Class Book SENTCD PRESENTED m ^■■■BHMB rOWARDS HE GOAL S. HUMPHRY WARD Towards the Goal Towards the Goal By Mrs. Humphry Ward Author of " England's Effort" With a Preface by Theodore Roosevelt New York Charles Scribner's Sons 1918 Copyright, 1917, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published August, 1917 Reprinted August, October, 1917 March, 1918 Gift Ml 25 lilt TO ANDRE CHEVRILLON TRUE SON OF FRANCE TRUE FRIEND OF ENGLAND I DEDICATE THIS BOOK PREFACE England has in this war reached a height of achieve- ment loftier than that which she attained in the strug- gle with Napoleon; and she has reached that height in a far shorter period. Her giant effort, crowned with a success as wonderful as the effort itself, is worthily described by the woman who has influenced all those who speak and read English more profoundly than any other woman now alive. No other writer could describe England's effort with such knowledge, power and interest. Mrs. Ward writes nobly on a noble theme. This war is the greatest the world has ever seen. The vast size of the armies, the tremendous slaughter, the loftiness of the heroism shown and the hideous horror of the brutalities committed, the valor of the fighting men and the extraordinary ingenuity of those who have designed and built the fighting machines, the burning patriotism of the peoples who defend their hearthstones and the far-reaching complexity of vii viii PREFACE the plans of the leaders — all are on a scale so huge that nothing in past history can be compared with them. The issues at stake are elemental. The free peoples of the world have banded together against tyrannous militarism and government by caste. It is not too much to say that the outcome will largely determine, for daring and liberty-loving souls, whether or not life is worth living. A Prussianized world would be as intolerable as a world ruled over by Attila or by Timur the Lame. It is in this immense world crisis that England has played her part; a part which has grown greater month by month. Mrs. Ward enables us to see the awaken- ing of the national soul which rendered it possible to play this part; and she describes the works by which the faith of the soul justified itself. What she writes is of peculiar interest to the United States. We have suffered, or are suffering, in exagger- ated form, from most (not all) of the evils that were eating into the fibre of the British character three years ago — and in addition from some purely indigenous ills of our own. If we are to cure ourselves, it must be by our own exertions; our destiny will certainly not be shaped for us, as was Germany's, by a few towering PREFACE ix autocrats of genius, such as Bismarck and Moltke. Mrs. Ward shows us the people of England in the act of curing their own ills, of making good, by gigantic and self-sacrificing exertion in the present, the folly and selfishness and greed and soft slackness of the past. The fact that England, when on the brink of destruc- tion, gathered her strength and strode resolutely back to safety, is a fact of happy omen for us in America, who are now just awaking to the folly and selfishness and greed and soft slackness that for some years we have been showing. As in America, so in England, a surfeit of material- ism had produced a lack of high spiritual purpose in the nation at large; there was much confusion of ideas and ideals; and also much triviality, which was espe- cially offensive when it masqueraded under some high- sounding name. An unhealthy sentimentality — the an- tithesis of morality — had gone hand in hand with a peculiarly sordid and repulsive materialism. The re- sult was a soil in which various noxious weeds flourished rankly; and of these the most noxious was professional pacifism. The professional pacifist has festered in the diseased tissue of almost every civilization; but it is only within the last three-quarters of a century that he x PREFACE has been a serious menace to the peace of justice and righteousness. In consequence, decent citizens are only- beginning to appreciate the base immorality of his preaching and practice; and he has been given entirely undeserved credit for good intentions. In England, as in the United States, domestic paci- fism has been the most potent ally of alien militarism. At first, this service was rendered without pay. The silly creatures of both sexes, who composed the ma- jority of the leaders in the professional pacifist move- ment, were actuated by sheer timidity, or by an uneasy thirst for self-advertisement or by sheer puzzle-headed- ness. But gradually these dupes fell under the sway of more sinister and more powerful intellects. In both England and the United States, of recent years, some of the Pacifist leaders have been such merely because their predominant characteristic could not be brayed out of them with a mortar; but others were hired by Germany. In the United States, pro-Germanism (which is merely another name for one form of anti-Ameri- canism) has been the main prop