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517
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1917
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474434 DUPL


MAR 11 1918
Brit. Parliament, 1917.
Alo
·A15
соруч
PARLIAMENT'S VOTE OF 1917
THANKS TO THE FORCES

temarakt
SPEECHES
DELIVERED IN THE
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT,
WESTMINSTER,
ON OCTOBER 29, 1917
LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE
PRICE ONĘ PENNY
1917
:
THE RESOLUTION,
That the thanks of this House be given to the Officers,
Petty Officers, and Men of the Navy for their faithful watch
upon the seas during more than three years of ceaseless
danger and stress, while guarding our shores and protecting
from the attacks of a barbarous foe the commerce upon
which the victory of the Allied cause depends.
That the thanks of this House be given to the Officers,
Non-commissioned Officers, and Men of the British Armies
in the field, and also to the Women in the Medical and
other Services auxiliary thereto, for their unfailing courage
and endurance in defending the right, amid suffering; and
hardships unparalleled in the history of war, and for their,
loyal readiness to continue the work to which they have set
their hands until the liberty of the world is secure.
That the thanks of this House be accorded to the gallant
troops from the Dominions Overseas, from India, and from
the Crown Colonies, who have travelled many thousands of
miles to share with their comrades from the British Isles
in the sacrifices and triumphs of the battlefield and to take
their full part in the struggle for human freedom.
That the thanks of this House be accorded to the Officers
and Men of the Mercantile Marine for the devotion to duty
with which they have continued to carry the vital supplies ·
to the Allies through seas infested with deadly perils.
That this House doth acknowledge with grateful admira-
tion the valour and devotion of those who have offered their
lives in the service of their country, and tenders its sym-
pathy to their relatives and friends in the sorrows they have
sustained.
FROM

Elroy M. Avery,
08 June '1?
Eas.
GLEVELAND, O.
PARLIAMENT'S VOTE OF
THANKS TO THE FORCES
HOUSE OF LORDS
EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON.
EARL CURzon of KEDLESTON (Lord President of the
Council): In dealing with the achievements of the Army and
Navy in a war that has lasted over three and a-quarter years,
I have a rather long road to travel.
In one respect this Motion has an excellent precedent.
This country has never been slow to acknowledge the valour
and the heroism of its soldiers and sailors in the operations
of war, and Parliament has been the natural and inevitable
Svehicle by which the grateful tribute of the nation has always
been conveyed. Motions in themselves not dissimilar from
this have been moved after every great war in our history; I
may instance the Napoleonic War, the Crimean War. and
the South African Campaign. But, in one respect this motion
without precedent, for it is not moved in both Houses of
Parliament to-day at the close of the war, nor as a sequel to
the successful conclusion of peace. It is moved in the course
of the war, while the war itself is approaching its culminating
point, before the end is at all clearly in sight.
The justification for this novel procedure might, I think, be
found in the scale and, character of this war, it: elf without
precedent, if not in duration, at any rate in the range and
diversity of its theatres, in the strength of the Armies and
I
+
Navies who are engaged, in the magnitude of the resources
that are involved and the operations that have been under-
taken; above all, in the nature of the issues which are at
stake. Other countries have fought, and other wars have
been waged, to resist aggression, to defend national honour,
to save the existence of a people, or religion, or race, but
there has been no war before in which the whole world has
arisen to ward off a felon blow directed at human freedom.
Such a war surely does not require us to await its
termination before the nation which sits in comfort and
ease at home expresses its gratitude to those who have been,
and still are, its saviours.
But there is another and a better reason, I think, for
moving at this moment. We want our soldiers and sailors,
the men and women who are upholding our arms in this great
struggle, to know, as they enter the fourth winter of the war
and as fresh sacrifices lie before them, that we do not forget
what they have suffered and endured up to this moment.
We want to tell them, here and now, that our hearts are filled
with pride and admiration and sympathy for their incompar-
able service, for their magnificent devotion, for the losses, the
incredible losses, which they have sustained. And I think
that there is something peculiarly appropriate in making this
Motion in this week-the week which three years ago wit-
nessed the supreme achievement of the first battle of Ypres,
one of the great battles of history, where the gallantry and
heroism of our small Army foiled the enemy and helped to
save Europe and civilisation.
One other preliminary observation I ask leave to make.
If I do not descant this afternoon on the bravery and heroism
of our Allies, on their prodigious exertions, on their sufferings,
in many cases so much greater than ours-and here, in pass-
ing, may I say one word of sympathy to our gallant Ally across
the Alps in the blow that has fallen upon her?-it is not
because those considerations are absent from our minds, but
rather because it is a domestic occasion on which we meet
in Parliament to-day, as if we were present at some great
2
family gathering, to celebrate the deeds and to cordole wi.
the sufferings of our own people, subjects of our King, cit.
zens of our Empire, who have fought and died, and are
fighting and dying at this moment, for all that we and they
hold most dear. Other opportunities will occur of offering
testimony to the nations and peoples and Armies of Allied
nations who are fighting with us for the freedom of the world.
THE NAVY.
like
The first paragraph of this Motion, according to prece-
dent, gives the place of honour to the senior Service, the
Navy; but there is another paragraph a little further down
which is without precedent, and which includes the officers
and men of the Mercantile Marine, whose services are so
closely interwoven with those of the Navy that I ask your
permission not to separate them in my remarks. I am not
sure that the Navy has had full justice done to it in the three
years of war. Because the conflict on the seas has not been
marked by any great and crowning achievement
Trafalgar or the Nile, because the spectacular incidents in
connection with the naval warfare have been few, because
it has not been found possible to defeat in open battle an
enemy who shrinks from battle except with a palpably in-
ferior foe, who denies the challenge that is ever open to
him, and who, when he is caught and engaged, flees from
the crisis to the protection of his mine fields and fixed de-
fences, it has sometimes been unjustly assumed that the
Navy has been untrue to the old traditions which have made
it the glory of this country and have given us the mastery of
the seas. Such an imputation would, as I say, in my opinion
be most unjust. Throughout this war the Navy has done
something much more important than sitting still and wait-
ing for dramatic victories over an enemy who, since August,
1916, has never left his harbours to enter into open conflict on
the Northern Seas. It is the Navy that has made the con-
tinuation of the war possible from month to month and
from day to day.
3
FREEDOM OF THE SEAS.
We hear a great deal of the phrase "the freedom of the
seas on the lips of our enemy. But in the German concep-
tion of this phrase it means that the seas are to be freed
for his advantage from the superb predominance, the ubiqui-
tous and disinterested vigilance, of the British Fleet. There
has been freedom of the seas. With the exception of the
waters to which the German submarines penetrate and where
special precautions have to be taken, these seas have been
free for three years to the commerce, not only of our Allies.
but of every neutral country. They have only been denied
to the common enemy of mankind. This has been the in-
comparable service of the British Navy. Were it not for the
Grand Fleet, shrouded in the misty recesses of the North
Sea, and for the other squadrons of the Navy operating on
every sea and every ocean, could the war last one hour, cou'd
we feed our people, could we transport our troops to all the
theatres of war and supply them with arms and munitions,
could we carry coal and wheat to the Allies, could we even
protect our own shores? No; the Navy is the great instru-
ment whose dynamic force, hidden but never absent, enables
all this to be done.
When the war broke out the first duty of His Majesty's
Navy was to clear the seas of the surface craft of the enemy.
I need not recall the stages by which the battleships, the
armed cruisers, and the merchant fleet of the Germans dis-
appeared. At the present moment there only remains one
small German merchant boat, converted into an armed raider,
which is not accounted for, and for three months it has not
been heard of. It is a solitary speck on the boundless ocean,
and for all we know, and hope, it is probably at this moment
at the bottom of the sea. Whether we contemplate an ocean
swept free from enemy craft, or the enemy contained in his
own waters, or our own shores secure from invasion and
exposed only to an occasional surprise raid which is only
remarkable for its impotence, or whether we look at the wide
4
ocean on which the ships of the world move to and fro, in
spite of the submarine menace, like the shuttles of ome
gigantic loom, carrying the resources of war to all the theatres
of war, you equally trace the omnipresence and you find the
protecting hand of the British Navy. When I tell you that
the Navy has, since the beginning of the war, transported
13,000,000 human beings, out of whom only 3,500 have
been lost-2,700 by the action of the enemy, 550 in hospital
ships-and in addition 2,000,000 horses and mules, 500,000
vehicles, 25,000,000 tons of explosives and supplies, 51,000,000
tons of oil and fuel for the Fleets and Armies of ourselves and
our Allies, you get some idea of the magnitude of tl.e opera-
tions which the Fleet has undertaken.
And, if we narrow somewhat our field of vision, when I
tell you that 30,000 tons of stores and supplies and 7,000
personnel are carried daily to France, that 570 steamers
of 1,750,000 tons are continually employed in the service of
carrying troops and stores to the Armies in France and to the
Forces in the various theatres of war, again you will
realise the magnitude of the task and the immensity
of the strain. There are some occasions on which figures are
more eloquent than words, and this is, I think, one of them.
This great task has not been achieved without an expansion
of the Navy without parallel in the history of our country,
or, indeed, of any country. In 1914 the Navy Estimate pro-
vided for a personnel in the Royal Navy of 145,000 officers
and men. The strength is now 430,000. And it has been
built up not by drawing on the original reserves, but by re-
cruitment from the sea-faring population and volunteers from
all parts of the Empire. The total tonnage of the Fleet
employed in naval services after mobilisation in September,
1914, was 4,000,000 tons; now it is 6,000,000 tons. This
work has been accomplished in circumstances that call, I
think, for special notice. In the case of the Navy the task
of preparation is not followed by the excitement of certain
conflict. The sailor does not, like the soldier, leap over the
parapet to charge at a visible foe. For months at a time
5
he never sees the foe at all. When the crisis comes, it comes
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, and the issues of life
and death, of victory and defeat, are decided in a few minutes.
For the rest of the time the task of the Navy is monotonous,
arduous, sometimes obscure. It is a work of waiting, wait-
ing, waiting. It is impossible to exaggerate the strain which
such experiences must impose upon every faculty both of
mind and body.
There is, perhaps, one respect in which the fighting ships
of the Navy cannot complain of lack of excitement or adven-
ture. We hear a great deal of the German submarines and
of their campaign of organised and brutal destruction. People
seem to forget that we have submarines also. I am not
going to give their numbers; still less am I going to say
where they are or what they are doing. But in the
pursuit of legitimate warfare our submarines have made
40 successful attacks on enemy warships, and 270 successful
attacks on other vessels. And if I may turn to one particular
incident or group of incidents, who can forget the superb
courage of those submarine commanders in the Dardanelles,
who crept through the stormy currents and the hidden dangers
of the Narrows, made their way into the Sea of Marmora,
and for weeks at a time preyed upon a helpless and
bewildered enemy?
AUXILIARY SERVICES.
Equally w erful is the record of the auxiliary naval
services, which have been expanded to an extraordinary degree
to meet the changes that have occurred in maritime warfare
by the development of the mine and the submarine. I allude
more especially to the minesweepers and the patrol vessels.
Over 3,309 vessels are now engaged on these duties. At the
beginning of the war there were 12. They are out in all
weathers, day and night, searching and sweeping for mines,
patrolling the coastal routes, escorting merchant traffic,
hunting the enemy submarines. It is impossible to imagine
a more arduous or a more dangerous duty. Never a day but
•
6
they may be in contact with a mine or torpedo; never a week
but some of them are sent to the bottom; yet in all this time
cf stress not a single man has asked to be relieved, and if
one man is lost scores leap forward to take his place.
I could detain you this afternoon for hours with tales of
personal gallantry; but we are here to-day to place the crown
of glory on the heads, not of individuals, but of the Navy
as a whole. The spirit which animates all our officers and
men, whether on the sea or under the sea, is to be found in
the words of the skipper of a trawler attacked by the gun-fire
of a German submarine. Though armed only with a
3-pounder gun and outranged by her opponent, she refused to
haul down her flag even when the skipper had both his legs
shot off and most of the crew were killed or wounded.
"Throw the confidential books overboard and throw me after
them," the skipper said; and, refusing to leave his ship when
the few survivors took the boats, he went down with her.
THE BLOCKADE.
There is another aspect of the work of the Navy upon
which I must speak for one moment, and that is the story of
the Blockade. We hear the Blockade a good deal criticised
and even attacked in the newspapers.
I invite you
to think for a moment of what a Blockade means to
those who take part in it. Patrolling the ocean gateway
600 miles in width from Scotland to Iceland and Greenland,
these vessels are exposed to incessant gales and to the perils
of submarines. Day and night it is their duty to stop and
to board the ships that may be taking supplies to the enemy.
The efficiency of the service may be gathered from the fact
that, early in 1915, 256 out of 1,400 ships managed to slip
through the patrol; at the end of 1916 only 60 out of 3,000
passed without being intercepted. The large majority of
the men who are engaged in this work were before the war
in the Mercantile Marine.
7
THE MERCANTILE MARINE.
