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 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S 
 WAR BOOK 
 
 WITH CHAPTERS ON 
 AMERICA AT WAR 
 
 BEING A REVISED AND ENLARGED 
 EDITION OF "AT THE WAR" 
 
 NEW YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
13|? 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1916, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1917, 
 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 REVISED EDITION 
 
 DEC 28i3i7 
 
 PRINTED IN THE TJNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 ©CI,A47971C 
 
TO MY MOTHER 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This little contribution to the funds of the Red Cross 
 has already earned between $25,000 and $30,000, the pub- 
 lishers having generously given the profits to this best of 
 causes. 
 
 The profits of this American edition will be devoted to 
 the American Red Cross, 
 
 The book is the result of many visits to the Western 
 War Fronts and neutral countries. The chapters are 
 very largely composed of telegrams written amidst the 
 "alarums and excursions" of war. 
 
 NORTHCLIFFE. 
 
 BRITISH WAR MISSION 
 671 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 
 
 October, 1917. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Americans at War 13 
 
 Crossing the Atlantic in War-time 27 
 
 The American Soldiers in France ...... 39 
 
 What TO Send "Your Soldier" 51 
 
 The Army of the Maple Leap 59 
 
 A Civilian's Impressions of the War 77 
 
 How It Feels in a Submarine, in an Aeroplane, in a 
 
 Tank 93 
 
 The Army Behind the Army 107 
 
 The Women Are Splendld 125 
 
 Before Verdun 131 
 
 Life in Reims 145 
 
 With the Italians 153 
 
 Sir Douglas Haig 163 
 
 JoFFRE 171 
 
 Cadorna 177 
 
 The British Soldiers in France 183 
 
 The New Little Belgian Army 191 
 
 Warplanes 203 
 
 The War Doctors 211 
 
X CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Search for the Missing 229 
 
 Neutral Glimpses 249 
 
 I The Germans in Switzerland 249 
 
 II Geneva 257 
 
 III The Germans in Spain 265 
 
 IV A Spanish Tour 275 
 
THE AMERICANS AT WAR 
 
LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S 
 WAR BOOK 
 
 THE AMERICANS AT WAR 
 
 Since I have been in the United States — I arrived early 
 in the month of June — I have seen the beginning of the 
 growth of a war machine unequalled in the world's his- 
 tory. The machine was built in the American way. As 
 I watched the process I was reminded continually of the 
 method of building the sky-scrapers whose roots are deep 
 deep down in the rock that forms the Island on which 
 New York stands. 
 
 In watching the building of a sky-scraper, the unin- 
 formed observer feels that the thing will never begin. 
 For some time there is a blasting of rock, crowds of men 
 appear with strange machines, nothing much seems to 
 happen. Then, gradually but surely, a great steel skele- 
 ton arises. 
 
 The progress does not seem to be as rapid as it might 
 be, until suddenly the passer-by finds to his astonishment 
 that the exterior walls of the seventeenth or thirtieth 
 story are finished, the lower stories being yet in skeleton 
 form. There is another delay, and lo! the sky-scraper 
 suddenly finished, and housing its ten or fifteen thousand 
 busy workers. 
 
 The American war machine was and, as I write, is 
 still being built in the same way. 
 
 From the staid British point of view the process was 
 sometimes bewildering. There were delays, tolerances, 
 
 13 
 
14 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 repetitions of European war blunders, criticisms, argu- 
 ments, extravagant optimism and grave under-estima- 
 tions. Sometimes at the end of a long day one looked 
 back on the morning and could see no progress. But 
 at the conclusion of every six days there was not only an 
 advance, but sometimes a leap. 
 
 The great giant of the West slumbered more or less 
 uneasily for the first two and a half years of the war, he 
 eventually woke with some unwillingness. Once awake 
 with amazing celerity he was out and about, up and do- 
 ing. He swiftly girded his armour and fashioned the 
 club that should end the rule of despotism in Europe. 
 
 Lookers-on and critics here in the United States were 
 astonished to find that almost without public notice con- 
 scription came into being. When it arrived, it worked 
 as smoothly as though it had been in use since the Decla- 
 ration of Independence. Again the giant paused awhile 
 and people began to wonder what he was doing, but mean- 
 while the streets became filled with Khaki. The stern- 
 looking business men and professional beauties of photog- 
 raphers' shops were replaced by clean-visaged officers and 
 nurses. The parks were busy from dawn to dark with 
 men in shirt sleeves at drill. Those trying to make busi- 
 ness appointments by telephone found that So-and-so had 
 gone to France or to an officers' training camp at Platts- 
 burg or elsewhere. The war hourly became more and 
 more a part of the visible public life. 
 
 My American home is some miles out of New York 
 City. When I took up my residence there in June last 
 there were no signs of war about me. I went to Wash- 
 ington and returned after the space of a few days. A 
 vast camp, as big as ours at Witley in Surrey appeared 
 at my doors as though it had grown by magic. 
 
 This camp was not on the map so to speak ; it was not 
 
THE AMERICANS AT WAR 15 
 
 one of the great cantonments that were built with light- 
 ning speed. Of these soldier cities there are now sixteen 
 finished or nearly so. They are no mere camps. There 
 is a permanence about them that makes it difficult to 
 realise that they are built in two score of days. A num- 
 ber of them are being erected wisely in the sunny and 
 comparatively stormless South, where the soldiers and 
 more especially the flying men will be in full training 
 during the whole winter. 
 
 Let me describe one of these cities in the words of an 
 English eye witness, one of the sixteen cities which will ac- 
 commodate the first instalment (650,000 men,) gathered 
 by conscription. These cities are tangible proof of the 
 efficiency of American methods of organisation applied to 
 war making. We asked and obtained permission to see 
 one of the most rapidly finished. It happened to be two 
 thousand miles from New York. It did not seem to con- 
 cern those who extended the very cordial invitation that 
 the journey was a long one ; it is regarded here as we look 
 upon the journey from London to Newcastle (about 200 
 miles) or London to Glasgow (less than 300 miles). 
 
 Early in July there lay three miles outside San Antonio, 
 Texas, a stretch of ground covered with a difficult kind 
 of scrub or bush. On the 6th of July there appeared 
 an army of between nine and ten thousand workmen of 
 every known nationality, directed by young Americans 
 of the Harvard and Yale type. 
 
 The ten thousand arrived in every kind of conveyance, 
 in mule carts, farm waggons, horse cabs, motors, and huge 
 motor vans. At the end of the day's work, when the 
 whistle had blown, the scene resembled that of some ec- 
 centric elaborately-staged cinematograph film. 
 
 Together with the army of ten thousand men came 
 many kinds of semi-automatic machinery. The hard 
 
16 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 concrete roads in the United States are now made by- 
 machinery with a thoroughness and permanence which 
 should attract attention in Europe. In this new town out- 
 side of San Antonio twelve miles of rail, twenty-five miles 
 of road, thirty-one miles of water pipe, thirty miles of 
 sewer were accomplished in forty-five days. 
 
 The scale of wages is as surprising to Europeans as 
 the energy expended. The average wage for all and 
 sundry exceeded five pounds ($25) a week, carpenters 
 getting twenty-six shillings ($6.50) daily. Nearly all ma- 
 terial had to be brought from what appear to us vast dis- 
 tances. As often as not the thermometer stood at 100 
 degrees, yet the daily photographs taken by the contrac- 
 tors show that progress was continuous, until on August 
 25th a considerable part of the city was ready for oc- 
 cupation. 
 
 The strongly and comfortably built huts are all pro- 
 vided with heating arrangements for the winter, and 
 baths hot and cold are attached to each building; there 
 are vast stores and office blocks, several post offices, a 
 huge bakery, laundry, stables for thirteen hundred horses 
 and mules, hospitals, schools; in all between twelve and 
 thirteen hundred buildings. 
 
 And what has been done in Texas was being done 
 simultaneously in fifteen other parts of the country. 
 
 Although Long Island is so close to New York and is 
 one of the most fashionable country house districts in 
 the United States, the site chosen near Yaphank for 
 Camp Upton on Long Island, gave as much trouble as 
 any other. A forest had to be cut down and the roots 
 blasted out of the soil. Furthermore, the works were 
 hampered by mosquitos to a degree that will be under- 
 stood by those who have disturbed virgin soil in new 
 places. 
 
THE AMERICANS AT WAR 17 
 
 Americans have a prompt unexpected way of doing 
 things which is pleasingly refreshing. One morning I 
 read that all saloons within fives miles of Yaphank had 
 been closed down. Nothing more said about it, no dis- 
 cussion preceded the matter, there were no abstruse cal- 
 culations as to compensation. The United States is at 
 war; saloons are not good for war, close them down. 
 That's all there was to it. 
 
 These are a good-natured but a drastic people. One of 
 their great war accomplishments is the stamping out of 
 sedition. When I first arrived here it was common to see 
 knots of rather bored-looking people round a wildly 
 gesticulating man standing on what I believe is known as 
 a soap box. I noticed the number of these orators grew. 
 I stopped one evening to listen to one of them in the 
 negro quarter; he was talking a lot of excitable rubbish. 
 In one part of his discourse he evinced unexpected sym- 
 pathy for the downtrodden Irish farmer, who is notably, 
 by the way, among the most prosperous of farmers. 
 
 The American Giant paused one day in his war prepa- 
 rations, issued some kind of police order, and there was 
 an end to pacificism. 
 
 A shrewd British friend of mine who has lived here 
 many years remarked the other day that it took a long 
 time to get Uncle Sam into the War, but that it may take 
 a much longer time to get him out. 
 
 Already, after barely five months of preparation, the 
 United States have close upon a million and a half sol- 
 diers undergoing intensive training for their task. The 
 Regular Army was brought up to its full strength 300,000 
 by voluntary enlistment. The National Guard, a State 
 Militia, was filled up by the same means until it numbered 
 500,000. Then came the ballot for conscripts under the 
 
18 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 Conscription Act ; this gave between 600,000 and 700,000 
 more. 
 
 For the training and upkeep of this force and for the 
 provision of all that it will require in the field, sums of 
 money have been voted which make one's brain reel. 
 For airplane construction $640,000,000 have been ap- 
 propriated. Upon merchant shipbuilding $1,134,500,000 
 are to be spent. A naval appropriation of $350,000,000 
 for the building of destroyers has been commenced. 
 One armour plate and projectile plant at South Charles- 
 ton will soak up $22,000,000. In all, the war expenditure 
 of the United States already amounts to well over 
 $8,000,000 a day, and loans to Allies account for another 
 $12,000,000 every twenty four hours. The war machine 
 gathers momentum as its travels. Its ramifications are 
 bewildering. Scarcely a day passes without some fresh 
 and startling proof of its force. 
 
 The American characteristics in war seem to be two, 
 firstly, what looks like undue deliberation, and then, be- 
 fore you are ready for it, as a bolt from the blue, a smash- 
 ing blow. 
 
 We know little of United States politics in Europe. 
 Probably not one English or French reader in a score 
 understands that the Democrats (Radicals) are in power 
 and the Republicans (Conservatives) in opposition. The 
 system so far is rather like our own, but the head of the 
 nation is a President whose character appears to me to 
 be a mixture of Scottish caution and tenacity with Ameri- 
 can unexpectedness. 
 
 Witness the reply to the Pope. When cables from 
 Europe contained mealy-mouthed meanderings from 
 Continental newspapers outlining all kinds of suggested 
 temporising replies to his Holiness, suddenly came an al- 
 together unexpected bang from the White House at 
 
THE AMERICANS AT WAR 1& 
 
 Washington; the whole miasma of pacificism and all the 
 rantings from soap boxes were at an end. My Republi- 
 can friends, naturally critical of persons and things 
 Democratic, shared the nation-wide joy in the Presi- 
 dent's reply. As with the well-meant Papal peace of- 
 ferings, so with the embargo. 
 
 Well-meaning European statesmen have too long pro- 
 vided the German armies with materials for making shot 
 and powder and with food through greedy and gain- 
 loving neutrals. The American mind wondered why. I 
 went one day to have a look at an American transport 
 sailing for Europe, in which the soldier boys clustered 
 like bees in swarming time. Incidentally my guide showed 
 me a great number of neutral ships loading up with grain 
 for Germany. There came another bang from the big 
 gxm at Washington. The ships are still here. 
 
 I should not be surprised if they eventually helped to 
 carry food to the American armies in France and to Bel- 
 gium. I am very certain they will not carry one grain of 
 wheat to Germany. The right of neutrals to prolong the 
 war is not conceded by the United States. The Ameri- 
 can mothers who are sending their boys to face subma- 
 rines in the Atlantic and high explosives in the trenches 
 have no sloppy sentiment for Sweden or Spain. They 
 are sorry for Holland, but the motto "America first," 
 though not perhaps always suited to an alliance, is un- 
 doubtedly a formidable war weapon when put into opera- 
 tion with the drastic suddenness characteristic of Ameri- 
 can mentality in war time. 
 
 Several times I have been asked by Americans, whO' 
 are becoming almost as critical of themselves as we Eng- 
 lish have always been of ourselves, whether there is not 
 observable in the United States a lack of enthusiasm in 
 the public demeanour towards troops parading or depart- 
 
20 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 ing. The same criticism has been made continuously in 
 Great Britain in regard to the people and their army. 
 
 It is quite true that an ordinary baseball game, or an 
 Association football match at home, is more provocative 
 of cheering and other forms of applause than the appear- 
 ance of troops. Pictures of soldiers departing in the old 
 wars make us believe that they were surrounded by en- 
 thusiastic and yelling crowds. That does not appear to 
 be the case now in any of the belligerent countries in 
 which I have been since August, 191 4. Even the most 
 €xcitable Italians go to this war with gravity and sobriety. 
 
 The only really vociferous acclamation to troops that 
 has come under my notice was in a neutral country whose 
 ■callous pro-Germanism has made it a by-word among na- 
 tions. A cynical American who watched with me a 
 squadron of cavalry passing at the trot and being vigour- 
 ously applauded by a Spanish crowd remarked "The last 
 thing these people mean to do is fight." 
 
 American troops, whose physique is at present much 
 the best in the war, are regarded by their onlookers with 
 interest, affection and pride. Their mission is far too 
 serious a one for wild hurra-ing such as we heard during 
 the South African and the Spanish wars. Summed up 
 in one word, the attitude of the American People and their 
 soldiers seems to me to be. Earnestness. If any other 
 word be necessary Thoroughness might be added. 
 
 The world has heard something of the evolution of 
 what is known as the U.S.A. or Liberty Air Engine. The 
 full story of the development of this practical and now 
 tested motor sums up many of the .most marked traits in 
 the American war character. It is the product of en- 
 thusiasm put to the right purpose. 
 
 There is probably no more highly organised industry 
 in the world than the manufacture of American motor- 
 
THE AMERICANS AT WAR 21 
 
 cars. Despite the keen competition that has enabled 
 Americans rich and poor aHke to have automobiles, co- 
 operation and standardisation among the rival producers 
 have intensified simplicity and eliminated waste. It is 
 because of this that I am able to purchase in the United 
 States for my own use an excellent four-seated landaulette 
 for $i,ooo with electric lighting installation and self- 
 starter. I have the choice of a number of types at that 
 price and even less. 
 
 The methods of the motor-car industry, which have 
 given such marvellous results, are being adapted in regard 
 to the Air Engine. Early in July I was invited to the 
 Bureau of Standards in Washington to see the engine 
 just after it had arrived from Detroit. In a room adjoin- 
 ing the bench on which the motor rested was a machine 
 for reproducing mechanical drawings, or blue-prints, by 
 a highly ingenious form of rapid rotary printing. These 
 drawings are being sent in thousands to makers of auto- 
 mobiles all over the United States. 
 
 The young men who had accomplished the construc- 
 tion of the engine were the leading designers and engi- 
 neers of the great competing motor-car and motor-van 
 makers. All trade rivalry had been set apart, and they 
 had thrown their united efforts into a magnificent piece 
 of team-work, which will enable the United States to turn 
 our air engines almost as rapidly as Mr. Ford multiplies 
 his wonderful little cars. 
 
 It is not pretended that these air engines are of the 
 same quality as the best English or French war models. 
 It was wisely foreseen here that the construction of 
 motors so delicate would demand the training of thou- 
 sands of skilled handworkers. Time is a vital factor in 
 the situation, therefore it was resolved to produce an en- 
 gine that could be manufactured in part in a thousand 
 
22 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 workshops and assembled at certain given points, as is 
 done by Germany with her submarines. It is an engine 
 designed for a certain specific air programme, the nature 
 of which the Germans will learn in due course. 
 
 Together with the manufacture of this air motor, which 
 has now been tested in long flights at various altitudes, 
 goes on the training in flight of a large number of eager 
 and capable young men. Almost every steamer arriving 
 from Europe brings more and more skilled airmen from 
 the war-zone, French, American and English. Flying 
 grounds in the United States are being extended continu- 
 ously. They range now from Camp Borden in Canada, 
 where young British officers are training American and 
 Canadian fliers, to San Antonio, in Texas. Instruction 
 in flying can continue without ceasing owing to the choice 
 of so many suitable, because almost windless, climates 
 for the camp installations. 
 
 The enthusiastic outpourings of air amateurs and their 
 cries of "One hundred thousand air-planes" have made a 
 good many people sceptical as to American participation 
 in the air fighting. But behind all that talk is already a 
 vast accomplishment. The solid foundation has been 
 laid of an air service backed by practically illimitable man- 
 power and machine-power. Its fruits will be shewn as 
 suddenly as came Conscription. Movement is going on 
 as rapidly as possible in view of the thoroughness with 
 which everything is being done. There has been a com- 
 plete liaison with the Air Services of France and Eng- 
 land. While no time has been lost, more careful consid- 
 eration has been given to a definite plan of campaign. 
 
 Since I arrived in the United States during the second 
 week of June, I have kept a diary of war happenings. 
 This I shall keep as a document of great historical inter- 
 est. Never has any Democracy made such rapid prog- 
 
THE AMERICANS AT WAR 23 
 
 ress in so vast an enterprise. The pace was accelerated 
 every week. We were made acquainted in the course of 
 four months with a series of war measures which would 
 seem to be almost beyond the national power of digestion. 
 
 It is easy to say that many of these measures might 
 have been adopted a couple of years earlier, but De- 
 mocracies do not work in that way. Even after the war 
 had begun, we in England spent almost two years in dis- 
 cussing whether we should have equality of sacrifice in 
 regard to military service, and Canada was still debating 
 the question until a few weeks ago. Each nation has to 
 make its war preparations after its own fashion. No 
 nation seems to learn much from any other. 
 
 The American War Machine has been built in the 
 American way. Maybe it will have its faults, but for 
 all that it is the mighty sledge-hammer that will pulverise 
 Prussianism. 
 
CROSSING THE ATLANTIC IN WAR-TIME 
 
CROSSING THE ATLANTIC IN WAR-TIME 
 
 One thing the war has done for those who travel. It 
 has restored to travelling the spice of adventure. Cross- 
 ing the Atlantic had become before the war as tame and 
 uneventful a business as taking the Subway or the Ele- 
 vated to go down town. The war has changed all that. 
 
 The greatest of the liners which made our Atlantic 
 ferry the swiftest and most luxurious means of ocean 
 transportation in the world have disappeared from their 
 accustomed routes. Some will never return to them. 
 They lie on the floor of the sea. Even now it is hard to 
 think of the Lusitania without a pang at the heart. Other 
 of the "floating palaces" which made their trips between 
 the United States and England so punctually and steadily 
 have been turned into hospital ships, transports, auxiliary 
 cruisers. As for those which flew the German flag, they 
 are either interned in the harbours of Allied or neutral 
 countries, or else rotting in their home ports, rotting and 
 rusting as part of the price which Germany has to pay al- 
 ready for allowing the crazy and criminal ambition of 
 Hohenzollerns and Prussian Junkerdom to break up the 
 prosperity won by peace-methods and to substitute for it 
 the widespread ruin caused by unsuccessful war. 
 
 In the pre-war days, which seem so far off from us 
 now, there were no more formalities to be faced before 
 crossing the ocean than before crossing the road. One 
 simply bought a ticket, learnt the time of departure, cabled 
 to say the exact day and hour of arrival, went on board. 
 
 27 
 
28 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 No questions asked, no papers needed beyond the steamer 
 ticket. Passports were regarded as antediluvian, only 
 required by those who travelled beyond the confines of 
 civilisation, in the dominions of the Turkish Sultan or 
 the Russian Tsar. 
 
 In this fourth year of the struggle it has rightly been 
 made difficult for any persons to cross the Atlantic who 
 have not some good urgent reason for doing so. Such 
 reason must be shewn before permission to take ship is 
 granted. The journey from England to the United States 
 in war-time begins, therefore, in the wooden houses 
 built in the courtyard of the Foreign Office, London. 
 Here full information must be given to officials, for the 
 most part sympathetic, as to parentage, birthplace, busi- 
 ness; grounds for desiring to travel; previous travel 
 during the war period; and so on. If all goes well for 
 the would-be voyager, he, or she, receives a passport, or, 
 having one already, has it endorsed with a permit to leave 
 England for American shores. 
 
 Next those who are not travelling with diplomatic 
 credentials must fill up the interrogatory of the steam- 
 ship company. This is not less exhaustive than the offi- 
 cial questionnaire. One has an uneasy feeling that they 
 may be compared and any accidental discrepancy used 
 against one. Some people are made so nervous by being 
 "regarded with suspicion," as they term it, though really 
 there is no need to put it in that way, that they begin to 
 wonder whether they have not something to hide. They 
 begin to be not quite sure about their own bona fides. 
 There should, however, be no feeling of uneasiness or 
 resentment caused by these indispensable precautions. 
 Every one should be glad to find that precautions against 
 spies are being systematically taken. Every one must 
 recognise that it is necessary to limit the numbers using 
 
CROSSING THE ATLANTIC IN WAR-TIME 29 
 
 the restricted service of liners which ply across the At- 
 lantic in the fourth year of the war. 
 
 Next comes the train journey to Liverpool, This is 
 as fast as it was in peace-time, and as comfortable, ex- 
 cept that there is no luncheon-car attached. Luncheon 
 baskets are brought round to the compartments, however. 
 In Liverpool Dock Station there is nothing like the usual 
 crowd and bustle. The number of passengers is small. 
 "This way please" say the dock policemen, and they shep- 
 herd the passengers towards a number of benches, fac- 
 ing a small table, at which sit an official in plain clothes 
 and an officer wearing the green tabs on his collar and 
 the green band round his cap which denote the Intelli- 
 gence Service of the British Army. Once more there 
 are questions to be answered. This is an examination 
 conducted on behalf of the military authorities. You 
 may have satisfied the Foreign Office and yet fail to 
 satisfy the Intelligence Department. 
 
 "What are your reasons for going to the United 
 States?" 
 
 "Ever been there before?" 
 
 "What is your occupation?" 
 
 Wearily the travellers repeat their replies for the last 
 time. All are found "Not guilty." They hurry on 
 board to take possession of their state-rooms and to see 
 that their trunks have been distributed to them. 
 
 Now begins the discussion of the question: "Ho\^ 
 soon shall we be off?" Tales are gloomily told of ships 
 that have been kept in the Mersey for five days. Is it 
 an advantage for us that the weather is calm? Does 
 that not make it easier for submarines to attack? Do 
 we have to wear our lifebelts all the time? Is an in- 
 flated waistcoat better than a cork belt? 
 
 One passenger has a whole suit to wear in case of dis- 
 
30 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 aster. It is like a diver's suit in appearance. He fetches 
 it from his cabin and puts it on in view of an admiring 
 throng. He takes too long however to struggle into it. 
 Admiration changes to doubt of its efficacy. "Ship 
 would go down before you'd found your way in and but- 
 toned it all up," says a sceptic, voicing the verdict of the 
 rest. We drift out on to the deck again, hang over the 
 side, watch the bridge which connects us with the shore 
 being removed, speculate as to whether we are really off 
 or not. 
 
 In a few minutes our doubts are dispelled and our 
 spirits rise rapidly. We are casting off. Into the wide 
 river we go, down towards the mouth of it. Westward 
 we see the sun declining. Into the sunset we shall soon 
 be heading. "New York to-morrow week perhaps, who 
 knows ?" 
 
 Who knows? Indeed that is a question impossible to 
 answer. Nobody knows. We have to wait for instruc- 
 tions. Those who give the instructions have to wait for 
 the reports of the submarine-chasers. What the sub- 
 marines will be doing at any given moment, nobody 
 knows. Patient we must be, if we are detained, and 
 thankful that the British and American patrols and 
 mine-sweepers are making the way as safe as it can be 
 made for our voyage. 
 
 Need for patience soon overtakes us. Opposite the 
 Tower at New Brighton Beach plump goes our anchor. 
 Here we are to stay until further orders. These do not 
 come until we are in bed. In the night we make another 
 start. Next morning we are well on our way. Not 
 the most familiar way, but a way more interesting and 
 more picturesque. Never have the hills and vales of 
 Ireland looked greener and lovelier than on this bright 
 day of blue sky and sunshine. The sea has a brisk little 
 
CROSSING THE ATLANTIC IN WAR-TIME 31 
 
 "popple" on it, but the ship ploughs along with a steady 
 movement. Every one is eager to catch a glimpse of 
 some of the vessels that are taking care of us. Now 
 and again we sight the smoke of a destroyer or pass a 
 fleet of mine-sweepers, and feel we would like to cheer 
 the brave crews of them, who risk their lives daily and 
 every hour of the day to keep tlie Atlantic Lane open and 
 secure. 
 
 If we choose, we can keep that Lane open and send 
 ships along it with very small risk. The chief safe- 
 guards against submarine attack are, Speed not less than 
 fifteen knots and hundreds of small fast armed patrol 
 craft to hunt the U-boats away. How small the danger 
 is for fast ships can be judged from this which I 
 know to be a fact. One of the Departments of my Brit- 
 ish War Mission in the United States has sent to Eng- 
 land its accounts weekly since early spring. It was dis- 
 covered lately that they have not been sent in duplicate 
 even. Yet none of them have failed to reach England. 
 Is it any wonder that an official in London who was 
 asked : "What precautions do you take to ensure your 
 communications reaching your representatives in Amer- 
 ica?" replied "Precautions? No precautions at all. We 
 post our letters in the ordinary way." 
 
 Here is proof that speed confers immunity to a very 
 marked degree. It may happen that by ill fortune or 
 through carelessness a fast ship will be caught and sunk, 
 but if all possible precautions are taken and if all ships 
 traversing the Atlantic Lane could steam at not less than 
 fifteen knots, (and faster if the speed of German sub- 
 marines increases, as it very likely may), then we could 
 have regular traffic attended by very little risk. At pres- 
 ent the danger zone is not of vast extent, though it would 
 never be safe to assume that the enemy may not at any 
 
32 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 time increase its area. While our ship is in this zone 
 there is a noticeable tendency among some of the passen- 
 gers to talk about any subject rather than submarines, 
 and many anxious looks are to be seen directed towards 
 the waste of ocean on either side of the ship. 
 
 Sometimes we are hailed by a patrol boat. Lucky for 
 us if it does not tell our captain to turn in somewhere 
 and wait for instructions. Often the Loughs which dent 
 the coast of Ireland are littered with ships that have 
 been ordered for their own good and safety to get into 
 shelter. Nothing of this interesting uncertainty accom- 
 panied the voyages of peace-time. Nor were there guns 
 mounted fore and aft in peace-time, with American 
 blue jackets manning them, standing by the whole time 
 that ships are in the danger-zone. They keep a sharp 
 look-out. One man has powerful glasses (not the tele- 
 scope, which used to be always preferred for sea work). 
 Another has a telephone apparatus strapped over his 
 head, the mouthpiece just under his chin. A third stands 
 by a huge speaking-tube. The instant any suspicious 
 object is sighted these men give warning. On the bridge 
 are gunnery officers as well as the ship's officers, not less 
 vigilant than their men on deck. 
 
 Never are the gun-crews or the gunnery officers al- 
 lowed to quit their posts so long as there is danger. 
 Night and day they are ready for action. How they 
 enjoy their sleep when the tension is relaxed! 
 
 "Tired, I expect," I say to one of the sailors, a fair, 
 handsome giant who is sitting in a deck-chair, blinking 
 at the sun. This is all the rest permitted, and only one 
 at a time. 
 
 "You bet you," he makes answer. "But to-morrow 
 I'll have fourteen hours in my bunk. We'll be out of 
 the danger-zone then." 
 
CROSSING THE ATLANTIC IN WAR-TIME 33 
 
 Splendid fellows, these American naval gunners. 
 Keen on their work, making light of its fatigues, eager, 
 how eager, to get a shot in at the enemy. They are 
 proud of their guns, proud of what they can do in the 
 shooting line, proud of their appearance also. In the 
 slacker days they paint them and shine up their brass- 
 work with affectionate care. The passengers grow fond 
 of their defenders, feel safe when they see them stand- 
 ing round their long naval guns. Many of the voyagers 
 are as anxious as the gunners for "something to hap- 
 pen," even though it meant risk of being torpedoed. 
 Time hangs heavy on our hands. There is no regular 
 service of news by wireless to provide us with topics for 
 discussion. Only official passengers can receive or send 
 telegrams. Wireless is only used now for urgent mes- 
 sages of strict business. Deck games are played. There 
 is much dancing among the second-cabin passengers. 
 But one does not seem to settle down to the conditions 
 of the voyage, as one used to. There is so much un- 
 certainty. One poor little American woman with a baby 
 scarcely ever leaves the deck, I notice. She is afraid of 
 being below if "anything happened." A truly pathetic 
 figure, this anxious mother. Some of us spend most of 
 the time calculating how long it will be before we reach 
 New York. They have nothing to go upon, for we do 
 not even know where we are. Though the ship's run is. 
 announced each noon, its position on the chart is not 
 marked. But they go on making their calculations simply 
 for something to do. 
 
 Others pass hours scanning the horizon for signs of 
 craft, enemy or Ally : at so great a distance it is scarcely 
 possible to disting-uish friend from foe. One afternoon 
 a ship whicli puzzles even our officers comes well in 
 view. Our guns are trained on her. No doubt hers are 
 
34 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 trained on us. She is coming nearer to us. Can she be 
 a new raider escaped from Wilhelmshafen ? "Watch 
 for a flash from her broadside," suggests a passenger al- 
 ways hoping for an adventure, "and if you see it, throw 
 yourself on deck quick." But no flash comes, and the 
 mystery ship, after inspecting us, turns away again. Still 
 it is an exciting little episode. 
 
 Some ships have more adventures than others. One 
 which followed ours after a short interval had a narrow 
 escape of being hit by a torpedo. At half -past-ten one 
 morning a woman jumped from her deck-chair and cried 
 out "Look, look, what is it?" At the same moment the 
 crews of the gun became suddenly even more intent and 
 earnest than usual. One or two who had either heard 
 the woman's cry or seen the gun-crews stiffen, noticed 
 a white track approach the ship and pass her just astern. 
 
 "Was it really a torpedo?" said the chief gunnery offi- 
 cer afterwards, replying to some Doubting Thomas pas- 
 sengers. "Sure thing it was a torpedo. I saw it from 
 the bridge, and I caught sight of the periscope of the 
 U-boat that let us have it. But next moment our smoke 
 had hidden it. We couldn't get a shot in." 
 
 This same ship experienced another alarm. On a hot 
 Sunday afternoon just after tea-time the electric bells 
 began ringing through the ship. All passengers on deck 
 were made to scurry inside and to gather at the head of 
 the main stairway. The doors were shut and then fol- 
 lowed instantly the tearing, deafening report of a gun. 
 ^'Put on your lifebelts" was the order given. With ad- 
 mirable courage and coolness the women obeyed, then 
 awaited further developments. Their hearts beat faster 
 than usual. They were some of them a little white about 
 the lips. But they had counted the cost of what they 
 did before they started. They showed no fear. 
 
CROSSING THE ATLANTIC IN WAR-TIME 35 
 
 Again and again that sound which made even men 
 jump and stuff handkerchiefs into their ears, was re- 
 peated. Windows were broken all over the ship. The 
 flashes made those who looked out think for the moment 
 that they were blinded. The crashes set nerves on edge, 
 made all who had never heard gun-fire at close quarters 
 before feel quite sure that they never wanted to hear it 
 again. 
 
 In reality there was no danger. A strange object 
 which had at first the appearance of a submarine peri- 
 scope was sighted off the port bow. Taking no risks, the 
 gunners fired on it. As it drifted past, it was seen to be 
 a buoy with a pole sticking out of it. The pole was 
 certainly like a periscope, and as the buoy rolled in a 
 heavy sea, it did resemble what one might see of a sub- 
 marine's hull in like conditions. The opportunity for 
 gun-practice was too good to be let slip Sixty rounds 
 were fired. Then the passengers were released, with 
 something very interesting to talk about for the rest of 
 the afternoon. 
 
 Though there are so few of us, there is no lack of 
 interesting talk. For each traveller has a reason for 
 travelling. The type of person who drifts from one 
 part of the world to the other without knowing why fills 
 up a lot of space on Atlantic liners in ordinary times. 
 But not in war-time. Every passenger now has a defi- 
 nite object in making the voyage, and it is the people with 
 objects in life who are the interesting people. There are 
 a number of young men returning to the United States 
 to serve in the Army which is going to help in finishing 
 the war. There are British men of business who have 
 placed their services at the disposal of their country and 
 who are going to spend British money in the United 
 States. There are plucky young Englishwomen who 
 
S6 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 have volunteered to v^ork for the British War Mission. 
 There is an American newspaper man returning from 
 the front and a British newspaper man commissioned to 
 tell the British public how America is making war. 
 
 Plenty of talk then to while away the long summer 
 days until one morning my Irish room-steward tells me 
 "Ye'll be landin' to-morrow night or maybe the mornin' 
 afther," We have all been longing for the voyage to be 
 over, but now that it is nearly ended, we almost regret 
 it. On some ships the men passengers are asked to take 
 night watches on the bridge, and they grumble, as men 
 will, yet they are regretful when their duties come to an 
 end. Why is it? This voyage has been longer than any 
 I ever made across the Atlantic. What has made us en- 
 joy it? What is it that will make us look back on it as 
 a voyage of unusual interest? It is that spice of adven- 
 ture I spoke of. It is the tinge of danger. Travelling 
 has ceased to be humdrum, uneventful. It has become 
 romantic again. 
 
THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 
 
THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE ^ 
 
 Headquarters, Canadian Army, France. 
 
 Embedded in the heart of the great Canadian Army 
 in France is a body of American citizens in khaki, who 
 have already succeeded in effecting another of the sev- 
 eral revolutions produced in warfare by the United 
 States. 
 
 The first and most important was the aeroplane in- 
 vented by the Wrights, of Dayton, Ohio. The second is 
 the machine-gun, originally designed by Maxim, with the 
 newer Lewis light machine-gun easily carried, or for use 
 on aeroplanes. 
 
 The third revolution is one that I would hardly be- 
 lieve had I not had ocular demonstration. It is the con- 
 version of the British Tommy to a faith in pork and 
 beans as a diet instead of the beef on which he has 
 fought since the time of the Norman conquest of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 These Americans in the British Army, with whom I 
 have just spent a day, are part of the topsy-turveydom 
 in which we are living, and when I saw them marching 
 back from the trenches to the tunes of "My Country, 
 'tis of Thee," "The Star-Spangled Banner," and the less 
 classic and more modern ragtime, I wondered what the 
 small American boys, who have so often teased me on 
 
 * This, the first account of the Americans in our Army, was writ- 
 ten early in 1917 for the 850 journals of the United Press of 
 America. 
 
 39 
 
40 LORD NORTHCLLFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 Independence Day celebrations in your country, would 
 have thought of a factor in the war that is not sufficiently 
 known in the United States. 
 
 I propose telling you what the American soldiers in 
 the British and French Armies are doing, where they 
 come from, how they live, and why they came. 
 
 The Germans are particularly bitter towards them, and 
 say that these splendid young Americans were hired by 
 the Allies. From the German point of view the pay of 
 the Americans, who are fighting against Prussianism, is, 
 doubtless, princely. It amounts exactly to a dollar and 
 a quarter a day. I leave people in the United States to 
 judge whether that be the sort of remuneration that is 
 calculated to draw American university graduates — some 
 with considerable private fortunes — business men, real- 
 estate men, clerks, lumber men, engineers, across the 
 Atlantic. The falsehood is one of the bits of German 
 boomerang propaganda with which neutrals are becom- 
 ing acquainted. 
 
 The Americans in the British and French Armies en- 
 listed in divers ways in the first few months of the war. 
 Many went to England 'direct and entered the British 
 Army. Those who were living in Europe at the out- 
 break of the war formed a union with the British resi- 
 dents in France and joined the French. Others went 
 over later and entered the flying services, where they 
 have done splendid work. 
 
 Early in the war, during the battle of the Marne, I was 
 billeted with a number of our dispatch-riders, and much 
 surprised to find that the particular company with whom 
 I was spending the night were mainly from the United 
 States, It is almost impossible to estimate the numbers 
 of Americans in these two Armies, but if we include 
 those engaged in the noble work of the American Ambu- 
 
THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 41 
 
 lance in Paris and its numerous automobile convoys, it 
 has been estimated at quite a sufficient number to have 
 made the American language, American music, and Bos- 
 ton baked beans familiar. 
 
 A great feature of the war on the Western front at 
 present are the day and night raids — a stark form of 
 individual fighting encouraged by the British leader. Sir 
 Douglas Haig, in which the Canadians and British, who 
 have a considerable force of Americans with them, are 
 adepts. Each raid, as I have said, is a miniature battle. 
 It was in studying this form of warfare that I had the 
 pleasure of seeing the Americans who are serving with 
 a Canadian regiment reviewed by a general on their 
 return from the firing line for a rest and a New Year's 
 Day dinner that was a week late. 
 
 By a curious coincidence the setting of the scene was 
 that of a thousand of American and Canadian lumber 
 camps, even down to the log-houses. We were just out 
 of shell range of the German runs, though the British 
 artillery was talking all the time. As the men came 
 down the hillside, through the tall pine trees, it did not 
 take long for one who has visited most of the States of 
 the Union to detect, despite the mud and fatigue, from 
 which of the world's continents they came. They were 
 in the highest of high spirits. Released uhm the cramped 
 tension of the always shelled, water-logged trenches, they 
 came tumbling over each other like schoolboys. All are 
 in pleasant and happy relations with their Canadian and 
 British officers, which make for good fighting and do not 
 derogate from strict discipline. They were paraded for 
 a moment or two for inspection ; and, as company after 
 company formed into line, I could not but admire the 
 quickness — cumbered as they were with all sorts of equip- 
 ment, and an extra suit of caked mud — with which they 
 
42 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 came to attention and eyes right. If I had any doubt 
 as to the home of these stalwart fighters for freedom it 
 would have been settled by a steady movement of the 
 jaws, betokening a habit which is rapidly spreading 
 among the English and French, and which is said by 
 doctors to be quite a useful relaxation when under the 
 fire of trench mortars and Mincnwerfcr. Before each 
 company was dismissed I was allowed to make them a 
 short speech and to mix and mingle as freely as I chose. 
 I had brought with me a newspaper cutting from a Ger- 
 man source, in which it was said that the Americans 
 complained of their treatment. I had only to read it to 
 the first group to have it hotly denied. "We are having 
 a perfectly corking time, despite the mud," said a Cali- 
 fornian with a figure several sizes taller and larger than 
 Mr. Hearst's and a voice as resonant as Mr. Roose- 
 velt's. "You will not find a 'grouch' in the whole 'outfit,' 
 except that we had not expected to have to learn rnud- 
 swimming and that we do not see enough home news- 
 papers." "As for that," replied another, "I don't want 
 to see mine. The folks sent it along at first, but I stopped 
 it, for it gave only Fritzy's side of the case." 
 
 I found lack of home newspapers to be a general com- 
 plaint. All who have relatives or friends in the Ameri- 
 can army, should see that they get a newspaper every 
 M^eek. 
 
 These American boys are proud, and rightly proud, of 
 the deeds of their own American men and officers. In 
 the midst of this vast army — the British Army in France 
 has now been publicly stated to exceed two million men 
 — they occupy an anomalous, if proud, position. 
 
 Among the heroic dead there is no greater story than 
 that of Major Stewart, for twelve years in the American 
 cavalry, who joined in the great Canadian attack on the 
 
THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 43 
 
 Regina Trench — named after the Canadian town of 
 Regina. Though not engaged in that particular opera- 
 tion, he could not resist the temptation to dash over the 
 parapet with a cry of "Come on, boys!" Terribly 
 wounded, he endeavoured to struggle forward against 
 the Germans, but was carried back and then killed by 
 shell fire. He is one of the many Americans whose 
 dare-devilry has endeared them to their Canadian and 
 British associates. 
 
 While most of the newspaper dispatches from Wash- 
 ington which reach the French and English newspapers 
 were full of the word "peace" these husky young Ameri- 
 can citizens would not hear of it. "To h with peace 
 
 talk," said a bright-eyed boy from Kansas City, "while 
 these slant-heads across the line there are enslaving 
 French and Belgian women and children. There would 
 be none of this peace business at home if the people 
 there knew the facts." On New Year's Day the Boche 
 soldiers put out boards saying "Why not have a peace 
 talk?" The reply of the whole Allied line was an artil- 
 lery bombardment which clenched the question. 
 
 A blue-eyed American from Wisconsin, with, I should 
 think, Swedish blood in his veins, said, "Our people at 
 home do not seem to realise that talking peace terms 
 with the Germans still in France means a German vic- 
 tory. The home folks do not know what we know. In 
 the matter of fight the Prussians, brave as they are, are 
 down and out." "The German Government is crying 
 out for peace," added a hatchet-faced Yankee who had 
 gone out West as a boy, made good, and thrown up all 
 for the war, "because the German Army and the German 
 people know that we have got them where we want 
 them." 
 