of the pacifist agita- tion for nearly three years. In England, as the re- searches of Miss Boyle O'Reilly have shown, German influence is the central and guiding feature of every PREFACE xi important pacifist association. In both countries, pro- fessional pacifism, of the ultra type, has shown itself profoundly unpatriotic. The damage it has done the nation has been limited only by its weakness and folly; those, who have professed it, have served the devil to the full extent which their limited powers permitted. There were in England — just as there are now in America — even worse foes to national honor and effi- ciency. Greed and selfishness, among capitalists and among labor leaders, had to be grappled with. The sordid baseness which saw in the war only a chance for additional money profits to the employer, was al- most matched by the fierce selfishness which refused to consider a strike from any but the standpoint of the strikers. But the chief obstacles to be encountered in rousing England were sheer shortsightedness and that apathetic indifference which springs from dullness of apprehen- sion. A considerable time elapsed before it was possi- ble to make the people understand that this was a peo- ple's war, that it was a matter of vital personal concern to the people as a whole, and to all individuals as indi- viduals. In America, we are now encountering much the same difficulty, due to much the same causes. xii PREFACE In England, the most essential thing to be done was to wake the people to their need, and to guide them in meeting the need. The next most essential was to show to them and to the peoples in friendly lands, whether allied or neutral, how the task was done; and this, both as a reason for just pride in what had been achieved and as an inspiration to further effort. Mrs. Ward accomplishes both purposes. Every American who reads the present volume must feel a hearty and profound respect for the patriotism, energy, and efficiency shown by the British people when they became awake to the nature of the crisis; and further- more, every American must feel stirred with the desire to see his country now emulate Britain's achievement. In this volume, Mrs. Ward draws a wonderful pic- ture of the English in the full tide of their successful effort. From the beginning, England's naval effort and her money effort have been extraordinary. By the time Mrs. Ward's first book was written, the work of industrial preparedness was in full blast; but it could not yet be said that England's army in the field was the equal of the huge, carefully prepared, thor- oughly co-ordinated, military machines of those against whom and beside whom it fought. Now, the English PREFACE xiii army is itself as fine and as highly efficient a military machine as the wisdom of man can devise; now, the valor and hardihood of the individual soldier are being utilized to the full under a vast and perfected system which enables those in control of the great engine to use every unit in such fashion as to aid in driving the mass forward to victory. Even the Napoleonic contest was child's play com- pared to this. Never has Great Britain been put to such a test. Never since the spacious days of Eliza- beth has she been in such danger. Never, in any crisis, has she risen to so lofty a height of self-sacrifice and achievement. In the giant struggle against Na- poleon, England's own safety was secured by the de- moralization of the French fleet. But, in this contest, the German naval authorities have at their disposal a fleet of extraordinary efficiency, and have devised for use on an extended scale the most formidable and destructive of all instruments of marine warfare. In previous coalitions, England has partially financed her continental allies; in this case, the expenditures have been on an unheard-of scale, and, in consequence, Eng- land's active, industrial strength, in men and money, in business and mercantile and agricultural ability, xiv PREFACE has been drawn on as never before. As in the days of Marlboro and Wellington, so now England has sent her troops to the continent; but whereas formerly her expeditionary forces, altho of excellent quality, were numerically too small to be of primary impor- tance, at present her army is already, by size as well as by excellence, a factor of prime importance in the military situation; and its relative as well as absolute importance is steadily growing. Mrs. Ward's volume is of high value as a study of contemporary history. It is of at least as high value as an inspiration to constructive patriotism. Theodore Roosevelt. Sagamoke Hill, May 1st, 1917. CONTENTS England's Effort — Rapid March of Events— The Work of the Navy — A Naval Base — What the Navy has done — The Jutland Battle — The Submarine Peril — German Lies — Shipbuilding — Disciplined Expectancy — Crossing the Channel — The Minister of Munitions — Dr. Addison — In- crease of Munitions — A Gigantic Task — Arrival in France — German Prisoners — A Fat Factory — A Use for Every- thing — G.H.Q. — Intelligence Department — "The Issue of the War" — An Aerodrome — The Task of the Aviators — The Visitors' Chateau pp. 3-26 II A French School — Our Soldiers and French Children — Nissen Huts — Tanks — A Primeval Plough — A Division on the March — Significant Preparations — Increase of Ammunition "The Fosses"— A Sacred Spot— Vimy Ridge— The Sound of the Guns — A Talk with a General — Why the Germans Retreat — Growth of the New Armies — Soldiers at School pp. 27-44 III America Joins the Allies — The British Effort — Creating an Army — TJ Union SacrSe — Registration — Accommodation — Clothing — Arms and Equipment — A Critical Time — A Long-continued Strain — Training — O.T.C.'S — Boy Officers — The First Three Armies — Our Wonderful Soldiers — An Advanced Stage — The Final Result — Spectacle of the Present — Snipers and Anti-snipers — The Result pp. 45-65 xvi CONTENTS IV Vimy Ridge — Morale of Our Men — Mons. le Maire — The Somme — German Letters — German Prisoners — Amiens — "Taking Over" a Line — Poilus and Tommies — "Taking Over" Trenches — French Trenches — Unnoticed Changes — Amiens Cathedral — German Prisoners — Confidence pp. 66-83 German Fictions — Winter Preparation — Albert — La Boisselle and Ovillers — In the Track of War — Regained Ground — Enemy Preparations — German Dug-outs — "There were no Stragglers " — Contalmaison — Devastation — Retreating Germans — Death, Victory, Work — Work of the R.E. — A Parachute — Approaching Victory .... pp. 84-99 VI German Retreat — Enemy Losses — Need of Artillery — Await- ing the Issue — Herr Zimmerman — Training — A National Idea — Training — Fighting for Peace — Stubbornness and Discipline — Training of Officers — Responsibility — The Brit- ish Soldier — Soldiers' Humour — A Boy Hero — "They have done their job" — Casualties — Reconnaissance — Air Fight- ing — Use of Aeroplanes — Terms of Peace . pp. 100-119 VII Among the French — German Barbarities — Beauty of France — French Families — Paris — To Senlis — Senlis — The Cure of Senlis — The German Occupation — August 30th, 1914 — • Germans in Senlis — German Brutality — A Savage Revenge — A Burning City — Murder of the Mayor — The Cure in the Cathedral — The Abbe's Narrative — False Charges — Wanton Destruction — A Sudden Change — Return of the French — Scenes of Battle — Vareddes . . pp. 120-144 CONTENTS xvii VIII Battle of the Ourcq — Von Kluck's Mistake — Anniversary o. the Battle — Wreckage of War — A Burying Party — A Funeral — A Five Days' Battle — Life-and-Death Fighting —"Salut au Drapeau" — Meaux — Vareddes — Murders at Vareddes — Von Kluck's Approach — The Turn of the Tide — The Old Cure — German Brutalities — Torturers — The Cure's Sufferings — "He is a Spy" — A Weary March — Outrages — Victims — Reparation — To Lorraine pp. 145-169 IX Epernay-Chalons — Snow — Nancy — The French People — L' Union SacrSe — France and England — Nancy — Hill of Leomont — The Grand Couronne — The Lorraine Campaign — Taubes — Vitrimont — Miss Polk — A Restored Church — Society of Friends — Gerbeviller — Soeur Julie — Mortagne — An Inexpiable Crime — Massacre of Gerbeviller — "Les Civils ont Tire" — Soeur Julie — The Germans come — Ger- man Wounded — Barbarities in Hospital — Soeur Julie and Germans — The French Return — Germans at Nancy — Nancy saved — A Warm Welcome — Adieu to Lorraine pp. 170-200 Doctrine of Force — Disciplined Cruelty — German Professors — Professor von Gierke — An Orgy of Crime — Return Home —Russia — The Revolution — Liberty like Young Wine — What will Russia do ? — America joins — America and France — The Italians — The Battle of Messines — Europe and America pp. 201-231 Towards the Goal TOWARDS THE GOAL I March 24th, 1917. Dear Mr. Roosevelt, It may be now frankly confessed that it was you who gave the impulse last year, which led to the writing of the first series of Letters on England's Effort in the war, which were published in book form in June, 1916. Your appeal found me in our quiet country house, busy with quite other work, and at first I thought it impossible that I could attempt so new a task as you proposed to me. But sup- port and encouragement came from our own authorities, and, like many other thousands of English women under orders, I could only go and do my best. I spent some time in the munition areas, watching the enormous and rapid development of our war industries and 4 TOWARDS THE GOAL of the astonishing part played in it by women; I was allowed to visit a portion of the Fleet, and finally, to spend twelve days in France, ten of them among the great supply bases and hospital camps, with two days at the British Headquarters, and on the front, near Pope- ringhe, and Richebourg St. Vaast. The result was a short book which has been translated into many foreign tongues — French, Italian, Dutch, German, Russian, Portuguese, and Japanese, — which has brought me many American letters from many different States, and has been, perhaps, most widely read of all among our own people. For we all read news- papers, and we all