I said just now that I would ask leave to say a word or
two about the Mercantile Marine and the amazing service
that it has rendered in every theatre of war. What has this
service been? In the first place, these men have provided
a large part of those auxiliary services to which I have been
referring the mine-sweepers, the patrol boats, the Fleet
colliers, and the blockade vessels. Then steadily, in spite of
constant danger, they have kept up the flow of British im-
ports to this country, conveying to these shores the food on
which we live, the wool and cotton by which we are clothed,
the raw material of every industry. Equally the Mercantile
Marine has been the carrier and purveyor and feeder of our
Allies. But I am not sure that its most wonderful achieve-
ment has not been the continuous service which it maintained
across the Channel and to the various theatres of war. Week
in and week out, in all weathers, proceeding at full speed in
the fog and the darkness, navigating,without lights, swept
by heavy seas, they have carried the soldiers to their des-
tinations and brought back the wounded to these shores.
Think of the responsibility that lies upon the captain of such
a vessel. Always on the bridge, sleepless for nights at a
time, he knows that on his vigilance depend the lives of
thousands of the soldiers of his Sovereign. Remember that
both for him and for his men there may spring at any moment
from the ocean the menace of sudden death-the rush of a
torpedo, the firing of a gun, and the vessel sinks down into
the great deeps and is lost. Then follows the tumult of
evacuation, the agony of the boat drifting on the stormy seas
for days and nights at a time with the most precarious chance
of rescue. Many vessels in this way have been torpedoed
several times over. The lives of the men of the Mercantile
Marine that have been lost number 8,000. But never a man
has been found who refused to sail. This is a record
that brings a lump to the throat and tears to the eyes,
and it has invested with an everlasting renown the name
and service of the British Mercantile Marinę,
8
THE ARMY.
I pass now to the paragraphs of this Motion which relate
to the Army and the service which has been rendered by it.
in so many parts of the world. It is notorious that we are
not a military nation. It is a truism that at the outbreak
of war we were unprepared. We had only an exiguous Army
of 100,000 ready for the field, though this was an Army of
superlative quality. But now, after three years of war, we
have slowly forged the most powerful military weapon that
is to be found in the armoury of any of the Allies. We have
produced an Army of 3,090,000—in spirit, in fighting quality,
and in endurance second to none, if it does not surpass any
that has ever been known in the history of our race.
Observe the steps by which this has been accomplished.
In August, 1914, there was, as I said, the Expeditionary
Force of six Infantry Divisions and one Cavalry Division,
with a total of 160,000 men. Four of these Divisions and
the Cavalry Division were rushed across the Channel in the
opening days of the war and met on landing with an ex-
perience that has rarely befallen any force in the opening
days of a campaign. Marching, as they had to do, 150 miles
in eleven days, sustaining heavy losses, confronted by an
enemy of superior numbers and equipment, they fought the
immortal Battle of Mons-a retreat more glorious than a
victory. This was the first occasion on which the British
Forces saved France and Europe, and, I think we may say,
civilisation itself. Then, when two more Divisions had gone
across, this Army, shattered but unbroken, decimated but
undismayed, turned on the enemy and, assisted by our brave
Allies the French, drove him back over the Marne and the
Aisne.
Then we come to the first Battle of Ypres, from the
middle of October to the latter part of November, 1914, one
of the greatest feats of endurance in British military history.
One more Infantry Division had been added, and the two
Indian Divisions came up in the nick of time. In that battle
9
the pressure was so great, extending along a front of 40 miles,
that cooks and transport drivers had to be put in the line.
The enemy had a great superiority in heavy guns and arma-
ment, but we were saved by the magnificent fighting power
and desperate courage of our officers, non-commissioned
officers, and men, and for the second time the danger was
rolled back. The hero of that battle, who takes his name
from the scene of his glory, sits in this House. We
honour him, and the nation honours him, and his
men, for what they did in these days of destiny, when
for the second time Europe was saved. When this battle
was over the original Expeditionary Force had practically
ceased to exist. Three months of heavy fighting, between
August and November, had left very few of the original Force
in the ranks, and the units had been almost entirely filled
with fresh drafts. No sacrifice ever recorded in history has
obtained better results than theirs. Great as the subsequent
achievements of the troops have been, it is generally recog-
nised that, both in the magnitude of the results they obtained
and the trial of endurance they faced, these seven Regular
Divisions will hold a unique place in the annals of their
countrymen. The traditions of duty and discipline which
inspired them have been handed down to those who come
after them, and are a living force in our Armies to-day.
THE TERRITORIAL ARMY.
In 1915 new forces began to enter the field. Already a
few picked Territorial battalions and a few Yeomanry regi-
ments had shared with the old Regulars the glory of the
first Battle of Ypres. But with the beginning of 1915
the value of the Territorial Forces began to be felt.
This country owes a deep and lasting debt of gratitude to
the Territorial Army. Raised for home defence, often dis-
paraged, many times the victims of sneers; its members
were ready to assume any other duty placed upon them.
They undertook, and are carrying out now, the defence of
outlying portions of the Empire, thereby relieving Regular
ΙΩ
troops for the Front. The first time the Territorial Army
engaged in heavy fighting was in the second Ypres Battle
in 1915, and at Festubert in May. Though comparatively
untried, their conduct was beyond all praise, and their stub-
born resistance gave us time to organise measures of
defence, bring up reinforcements, and finally close the road
to Calais. Since then the Territorial Army, now one-fourth
of the entire Expeditionary Force, has shared in almost
every important engagement in France and Flanders. It
has also fought gallantly in Gallipoli, Salonika, Egypt, and
Mesopotamia.
Now we come to the time-in May, 1915-when the first
Division of the New Army was despatched to France. The
organisation of this New Army, by which a large number
of Divisions were raised, trained, equipped, and placed in
the field in the course of about nine months, is an achieve-
ment which only the late Lord Kitchener's great prestige,
energy, and determination could have rendered possible; nor
could it ever have been carried out had it not been for the
patriotism and zeal of the people of this country. No
greater self-sacrifice has been displayed in this war than by
those who compose the New Army, and who were the first
to answer their country's call. Thus we see that we have
passed through three periods of military organisation in the
time to which I have been referring-first, the days of the
old Expeditionary Force that went out at the beginning of
August, 1914; secondly, the new and enlarged Expeditionary
Force, with the addition of the Indian Regiments and the
Colonial and Territorial Forces, which fought through 1915;
thirdly, the appearance of the New Army upon the scene in
the middle and latter parts of that year. But all these
differences were presently obliterated when, with the intro-
duction of compulsory military service in this country at
the end of 1915, the distinction between Regulars and New
Army and Territorials disappeared, and the Army became
for the first time a National Army. During the two years
that have since elapsed every Division of that Army has
II
been engaged in the great happenings across the Channel-
of the Somme, of Arras, and Ypres--and it would be im-
possible to select any portion for special praise.
GALLIPOLI.
But I must not forget that there have been other theatres
of war in which these troops have fought. Of Gallipoli I
shall speak presently when I come to the services of the
Australians and New Zealanders. But our Overseas troops
were not alone in braving the perils of those inhospitable
beaches and those cruel cliffs. Side by side with them
fought the troops of the New Army, the Territorials and
the Irish and Welsh Divisions. Whether the Dardanelles
Expedition was or was not a sound and legitimate venture,
whether its abandonment was or was not a prudent and
necessary proceeding, it can never be denied that in no
theatre of war was greater gallantry and a more heroic
spirit displayed. There were many chapters in that heroic
but ill-fated epic-the landing on the beaches in the face
of a determined enemy, the clinging for months to those
desperate slopes, the repeated though futile attempts to
advance to the heights, and perhaps not least of all the
re-embarkation, almost without loss, under the very eyes
of the enemy. When, in later years people visit that melan-
choly spot they will see the tombstones which record one
of the greatest achievements of the British Army.
SALONIKA.
At Salonika the Allied troops, arriving too late to save
gallant little Serbia from disaster, have had less hard
fighting and fewer opportunities for winning glory than
have fallen to the lot of their comrades elsewhere. Never-
theless their work, in which the British contingent under
General Milne has played a conspicuous part, has enabled
the Serbian Army once again to take its place in the field,
and has preserved Greece from the enemy and brought her
to our side. A climate malarious in summer and bitterly
13
cold in winter, and, what the soldier hates still more, long
periods of comparative inactivity-these trials our men at
Salonika have borne with a spirit fully equal to that of
their comrades in more glorious fields.
EGYPT AND PALESTINE.
Egypt has been another field of war where the opera-
tions have been important and have played a considerable
part in the fortunes of the war. It is such ancient history
now that we have almost forgotten that after the evacua-
tion of Gallipoli Egypt was supposed to be in danger, and
the Turks launched at least two desperate efforts to dislodge
us from the Sinai Peninsula and the Canal. Those attacks
were repelled, and the British Army, after rendering the
position in Egpyt secure, were able to carry out the long-
meditated advance, clear Sinai and the Canal, and move
forward to the borders of Palestine. There they are at
the present moment engaged, and doubtless we shall hear
of them again, and that very soon. The Egyptian Cam-
paign has not been without its episodes of hard fighting
and personal heroism, but it is as a triumph of scientific
organisation that I would specially mention it this afternoon.
In the operations that are going on in Palestine every pound
of stores, every gallon of water that is drunk by the troops,
has to be carried all the way from Egypt across 150 miles
of desert. This is a feat that rivals what has been so
successfully accomplished in France.
•
MESOPOTAMIA.
I turn for a moment to Mesopotamia. The Army in
Mesopotamia has suffered vicissitudes greater than any which
have been experienced in any of the other theatres of war.
Starting with the brilliant success of the handful of British
and Indian troops in the autumn of 1914, the advance, in
the face of great physical and climatic difficulties, almost
to the threshold of Baghdad, was presently arrested by mis-
fortune and even by disaster. But, even after this set-back,
13
•
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the discipline and valour of the troops never wavered, and
no finer exhibition of those qualities has ever been given
than that which was made by the Force which fought its
way back from the field of Ctesiphon to Kut, and then
made that heroic defence which will be one of the memor-
able sieges of history. Then ensued an interval while
mistakes were being repaired and recuperation was under-
taken, and it was reserved for General Maude and his brave
men to retrieve the laurels which had been temporarily lost,
and by the capture of the Turkish positions and by their
subsequent advance to Baghdad and the occupation of that
city, to accomplish one of the greatest feats of the war.
Since then General Maude has driven the enemy back to the
east and west and north. He has won another notable
victory, and his fine generalship and the splendid efficiency
of his troops have enabled us to acquire a position which
enables the British Force to await the threatened attack of
the enemy without any alarm.
As we survey these different scenes of fighting
which I have briefly enumerated to you, there are,
I think, certain reflections that come to our mind.
The first of these is the high level of competence of our
commanders in the field. War is a very different thing now
from what it was ten years ago. It requires scientific
training, a high order of ability, an immense amount of care,
forethought, and knowledge such as was undreamed of a
few decades ago. I might mention many of our com-
manders who have excelled in this respect, but I shall, fer-
haps, not err if I take as a type and model of them all the
gallant Field-Marshal who is at present commanding our
troops in France. During more than two years Sir Douglas
Haig has never wavered,
never wavered, never murmured, never com-
plained, never been despondent. He has gone steadily on
with attack after attack and has shown himself a great
commander and leader of men.
14
AWARDS FOR VALOUR.
The second point that I would mention is the extra-
ordinary valour of our officers, non-commissioned officers,
and men. Let me give you what I procured from the
Departments concerned this morning-the figures of the
awards for valour that have been given both to the Army
and the Navy. I take first the Army. There have been
awarded-
Victoria Crosses
Bars to the Victoria Cross
D.S.O's
First Bar
...
301
2
4,558
104
Second Bar
Military Crosses
First Bar
Second Bar
Distinguished Conduct Medal
Military Medal
Next I give the figures of the Navy-
Victoria Crosses
D.S.O's
Bars to the D.S.O.
'Distinguished Service Cross
Bars to that Cross
4
14,255
10,748
127
I
39,409
28
399
...
23
766
39
Conspicuous Gallantry Medal
Distinguished Service Medal
67
2,211
I do not envy the man who can read without emotion
the records which we see, even when they are couched in
official language, of the facts which have won these awards.
In the newspapers you read the words, "Awarded the Vic-
toria Cross for most conspicuous bravery." Then there
comes, in eight or ten lines of print, a narrative of doings
which almost surpass belief, which as time goes on will
be enshrined in legend and will become one of the lessons
that is taught, and taught with advantage, to future genera-
tions of our race.
15
THE BRITISH SOLDIËR.
But is not the great revelation of the war the British
soldier himself? In all previous wars the Army has been
a class of the nation. Now it is the nation itself. The
Army has become in a wonderful degree a microcosm of
all classes of our people, reflecting not merely, as it always
did, the valour and endurance of our people, but their ideas
and ideals, their aspirations, even the culture and the
spiritual side of the nation. We see the British soldier, as
he has shown himself in this war, a model of cheerful
endurance and uncomplaining devotion to duty, seldom in
low spirits, possessed of a quaint and irrepressible humour,
contemptuous of danger, greedy for self-sacrifice, a tiger in
fighting, but chivalrous and humane to the enemy; able
to think as well as to act; pondering deeply on the problems
and issues of the war; resolved, as his generation has been
called upon to pay the price, that he will pay it himself with-
out a murmur, to save posterity from a similar peril. We
may well be proud to belong to a race that has produced
such men, and to have lived in an age that has been called
upon to meet and to surmount such a danger.
