Chapter V: Great Britain at War (5)

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

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lighthouses and buoys in the Channel on the east of a line drawn from Selsey Bill to Cape Barfleur, might be altered or withdrawn, and signals in this area changed or discontinued, without notice, and had specified stations where pilots could be obtained for the ports or areas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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A. BONAR LAW.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FOOTNOTES:

[2] The Introduction to this pamphlet has been used in the following sketch of the negotiations, The Belgian Grey Book (Oct. 6), the Russian Orange Book (Sept. 21) and the French Yellow Book (Dec. 1) further set forth the Allies' case. Many of the official documents were published as a pamphlet by the _New York Times_.

[3] "Great Britain and the European Crisis" (the "Penny Blue Book"), No. 107.

[4] A letter from the Scottish Secretary contesting these statements was published November 21.