 There is little bitterness against the enemy among the 
 
44 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 Canadian, American, and British soldiers. They admire 
 his mass fighting, his machine-like disciplne, but they 
 have no use for him in the kind of warfare now going 
 on. *'You will find the Canadians and Americans a 
 thinking, independent army," remarked the distinguished 
 British general who had given me permission to spend 
 this very interesting day, and so I found them to be. 
 They had brought to the stock of vitality and knowledge 
 embraced in the wonderful citizen Armies of France 
 and England the qualities inherited by the generations 
 which have spanned the North American Continent with 
 its railroads, chained Niagara, linked up the world's 
 cities and armies by telephone, lit the dug-outs with in- 
 candescent lamps, cheered them with canned music, and 
 brought a thousand other mechanical ideas to perfec- 
 tion. 
 
 If you take a map of the United States and go up 
 and down the American lines in France you will find 
 no city, great or small, which has not sent a flying man, 
 a bomber, an artilleryman, a sniper, or dispatch rider 
 to help to destroy Prussian despotism. In the United 
 States you probably hear more of the spectacular part 
 of the American work — that which enthrals the whole 
 world — the new art of fighting in the skies. I confess, 
 indeed, that although I have spent many weeks at the 
 war the spectacle of winged fighters high in the sun- 
 light is one that holds my attention as nothing in the 
 world ever has. In peace times, and when we were 
 younger, we have often been tlirilled by a close baseball 
 or football match; but when, sheltered perhaps in a 
 trench, we see two specks approaching each other and 
 with a pair of strong glasses gradually realise that one 
 is an American who has given up .everything — home, 
 prosperity, and probably life — to throw himself into a 
 
THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 45 
 
 foreign Army, and that the other Is a brave German 
 doing what he conceives to be his duty, we recognise 
 that here are two combatants worth watching. 
 
 Very rarely do the Germans venture over our lines, 
 and one has to be very far forward nowadays to get a 
 good view of a fight between the AlHes and the enemy 
 in the air. I have had that good fortune several times. 
 Air fighting in 1914 bore as much resemblance to air 
 fighting in 191 7 as an old steam automobile to a six- 
 cylinder of to-day. There is a perpetual match in speed- 
 ing up between the enemy and the Allies. Four or five 
 miles an hour extra pace means everything. It is not the 
 increase of engine power to over 200 h.p. that has brought 
 about the change so much as the wonderful progress of 
 the art of flying itself, and it is just here that the Anglo- 
 Saxon and the Frenchman beat the slower-minded Ger- 
 man. It is just for this reason why the German soldiers' 
 letters are so full of complaint about the over-cautious 
 German airman. 
 
 When Pegoud invented looping the loop people asked, 
 "Why? What is the use of it?" Pegoud was a very 
 considerable inventor as well as a flyer, is the answer. 
 Looping the loop is a useful manoeuvre, and it has been 
 succeeded by that extraordinary development, the nose 
 dive, in which the airman seems to fall like a stone for 
 thousands of feet, till the spectator's hair rises from his 
 head in horror. Suddenly the machine flattens out, 
 scoots away, and you find that it is only a trick after all. 
 I talked with one of our wounded boys — he was just 
 nineteen — who had fallen 8,000 feet owing to his rudder 
 wire connection being shot through. By a miracle his 
 machine straightened itself out automatically within a 
 hundred yards of the ground, and the boy is alive and 
 will fly again. I asked him his sensations : he is probably 
 
46 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 the only man in the world alive who has fallen 8,cxdo 
 feet — more than ten times the height of the Woolworth 
 building, New York City, 750 feet. He said that for a 
 long time — what seemed like hours — he knew that he 
 was falling, and falling at a tremendous speed, and then 
 he lost consciousness, as in a dream, and found himself 
 being picked out of the wreck of his machine by people 
 who thought that he was dead. 
 
 At the beginning of an air fight there is manoeuvring 
 for position and feinting as in boxing. There are, as a 
 rule, two men in each machine — a pilot and an observer 
 — except in the smaller types, in which the wings are 
 clipped down to nothing to get extra speed and climbing 
 power. Knowledge of engine and plane power, quick- 
 ness of decision, and accuracy of shooting with the 
 Lewis gun are essential to the pilot. His observer is 
 provided with some form of pistol and often with bombs. 
 
 The rival planes, like giant hawks, hover around, 
 above, or below each other, till one more expert or more 
 daring than the other manoeuvres his opponent into a 
 position from which he has either got to fight or flee. 
 The knock-out blow is usually a sudden descent on the 
 enemy, accompanied by accurate machine-gun fire. 
 Sometimes it become a duel with Browning pistols, in 
 which the men are so close that they can see each other's 
 eA'es. The thing is over before you realise it. One ma- 
 chine is off and away, and the other whirls and crashes 
 down, down, down to earth. 
 
 The British Army does not permit the names of its 
 flying heroes to be published. In telling you, therefore, 
 of the American flyers, I must deal with those Ameri- 
 cans in the French Army. 
 
 Lieutenant Thaw, of Pittsburg, was one of a number 
 of Americans who entered the famous Foreign Legion 
 
THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 47 
 
 of the French Army on the outbreak of war, and is the 
 senior American flying officer in France. His name and 
 that of his colleagues are better known in Europe than in 
 their own country. 
 
 In giving a list of those whose names are known 
 (some, alas! are lying beneath the wooden cross) I can 
 say no more than that they are worthy representatives of 
 a great nation. 
 
 Lieutenant Thaw was followed by Bert Hall, from 
 Texas, James Bach, D. Masson, Givas Lufbery, James 
 McConnell, of Chicago, Chouteau Johnson, of New 
 York, Elliot Cowdin, Kiffin Rockwell, Clyde Balsley, of 
 Texas, Dudley Hill, of Peekskill, New York, and Victor 
 Chapman. 
 
 The policy of the American airmen serving with the 
 French Army is that of the British and French — to at- 
 tack. They have played a goodly part in the invention of 
 the constantly changing tactics of air fighting. 
 
 My last recollection of the American soldiers was their 
 well-spread New Year's table, at which was everything 
 the tired man from across the Atlantic could want, from 
 turkeys to dough-nuts. 
 
 I put one question to a score of those whose mothers 
 were not ashamed to raise them to be soldiers. I asked 
 them why they had come. The reply of the American 
 in France is the same every time, whether you meet him 
 with the Canadian Army, the British Army, or the 
 French Army. They all say words to this effect : — "The 
 sort of thing that has been going on in Europe as the 
 result of the horrible organised savagery of the Prus- 
 sians has got to be stopped. We want to stop it before 
 it reaches our own country. We have come over here to 
 do it, and, thank God, we know that we are helping to 
 do it, and it is to be thoroughly done." 
 
48 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 To which one of them added as I said good-night: — 
 "If any one asks you what sort of a time the Americans 
 are having just hand them out one good home- word — 
 'Bully.' " 
 
WHAT TO SEND "YOUR SOLDIER'* 
 
WHAT TO SEND TO "YOUR SOLDIER" 
 
 A NUMBER of people have asked me the question since 
 my arrival in the United States: What are the gifts 
 which the soldier in the field most gratefully appre- 
 ciates? Hundreds of thousands of fathers and mothers, 
 of sisters and cousins, of uncles and aunts, will soon be 
 wanting to send parcels to the hundreds of thousands 
 of American soldiers who are going to France "to serve 
 the cause of Liberty in this great war," as President Wil- 
 son has happily put it. Unless they are advised, they 
 may very likely, in the kindness of their hearts, send the 
 wrong gifts. A dear old lady in England forwarded to 
 her nephew at the front a typewriter "to write his let- 
 ters with," an elaborate picnic-basket; and a manicure 
 set solidly mounted in silver. She did not understand 
 that the soldier has to carry about with him everything 
 that he possesses. Her gifts found their way swiftly 
 to the nearest pawnbroker's. 
 
 Every extra pound that the soldier carries on his back 
 means extra fatigue. At first he begins nearly always 
 by loading himself up with all kinds of articles which 
 add to the comfort and convenience of life, but which 
 weigh a great deal more than he finds it pleasant to bear. 
 He soon discards them. He brings his burden down to 
 the irreducible minimum. One day I came across some 
 of our men in a village near the firing-line who were 
 turning out their waterproof canvas bags with a view 
 
 51 
 
52 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 to lightening them. It was pathetic to watch them reck- 
 oning up what they could best do without. Soldiers ac- 
 cumulate every variety of queer "treasures." One had 
 been carting about for a long time the head of a Ger- 
 man shell "for some one at Home." He had to choose 
 between it and a tin of sardines. Another was sadly 
 contemplating a small carriage-clock. I did not ask him 
 whether it was a present or a "find." It was given to a 
 French villager in exchange for "red wine all round." 
 
 That is the first and most important thing to bear in 
 mind, then. Whatever you send, your soldier will either 
 have to carry with him wherever he goes, or else leave 
 behind. 
 
 Next, remember that he is leading a simple life and 
 that his needs are for the most part elemental. Don't 
 be misled into saying to yourself : "Oh, that is such an 
 ordinary thing. He can surely buy that for himself." 
 Often it happens that the soldier is out of reach of shops 
 for a long while. He may be passing his time between 
 the trenches and some village behind the firing-line, where 
 all that can be bought are inferior chocolate and ciga- 
 rettes, these at exorbitant prices. At many points there 
 are Y. M. C. A. huts which sell all kinds of things that 
 soldiers need. These are doing a most useful work : they 
 also serve as rest-houses for the men, restaurants, tea- 
 shops, and entertainment halls. But a man may not 
 come within reach of one of these stores, or of any place 
 where he can make purchases, for weeks, and maybe 
 months, at a time. 
 
 Such necessaries as soap, toothbrushes, writing-paper 
 and envelopes are apt to be very welcome. At all events, 
 sent from Home, they are likely to be of better quality 
 than any that can be bought in the area of war. I recol- 
 lect one man telling me he derived an exquisite pleasure 
 
WHAT TO SEND TO "YOUR SOLDIER" 5^ 
 
 from washing himself with a certain kind of soap always 
 used in his mother's house. 
 
 The best sweets to send are, I should say, chocolate 
 and bulls' eyes. Chewing-gum should certainly not be 
 forgotten. It is not easy to buy in France. The bulls* 
 eyes ought to have plenty of peppermint in them, for it is 
 the peppermint which keeps those who suck them warm 
 on a cold night. It also has a digestive effect, though 
 that is of small account at the front, where health is so 
 good and indigestion hardly ever even heard of. The 
 open-air life, the regular and plenteous feeding, the ex- 
 ercise, and the freedom from care and responsibility, keep 
 the soldiers extraordinarily fit and contented. Many 
 have assured me that they never knew what it was to feel 
 perfectly well and strong before. 
 
 Wrist watches are welcome gifts, and these should all 
 have luminous hands so that the owner can tell the time 
 in the dark; they should also have the little protective 
 covers on them which look like tiny gridirons. They 
 are valuable for keeping the watch-glass unbroken. 
 There is a tiny stove sold in England called "Tommy's 
 Cooker." No doubt this either is or soon will be pro- 
 curable here. The spirit which it burns is not liquid, 
 but solid, a great convenience for Tommy. This is a 
 useful little present. Electric torches with plenty of 
 refills come in handy. They are better than candles, 
 though these are at times worth their weight in coin. 
 When a squad is settling into a barn or an outhouse for 
 the night, a dark night and a long night, from five o'clock 
 in the evening perhaps till eight next morning, the men 
 who have candle ends in their bags are envied by all 
 their fellows. 
 
 Indelible pencils and fountain pens, especially those 
 which fill themselves without need of a glass syringe. 
 
64 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 never come amiss. No matter though you think your 
 soldier has one. Very likely he has lost or broken it. 
 Anyway he will either break or lose it before long. 
 You may be sure he will not mind having one in reserve. 
 The same applies to wrist-watches, and also to pipes. 
 They are small and light to carry in the pocket. A new 
 one is never superfluous. Put a pipe in always when 
 you are sending a parcel, if he smokes a pipe. Put one 
 in even if he does not, for he can "trade" the pipe away 
 for something else. Put in some of his favourite to- 
 bacco as well. Probably he cannot get it anyv^diere in 
 France. Nothing will stir his feelings more surely than 
 the flavour of the mixture he was accustomed to use at 
 Home. 
 
 Knives are necessities to the soldier. He wants them 
 for varied employments. He must have strong blades. 
 He requires next in order a corkscrew, not a flimsy one 
 liable to be broken by the first tough cork it encounters ; 
 an awl for making holes; scissors, and a saw. Knives 
 with these attachments will make him happy and get him 
 out of many a difficulty. Small "housewives," by which 
 I mean cases containing needles and cotton, thread, but- 
 tons, safety-pins, and so on, are an immense help when 
 minor repairs are necessary. Nothing bulky or com- 
 plicated : just the necessaries for sewing up rents, sewing 
 on buttons, stitching burst button-holes. 
 
 Playing cards are grateful and comforting to all who 
 find recreation in card-games. Decks of cards get very 
 quickly soiled and greasy in the trenches. Fresh decks 
 are hailed with enthusiasm. If your soldier is more of a 
 reader than a card-player, send him books, only be sure 
 they are small books, "infinite riches in a little room." 
 A tiny selection of poems by a favourite poet, or a min- 
 iature edition of some story, some essays, some work 
 
WHAT TO SEND TO "YOUR SOLDIER" 55 
 
 of research or imagination, an edition that will go into 
 the pocket without taking up too much space. That is a 
 gift which will bring to many a soldier the finest pleas- 
 ure of all pleasures, absorption in the visions or the 
 thoughts of one of the world's great minds. 
 
 Remember that soldiers at the front have a great deal 
 of time on their hands. They need occupation. Select 
 your presents with that in mind. Musical instruments, 
 if they are small, mouth-organs, for example, are much 
 sought after. In Italy the soldiers play on little man- 
 dolins specially made for the front. In Russia the bal- 
 alika, a kind of guitar, is heard very often: the con- 
 certina too. Many French soldiers produce charming 
 music from shepherd's pipes. 
 
 As for warm things to wear, those which the soldiers 
 prize most highly are knitted mufflers, ten or twelve 
 inches wide and from four to five feet long, which can 
 be wound all round the head in bitter weather or passed 
 about the body so as to form a woollen waistcoat. 
 Knitted helmets are good to save ears from frostbite: 
 see that there is plenty of material to come down over 
 the shoulders and chest. Mittens and thick socks are 
 always acceptable in the weather which prevails in the 
 north and east of France from October until April. The 
 socks must be very large for the foot which is to be 
 kept warm by them. Khaki handkerchiefs may be sent 
 as often as you like. They are better than white ones, 
 and a fresh supply is always handy. Vaseline is a good 
 gift. It can be used for many purposes. It serves as a 
 lubricant. It eases feet that have marched far. It is 
 good for bums. It relieves the pain of sunburnt or wind- 
 burnt skin. Pond's Extract is another useful medica- 
 ment. Do not forget safety-razors and shaving soap. 
 
 Those I think are some of the chief things that the 
 
56 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 boys in the trenches need. But most of all they long for 
 letters from Home, and for the Home town newspaper. 
 World-news they get in English or French journals: it 
 is local news they hunger for. Write to them and send 
 them such newspapers at least once a week. I have 
 sometimes had to turn away from groups of soldiers at 
 the front because I could not bear to see the anguish 
 on the faces of men who saw their comrades reading let- 
 ters and who had received none themselves. Do not 
 let your soldier have to feel the sharp and painful sting 
 of neglect. Keep him well supplied with news and 
 loving words. 
 
THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 
 
THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 
 
 Headquarters, Canadian Army, France. 
 
 A BRILLIANT late summer Canadian morning in Win- 
 nipeg — Labour Day, when hour after hour a procession 
 of stalwart trade unionists, with their music and banners, 
 passed along the American-looking streets bearing 
 proudly the emblems of their trades. 
 
 That half-forgotten scene was in my mind as I waited 
 by the roadside in Flanders to see the same men, square- 
 jawed, on their way through the snow to the ordeal of 
 the firing line. For some of these Canadians it was 
 their first trial; others had been "over the top" again 
 and again in the raids in which they have been so suc- 
 cessful in capturing and agitating the enemy. 
 
 In appearance Canadian soldiers more closely re- 
 semble British soldiers than any of the others from 
 overseas. Many are of a great stature, especially the 
 Scotsmen from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Cape 
 Breton, some of the descendants of the disbanded High- 
 land regiments of long ago. Quite a number speak 
 Gaelic. Most of the other English-speakers are of the 
 strong and stocky Canadian and American type, which 
 has resulted from a generation or two of the natural 
 life of the out-of-doors men. The French Canadians 
 are smaller, but they are wiry. 
 
 59 
 
60 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 The Canadian front in France is a replica in minia- 
 ture of the whole vast Dominion. It is a world of the 
 railroads, the forests, the farms, the mines, the lakes, 
 the rivers, tlie banks, insurance, real estate, the lumber 
 camp and, dare I whisper it? even politics. 
 
 The Canadian soldiers have had good and bad luck. 
 At home many of them are accustomed and willing to 
 rough it in all sorts of ways, and they were, therefore, 
 inured to discomfort. They had not experienced damp 
 mud, and the dreadful mud of that first rainy winter on 
 Salisbury Plain was a real misfortune. They bore their 
 trials nobly, though so arduous were the conditions that 
 the actual mortality was serious. 
 
 All their ill luck, however, was more than balanced 
 when they secured for their leader one of the ablest, 
 as well as one of the best-liked generals in the whole 
 war — Sir Julian Byng, a worthy representative of a 
 great fighting family. 
 
 After Sir Julian took command the Canadians hu- 
 morously called themselves "The Bing Boys," after a 
 popular musical comedy. In one battle they gaily sig- 
 nalled back from within a few yards of the artillery 
 barrage that "The Bing Boys are here," denoting their 
 arrival at the second German Trench. 
 
 There was still lingering in tlie Overseas mind an 
 old lurking suspicion of the Imperial Officer: it dated 
 back to General Braddock's mishandling of the American 
 Colonists, and the treatment of young Colonel George 
 Washington when he was fighting on the English side. 
 Such doubts, however, did not apply to Sir Julian Byng, 
 who had the absolute confidence and afifection of his 
 warmhearted and practical army. Sir Julian is a big, 
 well-made man with strong jaws, strong ears, and a 
 strong walk, distinctly handsome with dark blue eyes. 
 
THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 61 
 
 His military experience is as complete and varied as 
 that of any officer at the war. His Canadian colleagues, 
 General Currie, General Watson, General Lipsitt, and 
 French-Canadians with names like Bubuc and Papin- 
 eau, all spoke with the same enthusiasm of their Chief. 
 
 It was General Currie who was selected to succeed 
 General Byng in command of the Canadian Forces, and 
 who still commands them. He is a huge Ontario man 
 who made his way West, gathered a fortune in Real 
 Estate and Insurance in the delightful city of Victoria, 
 B. C, and has proved himself as good a soldier as man 
 of business. He is probably one of the biggest Generals 
 in our Army, and certainly one of the most silent. Gen- 
 eral Watson, whom I have known for several years, is 
 the owner of the Quebec Chronicle. 
 
 Each of the British Armies in France has its own 
 characteristics. One of the keynotes of the Canadian 
 character is quick adaptability. The boy who works 
 the lift in the Vancouver hotel and tries to sell you a 
 corner lot may, within twelve months, be running his 
 own real estate office or developing some industry far 
 away on the Yukon. The atmosphere of adaptability in 
 that climate is infectious. The London suburban clerk, 
 who has stood the dull imprisonment of tube, typewriter, 
 and bed-sitting-room until nature has burst his bonds, 
 catches on to the Canadian life in most cases with a 
 rapidity that is due to the vitalising sunshine and the 
 opportunities that offer themselves to everybody except 
 those who are born temperamentally as "quitters." 
 
 Sir Julian Byng and the other Canadian generals have 
 utilised this adaptability to the utmost. Be it remem- 
 bered always that the Dominion troops are undergoing 
 experiences in contrast not known to our own men. 
 Whereas the difference in life in England and Flanders 
 
62 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 is not very great, the difference between Dominion life 
 and European life is vast. The absence of sunshine and 
 the damp, the difference of the diet and the surroundings, 
 constitute an hourly and daily contrast between North 
 American life and ours. It is the French Canadians 
 only who have an advantage over the others. Billet them 
 in a French village and they are at once at home with 
 the inhabitants. Their Louis XIV, accent does not differ 
 as much from the ordinary French as do the dialects 
 of, let us say, Picardy and the Midi, 
 
 Byng and his Canadian generals utilised the speciali- 
 ties of the daily work of the Canadians with signal ef- 
 fect. He and his officers "got together," to use an ex- 
 pression often heard in Canada continually in confer- 
 ences and lectures. By this means they found out ex- 
 actly what particular aptitudes the Canadians could bring 
 to bear in beating the Boche. One speciality is map-mak- 
 ing and surveying. For obvious reasons the Canadians 
 are probably the greatest map-makers in the world, just 
 as they are the greatest railroad builders. They are 
 map-makers by necessity, for they have a rich and largely 
 undeveloped territory forty times the size of the Old 
 Country, which is being mapped and surveyed continu- 
 ously. For the better accomplishment of their purpose 
 they have not only developed their own map-makers, but 
 have absorbed the best talent from Europe. That skill 
 has now been developed in the Canadian Army in France, 
 When I visited Sir Julian two features of his small per- 
 sonal workroom attracted my attention — the theatre 
 posters of the Bing Boys and the red-hot maps showing 
 German positions of yesterday afternoon which had been 
 already photographed by aviators, developed, mapped, 
 printed and circulated up and down the line. This 
 would be "going some" even in Fleet Street. Accurate 
 
THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 63 
 
 photography and mapping of the enemy lines is a life 
 saver of the first importance. How often in the earlier 
 days of the war did we bow our heads before heavy cas- 
 ualty lists caused by machine-guns from a German trench 
 that had been overlooked in the planning of a bombard- 
 ment ! 
 
 I have described so many Armies in outline and the 
 broad outlines of our Armies are so similar, that I can 
 only here deal with a few of the marked differences. 
 The Canadians are great as raiders. Each raid, as I 
 have before pointed out, is a battle in miniature, and 
 sometimes quite a large battle. One of the very first 
 of these modern raids, if not the first, was successfully 
 accomplished by the Canadians at Messines. I find that 
 people at home do not quite realise the significance of 
 these sudden and violent pounces on the German trenches. 
 Their effect may be gathered from some of the German 
 documents with which I shall conclude this chapter. In 
 general, it may be said that these raids, which began 
 as small movements for the identification of opposing 
 forces, are now a successful means of breaking the worn 
 German moral. Snow and frost have been no deterrent 
 to the Canadians, to whom 20 and even 40 below zero 
 are not unknown. 
 
 It was the information obtained by aggressive raiding, 
 and by air-photography which led in large part to the 
 splendid success of the Canadians in capturing Vimy 
 Ridge, an exploit which will remain marked in history as 
 one of the most dashing achievements of the War. This 
 \vas the opening phase of the stubborn struggle which 
 has been going on ever since for the possession of Lens 
 and its coalfields (now, as I write, high hopes are en- 
 tertained of their capture within a short time). The 
 storming of the Ridge was an operation planned with 
 
64 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 admirable decision and brilliantly executed. Nothing 
 could have been finer or more spirited than the behaviour 
 of the Canadian troops. Many of them "went over the 
 top" with cigarettes between their lips. As, at one point, 
 they lay waiting to advance further a captain of my 
 acquaintance found himself next to an Irish Canadian 
 soldier crouching amid a whistling of bullets and burst- 
 ing of shells which for the moment made progress in- 
 advisable. Without raising his head the soldier looked 
 at the officer from imder his steel helmet. "Cap," he 
 said, "there's no doubt about it, this is a dangerous 
 war." 
 
 Vimy Ridge marked the culmination of the Canadian 
 Army's remarkable upward curve of efficiency which 
 began when it found itself in so tight a place in the 
 fighting around Ypres during the Spring of 191 5. Their 
 development proceeded upon two parallel lines. Staff 
 work went forward with daily increase of grasp and in- 
 genuity. The moral of the troops improved at the 
 same time in the most encouraging way. 
 
 At the beginning the Canadian Army had to set to 
 work to create staffs of its own as it went along. Here 
 I should say for the benefit of those who are not yet 
 fully acquainted with the terminology of war that staff 
 work includes all the seeing and hearing and thinking 
 and planning which are the necessary preliminaries to 
 military operations. Canadian Officers took to this work 
 quickly and with penetrating intelligence. They realised 
 the need in the modern battle for unity of action ; action 
 timed with exactitude to the minute, to the second even ; 
 combined action of the different arms. They so skilfully 
 co-ordinated the activities of artillery and infantry that 
 the troops now move forward with confidence and in the 
 perfect certainty of being supported, and of having the 
 
THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 65 
 
 way prepared for them, by their guns. It would astonish 
 you if I could print here a time table I have seen of what 
 is called "barrage fire" that is to say, fire designed to 
 create a zone of death which shall bar the enemy from 
 hindering the advance of the men with the bayonets upon 
 whom in the last analysis the capture of positions always 
 depend. This zone of death was, according to the time 
 table, to be moved forward every few minutes. Every 
 company officer, every platoon commander, knew where 
 it would be at any given second and was able to time 
 his men's movements in consonance with this knowledge. 
 The steady and systematic fashion in which the Cana- 
 dians have carried out the tasks assigned to them during 
 the very severe fighting of 191 6 and 191 7 has been due 
 largely to the excellence of the staff work done in the 
 rear of the storming columns. 
 
 For the rest it has been due to the moral of the army, 
 the result of the strict discipline enforced as soon as the 
 training of the men settled down upon serious lines. 
 That discipline stiffened unseasoned recruits into the 
 troops who held Langemarck in the face of fearful odds 
 and in spite of terrible losses. And once these troops 
 had proved themselves, once they had come through the 
 ordeal by fire, the Canadian Army had what every army 
 requires, if it is to do itself justice : it had a tradition. 
 Langemarck endowed it with a reputation to maintain. 
 Every man felt that he had something to live up to. 
 The men who joined the regiments which had already 
 distinguished themselves were taught that they must 
 never let the regimental prestige suffer, never fail to 
 uphold the honourable name that had been won before 
 they joined. The new Units as they took the field came 
 under the influence of this inspiration, and so the whole 
 force was welded together into an engine of steady 
 
66 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 power and unconquerable zeal. Traditions have immenge 
 value. The Canadian Army acquired theirs in a mar- 
 vellously short time and paid heavily for them. They 
 have been of inestimable value to it. 
 
 The Germans were soon taught to dread meeting the 
 men of the Maple Leaf. They were so unwilling to en- 
 gage Canadians at close quarters that the German Offi- 
 cers were obliged to invent a story that the men from 
 Canada were savages who killed without mercy, refus- 
 ing to allow any enemy to surrender himself. After 
 Vimy Ridge had been stormed, documents were found 
 in German dugouts showing that every effort was made 
 to terrify the gullible Hun into putting up a stiff fight. 
 "Remember the Canadians take no prisoners," the Ger- 
 man soldiers were told in Divisional Orders. Day after 
 day the attack was expected by the enemy, whose nerves 
 were set on edge by the tension of waiting always on 
 the alert, and by the alarming stories set about by their 
 officers. When the attack was made they were in less 
 good shape to resist than they might have been if they 
 had not been thus worried and alarmed. 
 
 German discipline sometimes tells against the very ob- 
 jects at which it aims. Prisoners taken by the Cana- 
 dians have told how units which failed to hold positions 
 assigned to them are punished by being sent to other 
 points of even greater danger or by being kept in the 
 trenches far beyond their usual span of duty. These 
 prisoners explained that, having failed to repulse attack, 
 they knew they would be victimised when they got back 
 to their own lines, so they felt tlieir best course was to 
 surrender. 
 
 What surprises the war investigator is not only the 
 quickness with which the Dominion men have taken to 
 warfare, but the completeness with which their Govern- 
 
THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 67 
 
 ment has equipped its Armies. The Canadians brought 
 everything with them, from highly skilled surgeons 
 and nurses to maple sugar. Every one knows that 
 there are no better hospitals in the w^orld than such in- 
 stitutions as the Royal Victoria in Montreal, and Ca- 
 nadian nursing is famous all over North America, from 
 Edmonton to Key West, from North Sydney to San 
 Francisco. It was to be expected, therefore, that de- 
 spite the criticisms of disgruntled politicians the Cana- 
 dian medical arrangements in France would be excellent. 
 One of the best hospitals that I have seen since the be- 
 ginning of the war is their fine one at St. Cloud, just 
 outside Paris. 
 
 I spent a couple of days with the Canadian soldiers 
 and found that they had no cause of complaint of any 
 sort, except that, unlike the British, they cannot go home 
 on leave, and are therefore doubly exiled, and that they 
 wxre equipped at the outset with the Ross rifle, which 
 they told me was an excellent weapon for match shoot- 
 ing, but a real friend to the Boche, as a Nova Scotian 
 explained, when it came to warfare. It does not take a 
 Canadian long to make up his mind. The Ross rifle 
 was automatically abandoned by the soldiers, and they 
 are now armed with our serviceable weapon, which is 
 as able as any to withstand the mud and violence of war. 
 
 Just a word as to the constitution of the Canadian 
 Army. The earliest contingents were naturally composed 
 of a considerable proportion of emigrants from the Old 
 Country. Latterly, native-born Canadians have pre- 
 dominated. In fact, on my second day with the Cana- 
 dian troops I encountered none but Canadians, both 
 French and English-speaking, with the Americans whom 
 I have described elsewhere. The French Canadians have 
 so far not enlisted in numbers commensurate with the 
 
68 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 population of the great French provinces. But those 
 who are in France are enthusiastic soldiers. Their en- 
 thusiasm is largely for the cause of their French kins- 
 men. It is probable that if the French side could be ex- 
 plained in Quebec by some of the brave French priests 
 from the trenches, French Canada's share would be more 
 worthy. To meet them marching along a cobble-stoned 
 road of Flanders, dressed exactly like our English sol- 
 diers, but speaking French, is one of the thousand con- 
 fusing incidents of the front. Captain Papineau told 
 me that these Canadian Frenchmen have brought back to 
 France the old folk-songs taken away by their ancestors 
 between two and three centuries ago. Sometimes as 
 they pass through the French villages singing their songs 
 the old inhabitants come out to hear lilts that had almost 
 passed from their memory. A Parisian journalist told 
 me that their French has intermingled with it many sea 
 terms. The emigres of that time were largely from Brit- 
 tany and its ports, and to this day they continue the sea 
 talk of their fathers. 
 
 One of my Canadian glimpses was a little procession 
 of shattered-looking enemy prisoners, with their crest- 
 fallen officers, all in very different mood from those with 
 whom I had conversed twelve months before. They 
 were not only cowed, but — what I have never seen in 
 Prussian officers before — shabby as to their clothes. It 
 was explained to me by a Canadian who spoke German 
 that it is the arrival of the big guns that has alarmed 
 them. For years they had relied on big guns, and now 
 the British and French have bigger guns. Something 
 that had never entered into the calculations had appeared. 
 
 Let me quote from some documents captured upon 
 them. Here writes a lieutenant of the 170th Regiment: — 
 
 "You are still in Champagne and no longer in the 
 
THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 69 
 
 witches' cauldron on the edge of which we are sitting, 
 always waiting. During the last few days the air has 
 been alive with aviators, and still more so with heavy 
 shells which have been flying over our heads. Yesterday 
 at noon there was an intense bombardment, frightfully 
 near us, at Beaumont, and an attack which is said to have 
 been repulsed. The number of guns, and of the heaviest 
 calibres, too, that the English possess is uncanny, and 
 the amount of ammunition they fire off quite fabulous. 
 And in addition, which is so bad, their airmen are con- 
 stantly over our lines, discover our batteries so that they 
 may be peppered, and are always attacking our captive 
 balloons, which is the same thing as putting our eyes 
 out. Meanv/hile the sky is black with captive balloons 
 and hostile airmen — but of that I will say nothing, it 
 would be merely pouring water into the Rhine. Solely 
 the English artillery, the English Flying Corps and their 
 balloon observation, have given them the success they 
 have attained. That they have gained no more, in spite 
 of all, is due to our German infantry. We could save 
 several thousands of lives if only we had the English 
 airmen and gunners. It makes one despair when one 
 thinks of it all." 
 
 From a Bavarian: — 
 
 "The war fanatics and their friends ought to go 
 through this literal hell and feel its effects on their own 
 bodies, and then they themselves would surely come to 
 the decision : Peace, peace at any price is the one and 
 only maxim that ought to direct the Government's pol- 
 icy." 
 
 A Company Report, 5th Guard Grenadier Regiment : — 
 
 "I urgently request that I may be relieved to-morrow 
 night, in case no relief takes place to-day. The men 
 have to lie in holes (there are no longer any dug-outs 
 
70 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 in my sector). In addition there is very brisk and well- 
 aimed artillery and trench mortar fire. We are so ex- 
 hausted physically and mentally that with the best will 
 (and that is not lacking) we are no longer in that phys- 
 ical state of readiness that is absolutely essential." 
 
 A private's letter : — 
 
 "Not a day passes but the English let off their gas 
 waves over our trenches at one place or another. People 
 five or six miles behind the front have become uncon- 
 scious from the tail of the gas clouds. Its effects are 
 felt at even 7^ miles behind the front. One has only 
 to look at the rifles after a gas attack to see what deadly 
 stuff it is. They are red with rust, as if they had lain 
 for weeks in the mud. And the effect of the continuous 
 bombardment is indescribable." 
 
 From a man of the i ith R.I.R. : — 
 
 "We entrained at Savigny and at once knew our 
 destination — our old 'blood bath/ the Somme. We re- 
 lieved the 119th on October 7 and had dreadful casual- 
 ties that night. The 9th Company dwindled to 29 men ; 
 two platoons were taken prisoners, and the rest were 
 buried in the dug-outs. Our company has up to date 
 lost 30 men." 
 
 From a letter written by a man in hospital: — 
 
 "Our regiment was suddenly taken from Flanders 
 and flung into the Somme district. Twelve days we 
 stayed there and were completely smashed up. Ten days 
 I endured that hell and came to the end of my strength." 
 
 From another : — 
 
 "Yes, my dear comrade, I have been on the Somme, 
 but can only tell you that I have been through a great 
 deal in this war. Such a slaughter of men "as there was 
 there I have not yet experienced, for in two days our 
 division was wiped out. I cannot help wondering that 
 
THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 71 
 
 I came off with a whole skin, but there were not many of 
 us." 
 
 From a man of the 3rd Reserve Ersatz Regiment: — 
 "The officers we have up to the rank of captain are 
 mostly boys, who have no idea of anything. They draw 
 high pay and have food and drink in abundance. We, 
 on the other hand, live miserably. We do not receive by 
 a long way what we should. The German Government 
 is always writing about other States, and the German 
 Government is far worse. The German Government 
 deceives the people in a very shameful way: one sees it 
 now very clearly in this wholesale murder. One can 
 hardly help being ashamed of being a German. We must 
 turn our rifles round and destroy the whole Government. 
 Dear Grete, if I should happen not to return, then think 
 how I have written to you about it all, that the gang 
 has caused us to be killed for fun and for sport. It is 
 very different from the English. That is why they have 
 not nearly so many losses. If only one of us shows him- 
 self, then they use up plenty of ammunition; but they 
 work in hundreds without cover, and our guns don't fire. 
 They are not allowed to — there is a shortage of am- 
 munition. The newspapers write, of course, that the 
 enemy is short of ammunition. By that they mean 
 that we ourselves are. It is quite clear that Germany 
 is losing and is getting into a terrible state. It is all 
 right for the upper ten thousand. The canteens make 
 a profit of two or three hundred per cent., not for us, 
 of course, as they ought to do, but for the officers' club. 
 The officers here live in great luxury. In the line the 
 officers are in bomb-proof dug-outs. We, on the other 
 hand, have filthy, wet tumbledown holes. The officers 
 and others have it in their hands to take away our food, 
 which we ought to have, but do not get. I have heard 
 
72 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 it only too often from non-commissioned officers and old 
 soldiers that if we had better leadership we should often 
 have been able to do something without heavy losses, but 
 we are generally too late, or do it in tlie wrong way 
 and with heavy loss. If the young officers did not swank 
 so much and treated the men more like human beings we 
 should be more content and more would be accomplished ; 
 but we hate our officers. We are bound to, for what mis- 
 erable grub we get, while those swine live on the fat of 
 the land! 
 
 "Here, in Tenbrielen, where the airmen throw bombs, 
 and where we shall get artillery fire very shortly, there 
 is a dug-out for the officers, but none for the men. In 
 tliis wholesale murder we get to know completely how 
 much we are under the knout." 
 
 Expressions of misery such as these are being voiced 
 by most of the prisoners captured anywhere between 
 Alsace and Nieuport, but especially on the Somme and 
 Ancre. Excursions to other theatres of the war are re- 
 garded as more or less joy rides by the Prussian and 
 Bavarian soldiers. 
 
 The citizen armies of the British, the Dominions, and 
 the French peoples have anchored the greater part of the 
 real German forces in front of them, within easy reach 
 of London and Paris. It is the German object to detach 
 these armies of ours and scatter them in little packets all 
 over the world, in order that we shall not kill so many 
 Prussians and Bavarians. The Canadians, who are 
 clear-sighted people, accustomed to big tasks, see this sit- 
 uation very plainly, and one leaves the magnificent Ca- 
 nadian Army with a feeling of content that they, at 
 
THE ARMY OF THE MAPLE LEAF 73 
 
 any rate, have not been recklessly dispersed, but are a 
 compact wedge and perpetual menace to the great body 
 of Germans immediately facing them in the dreary 
 snowscape of North- Western France. 
 
A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 
 
A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 
 
 It is a strange sensation, that of being the only man 
 in civihan clothes among hundreds of thousands of sol- 
 diers. 
 
 At first the attention one receives from eyes always 
 either curious or suspicious is embarrassing, and even 
 after some weeks of the armies one never quite gets used 
 to the situation. It is but natural that soldiers have no 
 use for any but soldiers in war-time. Ofricers and men 
 may not appear to be anxious, or working with great 
 intensity, but every one in an army knows that he is part 
 of an intricate machine, and that although his part may 
 be only a small one, it is essential to the whole. 
 
 A civilian, therefore, is an intruder, a mere passenger 
 among an overworked crew. Almost the only civilians 
 who are ever to be found in civilian costume close to 
 the fighting-line are members of Parliament, members 
 of the French Chamber of Deputies, or an occasional ir- 
 regular correspondent. Regular correspondents, both 
 with the French and British Armies, are in uniform. 
 Even the kinematogaph operators with the French Army 
 are in uniform, and wear the steel helmet of the troops — 
 as well they may, for a stray shot from a rifle or a 
 fragment of shrapnel may wander far from its intended 
 path, and now and then the kinematograph operator, if 
 he is to take a great picture, can only do so by getting 
 
 77 
 
78 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 close to the enemy. Armies objected to civilians at the 
 beginning of the war because they feared them as spies. 
 It is now thought, however, that spies with the armies 
 have been practically eradicated; and if there be any 
 spies at the Front, they are not so foolish as to wear 
 the ordinary overcoat and cap of civilian life, inviting as 
 this would do a demand for passes and other papers at 
 every turn. 
 
 One's first impression of war is chaos and confusion,, 
 and the immensity of it all. 
 
 Miles back from the battle-line, it may be a hundred 
 miles or only twenty, are the bases at which all the army 
 supplies are first assembled and stored. We will say 
 
 that the base is the port of , and from that base are 
 
 supplied one hundred thousand men, with their horses, 
 if they have them, their motors, bicycles, rifles, guns 
 great and small, machine-guns, bombs, aeroplanes, ob- 
 servation balloons, clothes, medical stores, beef, bacon, 
 butter, cheese, jam, pickles, pepper, salt, shells of all sizes, 
 cartridges, forage, harness, cards, portable hospitals, am- 
 bulance-wagons, games, and a hundred and one other 
 things which will suggest themselves to any person who 
 has had something to do with the equipment of a single 
 soldier since the war began. All these supplies have ta 
 be kept at high-water mark in regular daily rotation, and 
 one easily understands how it is that in the British Army 
 the all-round cost of a soldier is between five and six 
 pounds a week. Realising that what one sees before one 
 are only the supplies for one hundred thousand men, it 
 requires very little effort of the imagination to picture the 
 colossal stores needed for the four millions of men who 
 are fighting in Belgium and France alone. 
 
A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 79 
 
 The first impression, therefore, of war, is the immen- 
 sity and complication of it. 
 
 The next and more mature impression that one gets 
 is that now war has settled down to a regular business, 
 it proceeds at the bases with the clockwork regularity 
 of a great business. 
 
 Near most of the bases are the base hospitals. On 
 what a gigantic scale are preparations made for the cas- 
 ualties in modern war! How truly wonderful are these 
 hospitals, whether they be of the Royal Army Medical 
 Corps, the British Red Cross Society, or the Order of 
 St. John of Jerusalem! If there has been much fighting 
 recently, the hotels which have been turned into hospitals 
 and the remarkable hut hospitals will be filled. There 
 never was a more wonderful work done in the world's 
 history than the care of the wounded soldiers of the 
 British Empire in this great struggle. On the north-west 
 of France, between Staples and Wimereux, are literally 
 miles of hut hospitals, situated on high, dry grotmd, on 
 well-built foundations, with well-made roads, electric 
 light, and perfect operating theatres and dental parlours 
 ■ — hospitals just as good as the very best of their kind 
 in our great cities at home, and staffed by men in the 
 highest position in the medical profession, many of them 
 having given up large practices in London, Montreal, or 
 Sydney, as the case may be.^ Elsewhere behind the lines 
 are other hospitals of various types. To these establish- 
 ments are attached wonderful convoys of ambulances. 
 