You
THE ARMY CHAPLAINS.
But there are one or two other debts of honour which
would wish to pay this afternoon. May I say
one word about the chaplains of every Church and
denomination, 2,200 of whom are serving with the Armies
in the field, giving the consolations of religion to the living
and performing the last rites of the Church over the dead?
How gallant and perilous their service has been may be
shown by the fact that over 70 have been killed, many
wounded, and many others have died from disease, 2 have
won the Victoria Cross, 130 have been decorated, and many
more have been mentioned in Despatches.
16
THE MEDICAL SERVICES.
I desire to allude also to the medical officers who have
devoted their skill with unwearying assiduity, not merely
to the care of the wounded, which is the part of their duty
that I dare say most immediately occurs to us, but also
to the health and comfort of the troops. How tremendous
has been the call upon this service can be seen from the
expansion of the number. At the beginning of the war the
Royal Army Medical Corps contained 3,168 officers; there
are now nearly 14,000. Other ranks, 16,330; there are now
125,000. Nor must I omit the civil medical practitioners,
including many surgeons and physicians of great practice
and renown in this city, who have voluntarily sacrificed large
incomes and connections in order to serve their country.
There has never been an Army that has been in such a
state of health as the British Army in France. In other
wars disease has often proved more fatal than the guns
of the enemy. We remember it in the Crimea. There were
even some sad stories in South Africa. But in this war
the health of the Army in the field has actually been better
than that of the civilian population at home. It has been
better than the health of the Army in times of peace, and,
paradoxical though it may seem, the British Army in
France has really been a sanitarium for the British citizen.
THE NURSES.
In our Motion we have not forgotten, but have included
for the first time, the service of nurses. Nobly have they
deserved this compliment. They have not only been minis-
tering angels in the hospitals behind the lines, but they have
been pushed forward to the Casualty Clearing Stations just
behind the front line, where they have literally stood between
the living and the dead. Their names figure not only as
the heroines, but also as the martyrs, of this war.
of them have been torpedoed and drowned at sea.
others have been killed by bombs thrown on the hospitals
Several
Several
17
where they were serving. In one case the name of an
English nurse has been rendered immortal by her martyr-
dom. This organisation also has expanded in proportion
to the calls upon it. On August 1, 1914, Queen Alexandra's
Imperial Nursing Service contained 463 nurses; there are
now 7,71I. The Territorial Army Nursing Service has
expanded from 3,000 to 5,000.
THE AIR SERVICES.
There is another Service about which you will expect me
to say a word. I might have dealt with it under the Army
or the Navy because it belongs to both, but I have reserved
a special category for it, because of the quite exceptional
nature of its service-I allude to the " Knights of the Air,
whether belonging to the Royal Flying Corps or to the
Royal Naval Air Service. I deliberately call them "Knights
of the Air," because in this war nowhere more than in
these aerial excursions and combats does it seem to me
that the spirit of knight errantry has reappeared. The
solitary ride on the machine through the heavens, the call
for constant presence of mind and courage, the fierce
combat, the swift victory or the sudden death-all of these
seem like a survival of the romance of a bygone age. When,
in August, 1914, 100 officers and 66 machines-for that was
all we had-made their way either by sea or the air to
France, who could have foreseen that this would develop
into a great fleet of thousands of machines and ten thou-
sands of men? .
Let me give you an idea of their work on the Western
front. In the first nine months of 1917 the men of the
Royal Flying Corps brought down 876 machines of the
enemy, drove down 759 out of action, and 52 were brought
down by anti-aircraft gunfire. They dropped thousands
of tons of explosives on aerodromes, military buildings,
railways, bridges, communications, even on moving regi-
ments of the enemy, swooping down to within a few feet
of the ground and scattering and killing the enemy as he
18
marched. And this is not all. Apart from the offensive
operations and activities of the Air Service, you must
remember that they are in a true sense the
" of the
eyes
Army fighting in the field. They are always engaged in
spotting the enemy batteries, taking photographs-and mar-
vellous these photographs are; I have no doubt you
have seen many of them-while by wireless telegraphy
they enable our Artillery to control gunfire with deadly
precision. Let us not forget also the airmen at home who
have shattered the menace of the Zeppelin, and by their
skill and bravery, on many occasions now, brought these
great gas bags in flames to the ground. I sometimes think,
when the Gothas are shrieking over London at night, and
the civil population retreats to its cellars, that we might
turn a thought to those brave men who are riding the
darkness and the whirlwind, high up in the air, and who
in those lofty altitudes are risking their lives to save us
from destruction. The war abounds in stories of the
heroism of the airmen in every field; and I do not know
whether to admire most the actual gallantry of the men,
or the extraordinary and marvellous development of scien-
tific resources and ingenuity which has provided them with
the means of carrying out their task.
I need hardly say that I include in the same tribute,
in full and equal measure, the officers and men of the Royal
Naval Air Service. There is no distinction between the
two except the branch of the Service with which they are
connected. At the beginning of the war the personnel of
the R.N.A.S. was 800; it is now 42,000. Its fleet at the
beginning of the war consisted of 7 airships, 30 aeroplanes,
34 seaplanes; the number is now many thousands. Per-
haps the most effective branch of that Service has been
the Naval Squadron at Dunkirk. It has really been one
of the most efficient agencies of the war. Almost daily in
our newspapers we read of their energy in bombing the
enemy aerodromes-valuable, not merely for the destruction
that is thus wrought, but also because every time they go
19
forth and attack the aerodromes of the enemy they are
diminishing, and indeed at times they absolutely frustrate
the invasion which may be contemplated by the enemy
here. The aircraft of the R.N.A.S. have been similarly
in evidence in every theatre of the war. They have flown
over Damascus; they have dropped bombs on Beirut; they
have destroyed buildings at Constantinople; and I dare say
you will remember in the early operations of the war that
splendid effort by which the Zeppelin shed was destroyed on
Lake Constance.
OVERSEAS CONTINGENTS.
There remain but two paragraphs, and two only, with
which I must ask your leave to deal before I sit down. The
first is an acknowledgment of the services which have been
rendered by the gallant troops from the Dominions and from
India, and from our Crown Colonies and Protectorates. -
The Germans have made many miscalculations in this war,
but I think that which must have caused them the most
acute disappointment was the spectacle which was seen
when, at the beginning of the war, there rallied round this
country the armed contingents, both European and native,
from our Dominions all over the world. These people
realised with unerring instinct the nature of the issues
which were involved. They saw that the British Empire
was in danger, and that if it perished there would go with
it the guarantees for their own free and contented existence.
They never minded that the war was thousands of miles
away, and that their country was not invaded, and, indeed,
that no portion of the. British Empire was invaded. They
never thought of the dangers that were to be encountered
or the lives that might be laid down.
From all parts
of the world the great greyhounds came coursing across the
sea carrying to the battlefield the men of many aces,
religions, and climes.
20
t
SOUTH-WEST AFRICA.
Let me glance in a sentence or two at the principal scenes
of their operations, either on the battlefields of Europe or in
more remote parts of the world. In German Couth-West
Africa the South African troops under General Botha, in a
short campaign which lasted only eleven months, conquered
320,000 square miles of territory, and turned the Germans
out of that country, as we hope, for ever. The operations
were distinguished for the mobility and endurance of the
troops and for the military skill and efficiency of the
commander.
EAST AFRICA.
In East Africa we were confronted at the beginning of
the war with a situation in which our Forces were greatly
outnumbered, and in which we could not protect our own
territory; but the tide was turned when General Smuts
appeared on the scene in 1916 with a large South African
Force and with a contingent from Rhodesia. Since then
these troops have been replaced, for the most part, by native
forces and by Indian troops and by men from: the Gold Coast
and Gambia. There have been great obstacles to be over
come-fighting over marshes, across mounatins, amid
deserts, in dense bush-but gradually the enemy have been
driven back to the south-east corner of the Colony, where
they are thrown back upon guerilla warfare and where the
end cannot long be postponed.
TOGOLAND AND CAMEROONS.
Togoland and the Cameroons-German colonies-have
been taken by British forces, almost entirely natives of West
Africa, who have distinguished themselves bravely in the
fighting there. It was a land of rivers of mountains, and
of dense forest. The French fought side by side with our-
selves, and in eighteen months the Colony was cleared-a
result due equally to the bravery of the troops and the skill
of the commander.
21
OTHER COLONIAL CONTINGENTS.
Meanwhile, Colonial contingents have shown their faces
and have earned renown on other fronts. There has been a
South African Brigade in France ever since 1916. The
Rhodesians fought both in South-West Africa and in East
Africa. The Newfoundland Battalion has taken part in all
the principal fighting in France. All the available white men
in our Colonies, and in our Protectorates in East Africa,
Hong Kong, Celon, Mauritius, West Indies, Seychelles,
Fiji, Malay, Bermuda, volunteered, and were either sent
abroad or released garrisons which were maintained in those
countries. Nor must we forget the Labour battalions, the
carriers, of whom there have been many tens of thousands
sent from our Colonies to the Front.
DOMINIONS' FORCES IN EUROPE.
I have reserved to the end the immortal service of the
Canadians, the Australians, and New Zealanders, and the
men of the Indian Army. Our kinsmen have more than once
before rallied to our assistance. We saw them in Egypt;
they fought with us in South Africa; but never has that
service been so lavishly rendered, never has it been on such a
scale, and never has it been attended with such important
and decisive results as in this war. If I told you that
Canada has sent 350,000 men for service overseas, and
Australia 300,000, and New Zealand 120,000, I should be but
little over the mark. If I added that South Africa has sent
50,000, and Newfoundland 4,000, I should be slightly under
it. But the most remarkable feature of this contribution,
next to the scale of the effort, has, I think, been the marvel-
lously short time which has been taken to put these men
into the line, and the success with which, almost from the
start, they have been able to hold their own against seasoned
professional troops. It may induce us to revise some of our
own ideas about Army instruction in the future.
22
THE ANZACS.
Gallipoli was the first test of the quality of the Anzacs.
Their bravery has invested that barren and forbidding spot
with a glory which will never fade, and has added a name
to the nomenclature of the British Empire. I have heard
the commander on that Peninsula bear testimony to the
joyous elation with which, as he described it, these overseas
men faced danger and death. From there, after a rest, the
Anzacs were taken to Egypt. Their Cavalry has since been
serving in Egypt and in Sinai, and is now in Palestine, but
their Infantry was transferred to France, and in France they
have fought in every battle in the last one and a-half years—
the Somme, Arras, Messines, and Ypres.
THE CANADIANS.
The Canadian record is not less glorious. There is still
fresh in our memory the second Battle of Ypres-the first
time gas was used-when the French line broke, and it was
reserved for the Canadians to save the situation. It was
largely due to their stubborn resistance at that time that the
road to Calais was barred. Since then the Canadians have
participated in every great battle; they have never wavered,
and they have earned a place that will never be lost in the
gratitude of the Empire.
INDIA.
The contribution of India has been in some respects the
most remarkable of all, for in the first place they have
provided troops for a much larger number of theatres of war
than any other Overseas contingent. They have served in
East Africa, Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Cameroons, Tsingtau,
Aden, Gallipoli, Salonika, Flanders, France. What a record
to be inscribed upon the banners of the Indian Army! What
a terrible blow to German prognostications! In some of
these theatres of war the Indian troops have been better
qualified than others because of climatic conditions, and their
23
Fecord in Mesopotamia has been one of exceptional valour
and endurance. But remember that, elsewhere, they have
been exposed to surroundings entirely novel in character, to a
species of warfare of which they had no knowledge, to con-
ditions which at times must have been shattering to the
nerve, and might have broken the morale even of trained
European forces. The fortitude with which they have con-
ducted themselves in France, in a climate which must seem
to them very often to be one of cruel severity, is one of the
outstanding features of the war. It is a record of which
they and we may be proud. And the fact that two Victoria
Crosses have been pinned to the breasts of Indian soldiers
is a direct testimony to the valour and endurance which they
have displayed.
I have now completed my survey of the various theatres
of war, and I have endeavoured, however imperfectly, to
enumerate the services that have been rendered. I have
deliberately said nothing about the administration and
organisation at home, about the work of the Generals and
administrative Staffs of the War Office, and the Home
Command. No one who has not been in close touch with
their work can picture the incessant labour that has been
involved in the creation and training of our new Armies, the
change in war time from a voluntary to a compulsory system,
and the control, organisation, and maintenance of the vast
Armies which we now have in the field. But their time for
praise and congratulation will come later on. To-day we
have been dealing with the service of our men and women in
the field.
CAPTURES.
I, perhaps, could not give you a better idea of the full
measure of the achievement of the Armies whose work I
have been narrating than by communicating to you a state-
ment of the captures of prisoners and guns which have been
effected by them, and the extent of enemy territory which
they have taken in the last three years. We have captured,
24
in all the theatres of war, over 159,000 prisoners and 683
guns. We have taken 1,244,000 square miles of enemy
territory in East and West Africa and the Pacific; in Egypt
we have recovered over 20,000 squares miles of territory
which the enemy had overrun; and in the Western theatre
we have, in conjunction with our Allies, since the trench
lines were established from the North Sea to Switzerland,
recovered 1,410 square miles of French and Belgian territory.
