (Out of his battalion there were only 140 left in the evening!) But he said it was a great day and they had several tanks quite close to them. He said one of their chief advantages is the confidence they inspire in the men. His regiment moved up to our most advanced trenches at 11 p.m. the night before the attack---the attack was at 6 a.m.---and while waiting all that night they had nothing hot to drink or any special food, beyond what they carried in their knapsack. I asked him if he did not feel rather uncomfortable that last night waiting, and he said "No," and that he slept quite soundly! I think the only unsatisfactory part of the war is the Eastern side.

I had to go to see C. F. G. Masterman, who is at the head of the Government Propaganda Dept., one day last week and he was most friendly and said they were very grateful for what the O.S. Club had done, and he had given us a page in a special confidential memorandum to the Cabinet on the work we are doing for them.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.              
Sunday, 19 November, 1916.

On Thursday I dined with the Erskines. They had a Rumanian and a Russian officer. The former was very depressed about the situation in his country and I believe cholera is rife and they have no "serum"! And it takes such months to get ammunition to them.

87, Victoria Street, S.W.           
Sunday, December, 1916.

 . . . Everybody over here is much excited about the political situation. I think there is bound to be a small War Council of 5. I should like to see Lloyd George, Carson, Northcliffe and Milner included. If we allow things to go on drifting as they have been lately, we shall lose the war. (Letters to parents.)

Serious though the situation was at the end of 1916 after the knock-out blow Germany had given to Rumania; with the alarming weekly sinkings of British ships by enemy submarines ; with the enormous losses on the Somme; with the ominous rumours which were reaching us from Russia---the dawn was breaking. A new government, pledged to use new methods and to mobilise the Empire's utmost resources, was now in power. On the formation of the new Government under Mr. Lloyd George I wrote :---

We have been living in a state of political turmoil. After several days of uncertainty, Mr. Lloyd George emerged triumphantly and on to December the composition of the new government was announced. At one time it was thought that Mr. Asquith would return to office; later on that Mr. Bonar Law would be our new Premier. It was only when the placards of the evening papers announced that the Labour Party had agreed to throw in its lot with Mr. Lloyd George that his success was assured.

The formation of the new government is a great personal triumph for Mr. Lloyd George, and judging from the cabled comments the Empire as a whole regards the new Prime Minister as the one man who can pilot us to victory. Four years ago when I was visiting the Dominions, I found that Mr. Lloyd George was everywhere regarded with confidence and affection. His services in introducing Old Age Pensions were especially remembered. The task which he is undertaking is a stupendous one---only a man with the stoutest heart would shoulder it. The Empire believes in Mr. Lloyd George, and it believes that he will win out.(24)

28 December, 1916.

Mr. Basil Clarke, the War Correspondent, wrote to Overseas, in November, 1916:

I have just had a month of the Somme . . . . I went there moody, uncertain, almost down-in-the-dumps as to British fortunes of war, and I came back home, after only one month among our boys on the Somme, elated, bubbling with optimism; certain of this we have at last started the enemy fast on the down grade towards defeat. . . 

Till July the enemy were in a winning mood, playing a winning game and playing it hard and well--- 28 December, 1916 the day this is penned, sees them a beaten team; worn, winded, downhearted. . . More than 120 German army divisions passed through the maelstrom of fire we put up for them on the Somme. That maelstrom was such as to strike terror to the hearts of the hundreds of thousands of German soldiers who passed through it. Nothing more ghastly than the German sufferings in those days of hellish and ceaseless bombardment and attack has happened in warfare. Men, quite uninjured, went mad with it . . . . The Somme mud is like nothing on earth. The Red River mud of Canada is pretty famous, as I myself can testify, but it is "easy going" compared with Somme mud . . . Uninjured men will sink and die in that mud. Poor lads have stood in it till they fainted and then dropped and died. It is appalling . . . . Our boys' task is difficult, but Fritz's task is well-nigh impossible. So convinced am I of this that the end will come before Autumn 1917---if only we buckle to and put in every ounce of our weight.

A year later came Passchendaele.