 * Elsewhere in this volume T have dealt with the Medical Services 
 in a chapter entitled "The War Doctors." 
 
80 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 Though the precision and violence of modern weapons 
 may have greatly increased the danger of warfare, sci- 
 ence, Listerism, and mechanical ingenuity have come to 
 the rescue by providing all sorts of means by which the 
 lives of the wounded are saved. Chief among these is 
 the motor-ambulance, which swiftly brings the wounded 
 man from the casualty clearing-station in the field to a 
 hospital where he is more thoroughly attended to, and 
 then direct or to railhead for dispatch to the nearest base 
 hospital. It is wonderful to think that there are men 
 who have been seriously wounded, given due medical 
 attention, taken to the base, and brought to London, all 
 in less than eighteen hours. 
 
 In addition to land hospitals, there are floating hos- 
 pitals, most beautifully fitted up, literally sea-palaces for 
 the wounded. John Bull has indeed taken good care of 
 those who have suffered in his cause. Let us hope, and 
 see to it, that he will he as thoughtful for the disabled 
 and their dependents in the future. 
 
 Leaving the base, one is naturally anxious to reach 
 actual warfare as speedily as one can. So much has been 
 written about the British and the Belgian trenches, in 
 which I have often stood, that I think it would be more 
 interesting if I described in detail the approach to the 
 great battle of Verdun, one of the greatest struggles in 
 the history of the world. 
 
 Verdun is in Eastern France, about one hundred and 
 fifty miles from Paris, and the battle zone began long, 
 long before you get to the neighbourhood of Verdun 
 itself. I went to Verdun by auto-car. The railways, of 
 course, are blocked with cannon, ammunition, food, and 
 troops. 
 
A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 81 
 
 Long before reaching the front, twenty-five miles from 
 the battle, it had been obvious that we were approaching 
 some great event. Whole villages were filled with sol- 
 diers, resting or waiting to be called into the line. There 
 were great fields full of artillery, "parks," as they are 
 called, and vast plains covered with wagons at close in- 
 tervals. As for wheeled vehicles, whenever I see one 
 now I think of the war. Soldiers frequently travel by 
 motor-omnibuses of all kinds from their rest places to the 
 threshold of the firing-line, but there are in Europe hun- 
 dreds of thousands, I might say millions, of horse ve- 
 hicles of all sizes and shapes. Both England and France 
 have responded wonderfully to the call for transport. 
 
 In August, 1 9 14, we at once requisitioned trades- 
 men's delivery vans. It was amusing at that time at the 
 British Front to see motors belonging to well-known 
 English, Scotch, and Irish breweries going on their way 
 to the Front laden with soldiers or shells, and also to see 
 pleasure motor charabancs with the names of Margate, 
 Blackpool and Scarborough emblazoned thereon. These, 
 however, have mostly been either superseded or painted 
 the dull military grey and khaki which one associates 
 with this grim, grim war. 
 
 Waiting, and ominous, are vast arrays of ambulances, 
 both horse and motor. 
 
 Then one comes across huge reserve stores of am- 
 munition. It has been stated that up to the time at which 
 I was there (/\pril, 1916) the Germans had fired fifteen 
 million of shells during the battles for Verdun. 
 
 A million is a very large number. People use the 
 terms thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions 
 glibly and rather vaguely. Certain it is, however, that 
 
82 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 the French, when I was with them, had millions of re- 
 serve shells. I coimted certain sections containing a 
 thousand shells, and could judge roughly how many times 
 the amount of space occupied was represented by quanti- 
 ties of other shells of the same size which I saw. It 
 was in this way easy to arrive at the fact that of great 
 and little shells the French had many millions. Shells 
 for the 75 — or the British three-inch — gun take up com- 
 paratively little space when standing on end. 
 
 But it is not only ammunition and soldiers that are 
 going along the road to the battle. There are the great 
 supplies of bread and meat. The French, covering their 
 Paris motor-omnibuses with perforated zinc, transformed 
 them into meat wagons. Everything now goes to the 
 battle on wheels. 
 
 H: :|c H« * * 
 
 It is rarely that one hears bands in modern war. Once, 
 on my way to the battle of Verdun, I came across some- 
 thing that looked like a war picture — a squadron of 
 lancers with their pennants gaily streaming, preceded by 
 a corps of buglers. 
 
 For the rest this war is a horrible, grim, mechanical 
 business. Bravery, of course, still counts, and British 
 and French bravery has done much to meet the superior- 
 ity in big guns which the Germans undoubtedly had at 
 the beginning. 
 
 Considerably away from the firing-line, five, eight, 
 ten, or even twenty-five miles, are the headquarters of 
 the various armies. War is not directed from the bat- 
 tlefield as of yore. The idea of Napoleon and Welling- 
 ton eyeing each other through telescopes, which it is 
 alleged they did, seems ridiculous to a modern soldier 
 who has not seen the little field of Waterloo. The Ger- 
 
A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 83 
 
 man and French generals at the battle of Verdun were 
 always at least twenty miles apart. The headquarters 
 of a general might be the headquarters of a railway con- 
 tractor, with its maps, plans, clerks, typewriters, and 
 innumerable telephones. There is nearly always a wire- 
 less station outside, where the various communiques can 
 be read. 
 
 My experience of such headquarters, and I have been 
 to a good many, is that there is apparently less excited 
 discussion of the particular battle than you may witness 
 at home between any two people talking of it in the club 
 or railway train. There is no lack of information, be- 
 cause the staff at headquarters is linked up by long-dis- 
 tance and other telephones with the soldier in the field. 
 There is generally distributed each day a little bulletin 
 giving the soldier some idea of what is going on. Other- 
 wise, existing as he does in a line that is hundreds of 
 miles in length, he would have the vaguest notion of 
 what is taking place. Indeed, it is the newspaper that 
 has come from London or from Paris which is his chief 
 source of information, for in those great centres all the 
 news of the war is collected, explained by maps, and 
 put forth in a way that makes it extremely easy for the 
 soldier on the spot to understand. I followed the battle 
 of Verdun from a large staff map, but also from maps 
 cut from London newspapers, which I found to be won- 
 derfully accurate. 
 
 Once inside the final cordon of sentries, the civilian 
 at the war attracts but very little attention. People do 
 not know who he is and do not care, but they realise 
 that he could not have got there without proper authority, 
 and as everybody is very busy with his own part of the 
 
81 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 great affair, the civilian sinks into the comparative in-' 
 significance which he should rightly occupy. My own 
 personal feeling was one of regret that I was not able 
 to do something to help in what w^as going on. 
 
 When I reached the battle of Verdun I was confused 
 at first as to what was happening ; but I had with me two 
 most excellent young officers who explained the position. 
 I was reluctant to use their services, and was relieved 
 to find that while showing me what was taking place, 
 which they did by signs, for the noise was sometimes too 
 great to permit conversation except in yells, they were 
 carrying out part of their appointed work of observation 
 and were busily making notes. 
 
 Does the civilian incur danger in war? It is, of course, 
 the object of military authorities to see that he is kept 
 as safe as possible, but in these days of snipers, stray 
 bullets, shell fragments, and what not, he must share 
 to some extent, however carefully guarded, the dangers 
 of the day. I have had a number of narrow escapes in 
 the war. Everybody has had. I did not like it. I do not 
 believe that any one does. I cannot conceive that any- 
 body likes to be in a village that is being shelled, or in an 
 open space that is being shelled, or in a motor-car going 
 along a road that is being shelled. I have noticed that 
 the older and more experienced the soldier, the less he 
 takes chances. There are chances even in looking 
 through periscopes at a considerable distance from the 
 enemy. 
 
 There are chances in sheltering behind the walls of 
 shelled towns, for the freaks of shell fragments are ex- 
 traordinary, as are the freaks of artillery bombardment. 
 In some villages one will find the whole of both sides 
 
A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 85 
 
 of a street down, with the exception of, here and there, 
 a cottage absolutely untouched. The effect on the earth 
 of one of these terrific bombardments is to furrow it, 
 plough it, and made deep holes in it, as though some 
 upheaval of Nature had taken place. Occasionally one 
 will find a whole area bombarded entirely out of recog- 
 nition — buildings, trees, and trenches so smashed and 
 destroyed as to give much the effect of the two scenes of 
 earthquake I have witnessed in the course of my travels. 
 Very often, owing to mis-information, the enemy has 
 bombarded for two or three days points that have not 
 been occupied at all. It is not true that every bullet has 
 its billet, and that every shell does material damage. 
 Men are so clever in concealing the whereabouts of them- 
 selves and their guns in the present kind of warfare that 
 I do not suppose one shell in a hundred has any bearing 
 upon a military result. A great many of the people who 
 read these lines will have seen shells made, and one 
 regrets the waste of human effort in this horrible, but, 
 unfortunately, necessary business. 
 
 When I first went into the war zones in the early days 
 of the great conflict the soldiers were as strange to the 
 war as civilians are now, but they have learned much. 
 Above all, they have learned never to show themselves. 
 They are infinitely more careful than is a civilian on his 
 first visit. "We never go along such and such a route 
 on a dry day," said an officer, "because the dust raised 
 by the motor reveals our presence. . . . We never go 
 along that road at night because the Germans believe 
 we bring up supplies or reliefs by that route. . . . We 
 long ago ceased wearing that kind of cap, because, when 
 
86 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 wet, the sun giistens on it and it forms a kind of helio- 
 graph." 
 
 ^ H? 4c H: ^ 
 
 Of the many devices to trick and deceive the enemy I 
 will not speak. They have multiplied amazingly during 
 the long, weary months since the beginning of the war. 
 I believe the British Army, with the Canadians and 
 Australians, is pre-eminent in inventing all kinds of sur- 
 prises. I have elsewhere referred to the fact that Ger- 
 man prisoners at Verdun spoke to me of their satisfac- 
 tion at being away from Ypres, where the ferocious 
 British are! Our soldiers are individual. They em- 
 bark on little individual enterprises. The German, though 
 a good soldier when advancing with numbers under 
 strict discipline, is not so clever at these devices. He was 
 never taught them before the war, and his whole training 
 from childhood upwards has been to obey, and to obey in 
 numbers. He has not played individual games. Foot- 
 ball, which develops individuality, has only been intro- 
 duced into Germany in comparatively recent times. His 
 amusements have been gymnastic discipline to the word 
 of command, and swimming and diving displays of like 
 kind, at which the Germans are very wonderful. It is a 
 grave reflection on the deeds of British or French sol- 
 diers to say that the Germans are not brave. They are 
 brave, but in a way different from our kind of bravery. 
 They do not take war in the British spirit, which they 
 consider to be frivolous and too much akin to sport, or in 
 the French spirit, which is that of the fierceness that 
 comes to men who are defending their native land. 
 
 * :(: :)t * * 
 
 Germans are naturally, so far as the Prussians and 
 
A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR ST 
 
 Bavarians are concerned, extremely cruel. German non- 
 commissioned officers when taken prisoners with their 
 men treat their private soldiers with a bullying savagery 
 that is astonishing, and officer prisoners decline abso- 
 lutely to pay any attention to their men, even though 
 they have been wounded. A French officer, who had 
 been taken prisoner by the Germans, told me that though 
 the Germans treated their lightly wounded men with 
 extreme care, because they wished to get them back into 
 the firing-line quickly, the very badly wounded cases were 
 neglected until the last. 
 
 Indeed, the wounded man is not the hero in war that 
 we make him at home. He is well looked after, but 
 the chief object of an army is to get fit men where they 
 can do most work, and to get them forward as rapidly 
 as possible. Thus it is that the advance of new men to 
 the battle from places where they are being rested, to- 
 gether with their supplies, takes precedence of every- 
 thing on the road or railway. The object of both sides 
 is to win, and while, as I say, every care is taken of the 
 wounded, priority is given to the forwarding of fighting 
 men. 
 
 France is so well supplied with roads that often as 
 not a certain road is reserved for traffic going to the 
 battle, and another for that which is returning. I often 
 wonder what would happen if war were to take place in 
 England, with our small, narrow lanes and w^ > kept but 
 illogically arranged roadways. There would i>e beyond 
 question an immense and dangerous congestion of traf- 
 fic. The road, say, from London to Dover, one of the 
 principal highways in England, is in one part extremely 
 narrow and tortuous. I presume the authorities have 
 
88 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 thought out all these things, but it is a fact, which any 
 foreigner can detect by looking at our maps, that we are 
 not well provided with strategic railways or strategic 
 roads. In France they have also the great advantage of 
 wonderful canals, not the ditches to which we give that 
 appellation, but wide waterways carrying big barges, 
 which, turned into hospitals, have been of the greatest 
 use in the transport of cases requiring great care. These 
 floating hospitals are quiet, cool, and well ventilated, 
 and have been of great utility. 
 
 As the war has progressed, and one must always bear 
 in mind that each month has changed it, there has been 
 a great development of air fighting. The first air fight 
 I witnessed was a very vague affair, in which neither side 
 seemed to do very much, but every pair of eyes for miles 
 was watching it. To-day air fights are very common oc- 
 currences, and on the whole are most dramatic and in- 
 teresting to watch, but they do not engage anything like 
 the attention they originally did. The fighting aero- 
 plane, with its handy machine-gun so arranged that it 
 can assail the enemy from many angles, is developing 
 every month. It used to be said that the air was the 
 safest place in the war. That is no longer true. A great 
 French general, who knew what he was talking about, 
 told me that the air fighters were, he thought, the most 
 courageous men of all. When I looked at the modern 
 ■fighting ..eroplane, described in the next chapter, with 
 its 200 h.p. engine, and compared it with the planes of 
 seven or eight years ago in which I made a few flights, 
 I realised that war has developed the aeroplane at a 
 speed that would not have been possible in peace-time. 
 Yet even now human ingenuity has not been able to in- 
 
A CIVILIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE WAR 89 
 
 vent an aeroplane that can hover or keep even relatively 
 still in the air. 
 
 The war zone is a world apart. After a few days' 
 immersion therein one becomes so completely absorbed in 
 the activities around that the outer world is entirely for- 
 gotten. There is practically no night or day in that 
 curious land, and there is sometimes as much activity 
 in the hours of darkness as in the hours of daylight. 
 There are none of the long reliefs from fighting that 
 were experienced so lately as the Napoleonic wars. 
 There is no longer a going into winter quarters. The 
 battle of Verdun was commenced in the freezing month 
 of February. The strain of modern warfare is, there- 
 fore, so great tliat I am of the opinion that as much leave 
 as possible should be given to the men, and more to offi- 
 cers — and especially to officers of the higher command. 
 I know this is not the view of those who think that 
 continued absences make for slack discipline. I have not 
 observed or heard of any actual cases of weakness in 
 discipline due to holiday. I have, however, met at the 
 Front many men I knew in peace time who are showing 
 sign of war fatigue, and a tired man is of no use in war 
 or any other worldly affair. 
 
 Three years ago \try few people had any idea of the 
 nature of the coming warfare. Not one modern mili- 
 tary writer gave warning of the intensity of the atten- 
 tion with which each army would watch the other at close 
 range and with all kinds of new and unexpected weapons. 
 
HOW IT FEELS IN A SUBMARINE, IN AN 
 AEROPLANE, IN A TANK 
 

HOW IT FEELS IN A SUBMARINE, IN AN 
 AEROPLANE, IN A TANK 
 
 The appearance of His Majesty's landships commonly 
 known throughout the world as Tanks is fairly familiar, 
 but I do not remember reading any account of a journey 
 in one of them. I am among the privileged few who 
 have enjoyed the entirely different sensations of Tank- 
 ing, Submarining and Aeroplaning, and I propose to set 
 down here my experiences of all three methods of move- 
 ment. 
 
 The history of the Tank is the history of the adapta- 
 bility and the reticence of the English People, displayed 
 whenever such qualities are necessary to the attainment 
 of any urgent purpose. Nobody invented the Tanks. 
 They grew. The idea behind them is as old as the Ro- 
 man testudo and battering-ram. They are a combina- 
 tion of both. I reveal no secret in describing the Tanks, 
 for at least one of our fleet has fallen into German 
 hands and the enemy have had ample opportunity to 
 study this marvellous box of mechanism. 
 
 In the light-hearted way in which we Britons go to 
 war, our soldiers name the Tanks with a frivolity which 
 is intensely annoying to the thick-headed Prussian. One 
 of my particular Tanks was called the "Creme de 
 Menthe" . . . why neither I nor any one else knew. 
 We entered the huge steel tortoise by a close-fitting door 
 and sat within that which resembled in appearance and 
 atmosphere the engine-room of a yacht. On our heads 
 
 93 
 
94 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 we put leather-padded helmets such as are worn by air- 
 men. They were necessary, for when these land-crabs 
 get started, the men who steer them and the men who 
 man the guns are buffetted about with a motion re- 
 sembling that of a rowing boat in an Atlantic gale. 
 
 We started smootlily enough along a highroad. I 
 looked round at my companions. The men who form 
 the crews of the Tanks are young daredevils who, fully 
 knowing that they will be a special mark for every kind 
 of Prussian weapon, enter upon their task in a sporting 
 spirit with the same cheery enthusiasm as they would 
 show for football. They soon proved to me that they 
 were absolute masters of their queer machine. They 
 revelled in the fact that the Tanks had been designed, 
 constructed, practised, and sent over from England to 
 France as a complete surprise to the enemy. They chuck- 
 led as they told me how the word Tanks "had" deceived 
 everybody. 
 
 For many months these monsters were in course of 
 construction in an inland English town, and all that any- 
 body knew about them was that they were "Tanks," 
 presumably large vessels for conveying oil or water. So 
 little curiosity was aroused that a high official of the 
 English railway which carried them did not even take the 
 trouble to look at them. He was told to provide trans- 
 port for a number of "very large tanks," and he did so 
 in the ordinary course of business, not realising that his 
 road was carrying one of the only original devices evolved 
 during this war. 
 
 The speed of the Creme de Menthe on the level was 
 from four to five miles an hour. But the Tanks are de- 
 veloping rapidly in size, speed and pushing power. Even 
 the first Tanks were able to walk through a wood as easily 
 as a man walks through tall grass. On the level highway 
 
HOW IT FEELS IN A SUBMARINE 95 
 
 the sensation of riding in them is about that of riding 
 on a reaping macliine. Suddenly the steersman turned 
 off the road and drove down a deep shell-hole resembling 
 a wash-out. I held on to the nearest piece of machinery 
 which was not in movement: most of it was moving 
 vigourously and most of it was hot. 
 
 The great beast crept cautiously down, seeming to pick 
 its way as an elephant does. Tanks have eyes, narrow 
 slits of glass half a foot thick and proof against anything 
 except shell. Before I had time to peer out, we had 
 passed over the bottom of the shell-hole and were slowly 
 but surely grinding our way up at an angle of forty-five 
 degrees. 
 
 My sensations at this moment were those of tremen- 
 dous noise (noisy the Tanks are at all times) and of dis- 
 comfort from gasoline fumes, and I was not a little ap- 
 prehensive that the rough going, the see-sawing, the sud- 
 den dipping and rising, might detonate one of the many 
 hundred small shells with which the Tank was lined. 
 However, the smiling optimism and enthusiasm of the 
 crew dispelled anxiety, even though they could not re- 
 move the discomfort. 
 
 Once on smooth ground again, the Tank seemed to 
 shake itself as though to get rid of a burden, and to be 
 anxious to proceed. 
 
 Tanks are propelled, as can be seen from photographs, 
 by power applied to continuous bands known as "cater- 
 pillars," familiar in some parts of the United States in 
 "Connexion widi agricultural machinery. We drove for- 
 ward and nosed our way through a fringe of young 
 trees. We did not notice them. We had no knowledge 
 for some while that we were pushing our way through 
 that which would have barred the progress of either horse 
 or man. Now and then some sapling would spring back 
 
96 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 and lash the side of our Tank. But for this the inmates 
 of the steel monster would have been unaware of any 
 impediment. 
 
 Presently we stopped and the captain, after surveying 
 our surroundings through one of the long narrow eyes, 
 invited me to take a peep. I looked out and saw the fa- 
 miliar shell-wrecked land of battle. 
 
 "Can you see anything particular?" he asked me. I 
 looked again and saw nothing to remark upon. 
 
 "Can't you see another Tank coming up?" 
 
 I could not see it until it was pointed out. The Tanks 
 are so cunningly painted and so entirely resemble the land 
 over which they travel, that they are invisible except to 
 those accustomed to seek for them. After this we re- 
 turned by the smoothest places possible to our starting- 
 point, the door opened, and I stepped out of the dim light 
 inside into the bright sunshine. 
 
 Tanks are provided with a certain amount of food, 
 drinking water and surgical field dressings. As I have 
 said, they are boxes of machinery, in which no single 
 inch of space is wasted. They are manned by men as 
 nimble as cats, having no sense of danger. They have 
 proved the best means of ferreting out and destroying 
 German machine-gun nests. Single Tanks have fought 
 small battles of their own against whole companies of the 
 enemy. They are a real and justifiable means of waging 
 war : they wage it only against soldiers, not against civil- 
 ians; and the German soldiers find them terrible enemies. 
 A prisoner taken a few weeks ago in Flanders said : — 
 "We had been told by our newspapers to laugh at the 
 tank, but we very soon found they were no laughing 
 matter." 
 
 The men who journey in them take their lives in their 
 hands every time they go out. The British Army is justly 
 
HOW IT FEELS IN A SUBMARINE 9f 
 
 proud of the daring and success of those who are engaged 
 in this newest form of crushing MiHtarism. 
 
 Quite a different experience from that of crawHng 
 along the ground in a land-ship is a rush upward towards 
 the sky in a fast war-plane. Air-travel is no novelty to 
 me. It is many years since I made my first flight. I 
 confess I have never found any frantic thrill in flying, I 
 do not pretend to have indulged in sensational "banking" 
 (that is turning sharply so that the machine leans over in 
 an alarming way) or in spirals, nose-end dives, and other 
 aerial gymnastics. I can imagine that a sudden inten- 
 tional drop of five thousand feet such as many of our 
 young airmen are accustomed to take must be somewhat 
 of a strain on the nerves. But I have never allowed any 
 of my young pilot friends to go in for what they call 
 "parlour-tricks" when I have been a passenger with them, 
 
 There are only two moments of excitement in ordinary 
 air-travel. One of these is when you first learn, by being- 
 told, that the machine has actually left the ground. The 
 second is when you rapidly approach the earth in your 
 descent. The ground seems to be shooting up towards 
 you. It appears to be impossible that the pilot can avoid 
 bringing his machine to rest without a smash. You brace 
 yourself for the shock. You wonder whether your will 
 makes your last wishes quite clear. . . , Then you find 
 yourself in a twinkling skimming along on an even keel 
 parallel with the ground below. The pilot smiles. He 
 knows what a passenger's sensations are the first time an 
 air voyage is undertaken. He dips again, skims again, 
 once more puts the machine's nose down. It lightly 
 touches the soil, hops once or twice, then runs gently for 
 a few yards and comes to a stop. 
 
 That is how one feels at first. After a journey or two, 
 
98 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 in the air these sensations wear off. Unfortunately the 
 other sensations which are not exciting or thrilHng, but 
 merely uncomfortable, persist, however often one may 
 fly. It is almost always cold in an aeroplane. It is al- 
 ways noisy. If you want to speak to the pilot, you must 
 bend your lips to his ear and bellow. Although the field 
 of vision is vast, twenty miles each way even when the 
 height attained is no more than moderate, it is not possi- 
 ble to see anything very clearly. I recollect seeing 
 Chartres Cathedral once when I was in the air not far 
 from Versailles, but as a rule objects are hard to distin- 
 guish unless one is a trained observer. The speed at 
 which one flies has a confusing effect. Strangely enough, 
 the sensation of vertigo is scarcely felt by any who make 
 ascents by aeroplane. I am so subject to giddiness that 
 I do not like looking down from a high building. But I 
 have never felt giddy in the air. 
 
 Flying in a battle-plane is not essentially different from 
 flying in a machine not built specially for war-work. 
 The battle-plane, if it be of the latest type, goes up more 
 vertically than any of the pre-war touring machines 
 could. It needs scarcely any run on the ground. It 
 shoots into the air with a marvellous energy and pre- 
 cision. It has more room in the body of it than a tour- 
 ing aeroplane needed. The number of instruments car- 
 ried is larger. There is perhaps a photographic camera 
 for taking pictures of enemy trench systems, there may 
 be hooks for bombs. There is probably a gun mounted 
 in the forward part for attack and defence. As we fly 
 over trenches, we can see very distinctly the dark patterns 
 of the first line, second line, third line against the lighter 
 colour of the soil. Then we distinguish the communica- 
 tion trenches. Perhaps there may be tiny dots moving 
 
HOW IT FEELS IN A SUBMARINE 99 
 
 through them. If this were enemy territory, now would 
 be the moment to loose a few of our bombs. 
 
 But we are over our own men here. They look up and 
 see that the under-sides of our wings are painted with 
 red, white and blue rings. They know there is nothing 
 to fear. The aeroplane is the only engine of war which 
 does not practice what the French call camoivflage, that is 
 to say, deception. I have sometimes been asked why, in 
 order to deceive the Allied troops, the Germans do not 
 paint red, white and blue rings on their machines instead 
 of the black iron cross which is their distinguishing mark. 
 The reason is obvious, if you think for an instant. They 
 would deceive their own side. The aeroplanes which so 
 disguised themselves would be shot at by the German 
 anti-aircraft guns. There could be no possibility of let- 
 ting their gunners know that they were disguised. 
 
 The pilot who is driving me now is one of our crack 
 fliers. He has many German machines to his credit. He 
 thinks no risk too great to be taken if there is a good 
 chance of "bagging a Hun." He has come bacl<; often 
 with his wings shot through over and over again. He 
 has been wounded, he has had his machine disabled under 
 him and been obliged to make "a rough landing." But 
 nothing disturbs him. He pays no more heed to the little 
 white balls of smoke which denote shrapnel bursting un- 
 der or round about him than we should pay to a shower 
 of rain. They are wonderful young men, these airmen. 
 They have done infinitely valuable work in scouting, in 
 directing artillery fire, in harassing the enemy by drop- 
 ping bombs upon his camps, stores, railways, and base 
 establishments generally. It is soldiers they are out for, 
 not civilians. They have proved themselves a most mag- 
 nificent force. The Fifth Arm is now indispensable in 
 warfare. It has enabled gunnery to become far more ac- 
 
100 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 curate and deadly than ever before. No one can talk of 
 degeneration while so dangerous a service finds a per- 
 petual stream of young men anxious to enter it. None 
 have deserved better of their country than the Royal Fly- 
 ing Corps. 
 
 ^ H^ * ^ H« 
 
 Pleasantest of the three sensations which I am describ- 
 ing in this chapter is undoubtedly that of a trip in a 
 Submarine. My first submarine experience was a very 
 brief one many years ago in a small under-water boat, 
 propelled entirely by electricity, which lay in the Seine 
 near Paris. We paid 250 francs ($50) each, I remember, 
 for one dive. Beyond that I do not recollect anything 
 particular about it, except my apprehension that the ma- 
 chine would not rise to the surface again. My first real 
 submarine experience occurred just before the war. A 
 small party received the permission rarely accorded to 
 make a short voyage in one of our British boats. 
 
 The world hears little in these days of British sub- 
 marines or submarine officers for the simple reason that 
 there are no targets for them to shoot at. The German 
 Fleet lies snugly esconced in the Kiel Canal. The Ger- 
 man mercantile marine is interned at Bremen, Ham- 
 burg, Wilhelmshaven, Altona. Our submarines are 
 therefore reduced to doing police work, watching for any 
 German war-vessel that may emerge; capturing and 
 bringing into port, or sinking after due notice has been 
 given, any enemy trading ship which may attempt to run 
 the blockade. Warning is always given. No civilian 
 death has been caused by a British submarine. 
 
 I looked forward with pleasurable anticipation to my 
 under-water excursion, and my hopes were realised to 
 the fullest extent. The entrance to submarines of the 
 type in which I journeyed is down a long vertical man- 
 
HOW IT FEELS IN A SUBMARINE 101 
 
 hole, the top of which is hermetically sealed as soon as 
 the last person is on board. (Other methods of entering 
 our newest submarines I will not describe.) There is 
 felt, when the lid is put on, just that momentary nervous 
 trepidation which precedes taking a header from a high 
 diving plank. There is the same apprehension of being 
 shut in as a child feels when the door of a cupboard is 
 closed upon it. I can imagine there are some people 
 who might suffer in a submarine from claustrophobia. 
 
 We had no time, however, to indulge in nervous ap- 
 prehensions. The lid being on, the boat was at once in 
 motion, and we speeded along on the surface of a rough- 
 ish sea at a pace which I had not thought possible for this 
 kind of craft. A mile or so out the order was given to 
 submerge. There was heard a mighty rushing of water 
 into the tanks by which the submersion is effected. We 
 went down with a rapidity which was a complete sur- 
 prise to me, and in a few moments we were in the eternal 
 silence of the under-sea. 
 
 Travelling above, or "awash," as sailors call it, the 
 submarine was propelled by its oil engines. Under the 
 surface it is run by its electric batteries whose smooth, 
 sweet rhythm makes progress pleasant. There was noth- 
 ing to counteract this pleasant impression. All precon- 
 ceived notions of a suffocating atmosphere vanished at 
 once. We looked about us in complete comfort. What 
 we saw was a very complex series of machines, with the 
 familiar internal combustion engine of the ordinary 
 motor boat. The quarters of the officers and crew are 
 Spartan in their simplicity, but they neither suffer dis- 
 comfort, nor have they any apparent cause for anxiety. 
 I should imagine that in peace-time, when there is no 
 risk of being harried by destroyers and chasers or of 
 hitting a mine, submarine travelling will become popular. 
 
102 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 Certainly, on the roughish day on which I made my 
 journey, we below the surface knew nothing of the 
 waves, and it was only when we fastened our eyes to the 
 periscope and saw what was going on above that we 
 realised we were progressing at a very considerable 
 speed. 
 
 The periscope is in effect a camera obscura, with a 
 field of vision like that of the apparatus which soldiers 
 use in the trenches for seeing over the parapet without 
 iDeing seen. There is always some eye in the submarine 
 taking note of what is passing on the surface. They 
 were rather a serious lot, the crew. There was none of 
 the cheery humour of my young friends in the Tanks. 
 But then this was peace-time. It is war which brings 
 out the humour of the Briton. These officers and blue- 
 jackets were just doing their duty in the ordinary way, 
 nothing exciting about it, steering the vessel, watching 
 the pressure gauges, seeing to it that every one of the 
 minute pieces of machinery was performing its function. 
 They took their under-water trip as a matter of course, 
 an every-day experience. Nobody wore a worried look. 
 Everybody was at home in their cramped quarters. The 
 two outstanding features that struck me were, first, the 
 perfect human discipline, and, secondly, the silver-plate- 
 like appearance of the machinery. 
 
 I can well believe that after one or two under-water 
 voyages the sense of novelty would entirely wear off. 
 One supposes that it must be an eerie sensation to travel 
 beneath the surface of the sea, but this is imaginary 
 rather than actual. I doubt whether a person put on 
 board a submersible ship in a state of trance and awak- 
 ened when the vessel had dived, would know whether it 
 was under water or not. During our considerable ex- 
 cursion we felt no lack of air, no discomfort in breath- 
 
HOW IT FEELS IN A SUBMARINE 103 
 
 ing at all. There are, of course, means of supplying 
 oxygen, if It should be needed. I was told that after 
 twelve hours or so the air begins to become exhausted 
 and those on board are affected by drowsiness. I felt 
 nothing of any such sensation. We all had the satis- 
 factory feeling that, while people in boats on the surface 
 were being made uncomfortable by the rough sea, we 
 below were travelling perfectly at our ease, seeing all 
 we wanted to see and being ourselves unseen. 
 
 At the end of the trip all were sorry when the signal 
 was given to eject the water from our tanks, so that the 
 boat should rise. In almost less time than it takes to 
 write these words, we were on the top again, being 
 rocked about like an ordinary boat. Most of us agreed 
 we would much sooner travel under water. Submarin- 
 ing is, indeed, altogether delightful. My first experience 
 left as vivid a mark on my memory as that of the first 
 drive I ever took in a powerful automobile. 
 
THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 
 
THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 
 
 EFFICIENCY AND YOUTH 
 
 Somewhere in France. 
 
 Take this powerful pair of field-glasses in your hand. 
 They were captured yesterday in a German dug-out and 
 bear the famous mark of Zeiss, of Jena. Adjust them 
 carefully and look well over to where dark clouds of 
 shells are bursting so rapidly that they form what looks 
 like a dense mass of London fog, with continuous brief 
 and vivid flashes of explosions. That is Pozieres. That 
 is how Fricourt looked and how Longueval is looking on 
 the day this is penned. From behind where we are 
 ensconced in an old German trench there come night and 
 day the bang and the far-travelling scream of British 
 shells. It does not seem possible that any one can emerge 
 alive from those bombarded villages. 
 
 From north to south is an irregular chain of watch- 
 ful observation balloons. High and glittering in the 
 sunshine are planes, directed as often as not by boys 
 who in happier times would be in the boats or the play- 
 ing fields. Their heroism during the Somme battles 
 has never been equalled, except in this war. 
 
 The battles of the Somme are not, of course, so easily 
 witnessed as those which can be seen from the heights 
 around Verdun, but they are a great deal more visible 
 and understandable than the depressing artillery duels 
 in the plains and swamps of Flanders. Neither photo- 
 
 107 
 
108 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 graphs nor maps give much real impression of the great 
 panorama, which is, indeed, only possible for an on- 
 looker to understand when accompanied by one who has 
 witnessed the steady conquest of the German trenches 
 from the beginning of the movement made on July i 
 (1916). What is easy to realise, and so cheering to 
 our soldiers, is that we give the Germans full measure 
 and more in the matter of guns and shells. A couple of 
 hours in any place where the battles can be properly ob- 
 served is enough for the nerves of the average civilian, 
 for to see battles properly one must be well in reach of 
 the enemy, and so when we have had our fill we make 
 our way along a communication trench to where a small 
 and unobtrusive motor has been hidden. 
 
 Presently we come to the roads where we see one 
 of the triumphs of the war, the transport which brings 
 the ammunition for the guns and the food for the men, 
 a transport which has had to meet all kinds of unex- 
 pected difficulties. The last is water, for our troops are 
 approaching a part of France which is as chalky and dry 
 as our South Downs. 
 
 Communication being as urgent as transport, the 
 Royal Engineers have seen to it that the large area of 
 Northern and North-West France in which our Armies 
 are operating has been linked up by a telephonic system 
 unique. It is no mere collection of temporary wires 
 strung from tree to tree. The poles and wires are in 
 every way as good as those of the Post Office at home. 
 The installation might indeed be thought to be extrava- 
 gant, but cheap telephoning is notoriously bad telephon- 
 ing. A breakdown of communications which might be 
 caused by the fierce wind and electric storms which have 
 happened so frequently in the war would spell a great 
 inconvenience or even worse. An indistinct telephone is 
 
THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 109 
 
 useless. And so, marching with the Army, and linking 
 up a thousand essential points, is a telephone service that 
 cannot be bettered. To-day it would be quite possible 
 for the Commander-in-Chief, if he so desired, to call up 
 London from beyond Fricourt, for our wires are already 
 in places where we saw them burying the blackened 
 corpses of dead Germans, and where the sound of great 
 guns makes it sometimes necessary to shout in order to 
 make ourselves heard in a conversation. 
 
 Every officer or head of department of importance 
 in the British zone has a telephone at his hand, so that 
 he may give and receive orders, not absolutely secret, 
 by the quickest and most popular means of communica- 
 tion. Where necessary, the English telephones are linked 
 up with the trunk lines of the French Government, for 
 which purposes interpreters are placed in the exchanges. 
 The speed of communication is remarkable. It varies, of 
 course, with the amount of business, but I have seen a 
 man call up Paris, London, and the seaport bases in 
 France all within an hour. Supplementing the tele- 
 phonic system is a telegraphic link, and there is also the 
 wireless. The Army Signal Corps is to be congratulated 
 on a fine achievement. Over and above these there are 
 the motor despatch riders, some of whose experiences 
 during the war have been as thrilling as those of our air 
 boys. The noisy nuisance of our peace-time roads at 
 home has been a prime factor in the prompt waging of 
 war. Motor-cycles and portable telephones appear in 
 the most out-of-the-way spots. Far beyond Fricourt I 
 met these cyclists making their way in and out and 
 around the shell holes. 
 
 A few days later, when visiting one of the workshops 
 at the base, I saw the wrecks of similar machines twisted 
 and smashed out of all recognition by shrapnel, each 
 
110 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 speaking of an adventure, and perhaps a tragedy. The 
 fact that these derehcts were being examined for possi- 
 ble repair is a portent of the rigid economy with which, 
 on the French side of the Channel at any rate, and per- 
 haps on both, the war is now being conducted. 
 
 I am not, of course, permitted to give names of places, 
 or numbers, or the names of the heads of departments, 
 but I shall be allowed to state that the always growing 
 immensity of the Armies, and the workshops behind the 
 Army, is little understood at home, or even by those who 
 have made frequent visits to the war zone. 
 
 What is required, it seems to me, to bring home to the 
 people of the Empire, who are so lavishly outpouring 
 their blood and treasure, and also to the Allies and neu- 
 trals, is a continuous demonstration by skilled writers, 
 artists, lecturers, kinematograph operators, and photog- 
 raphers. Now that we have real war news from the able 
 scribes who are allowed to tell us freely and frankly 
 what is happening, readers with imagination are awak- 
 ening to the truth that we have a whole South African 
 campaign and a complete Crimea every month. But of 
 the war behind the war, the battles behind the battles, 
 employing skilled workers considerably exceeding the 
 number of the total original British Expeditionary Force, 
 we have but faint glimmerings. You can understand 
 the need of this vast establishment if you realise that 
 every part of an instrument of war has to be accom- 
 panied to France by its own attendants, its own supplies, 
 and its own transport. 
 
 The newest plane flies upwards and away with the 
 speed and grace of a dragon-fly. She has been made 
 perfect and beautiful for her flight by skilled expert 
 mechanics. When she returns after, let us hope, her 
 conquest, the boys who have escorted her in the air (one 
 
THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 111* 
 
 of these I met was at school last year) hand her over 
 again to those attendants to see if she has any rent in 
 her gown or other mishap which may be speedily 
 mended. When, therefore, you see an aeroplane you 
 must realise that each machine has its staff. Speed and 
 efficiency being prime essentials of victory, her care- 
 takers must be skilled and young. As for her supplies 
 there must be at hand a great quantity of spare parts 
 ready to be applied instantaneously, and there must be 
 men, in case of need, who can either alter or even make 
 such parts. There must be those who understand her 
 camera and its repair, her wireless and its working, men 
 who have already learnt the mysteries of the newest 
 bombs, rockets, and machine-guns. I take the aeroplane 
 as an instance because of its prominence in the public 
 eye. 
 
 What applies to an aeroplane applies in other degrees 
 to every kind of gun, to every form of motor or horse 
 transport, ambulances, field kitchens, filters, and to a 
 thousand articles which at first sight do not necessarily 
 seem to be part of war-making. 
 
 The Army behind the Army is full of originality. It 
 has already improved, on the spot, much machinery 
 which we had thought to have attained perfection. This 
 is a war of machinery as well as of bravery, and among 
 Germany's many blunders was her forget fulness of the 
 British power of quick improvisation and organisation 
 in unexpected circumstances, which is a secret of our 
 success in building up the Empire in strange lands. 
 
 The Army behind the Army is being squeezed for men 
 for the front. In some places it can legitimately bear 
 more squeezing, and it is getting it. On the other hand, 
 owing to their own burning desire or to the pressure of 
 the authorities men who, in the end, would have killed 
 
112 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 more Germans by the use of their own particular skill 
 in the workshop have left the anvil, the tools, the lathe, 
 or the foundry for the firing line. 
 
 Our L. of C. in France (Lines of Communication) 
 has developed to what must be one of the largest organ- 
 isations in the world. It represents 6 per cent, of the 
 whole of our forces in France. It has to deal with more 
 spheres of human industry than I should be allowed to 
 mention. Its personnel, let me repeat, is being revised 
 continually by medical examinations that eliminate fit 
 men for the trenches. The task is a delicate one. An 
 organisation absolutely essential to victory has at length, 
 and after infinite labour, by promotion of the skilled and 
 rejection of the incompetent, been set on its feet. We 
 must make changes with caution. 
 
 At various times I have observed personally the great 
 organisations of the Clyde, the Tyne, of Belfast, of 
 Woolwich, Chicago, in and about Paris, at St. Etienne, 
 at the Creusot works, in Hamburg, in Essen, and at 
 Hoechst on the Rhine, and I say without hesitation that, 
 making allowances for war time, our lines of communi- 
 cation organisation, superimposed as it is upon the over- 
 worked French railways and roads and in a country 
 where there is no native labour to be had, is as near per- 
 fection as ever it can be. 
 
