War Letters of a Public-School Boy Part 12

"Seeing," in Humphrey Gilbert's own brave words, "that death is inevitable and the fame of virtue is immortal, wherefore in this behalf _mutare vel timere sperno_."

Paul's marginal note to this is, "Compare Browning's 'Prospice.'" I turn to "Prospice" and I read:

For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall, Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so--one fight more, The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness and cold.

And with G.o.d be the rest!

PART II

WAR LETTERS

[Ill.u.s.tration: Paul as a Subaltern in the A.S.C.

(From a Photograph by his Brother)]

AT A HOME PORT

From April 15, 1915, to July 26 in the same year Second Lieutenant H.

P. M. Jones was employed at a home port which was, and is, one of the princ.i.p.al centres of supply for the British Expeditionary Force. He was glad of the opportunity of obtaining an insight into the methods of supplying the British Army in the field, and was impressed with the thoroughness, efficiency, and businesslike prompt.i.tude of the Army Service Corps. He took the earliest chance of quitting this routine work and applying for service abroad.

_May 15th_, 1915.

You London folk seem to have been having high times with the enemy aliens. It is quite startling and quite pleasant to see English people roused to do things at last. I see from the photos in the papers that the rioting was done for a great part by men of fighting age who ought to be in the Army. It stands to reason that it is always the dregs of the population who show their patriotism by this sort of behaviour. Still, it is refres.h.i.+ng to see someone taking some sort of action. Everybody here is cursing the Government for its remissness with regard to Germans and Austrians resident in this country. There are exceptions, such as Germans who have absorbed the British spirit, but, generally speaking, Germans, even if naturalised, must retain their patriotic feelings towards their Fatherland, and the patriotic German is, of course, England's enemy. Therefore he will try his best to do us all the harm he can.

Personally I think we ought to take stern action in regard to the internment of all Germans in this country. My argument is not based on trivial ideas of retaliation or punishment, but it is based on facts such as the following: (_a_) I am a Britisher, Britain is fighting; so I fight for Britain and wish to see her everywhere victorious: (_b_) In Nature the strongest survive and the weaker go to the wall, and in this war Britain must prove herself either the stronger or the weaker: (_c_) Our policy must be guided by the idea of proving ourselves the stronger in deeds, not words--not by talk of justice or right, because invariable universal abstract standards of justice and right never existed, and never will exist, in this world. The ideal never was anything but a dream--that is why the poet can never be a politician, and vice versa. We must not let sentimental considerations stand between us and victory. Sounds just like a German talking, doesn't it? Yes, I do agree with the German point of view--except as regards frightfulness, which is really folly and does not achieve its end--but I transfer the point of view to England. Why should England allow any rival to stand in her way? In any case, are we not the world's greatest political people and the best colonisers? Leave the realms of Art to the other nations if you like--England never will be artistic, I fear--but Art is not politics. Politics--I mean primarily foreign policy--signifies the adaptation of a nation to environment of time, place and circ.u.mstance, and it is that which is the ruling fact of life.

I am now quite converted to the doctrine of facts. Though pa.s.sionately idealistic in many respects, I realise that the _Facts_ of life are in cruel but deadly opposition to the _Ideals_ of life, and that while the Ideal remains a dream the cruel Fact remains the reality.

This pseudo-philosophy arises from my having read Arnold Bennett's article in to-day's _Daily News_, and also from a perusal of Hudson's "Herbert Spencer." Bennett is just an idealist, but in dealing with those cruel realities of which I have spoken, he seems to me a child. Any attempt to dissociate the acts of the German Government from the views of the German people--in other words to a.s.sume that a great part of the latter want peace--is absurd. Look at France in 1870. When the Second Empire was overthrown and the Third Republic set up in its place, did the Republicans seek peace? No, they proceeded to prosecute the war to the utmost and tried to drive the invader off the soil of France. And even if in this war a succession of defeats should overthrow the German Kaiser and his Government, do you think the Germans would submit forthwith, and throw themselves on the mercy of the Allies? No, they will fight to the last man, woman and child to prevent the Rhine being crossed. So we should realise that, for our own safety's sake, we must reduce the German military forces to a position of helplessness--in fact, utterly destroy them, if we are to have any settlement. It is Germany or ourselves; and till one or the other is up or down, the war will go on.