THE WOUNDED.
It remains for me only, before I resume my seat, to offer
on your behalf a tribute of our admiring gratitude to all the
brave men who have returned and will return, maimed or
broken, from the awful ordeal of the Front, and whose cheer-
fulness and fortitude in the face of blindness, of mutilation,
and of many forms of suffering and torture, makes us proud
to be their countrymen.
PRISONERS OF WAR.
One word also I must devote to the poor prisoners of
war, many of them languishing in captivity for the best part
of three years. The victims of ill-fortune, they have suffered
from no conduct of their own. Many of them have
experienced cruel treatment at the hands of their merciless
gaolers. But I suspect that if we could get to the bottom
of their minds we should find that the worst torture which
they have suffered is that of being unable to stand by their
countrymen in this great struggle for the future of their
com
common race.
THOSE WHO HAVE FALLEN.
The Motion to which I ask your assent concludes with
an expression of the respectful sympathy of this House to the
relations and friends of those who have fallen. There is an
old saying that in peace men bury their fathers, and in war
fathers bury their sons. Many of those fathers sit upon
these benches. If I cast my eyes around I can see them in
many quarters of this House. Nothing that I can say,
$
25
nothing that we can do, can mitigate the severity of the
blow that has fallen upon them or console them for the
irreparable loss that they have sustained. But it is possible
that the unanimous thanks and vote of Parliament may add
something to the pride that is mingled with their grief, and
may assure them that we are conscious of the superlative
value of the sacrifice that they have made. We know, as
they know, that their dear ones have fought, not because
they loved war, but because they loved peace more than
war. They died that the nation might live, and that peace
and justice might reign once more on the earth. In some
Eastern countries that I have visited the foundations of
palaces and city walls used to be cemented with the blood of
human victims, slaughtered in the pit where the foundation
stones were laid. The blood of our heroes has been shed as
a voluntary sacrifice to lay the foundation of a structure
fairer, stronger, more enduring than any palace or city built
by men's hands-namely, the fabric of a new society, free
from the flaws and weakness of the times that are passing
away, and reared on the solid bases of humanity and free-
dom. Thus may those who have died become in their death
the architects of a new world in which the generations that
live after them may breathe a purer air and pursue a higher
aim. Let us see to it that this is no idle dream, and that
when our soldiers come back to England they will return to a
country for which those who died have not died in vain,
and which those who survive will find to be a land worth
living for and living in. I beg to make the Motion which
stands in my name.
Moved to resolve-
That the thanks of this House be given to the officers,
petty officers, and men of the Navy for their faithful
watch upon the seas during more than three years of
ceaseless danger and stress, while guarding our shores
and protecting from the attacks of a barbarous foe, the
commerce upon which, the victory of the Allied cause
depends.
26
That the thanks of this House be given to the officers,
non-commissioned officers, and men of the British
Armies in the field, and also to the women in the
medical and other services auxiliary thereto, for their
unfailing courage and endurance in defending the right,
amid sufferings and hardships unparalleled in the
history of war, and for their loyal readiness to continue'
the work to which they have set their hands until the
liberty of the world is secure.
That the thanks of this House be accorded to the gallant
troops from the Dominions Overseas, from India, and
from the Crown Colonies who have travelled many
thousands of miles to share with their comrades from
the British Isles in the sacrifices and triumphs of the
battlefield, and to take their full part in the struggle for
human freedom.
That the thanks of this House be accorded to the officers
and men of the Mercantile Marine for the devotion to
duty with which they have continued to carry the vital
supplies to the Allies though seas infested with deadly
peril.
That this House doth acknowledge with grateful admira-
tion the valour and devotion of those who have offered
their lives in the service of their country, and tenders
its sympathy to their relatives and friends in the
sorrows they have sustained.
THE MARQUIS OF CREWE.
The MARQUIS OF CREWE: In this House, where a Motion
needs no seconder, we might well have been content to leave
the expression of our gratitude to the two Services to the
eloquent voice of the noble Earl who leads us, and to the
masterly review and analysis of the whole field of war during
these years to which we have just listened. But perhaps it
is as well that this expression should be in some degree
enforced by one who does not sit on Government Benches
27
as an evidence of our complete union of mind in this matter,
for it is impossible to conceive the slightest dissent from any-
thing which has fallen from Lord Curzon. It is true that in
the past the conclusion of hostilities might have been waited
for before such a Motion as this was made; but, as Lord
Curzon pointed out, this occasion has been one of unprece-
dented service and unprecedented sacrifice. It is no question
of conveying the thanks of the nation to a small professional
band of heroes of the Army and Navy; it is actually the case
that something like three-fourths of the whole adult popula-
tion of these islands desires to express its gratitude to the
remaining one-fourth. That one-fourth has gone tl.rough a
series of unheard-of hardships, and has endured more than
any Army or Navy has had to endure before in every part
of the world.
CONFIDENCE IN THE NAVY.
In 1914 these islands were watched over by the three great
units of the Home Fleet, and it is to that Fleet that we.
still owe the security-of which, unless we specially ink of
it, we are barely conscious-the kind of security which is
felt by no other of our European Allies, and of which we
cannot be too mindful. And with what reinforcement of our
seafaring race does that Navy now continue to guard us?
The patrol vessels, the mine-sweepers, the trawlers, the
drifters-those have all received their meed of praise. Lead-
ing a life very often of absolute monotony but accom-
panied by a monotony of danger from which there
is often no respite whatever, the Royal Navy, speak-
ing generally, has had but comparatively few chances
of dramatic distinction during the present war.
tainly must not forget Admiral Sturdee's dash to the Fakland
Islands in December, 1914, which reflected equal credit on
those who planned it and on those who carried it out. The
Jutland Battle of last year was, as we know, robbed of such
a victory as was won by Rodney or Nelson; but nobody can
ever forget the determination with which the battle-cruiser
IVe cer-
28
squadrons clung to their superior foe, or the rush of the
Battle Fleet summoned to the scene of action, and, not least,
the perpetual devotion of the light cruisers and flotillas all
through the course of that battle.
LOOKING BACK A CENTURY.
·
That was a year and five months ago; and since then, as
we have been told, the German High Sea Fleet has been, in
practice, dormant. It is true that the menace of the sub-
marines has since then greatly increased, and it would no
doubt be false to speak of it as overcome. But that it is
not altogether overcome is certainly not the fault of the
Navy. And I do not think that it is unreasonable to con-
clude that, in this particular matter, experience and scientific
experiment should lead rather to the advantages of the
defence than of the attack. After all, do not let us forget
that between 1794 and 1815 something more than 10,000
British ships of one kind and another were destroyed by
the enemy. During the whole of that time we held, generally
speaking, the command of the sea. In the ten years from
1805 we held it as absolutely as it has ever been held; yet
during those twenty years that great figure of loss was
incurred. I am sure that we all desire not merely to express
our deep sense of gratitude to Sir John Jellicoe, to Sir David
Beatty, and to all the officers and men of the Navy, but
also to express our absolute confidence in them in their
respective positions in the Fleet.
“THAT UNPRECEDENTED FORCE.'
Lord Curzon told us how our military affairs stood at
the beginning of August, 1914. As a matter of fact, the
entire British Force-Regular, with their Reserve, the Special
Reserve, and the Territorial Army, including the Br'tish
Forces all over the world-amounted to some 750,000 men;
and in the first week of the war another half million, as
you will remember, were voted. How urgent the need
of addition to that Force, greatly scattered at that time, was,
29
may be shown by the fact that in the first year of the war
our British casualties were 330,000, or, say, 45 per cent. of
the entire.force of British soldiers, including Territorials, all
over the world. We know that great additions continued to
be made on the voluntary basis during the first year of the
war; and it is, I think, important to remember that during
the year 1915 the more difficult problem was to supply the
necessary equipment for the men that we had, than to find,
for the moment, more men. In the meantime, from the very
first days of the war, the Dominions vied with each other in
prompt and free-handed contributions of men; and in India,
as we know, every Native State that possessed an Army
offered it freely at once to their Emperor and the British
Government. Thus, first on the voluntary basis and after-
wards by a compulsory system freely accepted by the country,
arose, in the words of an acute and generous French critic→
•
"That unprecedented force which has absorbed all mili-
tary precedent and tradition, an emanation from the very
depths of English life, combining every essential British
characteristic, intellectual and religious; with all the
national conventions, prejudices, catch-words, ideals, and
virtues."
That writer, M. André Chevrillon, goes on to say in words
which I believe to be profoundly true, that—
"The Germans believed that they had foreseen every
material contingency; but the New Armies of Britain
had their origin in spiritual realities to which our methodi-
cal foc has been uniformly blind.'
MOST HUMANE AND CRIMELESS ARMY."
Yes, educated Englishmen, outside the regular Services,
altogether lacked that training in the elements of military
science which men of the same sort on the Continent of
Europe have all acquired at some time or other of their
lives. Our educated classes, both professional and artisan,
first had to overtake that industrial organisation for war
30
which for many years past in Germany had been fostered
by State endowments. That is conceivable. But how would
it be, it was asked, when it came for those men to the actual
practice and conduct of the art of war? I venture to say
that the result was equally amazing both to military
and civilian observers. It shows, indeed, that education
does not consist only in the acquiring of a series of facts,
but in the broadening of the mind of those who learn, and
in the development of character, both to dare and to endure.
The fact is that the convertion of the British people into an
Army, as reckless in courage as any Army, as patient to
unparalleled hardship, and undoubtedly the most humane
and crimeless Army that has ever taken the field in war, is
one of the most tremendous phenomena that can be found
in the pages of all history.
"TO A WHOLE NATION.”
It is, indeed, to a whole nation, so far as numbers are
concerned, that our thanks have to be rendered; but it is
impossible that some individual names should not rise to the
mind as they did to the mind of Lord Curzon. We think,
first of all, of Lord Kitchener, who rests in his vast and
wandering grave. Then of the noble Viscount, who is not
now in the House, but whom we are also proud to have as
a member of this House, Lord French, whose title will pre-
serve, as I hope, for many generations to come the recol-
lection of the stand of the British Army, in what I suppose
was the most critical moment of the whole war, at Ypres
in the end of October, 1914. Now we think of the Field-
Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, and also of Sir William
Robertson, who played so great a part in France before he
came to take charge here. Both those merit and possess
the absolute confidence of the country, and we feel that the
decisive end of the war, which alone will content us, will
come to pass under their guidance and auspices. Then Lord
Curzon mentioned, not by name, for they are too many,
all the capable lieutenants of the Commander-in-Chief and
31
of the Army Council in the various theatres of the war,
worthy chiefs of the glorious troops that they command, and
the non-commissioned officers and the men.
“A LAUREL WREATH UPON THEIR GRAVES.”
I was glad that Lord Curzon placed in the very first
rank the Medical Service, both that part of it which was
originally military and that part of it which was originally
civil, and also the chaplains and the goodly company, both of
men and women, who have given their devotion, and not
seldom their lives, in the different branches of hospital and
of ambulance work. It was barely possible to enumerate
all the various branches of the services to which we wish
to render our tribute. There was no part of his speech
which seemed to me more eloquent and more charged with
emotion than his reference to the two branches of the Air
Service, which indeed deserve as large a share of our thanks
as any.
But most of all, of course, we desire to render our
thanks to those who are no longer here to receive them, but
have passed beyond this turbulent world. We can only, by
passing this Resolution, lay our laurel wreath upon their
graves, and offer to those who mourn them the tribute of our
undying sympathy and our pride.
THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.
THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: Perhaps it may not be
out of place that a few words should be spoken by one who
approaches the subject from a standpoint a little different
from that of either Cabinet Minister or political leader or
warrior by land, or sea, or air, and whose duty it is to try
to be in daily touch with the underlying princip es on which
all that is best in English life is based.
It is hard to find terms adequate to express what we all
feel about our sailors and soldiers, whether it be the daunt-
less men who have a Hotspur enthusiasm for the fray, or the
more thoughtful and quiet-spirited men who, with perhaps no
32
martial ardour to start with, have yet of deliberate choice
given themselves to the task of upholding what they believe
to be right, and in doing it have shown a courage as daunt-
less and a perseverance as thorough as that which could be
shown by the bravest and most hardened soldier or sailor in
the land, or the immense multitude of those splendid, dogged
Englishmen and Scotsmen who have been facing throughout
all the privations and difficulties of these terrible campaigns
with a courage, a cheeriness, and a good humour which have
made an imperishable mark upon the mind of their country-
men.
A TASK BEYOND ALL CALCULATION.
I noted, too, with satisfaction, the reference made to those
who minister to the bodies and the spirits of those who are
serving. The testimony deepens day by day as to the services
that are felt to have been rendered by those medical men,
who have at immense sacrifice given themselves—to do better
than it has ever been done before—a task immense beyond all
calculation; and to the services of the chaplains who have
striven, again in the face of great difficulties, to fulfil the
grandest task that could be given to men.