forget them ! In this vast and changing struggle events huddle on each other, so that the new blurs and wipes out the old. There is always room — is there not? — for such a personal narrative as may recall to us the main outlines and the chief determining factors of a war, in which — often — everything seems to us in flux, and our eyes, amid the tu- mult of the stream, are apt to lose sight of the landmarks on its banks, and the signs of the approaching goal. And now again — after a year — I have been attempting a similar task, with renewed and cordial help from our authorities at home and TOWARDS THE GOAL 5 abroad. And I venture to address these new letters directly to yourself, as to that American of all others, to whom this second chapter of England's Effort may look for sympathy. Whither are we tending — your country and mine? Congress meets to-day. Before this letter appears great decisions will have been taken. I will not attempt to speculate. The logic of facts will sweep our nations together in some sort of intimate union — of that I have no doubt. How much further, then, has Great Britain marched since the Spring of last year — how much nearer is she to the end ? One can but answer such questions in the most fragmentary and tentative way, relying for the most part on the opinions and information of those who know, those who are in the van of action, at home and abroad, but also on one's own per- sonal impressions of an incomparable scene. And every day, almost, at this breathless mo- ment, the answer of yesterday may become obsolete. I left our Headquarters in France some days before the news of the Russian revo- lution reached London, and while the Somme retirement was still in its earlier stages. Im- mediately afterwards the events of one short 6 TOWARDS THE GOAL week transformed the whole political aspect of Europe, and may well prove to have changed the face of the war — although as to that, let there be no dogmatising yet ! But before the pace becomes faster still, and before the un- folding of those great and perhaps final events we may now dimly foresee, let me try and seize the impressions of some memorable weeks and bring them to bear — so far as the war is concerned — on those questions which, in the present state of affairs, must interest you in America scarcely less than they interest us here. Where, in fact, do we stand ? Any kind of answer must begin with the Navy — for, in the case of Great Britain, and indeed scarcely less in the case of the Allies, that is the foundation of everything. To yourself the facts will all be familiar; but for the benefit of those innumerable friends of the Allies in Europe and America whom I would fain reach with the help of your great name, I will run through a few of the recent — the ground — facts of the past year. As I myself ran through them a few days ago, before, with an Admiralty permit, I went down to one of the most interesting naval bases on our coast, and found myself amid a group of men en- gaged night and day in grappling with the TOWARDS THE GOAL 7 submarine menace, which threatens not only Great Britain, not only the Allies, but your- selves, and every neutral nation. It is, in- deed, well to go back to the facts ! They are worthy of this island nation, and her sea- born children. To begin with, the personnel of the British Navy, which at the beginning of the war was 140,000, was last year 300,000. This year it is 400,000, or very nearly three times what it was before the war. Then as to ships. "If we were strong in capital ships at the begin- ning of the war," said Mr. Balfour last Sep- tember, "we are yet stronger now — absolutely and relatively — and in regard to cruisers and destroyers there is absolutely no comparison between our strength in 1914 and our strength now. There is no part of our naval strength in which we have not got a greater supply, and in some departments an incomparably greater supply, than we had on August 4, 1914. . . . The tonnage of the Navy has increased by well over a million tons since war began." So Mr. Balfour, six months ago. Five months later it fell to Sir Edward Carson to move the naval estimates, under pressure, as we all know, of the submarine anxiety. He spoke in the frankest and plainest language of that 8 TOWARDS THE GOAL anxiety, as did the Prime Minister in his now famous speech of February 22d, and as did the speakers in the House of Lords, Lord Lyt- ton, Lord Curzon, and Lord Beresford, on the same date. The attach is not yet checked. The danger is not over. Still, again, look at some of the facts ! In two years and a quarter of war: Eight million men moved across the seas — almost without mishap. Nine million and a half tons of explosives carried to our own armies and those of our allies. Over a million horses and mules; and Over forty-seven million gallons of petrol supplied to the armies. And besides, twenty -five thousand ships have been examined for contraband of war on the high seas, or in harbour, since the war began. And at this one must