 And I say more that, difficult as economy and war are 
 to mate, I have on the occasion of this visit and in con- 
 trast to the days of 19 14 seen nothing wasted. In the 
 early months of the war there was waste at home and 
 abroad arising from lack of control of our national habit 
 of spending money with both hands. I remember a 
 certain French village I visited where every tiny mite 
 was filling its mouth with English bread and jam. To- 
 day there is enough food and a greater variety of food 
 
THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 113 
 
 than ever before, but there is no waste that is visible 
 even to an inquisitive critic. 
 
 Coming to the front, not only in the high commands 
 and among regimental officers but along the L. of C, 
 is a pleasing proportion of Scotch folk who, while gen- 
 erous in the giving of ambulances, are not accustomed 
 to waste anything in war or at any other time. To-day, 
 almost before the reek and fume of battle are over, al- 
 most before our own and the enemy dead are all buried, 
 the Salvage Corps appears on the bloody and shell- 
 churned scene to collect and pile unused cartridge and 
 machine-gun belts, unexploded bombs, old shell cases, 
 damaged rifles, haversacks, steel helmets, and even old 
 rags, which go to the base, and are sold at £50 a ton. It 
 is only old bottles, which with old newspapers, letters, 
 meat tins, and broken boxes are a feature of the battle- 
 fields, that do not appear to be worthy of salvage. 
 
 Regarding the utilisation of waste products there is 
 as much ingenuity and industry along the Lines of Com- 
 munication as would satisfy the directorate of the most 
 highly over-organised German fahrik. At more than 
 one place I saw over 1,000 French and Belgian girls 
 cleansing and repairing clothing that had come back 
 from the front. They work and talk and sing with alac- 
 rity, and I witnessed the process of the patching and re- 
 constructing of what looked like an impossible waterproof 
 coat, all in the course of a few moments. Such labour 
 saves the British nation hundreds of thousands of 
 pounds, and is considered well rewarded at a wage of 
 half-a-crown a day. 
 
 Elsewhere I saw men using the most modern North- 
 ampton machinery for soling and heeling any pair of old 
 boots that would stand the operation, and such footgear 
 as was useless was not wasted, for by an ingenious con- 
 
114 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 trivance invented on the spot by a young Dublin boot- 
 maker the upper parts of these boots were being con- 
 verted into bootlaces by the thousand. 
 
 In the Army machine shops the waste grease is saved 
 and the oil which escapes from every such establishment 
 is ingeniously trapped and sold to local soapmakers at 
 the equivalent of its present very high value. 
 
 Since the early days of chaos and muddle we have 
 conveyed across the seas machine shops and mechanics 
 which must exceed by twice or thrice the total of those 
 in a humming town like Coventry. Such factories have 
 had to be manned, and manned with labour able to meet 
 the sudden emergencies of war. The labour has all had 
 to come from home. Clerks, engineers, fitters, mechan- 
 ics, quickly settled down to the monotonous regularity 
 of military life and the communal existence of the bar- 
 racks, huts, and tents in which they live. True it is that 
 every consideration possible has been shown for their 
 happiness, comfort, and amusement. They have their 
 own excellent canteens, reading rooms, and places of en- 
 tertainment. They are not forgotten by the Y.M.C.A. 
 or by the Salvation Army and Church Army, whose 
 work cannot be too highly spoken of. They are indi- 
 vidually looked after by their own heads of departments 
 with solicitude and kindness. The gramophone, the joy 
 of tlie dug-outs, the hospitals, and the billets, is a never- 
 ending source of entertainment. 
 
 The workers are by no means unable to amuse them- 
 selves. They are well provided with kinematographs 
 and frequent boxing tournaments. Gardening, too, is 
 one of their hobbies, and from the casualty clearing sta- 
 tions at the front to the workers' huts at the bases are 
 to be counted thousands of English-made gardens. The 
 French, who know as little of us as we do of them, were 
 
THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 115 
 
 not a little surprised to find that wherever he sojourns 
 the British workman insists on making himself a gar- 
 den. At a great veterinary hospital at one of the bases 
 the men living a considerable distance from a town and 
 away from other pastimes have planted for themselves 
 gardens that would be a credit to any prosperous Lon- 
 don suburb in peace time. 
 
 The energy, enterprise, and spirit of the base com- 
 mandants and hundreds of other officers along the lines 
 of communications, their tact in their relations with our 
 French friends, and their capacity for overcoming ob- 
 stacles have response in the enthusiasm of their workers. 
 
 Huge bakeries, the gigantic storehouses (one is the 
 largest in the world), factories and repair shops are 
 filled with workers who are a visible contradiction of the 
 allegations as to the alleged slackness of the British 
 workman. The jealousy that exists in peace time be- 
 tween most Army and civilian establishments does not 
 seem to be known. Great soldiers introduced me with 
 pride to young men who had no idea two years ago that 
 they would enter upon a quasi-military life but have 
 adapted themselves with wonderful facility to entirely 
 changed conditions. Many have brought with them in- 
 valuable knowledge gained in the management of great 
 businesses at home and elsewhere. 
 
 It is true, of course, that the workmen in our great 
 French factories understand the war better than their 
 brothers at home. They are nearer to the war. They 
 live in the country invaded by the Hun. They see their 
 French fellow-workmen keyed up to the highest pitch in 
 tlie intense desire to rid fair France of her despoiler. 
 Daily they see reinforcements going to the front and the 
 wounded returning home. There is a war atmosphere 
 even in towns like Havre and Rouen. The war is al- 
 
116 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 ways present. One day I saw a great number of cap- 
 tured German cannons and other booty of which we 
 hear and see so little at home coming down from the 
 front. 
 
 The authorities in England seem to hide our German 
 prisoners. In France they work, and in public, and are 
 content with their lot, as I know by personal enquiry of 
 many of them. Save for the letters "P.G." (prisonnier 
 de guerre) at the back of their coats it would be difficult 
 to realise that comfortable-looking, middle-aged Land- 
 sturm Hans, with his long pipe, and young Fritz, with 
 his cigarette, were prisoners at all. If it be true that 
 there is congestion in the docks at home caused by lack 
 of labour, the sooner German prisoners are put to work 
 and help to shorten the war the better. 
 
 The war atmosphere and the patriotic keenness of the 
 skilled mechanics and labour battalions in France have 
 enabled the Commander-in-Giief, Sir Douglas Haig, 
 who has personally visited the bases in hurried journeys 
 from the front, to accomplish what in peace time would 
 be the impossible. Transport alone is a miracle. The 
 railways are so encumbered that it is frequent to see 
 trains nearly a kilometre (five-eighths of a mile) in 
 length. As one travels about in search of information 
 mile-long convoys of motor lorries laden with shells or 
 food loom quickly towards one from out of the dense 
 dust, and it is by this combination of rail and road that 
 the almost impossible task has been achieved of keeping 
 pace with the German strategic railways, which were 
 built for the sole purpose of the quick expedition of men 
 and supplies. 
 
 I do not know how many types of motor vehicles are 
 being used in France, but I counted more than two score. 
 Each of these requires its own spare parts in order that 
 
THE ARIMY BEHIND THE ARMY 117 
 
 repairs can be speedily effected, and it must always be 
 borne in mind that delay in war time is fatal. There are 
 in use no fewer than 50,000 different kinds of spare 
 parts, including nuts, bolts, rivets, and screws. By 
 proper co-operation between the various manufacturers 
 these could be reduced to a minimum. 
 
 In order to help economy all spare parts are supplied 
 when possible from the salvage of machines of the same 
 type. All this debris has to be carefully collected, re- 
 paired and arranged in depots in such a manner that 
 missing parts can be found instantly. The Germans 
 use, comparatively, few types of motor vehicles and 
 have, therefore, an advantage over us. 
 
 As' one of the pioneers of automobilisation I should 
 like to offer my tribute to all sections of the motor trans- 
 port department in France, and especially to the eco- 
 nomic manner in which waste has been eliminated. 
 
 Scattered among the Army behind the Army are 
 schools where war is taught by officers who have stud- 
 ied the art at the front. Here in vast camps the specta- 
 tor might easily imagine that he was at the front itself. 
 Here the pupils fresh from England or from the United 
 States are drilled in every form of fighting. 
 
 There is something uncanny in the approach of a 
 company to a communication trench, in its vanishing 
 under the earth, and its reappearance some hundreds of 
 yards away, where clambering "over the top," to use 
 the most poignant expression of the war, the soldier pu- 
 pils dash forward in a vociferous bayonet charge. At 
 these great reinforcement camps are gas mask attacks, 
 where pupils are passed through underground chambers, 
 filled with real gas, that they may become familiarized 
 with one of the worst curses of warfare. The gas itself 
 is a subtle and at first not a very fearsome enemy, but 
 
118 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 the victim is apt to be overcome before he is aware of it. 
 
 And at these miniature battlefields, all of them larger 
 than the field of Waterloo, are demonstration lecturers 
 who teach bombing, first with toy bombs that explode 
 harmlessly with a slight pufiF, and then with the real 
 Mills bombs which have a noisy and destructive effect 
 altogether disproportionate to their size and innocent 
 appearance. The various types of machine-guns are 
 fired at ingenious targets all the day long. There are 
 actual dug-outs in which pupils are interned with en- 
 trances closed while gas is profusely projected around 
 them so that they may learn how to deal with the new 
 weapon by spraying it and flapping it away when the 
 entrance is uncovered at a given signal. Crater fighting 
 is taught with an actual reproduction of a crater, by a 
 lusty sergeant who has seen much of the actual thing, 
 and tells the men what to do with their bombs and with 
 Germans. Such schools are known to exist throughout 
 Germany, but no Prussian thoroughness can better these 
 British war-training schools in France. For those who 
 are not so quick in intelligence as others there is a re- 
 vival of the old awkward squad who are taught slowly 
 and patiently with remarkable results. 
 
 In the centre of one of these schools there arrived, 
 while I was on the scene, a great number of German pris- 
 oners on their way to the Base. I do not know how 
 many young soldiers just landed from England were 
 being trained that day. Certainly many, many thou- 
 sands, and I do not wonder that the prisoners were 
 amazed at the spectacle before them. One of them 
 frankly confessed in excellent English that his comrades 
 were under the impression that we had no men left. 
 
 The food supplied to these German prisoners here, as 
 every'where, was excellent and tliey did not hesitate to 
 
THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 119 
 
 .« 
 say so. Temporary baths and other washing arrange- 
 ments were fitted up for them, they had an abundance 
 of tobacco, and were just as comfortably off in their 
 tents as our soldiers not actually in barracks. Their 
 condition on arrival here, as elsewhere, was appalling. 
 Imprisoned in their trenches by our barrage of fire, they 
 had been deprived of many of the necessities of life for 
 days, and on their arrival ate ravenously. Most of them 
 were Prussian Guards and Bavarians, and the number 
 who had the Iron Cross ribbon in their button-holes was 
 eloquent testimony to the type of enemy troops our 
 New Armies have been fighting. 
 
 If there be loss of time and energy in the Army behind 
 the Army it may be found in one of two of the clerical 
 establishments, which might be carefully modernised. 
 In some of these departments it is said that men of mili- 
 tary age are still engaged. If this be so, there is still 
 a certain supply of superfluous middle-aged clerical la- 
 bour at home that might be gradually introduced. 
 
 There is beyond question a growing demand for the 
 filling up of more and more forms in connexion with the 
 Army. It is a disease which should be checked now 
 before it becomes a hindrance to efficient working. In 
 some of the clerical departments the use of modern files 
 and indexes does not seem to be general, but this does 
 not apply to all departments, for I saw many that were 
 quite up-to-date. 
 
 In one great branch is kept a complete record of every 
 British soldier, from the hour of his arrival in France 
 to his departure, or death. Think of the countless es- 
 sential letters, and forms that must necessarily be filled 
 up, to achieve that end efficiently and with accuracy. 
 
 Another department, which exists for the satisfaction 
 of relatives, and possible decisions in the Court of Pro- 
 
120 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 bate, keeps an exact record of the time of death and 
 place of burial of every officer and private soldier in 
 France, whether he comes from the British Islands or 
 the Dominions. Such establishments necessarily de- 
 mand the use of much clerical labour. 
 
 It should be remembered always, in regard to such a 
 department as that which follows the course of every 
 soldier in France, that Tommy is a difficult person to 
 deal with. It is more than possible that there is a con- 
 siderable number of men who have been reported as 
 missing or dead who are not missing or dead at all. 
 One case was discovered whilst I was at a certain office. 
 It was that of a soldier who had been reported missing 
 for more than a year but who was found in comfortable 
 surroundings doing duty as an Army cook in a totally 
 different part of the field from that in which he disap- 
 peared. 
 
 There are countless departments of which the public 
 knows nothing. I have only space and time to deal with 
 one more. It is that which watches over the recovery 
 of the effects of dead men and officers. There are sep- 
 arate departments for each, but I only saw that affecting 
 the men. 
 
 The work begins on the battlefield and in the hospitals, 
 where I saw the dead bodies being reverently searched. 
 A list is carefully made there and then, and that list ac- 
 companies the little familiar belongings which are a part 
 of every man's life to one of the great bases on the lines 
 of communication. The bag is there opened by two 
 clerks, who check it once more, securely fastening it, and 
 sending it home, where it eventually reaches the next-of- 
 kin. I watched the opening of one such pathetic parcel 
 during the final checking. It contained a few pence, a 
 pipe, a photo of wife and bairn, a trench ring made of 
 
THE ARMY BEHIND THE ARMY 121 
 
 the aluminum of an enemy fuze, a small diary, and a 
 pouch. It was all the man had. 
 
 They told me that nearly every soldier carries a sou- 
 venir. In one haversack was found a huge piece of 
 German shell which had probably been carried for 
 months. The relatives at home set great store on these 
 treasures, and though the proper officials to address are 
 those at the War Office, London, the people in France 
 are often in receipt of indignant letters from relatives 
 asking why this or that trifle has not been returned. 
 
 One of them which arrived that day said, "I gave 
 my son to the war, you have had him, you might at least 
 return all his property intact. Where ^are the pair of 
 gloves and zinc ointment he had with him?" 
 
 The work of collecting these last mementos of the 
 dead is carried out with promptness, care, and very 
 kindly feeling, despite the monotony of the task, which 
 6egins in the morning and goes on to the evening, a task 
 which is increasing daily with the size of the war. 
 
THE WOMEN ARE SPLENDID 
 
THE WOMEN ARE SPLENDID ^ 
 
 Woman's part in the war ; not the tender nursing part 
 — that was expected by all — ^but the great share she is 
 taking in what was once man's work is one of the great 
 surprises. 
 
 There is just a note of wounded vanity in the confes- 
 sions of thousands of men who have to admit to-day 
 that, unknown to themselves, they have been performing 
 tasks which are now proved to have been women's work. 
 Across the Channel, in France, women have always suc- 
 cessfully managed large businesses. There is a large 
 number of cases in point: Mme. Pommery, whose 
 champagne sparkles around the world; Mme. Duval, 
 who organized the popular restaurants that were the 
 forerunners of so many in London; Mme. Paquin, who 
 succeeded her husband in the great modiste business; 
 Mme. Curie, who discovered radium. Women play a 
 prominent part in French politics, French business, 
 French science, French agriculture, and in French af- 
 fairs generally. 
 
 Throughout the English-speaking world we have al- 
 ways prided ourselves on sheltering our womenkind. 
 We have not, for example, cared to see them working 
 in the fields and at the heavier forms of manual labour. 
 There has been a great deal of self-deception about it, 
 because, after all, women have performed heavy tasks 
 in factories for a century or more. And we must not 
 
 *This article was among the first to call attention to the great 
 part played by women in the effective waging of war. 
 
 125 
 
126 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 forget our old friends, the chainmakers of Cradley 
 Heath. 
 
 Again, from the days of Florence Nightingale the no- 
 ble work of nursing our sick and carrying on the service 
 of our hospitals has been to an increasing extent in the 
 hands of women. In no field have they displayed a 
 higher competence, a more sublime devotion; and few 
 indeed are they who have not at some time or other in 
 their lives incurred a tremendous debt to the British hos- 
 pital nurse. Again, here and there before the war, 
 gifted women, such as Elizabeth Fry and Octavia Hill, 
 showed the way in social reform among us, and lately 
 women have shone in journalism and in municipal work. 
 
 Yet, despite these very striking exceptions, the war 
 has already proved that woman had not hitherto been 
 given her opportunity in most parts of the Empire. For 
 some years her cause was obscured by the hysteria of the 
 Suffragettes. To-day it begins to look as though the 
 votes-for-women demonstrations were but manifesta- 
 tions of her tremendous pent-up energy. 
 
 Women have taken to every kind of war work with 
 a rapidity and adaptability that have certainly not been 
 shown by all the ruling sex. It has been openly admit- 
 ted that in many munition factories women, in their 
 eagerness to defeat the enemy, are producing a greater 
 output of energy each day than men working in the 
 same shops. 
 
 Women have successfully initiated themselves into 
 new kinds of war work which had hitherto been re- 
 garded as coming only within man's sphere. Some- 
 times, however, woman, in the excess of her zeal, is do- 
 ing work she ought not to be permitted to do in the 
 interest of the race and the nation. Delicately-bred 
 women should not be allowed to push tradesmen's heavy 
 
THE WOMEN ARE SPLENDID 127 
 
 tricycles or undertake the duties of grooms and ostlers. 
 But there are still wide fields of opportunity for them 
 in most of the indoor and many of the outdoor occupa- 
 tions. 
 
 These vocations will remain open in those dim and 
 distant days, known as "After the war," when no self- 
 respecting male will again be seen matching ribbons be- 
 hind counters, typewriting, standing behind aldermanic 
 chairs, or playing the piano at kinema theatres. The 
 men who have been bomb-throwing will have no appetite 
 for the hundred-and-one gentle and essentially feminine 
 pursuits by which they have hitherto earned their living. 
 
 Every woman who is releasing a man from his work 
 is helping in the war. And — to do them justice — 
 women, with their characteristic intuition, saw that fact 
 instantly. Every woman so engaged is showing the 
 world the real capacity of her sex for many kinds of 
 labour, and is also helping the country to progress 
 towards a much-desired goal : the more equal distribu- 
 tion of money among the people. 
 
 Before the war, in dreary, manless suburbs and pro- 
 vincial towns, thousands of nice girls, whose families 
 thought it beneath their dignity that they should work, 
 preferred the boresome existence of keeping up appear- 
 ances on small dress allowances to an active participa- 
 tion in daily life. Since the war these young women 
 have entered into the battle of industrial work with joy- 
 ousness and, though the absence of the best of the land 
 in the war zone is unhappily delaying the marriage to 
 .which every patriotic woman looks forward, they have 
 the great satisfaction of knowing that, whether they be 
 women doctors, women dentists, women clerks, women 
 ticket collectors, or engaged in any other professions, 
 they are helping the great cause of Freedom. 
 
BEFORE VERDUN 
 
BEFORE VERDUN * 
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF FRANCE 
 
 Before Verdun, March 4, 1916. 
 
 What is the secret motive underlying the German 
 attempt to break the French line at Verdun, in which the 
 Crown Prince's Army is incurring such appalling losses? 
 Is it financial, in view of the coming war loan? Is it 
 dynastic. Or is it intended to influence doubting neu- 
 trals? From the evidence of German deserters it is 
 known that the attack was originally intended to take 
 place a month or two hence, when the ground was dry. 
 Premature spring caused the Germans to accelerate their 
 plans. There were tv/o final delays owing to bad 
 weather, and then came the colossal onslaught of Feb- 
 ruary 21. 
 
 The Germans made a good many of the mistakes we 
 made at Gallipoli. They announced that something 
 large was pending by closing the Swiss frontier. The 
 French, who were not ready, were also warned by their 
 own astute Intelligence Department. Their avians were 
 not idle, and, if confirmation were needed, it was given 
 by deserters, who, surmising the horrors that were to 
 come, crept out of the trenches at night, lay down by the 
 edge of the Meuse till the morning, and then gave them- 
 selves up, together with information that has since 
 
 * This telegram (and the others) was, necessarily, written in great 
 haste and with the military censorship in view. It appeared in whole 
 
 131 
 
132 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 proved to be accurate. Things went wrong with the 
 Germans in other ways. A Zeppelin that was to have 
 blown up important railway junctions on the French 
 line of communications was brought down at Revigny, 
 and incidentally the inhabitants of what remains of that 
 much-bombarded town were avenged by the spectacle of 
 the blazing dirigible crashing to the ground and the 
 hoisting with their own petard of 30 Huns therein. It 
 is not necessary to recapitulate that the gigantic effort 
 of February 21 was frustrated by the coolness and 
 tenacity of the French soldiers and the deadly curtain 
 fire of the French gunners. 
 
 Though a great deal of calculated nonsense has been 
 sent out in official communiques and dilated upon by 
 dithyrambic Berlin newspaper correspondents as to the 
 taken by storm of the long-dismantled Fort at Douau- 
 mont, nothing whatever has been admitted by the Ger- 
 mans as to the appalling price in blood they have paid 
 since February 21 and are still paying. The French 
 losses are, and have been, insignificant. I know- the 
 official figure. It has been verified by conversations 
 with members of the British, French, and American Red 
 Cross Societies, who are obviously in a position to know. 
 The wounded who pass through their hands have, in 
 many cases, come straight from where they have seen 
 dead Germans, as has been described by scores of wit- 
 nesses, lying as lay the Prussian Guard in the first Battle 
 of Ypres. The evidence of one army as to another 
 army's losses needs careful corroboration. This exists 
 amply in the evidence of many German prisoners inter- 
 rogated singly and independently at the French Head- 
 quarters. 
 
 and in part in more than three thousand newspapers in many lan- 
 guages, at a moment when there was grave anxiety as to the fate 
 of Verdun. 
 
BEFORE VERDUN 133 
 
 The case of one man, belonging to the 3rd Battalion 
 of the 1 2th Regiment in the 5th Division of the 3rd. 
 Army Corps may be taken as characteristic. On the 
 morning of February 28 this prisoner reached the Fort 
 of Douaumont and found there one battalion of the 
 24th Regiment, elements of the 64th Regiment and of 
 the 3rd Battalion of Jager. The strength of his com- 
 pany had been, on February 21, 200 rifles with four 
 officers. On February 2.2 it had fallen to 70 rifles, with 
 one officer. The other companies had suffered similar 
 losses. On February 22, the prisoner's company was re- 
 inforced by 45 men, bearing the numbers of the 12th, the 
 52nd, the 35th, and the 205th Regiments. These men 
 had been drawn from various depots in the interior. The 
 men of the 12th Regiment believed that five regiments 
 were in reserve in the woods behind the 3rd Corps, but, 
 as time went on and losses increased without any sign of 
 the actual presence of these reserves, doubt spread 
 whether they were really in existence. The prisoner de- 
 clared that his comrades were no longer capable of fresh 
 effort. 
 
 None of the prisoners questioned estimated the losses 
 suffered by their companies at less than one-third of 
 the total effectives. Taking into account all available in- 
 dications, it may safely be assumed that, during the fight- 
 ing of the last 13 days, the Germans have lost in killed, 
 wounded, and prisoners at least 100,000 men. 
 
 The profits — as the soldier speaks of such matters — 
 being so small, what then are the overwhelming motives 
 that impel the attack on Verdun, and the chicanery of 
 the German communiques? Is it for any of the reasons 
 I have given above, or is it an effect of economic pres- 
 sure which leads to the miscalculation that the possible 
 taking over of the French line at Verdun is a means of 
 
134 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 ending the war? The Germans are so wont to misread 
 the minds of other nations that they are quite foolish 
 enough to make themselves believe this or any other fool- 
 ish thing. It cannot be pretended that the attack has in 
 it anything of military necessity. It was urged forward 
 at a time of year when weather conditions might prove, 
 as they have proved, a serious handicap in such matters 
 as the moving of big guns and the essential observation 
 by aeroplanes. 
 
 The district of Verdun lies in one of the coldest and 
 also the most misty sectors in the long line between Nieu- 
 port and Switzerland. Changes of temperature, too, 
 are somewhat more frequent here than elsewhere ; and so 
 sudden are these changes that not long ago here occurred, 
 on a part of the front, one of nature's furious and ro- 
 mantic reminders of her power to impose her will. The 
 opposing French and German trenches, their parapets 
 hard frozen, are so close that they are actually within 
 hearing of each other. Towards dawn a rapid thaw set 
 in. The parapets melted and subsided, and two long 
 lines of men stood up naked, as it were, before each 
 other, face to face with only two possibilities — whole- 
 sale murder on the one side or the other, or a temporary 
 unofficial peace for the making of fresh parapet protec- 
 tions. 
 
 The situation was astounding and unique in the his- 
 tory of trench warfare. The French and German offi- 
 cers, without conferring and unwilling to negotiate, 
 turned their backs so that they might not see officially so 
 unwarlike a scene, and the men on each side rebuilt their 
 parapets without the firing of a single shot. 
 
 This instance serves to illustrate the precarious 
 weather in which the Germans have undertaken an ad- 
 venture in the quick success of which the elements play 
 
BEFORE VERDUN 135 
 
 such a part. That the attack would certainly prove 
 more costly to them than to the French the German Staff 
 must have known. That the sufferings of the wounded 
 lying out through the long nights of icy wind in the No- 
 Man's Land between the lines would be great did not 
 probably disturb the Crown Prince. It is one of the 
 most gruesome facts in the history of the War that the 
 French, peering through the moonlight at what they 
 thought to be stealthily crawling Germans, found them 
 to be wounded men frozen to death. 
 
 During the war, in France and in Flanders, in camps 
 and in hospitals, I have conversed with at least lOO Ger- 
 mans. Prisoners' talk is always to be accepted with 
 great reserve, but the prisoners of the Verdun campaign 
 have so plainly horror and misery depicted upon their 
 countenances that I need no other evidence as to the 
 tragedy through which they have passed. 
 
 The vast battle of Verdun might have been arranged 
 for the benefit of interested spectators, were it not that 
 the whole zone for miles around the great scene is as 
 tightly closed to the outer world as a lodge of Free- 
 masons. Furnished with every possible kind of pass, 
 accompanied by a member of the French Headquarters 
 Staff in a military car driven by a chauffeur whose steel 
 helmet marked him as a soldier, I was nevertheless held 
 up by intractable gendarmes. My colleague (Mr. Wick- 
 ham Steed ^) the chief of the foreign department of 
 The Times, who assisted me in the many inquiries I was 
 
 ^ Mr. Steed speaks French, German and Italian as a native, knows 
 other languages sufficiently for intercourse, and does not object to 
 the voyaging vagaries of his friend, the writer of the fragments 
 that make up this book. During our Italian, Swiss, Spanish and 
 French rush in the autumn, in most part of which he was with me, 
 he tells me that our sleep average was three and a half hours in each 
 twenty-four. — N. 
 
136 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 presently allowed to make in and about the battlefield, 
 was detained with me at a point twenty-five miles away 
 from the great scene. Even at that distance the mourn- 
 ful and unceasing reverberation of the guns was insis- 
 tent, and, as the sentry examined our papers and waited 
 for telephonic instructions, I counted more than 200 of 
 the distant voices of Kultur. 
 
 As one gets nearer and nearer the great arena on 
 which the whole world's eyes are turned to-day, proofs 
 of French efficiency and French thoroughness are count- 
 less. I do not pretend to any military knowledge other 
 than a few scraps gathered in some half-dozen visits to 
 the War, but the abundance of reserve shells for guns, 
 from mighty howitzers to the graceful French mitrail- 
 leuse of the aeroplane, of rifle ammunition, of petrol 
 stores, and of motor-wagons of every description, was 
 remarkable. I can truly say that the volume exceeded 
 anything in my previous experience. 
 
 As one approaches the battle the volume of sound 
 becomes louder and at times terrific. And it is curious, 
 the mingling of peace with war. The chocolate and the 
 pneumatic tyre advertisements on the village walls, the 
 kilometre stone with its ten kilometres to Verdun, a vil- 
 lage cure peacefully strolling along the village street, 
 just as though it were March, 1914, and his congregation 
 had not been sent away from the war zone, while their 
 houses were filled by a swarming army of men in pale 
 blue. Such a wonderful blue this new French invisible 
 cloth ! A squadron of cavalry in the new blue and their 
 steel helmets passes at the moment, and gives the im- 
 pression that one is back again in what were known as 
 the romantic days of war. 
 
 When one has arrived at the battlefield, there are a 
 dozen vantage points from which with glasses, or, indeed, 
 
BEFORE VERDUN 137 
 
 with the naked eye, one can take in much that has hap- 
 pened. Verdun lies in a great basin with the silvery 
 Meuse twining in the valley. The scene, is on the 
 whole, Scottish. Verdun, from where I saw it, might 
 be Perth, and the Meuse the Tay. Small groups of firs 
 darken some of the hills, giving a natural resemblance 
 to Scotland. 
 
 The town is being made into a second Ypres by the 
 Germans. Yet, as it stands out in the sunlight, it is 
 difficult to realise that it is a place whose people have 
 all gone, save a few of the faithful who live below 
 ground. (Ypres looked like that the first time I saw 
 it soon after the war began.) The tall tower of Ver- 
 dun still stands. Close by us is a hidden French bat- 
 tery, and it is pretty to see the promptitude with which 
 it sends its screaming shells back to the Germans within 
 a few seconds of the despatch of a missive from the 
 Huns. One speedily grows accustomed to the sound 
 and the scene, and can follow the position of the villages 
 about which the Germans endeavour to mislead the world 
 by wireless every morning. 
 
 We journey farther afield, and the famous fort of 
 Douaumont is pointed out. The storming of Fort 
 Douaumont as related by the German despatches is on a 
 par with the sinking of the Tiger and the recent air 
 bombardment of Liverpool. All the world knows that 
 the Tiger is, as she was before the Germans sank her in 
 their newspapers, one of the finest ships in the world, and 
 that the air bombardment of Liverpool was imagined in 
 Berlin. The storming of Fort Douaumont, gunless and 
 unmanned, was about as important, a military operation 
 of little value. A number of the Brandenburgers 
 climbed into the gunless fort, and some of them are 
 still there, supplied precariously with food by their com- 
 
138 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 rades at night. They are practically surrounded by the 
 French, whose Headquarters Staff regard the whole in- 
 cident as a simple episode in the give-and-take of war. 
 The announcement of the fall of Fort Douaumont to the 
 world evinces the great anxiety of the Germans to mag- 
 nify anything concerning Verdun into a great event. 
 It should also cause people to apply a grain of salt to 
 German offical commimiqiies before swallowing them. 
 
 These modern battles have now been described so fre- 
 quently that there is little new to be written of them. 
 Of the conflict at Verdun it can be said that on a fine day 
 and out of sight of the horrors of the hand-to-hand en- 
 counters its surroundings make it a beautiful battle. 
 There is rather more bird life in this part of France 
 than in some others, and we noticed with particular in- 
 terest the spirit and the cheerful song of a lark as it 
 climbed skywards hard by the spot where a French "75" 
 was splitting the ears with its snap and scream. 
 
 As night falls we come across our first convoy of the 
 great hooded motor lorries, which my companion 
 counted by the thousand while we*e were on our way 
 between Paris and the Meuse. The War has reduced 
 motor transport to a science, and in no way is French 
 efficiency better demonstrated than in the manner in 
 which they have added to the carrying capacity of their 
 railways and great canals. They have utilised thou- 
 sands of miles of poplar and lime-lined roads for me- 
 chanical transport at 15 miles an hour. On one road 
 alone we counted 20 motor convoys, each composed of 
 about a hundred wagons, and each group indicated by 
 some simple mark, such as a four-leaved shamrock, an 
 ace of hearts, or a comet. 
 
 Who are the men who are organising the great bat- 
 tle for the French side? Let me at once say that they 
 
BEFORE VERDUN 139 
 
 are young men. General Petain, one of the discoveries 
 of the war, till lately colonel (and since this date pro- 
 moted to chief command), is still in his late fifties; 
 most of the members of his staff are much younger. 
 One hears of luxury at Headquarters, but I have not 
 experienced it, either at our own Headquarters or at the 
 French. General Petain, when I enjoyed his hospitality 
 at luncheon, drank tea. Most of his young men con- 
 tented themselves with water, or the white wine of the 
 Meuse. 
 
 In the brief meal he allowed himself the General dis- 
 cussed the battle as though he were merely an interested 
 spectator. In appearance he resembles Lord Roberts, 
 though he is of larger build. In accordance with the 
 drastic changes that the French, like the Germans, are 
 making in their Command, his rise has been so rapid 
 that he is little known to the French people, though 
 greatly trusted by General Joffre and the Government. I 
 naturally did not ask his opinion on any matters con- 
 nected with the War. We discussed the Australians, the 
 Canadians, the great growth of the British Army, and 
 kindred matters. 
 
 At another gathering of officers some one asked 
 whether the French would not expect the British to 
 draw off the Germans by making an attack in the West. 
 "It is questionable," replied one young officer, "whether 
 such an attack would not involve disproportionate losses 
 that would weaken the Allies." The same officer 
 pointed out that, although the capture of Verdun would 
 cause great regret, owing to the historic name it bears, it 
 would not, for many reasons, be more important than 
 the pressing back of any other similar number of miles 
 on the front. Forts being of little account since the 
 introduction of the big German hammers, he believed 
 
140 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 that General Sarrail had said that the question was not 
 one merely of dismantling the forts, but of blowing 
 them up. As it is, whenever the Germans capture a 
 piece of land where an old fort happens to be, they will 
 use it as an advertisement. But though the French offi- 
 cers are not looking to us, so far as I could learn, for 
 active co-operation now, they are most certainly urging 
 that when our new armies and their officers are trained 
 we shall aid them by bearing our full share of the tre- 
 mendous military burden they are carrying. 
 
 The present attack on the French at Verdun is by far 
 the most violent incident of the whole Western War. 
 As I write it is late. Yet the bombardment is continu- 
 ing, and the massed guns of the Germans are of greater 
 calibre than has ever been used in such numbers. The 
 superb calm of the French people, the efficiency of their 
 organisation, the equipment of their cheery soldiery, 
 convince one that the men in the German machine would 
 never be able to compare with them even if France had 
 not the help of Russia, the five British nations, Belgium, 
 Serbia, Italy and Japan (now she has the help of the 
 United States also). It is unsafe to prophesy about war, 
 as it is to prophesy about any other human affair, 
 but this prediction one can make, and with certainty: 
 that, whatever may be the result of the attack on the 
 Verdun sector, every such effort will result in adding 
 many more thousands of corpses to those now lying in 
 the valley of the Meuse, the numbers of which are being 
 so carefully concealed from the neutral world and the 
 Germans themselves; and could neutrals see the kind 
 of men whom the Germans do not scruple to use as sol- 
 diers their faith in Teutonic physical efficiency would re- 
 ceive a shock. 
 
 Unluckily a pygmy behind a machine-gun is the equal 
 
BEFORE VERDUN 141 
 
 of a giant. "What a pity your Highlanders cannot meet 
 these fellows in fair fight," said a French officer, as we 
 reviewed a gang of prisoners. "The war would be over 
 in a month." Personal contact with the miserable crea- 
 tures who form the bulk of the German prisoners here 
 is needed to convince an observer that such specimens of 
 humanity can really have belonged to the German Army, 
 and especially to a corps d' elite such as the 3rd, or Ber- 
 lin, Army Corps. One ill-favoured youth hailing from 
 Charlottenburg was barely 5 ft. 4in. high. Narrow- 
 chested and peak- faced, he had the quick-wittedness of 
 the urban recruit, but seemed far better fitted for his 
 stool as a railway clerk than for the life of the trenches 
 or for the ordeal of attack. Yet he had been taken at 
 the end of 19 14 and sent to Flanders after six weeks' 
 training, "educated" in trench-making for another 
 month, then left to fend for himself and his comrades as 
 a full-fledged Prussian eaglet. Like the bulk of the 
 other prisoners belonging to other units, he had been 
 withdrawn at the beginning of February from the Flan- 
 ders front and sent to the neighbourhood of Verdun. 
 He had known that there was to be an attack, but until 
 the order was actually given neither he nor his comrades 
 had received any hint of the precise purpose of the opera- 
 tion in which he was to be employed. 
 
 Of one thing he and his fellows were heartily glad — 
 to be taken away from the neighbourhood of the 
 "frightful" English and nearer to the kindly French. 
 From all the reports which these men had received from 
 their families during the last two months it appears that, 
 in the words of one of them, "there reigns in Germany 
 considerable misery." All agreed that butter is unob- 
 tainable, meat scarce (except in Alsace and parts of 
 Pomerania), fat almost unknown. In most respects the 
 
U2 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 food of the Army was tolerable, though not good or 
 abundant. All declared that enthusiasm for the war 
 had long since evaporated, though, as two of the more 
 intelligent among them maintained, the German Army- 
 does not expect to be beaten, even if it no longer hopes 
 to win. The chief longing of these men, as of their 
 families, was for peace. 
 
 The only good thing about these prisoners was their 
 foot-gear. Their stout Bliicher boots were an object- 
 lesson in the necessity of tightening certain features of 
 our blockade and of adding a shortage of leather to the 
 other deficiencies of the military and civil supply that 
 are wearing down the German power of resistance. 
 
LIFE IN REIMS 
 
LIFE IN REIMS 
 
 THE SIGN THAT WILL BE KEPT FOREVER 
 
 Reims. 
 
 As our motor sped toward the stricken town this 
 sunny afternoon, and we got our first view of the two 
 towers of the great church, we rejoiced not a httle that 
 at a distance of a mile, all looked as it did before the 
 Germans came, and when we reached Reims itself there 
 were not, at that particular entrance gate, many signs 
 of change. We were glad to be away from war for a 
 while and to see women and children. For hours sol- 
 diers clad in horizon blue, with their paler blue helmets, 
 had been our only companions. Mighty motor-lorries„ 
 vast collections of forage wagons, travelling kitchens, 
 automobile searchlights, and the rest of the apparatus of 
 war had blocked the roads for many leagues. In the 
 city itself, except for shut shops as on Sunday, and a 
 look of desolation, our first impressions were that the 
 story of Reims had been exaggerated. 
 
 But suddenly, on our way to the cathedral, in the 
 Boulevard de la Paix, strangely named, there were 
 whole mansions down and others so mutilated that they 
 exposed the long-kept privacy of chandeliered salons, 
 bedrooms now wrecked, and hanging staircases. It was 
 in the little square in front of the cathedral that we 
 found Kultur displayed in its horrid nakedness. The 
 
 145 
 
146 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 Archbisop's palace looks like a house in Pompeii, the 
 cathedral's face, partly sandbagged, is ruined. 
 
 Perhaps my readers have known and loved Reims, and 
 can recall the scene at the great west entrance. There 
 is a humble little equestrian figure of Jeanne d'Arc, car- 
 rying now in her hand a French flag and decorated 
 around the plinth with many tributes from passing sol- 
 diery, who have paused to note the marvel of the fact 
 that her sanctity has not been disturbed by even one shell 
 fragment. To the right of this little figure of Joan the 
 Maid and facing the cathedral is the Hotel of the Lion 
 d'Or, the front damaged but the house itself, though 
 within a child's stonethrow of the cathedral, hardly 
 hurt. To-day the hotel, reminiscent of the happy holi- 
 days of thousands of English and American tourists, 
 bears itself bravely. There were even a few dafifodils 
 in the salle a manger, and there is a comfortable dug-out 
 below stairs. There was exactly one foreign visitor 
 who shared with us the excellent meal provided — Mr. 
 Frank Hedges Butler, a well-known friend of France 
 and one of the pioneers of the automobile. Here at 
 Reims, with the Huns almost within rifle shot, and in 
 places even more closely adjoining the firing line, the 
 French provide wonderful meals. 
 
 I was asked to perform one little act of justice in con- 
 nexion with the hotel. It is held by Mme. Pfister. Her 
 foreign-looking name gave rise to ridiculous rumours 
 that from the hotel signals were sent to the Hun artil- 
 lery whereby the hotel was spared and the cathedral 
 shelled. Mme. Pfister is French and her son is in the 
 trenches. When the golden tide of English and Ameri- 
 can tourists returns every franc will be needed to pay 
 for the devastation sustained, and no unjust slur should 
 deprive this hotel of even one possible patron. 
 
LIFE IN REIMS 147 
 
 Reims Is bombarded with persistent regularity. Its 
 stricken folk are subject to attacks vastly more serious 
 than any Zeppelin raid, and so often that the French 
 communiques have ceased to report them. The world 
 outcry has saved the remains of the cathedral. 
 
 Let us take a little turn in the town while the guard- 
 ian of the locked church is fetched. We find that quite 
 a number of people of all classes remain. The old men 
 and women that one associates with war are seated in the 
 doorways of such houses as are not closed or in ruins, 
 children play in the streets their shrill and merry games, 
 a funeral passes with its little procession following. 
 Here and there whole streets are closed, while in others 
 a superficial observer would imagine that life in Reims 
 was going on as usual. Judging by the wall advertise- 
 ments, there seem to be some amusements, such as kine- 
 matographs. There is no lack of excellent food in the 
 shops that are open. The people seem quite undisturbed 
 by the continual murmur of cannon, and indeed after a 
 few minutes one is oblivious of it. 
 
 Reims is a queer but quite an attractive melange, diffi- 
 cult to describe. Almost every one carries a gas mask; 
 the men keep theirs in compact tin cases slung from the 
 wrist or attached to bicycle handle, the women in vari- 
 ous kinds of bags. These masks can be bought at any 
 chemist's and are so prepared as to need merely damping 
 with water when required. The preponderance of the 
 remaining native population is, of course, feminine, 
 mostly workgirls who work in the great champagne 
 caves, and in this matter I am asked to state that the 
 war vintage of 19 15 is believed to be the best since 1900. 
 Here, deep down underground, thousands of women are 
 busy filling and turning the acres of bottles that are ar- 
 ranged in the wonderful subterranean highways. 
 