To crush the Germans we must put every ounce into the struggle.

Are we doing so? I cannot think it when I see Parliament taking such a disgraceful line on the question of drink. Small wonder that Lloyd George exclaims, "What an ign.o.ble spectacle the House of Commons presents now!" I had thought the British Parliament to be a great and potent inst.i.tution. Now I think it is a convocation of old apple women. What we want is a Cromwell or a Napoleon to knock together the heads of political parties and declare, "No more drink." What will history say when it is recorded that in the midst of this great struggle the British people refused to give up the drink that was poisoning their lives and hindering the work of the nation, and that the influence of a few brewers and capitalists was sufficient to prevent any serious reform being pa.s.sed in that House which is supposed to be the people's representative?

As for the recent anti-German riots, they seem to me to have been organised by those slack loafing elements of the population who lounge about refusing to enlist. Still, I suppose this is a necessary product of our type of national civilisation. Yet that system--the English or insular, I call it--has done, as it will do, marvels. So perhaps all is for the best, but I am grieved beyond measure at the collapse of L. G.'s scheme for drastic treatment of the drink evil. He at least is a man.

Do you realise what a fine part amateur sportsmen are playing in this war? I really doubt if there will be many great athletes left if things go on as they are doing. On the same day I read that Poulton-Palmer and R. A. Lloyd are gone. Only last year, I remember seeing those two as Captains of England and Ireland respectively, shaking hands with each other and with the King at the great Rugby Football match at Twickenham. I see news is to hand also of the death in action of A. F. Wilding, a great athlete who neither drank nor smoked. So in three days we have lost the most brilliant and versatile centre three-quarter in Poulton, the cleverest drop-kick in the world in Lloyd, and the world's champion tennis-player in Wilding!

_June 6th, 1915._

Lloyd George in his two last speeches has said more than anyone else during the war. He is an extraordinary man, and at his greatest when rallying the workers. I see that the Tory Press is enthusiastic about him, and also about Winston Churchill's speech of yesterday. L. G.'s remark that "conscription is not undemocratic" has set a new train of thought stirring in this country. Up to now, in the view of the average Englishman, democracy and conscription had been set at opposite poles.

Personally I am not exactly a democrat, an aristocrat, a monarchist, a socialist, or a const.i.tutionalist, but a sort of combination of them all, and a firm believer in the Will to Power and in the Strong Man. But the point is that England certainly inclines to democracy--meaning by democracy _laissez-faire_.

Hence what is needed in a crisis like this is to bring into operation a system which, while partaking of a democratic nature, and so not being repugnant to the national type (as developed by geography, circ.u.mstance and history) may yet bring into play the advantages of military training and national organisation. If you can persuade the stolid Englishman to adopt a sort of semi-voluntary military system, which is voluntary or appears so to him, yet puts him under discipline, well then you have an ideal system for England to win this war by. Of course, there is an alternative scheme, namely, for some man of outstanding personality to come along and say, "Look here, I am master, and by my force of character I will compel you to bow to a system which I know to be good for you and which will in the end benefit you." Lloyd George might be even such a man--a Caesar, a Charlemagne, a Cromwell, or a Napoleon.

But I confess that this amazing English race is hard to bend, even when a man of outstanding personality arises. Did not Oliver himself--a superman if ever there was one--fail in his efforts to make better those whom he ruled? Still, as Goethe says, "Personality makes the man," and perhaps even in England a great man might force our stubborn nation to his will. But I confess I doubt it. Besides, I fear the system would break down as soon as the immediate need for it had vanished. We must have regard to the evolution of our type of race-species when trying to frame measures for its advance to victory over another type of race-species, for the simple reason that, if we do not, the system we are trying to set up will remain in the air, and never come to anything until the people have become sufficiently educated in our way of thinking to accept such a scheme. It seems to me that you could never make a British Army on a German model, or a German Army on a British model, because of the difference between the types of the two nations--the only exception being where you have a superman with a wonderful mind and personality to plan the pattern and enforce its adoption.