pause a moment to think — once again — what it means, to call up the familiar image of Britain's ships, large and small, scattered over the wide Atlantic and the approaches to the North Sea, watching there through winter and summer, storm and fair, and so carrying out relentlessly the blockade of Germany, through every circum- TOWARDS THE GOAL 9 stance often of danger and difficulty; with every consideration for neutral interests that is compatible with this desperate war, in which the very existence of England is concerned; and without the sacrifice of a single life, unless it be the lives of British sailors, often lost in these boardings of passing ships amid the darkness and storm of winter seas. There, indeed, in these "wave-beaten ships," as in the watching fleets of the English Ad- mirals outside Toulon and Brest, while Na- poleon was marching triumphantly about Eu- rope, lies the root fact of the war. It is a commonplace, but one that has been "proved upon our pulses." Who does not remember the shock that went through England and the civilised world when the first partial news of the battle of Jutland reached London, and we were told our own losses, before we knew either the losses of the enemy or the general result of the battle? It was neither fear nor panic; but it was as though the nation, hold- ing its breath, realised for the first time where, for it, lay the vital elements of being. The depths in us were stirred. We knew in very deed that we were the children of the sea! And now again the depths are stirred. The 10 TOWARDS THE GOAL development of the submarine attack has set us a new and stern task, and we are "straitened till it be accomplished." The great battle- ships seem almost to have left the stage. In less than three months, said Sir Edward Car- son, speaking on February 21st, 626,000 tons of British, neutral, and allied shipping had been destroyed. Since the beginning of the war we — Great Britain — have lost over two million tons of shipping, and our allies and the neutrals have lost almost as much. There is a certain shortage of food in Great Britain, and a shortage of many other things besides. Writing about the middle of February, an important German newspaper raised a shout of jubilation. "The whole sea was as if swept clean at one blow" — by the announcement of the intensified "blockade" of February 1st. So, the German scribe. But again the facts shoot up — hard and irreducible, through the sea of comment. While the German news- papers were shouting to each other, the sea was so far from being "swept clean," that 12,000 ships had actually passed in and out of British ports in the first eighteen days of the "blockade." And at any moment dur- ing those days at least 3,000 ships could have been found traversing the "danger zone," TOWARDS THE GOAL 11 which the Germans imagined themselves to have barred. One is reminded of the Hamburger Nachrichten last year, after the Zeppelin raid in January, 1916: "English industry lies in ruins," said that astonishing print. "The sea has been swept clean," says one of its brethren now. Yet all the while there, in the danger zone, whenever, by day or night, one turns one's thoughts to it, are the 3,000 ships; and there, in the course of a fortnight, are the 12,000 ships going and coming. Yet all the same, as I have said before, there is danger and there is anxiety. The neutrals — save America — have been intimi- dated; they are keeping their ships in har- bour; and to do without their tonnage is a serious matter for us. Meanwhile the best brains in naval England are at work, and one can feel the sailors straining at the leash. In the first eighteen days of February there were forty fights with submarines. The Navy talks very little about them, and says nothing of which it is not certain. But all the scien- tific resources, all the fighting brains of naval England are being brought to bear, and we at home — let us keep to our rations, the only thing we can do to help our men at sea ! . . . . . . How this grey estuary spread before 12 TOWARDS THE GOAL my eyes illustrates and illuminates the figures I have been quoting ! I am on the light cruiser of a famous Commodore, and I have just been creeping and climbing through a submarine. The waters round are crowded with those light craft — destroyers, submarines, mine-sweepers, trawlers, patrol-boats — on which for the moment, at any rate, the for- tunes of the naval war turn. And take notice that they are all — or almost all — new : the very latest products of British shipyards. We have plenty of battleships — but "we must now build, as quickly as possible, the smaller craft, and the merchant ships we want," says Sir Edward Carson. Not a slip in the country will be empty during the coming months. Every rivet put into a ship will contribute to the defeat of Germany. And 47 per cent of the Merchant Service have already been armed. The riveters must indeed have been hard at work ! This crowded scene carries me back to the Clyde, where I was last year, to