148 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 We obtained permission to descend into the famous 
 Pommery cellars, which are laid out in what are really 
 streets of wine, the whole forming an underground city 
 of considerable extent. Millions of bottles are twisted 
 by a dexterous movement of the hand each day. The 
 process of preparing the champagne which will one day 
 sparkle on distant tables wherever there is merriment 
 is so complicated that the relatively high cost of this wine 
 can be easily understood. 
 
 We have not time to tarry in the deep chalk streets 
 of wine, many of which are named after American and 
 English cities, such as Manchester-street, Liverpool- 
 street, New York-street, and the rest, for Notre Dame 
 is our aim. We have made a long journey to see it, and 
 we are unfortunate to have found its guardian away. 
 When we emerge to the surface and to sunlight and the 
 sound of guns, we hasten to the cathedral so as to be 
 there at the appointed moment, when what remains of 
 the great window will be at its best in the setting sun. 
 We are amused, en passant, by a glimpse of a real Pari- 
 sian elegante, with the extremely high hat of the moment, 
 the wide skirt, and the showy boots, carrying in her right 
 hand her Pekinese and in her left her gas mask, looking 
 as though she had just walked in from the Avenue du 
 Bois. A truly remarkable sex! 
 
 The people of Reims keep the shell of the cathedral 
 strictly closed, as though to hide its humiliation from 
 such few soldier travellers in the war zone as have time 
 to pause a moment in their urgent and bloody business. 
 First, after glancing at the ruined fagade, whose graven 
 figures were considered one of the masterpieces of their 
 period, we pondered some minutes in the remains of 
 the Archbishop's palace. We had known it in happier 
 days. The beautiful Salle du Tau, where the corona- 
 
LIFE IN REIMS 149 
 
 tion banquets were held, had a wonderful fifteenth-cen- 
 tury chimney, but nothing remains to-day of the Arch- 
 bishop's palace but wreckage and blackened and ruined 
 walls. Modem artillery is mathematically accurate. 
 For some fiendish reason the palace had been especially 
 chosen as an objective. It is a building of only two 
 storeys, so low as to be of no possible value as an obser- 
 vation post. The guardian told us that over a thousand 
 shells fell therein. 
 
 We passed by a little door into the great church, whose 
 doors had been continuously open since the rebuilding 
 in 1 48 1, and whose walls had contained so much magnifii- 
 cence in the past. Generations of affectionate guardians 
 have seen to it that the coronation place of kings was 
 swept and garnished each day. Now, save for the wild 
 pigeons who are taking up their residence and whose 
 peaceful cooing mingles strangely with the distant boom- 
 ing of German guns, it is bereft of life. The warm scent 
 of incense is gone. The whole vast space of the cathe- 
 dral which looks so much bigger than it did before so 
 much of the internal woodwork was burned, is desola- 
 tion itself. An attempt had been made at a tidying up, 
 and the little, old guardian who shows us the ruins, in- 
 dicating the obvious deliberation with which various 
 parts of the cathedral have been shelled, tells us that very 
 soon all will be restored and well. He has the absolute 
 confidence of practically every Frenchman we met that 
 the barbarians will soon leave France. He tells us with 
 delight that the famous tapestries, which will be remem- 
 bered by all, were taken away at the first news of the 
 invasion of the Huns and are safe, as is also, we found 
 afterwards, the beautiful Church of St. Remi. 
 
 Many people ask about the glass of Reims and what 
 has happened to it. Much of it is gone. A great deal 
 
150 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 of it is passing over the world in fragments as souvenirs. 
 Set in the aluminum rings made in the trenches from 
 German fuzes, the blue glass is difficult to distinguish 
 from sapphire. 
 
 As the moment came for saying farewell to Notre 
 Dame the great rose window over the main portal il- 
 lumined the whole church. Partly because half of it is 
 destroyed, the light came in strongly, and as the sun 
 sank a fierce gleam lit up a horrible discoloration on the 
 stone pavement. "That," said our guide with much 
 feeling, "is the burnt blood of the wounded Germans 
 who had sought refuge in the cathedral and who were 
 done to death by their own incendiary shells. That sign 
 we shall keep forever as a warning to the world of the 
 danger of Hun ferocity." 
 
WITH THE ITALIANS 
 
WITH THE ITALIANS 
 
 Of the ferocious fighting on the ItaHan front little 
 is understood in England. If the figures of the wounded 
 carried by the British Red Cross ambulances alone could 
 be published, they would, perhaps, open the eyes of the 
 public. Let me select one battle scene, the birdless, 
 waterless Carso. It is certainly the thirstiest battlefield 
 this side of Suez. It can only be compared to a gigantic 
 Shap fell or Devonshire tor. It is not unlike the Arizona 
 desert without the alkali. 
 
 As another battlefield, look at the Calvaria position, 
 on the Podgora hill outside Gorizia on the west bank of 
 the Isonzo river. Take the steepest wooded hillside you 
 know; put the Austrians, deeply and cunningly en- 
 trenched, on the top; and realise that the capture of that 
 one hill has cost Italy 15 months' bloodshed. The price 
 was great, though the thousand deeds of heroism which 
 resulted in the sudden flight of the Austrians should thrill 
 generations of Italians yet unborn. 
 
 These are but two of the battlefields of Italy which 
 are barely known to the outside world. They deserve 
 to be known. 
 
 We toiled one day under a burning sun along miles 
 of the rugged Carso — the harsh German name "Karst" 
 seems apter for this inhospitable, rock-strewn plateau, 
 where lizards alone find life bearable — past where a week 
 before had been Italian-Austrian first line positions. In 
 one night the Italian engineers had hammered and hewn 
 across the bare limestone a tolerable road which next 
 
 153 
 
154 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 day would be smooth enough for motor vehicles. Warm 
 food — the excellent Italian minestrone, a thick soup com- 
 posed of meat, vegetables, rice, and macaroni — was being 
 brought up on mule back to the danger zone and carried 
 thence by hand to the firing line. 
 
 One gruesome sight in the former No Man's Land 
 between the first positions bore witness to the character 
 of the climate. We came upon the remains of a human 
 body in a kneeling posture absolutely mummified by the 
 scorching heat amid the brambles, thistles, wild roses, 
 and scraggy mountain ash, which form the only vegeta- 
 tion in this desolate region. While collecting battle sou- 
 venirs for a boy friend at home I discovered that, dur- 
 ing the hot hours of the day, metal objects can only be 
 handled with difficulty. 
 
 A strange feature of the Carso are the deep, crater- 
 like depressions called doline, filled with dark brown, 
 peaty earth, every one of which forms a natural fort. 
 The Austrian troops fortify them and build officers' 
 shelters in their sides. One such group of shelters had 
 been devastated by the Italian bombardment. The occu- 
 pants had fled, abandoning vast quantities of ammuni- 
 tion, entrenching tools, whole cases marked "explosive 
 cartridges," piles of rockets, a rich assortment of hand- 
 grenades, lengths of water hose, rolls of wire, and other 
 paraphernalia of this uncanny war. A pestilential odour 
 proved that not all the inhabitants of these barbaric ex- 
 cavations had fled. Letters and relics also showed that 
 ladies from Budapest had been not Infrequent visitors. 
 
 Owing to the fact that so many Italian and Austrian 
 soldiers have worked in the United States and Canada, 
 it often happens that English is the only language in 
 which they can mutually converse. One day I saw a 
 small band of prisoners being brought in by Bersaglieri, 
 
WITH THE ITALIANS 155 
 
 who answered my remarks upon the stout physical ap- 
 pearance of the prisoners by saying in good New York 
 dialect, "They can holler all right, Mister," at which the 
 prisoners grinned with evident understanding. 
 
 On a Sunday afternoon I witnessed on the Izonzo front 
 a prolonged bombardment, at a distance of 5,500 yards, 
 of a rocky cavern in which an Austrian battery of moun- 
 tain guns and a number of machine-guns were known 
 to be concealed. Hour after hour 8 in. Howitzers planted 
 their shells within a few yards of the same spot. It was 
 bright and clear, and through a powerful telescope we 
 could pick out every individual pine tree in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the cavern, and see great rock splinters being 
 thrown in all directions at the moment of the explosion 
 of the shell. 
 
 Next morning I was writing in brilliant sunshine and 
 several degrees of frost on the Cadore front. It is not 
 usually realised that the Italian front is nearly 500 miles 
 long. In the parched, stony wilderness of the Carso, 
 which I have already described, the chief enemy of the 
 fighting man is thirst. The chief enemy on the Cadore 
 front is frost. These two facts should bring home some 
 of the difficulties that the Italians have faced for 29 
 months. 
 
 In discussing the peculiarities of the mountain fight- 
 ing as contrasted with the fighting on the road to Tri- 
 este, his Majesty the King of Italy, who has a fine sense 
 of words, and who has spoken English from childhood, 
 said : — "Picture to yourself my men 9,000 ft. up in the 
 clouds for seven months, in deep snow, so close to the 
 Austrians that at some points the men can see their ene- 
 mies' eyes through the observation holes. Imagine the 
 difficulties of such a life with continual sniping and bomb- 
 throwing." 
 
156 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 King Victor Emmanuel's grim picture of war was in 
 such strong contrast to the tropical fighting I had seen 
 that I asked General Cadorna for permission to come 
 and see the fighting in the clouds. The illustrated news- 
 papers have from time to time published photographs of 
 great cannon carried up into these Dolomite Alps, but I 
 confess to having never realised what it meant. It 
 had never occurred to me to imagine what happens to 
 the wounded men, or to the dead. How do supplies and 
 ammunition reach these lonely sentinels of our Allies? 
 
 I have watched great steamers arrive at our British 
 bases in France — the transport of their freight by train 
 and the wonderful motor service, and then on by light 
 railways or horse vehicles. Here food for the men and 
 food for the guns go first by giddy, zigzag roads, specially 
 built by the Italians for this war. They are not mere 
 tracks, but are as wide as the Grand Corniche that runs 
 between Nice and Mentone. When these have reached 
 their utmost possible height there comes a whole series ot 
 "wire ways," as the Italian soldiers call them. Steel 
 cables slung from hill to hill, from ridge to ridge, span 
 yawning depths and reach almost vertically into the 
 clouds. Up these cables go guns and food, as well as 
 timber for the huts, in which the men live ; and material 
 for entrenchments. Down these come the wounded. The 
 first sensation of a transit down these seemingly fragile 
 tight-ropes is much more curious than the first trip in a 
 submarine or aeroplane, and tries even the strongest 
 nerves. 
 
 Man is not only fighting man at these heights, but 
 both Italians and Austrians have been fighting Nature 
 in some of her fiercest aspects. The gales and snow- 
 storms are excelled in horror by avalanches. Quite 
 lately the melting snow revealed the frozen bodies, look- 
 
WITH THE ITALIANS 157 
 
 ing horribly lifelike, of a whole platoon which had been 
 swept away nearly a year ago. 
 
 While there have been heavy casualties on both sides 
 from sniping, bombing, mountain- and machine-guns, and 
 heavy artillery, there has been little sickness among the 
 Italians. The men know that doctors' visits are practi- 
 cally impossible. Therefore they follow the advice of 
 their officers. King Victor Emmanuel, whose life has 
 been passed almost entirely among the troops since the 
 beginning of the war, told me, however, that despite the 
 greatest care, occasional casualties from frost-bite are 
 impossible to avoid. Yet the men have all the comforts 
 that it is humanly possible to obtain. The cloud fighters 
 are extremely well fed. Huts are provided, fitted with 
 stoves similar to those used in Arctic expeditions. 
 
 I do not know how many kinds of artillery are used 
 in these Alps. In addition to heavy gims there are guns 
 carried on mules and guns partly carried by mountain 
 artillerymen — huge fellows whose weight-carrying ca- 
 pacity entirely puts into the shade that of the Constan- 
 tinople hamels, or porters. When Queen Margherita ar- 
 rived at Gressoney some years ago, four Alpine gunners 
 presented arms with the guns of a battery. They are 
 cheery fellows, not a little proud of their strength, and 
 with backs like bulls. 
 
 Higher yet than the mountain fighting line stand the 
 vedettes, sentinels and outposts whose work resembles 
 that of expert Alpine climbers. They carry portable tele- 
 phones, with which they can communicate with their pla- 
 toon. The platoon in turn telephones to the local com- 
 mander. When thinking of our own brave men who 
 have held the trenches in French Flanders for these two 
 years and who now, with Dominion and Oversea troops, 
 are alongside the French slowly forcing back the Ger- 
 
158 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 mans in Flanders, it is only fair that we should realise 
 that, but for the work of these Italians in weakening 
 Germany's chief ally in the mountains, on the lower 
 ground near Gorizia, in Gorizia itself, and in the Carso 
 desert, our advance would not have been possible. 
 
 General Cadorna is intensely grateful to the heroes 
 fallen in the strange, deadly guerilla warfare on the 
 mountain peaks. I saw one gallant young officer with 
 three medals for valour. In one division alone 40 such 
 medals were recently distributed — a sure sign how Gen- 
 eral Cadorna, who is no sentimentalist, appreciates the 
 gallantry of these fighters among the precipices and ava- 
 lanches. 
 
 On reaching the headquarters of this division at dawn 
 I found a batch of prisoners captured in a midnight 
 battle near a Dolomite summit drawn up in line. In 
 contradistinction to the prisoners taken in the Plain 
 battle, they were ragged and unkempt tramps. The only 
 decent things about them were their boots, rifles, and the 
 stout mountain staff which each carried. The captors, 
 with soldierly generosity, had shared their own soup with 
 them — food such as, the prisoners said, they had not 
 tasted for six months. One had a lump of Austrian mili- 
 tary bread. Dark coloured — not the healthy colour of 
 rye bread — hard to chew, sodden to touch, evil of smell, 
 it seems barely possible that it can sustain the strength 
 of human beings in the coming terrible winter conditions 
 of this mountain warfare. 
 
 As the sun rose the great peaks of the Dolomites stood 
 out like pink pearls, set here and there in a soft white 
 vapour. Coming through a Canadian-looking pine for- 
 est, with log-house barracks, kitchens, and canteens be- 
 neath one such peak, I was reminded of Dante's lines : — 
 "Gazing above, I saw her shoulders clothed already with 
 
WITH THE ITALIANS 159 
 
 the planet's rays." But poetic memories soon faded be- 
 fore a sniper's bullet from a very near Austrian outlook. 
 
 At one spot the Austrian and Italian barbed wire en- 
 tanglements were clearly visible through glasses on a 
 neighbouring summit at a height of over 10,000 feet. A 
 few yards below in an open cavern protected by an over- 
 hanging rock the little grey tents of Italy's soldiers were 
 plainly seen. 
 
 The Italians have driven back the Austrians foot by 
 foot up the almost vertical Dolomite rock with mountain, 
 field, and heavy guns, and especially in hand-to-hand and 
 bomb fighting. Sniping never ceases by day, but the 
 actual battles are almost invariably fought by night. 
 
 The only day fighting is when, as in the famous cap- 
 ture of Col di Lana and more recently at Castelletto, 
 the whole or part of a mountain top has to be blown off, 
 because it is impossible to turn or carry it by direct as- 
 sault. Tunnels, sometimes 800 yards long, are drilled 
 by machinery through the solid rock beneath the Aus- 
 trian strongholds, which presently disappear under the 
 smashing influence of 30 or 40 tons of dynamite. Then 
 the Alpini swarm over the debris and capture or kill the 
 enemy survivors and rejoice in a well-earned triumph. 
 
 One needs to have scaled a mountain side to an Italian 
 gun emplacement or look-out post to gauge fully the na- 
 ture of this warfare. Imagine a catacomb, hewn through 
 the hard rock, with a central hall and galleries leading 
 to a gun position 7,000 feet up. Reckon that each gun 
 emplacement represents three months' constant labour 
 with drill, hammer, and mine. Every requirement, as 
 well as food and water, must be carried up by men at 
 night or under fire by day. Every soldier employed at 
 these heights needs another soldier to bring him food and 
 drink, unless, as happens in some places, the devoted wives 
 
160 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 of the Alpini act nightly under organised rules as porters 
 for their husbands. 
 
 The food supply is most efficiently organised. A young 
 London Italian private, speaking English perfectly, whom 
 I met by chance, told me, and I have since verified the 
 information, that the men holding this long line of the 
 Alps received special food, particularly during the seven 
 months' winter. Besides the excellent soup which forms 
 the staple diet of the Italian as of the French soldiers, 
 the men receive a daily ration of two pounds of bread, 
 half a pound of meat, half a pint of red wine, macaroni 
 of various kinds, rice, cheese, dried and fresh fruit, choco- 
 late, and, thrice weekly, small quantities of Cognac and 
 Marsala. 
 
 Members of the Alpine Club know that in the high 
 Dolomites water is in summer often as precious as on 
 the Carso. Snow serves this purpose in winter. Three 
 months' reserve supplies of oil fuel, food, alcohol, and 
 medicine must be stored in the catacomb mountain posi- 
 tions, lest, as happened to an officer whom I met, the gar- 
 risons should be cut off by snow for weeks and months 
 at a time. 
 
 The experience of the Italian front brings into prom- 
 inence one little understood aspect of the Italian charac- 
 ter — its patience, and its industry as of ants. Pasienza 
 is one of the commonest Italian words. Here it is ex- 
 emplified both by faith and works. 
 
SIR DOUGLAS HAIG 
 
SIR DOUGLAS HAIG 
 
 A GREAT MAN THROWN UP BY THE WAR 
 
 When history relates the story of the great battles 
 of the Somme, it will tell how Sir Douglas Haig and 
 his Staff had their Headquarters in a modest dwelling, 
 part of which was still occupied by the family who owned 
 it. 
 
 Thus it is that the voices of children running up and 
 down the corridors mingle with the ceaseless murmur of 
 the guns and the work of the earnest little company of 
 men whose labours are never out of the thoughts of their 
 countrymen throughout the Empire. 
 
 The head of this band of brothers, the Commander- 
 in-Chief of an Army ten times larger than that of the 
 great Duke, is Sir Douglas Haig, well known to his troops 
 from the base to the front, though hardly known at all 
 to the masses of his fellow-subjects at home. 
 
 In these days of instant communication by telephone, 
 despatch rider, telegraph, or wireless, a greater part of 
 the life of the Commander-in-Chief is spent at his Head- 
 quarter offices. In times of stress he rarely moves from 
 them. Outwardly the life of Sir Douglas Haig might 
 seem to be that of some great Scotch laird who chooses 
 to direct his estates himself. 
 
 At exactly five and twenty minutes past eight each 
 morning Sir Douglas joins his immediate Staff at the 
 usual informal breakfast of English life. Though he has 
 
 163 
 
164 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 selected his Staff, without fear or favour, from the best 
 elements of the British Armies that have been tried for 
 two years in the field, there is something indefinably Scot- 
 tish in the atmosphere of his table. The Commander-in- 
 Chief is of an ancient Scottish family born in the king- 
 dom of Fife, so that the spear of our British offensive 
 is tipped with that which is considered to be more ada- 
 mant than the granite of Aberdeen. Lithe and alert. Sir 
 Douglas is known for his distinguished bearing and good 
 looks. He has blue eyes and an unusual facial angle, 
 delicately-chiselled features, and a chin to be reckoned 
 with. There is a characteristic movement of the hands 
 when explaining things. 
 
 Sir Douglas does not waste words. It is not because 
 he is silent or unsympathetic — it is because he uses words 
 as he uses soldiers, sparingly, but always with method. 
 When he is interested in his subject, as in talking of his 
 gratitude to and admiration of the new armies and their 
 officers, or in testifying to the stubborn bravery of the 
 German machine-gunners, it is not difficult to discern 
 from his accent that he is what is known North of the 
 Tweed as a Fifer. A Fifer is one of the many types that 
 have helped to build up the Empire, and is probably the 
 best of all for dealing with the Prussian. First of all in 
 the armoury of the Fifer is patience, then comes oblivion 
 to all external surroundings and pressure, with a supreme 
 concentration on the object to be attained. Fifeshire is 
 the home of the national game of Scotland ; and it is the 
 imperturbability of the Fifer that makes him so difficult 
 to beat in golf, in affairs, and in war. Behind the dour- 
 ness of the man of the East Coast is the splendid enthu- 
 siasm that occasion sometimes demands, though there is 
 no undue depression or elation at an unexpected bunker 
 or an even unusually fortunate round. 
 
SIR DOUGLAS HAIG 165 
 
 While I was with the Httle family party at Head- 
 quarters there came news that was good, and some that 
 was not so good. Neither affected the Commander-in- 
 Chief's attitude towards the war, nor the day's work, in 
 the least degree whatever. There are all sorts of minor 
 criticisms of the Commander-in-Chief at home, mainly 
 because the majority of the people know nothing about 
 him. He is probably not interested in home comments, 
 but is concerned that the Empire should know of the un- 
 precedented valour of his officers and men. Consequently 
 the doings of the Army are put before the world each day 
 with the frankness that is part of Sir Douglas Haig's 
 own character. He is opposed to secrecy except where 
 military necessity occasions it. He dislikes secret re- 
 ports on officers. Those who visit him are treated with 
 great candour, and there is always a suitable selection of 
 guests at Headquarters to bring variety to the meal-times 
 of men who are engaged in their all-absorbing tasks. If 
 they are interested in any particular part of the organisa- 
 tion, medical, transport, artillery, strategy, they are in- 
 vited to ask questions and, if possible, to suggest. In 
 many large houses of business there is a suggestion-box 
 in which the staff or employees are invited to put forward 
 their ideas in writing. I do not know whether there is 
 such an institution in the Army, but certainly all sorts of 
 new ideas are discussed at the table at General Head- 
 quarters. In every case "Can it be done?" takes prece- 
 dence of "It can't be done." 
 
 Nor, despite the fact that the Commander-in-Chief is 
 a Cavalry officer, does he show any obsession with the 
 arm with which the greater part of his military life has 
 had to deal. Surrounded by a group of the best experts 
 our Empire can provide, most of whom have had 24 
 months' war experience, he is in conference with them 
 
166 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 from morning till late at night. During his daily exer- 
 cise ride he has one or other of his staff experts with him. 
 The wonderful system of communication established 
 throughout the length and breadth of his zone has linked 
 up the whole military machine so effectively that infor- 
 mation can be gained instantly from most distant and 
 difficult parts of his line of operations or communica- 
 tions. In the ante-chambers of the Commander-in-Chief's 
 small working-room the telephone is rarely silent; and a 
 journey into many parts of his Army proved to me that 
 out of the two years' struggle have emerged men, and 
 often very young men, able to do the Commander-in- 
 Chief's bidding or to furnish him with what he desires. 
 Out of the necessary chaos of a war that was unexpected 
 save by the Army and a few prescient students, have 
 emerged Armies in which Scottish precision and courage, 
 English dash and tenacity, Irish defiance and devotion, 
 Australian and Canadian fierce gallantry all play their 
 proper parts. Sir Douglas Haig is fifty-four years of 
 age. Many of his staff are greatly his junior. They are 
 a grave and serious body of men who have inspired con- 
 fidence from one end of the line to the other. They are 
 not dull, there is plenty of familiar badinage at the proper 
 time. There is deep devotion and loyalty in their labours. 
 
 It is said that most of them have aged a little in their 
 ceaseless round of work and anxiety, but they are all at 
 a period of life when responsibility can best be borne. 
 "War," says Sir Douglas Haig, "is a young man's game." 
 
 A soldier who had fought in the first battle of Ypres 
 spoke to me of the Commander-in-Chief as follows : — 
 
 It was just when the Germans had broken our 
 line and little parties of our men were retreating. 
 At that moment Sir Douglas Haig, then command- 
 
SIR DOUGLAS HAIG 167 
 
 ing the First Corps, came along the Menin road with 
 an escort of his own 17th Lancers, all as beautifully 
 turned out as in peace time. They approached 
 slowly, and the effect upon our retreating men was 
 instantaneous. As Sir Douglas advanced they gath- 
 ered and followed him. In the event the Worcesters 
 attacked Gheluvelt, which had been taken by the 
 enemy, drove them out, and restored the line. The 
 Commander-in-Chief's presence was, and is, a talis- 
 man of strength to his armies. 
 
 On the last night of my visit to this little company I 
 was walking with one of his circle in the gardens, watch- 
 ing the flashing of the guns, which looked like summer 
 lightning flickering continuously. We had been talking 
 of many things other than war, though the war was never 
 out of our ears, for the throbbing was perpetual. It 
 was late, for the warm night was a temptation to saunter- 
 ing and exchange of views. 
 
 As we passed through the hall on our way upstairs 
 the door of the Commander-in-Chief's room was open. 
 We paused for a moment to watch him bending over the 
 map on which the whole world is gazing to-day, the map 
 which he is slowly and surely altering for the benefit of 
 civilisation and the generations unborn. He was about 
 to begin his nightly vigil. 
 
JOFFRE 
 
MARSHAL JOFFRE 
 
 THE CREATOR OF THE FRENCH GENERAL STAFF 
 
 From the newspaper headlines to the Man. From the 
 hurrying tide of early morning clerkdom in the London 
 streets to the good-byes of the morning train to the 
 front. From the Red Cross stir of busy Boulogne, now 
 become our greatest hospital, past the cheery ranks of 
 the newly-landed Territorial battalion, singing their way 
 up one of the rare hills of old Flanders. A rush along the 
 long straight roads of Picardy through villages packed 
 with waiting Turcos, Zouaves, Lancers, Artillerymen, in 
 French blue or the new khaki, to the strange calm of the 
 Grand Quartier-General of the French Army. 
 
 It is considered indiscreet to indicate the General Head- 
 quarters of an army in these days, though the Germans al- 
 ways know their exact location, and we know theirs. 
 Suffice it to say that the General Headquarters of the 
 French Army are at a spot and in a building well known 
 to English people. There are very few of us who have 
 seen it in its present astonishing quietude. 
 
 The pride and panoply of war have gone, even if they 
 ever existed. A visit to General Joffre, save for the 
 presence of one or two orderlies at the gate, is just an 
 ordinary visit at an ordinary hotel. Pere Joffre, who 
 had the destinies of France in his hands, received me at 
 the appointed hour to the minute, in a tiny room with a 
 long narrow table covered with a white felt top, a room 
 
 171 
 
172 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 probably sixteen feet long by twelve wide, perfectly plain, 
 which most likely was one of the servants' offices in the 
 hotel where Headquarters are situated. 
 
 When I re-visited him the other day I found that he 
 had exchanged that very humble apartment for one rather 
 more suitable to the needs of a man who has to receive 
 commissions and deputations as a part of his daily rou- 
 tine. It is even yet a simple milieu for the head of one 
 of the mightiest forces in the world. I emphasise this 
 fact because there appears to be some sort of curious, 
 all-prevailing belief in the public mind that army head- 
 quarters are abodes of luxury. 
 
 The Generalissimo arrives at his bureau at 6.30 every 
 morning, and at 7 he has a conference with the six lead- 
 ing officials of the General Staff, or Grand fitat Major, 
 and his two aides, both generals, and three other officers. 
 At this conference all the reports and despatches of the 
 night are gone through and discussed, and orders given 
 for the day. Lunch is served always at 11, and always 
 consists of the same menu of eggs and cutlets, after 
 which, at 12 o'clock, there is another conference. At i 
 the General goes out till 4. He either walks or drives, 
 generally in the adjacent woods. At 8.30 there is the 
 third conference, attended by the same people, and at 9 
 punctually, no matter what happens, the General goes to 
 bed. He remains all the time at his Headquarters, save 
 once a week, when he goes to the front to inspect the 
 troops or to see generals. A very efficient telephone serv- 
 ice renders more frequent departure from Headquarters 
 unnecessary. 
 
 His methods are well illustrated by his procedure at 
 the Battle of the Mame. All the orders written by him- 
 self were already drawn up on August 27 for the action 
 which began on September 5. He pondered them all out. 
 
MARSHAL JOFFRE 173 
 
 and then pieced the whole battle together bit by bit, 
 like a delicate piece of mechanism which, when the time 
 came, ran like clockwork. 
 
 His great work in the French Army was the organisa- 
 tion of the General Staff when he became Commandant- 
 en-Chef in July, 191 1. To this is due the success of the 
 French armies against the Germans, for the staffs were 
 composed of men who had worked together for three 
 years and are employed now over country which they 
 know. 
 
 Joffre wears a pale blue vareuse or tunic, of very ample 
 proportions, no decorations, save three gold stars on his 
 arm and on the cuffs, and the red trousers with the black 
 stripe. 
 
 As that great, grey head rose from the writing table 
 the impression of the man upon me was that of massive- 
 ness. Uniform caps of whatever nationality have the 
 effect of making men look more or less alike. The great 
 head of Joffre, the iron chin, the kind, rather sad eyes, 
 are quite unlike the photographs and equally unlike our 
 stupid notion of what we call "the average Frenchman." 
 Pere Joffre is from Rivesaltes, in the Pyrenees-Orientales, 
 and he speaks slowly, and with no more gesture than a 
 Scotsman, in the rich accent of the Midi. 
 
 Joffre has emerged as one of the great personalities 
 of the war. Every German prisoner captured knows the 
 name and fame of "Shoffer." Frequently in the little 
 messages that the Germans shoot with bows and arrows 
 into the French lines is the remark, "Ask your General 
 Joffre why he is letting you Frenchmen get killed for the 
 sake of the English." There is an idea always floating 
 in the German mind, from the highest quarters in the 
 Wilhelmstrasse to the trenches in the Woevre, that Ger- 
 many will be able to effect a separate peace with France. 
 
174. LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 Should there exist in that deluded nation of 70 millions 
 any single individual with a knowledge of French psy- 
 chology, a glance at Joffre should be sufficient to teach 
 him otherwise. 
 
 Often in years back, discussing the war that was to be, 
 we had whispered, "Yes, but will the French produce a 
 man?" One basic fact in this matter is that the French 
 have thrown up not one man but several. 
 
 "How is he bearing the war?" people asked me in 
 Paris. I can truly say that General Joffre in the heat of 
 the Battle of Verdun looked strong, well, and cheerful. 
 On my previous visit I thought he was showing signs of 
 war fatigue. Now in the midst of the colossal series of 
 battles that had lasted for months, the head of the won- 
 derful French war machine had the healthy look of a 
 country squire in those good old days, four years ago, 
 when men rode to hounds a couple of days a week. 
 
CADORNA 
 
COUNT CADORNA 
 
 HUMOROUS^ ADAMANT AND SUBTLE 
 
 A SHORT, lithe, quick-moving man of sixty-six, Gen- 
 eral Cadorna is the most humorous of all the generals 
 in the Great War. He has a glitter in his grey eyes that 
 reminded me of those of the late Pierpont Morgan. The 
 resemblance applies also to the character of the two men, 
 for Mr. Morgan was ruthless and kind, and adamant, too, 
 when necessary. Those are the characteristics of Italy's 
 great general, liked, feared, and respected by every Ital- 
 ian soldier or civilian with whom I conversed. 
 
 The Italian and British armies have reached their per- 
 fection along very similar roads, but the difficulties of the 
 Italians were greater than ours. We were unprepared, 
 but united; Italy was unprepared and distracted by fac- 
 tion. 
 
 Among those who accomplished what looked like the 
 impossible — a quickly improvised defence of Italy against 
 her time-honoured enemy, Austria — Luigi Cadorna must 
 be given first place. With his must be coupled the name 
 of his King, for the King of Italy is not only nominally 
 but really the head of the Italian Army, and Cadorna is 
 his Chief of Staff. The Italian monarch is so modest 
 and self-effacing that he is comparatively little known to 
 his own people, though well understood by his soldiers, 
 who see him continually. 
 
 He and Cadorna share an advantage not given to most 
 
 177 
 
178 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 of us in Great Britain. They have been close to the 
 enemy so long that they understand the enemy psychology. 
 It surprised the rest of the world that the taking of 
 Gorizia should be followed by an attempt to bomb St. 
 Mark's at Venice. It surprised us that the Germans 
 should essay to offset the defeat of the Marne by the de- 
 struction of the cathedral at Reims. These things do 
 not astonish the Italians and the French; indeed, they 
 expect them. 
 
 As one travels about the world and encounters the bus- 
 iest people in it, they all seem to share the same charac- 
 teristic. They all so economise their time that they Have 
 moments for cigars and discourse. That was so with 
 Mr. Morgan. (And the blackness of those cigars!) 
 That is so with Count Cadorna. He gave me an hour 
 and a half one day, in which he did all the interviewing, 
 and a very merry luncheon on another day at which he 
 kept his table amused all the time. 
 
 His quarters are at Udine, at about the usual distance 
 of most headquarters from the firing line, to which the 
 great captain pays visits long before most of us are 
 awake. 
 
 He is a general who believes in seeing for himself. 
 He took personal part in the direction of the final battle 
 for Gorizia, climbing the ghastly hill of Podgora with the 
 vigour of an Alpino. He is a close student of war, and he 
 has all the subtlety of the Italian. In the long story of 
 the last three and a quarter years he is almost the only 
 general who has devised a surprise. 
 
 Nearly all the men at the extreme top of the war know 
 something about the whole war. That is not the case with 
 the minor personalities, even in the Higher Command. 
 Many generals, in surveying their own small piece of the 
 front, think the whole war is there, and judge its success 
 
COUNT CADORNA 179 
 
 or duration by their own little piece of landscape. It is 
 they who, when on leave, tell us cheerfully that the war 
 is nearly over, or gloomily that the Boche line is impene- 
 trable. Their words are whispered far and wide, and 
 are part of the cause of the rumours and counter rumours 
 of the clubs and dinner tables. 
 
 Cadorna knows the size of the war as accurately as 
 Joffre or Haig. He knows about things with which the 
 average soldier does not concern himself, such as the 
 effect of German propaganda in the United States and 
 the value of a counter effort over there that could be put 
 forth by the Italians resident in that country. He knows 
 that the Battle of the Somme is part of the Battle of the 
 Carso. He is a statesman, too, as well as a soldier, and 
 like all Italians, happy to be in alliance with us. His 
 communiques are meticulously accurate. 
 
 It seems strange to us that a boy should begin to learn 
 soldiering at ten, but that is what Cadorna did, for in 
 i860 he went to the Military School at Milan, where he 
 was sent by his distinguished father, Count Raffaele Ca- 
 dorna, who had married Countess Clementina Zoppi — 
 names of note in Italian history. 
 
 At fifteen he proceeded to the Military Academy at 
 Turin. At the age of forty-two he had attained the rank 
 of Colonel in command of the loth Bersaglieri. For 
 some years afterwards he was engaged on his famous 
 ''Manual of Tactics," which has been reprinted again and 
 again during the war, with very little alteration from the 
 original edition. 
 
 Cadorna sets his face against personal or family fa- 
 vouritism. It is in the blood. In 1870 he had become 
 his father's A.D.C., but as soon as there was active work 
 to do, the elder Cadorna was given the command of the 
 troops which entered Rome in the War of Liberation, 
 
180 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 and he then dispensed with his son's services. Last year 
 the present General Cadorna had his son Raffaele as one 
 of his A.D.C.'s, and following the family example, he 
 sent the boy back to his regiment directly Italy entered 
 the lists. 
 
 With His Excellency General Cadorna (to give him 
 his Italian prefix) is General Porro, and along the whole 
 of the Italian front are generals who have arrived at 
 their position by the ruthless process of elimination nec- 
 essary to success in war. Some of the earlier generals 
 made mistakes and are gone, as with our army. War is 
 just what it always was, and victory is for those who 
 make the fewest mistakes. 
 
 One conviction one had in bidding farewell to that 
 determined-looking Italian, Luigi Cadorna, was that 
 though genial and full of amusing anecdote, he will not 
 suffer fools gladly. His telegrams of praise and repri- 
 mand, some of which I saw on my visits to the various 
 fronts, were models of terseness, written frankly, almost 
 brutally indeed — as a soldier should write. 
 
THE BRITISH SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 
 
THE BRITISH SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 
 
 I HAVE not seen any description of the arrival of our 
 dear soldier boys, many of whom have never before left 
 England, in the country which is the destination, for good 
 or for ill, of the majority of those who leave England 
 on the Great Adventure. Quite by chance I have on two 
 occasions witnessed the landing abroad of a great number 
 of them. 
 
 At three o'clock one morning, in a certain French town^ 
 I was awakened by the sound of an English bugle call. 
 Throwing open the window I looked out, and there, in the 
 glare of tall arc lights, had assembled, as if by magic, a 
 great company of English soldiers who had just landed. 
 I could hear the roll being called. In a few minutes the 
 transport in which they had come had steamed away, and 
 the thousand or so young Britons had passed from the 
 harbour and were on their way to their fate. The great 
 lamps were extinguished, they were gone, and the whole 
 thing seemed like a dream. It was a scene queer and 
 mysterious, and was not witnessed by any but a few dock 
 workers and myself. 
 
 I had forgotten the incident until, the other day at 
 Boulogne, I saw, by day, the arrival of another trans- 
 port's load. I determined to watch our boys and their 
 demeanour on reaching a strange country that was to be 
 for them so full of romance and adventure. Bright, 
 fresh lads, their English faces looked so red beside those 
 of our darker Allies. 
 
 So few hours had elapsed since they had left Eng- 
 
 183 
 
184. LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 land that many of them still wore the flowers their sweet- 
 hearts had given them on leaving. They looked about 
 earnestly and curiously; their officers, a little nervous I 
 thought, were marshalling them for the roll-call, some- 
 what anxious as to what the busy townspeople, hurrying 
 to their midday c?^;Vww^r^ would think; the French present 
 took very little notice, for they had witnessed this scene 
 every day for months. Women went among the soldiers 
 selling oranges and cigarettes, and there was a little chaf- 
 fing between the French girls and the "Tommies," in 
 which the girls did most of the badinage. Soon they 
 passed, as I had seen the others do at night, on their way 
 to a rest camp, whence they will spread all over North- 
 em France, so that eventually one finds them in the most 
 unexpected places. 
 
 I have seen them working great barges, running trains 
 and steamboats, digging trenches, building bridges, mak- 
 ing roads and railways, erecting huts, and always neat 
 and spruce. 
 
 The faces of our soldiers, unlike those of the Ger- 
 mans, are full of individuality. Our boys have their own 
 ways of doing things, and while they are the finest troops 
 in the world for trench fighting, being immovable (and 
 ferocious! as German prisoners have told me on more 
 than one occasion), they have their own peculiarities in 
 regard to their food and their living. 
 
 One of the good qualities that particularly distin- 
 guish the British soldier from any other is his insistence 
 upon smartness. Our "Tommy" has his own walk and 
 his own way of wearing his clothes, so distinctive that 
 one can distinguish him on the skyline in a country where 
 English, French, and Belgians are working together. 
 
 One day I luckily had the interesting experience of 
 seeing the depots of part of the English Army, part of 
 
THE BRITISH SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 185 
 
 the French Army, and part of the Belgian Army. The 
 contrast was interesting. "Tommy" is certainly an epi- 
 cure, and he is right, for nothing we can give and noth- 
 ing we can do can be too good for our boys. For his en- 
 joyment we export supplies which, stacked in boxes, torm 
 veritable walls of dates, jam, pickled walnuts, chutney, 
 and pepper, not to mention bacon, bully beef, butter, and 
 cheese. The French soldier is a better cook than 
 "Tommy," and he manages with much less meat, but has 
 a great deal more bread, much more soup (which he 
 makes from bread, leeks, and meat), an occasional 
 chicken, when he can get it, coffee, and a little red wine. 
 
 The Italian has, as I have told in another chapter, a 
 most varied diet, nourishing soup, two pounds of bread 
 and half a pound of meat a day, half a pint of red wine, 
 macaroni of various kinds, rice, cheese, fresh and dried 
 fruit, chocolate, and in the mountains brandy or Mar- 
 sala thrice a week. 
 
 The Belgian soldier Insists on immense quantities of 
 potatoes, with soup, cheese, bread and butter, and meat. 
 
 Our Army is perfectly fed according to the demands 
 of Its own men. 
 
 There never has been an army so well cared for. Take 
 the Y.M.C.A. huts alone. They are to be found every- 
 where in the most unlikely places, and are not, as some 
 people seem to think, centres for the dissemination of 
 cant and tracts, but bright and attractive clubs, where, at 
 the minimum price, soldiers can, if they wish, add to the 
 good things provided by grateful John Bull. Not only 
 are there Y.M.C.A. huts, but there are also those of the 
 Church and Salvation Armies, and private efforts in ad- 
 dition. 
 
 As for hospital care, the Royal Army Medical Corps, 
 the British Red Cross Society, the Canadian and Aus- 
 
186 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 tralian Red Cross, and the Order of St. John of Jeru- 
 salem, with independent bodies, such as the Society of 
 Friends and the American Ambulance, have produced or- 
 ganisations at whose perfection I stand and marvel. 
 
 Much of it has been made possible by public generos- 
 ity at home, much of it by Government foresight and wis- 
 dom, much of it by great self-sacrifice on the part of 
 workers. I have seen him who is said to be the world's 
 greatest surgeon acting as his own dresser in a hospital 
 for privates. I saw the King's own doctor the other 
 day helping in one of the great hospitals at Wimereux. 
 One often hears it said that had the military part of the 
 war been conducted with the vigour and prevision that 
 have prevailed in the Army Service Corps, the R.A.M.C, 
 and the British Red Cross Society; had the munitions, 
 big howitzers, and machine guns been thought of as 
 quickly as the hospitals and the transport, the Germans 
 would have long ago been driven over the Rhine. 
 