I should like for just a moment or two to emphasise the
subsidiary work, the complementary work, which is being
done by those-both men and women-whose names
do not appear in the forefront at least of the records of service
rendered, but whose deeds, both at home and abroad, are
making a new mark in the life of the English people, a mark
that is not going to be very readily or ever effaced. If ever
a record of what is being done in this war could, as it
certainly can never, be made complete, those who are work-
ing in what I have called the subsidiary and incidental sup-
port of our great cause and our great war would have a
place in the foremost line of honour, all the more because no
public plaudit in their favour now ordinarily meets the ear,
33
THE VALUE OF UNSEEN WORK.
You go, as I do, from place to place in our land, and we
are day by day startled to find-and it fills us with won-
dering admiration-how people from whom work could
hardly be expected (the delicate, the reserved, the very old)
are contributing at this time to the needs of their country,
either by direct or indirect service. I have been struck again
and again by seeing what is possible to be done-what is
now being done by men and women alike who feel that they
must be hearing their part in an enterprise so vast as this,
which calls for the output of all the energy of all the people if
the work is to be worthily performed. The value of that work
seems to me to rest not merely in what the worker is actually
doing, but it expresses a larger and deeper patriotism which
is going to be born anew out of this great conflict. Many
people who had, perhaps, little opportunity and certainly took
small occasion to think of these things in ordinary life, are
now feeling the splendour of their responsibility and their
trust as members of the Empire to which they have the
privilege to belong. If the rope of human brotherhood, that
link which binds nations together, is to be made strong here-
after on behalf of justice and truth and liberty. it will be by
the knitting together of many strands; and the patriotism
which we are evoking will make one strand which is imper-
ishable in its strength for the furtherance of that for which
that bond is ultimately to endure. Of course, the thought
is not a new one. The fact is that in hundreds of thousands
of homes the idea of patriotism is now becoming the ordinary
thought, and the principle which underlies it is becoming
current coin. That is something which is worth while at
this time, and for which we ought to be, and the country will
be, expressing thankfulness.
THOSE WHO WORK AT HOME.
I should like to say how the country thanks those who are
doing what is, perhaps, the hardest task of all-men who
would give simply anything to go out, but are obliged to work
34
at home because their services here are wanted; who feel, it
may be, that they are liable, not merely to the disappointment
which is inevitable to themselves, but to some degree of mis-
apprehension on the part of their friends and others. These
men are deserving every whit as much gratitude and
honour as those who are fighting at the Front. They are,
perhaps, doing harder things in the response they are mak-
ing to the home call than they would do in fighting in the
forefront of the field. We thank these inconspicuous but
unforgettable workers, men "and women, not only for what
they do and suffer, but also for the abiding asset they are to
English life in implanting so firmly amongst us the idea that
it is not upon armaments or military prowess alone but on
the spirit that lies behind them that must ultimately depend
the cause of right in Europe and beyond it. The fact that
they are making this clear for all time is something for which
we have good cause to offer to them, on behalf of the country,
our thanks just now.
PEACE AND THE NEW WORLD.
We are striving together for a just and enduring peace.
A noted American thinker has pointed out-it is the thought
which brought America to our side-that peace is not in
itself the ultimate ideal. Our ideal is the establishment of
human liberty, human justice, and the honourable conduct of
our civilised and humane society. Secure that, and a durable
peace follows naturally. Without that, it seems to me to
be no true or abiding peace, but only the rule of force until
liberty and justice should revolt against it again in search of
peace. The new Europe, nay, the new world, of which we
are in search, is going to insist upon justice, liberty, and
righteousness as its foundation, and it will welcome a dur-
able peace as the companion and friend of these new condi-
tions. It is for the courage, the perseverance, the patience,
and the resource of the men and women of our country in
their work for the furtherance of this end that we desire
to express our country's thanks.
35
THE EARE OF SELBORNE.
THE EARL OF SELBORNE: AS I had the great honour of
presiding over the Board of Admiralty for five years, I should
not like to pass in silence this histor c occasion. I need not
say how entirely I associate myself with all that my noble
friend the Leader of the House said about the Army-the
Home Army, the Indian Army, and the Army of the Domi-
nions. I was very glad to hear what he said concerning the
retreat from Mons and the first Battle of Ypres, for I veritably
believe that in the calm light of knowledge the historian,
when he comes to write the history of this, the greatest war
of the world's story, will fix upon that retreat and upon that
first battle, and say that the safety of civilisation hung then
in the balance, and that the world, not only England, was
saved by Lord French and the little old Army.
SUPREME SEAMANSHIP.
When I was at the Admiralty it was not possible to feel
a more implicit and unlimited confidence than I felt in the
courage, the devotion, the endurance, and the professional
capacity of the officers, warrant officers, petty officers, sea-
men, stokers, and marines of the Fleet. It was not possible
to have had a more implicit belief that when the day of trial
came there would be no failure, and therefore nothing that
has happened has surprised me. But the country does want
reminding again and again, how tremendous have been the
services of the Fleet, partly unrecognised because they are
comparatively obscure. I should lay stress particularly on
the supreme seamanship, the wonderful efficiency which has
enabled this service to be carried on for three and a half years,
without cessation, in all weathers, with the min mum of mis-
hap or misfortune. And then there is the Fleet Reserve of
seamen, stokers, and marines who had served in the Fleet
and taken their discharge. Behind them are the Royal Naval
Reserve, the men of the Mercantile Marine, fishermen, and
the men of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, many of
36
whom were landsmen, clerks, mechanics, and artisans. The
whole of that wonderful auxiliary service which Lord Curzon
so beautifully described, espacially that of the mine-sweepers,
has been done mainly by men of the Royal Naval Reserve-
by fishermen turned King's sailors. The youngest Service of
all, the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, has taken its place
and worked on board ship with the men of the profession,
and has fulfilled all our aspirations.
*But there was nothing that my noble friend said which I
felt to be more profoundly true than what he said about the
Mercantile Marine. What the Mercantile Marine has done
cannot be expressed; there are some thoughts too deep for
utterance. The men of the Mercantile Marine have no
tradition behind them like the Navy, no discipline to support
them; and did not join the profession, which would carry
them in its train, support them, and bear them up. They
are free men at the end of each voyage.
"HAS ONE MAN LEFT?"
But has one man left? Has one crew refused, or even
hesitated, to sail? Have not men, marooned in a boat in
mid-Atlantic, the moment they have been restored to health,
signed on again for another voyage, and mostly in unarmed
ships, always in ships only armed as a means of defence?
There were croakers before this war who told us that our
race had deteriorated. Our forefathers never had to face.
an ordeal in the least degree equal to that which our samen
and soldiers have faced in this war; but I believe t most
sublime example of the unconquerable soul has been shov n
by the men of the Mercantile Marine,
ADMIRAL LORD BERESFORD.
LORD BERESFORD: As an old naval officer I should like
to support what Lord Selborne said about the Mercantile
Marine. The country does not know yet what it owes to the
Mercantile Marine. When war was declared our trade
routes were unprotected and our ships were unarmed.
Men
+
37
I
went out to face certain death, and there are 9,000 of
them at the bottom of the sea, and 4,000 of them prisoners.
No atrocities that have ever been committed by any nation
in the world are equal to those to which our mercantile
seamen have been subjected. Submarines have blown up
unarmed ships, and the men of those submarines have
slaughtered our men who were unarmed. The enemy have
told our men that they would tow them to places of safety,
but twenty minutes afterwards they have towed them straight
to the bottom, perhaps two only being left to tell the tale.
have myself seen a man who has been seven times torpedoed.
He was as fine a specimen of a British seaman as you would
see. He was not very well, and I asked him what he was
going to do. He replied, “I shall be all right in about a
week, and then I will go to sea again." I have also seen a
boy whose feet were off. He was the only survivor of a
boat's crew, all the other members of the crew having been ·
slaughtered by machine guns. If the heroes of our
Mercantile Service were falling in in a party with the Army
and Navy, the officers and men of the Army and Navy would
say, “Let the men of the Mercantile Marine take the right
of the line." Why? Because they know that these men
enable the Army and the Navy to fight. You are sitting
here at this moment because these men die that you
should live. As I say, I cannot, as an old naval officer,
emphasise sufficiently what the Mercantile Marine have done
for us; they have absolutely saved us. These men have come ·
to our help in every way. There are thousands of them in
the Navy, and we are proud of it. I hope that after this
war the association and the co-operation between the two
Services will be far better and far higher than ever before.
WHAT MINE-SWEEPERS DO.
The fishermen on the trawlers and the drifters go out to
almost certain death every time. What do they go out for?
They go out to clear the fairways of the mines so that the
vessels in which their comrades are coming, bringing food
38
(6
and raw material from over the waters, should have a clear
way into the harbour. They run the risk of being destroyed
by submarines outside, and then they run another risk of
being destroyed by mines when they get into the fairway;
and other men go out every day and every night sweeping
for the mines. At one estuary in the North when certain
ships were going out, the officer in command thought :
Well, I have had it swept at 8 o'clock to-night. I am going
to take some ships out to-morrow. There is just a chance
that a submarine may come. I will have it swept once more
40
o'clock in the morning." Two sweepers were blown up
doing that. These men are a part of the Mercantile Marine
as it was known before the war. I believe that the country
does not really know what the Mercantile Marine does. But
the Royal Navy and the Army know; both Services are well
aware of the extraordinary gallantry of these seamen—a
gallantry that is traditional to the British Mercantile Marine
and has never been surpassed in all our history.
at
The Resolution was agreed to nemine dissentiente.
39
HOUSE OF COMMONS
THE PRIME MINISTER (MR. LLOYD George).
Mr. Lloyd GEORGE, in moving the Vote of Thanks in
the House of Commons, said:
Even had I the leisure, which I certainly have not in
these terrible times, I feel that I could not do justice to this
great theme; but the deeds which are referred to in the
Resolution are so well known and have won such universal
admiration and gratitude, not merely from every member of
this House, but from every subject of His Majesty, that I
feel that no words are necessary in order to commend it to
the acceptance of any body of Britishers throughout the
world.
Taking the first paragraph in the Resolution—that
which refers to the British Navy-the enormous magnitude
of our Army, the fact that it has representatives in millions
of homes in the country, and the dazzling record of its great
achievements, may in some respects have obscured the service
which the British Navy has rendered to this country and to
its Allies.
ANCHOR OF THE ALLIED CAUSE.
The British Navy is like one of those internal organs,
essential to life, but of the existence of which we are not
conscious until something goes wrong. The Navy is taken
for granted. In this War the British Navy has been the
anchor of the Allied cause. If it lost its hold the hopes of
the Alliance would be shattered. To realise the power and
might of the British Navy and how essential a part it has
played in this great struggle, one has only to imagine for a
moment what would have happened, not if we had not had the
command of the sea at the beginning of the War, but if the
British Navy had been defeated even a year ago and the
sceptre of the seas had been snatched by our foes. Our
40
armies in France, in Mesopotamia, in Salon.ka, and in Egypt
would have languished and finally vanished for lack of sup-
port in men and material. France, deprived not merely of
our support but of the material assistance which the British
Navy enables us still to get from abroad, would be unable
probably to defend herself against the overwhelming hordes
of the foe. Italy, deprived of coal for her ammunition and
of food, would have fallen a ready prey to her fierce and
vindictive enemies. Russia, cut off on the east and the west,
would indeed have been defenceless. I have no hesitation
in saying that but for the British Navy overwhelming
disaster would have fallen on the Allied cause. Prussia
would have been the insolent mistress of Europe, and,
through Europe, of the world.
THIRTEEN MILLIONS HAVE CROSSED THE SEAS.
Never in the whole of the affairs of the world has the
British Navy been a more potent and a more beneficent in-
fluence in the affairs of men. What has it accomplished?
In spite of hidden foes, as well as open attack, in spite of
legitimate naval warfare, and in spite of black piracy, it has
preserved the highway of the seas for Britain and her Allies.
I would just give a few interesting figures of the numbers
of men and the quantities of material which have been
transported since the beginning of the War to the British
Armies and to those of our Allies. Thirteen million men
have crossed and recrossed the seas, 2,000,000 horses,
25,000,000 tons of explosives and supplies, 51,000,000 tons of
coal and oil fuel for the use of our Fleet and our Armies
and to meet the needs of our Allies. And the losses in men out
of the whole of that 13,000,000 during these years of war
have only been 3,500, 2,700 of these alone through the action
of the enemy, and the remainder through the ordinary perils
of the sea-this apart from the prodigious quantity of food
and other materials amounting in all to 130,000,000 tons,
transported in British ships. This indeed has been a triumph
for the great Navy.
41
THE GRAND FLEET.
It is too early yet to summarise the effects of the blockade
of the British Navy upon our foes, a blockade which would
have been complete had we not left the gates of the Balkans
unlocked and unguarded. As to our Grand Fleet, they have
not had many opportunities such as those which built the
fame of our Navy, but that is not their fault. On the
contrary, it is the recognition of their merit. It has been
due to no deficiency on their part, but to the enemy know-
ledge of their efficiency. The Germans know they are there,
and since the battle of Jutland they have never seen
fit to challenge that Great Fleet; and it is the best
proof that they do not trust the veracity of their own
chroniclers that they have not yet challenged the Navy which
they then claimed to have overcome.
THE FLEETS BEHIND THE FLEET.