the new factories and workshops, with their ever- increasing throng of women, and to the mar- vellous work of the shipyards. No talk now of strikes, of a disaffected and revolutionary minority on the Clyde, as there was twelve months ago. The will of the nation has be- TOWARDS THE GOAL 13 come as steel — to win the war. Throughout England, as in these naval officers beside me, there is the same tense yet disciplined expec- tancy. As we lunch and talk, on this cruiser at rest, messages come in perpetually; the cruiser itself is ready for the open sea, at an hour and a half's notice; the sea-planes pass out and come in over the mouth of the har- bour on their voyages of discovery and report, and these destroyers and mine-sweepers that lie so quietly near us will be out again to- night in the North Sea, grappling with every difficulty and facing every danger, in the true spirit of a wonderful service, while we land- folk sleep and eat in peace — grumbling, no doubt, with our morning newspaper and coffee, when any of the German destroyers who come out from Zeebrugge are allowed to get home with a whole skin. "What on earth is the Navy about?" Well, the Navy knows. Ger- many is doing her very worst, and will go on doing it — for a time. The line of defensive watch in the North Sea is long; the North Sea is a big place; the Germans often have the luck of the street-boy who rings a bell and runs away before the policeman comes up. But the Navy has no doubts. The situation, says one of my cheerful hosts, is quite 14 TOWARDS THE GOAL "healthy," and we shall see "great things in the coming months." We had better leave it at that ! Now let us look at these destroyers in an- other scene. It is the last day of February, and I find myself on a military steamer bound for a French Port, and on my way to the British Headquarters in France. With me is the same dear daughter who accompanied me last year as "dame secretaire" on my first errand. The boat is crowded with sol- diers, and before we reach the French shore we have listened to almost every song — old and new — in Tommy's repertory. There is even "Tipperary," a snatch, a ghost of "Tipperary," intermingled with many others, rising and fall- ing, no one knows why, started now here, now there, and dying away again after a line or two. It is a draught going out to France for the first time, north countrymen, by their accent; and life-belts and submarines seem to amuse them hugely, to judge by the running fire of chaff that goes on. But after a while I cease to listen. I am thinking first of what awaits us on the farther shore, on which the lights are coming out, and of those interesting passes inviting us to G. H. Q. as "Government Guests," which lie safe in our hand-bags. TOWARDS THE GOAL 15 And then my thoughts slip back to a conver- sation of the day before with Dr. Addison, the new Minister of Munitions. A man in the prime of life, with whitening hair — prematurely white, for the face and figure are quite young still — and stamped, so far as expression and aspect are concerned, by those social and humane interests which first carried him into Parliament. I have been long concerned with Evening Play Centres for school-children in Hoxton, one of the most congested quarters of our East End. And seven years ago I began to hear of the young and public-spirited doctor and man of science, who had made himself a name and place in Hoxton, who had won the confidence of the people crowded in its unlovely streets, had worked for the poor and the sick, and the children, and had now beaten the Tory mem- ber, and was Hoxton's Liberal representative in the new Parliament elected in January, 1910, to deal with the Lords, after the throw- ing out of Lloyd George's famous Budget. Once or twice since, I had come across him in matters concerned with education — cripple schools and the like — when he was Parlia- mentary Secretary to the Board of Educa- tion, immediately before the war. And now 16 TOWARDS THE GOAL here was the doctor, the Hunterian Pro- fessor, the social worker, the friend of schools and school-children, transformed into the fighting Minister of a great fighting Depart- ment, itself the creation of the war, only second — if second — in its importance for the war, to the Admiralty and the War Office. And what a story the new Minister has to tell ! I was myself, for a fortnight of last year, the guest of the Ministry of Munitions, while Mr. Lloyd George was still its head, in some of the most important munition areas; and I was then able to feel the current of hot energy started by the first Minister, running — not, of course, without local obstacles and animosities — through an electrified England. That was in February, 1916. Then, in August, came the astonishing speech of Mr. Montagu, on the development of the Munitions supply in one short year, as illustrated by the happenings of the Somme battlefield. And now, as suc- cessor to Mr. Montagu and Mr. Lloyd George, Dr. Addison sat in the Minister's chair, con- tinuing