 One sometimes feels that while everything has been 
 done for "Tommy," not enough has been done for the 
 young officers. Their case will require more attention 
 before the war is over. Their pay and allowances are 
 grossly insufficient. Going to and from the front they 
 often have to stop at expensive hotels, and in Hvar time 
 everything, of course, is necessarily high in price. I was 
 delighted to come across something new at Boulogne in 
 the shape of an officers' club founded by Lady Dudley, 
 which is exactly what is required for the happiness and 
 comfort of officers, to whom, after the mud, toil, and 
 danger of the trenches, the place must seem a veritable 
 haven. This idea has been extended to other bases and 
 centres. The officer has no Y.M.C.A. hut, and is often 
 lonely in his comings and goings in a strange land. Lady 
 
THE BRITISH SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 187 
 
 Dudley's kindly thought and industry in this matter and 
 her provision of much Enghsh comfort for the club re- 
 mind me that a great many of the enthusiastic ladies who 
 volunteered their help at the beginning of the war have 
 found the work harder than they thought, and in some 
 cases much too onerous for health. 
 
 Yet there are many British, Canadian, and Australian 
 women doing all sorts of voluntary work behind the front 
 which should, if only as an example, be better known than 
 it is. Does one ever think of the fatigue of nurses, of 
 the terrific strain many of them endure at times when 
 fighting is active? Many of these overworked ladies do 
 not get the rest that is needed. Lady Gifford manages the 
 beautiful home given by Princess Louise in the woods of 
 Hardelot, now yellow with wild daffodils. She told me 
 that sometimes the sisters cannot get the sound of the 
 guns out of their ears for days, and I can imagine that 
 Hardelot, with its beautiful sands and its golf course, is 
 a paradise after life in a hospital near the fighting line. 
 
 I have had little talks with some hundreds of our sol- 
 diers during the war, and in regard to care and comfort 
 and nursing, diet and clothes, the provision for reading 
 and smoking, I have never heard a single complaint. The 
 health of all is wonderful. The meeting of Scotsman and 
 Southerner, Londoner and Provincial, Irishman and Eng- 
 lishman is bringing about an interchange of thought that 
 will materially alter British politics as soon as the boys 
 return home. There are the Canadians, too, with their 
 independent thinking and initiative. Now that the Aus- 
 tralians and New Zealanders have come tliere will be a 
 veritable formation, in France, of an indissoluble bond 
 of Empire which, I do not doubt, will have vast influence 
 on the future of the world's history. 
 
THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 
 
THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 
 
 Headquarters of the Belgian Army, 
 
 March, 1916. 
 
 The little army that first arrested the rush of the Huns^ 
 the army that gave the Allies invaluable breathing time, 
 has been fighting longer than any of us. 
 
 And it is not too much to say that the v^orld's debt to 
 Belgium has increased steadily since those hectic hours 
 at Liege and Antwerp. The United States recognises 
 its share in the work for civilisation by helping to feed 
 the six millions of Belgians who are holding themselves 
 so proudly while under the immediate domination of the 
 tyrant. 
 
 I had been with the Belgian Army soon after its long 
 series of rearguard actions. It was then suffering from 
 its great losses; it was war weary, and it needed sleep 
 and equipment. It had never lost heart or discipline. 
 
 To-day it is the same army, but renewed. It has no 
 great reserves to fall back upon, because the greater part 
 of the nation is imprisoned. The wise men who admin- 
 ister it under the affectionate care of the King have, 
 therefore, while getting into the ranks every possible 
 available Belgian of military age, wherever he may be, 
 idevoted themselves to the work of refitting and reorgan- 
 ising. The result is a perfect little army. 
 
 Belgium is above all things fortunate in having a man. 
 For beyond question one of the most vital of all the 
 forces among the Allies is the Belgian Minister of War, 
 
 191 
 
192 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 Baron de Broqueville. For years before the outbreak 
 of hostilities The Times had consistently called attention 
 to de Broqueville's work and warnings. Except for those 
 warnings Belgium would not have been in a position to 
 offer the resistance it did to the Monster. De Bro- 
 queville is fifty-three and looks younger — though I no- 
 tice the war has not left him unmarked since our last 
 meeting. He is as alive as our Mr. Hughes, and it is 
 remarkable that the views of the two men are alike. 
 
 When I arrived at the house, within hearing of the 
 guns, in which he spends alternate weeks between his 
 visits to Havre, his secretary, the young Comte de 
 Lichtervelde, had just finished reading to him one of Mr. 
 Hughes's speeches. Monsieur de Lichtervelde, who 
 knows England and the United States very well indeed, 
 makes it his duty, as part of his secretarial work, to keep 
 his chief well informed in world happenings. A courier 
 each afternoon brings that same morning's Times. 
 
 M. de Broqueville, who is as good-looking and well- 
 groomed as he is alert, discussed the whole of the Euro- 
 pean and world situation incisively, frankly, and with a 
 vigour and directness most refreshing to one whose mis- 
 fortune it is to dwell within reach of the miasmic ex- 
 halations of the Upas Tree of Westminster. Some of 
 our Germanophils twit Mr. Hughes with not being an 
 expert on Germany. That charge cannot be brought 
 against M. de Broqueville, whose country knows, alas! 
 too much of peaceful penetration by commerce, capture 
 of public opinion by subsidisation, and political, educa- 
 tional, artistic, and musical espionage. And so Mr. 
 Hughes from Australia and the Baron de Broqueville 
 from Brussels agree exactly as to the Huns. Like all 
 Belgians of the ruling class, de Broqueville is deeply 
 grateful for British help, and is a warm admirer of the 
 
THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 193 
 
 steady improvement in our Army. But I had not come 
 
 to to discuss politics or to receive compliments. 
 
 My desire was to revisit the soldiers with whom I had 
 sojourned after their bloodily-contested retreat against 
 overwhelming forces. 
 
 So after gaining a great deal of extremely interesting 
 information which I do not propose to present to the 
 Germans, and enquiring after Mme. de Broqueville, who 
 has remained courageously at Brussels while her hus- 
 band takes charge of his King's Government, I made 
 my way by road to the enchanting little sixteenth-century 
 scene where the brain of the Belgian Army is installed. 
 
 Army headquarters are very much the same every- 
 where, save as to their situation. General Wielemans, 
 who is Chief of Staff of his Majesty the King, the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, has very capable advisers in General 
 Biebuyck, Aide-de-Camp to the King, and General 
 D'Orjo, M. de Broqueville's Chef de Cabinet. General 
 Wielemans, who speaks English and knows England well, 
 asked me what I should particularly like to see, and ar- 
 ranged that the next day I should be taken along the Bel- 
 gian trenches by Colonel Detail, under Chief of Staff. 
 
 Though the shortest of the lines held by the Allies, the 
 Belgian line is, in proportion to the free Belgian popula- 
 tion, much the longest. It occupies a difficult and ex- 
 tremely uncomfortable position, for in no part of the 
 war zone is the mud of Flanders blacker and deeper than 
 in the Belgian trenches. 
 
 I told General Wielemans that what the English pub- 
 lic would be interested to learn something about is the 
 very efficient Belgian artillery which has rendered so ex- 
 cellent an account of itself. ,It is no secret that Belgian 
 preparations were not such as Baron de Broqueville had 
 for years urged, but in the matter of artillery the gallant 
 
194 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 little army had acquired great proficiency, doubtless partly 
 by reason of its association with those masters of the 
 gun, the French. That the Belgians are well equipped 
 with great cannon, big howitzers, 75's, and machine-guns, 
 and that every gun has a plentiful supply of shells of 
 every description is abundantly well known to Hans and 
 Fritz on the other side of the inundations and elsewhere 
 along the Belgian front. 
 
 I asked General Wielemans if he would allow me to 
 take a quiet and unobtrusive seat in one of his batteries 
 during such time as an artillery duel was timed to rage 
 vigorously. He readily assented, and I was taken by M. 
 de Lichtervelde and Colonel Detail to Lieutenant General 
 de Ceunink, who, with Major-General Orth, after some 
 consultation, found me at a considerable distance a par- 
 ticularly lively young artillery officer, whose four "pets," 
 as he called them in English, were timed to perform that 
 afternoon. 
 
 Our way lay through ruined sixteenth-century Flem- 
 ish villages, where the churches in almost every case had 
 been shelled to fragments and where also in almost every 
 case the carved wooden Christ (often as not of the fer- 
 vent Spanish type dating from Spanish times) remained, 
 as by some miracle, untouched. 
 
 I was long loth to believe that the Germans selected 
 churches as artillery objectives, but personal examina- 
 tion of more than 100 shelled towns proves it. And 
 with the churches usually goes the churchyard; open 
 coffins, shrouded corpses, and grinning skulls show that 
 the modern Prussian takes as much pleasure in revealing 
 the secrets of the grave as he does in the destruction of 
 his enemy's wife and child. 
 
 In one of the small ruined towns we visited, three 
 hundred of the population still remained, and will not 
 
THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 195 
 
 leave. An old, old man was bending over a little garden, 
 a lusty young woman was scrubbing at a tub while her 
 little son was playing with shell fragments. The whole 
 district, every street and open place, was a series of gi- 
 gantic troiu de marmites (shell holes), filled with water, 
 in one of which a couple of little people were sailing a 
 paper boat. There were no guns or anything military 
 whatever in the town, but it was being bombarded pe- 
 riodically by Germans, probably in reply to dexterous 
 British artillery work at Ypres. 
 
 It is a thousand pities that expert kinematograph 
 operators are not sent to these places to prove to the 
 world that German warfare, especially in these later days 
 of the conflict, is at least as much directed against the 
 civil population as against the military. French gunners 
 score a success in Champagne, and, in reply, the Germans 
 throw asphyxiating shells into Reims, and so on in all 
 the theatres of war, 
 
 I do not propose to give the least indication of the 
 situation of the battery with which I spent some very 
 interesting hours. The Huns have never found it, nor, 
 indeed, any of the French or Belgian batteries I have 
 entered. For the detective powers of the aeroplane ob- 
 server have been countered by extraordinary ingenuity in 
 concealment on the part of artillerymen. 
 
 There was the usual dog attached to it, some sort of 
 mongrel that always seems to like to be with men in 
 dangerous places. By an ingenious arrangement of 
 barbed wire a nice large cage of starlings, finches, and 
 sparrows, who did not in the least mind the guns, had 
 been arranged; they were hopping merrily and eating 
 well. A spring garden with crocuses and primroses had 
 been planted. 
 
 The dug-outs had all sorts of amusing names; one was 
 
196 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 called "The Virtuous Repose," and another, in English, 
 "Home, Sweet Home." The captain in charge of the 
 battery, who had been alongside and among the English 
 in the early stages of the war and had picked up a good 
 deal of English, which, like most Belgians, he liked to 
 exercise, speedily explained the system on which he 
 worked his 75's, for each of which he had a pet name. 
 He showed me his map, with frequent aeroplane correc- 
 tions in red Ink, of the enemy's position in front of 
 him. He demonstrated the extreme facility of the ele- 
 vating and deflecting apparatus of his four favourites. 
 He had not yet received his instructions as to what was 
 to be the programme of his day's work. They would 
 come by telephone from certain Headquarters. Mean- 
 while, I might like to go down Into his "wine cellar" and 
 see the excellent array of "bottles," as he called them. 
 
 We bent low and went deep, deep into the earth, and 
 his electric torch revealed a fine display of shells. Some 
 had been made in England. There were several types 
 of shells and several kinds of fuzes. "Very good bot- 
 tles Indeed, hein?" he said In broken English. 
 
 We came above ground again and listened to the va- 
 rious forms of artillery that were to be heard around 
 us. "Those," he said, asking me to listen to a continu- 
 ous series of salvoes, "are your Englishmen. Plenty 
 shells now." Miles away there was the deep roar of 
 something big, reminding me of the voices of Verdun. 
 "That," he remarked, "Is Belgian howitzer." The men 
 were smoking and waiting about, taking no notice what- 
 ever of the occasional burstings of German messages 
 that threw up great clouds of mud. 
 
 Suddenly there came the ring of the telephone bell, 
 taking one for the moment quickly back to London, but 
 
THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 197 
 
 carrying a very different message from that which one 
 receives in one's office. 
 
 Instantaneously the men sprang down to their guns, 
 and then I saw the marvellous working of these 75's, 
 whose sharp bang, bang I have heard at so many points at 
 the front. A quick order was shouted as to the direc- 
 tion and elevation, there was a slight pause, the little 
 chamber and its Rembrandt-like faces were lit up for 
 a moment as by the flame of a smithy, a roar came that 
 was gentle after the earth-shaking at Verdun, and then 
 silence till, kilometres away, we heard our shells bursting. 
 
 The gunners were waiting to hear the telephone report 
 from the observer. Within a few seconds it was re- 
 ceived — "Too short." 
 
 Another try. "Too far" came the verdict. 
 
 At the third shot came the report, "A hit," and then 
 was revealed to me the magic of the 75. 
 
 The gun recoils so quickly that it can be stoked with 
 shells and fired, in the hands of really trained gunners, 
 with a speed most extraordinary to watch. 
 
 I remember well the first time that I saw a cannon 
 fired in war. I did so with reluctance, not wishing to 
 participate even by observation in the sending forth of 
 that which would destroy life, or wound. But the spec- 
 tacle of these smashed towns and babies' graves in France 
 and Belgium has removed any sentimental nonsense of 
 that kind from my conception of war, and so, knowing 
 that these Belgian gunners were helping to weary and 
 destroy the nwral of an army that did not disdain to 
 initiate gas poisoning, and the throwing of flame and 
 even vitriol, I confess to enthusiastic rejoicing at this 
 remarkable little organisation that is only one of hun- 
 dreds the Belgians possess. 
 
 A good artillery battle reminds one very much of a 
 
198 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 quick lawn-tennis volley, and in this matter of artillery 
 reply the Latins certainly are speedier than the Huns. 
 
 A signal presently brought the order to cease fire from 
 this particular battery, and immediately afterwards a 
 little further down the line other voices spoke. 
 
 We made our way back through the mud to a dis- 
 tant highway, and then a long walk brought us to our 
 motor, which was sheltered behind one of the few walls 
 still remaining in that district. 
 
 At a very pleasant and simple Headquarters repast, 
 iVerdun, the English Fleet, and the latest wireless were 
 discussed, and then every one went about his business. 
 Army Headquarters have settled down to the regulation 
 and prompt routine of all efficient business organisations. 
 The improved Belgian Army, as regards the higher com- 
 mand, efficiency, equipment, cavalry, infantry, artillery, 
 and transport is, like our own, the creation of nearly 
 nineteen months of war, and it is said that war is the best 
 school for war. 
 
 Nor are the medical arrangements of the Army neg- 
 lected. Inspector-General Melis, who is well known in 
 England, and is a hard-headed, practical man, had to 
 deal with almost insuperable difficulties when the Ger- 
 mans seized practically the whole of the Belgian Red 
 Cross materiel in their advance. He has excellent hos- 
 pitals at various points that need not be mentioned, lest 
 they tempt Hun gunners unduly. There is one little Eng- 
 lish hospital which I must not forget — the Belgian Field 
 Hospital. Its windows rattle night and day with the 
 vibration of the guns. Its career has been one of ad- 
 venture, for it began life at Antwerp in September, 19 14. 
 
 On the night I paid my respects the Belgian Field Hos- 
 pital was quite full. I found an excellent Scotch doctor 
 and matron, and a number of devoted nurses, who have 
 
THE NEW LITTLE BELGIAN ARMY 199 
 
 been with it since the day it started travelling across 
 Belgium, during the time it was shelled out of Furnes, 
 where I had seen it before, and throughout all its vicissi- 
 tudes. The whole establishment is ready, if necessary, at 
 any moment to move again. 
 
 Among the patients that day were a number who were 
 desperately wounded by a very common form of accident. 
 Souvenir rings from the trenches are being sought for 
 all over the world. They are made of aluminum ob- 
 tained from the German fuzes, and unexploded fuzes 
 are the cause of numerous fatalities. 
 
 In every ward of this hospital, in every Belgian dug- 
 out, in every room I entered in the little part of Belgium 
 that is now in Belgian hands, and on the table of the Min- 
 ister of War and his General, are pictures of the heroic 
 King and Queen, who are known by sight to every sol- 
 dier in the army, and to whom the whole of this very 
 efficient Belgian force is deeply devoted. 
 
WARPLANES 
 
WARPLANES 
 
 SOME OF THE TYPES 
 
 Like the modern machine-gun, and other war develop- 
 ments, the aeroplane began in the United States. The 
 two brothers Wright, of Dayton, Ohio, were the men 
 who revokitionised the business of war. I have often 
 wondered if in the Wrights' early experiments at Kitty- 
 hawk, N. Carolina, they realised to the full the tre- 
 mendous weapon they were placing in the hands of the 
 modern artilleryman. 
 
 I knew Wilbur Wright and saw some of the begin- 
 nings of aviation. Orville, the remaining brother, has 
 behaved with great generosity to us in the disposal of 
 the British patents. We have as yet accorded no na- 
 tional recognition to the Wrights, excepting the Albert 
 medal of the Royal Society of Arts, which I had the 
 great pleasure of presenting. 
 
 There are four purposes in the war to which the in- 
 vention of those modest inventors has been put, and 
 each purpose is in itself a revolutionary change in war- 
 fare. On the whole I should say that the direction of 
 artillery fire is the chief result as yet attained by the use 
 of the Wrights' invention. Artillery work has, of course, 
 produced by far the greatest amount of damage on land 
 since the war began. Without the aeroplane big guns 
 would be of little use except against objects visible to 
 the artilleryman. With the aeroplane, from which sig- 
 
 203 
 
204 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 nals can be made either by wireless or by day-time electric 
 heliographs, the artilleryman soon learns his errors, and, 
 owing to the precision of modern weapons, can follow 
 with amazing sureness the advice of the aeroplane ob- 
 server. 
 
 The type of machine used for observing, like all the 
 latest patterns of warplanes, is now armoured with steel 
 in its most vulnerable parts and provided with a machine- 
 gun in case it should be attacked. These observing aero- 
 planes should be able, as far as is yet possible, to hover 
 in the air in order that the man with the telescope who 
 sits in front or behind the pilot may be able to see as ac- 
 curately as possible where the shells are falling. But the 
 observing aeroplane has to be sufficiently rapid to escape 
 the fighting plane that will most certainly be sent up after 
 it as speedily as it is discovered. 
 
 A second type comprises the fighting planes. 
 
 These should be armed as heavily as possible, and it 
 is no secret that the French are putting quite large cannon 
 in aeroplanes. They may be managed by one, two or 
 three men, and in certain types each of the men can be a 
 combatant. In this matter of adapting aeroplanes to 
 air-fighting the French, who speedily developed the 
 Wrights' invention, took the lead. 
 
 Such machines are fitted with searchlights worked from 
 dynamos driven by little windmills in the planes. They 
 are provided with either a small cannon or one or two 
 machine-guns, and the fighting man is further armed with 
 a long-distance revolver. His work is the most danger- 
 ous in the war. It is a game for young men only and for 
 the very pick of the human race as regards quickness, 
 audacity, knowledge of engine, coolness, resource, and 
 good shooting. Such a man must be prepared, if neces- 
 sary, to dive head foremost one or two thousand feet at 
 
WARPLANES 205 
 
 the enemy. He is the man on whom we rely to kill the 
 Zeppelins. 
 
 The early air duels were of slow movement. The 
 battles of to-day resemble the swift flight of the swallow 
 and the swoop of the hawk. 
 
 I am indebted to the French authorities for opportu- 
 nity of close study of their machines and methods. 
 
 I have also seen something of the splendid work of our 
 R.F.C. in France. 
 
 Air-fighting is changing so rapidly that the attempt 
 at simplification of a complex and new arm may be out 
 of date before the book is out of the hands of the bind- 
 ers. 
 
 The vital factor of the aeroplane — and this applies to 
 all the four types with which I am dealing — is the en- 
 gine, its capacity and weight. The heavier the engine, the 
 slower the machine's ability to rise and the less gun- 
 weight and ammunition and petrol it can carry. 
 
 A third type of aeroplane, which has attracted most 
 attention but has not really been so important as the 
 first and second types I have described, is the bomb- 
 dropper. At the beginning of the war bomb-dropping 
 was very effective, because the flyers, in the absence of 
 efficient anti-aircraft artillery, were able to fly low and 
 aim carefully at ammunition depots, railroad junctions, 
 Zeppelin sheds, and other fairly large objects. Some of 
 the early flying was done at merely six thousand feet 
 from the ground. Anti-aircraft guns speedily caused the 
 airmen to fly much higher, and to-day, at twelve to fifteen 
 thousand feet, they have little chance of aiming with such 
 degree of precision. They can hit a town, of course, but 
 to damage a particular building in a town is more or less 
 chance work. Flying at this height an aeroplane could 
 perhaps hit Waterloo Station or the Stock Exchange dis- 
 
206 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 trict, but it could not with certainty locate, let us say, a 
 particular building like St. Paul's. 
 
 In addition to the height at which the machine must 
 fly to avoid guns, there has to be a large allowance made 
 for windage, and also recognition of the fact that the 
 aeroplane itself is flying at from forty to fifty miles an 
 hour while it is dropping the bombs. As a rule, the raids 
 of bomb-droppers are now undertaken by twenty to thirty 
 machines, which fly in the form of a wedge, with a leader 
 in front. The bomb-droppers are often protected by 
 fighting planes, though every bomb-dropper carries his 
 own machine-gun for self-defence. 
 
 Almost the most interesting utilisation of the aero- 
 plane is for photographic scouting. I well remember 
 discussing the uses of the aeroplane with the brothers 
 Wright, when, in reply to the criticism of some one 
 present as to the danger of scouting by aeroplane, they 
 pointed out that, after all, one aeroplane would be able 
 to do more scouting than a whole squadron of cavalry. 
 Events have proved that they were more than right, be- 
 cause the scouting aeroplane carries with it not only hu- 
 man eyes but the eyes of a camera, and in no department 
 of war work has there been greater progress during the 
 last few months than in photography by aeroplane. At 
 the headquarters of each army are large plans of the op- 
 posing enemy trenches and also of suspected gun posi- 
 tions. These are corrected at regular intervals, when 
 the weather is suitable, by photographs taken with tele- 
 scopic lenses, these photographs being speedily developed, 
 printed, enlarged, and used for bringing up to date our 
 knowledge of the enemy line. 
 
 To deceive the aeroplane observers each side resorts 
 to all kinds of tricks. There are dummy guns that ac- 
 
WARPLANES 207 
 
 tually fire, and, of course, there are endless ordinary 
 dummy guns of wood. 
 
 A use to which the aeroplane has not yet been effec- 
 tively put is sea observation. The British Navy has 
 aeroplanes and seaplanes, and excellent ones too — all the 
 navies of the world have aeroplanes — but these cannot 
 leave, or return, to water in rough weather. Experi- 
 ments have been tried in the United States, France, and 
 England for starting aeroplanes from ships. There Is a 
 fruitful field for the inventor who can perfect this scheme, 
 not on paper but in practice. An aeroplane can fly in 
 almost any weather. A Zeppelin or other airship is at 
 the mercy of the wind. The man who perfects a means 
 of releasing an aeroplane from a battleship and providing 
 for its safe return in any weather in which ships can fight 
 will achieve a revolution in sea warfare as important 
 as the aeroplane has created in war on land. 
 
THE WAR DOCTORS 
 
THE WAR DOCTORS 
 
 THEIR WORK UNDER FIRE 
 
 Among the first forces mobilised by the Germans at 
 the end of July, 1914, were the kinematographers and 
 the artists. The German Empire has therefore a com- 
 plete pictorial record of the war from its earliest days. 
 We have lately begun to use the kinematograph. And 
 we have also started to enshrine by colour and canvas 
 the lives of our men. Now that we have sent out some 
 of our best painters the War Doctor should be among 
 the first of the men at the front to be made known and 
 perpetuated. 
 
 We are so accustomed to consider doctors as part of 
 our daily lives, or as workers in speckless and palatial 
 hospitals, that we have hardly yet visualised the man who 
 shares the hell of the front trench with the fighters, 
 armed only with two panniers of urgent drugs, instru- 
 ments, and field dressings, his acetylene lamp and elec- 
 tric torch. Most of us think of his war work as being 
 accomplished at one of the great healing places at the 
 base. 
 
 If there be degrees of chivalry, the highest award 
 should be accorded to the medical profession, which at 
 once forsook its lucrative practices in London, or Mel- 
 bourne, or Montreal, in a great rally of self-sacrifice. 
 The figures of the casualties among them bring home to 
 those who have only the big hospital idea of the war doc- 
 
 211 
 
212 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 tor, sad facts that should lead to due understanding of 
 this not sufficiently known but veritable body of Knights 
 in the Great Crusade. During three months in the Royal 
 Army Medical Corps alone — I account them according 
 to the figures published in The Times from day to day — 
 these medical service casualties were: — 
 
 Officers Killed 53 
 
 Wounded , 208 
 
 " Missing ,. . . . 4 
 
 N.C.O.'s and Men (R.A.M.C. only) : 
 
 Killed . ,. . 260 
 
 Wounded 1,212 
 
 Missing , 3 
 
 I propose to set down the order in which our medical 
 service arranges its chain of responsibility, premising 
 my account by the statement that the medical army of 
 to-day exceeds numerically the whole British military 
 forces overseas before the outbreak of war. 
 
 It is a little difficult and complex to explain. I find 
 that there is some confusion in the public mind as to the 
 regimental work, that of the Royal Army Medical Corps, 
 and their handmaidens the British Red Cross Society and 
 Order of St. John, But there is no confusion or over- 
 lapping in the zone of hostilities. 
 
 In the preparations for the great Battle of the Somme, 
 Sir Douglas Haig, thorough in this as in every other 
 detail, himself co-operated with the medical services in 
 arranging his regimental aid posts, his casualty clearing 
 stations, and the rest of them as systematically as his 
 batteries, his ammunition "dumps," and his reserves. 
 
 First in the order of danger is the Regimental Aid 
 Post, where the regimental doctor, with his stretcher- 
 
THE WAR DOCTORS 213 
 
 bearers, awaits, alongside the men who are to clamber 
 "over the top," the bloody fruits of battle. In the early 
 days of the war, before we had discovered the secret, or 
 had the means, to blast our road into Germany by cease- 
 less shells, the Regimental Aid Post was, as a rule, in 
 some deserted farmhouse as near to the front trench as 
 possible. To-day, as we advance, our guns leave noth- 
 ing standing, so that what was once perhaps a chateau 
 is now only a stretch of rubble. There is therefore but 
 little available cover for the doctors or the others before 
 "consolidation." 
 
 The intensity of the French and German artillery at 
 Verdun in March seemed to me then the limit of human 
 capacity to produce noise and destruction. But the 
 Somme bombardment actually furrowed or flattened all 
 before it. Verdun itself could not exist a week if ex- 
 posed to this fearful French and British cannonade. Its 
 volume of sound is so great that at times the very earth 
 shakes beneath one's feet. 
 
 The doctor has to-day probably only the shelter of 
 one of our own trenches or any little part that may re- 
 main of a captured German trench. There is no other 
 covering for him and his brave stretcher-bearers, who 
 are at once his nurses and his orderlies. Happily not 
 so many of these are fired upon by the enemy as hereto- 
 fore; for, as the Prussians have realised that our ar- 
 tillery is the most deadly thing in the history of war, 
 they have become a good deal more reasonable and 
 human. Now that their own wounded greatly outnum- 
 ber ours on almost every occasion, their doctors and 
 stretcher-bearers often advance with a sheet or towel 
 held high on a rifle as a flag of truce in order that they 
 may collect their wounded and we ours. In the early 
 days of the war similar suggestions on our part were 
 
2U LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 haughtily and contemptuously refused. And so the ad- 
 vanced medical forces on both sides are at last sparing 
 the wounded a good deal of the drawn-out horrors of 
 "No Man's Land." 
 
 The fine young men with the English, Scotch, Irish, 
 Canadian, and Australian accents who stand unarmed 
 in these Regimental Aid Posts work with an intensity 
 and celerity which eclipse even that of the surgeons in 
 London's operating theatres. 
 
 The stretcher-bearers stagger in with their load. There 
 is a lightning diagnosis, an antiseptic application, ban- 
 daging, a hastily-written label tied to the man's breast, 
 and the wounded one is borne off and away in the open 
 to the next stage, the Advanced Dressing Station, which 
 is as often as not also pushed right up into the fire zone. 
 The regimental stretcher-bearers therefore begin again 
 another dangerous pilgrimage rearwards. 
 
 As there is much ignorance in the public mind on the 
 subject of casualties, it should be well realised that by 
 far the greater proportion of our wounded are slightly 
 hit, and are "walking cases," so little hurt that in in- 
 numerable instances where the stretcher-bearers them- 
 selves have fallen they have been carried by the slightly 
 wounded soldiers. 
 
 I know no more moving experience than an afternoon 
 in an advanced dressing station. Let me describe that 
 of West Peronne. Its location is changed now, so I am 
 giving the enemy no information. We reached it on a 
 heavy and sultry Sunday afternoon by hiding ourselves 
 behind anything possible. Dust and smoke gave the at- 
 mosphere of a coming thunder-storm, the thudding of 
 the guns on both sides was incessant. Now and then 
 was heard the brisk note of a machine-gun, which sounds 
 for all the world like a boy rasping a stick along palings 
 
THE WAR DOCTORS 
 
 215 
 
 or the rattle which policemen carried in Mid-Victorian 
 days. 
 
 There was no sign of anything in the nature of a hos- 
 pital, a tent, or of anything above ground. I was get- 
 ting somewhat weary of being told to lie down flat every 
 
216 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 few seconds to avoid bursting shells, when I saw a couple 
 of stretcher-bearers coming through the haze as from 
 nowhere and then disappear underground. "It is under- 
 neath there," I was told by my guide, whose daily duty it 
 was to inspect these medical outposts. 
 
 As quickly as possible we got down into a trench and 
 followed the stretcher-bearers. There, in darkness lit 
 by a few candles, we gradually made out a very grim 
 scene. Talking was difficult, for one of our batteries 
 had just come into action a few yards away. 
 
 Owing to the heavy enemy shell fire, what I soon 
 found to be an underground maze — a plan of which ap- 
 pears on page 215 — had become completely blocked 
 with wounded men lying in the dark on their stretchers, 
 the passage ways dug out of the clayish earth being just 
 the width of a stretcher handle and no more. We trod 
 gently from stretcher handle to stretcher handle over the 
 silent men, some of them asleep with the blessed morphia 
 in their brains, others cheerily smiling, others staring as 
 wounded men do. All who could move a hand had a 
 cigarette — now admitted to be the first need of all but 
 the very dangerously wounded. 
 
 Passing on, and using our electric torch as little as 
 possible, so as not to disturb the sleepers, w^e came to the 
 main dressing room. Remember it was all underground, 
 all dark, and that the oncoming wail of approaching 
 shells, with immediate subsequent explosions, was con- 
 tinuous. 
 
 In this main dressing room the doctors, all young men, 
 some of them subalterns of the R.A.M.C, were wash- 
 ing and bandaging with the care and speed that can be 
 seen in the War films. I counted twenty-four patients 
 in that small chamber. We crept onward and came to 
 another room where there were nine cases, and again 
 
THE WAR DOCTORS 217 
 
 to a smaller one where lay the more dangerously 
 wounded. 
 
 These dressing rooms were protected by some four or 
 five feet of earth above them. There was a small offi- 
 cers' mess and a medical storeroom, which were merely 
 shielded by corrugated iron from shrapnel splinters, a 
 kitchen, an office, and that was about all. An operation 
 for tracheotomy was taking place in one of the dressing 
 rooms. 
 
 In all my many experiences abroad I have never seen 
 a more touching sight than this little underground gath- 
 ering of some seventy men, devoted doctors and assist- 
 ants, waiting amidst the incessant shelling until the over- 
 crowded maze could be evacuated. Let those who take 
 their ease on a Sunday afternoon, or any other after- 
 noon, realise that this same scene never ceases. Let 
 those who consider that they are amply doing their '"bit" 
 by keeping things going at home be grateful that their 
 "bit" is not as that of these young men. We cannot all 
 of us share the danger, but we can every one of us admit 
 the harsh inequalities of our respective war work. 
 
 One or two of the patients were shell-shock victims, 
 and it was piteous to note their tremor at the approach- 
 ing shell wails and subsequent thuds just outside our lit- 
 tle catacomb. 
 
 The plan appearing on page 215 gives a suggestion of 
 the ingenuity with which the R.A.M.C. officers have con- 
 verted a bit of an old German trench- work to the pur- 
 poses of an underground hospital and home for the doc- 
 tors and their assistants. 
 
 The shelling increased in intensity. It became ob- 
 vious that we had to remain concealed till the storm had 
 ceased. In the intervals we discussed things about 
 
218 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 wounded men. We learned that quite a considerable 
 proportion of them had dressed their own wounds with 
 the little first field dressing that is sewn Into the tunic of 
 every soldier. Others had got along well enough with 
 the medical help of regimental stretcher-bearers. The 
 rest had been tended at the Regimental Aid Posts to 
 which I have referred. 
 
 Presently the Germans diverted the attention of their 
 gunners to another point of the line, and we were able 
 to emerge into daylight once more and join a small com- 
 pany of lightly wounded and stretcher-bearers on their 
 way to a Walking Wounded Collecting Station. I 
 name all these distinct stages in the progress of the 
 wounded man in order to show how carefully the sys- 
 tem has been thought out and organised. It is a tribute 
 to the foresight of our medical authorities that all this 
 vast scheme had been arranged before the war. 
 
 On our way rearwards to the Walking Wounded Col- 
 lecting Station we were passed by some horse-ambu- 
 lances which, summoned by telephone, were proceeding 
 to the underground hospital we had just left. On our 
 way we escaped the only enemy aeroplane attack that 
 came to my notice during this visit to the front. An 
 officer and a few men were wounded. It speaks elo- 
 quently for the celerity with which our casualties are 
 cleared when I tell you that on the same evening, many 
 miles away In the rear, I saw this particular wounded 
 officer sitting in bed nonchalantly enjoying his dinner. 
 By the next day, I was told, he would probably be in 
 England. 
 
 The Walking Wounded Collecting Station consisted 
 of marquees in which a considerable number of Tommies 
 of all dialects were partaking of a hearty meal. As 
 
THE WAR DOCTORS 219 
 
 each arrived his name and regimental number were en- 
 tered, with particulars of his case. Where necessary his 
 dressings were re-arranged, and in every case a cigarette 
 was offered. Prodigious quantities of tea, cocoa, soup, 
 bread, butter and jam were disappearing. Despite the 
 bandaged heads and arms of some and the limping of 
 others, they were a merry, if tired, party. Eagerly and 
 in vigorous and unprintable Anglo-Saxon one of them 
 
 said : "I want to have another smack at the Alle- 
 
 mans." In a tent was a wounded officer, famous in 
 the world of big game. (scarred as the result of a miracu- 
 lous escape from an African elephant), who, though 
 covered with blood, had only one anxiety, and that was 
 to have his wound dressed, get a bath, and return to his 
 men in time for the next "stunt" — to use an American 
 expression which has grown fixedly into our war 
 language. Two days before, this Walking Wounded 
 Collecting Station had been shelled by the enemy. By 
 a strange stroke of fortune the only victims were a large 
 number of German prisoners. 
 
 Life is held gaily and cheaply in these advanced hos- 
 pitals. There was a small underground chamber here 
 fitted with bunks as on shipboard, in which the officers 
 could sleep if they chose, but they did not seem to be 
 particular whether they used it or not. 
 
 We shared the soldiers' meal, listened to their stories 
 — each one of them a full adventure in peace time — and 
 continued basewards, accompanied by motor ambulances 
 in which sitting cases were carried, to a great Corps Col- 
 lecting Station, a veritable Clapham Junction of the evac- 
 uating system. 
 
 To prevent mistakes, each man's label is checked at 
 every point he arrives at with as much care as a regis- 
 tered letter on its way through the post. There is no 
 
220 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 Red Tape, and nothing is left to chance. There is no 
 lost time. It is never forgotten that pain is ever pres- 
 ent and that saving time may mean saving life. But 
 even though we have not yet come to that link in the 
 chain — the hospital which is kept neat and burnished by 
 the hand of woman — all is well arranged and spotlessly 
 clean. Many dressings were being re-examined and 
 many wounds again attended to. 
 
 Here I saw the field operating theatre nearest to the 
 battle. It was in a spotless tent with a table, a power- 
 ful acetylene lamp, chloroform, and instruments — all 
 ready. Operations in the field are a rare exception in 
 the British Army. The matter of their necessity has 
 been discussed and re-discussed. There are arguments 
 for and against. But Sir Arthur Sloggett, General 
 Macpherson, and the famous surgeons we have at the 
 front, with Sir Alfred Keogh at home, may be relied 
 upon to know their business to the tips of their fingers. 
 In other armies, notably the Italian, urgent operations 
 take place in what answer to our Advanced Dressing 
 Stations. An Italian officer said to me: "We should 
 not do it unless we had to. Many of our cases would 
 not stand transport from our Alpine heights." 
 
 Resuming our journey with the ambulances, we came, 
 after an hour's halting journey through the dust and 
 the A.S.C. convoys to a Casualty Clearing Station — 
 the first hospital of a kind visualised by the general pub- 
 lic. 
 
 I have discovered from their conversation that very 
 few people realise the intricate nature of the net spread 
 by the R.A.M.C. over the field of war. The meshes are 
 many — but not too many. An important part of the 
 net are these very perfect clearing establishments. The 
 description of two will be sufficient. 
 
THE WAR DOCTORS 221 
 
 One of these Clearing Stations was a large old water- 
 mill which had been transformed into a most beautiful 
 hospital. I reached it in time to witness the arrival of 
 the ambulances. Out of them came all manner of 
 wounded, British and German. Friend and foe were 
 treated alike. They were just wounded men — that was 
 all. Such as could walk by themselves or with the help 
 of orderlies, came out dazed into the sunlight from the 
 ambulances. The Germans, who had for days been 
 trench-bound by our barrage, were, as a rule, horribly 
 dirty and impossible to approach for physical reasons. 
 Later, at another hospital I saw gently-born V.A.D. 
 nurses washing great unbathed wounded Prussians and 
 Bavarians. I felt positively guilty when I thought of 
 the chaff with which the V.A.D. movement, its uniforms 
 and salutings, was received ten years ago in the bad old 
 days when we ought to have been preparing for war. 
 
 Here, in this mill Casualty Clearing Station, the 
 broken soldiers came for the first time under the influ- 
 ence and gentle touch and consoling smile of women 
 nurses. Many of the men had been in and about the 
 firing line for weeks, several of the Germans for longer 
 than that. I talked with some of the enemy who had 
 arrived a day or two before in what must have seemed a 
 fairy palace. Some spoke of the care, kindness, good 
 food, flowers, and music (the gramophone never stops) 
 which were provided. As a rule they are grateful — at 
 any rate at first. Some are very grateful. One officer 
 used the word "lovingly" (liebvoll), and "lovingly" it 
 must seem, for nothing is more marked in inspecting 
 German hospitals, even such an establishment as the 
 Rudolf Virchow Hospital in Berlin, than to notice the 
 roughness of the surgery, the callousness shown in 
 
222 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 making remarks before patients, and the inferiority of 
 the under-trained nurses. 
 
 Some are not grateful and, like the pampered civilians 
 at the Alexandra Palace, think it necessary to place on 
 record complaints based on mere hostility. 
 
 This Casualty Clearing Station, placid with its river, 
 with its sunny gardens — into which many beds had been 
 carried so that the wounded might enjoy the birds, the 
 flowers, and trees — seems like an oasis after the grim 
 desolation of the wilderness of the Somme heights. 
 
 It is impossible to convey in words the amazing tireless 
 activity of the nurses and doctors. I did not know that 
 human beings could work so many hours without sleep 
 at the most anxious kind of work the world provides. 
 No wonder that the women sometimes break down and 
 require hostels and rest homes. Yet during a number 
 of war visits I have not met with one complaint from 
 any member of any medical staff in the field or else- 
 where. There is, on the other hand, the same continu- 
 ous enthusiasm throughout the medical service as one 
 sees in the great boot factory at Calais, in the vast motor 
 repair shop in Paris, or our transport from Havre to 
 the Front. The stimulus of war seems to double the 
 energy of every human being as soon as he lands in 
 France. 
 
 At this great Casualty Clearing Station by the railway 
 the hospital trains were collecting. When we had been 
 shown through the cool tents and had talked with men 
 we happened to know, we went on to the newly made 
 railway platform where the stretchers were being as- 
 sembled. It was a scene almost of gaiety. The gram- 
 ophone was playing the inevitable 'Tf You Were the 
 Only Girl in the World." Jokes, cigarettes, and news- 
 papers were passed about. The men looked the acme 
 
THE WAR DOCTORS 223 
 
 of content in their beautiful white train. They were 
 willing and anxious to chat. They were interested in all 
 that was going on, and grateful. Many might be going 
 to "Blighty" (Britain), the paradise of the wounded 
 man's imagination. 
 
 I do not know whether any one has written an account 
 of these trains, the doctors and nurses who live in them 
 year in and year out, travelling thousands of miles in 
 the course of a twelvemonth, but some one should do 
 so. My own information is as yet so scanty as to be 
 little worth reading.^ Of the wonderful hospital barges, 
 too, which, whenever possible, are used on the wide 
 French rivers and canals to carry cases that cannot stand 
 any shaking, not enough has been said. 
 