As to the smaller craft of the Fleet, their work and peril
never ends. They are numbered by the thousand, and their
hardships and dangers are barely realised, but through their
action security and plenty are enjoyed by the population of
these Islands. They patrol the seas from the icy waters of
the Arctic Ocean to the stormy floods of Magellan. There is
not an ocean, a sea, a bay, a gulf-there is not an estuary
used for commerce which is not patrolled by the ships of the
British Navy. How dangerous a task it is the casualty lists
proclaim, because in proportion to their numbers the dead are
equal to those of the British Army. Through it all the com-
mand of the sea has been maintained. I am glad that in
this respect special recognition is accorded to the officers and
men of the mercantile marine. It is a great distinction for
any civilian body to be placed in the same category as the
soldiers of the British Army and the sailors of the British
Navy, but the officers and men of the British mercantile
marine have won that distinction. Seamanship at best is a
comfortless and a cheerless calling. I remember that when
42
I occupied the office of President of the Board of Trade, the
concern of the Department at that time was the difficulty in
getting men to engage in this avocation, and as the standard
of living improved it was impossible almost to persuade men
to pursue a trade so full of peril and so devoid of comfort.
That was in time of peace. What is it no x? During the
War the strain, the hardship, the terror, the peril, have in-
creased manifold. Piracy is more rampant and ruthless than
it has ever been in the history of the world. This is a new
terror added to those of the deep.
THE VALOUR OF THE MARINER.
The risks of the navigator have increased in every direc-
tion. Lighthouses which were there to warn the mariner ·
against imminent peril are, many of them, dark. They have
to drive their ships full speed through fog and
through storm; the ceaseless watch has à new terror,
not merely of the day but of the night. Their eyes spear the
dark for objects hardly visible on the surface of the seas, even
in sunlight, and yet life depends upon their observing those
objects in time. Then when the blow comes from the in-
visible foe they are faced with conditions which would make
the stoutest heart quail. The mariner is left with the surging
seas around him, scores of miles from a friendly shore. And
yet amongst those who go down to the deep in ships there has
not been found one man who refused to sail. I have made
inquiries, and I am told on all hands that the men return with
greater alacrity than in times of peace. Men torpedoed
twice, thrice, seven times, hardly wait for their papers before
they return to another ship, because they realise that in these
times their country cannot spare one man or one hour. This
is no time to dwell upon the dark deeds of our foes on the
sea; but they are all in the reckoning. What has struck me
with regard to the sailors is this: they have no fear of
danger; there is not one of them who shirks it; but they
abhor the degradation of seamanship involved in these actions
and the dishonour to the traditions of a noble calling. That
43
is why the sailor steadfastly refuses to have any traffic with
men who are guilty of such conduct, or of sanctioning it,
until the stain is wiped out.
OUR FEARLESS FISHERMEN.
Their
I would like to say a word about our fishermen.
contribution has been a great one. Sixty per cent. of our
fishermen are in the Naval Service. Their trawlers are en-
gaged in some of the most perilous tasks that can be entrusted
to sailors-that of mine-sweeping, a dangerous occupation
often ending in disaster. The number of mines they have
swept is incredible, and if they had not done this Britain
would now have been blockaded by a ring of deadly engines
anchored round our shores. But their services have not been
confined to this. You find their trawlers patrolling the
seas everywhere, protecting ships, and not merely around the
British Isles. You find these fishing trawlers in the Medi-
terranean. These men surely deserve the best thanks that
we can accord them for the services which they have rendered.
I should like to give the House one or two illustrations of
the way in which these fishermen have faced these new perils.
Here is one case given to me by the Admiralty. A trawler
was attacked by the gunfire of a German submarine.
Though armed only with a three-pounder gun and outranged
by her opponents she refused to haul down her flag, even when
the skipper had both legs shot off and most of the crew
were killed or injured. "Throw the confidential books over-
board and throw me after them," said the skipper, and, refus-
ing to leave his ship when the few survivors took to the
boat, he went down with his trawler.
There is another case of an armed trawler escorting a
number of fishing vessels. Attacked by submarines, out-
ranged, the main boom broken, the funnel down, the wheel-
house blown up, the steering gear disab'ed, many of the men
killed, the ship sinking, they patched her up with canvas;
she goes on fighting, and when she ultimately goes down
the fishing fleet is safe in port. These are not men trained
44.
for war.
These are fishermen; but this is the spirit that has
animated our sailors whether in the Navy or in the mercantile
marine or in our fishing fleets. Never have British sailors,
whether in the Navy or in the auxiliary services, shown more
grit. Never have they rendered greater service to their
native land or to humanity. For their courage, for their
resolution, for the service they have rendered and for the
resource they have shown, I invite the House in this Resolu-
tion to thank them, officers and men.
ARMIES, OLD AND NEW.
It
I come now to the part of the Resolution which deals with
the Army. Our Expeditionary Force numbered at the be-
ginning of the War 160,000 men. Our Expeditionary Forces.
to-day number over 3,000,000—probably the greatest feat of
military organisation in the history of the world. It never
could have been accomplished but for the heroism and self-
sacrifice of the old Army-the old Army, the finest body of
troops in the world at that time, more highly trained, more
disciplined, more perfect in physique than any other.
saved Europe. In the retreat from Mons it delayed over-
whelming hordes of the enemy, and at the Marne helped to
roll back the invader. But more than all, the great first
battle of Ypres was one of the decisive battles of the world.
With unparalleled tenacity and sacrifice it held superior forces
for weeks. The enemy superior in numbers and material; our
troops short of heavy artillery and ammunition, with no re-
serves. Every man was put in, Cavalry men, cooks, drivers,
servants, and through the individual efforts of officers and
men, iron discipline, dogged determination, the Army held
out to the last and saved us from disaster.
HOW THE TERRITORIALS FOUGHT.
By the end of November France was saved, and Europe;
but there was hardly a man left out of the old Army. One
Division went into battle 12,000 strong. It came out 2,000.
Of 400 officers only fifty were left-in one battle. The old
45
Army is the Army that gathered the spears of the Prussian
legions into its breast, and in perishing saved Europe. No
sacrifice in the history of the world has had greater results,
and those seven divisions have a unique position in history
and in the annals of the British Army. Then after that came
the dreary winter and spring of 1914 and 1915. Most of the
old veterans gone! And here let me say a word for the
Territorials who came to the rescue. Old Army gone; New
Army not ready; and somebody had to occupy water-logged
trenches. Somebody had to stand torrents of shot and shell
from well-equipped artillery, with orders that only two or three
shells per day could be spared for our guns. Somebody had
to do that for months while the New Army was getting ready;
and the Territorials fought with the ardour of recruits in their
first charge; yea, and with the steadiness of veterans in
their hundredth fight! And let me say one word here-and
I am glad to say it-we owe a debt of gratitude to the man
who created that organisation which came to the rescue of
the Empire at such a critical hour.
LORD KITCHENER'S
PART.
Now we come to our New Army, who occupy the battle
line from the German Ocean to the Persian Gulf. The
raising and training of that Army was an unexampled feat,
and will always be associated with the name, the great name,
of Lord Kitchener. I could not even pretend to give a sum-
mary of their achievements. We know, we have heard, many
descriptions of battles in narratives we have read, and all
I can say is that it fills us with a sense of swelling pride that
we should belong to the race that has produced such men.
There has been nothing comparable to the sustained courage
displayed by the British soldier in this War. In previous
wars you had great, you had fierce, battles, which lasted for
hours, not many of them lasting for days. Those have been
the great examples in history; and then you had long intervals
of marching and preparation. Now you have battles that
last not for hours, not for days or for weeks, but battles that
46
last for months. Never had British courage been put to so
terrible a test; never has it so triumphantly endured it. When
I read of the conditions under which our gallant soldiers
fight I marvel that the delicate and sensitive mechanism of
the human nerve and the human mind can endure them
without derangement. The campaigns of Stonewall Jackson
fill us with admiration and with wonder-how that man of
iron led his troops through the mire and the swamps of
Virginia. But his troops were never called upon to lie for
days and nights in morasses under ceaseless thunderbolts
from a powerful artillery, and then march into battle through
an engulfing quagmire under a hailstorm of machine-gun fire.
That is what our troops have gone through.
IN THE EAST AND IN AFRICA.
They were confronted with the finest Army in the world—
the men trained for years, the officers instructed and prepared
for this hour. Our men, with a few months' training, our
officers in the main taken from counting houses, factories,
schools and colleges. Their generals, accustomed to handle
scores and hundreds of thousands of men
in great
manœuvres, 'while ours at the best were only afforded the
opportunity of handling a few thousands. And yet these
men with this training, with these scant opportunities, are
bringing to defeat veteran armies, entrenched in formidable
positions. We really owe a debt of the deepest thanks to this
great Army. I can only barely refer to their achievement in
other things. In Salonika they have had few opportunities
for glory. They arrived too late to save Serbia, but they
have faced the malaria of summer and the piercing cold of
winter, and they have borne them all with spirit and good
cheer because no country has ever had more cheerful heroes
to deal with than we have. In Mesopotamia there is a
record of heroism-the way they endured the disasters of the
earlier months, the brilliant way in which they retrieved
those disasters, re-establishing British prestige throughout
the East. In Africa, under most trying conditions of climate
47
--everywhere-these men have behaved in a way which is
worthy of the great country to which they belong, and of
the record of the great Army in which they are serving.
LORD FRENCH AND SIR DOUGLAS HAIG.
The time has not yet come for singling out individuals.
When the task is accomplished, when the issues are no
longer in the balance, when we are able to appreciate values
of work done, by the traditions of this House individuals will
be thanked and rewarded; and I shall only peak in passing
—and I think the House will expect me to do so-in respect
of two or three of the most conspicuous figures in the
struggle. I think that I ought to say a word about the
Commander-in-Chief of our old Army, and of at least two of
the new Army, who have had to fight in the most difficult
conditions-General Sir Douglas Haig and General Maude.
I do not feel competent myself to express opinions which are
sufficiently valuable on the achievements of these great
soldiers. Therefore, if the House will permit me, I will
quote the authority of one of the most brilliant members of
cur Imperial General Staff in respect of these three great
Generals. With regard to Lord French, he says:
W
This country should not forget the services rendered
by Lord French. He displayed the most indomitable
courage, calmness and foresight in circumstances which
at the time appeared desperate and in conditions which
imposed as hard a test as any commander has ever been
required to bear."
With regard to the present distinguished Comander-in-Chief
of our great Armies in France, the same military authority
says, and I am certain that the House will accept his words :
"Splendid as the fighting qualities of our troops have
been, and great as is our material superiority, success
has been due in very large measure to the powers of
organisation, the persistence, the foresight of the Com-
mander-in-Chief. The conduct of operations on this scale
48
requires from all commanders a degree of knowledge, care,
scientific training and organising ability such as no
previous war has required, and in all these respects, as well
as in the universal confidence which he inspires, Sir
Douglas Haig has shown himself to be both a great general
and a great leader of men.”
With regard to General Maude, of whose achievements I
have already spoken, the same authority bears testimony to
the magnificent service which he has rendered, and says:
"He has displayed a degree of resource, skill and energy
which mark him out as a commander of no ordinary
merit."
TO ALL WHO HAVE SERVED.
This Resolution refers to the fighting forces in the field,
and obviously that is right. We are thanking those who
have rendered service in the battlefield. The time will come
when we shall thank those who have rendered equally con-
spicuous service behind the lines at home on our Staff, on
our Home command, in the organisation of our transport, of
our railway system, and in the equipment of our Army. But
we shall also thank-when the time comes to single out-
the men who, in various commands, some high and some
low, have rendered service in this War-commanders of
armies, of army corps, of divisions, of brigades, and others.
But I do not think that this is the occasion upon which we
could usefully dwell upon the services rendered by these
individuals, great though those services have been, and deep
as is the gratitude which we feel.
I should like to say a word about the parts of the Empire
which have contributed to this great Army. England has
contributed 75 per cent. of the armies of the Empire. I
want to say a word, first of all, about England-and I do so,
not because England is not great enough to give, not merely
her share, but more than her due share, to other nationali-
ties in the Empire, but because it is necessary to dwell upon
that fact, for the simple reason that our foes have been cir-
1
49
$
culating the same old calumny about England, that she is
fighting her battles with the help of others.
GREAT BRITAIN'S CONTRIBUTION.
There never yet has been a time when that was less true
than in this War. Seventy-five per cent. of the contribution
in men, 75 per cent. in the contribution in loss, has fallen
upon England. Scotland has-as it always has done its
due share. Ireland has made a distinguished contribution,
and my country also. It is my pride, and I am entitled to
make the boast, that in voluntary recruiting we just beat the
record by a shade. Scotland came second, in the proportion
of population, who voluntarily recruited for the Army.
THE DOMINIONS.
I must say a word now about the Dominions. They
have contributed between 700,000 and 800,000 men. What
does that mean?-five times the number of our Expeditionary
Force. And what a contribution! How well they have
fought! The citizen armies! The ready and resourceful
courage of the Canadians-how it saved France and the
British Army at the second battle of Ypres! How, on the
heights of Vimy, they swept the foe from the positions where
they had defied the greatest armies of the Allies for two or
three years!