the story. How true it is that circumstances at once discover and make the men ! Given my own art, it is perhaps natural that the growth of personality is one of the most interesting things TOWARDS THE GOAL 17 in the world to me. And as the Minister ran through the expansions of his own Depart- ment, the aspect of the matter was especially plain to me. Starting from the manufacture of guns, ammunition, and explosives, and after pushing that to incredible figures, the neces- sities of its great task has led the Ministry to one forward step after another. Seeing that the supply of Munitions depends on the sup- ply of raw material, it is now regulating the whole mineral supply of this country, and much of that of the Allies ; it is about to work quali- ties of iron ore that have never been worked before; it is deciding over the length and breadth of the country how much aluminum should be allowed to one firm, how much cop- per to another; it is producing steel for our Allies as well as for ourselves ; it has taken over with time the supply of Motor Transport Vehicles for the War Office, and is now adding to it the provision of Railway Material here and abroad, and is dictating meanwhile to every engineering firm in the country which of its orders should come first, and which last. It is managing a whole gigantic industry with employees running into millions, half a mil- lion of them women, and managing it under wholly new conditions of humanity and fore- 18 TOWARDS THE GOAL thought; it is housing and feeding and caring for innumerable thousands; transforming from day to day, as by a kind of bywork, the in- dustrial mind and training of multitudes, and laying the foundations of a new, and surely happier England, after the war; and, finally, it is adjusting, with, on the whole, great suc- cess, the rival claims of the factories and the trenches, sending more and more men from the workshops to the fighting-line, in propor- tion as the unskilled labour of the country of men and women, but especially of women — is drawn, more and more widely, into the ser- vice of a dwindling amount of skilled labour, more and more "diluted." While the Minis- ter's vivid talk ranged over this immense field, one realised the truth of the saying: "It is by pumping that one draws water into one's well:" in other words, it is action, and again action, that develops the strong man, and tests the weak one. I recall particularly a little story of — lubri- cating oil ! Lubricating oil, essential to the immense Motor Transport in the war, depends apparently upon two things — the shale from which the oil is extracted — the retorts in which it is manufactured. Two sets of employers, two sets of workers were concerned — each TOWARDS THE GOAL 19 with their claim on railway-trucks; and no co- ordination between the two. The shale lay waiting for the retorts; the retorts sat idle for lack of shale. But the Ministry stepped in; there was a conference in the Minister's room ; a little good-will and organisation, and the trucks were pooled, the shale was brought to the retorts, the retorts were made available for the shale. Result — important increase in a product necessary to the war, and an im- portant decrease in the expenses of produc- tion. So much for the Ministry on its home ground. Abroad, close to the front, which the Ministry of Munitions, under Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Montagu, covered last year with that vast supply of guns of all calibre, and ammunitions of all kinds, which contrib- uted so vitally to win us the battle of the Somme, and in its still further development is now assuring the safety and success of our armies as we pursue the German retreat — I came upon many traces of the present Minister in France, and all suggestive of the same quick and sympathetic intelligence. . . . But the light is failing, and the shore is nearing. Life-belts are taken off, the de- stroyers have disappeared. We are on the quay, kindly welcomed by an officer from 20 TOWARDS THE GOAL G. H. Q., who passes our bags rapidly through the Custom House, and carries us off to a neighbouring hotel for the night, it being too late for the long drive to G. H. Q, We are in France again — and the great pres- ence of the army is all about us. The quay crowded with soldiers, the port alive with ships, the grey-blue uniforms mingling with the khaki — after a year I see it again, and one's pulses quicken. The vast effort of England which last year had already reached so great a height, and has now, as all accounts testify, been so incredibly developed, is here once more, in visible action, before me. The following morning the motor arrives early, and with our courteous officer who has charge of us in front, we are off, first, for one of the great camps I saw last year, and then for G. H. Q. itself. On the way, as we speed over the rolling-down country beyond the town, my eyes are keen to catch some of the new signs of the time. Here is the first — a railway line in process of doub- ling — and large numbers of men, some of them German prisoners, working at it; typi- cal, both of the immense railway develop- ment all over the military zone, since last year, and of the extensive use now being made of TOWARDS THE GOAL 21 prisoners' labour, in regions well behind the firing-line. They lift their heads as we pass, looking with curiosity at the two ladies in the military car. Their flat, round caps give them an odd similarity. It is as if one saw scores of the same face, differentiated here and there by a beard. A docile, hard-working crew, by all accounts, who give no trouble, and are managed largely by their N. C. O's. Are there some among them who saw the massacre at Dinant, the terrible things in Lorraine? Their placid, expressionless faces tell no tale. But the miles have flown, and here already are the long lines of the camp. How pleasant to be greeted by some of the same officers ! We go into the Headquarters Office, for a talk. "Grown? I should think we have!" says Colonel . And, rapidly, he and one of his colleagues run through some of the ad- ditions and expansions. The Training-Camp has been practically doubled, or rather an- other training-camp has been added to the one that existed last year, and both are equipped with an increased number of special schools — an Artillery Training School, an En- gineer Training School, a Lewis Gun School, an actual gas-chamber for the training of men in the use of their gas-helmets — and others, of 22 TOWARDS THE GOAL which it is not possible to speak. "We have put through half a million of reinforcements since you were here last." And close upon two million rations were issued last month ! The veterinary accommodation has been much enlarged, and two Convalescent Horse Depots have been added — (it is good indeed to see with what kindness and thought the Army treats its horses). But the most novel addi- tion to the camp has been a Fat Factory for the production of fat — from which comes the glycerin used in explosives — out of all the food refuse of the camp. The fat produced by the system, here and in England, has already pro- vided glycerin for millions of eighteen-pounder shells; the problem of camp refuse, always a desperate one, has been solved; and as a com- mercial venture, the factory makes 250 per cent profit. Undeterred by what we hear of the smells, we go off to see it, and the enthusiastic man- ager explains the unsavoury processes by which the bones and refuse of all the vast camp are boiled down into a white fat, that looks almost eatable, but is meant, as a matter of fact, to feed not men, but shells. Nor is that the only contribution to the fighting-line which the factory makes. All the cotton waste of TOWARDS THE GOAL 23 the hospitals — the old dressings and bandage — come here, and after sterilisation and dis- infection, go to England for guncotton. Was there ever a grimmer cycle than this, by which that which feeds and that which heals become in the end that which kills? But let me try to forget that side of it, and remember, rather, as we leave the smells be- hind, that the calcined bones become artificial manure, and go back again into the tortured fields of France, while other by-products of the factory help the peasants near to feed their pigs. And anything, however small, that helps the peasants of France in this war comforts one's heart. We climb up to the high ground of the camp for a general view before we go on to G. H. Q., and I see it, as I saw it last year, spread under the March sunshine, among the sand and the pines — a wonderful sight. "Everything has grown, you see, except the staff!" says the Colonel, smiling, as we shake hands. "But we rub along ! " Then we are in the motor again, and at last the new G. H. Q.— how different from that I saw last year ! — rises before us. We make our way into the town, and presently the car stops for a minute before a building, and 24 TOWARDS THE GOAL while our officer goes within we retreat into a side street to wait. But my thoughts are busy. For that building, of which the side- front is still visible, is the brain of the British Army in France, and on the men who work there depend the fortunes of that distant line, where our brothers and sons are meet- ing face to face the horrors and foulnesses of war. How many women whose hearts hang on the war, whose all is there, in daily and nightly jeopardy, read the words "British Headquarters" with an involuntary lift of soul, an invocation without words. Yet scarcely half a dozen women in this war will ever see the actual spot. And here it is, un- der my eyes, the cold March sun shining fit- fully on it, the sentry at the door, the khaki figures passing in and out. I picture to my- self the room within, and the news arriving of General Gough's advance on the Ancre; of the rapidity of that German retreat as to which all Europe is speculating. But we move on — to a quiet country house in a town garden — the Headquarters Mess of the Intelligence Department. Here I find among our kind hosts,