 It was interesting at the Clearing Station to see evi- 
 dence of the Red Cross Society in the existence of the 
 comfortable English beds of many of the sufferers. In 
 the world of wounded all sorts of little things have an 
 importance not understood by the generality of us. A 
 man likes to lie in bed rather than on a stretcher not 
 merely for the sake of custom and comfort. Such is 
 human nature that one man feels proud of having a bed 
 when another man has not. 
 
 The train took away all in a fit condition for travel, 
 leaving behind such cases as those of serious chest, ab- 
 dominal, and head wounds in the care of surgeons. 
 
 On a later day I saw the arrival of one such train at 
 one of those hospitals which look out on the sea and 
 are situated on the Northern French coast, which long 
 before the war was recognised as a great healing place. 
 The medical journals tell their readers in their own lan- 
 guage of these wonderful hospitals — converted casinos 
 
 ^ I have since read with interest a remarkable record, "The Diary 
 of a Nursing Sister" (WiUiam Blackwood and Sons). 
 
224. LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 and hotels and miles of perfectly-equipped huts. Our 
 hospitals in France are a world of their own. I do not 
 know how many women and men they employ, but I 
 should say more than one hundred thousand. In the 
 Etaples district alone there are 35,000 beds. Canada, 
 Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, India, and the 
 whole of the Empire haA'e given with both hands. 
 
 Those of the wounded who can be made well quickly 
 enough — and these are, of course, the immense majority 
 — go back to their war duties at the front, some eagerly, 
 all without murmuring. As they lie there in these won- 
 derful huts. In which every provision for speedy con- 
 valescence, for happiness, and reasonable amusement are 
 afforded, tended as they are by the best surgeons and 
 physicians of the English-speaking world, and by ladies 
 simply and gently born, they all tell you the same story 
 — they would like to get a glimpse of "Blighty" before 
 going back again to fight. 
 
 I went on board one of the white hospital ships, 
 marked against submarines on each side with a huge red 
 cross, to see them going home. Arriving on the quay 
 in the British Red Cross and St. John ambulances, and 
 gently carried, with the peculiar, slightly swaying walk 
 of the trained stretcher-bearer, they pass on to the ship 
 and descend in lifts to the particular deck on which is 
 their cot or bed. There can be nothing of the kind in 
 the world better than these speedy, perfectly lit and 
 ventilated vessels. 
 
 Once on board, and yet another stage nearer "Blighty" 
 and the beloved ones, all are contentment itself. Some 
 of the less injured men were on deck singing merrily. 
 Others of the wounded were discussing a newspaper arti- 
 cle outlining a project for the settling of soldiers on 
 land in the Dominions after the war. "^lany will go to 
 
THE WAR DOCTORS 225 
 
 Canada; some to Australia, I dare say," said one man; 
 "but I am one of those who mean to have a Httle bit of 
 'BHghty' for myself. We see enough in France to know 
 that a man and his family can manage a bit of land for 
 themselves and live well on it." 
 
 I remember a similar conversation a year ago close to 
 Ypres, when a young sergeant, who had been a game- 
 keeper at home and a working man Conservative, ob- 
 served, "The men in the dug-outs talk of a good many 
 subjects, but there is one on which they are all agreed. 
 That is the land question. They are not going back as 
 labourers, or as tenants, but as owners. Lots of them 
 have used their eyes and learned much about small 
 farming here." 
 
 As I watched the swift ship and saw her speeding 
 away to England at well over twenty knots, I wondered 
 if people and politicians at home are beginning to under- 
 stand that the bravery and camaraderie of the officers 
 and men in the field have broken down all class feeling ; 
 and that our millions of men abroad are changed com- 
 munities of whose thoughts and aims we know but little. 
 
 Just as Grant's soldiers, the Grand Army of the Re- 
 public, dominated the elections in the United States for 
 a quarter of a century, so will the men I have seen in 
 the trenches and the ambulances come home and demand 
 by their votes the reward of a very changed England — 
 an England they will fashion and share ; an England that 
 is likely to be as much a surprise to the present owners 
 of Capital and leaders of Labour as it may be to the 
 owners of the land. 
 
THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 
 
THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 
 
 In the earliest days of the War a beloved only son 
 was missing, and his mother asked The Times if it could 
 use its organisation in Paris to search the battlefields 
 for news of him. One of the members of the French 
 staff of the newspaper spent some three weeks in a vain 
 endeavour to obtain definite information. That, I be- 
 lieve, was the first systematic attempt at what has now 
 grown to be a very important branch of Red Cross work. 
 
 Shortly afterwards Lord Robert Cecil went to Paris, 
 and I remember finding him busily at work in a small 
 room in the Hotel lena. The Department inaugurated 
 by Lord Robert has now become one of the many useful 
 branches of Red Cross work. Lord Robert early set 
 the example of thoroughness for which the department 
 is known, for he himself went out personally to search 
 cottages and chateaux for men who might have been 
 carried there for treatment, and to discover, if possible, 
 the whereabouts of the graves of the fallen. 
 
 The news of this errand of mercy which the Red Cross 
 Society was speeding travelled swift and far, and soon 
 the calls made upon the staff available threatened to 
 overwhelm it. The small effort, it was clear, must be 
 extended — for the idea of abandoning it was not enter- 
 tained. So larger premises were secured and branches 
 were opened in Boulogne and other suitable places, and 
 a central office was organised in London. Here a large 
 number of charitably minded people laboured to carry 
 
 229 
 
230 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 on the great mass of work which waited upon their ef- 
 forts. So fast did the organisation grow that the orig- 
 inal accommodation proved quite inadequate. Lord SaHs- 
 bury, Lord Robert Cecil's brother, then provided larger 
 quarters at his London home, and in February, 191 5, the 
 staff was transferred there. 
 
 In July, however, more room had become necessary, 
 and then the Duke of Norfolk placed the first floor of 
 his residence, Norfolk House, at the disposal of the 
 workers. A month later this space was Inadequate. Fi- 
 nally, Lord Astor lent his house in Carlton House Ter- 
 race, and there the organisation is now housed. The 
 prisoners' department has been constituted now as a 
 separate system. 
 
 These quick changes of home reveal clearly how 
 strong a hold upon the public imagination the new work 
 obtained, and how eager all those who had ceased to hear 
 from their friends in France, or who knew that their 
 friends were among the missing, were to avail them- 
 selves of help. They reveal also how thoroughly the 
 organisation won the public trust, how efficient it was 
 even at the beginning, and how great a want was sup- 
 plied by it. 
 
 The principle of working had, of course, to be 
 evolved, and the difficulties encountered in the course of 
 this work were very many. The first searchers found 
 themselves with a list of names, and with the whole of 
 war-wracked France in which to search for those men. 
 How were they to begin to search? Where were they 
 to go? The armies were fully engaged in battles upon 
 the issue of which hung the fate of Europe; men had 
 small leisure to spare for seeking for fallen comrades. 
 
 It was seen that the first step must be to tap the re- 
 sources of the hospitals. Members of the first little 
 
THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 231 
 
 party with which Lord Robert Cecil was identified began 
 to try to gain news of the missing by questioning the 
 wounded. Sometimes this method led to nothing, but 
 frequently a man would be found who had known the 
 lost soldier and marked his fate. In those cases the 
 anxieties aroused were answered at once, and fears and 
 hopes set at rest; in these cases, too, an indication was 
 given as to where the soldier had fallen, if he was dead, 
 so that steps could be taken to mark his burial place. 
 
 This identification of graves was carried on until the 
 end of 19 14, when it ceased to be part of the duty of the 
 department, the War Ofiice having appointed a Graves 
 Registration Commission under Brigadier-General Fa- 
 bian Ware. A close connexion, however, subsists be- 
 tween the Commission and the Red Cross Department. 
 
 It was an obvious step from this to instal "watchers" 
 in all hospitals. These watchers were given lists of 
 names of missing men, and it was their duty to ask new 
 patients if they knew of anything of these men, to note 
 down their answers and to forward them to headquar- 
 ters. 
 
 On my last visit to Boulogne I spent a morning ex- 
 amining the organisation of a hospital ship, and was 
 especially attracted to the work of a searcher — a Roman 
 Catholic priest, the member of a well-known family — 
 who, note-book in hand, was interrogating group after 
 group of the lightly wounded on their way to "Blighty." 
 He very kindly showed me the result of his morning's 
 work, and it occurred to me then that the public might 
 care to read a selection of these war dramas in miniature. 
 At the end of this chapter I have appended a few that 
 tell their own story, in the official language of the re- 
 porter, and also in the simple words of the bereaved. 
 
 This system formed the backbone of the whole organ- 
 
232 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 isation, and upon this system the organisation is based at 
 the present day. As a system it has been brought to 
 great perfection; every fragment of information is col- 
 lected; the information is sent out in language which 
 can be understood by the least educated and by those who 
 are bewildered by sorrow. Moreover, testimonials to 
 the daring and devotion of the fallen are gathered, to 
 their endurance under suffering, and to the manner in 
 which their comrades risked and even lost their lives to 
 save them from suffering, death or captivity. No letter, 
 however trivial, remains unanswered; no enquiry, how- 
 ever difficult, is neglected. 
 
 Some of the tributes sent by comrades are documents 
 of strange appeal. 
 
 "Lieutenant ^" wrote a private in his regiment, 
 
 "was acting fine. The regiment went on about 20 yards 
 
 from where he fell and took cover. Private got 
 
 permission to go back to him and take his identity disk 
 and his revolver." 
 
 "Your brother," wrote another soldier, "was a grand 
 officer; his men would have followed him anywhere. 
 He fell in the thick of it." And an officer wrote of one 
 of his men, "He was a hero; he was an example to all 
 of us." It is not difficult to understand how these sim- 
 ple expressions written by comrades who have shared the 
 same dangers bring a measure of consolation to the fa- 
 thers and mothers of our heroic dead. 
 
 Each enquiry is filed separately and becomes soon a 
 dossier; the moment any piece of information is received 
 by the Bureau it is transmitted to the friends of the sol- 
 dier. These dossiers are human documents of rare in- 
 terest which none can read unmoved ; they reveal, too, in 
 convincing fashion the extraordinary amount of care 
 and thought which is expended upon the work of tracing 
 
THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 233 
 
 and searching for the missing. Indeed in this organisa- 
 tion is to be found the newest and noblest form of de- 
 tective enterprise, as full of thrills and surprises, of close 
 deductive reasoning and resourceful cleverness as the 
 memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. 
 
 Here, for example, is a case selected at random from 
 among the hundreds, nay thousands, which have been 
 filed. The missing man may be called Private Smith. 
 On the 1st of October, 191 5, the Bureau received the 
 following letter concerning him : — 
 
 I should feel most thankful to you if you could 
 possibly trace any news of my dear son reported 
 "Missing" at the Dardanelles in August. I have 
 tried myself but failed. 
 
 The enquiry was put in hand at once, and Private 
 Smith's name added to the hospital lists. But on De- 
 cember 13th the desired information was still lacking. 
 Nevertheless it was possible to report : — 
 
 Private Roberts now in hospital abroad states 
 that about 3 days after the landing they were ad- 
 vancing across a plain to go to the first line trenches 
 when the Turks opened fire on them. Our in- 
 formant was with your son until they had crossed 
 the plain but did not see him fall. The stretcher- 
 bearers never found him, and it was probable, there- 
 fore, that he had crawled into the long grass and so 
 got out of sight. If this account is accurate it 
 seems to suggest that your son has been made a 
 prisoner by the Turks, and in this hope and belief 
 we are continuing to make every possible enquiry 
 with regard to the matter, and will at once com- 
 
234 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 municate with you if any further or more reassur- 
 ing news comes to hand. 
 
 The reply to this letter shows how much relief it 
 brought to the boy's mother ; she wrote : — 
 
 I received your welcome letter. I am very grate- 
 ful to you. I can assure you I shall wait very anx- 
 iously for any fresh news of my dear son, who seems 
 to have been spirited away from me. 
 
 The next letter the mother received was dated Decem- 
 ber 22nd. It ran: — 
 
 We have received information stating that Pri^ 
 vate X., who was taken to X Hospital, would be able 
 to give you information about your son. 
 
 Then on January 4th, the Bureau wrote further : — 
 
 We have received another report which tends to 
 confirm the possibility of your son having been 
 taken prisoner by the Turks. Private Y states as 
 follows: — "I was a machine-gun driver. We were 
 ordered to advance, to take up a fresh position in 
 the centre at Suvla Bay. The sergeant and Smith 
 got too far. Two were wounded and the gun and 
 two tripods were lost, and we were ordered to retire. 
 The ground which was open was occupied by the 
 Turks. I went out again by daylight, and also by 
 night, but could find no trace of the sergeant or 
 Smith. I believe they were taken prisoners. I 
 knew Smith well; he came from , was of me- 
 dium height, and clean-shaven." 
 
THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 235 
 
 The evidence seemed now to be tending to the prisoner 
 of war theory, but still a great load of anxiety lay on the 
 mother's mind. After seeing her son's friend in hospital 
 and receiving this letter, she wrote: "It seems a num- 
 ber of people saw him up to a certain point and then 
 missed him, which leaves a terrible doubt as to whether 
 he was killed or taken prisoner." 
 
 Confirmation of the reports already given was received 
 in February in the shape of another statement, but the 
 Bureau added : "Up to the present, however, we have 
 not been able to obtain confirmation of these statements 
 either from the list of prisoners which have reached us 
 so far from Turkey, or from any other source." 
 
 This letter was acknowledged with deepest thankful- 
 ness. Then came a bitter blow in the shape of another 
 statement. 
 
 They were nearly surrounded. Two were 
 known to have been killed. One of them was miss- 
 ing at the time, but was found two months later in 
 Malta. I believe he had been left for dead, but 
 eventually crawled into the Cheshire lines. An- 
 other was said to have been wounded in the wrist, 
 but has disappeared and so has Smith. 
 
 The outlook was now black indeed. In April, after 
 receiving a further statement, the Bureau wrote to the 
 soldier's mother : 
 
 We are afraid that there is now little chance of 
 your son being a prisoner, as we should have ex- 
 pected to have received his name in some of the 
 lists which have reached us from Turkey. If, how- 
 ever, there are any other enquiries you would like us 
 
236 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 to make for you, you have only to let us know. In 
 the meantime we beg once again to assure you of 
 our deep sympathy in the matter. 
 
 No definite information perhaps, but how much bet- 
 ter than the utter silence which had baffled the seeker 
 before the Red Cross came to her help. At least she 
 was able to picture the last hours of her gallant boy 
 and to be with him in spirit during the moments of his 
 devotion and sacrifice. Nor did the tragic courage of 
 the words in her last letter to the Bureau "I am hoping 
 still" express in any degree a diminution of the gratitude 
 which she felt and acknowledged. 
 
 Many of these dossiers, unhappily, tell only a story of 
 sorrow; there are other cases, however, in which the 
 miracle longed for so eagerly actually happens, and the 
 lost one is discovered. But it must be remembered that 
 appeal is not made to the Bureau until the official sources 
 have been carefully canvassed and other means have 
 failed. In other words, the enquiry in most cases is 
 directed to discovering either in what circumstances a 
 man came by his death, or whether it is possible that he 
 may be a prisoner of war. 
 
 Another case, which affords a good illustration of 
 the kind of work being carried on day by day, was first 
 brought to the Bureau's notice in April of this year by 
 a report from the War Office that Sergeant James was 
 missing. "Anything," wrote his wife in asking for 
 help, "would be better than this awful suspense." 
 
 Some fifteen days later the Bureau was in possession 
 of information which left little or no doubt that the 
 poor fellow was killed. "An officer," they wrote, "says 
 
 that during the unsuccessful attack on , as he him- 
 
 .self lay wounded on the ground, Sergeant James came 
 
THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 237 
 
 up and spoke to him; and that instant the sergeant was 
 very badly wounded in the chest. The officer feared at 
 the time that your husband was killed, but just at this 
 moment the retreat was ordered and the fallen were left 
 on the spot." Further, a private gave the same account 
 and adds that "from the sudden way in which your hus- 
 band fell he was instantly killed. It was," he declares, 
 "within 10 yards of the German lines about 4 a.m., and 
 bright moonlight. I saw him plainly; he was my own 
 sergeant." 
 
 The poor wife, to whom the names of the informants 
 were given, verified the story herself in a few days, and 
 wrote to the Bureau : 
 
 Words simply cannot express m^ thanks for the 
 kindness and attention you have taken on my behalf. 
 I am indeed grateful. I am positively sure that if it 
 had not been for you I should still be suffering in 
 suspense. 
 
 A certificate of her husband's gallantry was after- 
 wards sent to her. 
 
 The gratitude of these stricken men and women for 
 the help given them is one of the most wonderful fea- 
 tures of this work. It is equalled in its beauty only by 
 the courage and resignation which are displayed. A 
 poor wife who was unable to obtain exact information 
 wrote : 
 
 I am broken-hearted at having to confess that I 
 have tried my very best to find him and have failed. 
 So I shall have to place all my trust in our Heav- 
 enly Father and wait. When the war is over he 
 may come back to me along with others of our dear, 
 
238 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 brave men whose wives and mothers have not al- 
 lowed their fears to quench their hope. I thank 
 you with all my heart, and I pray that God will be 
 with you and the good work you are doing. 
 
 Even more touching is this cry of pain, stifled in the 
 uttering: "I am very grateful; but, oh it is a bitter end 
 to the long, long hoping." And this: "We accept, 
 knowing that he did his duty." 
 
 The desire for assurance that the dead man has found 
 a grave, and that his grave is being tended, is also con- 
 stantly being expressed, and there is a whole world of 
 pathos in the reply of a mother who had received a de- 
 scription of her son's burial place. "We are all glad 
 to know that he lies comfortable." 
 
 It is an inspiring thought that this splendid work of 
 seeking is carried out almost entirely by voluntary means. 
 How much the success of it is due to Lord Robert 
 Cecil's early work has already been indicated. 
 
 It has sometimes been asked why this work is carried 
 out by an agency like the Red Cross and not by the War 
 Office itself. The answer is, clearly, that no department 
 of State could hope to touch the human chord which 
 gives this work its greatest value. It would be wrong 
 to expect an already overworked War Office to busy it- 
 self collecting small personal details, yet it is just these 
 details for which all those who have suffered the great 
 loss yearn so wistfully. That they should have this 
 comfort is surely beyond all dispute. Who, for example, 
 would deny to a mother a letter like this? 
 
 We called him "Tom"; he was a dear good fel- 
 low. It happened on the left. I saw him fall. So 
 far as I could see, it was all over. He himself said. 
 
THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 239 
 
 "I am done for; go on, lads." The ground where 
 this happened was in our possession when I left. 
 
 Indeed, the mother's reply furnishes the complete jus- 
 tification for the work being accomplished. "We have 
 heard nothing more from the War Office; only that he 
 was wounded and missing, and but for your help and 
 kindness we should still be waiting in suspense." 
 
 Here are some complete dossiers: 
 
 The Dossier of Pte. J. L. D of the 2nd Black 
 
 Watch 
 
 I. 
 
 28th July, 19 16. 
 
 Could you possibly find out for me the fate of en- 
 closed soldier, Pte. J. L. D , 2nd Black Watch, 
 
 Indian Expeditionary Force ? He was wounded on 
 January 21st in the Persian Gulf. I am enquiring 
 for the family. 
 
 M H . (LadyH.) 
 
 11. 
 
 nth August, 1 9 16. 
 
 We have only received one report as to the above, 
 which we now send on to you though we consider it 
 
 most unlikely to be true, as Pte. D 's name is 
 
 not in any list of Turkish prisoners yet received. 
 
 The report comes from Pte. J. R. , and Black 
 
 Watch, and is as follows: 
 
 "On 2 1st January, 1916, in Mesopotamia I saw 
 D in the Turkish ist line captured, but trying 
 
240 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 to get away and calling out, so that he is probably a 
 prisoner of war. The English took the position, 
 but had to retire for lack of reinforcements." 
 
 We are continuing enquiries in the hope of gain- 
 ing more satisfactory information. 
 To Lady H . 
 
 IIL 
 
 26th September, 19 16. 
 
 It is with great pleasure that we can now send 
 
 you the news that Pte. D is a released prisoner 
 
 of war and has been invalided to India. We had 
 heard nothing beyond the report sent to you on the 
 nth August, which we hesitated to believe. This 
 good news has come to us from Basra to-day. 
 
 Letters to Pte. D should be addressed with 
 
 full regimental particulars, c/o ''Casualties," Bom- 
 bay, and the envelope should be marked in the cor- 
 ner "Exchanged Prisoner of War." 
 
 We shall be greatly obliged if you will let us know 
 whether Pte. D 's relatives had had any inti- 
 mation that he was a prisoner of war, and whether 
 he had been able to communicate with them. Such 
 knowledge, if you can kindly supply it, may be of 
 the greatest assistance to us in comforting other 
 anxious relatives. 
 To Lady H . 
 
 IV. 
 
 9th October, 19 16. 
 
 Pte. D 's friends have not heard from him 
 
 at all, so that they were very grateful for your let- 
 
THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 241 
 
 ter and his address. Thank you so much for your 
 kind help. Yours truly, 
 
 M H . 
 
 V. 
 
 13th October, 19 16. 
 
 Lady H has made enquiry about my hus- 
 band, Pte. J. L. D , 2nd Black Watch. I am 
 
 very pleased to here the news of him. I heard 
 from the Office at Perth that he was a released 
 Pris. of War, and the 2nd of Oct. I heard again 
 that he as a gunshot wound in the head and heel, 
 and he is at Colaba War Hospital, Bombay, India. 
 I should like to here from him. I have only had 
 one card from him since he was wounded, and that 
 was to say he was at Bagdad. The last letter he 
 wrote was the i6th of Jan. and he was wounded 
 on the 2 1st Jan. so its nine months he has been 
 wounded I do hope he is getting better I have only 
 seen him once in the two years and I have lost my 
 Brother and Father since he as been away so I 
 have had a great worry and I have three little chiel- 
 dren so I do hope he will be spared to see them 
 again. I wonder if he is too ill to write as I have 
 not heard from him, and do you think he would be 
 able to come home if he is well enough and would 
 you be able to let me know if he is badly wounded 
 as I am very anxious to know after such a long 
 time. I should be greatly oblige. 
 
 E. D . 
 
 VI. 
 
 1 6th October, 19 16. 
 
 Your letter of the 13th crossed ours to Lady 
 H . Probably by this time you will have re- 
 
M2 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 ceived the very cheering account of your husband 
 which we have sent to her for you. We told her 
 that we had received a report through the War 
 
 Office that Pte. D was in Colaba War Hospital, 
 
 Bombay, that his wound was healed and his condi- 
 tion good. 
 
 This will comfort you very much as he is evi- 
 dently progressing really well. We do not know 
 what his movements will be, but if we should hear 
 at any time that he has left India, we will let you 
 know. 
 
 With many congratulations. 
 To Mrs. E. D . 
 
 The Dossier of Flight Sub-Lieutenant C. G., of 
 THE Royal Naval Air Service. 
 
 I. 
 
 July 1 8th, 1916. 
 
 With reference to your enquiry for Flight Sub- 
 Lt. C. G., Royal Naval Air Service, we have re- 
 ceived the following report from Flight Sub-Lt. 
 E , now in hospital at Bombay, who states : — 
 
 "About the 20th April, G went up carrying 
 
 food to Kut. He was attacked by a German ma- 
 chine. His observer was shot dead, and G • 
 
 had to land in Turkish trenches, and was made a 
 Prisoner. The Turks sent for his valise and box 
 to Orah and reported that he is well though slightly 
 wounded." 
 
THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 243 
 
 We have not received Flight Sub-Lt. G 's 
 
 name on any Prisoners' List yet, but we will inform 
 you as soon as we do so. Prisoners generally are 
 not able to communicate with their relations for 
 about the first four months. 
 To G. H. G., Esq. 
 
 11. 
 
 July 27th, 1916. 
 
 We beg to send you a further report which we 
 
 have received about Mr. G . Our informant, 
 
 who is now in hospital at Alexandria, states : — 
 
 "I saw Mr. G start on the 24th to carry food 
 
 to our chaps in Kut, taking with him as observer, 
 
 Lt. F , from the Nor folks. As they passed 
 
 over the Turkish lines they were attacked by a Fritz 
 (Turkish or German aeroplane), the observer was 
 killed and Mr. G , who was fired at continu- 
 ously, was brought down. Either that day or the 
 next, the Turks sent a message by Flag of Truce 
 
 to Commander B that Mr. G was wounded 
 
 and wanted his kit. Everything he had was ac- 
 cordingly sent up stream by motor boat to a place 
 agreed on where the Turks met it. Commander 
 B is now at Zanzibar, East Africa. The rec- 
 ords have probably gone to England. Mr. G 
 
 was a most enthusiastic pilot, and when he could 
 would go over with food three or four times a day. 
 It was no place for seaplanes, and I remember him 
 saying the Turks would get him soon, before it 
 actually happened." 
 
 This is a more detailed account than the last we 
 sent you and tends to confirm that report, and we 
 
244 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 very much hope that when we obtain full lists of 
 the prisoners in the hands of the Turks we shall 
 find his name in them. 
 
 Assuring you of our sincere sympathy in your 
 anxiety. 
 
 III. 
 
 July 28th, 1916. 
 
 I beg to thank you for your letter of yesterday's 
 date giving me much interesting information re- 
 garding my son, which has been communicated to 
 
 you by A. J , R.N.A.S. You have been most 
 
 kind in all your efforts in my interest, and I tender 
 my thanks to all those who work so unselfishly for 
 others. 
 
 Will you please accept the enclosed £25 as a sec- 
 ond donation to your funds from Mrs. E. M. G. ? 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 G. H. G . 
 
 IV. 
 
 12. ix. 16. 
 
 I have much pleasure in informing you that 
 
 Flight Lt. C. B. G has been released by the 
 
 Turks. 
 
 He has cabled from Amara under date loth Sep- 
 tember that he has been exchanged and is well in 
 health. 
 
 Thanking you for your kind efforts on his be- 
 half. 
 
 G. H. G . 
 
THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING 24.5 
 
 V. 
 
 September 14th, 1916. 
 
 We are so glad to hear that you have had a 
 cable from your son, Flight Sub-Lieutenant C. 
 G , Royal Naval Air Service. 
 
 We have also heard from our Office at Basra and 
 were on the point of writing to you to say that we 
 had heard that he was an exchanged Prisoner of 
 War from Bagdad, was quite well, and sailed for 
 India in tlie Hospital ship Varsova on September 
 loth. 
 
 We do indeed congratulate you. 
 
 This, then, is a labour of love, belonging in its essence 
 to Red Cross work as that work has come to be under- 
 stood throughout our land. It is a labour which eases 
 the sorest wounds of warfare and which indirectly brings 
 great comfort to the fighting men themselves, many of 
 whom are haunted by the fear of being numbered among 
 the lost and so becoming a source of suffering to their 
 friends. 
 
 The British soldier needs no advertisement, but it is 
 not possible to close this chapter without placing on rec- 
 ord the great help which all ranks of the Army give to 
 the searchers for information about the missing. No 
 trouble is grudged by these men if it is likely to help to 
 relieve the burden of their comrades' womenfolk. The 
 wounded in hospitals, indeed, seem to forget their own 
 pains on the instant when this appeal is made to them. 
 Many a sore heart owes its consoling to the action of 
 these splendid fellows; and many a wife and mother 
 
^46 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 treasures to-day as a priceless heritage the letters written 
 by them in memory of a fallen friend. "I thought per- 
 haps you might like to hear" — the letters often begin, 
 and the note of apology frequently runs all through 
 them. It is the way of the British soldier; for within 
 the breast of a hero he cherishes ever the heart of a little 
 child. 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 
 
 THE GERMANS IN SWITZERLAND 
 I 
 
 Zurich, Switzerland. 
 
 On leaving- Italy I spent some days in Switzerland 
 en route for Spain, and was able to gather a good deal 
 of miscellaneous information not without value. 
 
 At night, Ziirich, the first large neutral city in which I 
 have been since the beginning of the war, is as bright 
 as London was in July, 19 14. Rome, too, is bright, but 
 over the Italian capital there is the indefinable atmosphere 
 of war. 
 
 In coming up through the Swiss-Italian lakes, we were 
 at once among German tourists. At Lugano we saw 
 figures familiar enough before the war, the stout, elderly 
 German husband, followed at a respectful distance by his 
 wife in her atrocious Rcformkleid. It was like going 
 back years in one's life. In the train were Germans who 
 talked loudly at us, and stared in the German way. The 
 dining-car was filled with the usual German advertise- 
 ments ; rather amusingly some of them read to-day — the 
 Hamburg-Amerika Line with an illuminated picture of 
 one of Herr Ballin's ocean monsters on its way to New 
 York! 
 
 It was near midnight when we reached Zurich. One 
 remembers only the German voices, the electric bright- 
 ness of the streets, and the familiar rushing of the river. 
 
 249 
 
250 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 But It felt like Germany. Next morning, as we woke 
 after delightful sleep induced by much journeying, the 
 impression was for a moment that of a nightmare. Was 
 it Germany, or was it not? On the floor, where it had 
 been disrespectfully thrown over night, was the big eider- 
 down Federdecke. At my right hand on the wall was a 
 prominent notice in large German type: — 
 
 Die Zimmerpreise werden erhoht wenn keine der 
 Hauptmahheiten im Hotel genommen wird, auch 
 wenn der Preis vorher festgesetzt. 
 
 [The prices of rooms are raised if none of the 
 principal meals are taken in the hotel, even if the 
 price has been agreed upon.] 
 
 The waiter who brings the coffee speaks German onlyt 
 
 Looking down into the sunny streets at seven in the 
 morning, we see a German town alive and busy, neW; 
 spick and span, like most German cities. The SfddtiscM 
 Strassenbahnen are packed with business men. School 
 children are pouring through the streets and across the 
 squares. There are the little girls with spectacles, double 
 pigtails and knapsacks; big boys with spectacles, socks, 
 and bare legs ; students with queer caps. 
 
 Zurich is efficient. It is obviously well managed. 
 There are almost as many "Achtung" and "Verboten" 
 signs as in Hanover itself. It is so efficient that the lit- 
 tle people are dragged out of their beds and sent to school 
 at seven in the morning — an hour when other little peo- 
 ple in a less over-organised country are prattling and 
 bathing as children should. At night they are still about 
 at a very late hour. 
 
 All English people have a strange sensation when first 
 walking through a German neutral town in war time. 
 Little but German is heard. The old familiar "Delika- 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 251 
 
 tessen" and "Bier vom Fass" notices intensify the feel- 
 ing. This part of German Switzerland, though by no 
 means hostile towards individual Britons or, indeed, 
 towards the Empire, is completely German. In Zurich 
 the English traveller finds himself cheek by jowl with 
 our chief enemy, for the Reichsdentsch population of 
 Zurich is large. These "Imperial Germans" are not, as 
 a rule, offensive, and are considerably more civil to the 
 English than they were before the war. 
 
 The attitude of the German-Swiss was, naturally, anti- 
 Ally at first, but it is becoming less and less hostile, and, 
 in some ways, positively appreciative. These same good 
 people of Zurich, who strike the British visitor as being 
 so German, recently besieged the railway station to wel- 
 come the passing British prisoners on their way to 
 hospitable internment. At some places barriers were 
 erected to keep back the crowds who assembled in thou^ 
 sands merely to see the trains pass in the middle of the 
 night, and to cheer the newcomers. At Ziirich the police 
 were powerless, and the enthusiasm for the wounded 
 British was delirious. These manifestations of Swiss 
 good-heartedness have quite obliterated from the minds 
 of British residents the memory of the rough handling 
 to which some were subjected at the beginning of the 
 war. Even those who, like The Times Correspondent, 
 were arrested and kept in custody for various periods 
 warmly recognise the friendliness of the Swiss people. 
 
 The German-Swiss, I think, are puzzled about the 
 war, and especially about Verdun. On the bookstalls 
 you find side by side with more modest collections of 
 The Times and of the Continental Edition of the Daily 
 Mail, suspicious great piles of the Frankfurter ZeiUmg, 
 the Vossische Zeitimg, the Neue Freie Presse, and of all 
 the chief German and Austrian newspapers. 
 
252 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 These same German and Austrian journals and their 
 German-Swiss contemporaries gave great prominence to 
 the Kaiser's famous February despatch, in which he 
 stated that his brave Brandenburgers had stormed the 
 "fortress of Douaumont," and suggested that Douau- 
 mont was a real fortress commanding the ruined little 
 city on the Meuse. 
 
 As I pointed out in a message telegraphed to The 
 Times from Verdun early in March, and reprinted in this 
 volume, Douaumont is a fort only in name. Six months 
 have now elapsed, and the German-Swiss see that all the 
 military might of their kinsmen has been without avail. 
 The French-Swiss newspapers, in good Fleet-street style, 
 are "rubbing it in." They reprint the February head- 
 lines of the German newspapers and passages from an 
 eminent German military critic who wrote : — 
 
 Verdun is at its last gasp. Even as I write our 
 brave troops are probably cjuartered in its houses. 
 
 The only reply from Germany is the monotonous and 
 outworn suggestion that the reduction of Verdun is tak- 
 ing its normal course. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that the business connex- 
 ions and family ties between Germany and German 
 Switzerland are nearly as close as those between England 
 and Scotland. Yet some of the German-Swiss newspa- 
 pers are fair and give both sides a hearing. This is the 
 more remarkable, since German propaganda by bribed 
 newspaper, kinematograph, advertisement, private letter, 
 business threat and bribe never ceases. Through her 
 hosts of secret agents Germany hears when this or that 
 citizen of German Switzerland has expressed unortho- 
 dox views. Within a few hours the culprit receives 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 253 
 
 a private letter carefully controverting his opinions. 
 
 German methods of working upon neutrals have often 
 been analysed, but I think the most effective of them are 
 still news-twisting and rapidity of publication. In the 
 train between Zurich and Berne one bull-necked Hun of 
 the commercial traveller type read, too loudly to be 
 polite, a German report of the most recent North Sea 
 "scrap," not a word about which had arrived from Lon- 
 don. As before, the idea of our losses was allowed to 
 remain in the German, Austrian, and neutral mind long 
 enough to become embedded there. 
 
 Comparison with our belated Admiralty report next 
 day showed that the German communique was an artful 
 piece of lying, but the lie had a long start, as in the Jut- 
 land battle matter. 
 
 Another object of the German propaganda is to give 
 the impression that affairs in Germany are going on as 
 usual. Throughout Switzerland the great German 
 steamship advertisements appear as though the Atlantic 
 were still open. The Hamburg-Amerika offices in the 
 various towns look as if nothing had changed. The 
 Balkan-Zug (Balkan Express) has flaring advertise- 
 ments and time-tables posted up on the walls of stations 
 showing its route "Berlin-Budapest-Sofia-Konstantino- 
 ple." I saw one of them purposely placed beside a mod- 
 est announcement of the Great Western Railway "the 
 route for England's most historic sites and Cathedral 
 Cities." 
 
 There are some faint efforts at British propaganda. 
 They might be greatly improved upon and intensified. 
 Our "man in the street" may ask why we should trouble 
 at all about German Switzerland or Switzerland in gen- 
 eral, but Downing-street, I imagine, has reason to know 
 otherwise. Nor would Germany be putting in propa- 
 
254. LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 ganda seven days a week unless she had certain objects 
 in view. 
 
 In French Switzerland our French Allies are render- 
 ing us great services. They have organised at Geneva 
 a series of lectures upon "The Effort of the Allies" by 
 eminent French writers and statesmen. The Germans 
 have striven to undermine Swiss belief in Allied cohe- 
 sion. With true French insight, our friends saw that if 
 France bore generous witness to what her Allies have 
 done and are doing, her assurance would carry greater 
 weight than any assurance which individual Allies could 
 give on their own behalf. The result has been a series 
 of manifestations of which the effect is not confined to 
 French Switzerland. 
 
 French Switzerland Is more fervently and, as I gath- 
 ered at a public meeting, more vociferously pro-Ally 
 than are some of the Allied countries themselves. Ger- 
 man Switzerland is sentimentally pro-German, but, as I 
 have said, is striving to be fair. But Switzerland as a 
 whole is pro-Swiss "first, last, and all the time," as 
 Americans say. 
 
 Of Italian Switzerland I saw little, but I gathered that 
 notwithstanding some misapprehensions, there is a gen- 
 eral feeling of relief at the knowledge that the comple- 
 tion of the defences on the Italian side of the frontief 
 has diminished any temptation which Germany may have 
 felt to violate Swiss neutrality in that direction. Swit- 
 zerland is naturally afraid of Germany and knows her 
 well enough to understand that no sentimental considera- 
 tion would protect Swiss neutrality, did a definite mili- 
 tary advantage seem obtainable. Every step taken by 
 France or Italy to deprive the Germans in advance of 
 such an advantage, therefore, enhances the security of 
 the Swiss. 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 255 
 
 Au fond des choses, I believe it is the championship 
 of the cause of little nations by England in the past and 
 by the Allies in the present that has most affected the 
 attitude of Switzerland. The war has chastened her 
 and has caused her to realise her comparative helpless- 
 ness, "You are becoming absolutely Germanised," I 
 said to a young bank manager who was changing some 
 money for me. '*Not at all," he replied. "We admire 
 Germany, but her rule would be too rigid for us free Re- 
 publicans. We are grateful to England for her protec- 
 tion of small nations, but we fear Russia. We have not 
 forgotten Russia's visit of a hundred years ago." 
 
 His was a very different tone from that of a German, 
 straight from Frankfurt, with the Frankfurter Zeitung 
 in his hand, a member of the race which has made Frank- 
 furt famous. He was an elderly man, and opened the 
 conversation in fairly respectable English by asking if I 
 came from England. He proceeded to show me that 
 he knew nothing whatever about the war. 
 
 I should have expected this attitude from an ordinary 
 German, but here was a Jew, a member of one of the 
 most intelligent races of the world, a race that has been 
 given quick powers of insight, inference, and deduction. 
 Yet he was convinced that Germany had been basely at- 
 tacked, that the English Navy was paralysed, that Lon- 
 don was almost in ruins, that England was on her last 
 legs financially and on the eve of a social revolution, that 
 Hindenburg was cunningly drawing Brusiloff and the 
 Russians on to their doom. 
 
 Nor was the man without knowledge of England. He 
 had been there twice — in London once and once in the 
 Isle of Wight. He was especially loud in his lamenta- 
 tions over our futile attempt "to starve the women and 
 children in Germany," but had nothing to say when I 
 
256 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 pointed out how Bismarck had treated Paris in 1870. 
 He was also particularly angry that the Swiss should be 
 making fuzes for our shells, and said that the Swiss were 
 as bad as the Americans. I explained that neutral coun- 
 tries had often done this kind of thing and that the 
 Swiss, by the way, were making aluminum for the Ger- 
 man Zeppelins, in whose future potentialities the old 
 gentleman had infinite belief. He was especially elo- 
 quent over the condition of German finance and the rela- 
 tively good position of the mark in Switzerland. 
 
 I asked him if he ever read the English com- 
 muniques, which, by the way, seem to be very fully given 
 in the German Press. He replied that he did, but they 
 were all lies. Verdun, of course, was going all right. 
 Germany, he admitted, was suffering from lack of sev- 
 eral kinds of food and raw material. He confessed that 
 he was glad of the opportunity of getting a few days in 
 such a land of plenty as that in which he was travelling. 
 He thought the war would last at least till Christmas, 
 at which time France would have collapsed and England 
 would be asking to be allowed to "go home," to use his 
 own words. Germany would not be ungenerous. "I 
 am not an annexationist," he added. "It will be enough 
 if we retain Antwerp and some control over the manu- 
 facturing districts of France and Belgium, with freedom 
 of the seas, and big compensation for ill-treatment of the 
 German colonies, plus means to complete the direct 
 route from Antwerp to Berlin, Constantinople, and Bag- 
 dad, with a port at the end of the line." 
 
 The Swiss are better informed than this. They know 
 more of the true position and hear constantly of the 
 cross-currents in Germany. Swiss workmen have re- 
 cently returned from Germany in considerable numbers. 
 They prefer the lower wages and the full meals of Hel- 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 257 
 
 vetia to the high pay and low diet of Prussia. They 
 have heard of the peace feelers constantly thrown out, 
 not only by the German Imperial Government, but by 
 some of the Governments of the Federal States. But 
 they have not, and cannot have, a clear idea of the deter- 
 mination that animates all the Allies, and their very neu- 
 trality clouds their perception of the full meaning of the 
 war. 
 
 How wide is the gulf that separates belligerent from 
 neutral countries is revealed almost painfully to visitors 
 by the presence of large numbers of young men in the 
 streets. In Rome there are still some, but they are going 
 daily. In Paris there are none. Thus when one comes 
 first to a neutral country the great space which youth 
 occupies in the social landscape is instantly revealed. 
 The departure of our youth for camp and battlefield is 
 part, a large part, of the price we are paying for our 
 freedom; but it is a singular fact that, despite the pres- 
 ence of young men, the atmosphere of neutrality is de- 
 pressing. 
 
 When passports have been examined at the French 
 frontier stations, and the familiar light blue uniforms 
 once more predominate, one will breathe again. In these 
 great days the breath of war is the breath of life, and 
 the spirit of sacrifice is the spirit of regeneration. 
 
 n 
 
 GENEVA 
 
 Propaganda Tricks 
 
 Geneva. 
 Much valuable information can be gathered at Ge- 
 neva in regard to the two important questions of prison- 
 ers and propaganda. 
 