And then the men of the Southern Seas, of Australia and
New Zealand-the dash and the tenacity which enabled
them first to capture the precipitous rocks of Anzac, and to
cling to them for months; to rush Pozières and to hold
Bullecourt; the men who came in smaller contingents from
South Africa, clearing Delville Wood; and the noble sacri-
fices of the men of Newfoundland. I could not even give a
catalogue of their achievements without detaining the House
beyond the limits.
And then there is India. How bravely, how loyally
she has supported the British arms! The memory
50
of the powerful aid which she willingly accorded
in the hour of our trouble will not be forgotten when the
War is over, and when the affairs of India come up for
examination and for action. Then our Colonies throughout
the world, how they have helped with the_fighting men
and assisted us with labour! Never has the British Empire
shown greater and more effective unity. It was regarded
as a dream by many; now it is a fact-a powerful fact,
fashioning the history of the world and the destinies of men.
THE CAVALRY OF THE CLOUDS.
It would be invidious if I were to attempt to distinguish
between the various arms of the Service-our splendid In-
fantry who have borne the brunt of the battle, our Cavalry,
and our Artillery, who have lost more heavily, perhaps,
in this War than in any war ever waged. The mere fact
that we have the Artillery is in itself an achievement.
Who would have believed-when you thought it took years
to train gunners-that in a few months we would turn out
Artillery the precision of whose fire is at once the admiration
and terror of the foe?
But, amongst all these, I may be permitted to mention
one arm of the Service which has appeared for the first time
in the history of warfare-I mean the Air Service. I amı
sure the House would like special mention to be made of
our Air Service. The heavens are their battlefield; they
are the Cavalry of the clouds. Far above the squalor and
the mud, so high up in the firmament as to be invisible
from earth, they fight the eternal issues of right and wrong.
Their daily, yea their nightly, struggles are like the
Miltonic conflict between the winged hosts of light and of
darkness. Sometimes they skim low like armed swallows
hanging over trenches full of armed men, wrecking con-
voys, scattering infantry, attacking battalions on the
march. Every flight is a romance; every report is an
epic. They are the knighthood of this War; without fear
and without reproach have they fought, for they have
51
brought back the legendary days of chivalry, not merely
by the daring of their exploits, but by the nobility of their
spirit. Among myriads of heroes we are specially proud
of the chivalry of the air.
THE MEDICAL SERVICE.
I do not think we ought to pass by the chaplains in the
Army. They have sustained their losses and have done their
duty manfully, courageously and tenderly. When you come
to the Medical Service, the men and the women, they have
never shown greater courage, knowledge, and experience.
Thousands of them have devoted themselves-devotion is the
right word-to the curing of the wounded and the healing
of the sick. Great consultants have given up princely in-
comes and volunteered for this service. Wounds have been
cured which before the War were regarded as fatal, and I
may give an illustration, and only one illustration, of the
services they have rendered in saving life, not merely by their
curing expedients, but by the precautions they have taken.
In the South African War, I believe, 50,000 men died of
typhoid. In France, out of our gigantic Army, during the
whole three years of the War, only 3,000 have fallen victims
to this disease. We owe thanks to the medical profession.
They have suffered; hundreds have been killed and many
more hundreds wounded.
A TRIBUTE TO OUR NURSES.
We should also thank the women, our trained and un-
trained nurses, whose tenderness and care for the wounded
have earned thanks from the lips of hundreds of thousands
of poor men whose lives have been saved, and who have
been spared much suffering through their tender ministra-
tion. They have not escaped perils. Many have been killed
by shell-fire, many of them drowned in hospital ships sunk
with the sign of the Red Cross upon them. We all owe
them a debt of gratitude.
52
THOSE AT HOME.
·
The last paragraph in the Resolution is one Í must say
a word about, and it will be brief. There are hundreds
of thousands of sorrowing men and women in this land on
account of the War. Their anguish is too deep to be
expressed or to be comforted by words, but, judging the
multitudes whom I know not by those I do know, there is
not a single one of them who would recall the valiant dead
to life at the price of their country's dishonour. The example
of these brave men who have fallen has enriched the life
and exalted the purpose of the people. You cannot have
4,000,000 of men in any land who voluntarily sacrificed
everything the world can offer them in obedience to a higher
call without ennobling the country from which they sprang.
The fallen, whilst they have. illumined with a fresh lustre
the glory of their native land, have touched with a new
dignity the households which they left for the battlefield.
There will be millions who will come back and live to tel
children now unborn how a generation arose in England,
Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and in the ends of the earth,
where men of our race dwell, who were willing to leave
ease and comfort and face privation, torture, and death
to win protection for the weak and justice for the cp-
pressed. There are hundreds of thousands who will never
come back. For them there will be for ages to come sacred
memories in a myriad homes of brave, chivalrous men who
gave up their young lives for justice, for right, for freedom
in peril. This Resolution means that the greatest Empire on
earth, through this House, thanks the living for the readi-
ness with which they obeyed its summons and the gallantry
with which they supported its behests. It also means that
this great Empire, through this House, enters each home
of the heroic dead, grasps the bereaved by the hand, and
says, "The Empire owes you gratitude for your share of
the sacrifice as well as for theirs, partakes in your pride for
their valour, and in your grief for their fall."
53
MR. ASQUITH.
MR. ASQUITH: This Resolution of thankful acknowledg-
ment for the services both of the living and the dead re-
quires no words of advocacy or of appeal to commend it
to the House. It might, indeed, be a more impressive,
and in the true sense a more eloquent, tribute if we were
to pass it in silence. We are face to face in this War with
acts and with emotions which are too large for speech.
Everything in it-the issues at stake, the forces arrayed,
the endurance of the people, the toll of losses, and the pain
—everything is on a scale unexampled in the annals of man-
kind. The commonplaces, whether of eulogy or sympathy,
even if they could be expressed as they have been in days
gone by with the art of Pericles or of Lincoln, seem to be
meagre and dwarfed, and, indeed, hopelessly inadequate
to so great a thing. What more can we say? As we
witness month by month, and now year by year, the
gradual unfolding of this vast panorama of heroism and
suffering, it strikes us dumb with a sense, at once overpower-
ing and unutterable, of admiration.
UNEXTINGUISHABLE FAITH OF ALL.
We all feel here to-day that we should be departing, if
not from the letter, at any rate from the spirit, of the wise
precedent of our ancestors, and in some sense abdicating
the duty of Parliament, if we did not from time to time
convey the recognition and thanks of this House-the
authentic mouthpiece of the nation-not only to our great
generals and admirals-the Prime Minister has mentioned
the names of the generals, and we shall all join most
heartily in the tribute he paid to theni-may. I add the
names of two great admirals, Sir John Jellicoe and Sir
David Beatty, who have with consummate skill directed
our fortunes at sea-but also to our soldiers and sailors, our
merchant seamen, our airmen, our doctors and nurses, our
fellow countrymen and countrywomen enlisted in every
54
department of war work, who from all quarters of the
Empire have, by their ceaseless energy and unbounded
sacrifice, ensured the victory of the Allies. Among all these
comrades and fellow combatants-for such they are in the
greatest of causes we make no discrimination in the degree
of our gratitude. It is by their united efforts and by their
unextinguishable faith the struggle has been and will be
maintained till it ends, as we know it must end, in the
enthronement of the sovereignty of right. Heavy indeed,
as the last paragraph in this Resolution reminds us, heavy
indeed is the tax in life and suffering which the Empire
is called upon to pay. We have only to look round this
House to recall the names and faces of colleagues whom
the War has called away from us and whom we shall never
see again. We who remain behind, impoverished by their
loss, are yet enriched by their memory and their example.
Let it not be said when the judgment of history comes to
be recorded that they gave their lives in vain.
MR. JOHN REDMOND (IRELAND).
MR. JOHN REDMOND: My object rather is to emphasise
the fact that in what they have said Mr. Lloyd George and
Mr. Asquith have spoken for an absolutely unanimous House
of Commons, and that the heart of every Member of this
House, English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish, goes out to-day in
pride, admiration, and gratitude to those gallant men who are
fighting in the cause of civilisation and liberty in so many
parts of the world, and in the deepest veneration for the
memory of the dead.
THE HEART OF THE IRISH RACE.
In addition to that perhaps it is as well on this occasion an
Irish voice should be heard, and I think the House will
agree that it is natural that my heart and my mind on this
occasion should turn in a very special way to the Irish troops.
These troops have by their constancy, their endurance, and
their gallantry in every field of war shed a lustṛe upon their
55
race. However torn by dissension or by misfortune their
country may be at this moment, I believe that the heart of
the Irish race to-day is filled with pride and with gratitude
for their achievements. The old historic Irish regiments
who played their part in the battle of Ypres, to which allusion
has been made, who played their part in the retreat to the
Marne and in the return from the Marne, the old historic'
Irish regiments who were the first to land from the "River
Clyde at V. beach, and who were nearly annihilated in the
operation, and who performed what their General declared
to them seemed to him and to other commanders the impos-
sible, these men have maintained at their highest the mag-
nificent traditions of the gallantry of the Irish regiments.
THE SONS OF IRISH PARENTS.
The three new Irish Divisions which were raised for the
New Army, the 10th Division, the 16th Division, and the 36th
Division, at Suvla Bay, at Salonika, and on the Western
Fronts, down to this moment have, I believe, been watched
with the tenderest solicitude and the deepest pride by their
countrymen. With the deepest pride their countrymen saw
how civilians drawn from every walk of civil life were able
to hold their own, and perhaps more than their own, with
the trained soldier of some of the oldest and most powerful
armies in the world. We Irishmen have regarded every
victory of the Canadians and of the Anzacs with feelings of
the deepest pride, because we feel justified in recalling the
fact that from 20 to 25 per cent. of those gallant men are
the sons of Irish parents.
4
IRISH VALOUR AND LOYALTY.
Let me say there is one very special reason indeed why I
should say these words now upon this occasion. These
gallant Irish troops have during the past year and a half
had a new and bitter trial imposed upon them in events that
have been happening in their own country. These events
have not touched their valour or their loyalty. They havę
56
a
remained true to their proud motto, Semper et ubique
fidelis. But many of those men, especially those who joined
the New Army, believed that they were not only going to fight
in a just cause for the general principles of civilisation and
of liberty, but that in a certain special sense they were going
to fight for Ireland, for her happiness, for her prosperity and
her liberty. Now they have seen a section, at any rate, of
their own countrymen at home during the past year repudiate
that idea, and then they have had brought home to them in
the midst of their other trials, privations and sufferings,
new and poignant feeling of anguish. I wish it
were possible for me to speak a word to every one
of those men. If my words could reach them, I would
say to every one of them that they need have no misgiving,
that they were right from the first, that time will vindicate
them, that time will show that while fighting for civilisation
and liberty in Europe they are also fighting for civilisation and
liberty in their own land. I would like to say to every man
of them, in addition, that even at this moment, when ephe-
meral causes have confused and disturbed Irish opinion, they
are regarded with feelings of the deepest pride and gratitude
by the great bulk of the Irish race, and by all that is best in
every creed and class in Ireland.
MR. J. O'GRADY (LABOUR).
MR. O'GRADY: I desire to add my voice to those already
heard by the House in supporting this Resolution. As the
bulk of the Army is composed of men whom in a certain sense
we represent, I think a few words from these benches will
not be deemed out of place. With regard to the Navy, I can
add very little to what the Prime Minister and Mr. Asquith
have said, except to say that I feel sure on the part of the
public generally in personnel and bravery our Navy is con-
sidered to be unequalled by any Navy in the world. I wel-
come the bringing forward of this Motion, and think it is a
good idea on the part of the Prime Minister. Our Allies,
from the discussion on this Motion, will get to apprehend
57
what our Navy has really been doing. Reference has been
made to the great silent watch upon the North Sea and the
seas of the world, and I think it is true to say that people
have not known the great task which the Navy has had to per-
form. The Prime Minister told us that it has watched every bay
and every gulf and every sea throughout the world. When
our enemies sometime talk about the freedom of the seas as
one of the conditions of peace, it is wise at this moment
to ask when the freedom of the seas has
ever been
in danger. That freedom has been kept by the British
Navy from time immemorial, and it is keeping it to-day in
the interests of the Allied Powers and in the interests of
civilisation. I have seen the men of the Navy in the North
Sea, and I have wondered and marvelled at their courage and
pluck and vigilance and zeal.
ON THE YPRES SALIENT.
With regard to the Army, I happened to be with them
upon the Ypres salient when things were bad and at a time
when the only thing that stood between the enemy and the
capture of that salient was men's bodies. There was no
reply to the terrible hail of shot that came from the enemy's
artillery and there were very few machine guns.
When we
recall how we lost a third of the Army there without a
single fight, that men stood there, and that their bodies
were smashed and mangled in the trenches, I say that the
bravery of the British Army has never yet been excelled; and
in saying that I am only making a simple statement of fact.
When we remember that the great bulk of the men in the
Army were drawn from the dockside, the railways, the mines,
and factories and desks, we must admire the wonderful spirit
which they displayed. The fact that those men after six
months were put up against the greatest military proposition
the world has yet seen, and that they fought and beat the
great Prussian Guards, speaks volumes for the tenacity and
courage of our race, and gives the lie direct to the German
philosophers and politicians who said we were a decadent
race,
58
THE RETREAT FROM MONS.