Our problem in England is to organise the very individualistic British race without letting them imagine that they are being organised. This sounds like the problem about the irresistible force up against the insurmountable obstacle. But seriously if you have followed my train of thought you will agree with me that what is wanted is to frame a system of military service and national organisation which yet conforms to the national predilection in favour of _laissez-faire_. This would not be so difficult if there were two or three centuries to do it in; the difficulty is that we must do it at once. Perhaps it is impossible; perhaps the influence of our insular environment will be too strong ever to allow a general military system to grow up here--I don't know, but I hope not. Anyway, it is Lloyd George to whom we look to turn the wheels, because he has personality and that almost uncanny Celtic gift of seeing into the future.

Is it not clear that the Germans have developed to the full a system of organisation in harmony with their national character?

Geography has rendered necessary to them a certain type of national policy, and I consider their methods were the only possible ones for them, though they badly needed a clever diplomatist to deceive Europe in these latter years. Now Bismarck, if he had lived until to-day, would probably have secured for Germany a leading place, not by directly fighting England--who is, of course, the natural rival of Germany--the old story of the first and the second boy in the cla.s.s--but by embroiling her at some suitable moment with other Powers. Then, when all would have been weakened by the war, Germany would step in and take the spoils. Fortunately for us the Prussian is a thoroughly bad diplomatist; and he has preferred open force to policy. Last year the Germans really played their cards astoundingly badly. Did we? Well, in one sense, yes, in that we failed to have a force ready to give the Germans a swift blow as soon as they ventured on an invasion of Belgium. On the other hand, no, because Edward Grey, acting openly, and in accordance with British traditions, yet succeeded by some extraordinary means in duping our enemies and making them rush into a war never expecting that we would partic.i.p.ate in it. By accident Grey blundered into a marvellous stroke of diplomacy. Of course, we know that all his actions were governed by an honest desire to preserve peace, but the facts show that he really deceived the Germans more than Machiavelli would have done. (The Prussian, in the average, is very p.r.o.ne to misunderstand his enemy.) The Germans thought we would not come in; we did come in, just when they were not expecting it; in effect, that was a master-stroke.

Where we failed was that we were not ourselves ready with an adequate force. Though we strangled German commerce at sea and helped to save France, we were deficient in many elements of an army, and are still woefully so. That is the natural result of insularity.

Now if through the folly of Ministers we lose this great chance of settling with our rival, we shall be cutting our own throats.

You see, I have led you, by a devious path, back to the old problem--the necessity for organising England to win this war and to establish her national type as supreme. We must take any and every step necessary to set this great nation of ours even higher than it stands now. Some nation must be political leader of the international polity; why not England, whose extraordinary colonising and governing ability is so well known? I am tired to death of talk about "crus.h.i.+ng militarism" and of wild dreams of "a union of small States." If you want to see the latter process in operation, look at the normal state of the Balkans! States may have all the "rights" in the world, but if they are not strong enough in a political and military sense, they will never be able to maintain them. Since England--great and wise nation that she is!--has the sense to use her power benignantly, what harm would there be if she were to a.s.sert it over weaker national organisms, as man has done over the beasts? This would certainly not be possible without repeated wars. Subject nations may be treated as easily and as freely as you like when under our sway, but they must be conquered first, and we must keep our power over them even though it is hidden.

But I am dreaming myself now, for there is nothing eternal in Nature except conflict and change; and as our Empire grew, so, I fear, it must some day decay. Evolution is no respecter of persons. Anyway it is our duty to postpone that day of decline as long as we can. In my view England's claims are above all others.

Our Allies are just so much use to us as we can make of them.

They, too, have their national ambitions and interests, and, of course, if these clashed with ours, they would go off on their own. I blame them not at all. It is as well, however, to be prepared for contingencies. For example, four or five sparrows will combine to attack a larger bird which has a piece of bread.