258 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 Here are the headquarters of the old original Red 
 Cross, founded in 1863. It would be impossible in any- 
 thing less bulky than a fat quarto to deal with its in- 
 numerable energies. From Geneva radiate the com- 
 munications on the subject of casualties, prisoners, their 
 help, their finance, to every part of the theatres of war. 
 The official title of the great Geneva organisation is the 
 "Comite International de la Croix Rouge." At the cen- 
 tral office are some 300 assistants, voluntary and other, 
 English, French, German, Austrian, Swiss, working un- 
 der the same roof and labouring to do their best for the 
 afflicted, their relatives and friends. 
 
 The extent of part of the work can be gauged from 
 the fact that on certain days there are as many as i5,ocx) 
 communications passing from one belligerent country to 
 another through the office alone. Geneva is probably the 
 chief centre of postal communication between Germany 
 and England. 
 
 The important task of receiving and correcting the 
 lists of prisoners is carried on here under a system that 
 is as business-like as the management of a London bank. 
 Some idea of the difficulties with which the Geneva 
 workers are faced can be deduced from the fact that 
 there are already no fewer than 6,000 prisoners of war 
 of the name of Martin, a common patronymic both in 
 England and in France. 
 
 The Comite International is not merely a passive ma- 
 chine. It goes out of its way to search for news of the 
 killed, wounded, and missing. If, for example, it no- 
 tices in the German communique that an airman has been 
 brought down, it communicates with the German authori- 
 ties through the German Red Cross at Frankfurt or Ber- 
 lin and asks for the name and fate of the airman and his 
 observer. The German authorities in this and other 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 259 
 
 matters relating to prisoners are prompt and not unkind. 
 They supply Geneva, for example, with a neat form 
 giving a full account of any prisoner who has died in 
 their hands, with a note from priest or pastor describing 
 his last moments. The lists of prisoners in their hands 
 are forwarded punctually and are legibly written. 
 
 At the moment of my visit, the latest English list of 
 German prisoners arrived by registered post from the 
 Prisoners of War Information Bureau, 49, Wellington- 
 street, London. It is pleasant to record that it was a 
 model of care and accuracy and is so regarded by the 
 Swiss authorities. Geneva people, indeed, say that there 
 is little to choose in this matter between the promptitude 
 and activity of the English and Germans. 
 
 The appeals that reach the Comite International from 
 all countries are heartrending. Owing to the violent na- 
 ture of modern warfare, the number of permanently 
 missing is greater than in previous wars. Soldiers are 
 buried by shell and mine explosions, others are perma- 
 nently entombed in their dug-outs, and at the Battle of 
 the Mame, for example, it is believed that many who 
 have never been heard of were drowned. The Geneva 
 and other organisations, including the extremely efficient 
 one in connexion with the British Red Cross Society, are 
 ceaseless in their endeavours to trace every possible miss- 
 ing man. 
 
 Apart from the business-like accuracy of the whole 
 establishment, it is evident that the strictest neutrality 
 is maintained by the ladies and gentlemen who conduct 
 this great Swiss undertaking. All the various languages 
 used by the belligerents are to be heard about the build- 
 ing, and the interests of every country involved are 
 doubtless well looked after, if such a precaution be 
 xiecessary. 
 
260 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 The list just arrived from England was explained to 
 me by a young Swiss gentleman who was so obviously 
 from Oxford that I asked him at which college he had 
 been, to which he replied "The House." (Christ Church, 
 which is usually referred to thus by undergraduates.) 
 None the less, he was strictly neutral in the conduct of 
 his department, whatever be his private views of the 
 war. 
 
 Before the great struggle, Geneva was one of the 
 largest centres for English residents on the Continent. 
 A number still remain, but the whole character of the 
 town has changed. At the moment, it is one of the 
 most curious congeries of human beings in Europe. In 
 the course of a single day I encountered Young Turks 
 and Old Turks, Egyptian "Nationalists," Rumanians, 
 Greeks, Serbs, and Germans and Austrians. Some of the 
 latter, not only there but elsewhere in Switzerland, are 
 deserters from Germany and Austria. 
 
 The local name for these oddments of humanity is 
 meteques. A number of the temporary inhabitants are 
 waiting to know to what nationality they belong, as, 
 for example, refugees from Trieste, who do not feel 
 certain whether they will remain Austrians or become 
 Italians. 
 
 The Genevois themselves are almost to a man fer- 
 vently pro-Ally. Several spoke very strongly of our 
 neglect to combat German propaganda. France took 
 the matter in hand a long time ago, and one of the ablest 
 French journalists, Stephane Lauzanne, editor of Le 
 Matin, after a due period of military service, was sent to 
 Switzerland, where he did excellent work. (Since then 
 he has been doing equally good work in the United 
 States. ) 
 
 A distinguished French-Swiss explained the situation 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 261 
 
 to me in the following words, which I noted at the 
 time: — 
 
 The English should realise that Swiss military 
 officers are, in the proportion of about three to 
 one, pro-German, because they admire German 
 military organisation, because some of them have 
 German kinsmen, have had German military train- 
 ing, or have married Germans. They recognise that 
 Germany has perhaps under-estimated her task. 
 The German Government, in order to create the 
 impression in Switzerland that Gennany is doing 
 all the %hting, has made special arrangements, by 
 a subvention, to distribute German newspapers and 
 illustrated sheets specially throughout Switzerland. 
 Look at this [he pointed to the Illustrated Leipzig 
 Gazette] ; Switzerland is deluged with it week after 
 week. It is beautifully printed in colours, the draw- 
 ings are by the best German artists, the photo- 
 graphs are printed by a rotogravure. Here, you see, 
 are English prisoners, almost unhurt, marching with 
 their captors to the camp. Here, in another paper, 
 you are being bombed out of your trenches by this 
 or that gallant German regiment. We have had a 
 little English propaganda here, but your people do 
 not seem to study the methods of advertisers as the 
 Germans do. German propaganda is ceaseless; 
 yours is feeble and intermittent. The German 
 propaganda is in the hands of advertising people 
 who understand that when an advertiser ceases to 
 proclaim the virtue of his wares the sale of them dis- 
 appears. 
 
 There are many weak points in the German ar- 
 mour in Switzerland and other neutral countries, 
 
262 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 and they could be pierced by astute people who un- 
 derstand the psychology of each particular neutral 
 nationality. Germany has always the advantage of 
 propinquity in dealing with the Swiss, the Dutch, 
 the Swedes, and the Danes. That is a fact that 
 should not be forgotten by your propagandists, and 
 should cause them to make exertions, greater, even, 
 than those of the Germans themselves. 
 
 The force of this pro-Ally Swiss gentleman's remarks 
 was borne in upon me when two or three days later I 
 read in Le Temps a telegram to the following effect : — 
 
 The organisation for German newspaper distribu- 
 tion at Ziirich has presented to the large hotels at 
 Geneva a form on which the owner or manager 
 states that he is ready to place at the disposal of 
 the public, in the reading-room of his hotel, the 
 following newspapers and reviews : — Der Tag, of 
 Berlin; Frankfurt Gazette, Cologne Gazette, Voss 
 Gazette, Tagliche Rundscliau, of Berlin; Fremden- 
 hlatt, of Hamburg; Leipzig Latest News, Illustrated 
 Leipzig Gazette, Die IVoche (The Week), a Berlin 
 illustrated paper; Reclams Universitm, Berlin illus- 
 trated journal; Deutsche Politik (German Policy). 
 
 Under the terms of this agreement, it is pointed 
 out that the German propagandists will deliver the 
 newspapers and reviews free to the hotel, on con- 
 dition that their display in the reading-room is 
 not charged for. 
 
 The Jourtial de Geneve protests against this latest 
 evolution of German propaganda. 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 263 
 
 III 
 
 THE GERMANS IN SPAIN 
 
 The Army of Anti-Ally Workers 
 
 Pamplona, Spain 
 
 Forty-six years ago Germany was at war with France 
 over the question of the Spanish marriages and the 
 Hohenzollern candidate, the initial cause of the Franco- 
 Prussian conflict of 1870. Since that time the Germans 
 have never ceased to agitate for the political and com- 
 mercial control of Spain. 
 
 During the last two years, despite the war, they have 
 managed by a stroke of good fortune, which at first sight 
 looked like ill-luck, greatly to increase their numerical 
 strength throughout the Peninsula. 
 
 In the last days of July, 19 14, many Germans fled 
 from France into Spain. Their number was speedily 
 increased by the arrival at various Spanish ports of 
 travelling Germans, who remained there, rather than 
 face the Anglo-French blockade. When Portugal de- 
 clared war there was another incursion of German refu- 
 gees. To their number have since been added the Ger- 
 man soldiers and civilians from Cameroon. It is said 
 that altogether, including the large number of resident 
 business Germans, there are now something like 80,000 
 Huns in Spain. The total is variously estimated at from 
 60,000 to 100,000, but a Barcelona man of afifairs, who 
 visits all parts of Spain continually, considers that, in- 
 cluding the 20,000 residents of his own city, the number 
 is approximately 80,000. That these 80,000 Germans 
 
264 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 are not idle is borne in upon one within a very few hours 
 of crossing the Spanish frontier. 
 
 Let me first ask readers who have not recently visited 
 Northern and Western Spain to remove from thdr 
 thoughts all ideas gathered from Borrow or Ford, "Back- 
 ward Spain," so far as the Northern provinces are con- 
 cerned, is the land, not of gipsy, beggar, and brigand, 
 but of Spanish, British, German enterprise, of highly-de- 
 veloped water-power, countless new light railways, auto- 
 mobiles, factories, workshops of all descriptions, and of 
 hotels with bed-rooms and bath-rooms en suite. 
 
 Things are nowhere in the world as before the war. 
 Thus, it is an unpleasant surprise, on going to a Spanish 
 bank, to find that our good British sovereign, which, we 
 were proud to think, was the standard coin of the world, 
 is at an uncomplimentary discount in a land where one 
 formerly received a handsome bonus in exchange. It is 
 unpleasant, too, on opening countless Spanish newspapers, 
 to find that a belief in German victory and in German 
 invincibility is, apparently, a conviction in most parts of 
 Spain. It is disappointing to be received by old Spanish 
 friends, friends who have visited England, who know our 
 country, with an air of doubt as to our capacity to make 
 war. It is particularly disagreeable to notice the favour- 
 able and agreeable manner in which the Hun is received 
 in Spanish society. And it is not flattering to the Allies 
 to find that he has the support of a great body of the 
 aristocracy, of practically tlie whole of the Church, Jesuit 
 and otherwise, with, in addition, a large part of middle- 
 class Spain. 
 
 I would not for a minute disregard the strong pro- Ally 
 views of many Spaniards, some in important positions. 
 We owe them a debt of gratitude. Many are labouring 
 assiduously to convince their countrymen of the justice 
 
NEUTRAL GLIIVIPSES ^65 
 
 of our cause, but they are face to face with the hourly- 
 wireless propaganda from the Nauen station, Berlin, and 
 the Austrian wireless from Pola. They have to encoun- 
 ter all manner of cross-currents beneath the sea of Span- 
 ish opinion, and these cross-currents have been forced by 
 the Germans till in many cases they have become veritable 
 tides of pro-Germanism. 
 
 It would be preposterous for a casual visitor to Spain, 
 such as is the present writer, with but some half-dozen 
 holiday tours in that coimtry as a previous experience, 
 to offer himself as an authority on a very complex sub- 
 ject. Yet he can, at least, record that which he hears 
 from former Spanish acquaintances, from English and 
 other residents, together with that which he reads, that 
 which he sees. 
 
 I came here to Pamplona because it is a convenient 
 German centre and because it is a pleasant place in a 
 fair country. The days of early autumn in Northern 
 Spain are crisp, yet warm, like the mimosa time in spring 
 at Cannes. The Indian com is now ripe; jasmine in 
 great festoons and garlands, as we never see it in Eng- 
 land, is everywhere, mixing its fragrance with that of 
 the magnolia. The little, low-growing, purple wine- 
 grapes in this, the famous Rioja district, are sweet 
 enough to steal. 
 
 When one surveys these rich valleys, in which every- 
 thing, including olives, bright red capsicums, vines, 
 peaches, beets, tomatoes, all seem to luxuriate together 
 in wild profusion, it is not difficult to understand why 
 the men from the sandy plains of Prussia are covetous. 
 There are other reasons of which I shall speak. A glance 
 at the map of Europe should be sufficiently suggestive 
 of Bismarck's anxieties about the Iberian Peninsula. 
 
 At the Cafe Kutz at Pamplona, which, despite our 
 
Q66 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 blockade, bravely but falsely advertises Spatenbrau- 
 Miinchen on its wide white awning, ma}^ be found after 
 Mittagcssen many of the types of the German elements 
 that are unceasingly working against us — and against 
 Spain. One soon learns from their loud talk that the 
 Germans in Spain have constituted themselves into a 
 well-drilled army, obviously acting on definite instruc- 
 tions. 
 
 Just one typical scene. The Huns who were eating at 
 one of the leading hotels to-day, and who had to bear our 
 English-speaking as best they could, were probably 
 mostly soldiers and civilians back from Cameroon. Their 
 leader was a young Prussian of 30, whose neck and head 
 were of about the same diameter. He had little. Ori- 
 ental eyes, stiff wooden movements, a gash down the 
 side of the face, received at a Mensur in student days, 
 and hair cropped as closely as a poodle's. 
 
 Pamplona is a great clerical centre. A number of 
 young priests were lunching, and heartily, let me say. 
 As each left the room the young Boche rose and bent 
 himself in half, in German fashion, with a tremendous 
 bow, to the evident pleasure of the priests. The thing 
 was exactly like the official railway courtesy ordered by 
 telegram from Berlin to any more or less known foreign 
 traveller, and at the same time showed the minute care 
 with which the German army In Spain is working. With 
 the Church on their side, the battle is half won. Later 
 on, the same young Boche was one of a large company 
 of noisy, hat-lifting Germans at the Kutz establishment, 
 and it was amusing to notice that, as a flock of the black- 
 robed fathers strolled by in an unmasculine costume 
 (which is certainly not suited to Spanish heat and dust) 
 the Huns cast amused and contemptuous glances behind 
 their backs, and made slighting remarks about them. 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 267 
 
 From a Spanish acquaintance, who is not a little con- 
 cerned at the growing intensity of German activity in 
 Spain, I learned a good deal of the habits and customs 
 of the propagandists, for such every one of them is. 
 
 Germany long ago impressed Spain with the prestige 
 of her arms and her trade. On the Norte Railway the 
 finest locomotives bear the name of their German place 
 of origin, in legible letters, that can be read by passen- 
 gers on both of the station platforms. At one time Span- 
 ish locomotives came from England. In the home, or 
 the hotel, there is nearly always a German piano, a Ger- 
 man bath, and you switch on a German electric lamp to 
 see the time by a German clock. The chemists' shops are 
 full of German drugs and preparations. 
 
 A vast, new, many-windowed, oblong, ugly, industrial 
 building looms up before you at the corner of a road, 
 and you find that it is a sugar factory erected by Ger- 
 mans, since the war. 
 
 The average Spaniard, who is more of a cahdlero than 
 a man of business, is naturally impressed by years of 
 German commercial surroundings. Many Spanish busi- 
 ness men are frankly afraid of Germans. 
 
 The khaki-clad officers and men of the Spanish Army 
 —especially the younger officers — looking uncommonly 
 like our Belgian Allies except for the shape of their caps, 
 are, I was assured by Spanish officers, convinced that 
 Germany must win. 
 
 From the moment of the outbreak of war every Ger- 
 man refugee as he arrived was set to work to learn 
 Spanish. Many of them had fled into Spain so hurriedly 
 that they were without funds, and these were provided 
 by the local German Consuls. But the invaders were not 
 long idle. The majority obtained work in the innumer- 
 able establishments of their compatriots, some in Barce- 
 
268 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 lona, some at Seville, some in the iron districts, others 
 in the countless industries in Spain into which the Ger- 
 man vampire has dug its claws. A few, it is believed, 
 have availed themselves of their knowledge of Spanish 
 to escape, as Spaniards, to South America, to Holland, 
 and to Scandinavia. For the purpose of such adventur-' 
 ous journeys they buy up old passports, or make use of 
 others, manufactured for the special purpose. 
 
 But, as a rule, the Germans in Spain show no great 
 anxiety to get back to the land of the meatless day and 
 the bread-ticket. They look prosperous and well-fed, and 
 they are unquestionably helping to get Spain into the 
 German clutch. They realise that if to a victorious Ger- 
 many Spain is very useful, to a defeated Germany Spain 
 is almost essential. 
 
 In the likely event of the development of overland 
 transport by aeroplane, the coasts and harbours of 
 friendly Spain would be invaluable to Germany. The 
 mineral wealth of the Peninsula only now being scien- 
 tifically developed, would afford her several sorts of raw 
 material, of which Germany has little or none. And, 
 as an outlet for German goods, as the main point of de- 
 parture for the wealthy Republics of South America, as 
 a bulwark against English control of Gibraltar, Spain is, 
 from the German point of view, distinctly Germany's 
 "pidgin." 
 
 The well-drilled battalions of German residents and 
 refugees in Spain know exactly how to confuse public 
 opinion in any locality. In the North of Spain, where 
 the French have never been popular since the Napoleonic 
 invasion, they alarm the ignorant by threats that an Al- 
 lied victory might mean a revival of the days of a hun- 
 dred years ago. In the West they state that, as a re- 
 ward for Portugal's "treachery" in joining the Allies, 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 269 
 
 she is to be given two of the richest Spanish provinces. 
 
 Lately Spain became anxious on this point, coupled as 
 it was with the statement that the Portuguese Army was 
 mobilised against Spain. The Portuguese Government 
 wisely asked Spain to send a military mission to inspect 
 the situation. There was not, of course, a word of truth 
 in the statement, which was industriously promulgated 
 by one of the most widely circulated Madrid newspapers, 
 the A. B.C., which, under a cunning pretence of neutral- 
 ity, is, as I can easily prove by its files, subtly and con- 
 tinually pro-German. 
 
 In the south "Gibraltar for the Spaniards" remains 
 the most successful German cry, appealing as it does to 
 Spanish pride and sentiment. The Moroccan question 
 and the Moroccans themselves are never let alone by 
 Germany. The suggestion is continually put forward, 
 too, that Germany stands for monarchy, order, and re- 
 ligion; whereas England is the home of free speech and 
 industrial unrest, and France the centre of anarchy. 
 
 Next to our own island, Spain is the chief mother 
 country of the world. Here and there the Spaniards ex- 
 hibit maps showing to what parts of the earth Spanish 
 stock has carried the Spanish language. With the lan- 
 guage has gone a certain amount of sympathy for Spain. 
 The Germans know that, with Spain as a point d'appiii, 
 and the backing of Spanish opinion, and, above all, with 
 that of the Church, their cause is likely to be better ap- 
 preciated in the New World than if mother-Spain were 
 hostile. From Spain, therefore, proceeds to South Amer- 
 ica a great deal of German propaganda in the Spanish 
 language. 
 
 Although many war fortunes are being made in Spain 
 — for she is supplying iron to England, railway trucks 
 and war material of other descriptions to France — some 
 
270 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 discomfort has been caused by the war. One of the most 
 unpopular topics in Spain is the high price of bread. An- 
 other is the cost of coal, which in some places stands 
 at $30 a ton. These circumstances are used by the Ger- 
 man agents to stir up feeling against England for her 
 wickedness in launching the world into war. 
 
 The chief methods of propaganda, then, seem to be a 
 daily stream of wireless commimiqiws from Berlin and 
 Austria, discrediting the Allies; continuous activity on 
 the part of the Church and the Carlists; the influence of 
 the German "colony," with steady work on the part of 
 the university professors and schoolmasters on behalf 
 of the Central Powers, the chief channel being, of course, 
 the Press. There are notable exceptions, such as the 
 Imparcial, El Liberal, Heraldo, and others engaged in 
 sustained effort to put the truth about the war before the 
 Spanish public. These efforts have, especially of late, had 
 a considerable amount of success, and have aroused Ger- 
 man hostility, as will no doubt this and another article 
 of mine. A small, but, it is to be hoped, a growing part 
 of Spanish opinion is disgusted wnth German cruelties, 
 and more especially with the wholesale enslavement of 
 Belgian and French women in the invaded provinces. 
 There has been talk in the English newspapers of a re- 
 monstrance by the Spanish Government in this matter, 
 but in the absence of much stronger pro-Ally propaganda 
 and much firmer British diplomacy, it would be surpris- 
 ing were anything really important to result. ^ 
 
 Let me give a few instances as showing the methods 
 of presenting news to the Spanish public by certain jour- 
 nals. In all the neutral countries German Press agents 
 represent England as cowering under the Zeppelin terror. 
 
 ^ Some sort of notice seems, very privately, to have eventually 
 been taken. 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 271 
 
 To-day, in one newspaper, I read of a great Zeppelin raid 
 on London, and of orders by the Metropolitan Police that 
 not a single ray of light was to be emitted at night, either 
 out of doors or indoors. This news was prominently 
 given — but not a word was said in this journal about one 
 of the raiding Zeppelins having been destroyed. 
 
 In one of our Headquarters comnmniqiies the other 
 day it was stated that we brought down a certain number 
 of enemy aeroplanes. The communique was so put as to 
 give the impression that we had lost the aeroplanes, and 
 the heading was, "The British Communique. Ten Aero- 
 planes Lost." 
 
 This sort of thing, carried on day after day and week 
 after week by innumerable journals among a people who 
 have had German efficiency drilled into them for years, 
 is a sort of poison that will only be removed by some 
 great military success on our part. Verdun has done as 
 much as anything to cure a certain part of Spanish public 
 opinion of the "German invincibility" theory. (It is in- 
 teresting, by the way, to note here, in Pamplona, a Ger- 
 man centre, little books for sale, with the head of the 
 Kaiser so drawn as to look like a skull on a background 
 of blood, entitled simply, "Verdun.") Former Spanish 
 acquaintances of pro-German views admitted to me that 
 Verdun was puzzling to them. 
 
 As elsewhere, the view is industriously spread by 
 Germany that England is the sole and only cause of the 
 war, and that the unfortunate French are only too anx- 
 ious to make peace. England, the might of whose army 
 is absolutely unknown to the average Spaniard, is rep- 
 resented as sacrificing France, as she is alleged to have 
 sacrificed Belgium, Serbia, Montenegro. If, runs the 
 argument, Spain were so mad as to join the Allies, her 
 fate would be that of France and the rest ; and if she were 
 
272 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 even to exhibit friendly neutrality civil war would result. 
 The leading Carlist papers have recently headed their ar- 
 ticles "Neutrality or Civil War!" 
 
 Another line taken by German propagandists, chiefly 
 among the aristocratic classes, is that Spain should keep 
 herself strictly impartial, so that, if necessary, King Al- 
 fonso and his Cabinet may perhaps be invited by Great 
 Britain to arbitrate when we sue for peace with Ger- 
 many. That we shall eventually invite the Spanish Court 
 to save our face seems to be accepted by all except the 
 inner circle, who know some of the facts. 
 
 One of these facts is that the Germans in 191 6 in- 
 duced a well-known Spanish nobleman to go to London 
 to fly a peace kite, and that, on his arrival, those to whom 
 he was accredited wisely took not the least notice of him. 
 The Germans now assert that the unfortunate Spaniard 
 went to London on his own account. 
 
 From much that I have heard in the course of my 
 enquiries, the Spanish Court would be the very worst 
 arbiter between the Allies and the Central Powers. 
 Whatever may be King Alfonso's own knowledge, the 
 views of the average Court official are something like 
 these : — 
 
 "English officers are gallant fellows, excellent polo 
 players, good sportsmen in general, but amateurs. The 
 English 'Tommies' are few in number, brave, but fool- 
 hardy. The 'bloody repulses' so often mentioned in the 
 German communiques are due to the fact that an army 
 cannot be raised in a few years. France has called up 
 all her men from 17 years of age to 48. England can do 
 nothing on land of any service. Therefore Germany is 
 bound to win, and even if she does not win, cannot pos- 
 sibly lose." 
 
 I am informed that a Spanish military mission has been 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 273 
 
 sent to British military headquarters. It is to be trusted 
 that it will have come back with opinions that may some- 
 what change this Court point of view, though I am doubt- 
 ful of the lasting effect of anything short of a smashing 
 and palpable military defeat of Germany — one that can- 
 not be disproved by wireless. 
 
 Former Spanish acquaintances regard me as some- 
 thing of a hero in venturing across the German subma- 
 rine-controlled Channel at this juncture. Others doubt 
 that I really propose to go back to live and work in 
 Zeppelin-infested London. One hears all sorts of stupid 
 nonsense, from people who ought to know better, such as 
 the statement that Princess Henry of Battenberg, mother 
 of the Queen of Spain, has come to Spain for safety from 
 Zeppelins. These views would be merely annoying were 
 it not that they have a bearing on Spanish opinion dur- 
 ing the war and on the theory of German invincibility. 
 
 A good deal of travel among neutrals lately has borne 
 in upon me the fact that no one wants to be on the losing 
 side. It is obviously with this view in mind that Ger- 
 many keeps her 80,000 agents in Spain at work, hiding 
 Allied successes and belittling the British effort. A shrewd 
 Englishman of business in Spain — and we have many 
 such — assured me that he believed the present melan- 
 choly state of our good English pound sterling was due 
 not only to the balance of trade against us, but to the 
 doubt as to our capacity to stand up against Germany. 
 Former Spanish admirers who have been impressed by 
 the German propaganda are politely silent when some 
 idea is given them of the determination of Great Britain 
 and her Allies to crush the vampire. 
 
 Pro-Ally Spaniards say that immeasurable harm was 
 done in the long months during which the British Army 
 issued no daily communique whatever. The impression 
 
274 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 was then almost indelibly confirmed that we had no 
 Army. Yet during all that time we had talcen our part 
 in the battles of the Marne, the Aisne, and Ypres. 
 
 There are quick minds at the other end of the German 
 wireless and they watch our proceedings very closely. 
 They flood Spain with downright lies, minimising state- 
 ments and contradictions with a celerity which is quite 
 amazing. I have been so struck again and again by the 
 quickness with which neutrals learn from Germany what 
 is going on, that I recently asked Commendatore Mar- 
 coni if it were possible that the Germans had a secret 
 wireless in our midst. He replied tliat it would be quite 
 possible for them to have wireless apparatus, that it 
 would be very difficult to detect, and that he himself 
 would be able to erect a wireless in England that our 
 authorities would have great trouble in discovering. But 
 it is certain that what we are, in reality, face to face with, 
 is great alertness and intelligence on the part of the 
 German Press Bureau. 
 
 The Germans in Spain have wealthy people among 
 them who have seen to it that the various German com- 
 munities and individuals are closely linked up. The 
 newcomers are gathering every sort of information about 
 Spanish industries and the possibilities of development in 
 Spain. Need I point out that, with a population of less 
 than twenty millions, 80,000 active propagandists and 
 workers constitute a formidable body? 
 
 The number may be 80,000, it may be slightly more 
 or less, but the Hun seems to be everywhere. Almost 
 the first words I heard in Spain were German. Seven out 
 of ten of the numerous provincial journals are, more or 
 less, Germanophile. 
 
 In a motor journey of some 1,300 kilometres I encoun- 
 tered German pedestrian and motor parties all bound on 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 275 
 
 the same purposeful work. Their task is the easier be- 
 cause the general Spanish public is not vastly interested 
 in the war. In Spain it is not the vital question that it 
 is in England, in France, or even Switzerland. In the 
 newspapers our Great Crusade often takes quite a minor 
 position, and in the majority there is more about the bull 
 fight or the latest crime than about the greatest event in 
 the world's history. 
 
 IV 
 
 A SPANISH TOUR 
 
 Some People and Places 
 
 While it is difficult for any one who has seen any- 
 thing of the horrors of the German invasion of Belgium 
 and France to comprehend the neutral frame of mind, 
 it has to be remembered in visiting and contrasting Spain, 
 where there is no sign of conflict, that her people are 
 at peace. 
 
 A few of the more far-seeing Spanish leaders do not 
 quite like that situation. There is a good deal of jealousy 
 of little Portugal, who has not been afraid to throw down 
 her glove to the Kaiser. But, on the whole, Spain in 
 general, and industrial Spain in particular, appears to be 
 glad to be out of the maelstrom. 
 
 In the course of visits extending over 30 years I have 
 never known such prosperity in Spain as at present. 
 With the exception of a few old women who haunt the 
 doors of cathedrals and a single gipsy, who, by the way, 
 asked alms in very fair German — imagining, I regret 
 to say, that our party was from the Fatherland — we were 
 not assailed by a single beggar anywhere. Good for- 
 
276 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 tune seems to smile everywhere alike, in town and coun- 
 try. San Sebastian and other watering-places are having 
 seasons such as they have never known before. In more 
 than one of the excellent motorists' hotels erected during 
 the past few years we found it difficult to obtain sleeping 
 quarters. 
 
 On setting out on a visit to the iron districts, we made 
 the journey by the wonderful coast road zna Zarauz, Bil- 
 bao, and Santander, certainly the most majestic, if dan- 
 gerous, cliff road I have travelled in a somewhat exten- 
 sive experience. The Bay of Naples, the road from 
 Larne to Portrush, or the Grande Corniche cannot com- 
 pare with it. The only drawbacks are the dust and nerve- 
 racking corners, round which tear high-powered cars, 
 with open exhausts, at a speed that reminds one of the 
 Continental road races of a decade back. 
 
 There is a noise like that of a Zeppelin, or a traction 
 engine. Our modest 20 h.p. car is passed as if standing 
 still, and then dust, that completely obscures the view of 
 sea and sky. 
 
 "The King!" cries our chauffeur. His amiable Maj- 
 esty is en route. Youth will be served. Further on we 
 find a powerful Royal car — not, fortunately, Alfonso's — 
 in a ditch, with the two front wheels off. A day or two 
 afterwards the Spanish papers record yet another and 
 serious accident to certain members of the Royal en- 
 tourage. 
 
 In numberless ways it is a strange sensation to be 
 living in surroundings not unlike those of the Riviera 
 years ago in peace time. The white wings of the racing 
 yachts are in the bay, golfing and lawn tennis parties are 
 setting out for the day's sport, immaculately-dressed 
 young Spaniards, with Bond Street and Savile Row writ- 
 ten all over their clothes, are escorting Senoritas, dressed 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 27T 
 
 from the Rue de la Paix. The whole thing, against the 
 background of the war, is like a dream of something long 
 past. 
 
 The road continues, one long film of beautiful pic- 
 tures, though it passes through the iron districts leading 
 to Bilbao and beyond. There is nothing in the nature 
 of a black country, or manufacturing Lancashire, or 
 chemical Cheshire. Now and then one is on the Riviera, 
 in a few moments in the sad mountains of Donegal. The 
 hot southern sun blazes down on little inland coves of 
 the Atlantic, in which are ensconced tiny watering-places ; 
 but there are no wounded, as in France or at home. 
 Villas, embowered in walnut and chestnut trees, with gar- 
 dens gay with red and white roses, and the universal 
 jasmine and pink oleander, have carefully closed persi- 
 ennes to keep out the mid-day heat. 
 
 As one approaches Bilbao the hills are red with the 
 iron-laden soil; from beneath them is brought down by 
 vertical railway and wireways the metal for the guns and 
 the shells. The rivers and their estuaries pour, brilliant 
 red, into the great Atlantic. One of our party remarked 
 that, if any one painted this contrast of sea and river, 
 he would be regarded as an unusually eccentric Futurist. 
 It was pleasantly cool sauntering along, but when we 
 stopped for luncheon at Bilbao, the centre of one of the 
 richest mineral territories in the world, we found that 
 the day was as hot as midsummer at home. 
 
 In the restaurant our next neighbour is a stout German 
 lady, whose performance on the tooth-pick would have 
 done credit to a restaurant in the Friedrichstrasse in 
 Berlin. We English speakers receive the usual glares 
 from the Germans, who are sharing the excellent meal 
 provided. 
 
 Afterwards, a Spaniard to whom we have an introduc- 
 
S78 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 lion, complains of the Allies' commercial black-list. We 
 point out that war is war, and that the saving of Allied 
 lives and the destruction of enemy trade is more im- 
 portant to us than commercial relations with neutrals. 
 His reply is that the rule should be applied all round, 
 and especially to certain iron mines which are conjointly 
 owned by Germans and English, and he mentions Krupp 
 and an English firm by name. He admits that the dis- 
 trict is largely Germanophile, and he believes that con- 
 siderable iron is going into Germany by Norway. This 
 statement is afterwards denied, although not absolutely, 
 by an English authority whom we consulted. 
 
 After sauntering through an incredibly beautiful coun- 
 try, with delicious glimpses of the Atlantic, passing rivers 
 in which the trout were rising temptingly, and one in 
 which there was excellent salmon fishing, we slept at 
 Oviedo, at a palatial hotel as unlike the Spain of 20 years 
 ago as could be imagined. At the local garage there was 
 an assemblage of motor-cars of the first rank, and not one 
 of them, we are glad to say, was German. Rolls-Royce, 
 Renault, Delaunay-Belleville, Daimler, and the Hispano-' 
 Suiza predominated. 
 
 There is an old Oviedo and a new which is being built 
 as rapidly and noisily as new New York, and as ugly as 
 new Buenos Aires. 
 
 Wakened in the morning by the sound of blasting in 
 the neighbouring hills, a sound that is never out of one's 
 ears in industrialised Spain, we crawled up the zigzags of 
 the great Cordilleras Cantabricas, and suddenly de- 
 scended from the dense, wet clouds into what was exactly 
 like Egypt. Red and ochre hills, a great blazing, yellow 
 plain, dried-up looking towns on the hillside, pigeon cotes 
 exactly like those in Egyptian villages, and water raised 
 by shadoofs. The wheat has been gathered, and in some 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 279 
 
 places is being trodden out, as in Biblical times. In all 
 places it is winnowed in the wind, in ancient fashion. 
 
 Out on the plain the only birds are hawks and quail- 
 like partridges, with also our own red-legs. We stopped 
 the car outside an adobe hut of Moorish design, thiclc- 
 walled and very cool within. The bright-eyed, dark, 
 dry-skinned peasant, who comes out to tell us the way, 
 invites us to taste some of the wine grapes which, to- 
 gether with some quinces, he is growing in his little oasis. 
 He is extremely intelligent, declines any payment, as is 
 usual in rural Spain, but accepts a cigar and a few picture 
 papers — for he cannot read — and asks us about the war. 
 It has had the effect of raising the price of bread. The 
 land as far as we can see, he tells us, belongs to a great 
 nobleman, and is worked on a feudal system. Owing to 
 the emigration to South America, labour is scarce, and 
 he and his work doubly hard in consequence. It would 
 be good land, he says, if the rain were attracted by the 
 planting of more trees. The war, he fears, will be long. 
 His good manners, which previous experience has taught 
 me to find everywhere and among all classes in Spain, 
 forbid him expressing an opinion as to the result. 
 
 Later on that day a similar enquiry as to our route 
 from an old labourer brought the question : Were we 
 French? "No," we replied, "English." He put out his 
 hand and shook ours warmly, saying that he had been in 
 the service of an English family in Buenos Aires. And 
 the war? How long will it last? Long, he feared. 
 "The Allemans are strong." 
 
 There is no country in which I have been where one 
 is asked so frequently: How long will the war last? 
 The war seems to be some great distant monster which, 
 despite the people's interest in their own ever}^day life, 
 is ever, if distantly, present. 
 
280 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 The dust between Albert and Arras, in the earher days 
 of the battle of the Somme, when thousands of troops, 
 transport wagons, and mules were stirring it, seemed to 
 be, to use an Americanism, the "extension of the limit." 
 Egyptian dust is perpetual and insinuating, and Indian 
 dust is like khaki flour. But Spanish dust, in August, 
 when a Norther is blowing, amounts to something like 
 a perpetual fog. A closed car is of no avail; goggles 
 worn within it are useless. A passing mule can raise 
 a cloud of it, and it was consoling to think, whatever 
 may be the difficulties in front of our soldiers in that part 
 of the map in which Sir Douglas Haig and General Foch 
 are operating, a war in this part of the world would be 
 worse, a veritable agony of thirst. 
 
 Yet, little more than a hundred years ago, the great 
 Duke's soldiers drove Soult's forces across waterless 
 plains similar to these, at a time when there were none 
 of the comforts of mechanical transport. 
 
 The contrast between the peace and gaiety of small 
 Spanish towns at night, and our thoughts of France at 
 this time is trying. Yet no one who has been in a neu- 
 tral country would wish to live in its atmosphere rather 
 than in that of England or of her Allies. These Spanish 
 towns are alive with children, who, having like all Span- 
 iards, enjoyed their siesta, appear to go to bed about the 
 time people are pouring out of the theatres in London. 
 
 Almost every small centre has an excellent band, whose 
 only fault is the monotony of its mournful, modern Span- 
 ish music, which seems to be almost always written in 
 the minor. It is that of a people resigned to their lost 
 position as conquistadores. 
 
 Often, it is pleasant to note, we came across places in 
 which there were not only no Germans, but no knowledge 
 of Germans, In some districts where there were Ger- 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 281 
 
 mans the people were perfectly frank in their dislike of 
 them. The Spaniards are extremely good mimics, and 
 can imitate German ways in a most amusing manner. 
 
 Enquiries and researches in a good many quarters, 
 every one of which revealed the same steady German 
 purpose, brought us eventually back to San Sebastian, 
 which many of its admirers claim, perhaps with reason, 
 to be the most beautiful seaside resort in the world. San 
 Sebastian to-day is humming with life and visitors. On 
 the way into the town we meet a small English jockey, 
 heavily swathed, toiling at least four miles an hour in 
 the afternoon sun, to reduce his weight for the racing, 
 which takes place almost daily. The local bull ring is 
 packed, and an attempt to get a seat for a pelota match 
 was in vain. 
 
 Although the Spaniards are still the proud people they 
 have always been, there is that curious mixture of de- 
 mocracy that makes San Sebastian a combination of 
 Monte Carlo and Margate. The King and his yacht 
 are here. Most of the Embassies have moved here from 
 Madrid. All Spain that counts fills the beautiful villas 
 on the hills, and the densely packed hotels. In the morn- 
 ing the perfect sands swarm with children. 
 
 Along the promenade that leads to Miramar, outside 
 which lounge his Majesty's guards in picturesque red Bis- 
 cayan caps, there is an endless procession of tramcars 
 and motors, mingled with slowly moving, yoked oxen, 
 and the perpetual donkey of the peasant, as often as 
 not ridden pillion. The casino is, of course, the main 
 attraction of this very rapidly growing town. In the 
 gaming rooms, as at Monte Carlo, are the same shabby 
 old ladies, with solemn faces, deliberately placing their 
 five pesetas, with the other and younger ladies, who 
 throw their money away as rapidly as they get it. Here 
 
282 LORD NORTHCLIFFE'S WAR BOOK 
 
 and there is an Englishman, who looks thoroughly 
 ashamed at being caught gambling in war-time, with the 
 customary wizened old men, studiously working out their 
 systems. There are Germans here, as everywhere, but 
 they chiefly have their headquarters at their own cafe in 
 the town. A German in Spain is not, as a rule, on pleas- 
 ure bent. 
 
 A pleasing and quite harmless feature of the casino 
 at San Sebastian is the organised gathering of hundreds 
 of children on the great terrace outside, and in the rooms 
 not devoted to gambling. The absence of black in the 
 women's and children's dresses is a striking contrast to 
 one who has just come from France, anci, were it not for 
 an occasional mantilla, there would be nothing but the 
 vivid greens, yellows, and blues that sound so bizarre, but 
 are not out of place in Spain, where the national colours 
 of red and yellow fit the landscape as properly as do the 
 green, white, and red of sunlit Italy. The Spaniards 
 make much of their children. Sometimes one feels that 
 the small people are a little out of place at the hotel din- 
 ner hour, which is usually at 8.30 or 9 o'clock. As a rule 
 the children are beautifully dressed, well cared for, most 
 attractive, and altogether sans gene. When we asked a 
 Spanish friend why that vivacious and quick-witted crea- 
 ture, the chico (the Spanish boy) develops so quickly 
 into something like apathetic languor, he replied it was 
 "the education." Certainly the contrast between the early 
 manhood of Spain and the alertness of the boys is very 
 remarkable. 
 
 San Sebastian is itself solemnly and particularly in- 
 teresting to English people, who have a pilgrimage of 
 their own near by. 
 
 And so, leaving the Casino, with its myriads of little 
 ones, who were being entertained by the sending up of 
 
NEUTRAL GLIMPSES 283 
 
 grotesque fire balloons, in the shape of all manner of 
 animals and black men, and escaping from the noise of 
 the two rival bands, we said good-bye to neutral Spain 
 by visiting the scene of the famous and gloriously vic- 
 torious storming of the citadel in 1813, when our soldiers 
 showed exactly the same qualities they are displaying on 
 the Somme to-day. They crossed the river under a ter- 
 rible fire, which filled it with English blood. They per- 
 formed what seemed the impossible, and what was almost 
 as remarkable as Wolfe's attack on Quebec. 
 
 At the summit of the citadel are a few English graves, 
 which seem somewhat more neglected than they should 
 be. From this lofty scene of the great struggle they look 
 straight out towards the Bay of Biscay to England. The 
 most legible inscription is as follows : — 
 
 Sacred to the memory of Lieutenant-Colonel Sir 
 Richard Fletcher, Bart.; Captain C. Rhodes, Captain 
 G. Collyer, Lieutenant H. Machell, Corps of Royal 
 Engineers, who fell at the siege of San Sebastian, 
 August 31, 1813. 
 
Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
 Neutralizing agent; Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: 
 
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