As soon as they get the bread the sparrows themselves begin to squabble for its possession; and perhaps two or three will set on the one that has hold of it and force him to give it up. Such is Nature--a theatre of vast, unceasing conflict. Men and nations all come under the great immutable law.

_July 19th, 1915._

This coal strike in South Wales is a baffling business. As usual, English lack of system is to blame. The Government ought to have taken over all the mines, as they did the railways, right at the start of the war. But _laissez-faire_ said "No." Now see the result. Undoubtedly men, employers and Government are all to blame--the Government for not organising the system and failing to stop the increased profits of the owners due to the rise in prices; the owners for taking those profits and making all sorts of unkept promises during the past year about meeting the men to discuss what should be done with war profits; and the men because they are imperilling the whole fate of the Navy for the sake of a few more pence a day, and for failing to show that generosity of spirit which they ought to exhibit in a national crisis like this. What gives the lie to those critics who denounce the unpatriotic conduct of the miners is the astounding proportion of recruits from the affected areas, and the fact that thousands of strikers have sons, brothers and other relatives in the trenches.

The whole thing is almost a judgment on English haphazard methods, though I know those methods are only the product of our insular position. After all, we fought Napoleon with almost a revolution going on in Ireland. And do you remember the Six Acts?

So history repeats itself.

The Germans are still astounding the world. This move on Russia will, I think, be ranked by military historians in the future as one of the most immense things in the story of the war--a parallel, but on a far larger scale, with the French and our own advance from the Marne to the Aisne. Unfortunately, I am afraid the Germans will be more successful than we were on that occasion--for we only drove them back 20 or 30 miles, but the Germans now seem to be menacing two great cities, half a dozen first-cla.s.s fortresses, and four vital railway lines. There is no doubt that they, at least, are not playing at war. And to think that it should be Wales that may be half-crippling the Navy when we are matched with such a foe! If the Navy fails, then Heaven help us! I don't think we can lose even now, but I doubt now if Germany can lose. It may be 1793-1815 over again!

Don't imagine that economics end war. Nations can easily do without trade if they will. To win a war, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, you have to beat the enemy's forces decisively in the field and put large bodies of his troops permanently out of action, or capture important tracts of territory such as corn land or mining districts, without which he cannot wage the war.

Nothing has done us more harm than all this talk about "attrition." People say, "Oh, it's all right, we can strangle Germany by means of our Navy, and only time is wanted." As a matter of fact, Germany is so well prepared by environment, history, and her own endeavours for such a war that were Berlin itself in our hands, I would not like to say we should have won.

Berlin has in the past been entered by the enemy, and yet the Germans have defeated their foes. Look at Frederick the Great--he won his wars with half his own country in the enemy's hands. Make no mistake, we shall have to cut the German Army to pieces if we are to win. And we shall not succeed, at least not for any practical purpose, unless we put every man into his right place to win the war. We want the sh.e.l.l-makers at home, the soldiers in the field, the mere politician on the sc.r.a.p-heap, and capable men at the head of affairs. There must be no more of this muddling War Office policy, no more of this defective control of vital industries and these scandalous deficiencies in equipment.

WITH THE 9th CAVALRY BRIGADE

On July 27, 1915, Paul Jones left Waterloo Station for service abroad.

Shortly after his arrival in France he was ordered to proceed to the Headquarters of the 9th Cavalry Brigade (1st Cavalry Division), having been appointed Requisitioning Officer to the Brigade. His thorough knowledge of French was the determining factor in securing him this appointment, a very responsible one for a youth of 19.

_August 5th, 1915._

At length a chance to write a letter home. I seem to have been travelling for weeks, and I had no time for anything but hasty postcards. My address may not convey much geographically, but I will take the risk of saying that I am very far up country, and--which of course pleases me immensely--not many miles from the real Front. My work involves a great deal of French conversation and much riding and motoring. I am, in fact, a Requisitioning Officer, a t.i.tle which almost explains itself.