There is the retreat from Mons. Will the story of that
heroic and magnificent effort ever be written? I do not
think that the English language can find words to express
adequately what happened upon that occasion. Our men fought
and died, and there were less than ten thousand of the original
Army left; but they left a spirit behind them and taught
the boys who came from the desk and the mine and the
railway how to die heroically and nobly for an ideal, and
how to save their country and civilisation from overwhelming
disaster. The Prime Minister has said glorious words about
the men of the Mercantile Marine, but he will agree with
me that mere words cannot express our admiration for
their glorious conduct. At home here, which of us can say
that we have been suffering in the War? Here we are in
peace and security with very little sacrifice and very little
suffering, and all because of the three great arms of our
Services, the Navy, the Army, and the Mercantile Marine,
who have kept these shores almost immune from attack.
All over the country in towns and villages I have met men
who have told me stories of how they had been torpedoed and
escaped in open boats, and how they had been fired upon by
the submarine when they tried to escape, and when they got
home almost the first thing those men did was to go down to
a shipping office eager again to go to sea, and eager again
to save us and the country from all danger.
PRIDE IN SACRIFICE.
The relatives of those who have died to save this dear
old land of ours will, I know, never be forgotten by the
country. You have the widows and the mothers and the
fatherless children, and I have never yet heard a single one
of them regret that their men died for the cause for which
they fought; but, on the contrary, they recall with pride the
cause for which the men went down, and that they offered
all that men can offer, and endured death and suffering, in
59
order that freedom and liberty might live, in order that
our civilisation shall be perpetuated, and in order that our
whole Christian faith shall be purified and ennobled by the
sacrifices they have made. In every working-class home
in this country the Prime Minister and this House
will be thanked for the opportunity that has been taken to
record, not merely the opinion of this House, but the
thanks of the country at large, to that noble Army
of citizen soldiers and that great Navy of silent, courageous
men and the great mercantile fleet of our country.
MR. EUGENE WASON (SCOTLAND).
MR. EUGENE WASON: As Chairman of the Scottish
Liberal Members, I have been asked to say one or two words
from the Scottish point of view. Let me first mention the
Navy. We all recollect the gallantry of John Cornwall.
Last week there was a young officer on board one of the
destroyers which was torpedoed. His mother wanted him
to take a life-saving jacket, but his reply was, “No, I will
not put it on. I will take my chance with the men." I
think that was a noble and gallant action for him to have
taken, and I am glad to say that he was saved.
NO DISCRIMINATION.
So far as the Ariny is concerned I think there could be no
discrimination as between the different troops, whether they
come from England, Scotland, Ireland or Wales. I wish to
make no discrimination. They have all fought well and
borne their part bravely. The motto of the famous Scots
Greys is “Second to None," and all I claim for Scotland,
both in the Army and in the Navy or in the Mercantile
Marine, where most of the engineers are Scottish, is that
the men have been second to none and shown themselves
second to none in their bravery and gallantry. The last word
I have to say is with reference to those who have lost their
nearest and dearest in this War. I do not think there is a
ნი
man here who either himself or in his friends has not been
bereft of those whom he loves and those whom he would have
liked to have had around him in his old age. It has been
well said that this War taught the young how to die and ought
to teach the old how to live. We old men who cannot go to
the front ought to do all we can to help on in the prosecution
of the War, and to see that the mothers and the widows and
those who have been bereft and those who have been
injured shall have ample means to secure something
like comfort in their old age. As the Prime Minister has
said, Scotland now, as always, has done its share.
I am
speaking not only on my own behalf, but on behalf of all the
people when I say how proud we are of the part that Scotland
has played in this War, and that we mean to continue to the
end until victory has been secured to this country.
SIR HERBERT ROBERTS (WALES).
SIR HERBERT ROBERTS: I desire to associate Wales with
the Motion which has been so adequately moved by the Prime
Minister and supported by other speakers. The great lesson
of this War has undoubtedly been unity, the co-ordination
of all, without distinction, to the common cause. None
the less, I think it is perfectly true to say that the stress
of this great convulsion of war has given a new meaning
and a new influence to the national characteristics of those
who make up the British people. It is not, therefore, un-
natural, I think, that I should also claim on behalf of Wales
special reference in this Motion to the heroism of my
countrymen on land and on sea, to the men who have, during
the last three years, upheld the best traditions of their race.
Centuries ago Wales was described as "an old, haughty
nation proud in arms." I think I may say, probably in no
limited sense, that the conduct of Welshmen in the various
battlefields of this great war has amply vindicated that
description. I feel, as other speakers have already expressed
it, that it is the duty and the privilege of this House to
place this definite expression of gratitude upon its Journals,
61
At the same time, when we consider, or try to realise, the
height and depth of the sacrifice and suffering of those who
have stood, and who do stand to-day, between us and the
fiercest and most formidable foe that ever wielded the
weapons of war, we feel how futile mere words are in the
expression of our sense of lasting gratitude and of obliga-
tion. I think I may say this, too: Never has Motion ever
been submitted to this House so charged with meaning and
feeling as this Motion to-day. I will not endeavour to single
out any special deed of heroism done by Welshmen in the
course of this War. That is unnecessary. Still more would
it be out of place to endeavour to compare in any way the
valour of those gallant men who unitedly make up our
invincible armies at the front.
THE FLOWER OF WELSH YOUTH.
But I will say this much if I may: Wales in this War
has given the flower of her youth. She has given of her
best. She has given those of greatest promise in intellect
and in character. No man can
No man can measure the loss of life
suffered by Wales from the destruction of this devastating
war. May I say this, too? Wales from the outset, the
real Wales, has never faltered in this great enterprise.
Although further sacrifice may be demanded in the future,
that will be given and endured until the triumphant end has
been reached. In conclusion, may I say this further?
passing this Resolution in this historic House, which, at
all events to-day, is the mouthpiece of the nation, I feel,
and I think every Member of the House who is listening to
me must feel, that behind the words of this Resolution there
lies the consciousness and the assurance that when Peace
comes we will, so far as Parliament can do it, translate our
gratitude into deeds. So far as Parliament can do it, when
Peace comes, we will try to
Ring out the false and
Ring in the true."
In
62
We will try, so far as we can, to forget
"The ancient forms of party strife"
and secure so far as we are able, those
“Nobler modes of life, and those purer laws "
upon which alone the fabric of our great State and Empire
can, in days to come, be truly built. In my judgment this
will be our best memorial to the heroic dead. This will be
the real thanks of this House to those gallant men and
women named in the Resolution who have so splendidly
played their part in their ever-memorable fight for the next
freedom of the world.
BRIGADIER-GENERAL CROFT.
BRIGADIER-GENERAL CROFT: I believe I am reflecting
the opinion, not of any section of the community,
but of the whole nation, when I say that we thank
the Prime Minister for having permitted the House to do
what the House has been desirous of doing for a very long
time-to place on record its gratitude to the armed forces
of the Crown who are sustaining this intense and long fight
in such a glorious manner for the people of our Empire.
There is nobody who has had the privilege, even as an
amateur and a civilian, of serving in His Majesty's Army
who does not realise that but for the Navy the British Army
could have taken no part in this War, and the German
nation at this time would have been dominating the world.
There is no civilian in this country who does not realise-
at least I hope there is none-that we should be starving,
crying for bread at this very moment, but for the fact that
the Navy has kept the surface of the ocean clear of the
ships of our enemies. Therefore it seems very fit and proper
that we should thank the armed forces of the Crown now,
and, particularly when we remember the great sacrifices
which have been already alluded to-when men are
fighting and perishing-it is fit and proper that every soldier
and sailor who has been defending our country and the
63
our
Empire for these months and years may know that
the gratitude of this House and the gratitude of our
whole race goes out to them; that we think of them
with thankfulness every day and every night. This
is no occasion for mourning. It is an occasion for joyful
thanks for the wonderful things our Navy and
Army have done. We recall the fact that the position all
along the Belgian and French frontiers, where our Armies
have been fighting all this time, were positions of the
enemy's choice; that for nearly three years the enemy was
entirely dominating the British Army from one end of that
position to the other, that its observation was so superior
that, however deep our trenches were, he could look down
into them and inflict casualties continuously upon our men.
THE ORGANisers of VICTORY.
Ever since July 1st, 1916, we have seen the change
coming. We should record our thanks to those who have
made this change possible, and who have worked out the
greater schemes of organisation that we have seen since.
We have to remember this, that in the five great offensives
that have taken place since then-on the Somme, at
Armentières, at Messines, at Ypres, and also during that
winter on the Ancre--that on every single occasion in these
offensives the British troops have stormed the strongest
frontal positions which have been ever held against attacks.
In addition to that fact, every single one of these offensives
entailed at least five, and in some cases twelve and four-
teen, minor offensives, which had to be undertaken by the
British troops; so that in the something like fifty attacks
since 1st July of last year, against, let us not forget, the
strongest positions that have ever been occupied in war,
the British troops have been successful on practically every
occasion. It is only right that we should remember that the
horrors modern warfare entails have never been equalled in
any warfare of the past. Therefore, the men who are
thanked by this Motion are not the kind of soldiers who
64
went gaily forth to battle in days gone by, for a little
struggle which was going to take a short time, followed by
a prolonged rest. They are bearing this burden day and
night with extraordinarily good hope, an extraordinary
belief and faith in their cause, and extraordinary confidence
in the people of this country.
IMPERISHABLE PAGE IN HISTORY.
These results have been obtained in those various offen-
sives to which I have alluded. In the earliest days, when
the British Regular Army, to which so great and noble a
tribute has been paid to-day, and to which I, perhaps, as
one who saw them but was not of them, can also pay my
tribute, one man in every five yards, and with no reserves
at all, defeated the flower of the Prussian Army. We have
good reason to remember all this, as we will in a few days
hence, on the great anniversary of that day. We ought
never to forget, as we shall not in generations to come, by
generations yet unborn in this country, that imperishable
page in our history. I do desire to emphasise this; that
since those times War has become far more horrible, and
our New Armies, without so much training, are sustaining
the fight against the most terrible nerve-strain which mortal
man has ever had to face. When we remember that in
spite of that, in spite of all the infernal inventions of modern
warfare, these men stand firm and have never allowed the
line to be broken, I think we will all agree that our gratitude
should be great.
THE GREAT NEW ARMY.
The Prime Minister to-day paid a tribute not only to our
Regular Army, but to our New Army, and also to the Terri-
torial Army. There are many homes in this country who
will be glad to have that tribute to the men who had no
time to put their houses in order, who were not men carved
out for professional service, whose terms kept them in this
country, but who, with very few exceptions, as one man,
65
were ready to step into the breach at a time when we had
no men to turn to and when our great New Army was
unarmed and untrained. It seems to me that the great
lesson we have to learn is to ask ourselves here, what is
the best way we can really thank our soldiers in the field?
Surely the best way we can thank them is to be worthy of
them; and to see that we do not weaken our support of
them in this country.
I believe that the country,
and I am sure that the Navy and the Army, will
all be rejoiced to think that we have taken this opportunity
of placing on record our gratitude, which can never die,
and which is given from this great assembly as representing
the heart and the mind of the nation.
MR. B. E. PETO.
MR. PETO: I have been asked by the large association of
the officers of the merchant service to express to the Prime
Minister, the Government, and the House, the intense appre-
ciation of the merchant service for the great honour which
is done to that service by placing them side by side with the
Navy and the Army and the Oversea Forces of the Crown
in the vote of thanks which this House is now considering
for their priceless services to the country.
THE NEW ELIZABETHANS.
I am convinced, from what I have already heard, that
this discussion will be an inspiration to our merchant service,
and will be an inducement--although none is really needed—
to them to carry on their hazardous calling, so absolutely vital
to the success of this War in the cause of liberty, and that the
Prime Minister has really, in the form in which he has put
this Motion, interpreted the true position and the feeling of
the people as a whole. The records of the Elizabethan sailors
for reckless courage and daring are a great inheritance of
our Navy and our merchant service, and we now know that,
high as that record is, the very soul and spirit of those great
heroes, Drake, Frobisher, and Raleigh, and the others of
the Elizabethan era still pervade and animate all our sailors,
66
whether they are officers or men, whether they belong to
the Navy or the merchant service.
THEIR PART TO THE END.
It is significant that this year several Departments of State'
have each in their own way recognised the fact that the
merchant service has reached a fresh level and a fresh dis-
tinction, and has fresh claims upon the nation it never had
before. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in his last Finance
Act and the merchant service is grateful to him for it—
extended to it the same concessions in the matter of Income
Tax and death duties which have been accorded to the Navy
and the Army. Even at the present moment in the Repre-
sentation of the People Bill the Home Secretary is treating
with sympathy the claims of the merchant service to have all
the voting facilities which are accorded to the Navy and the
Army, and the President of the Board of Trade has done much
this year to remove small grievances and small inequalities
and injustices which press hardly on many of the officers and
men of the Merchant Service. And now, I think, I may
fairly say that the coupling of the Merchant Service with
the Navy, the Army, and the Oversea Forces is a fitting
token of the esteem and gratitude of the nation, and one
which they well deserve. They have done all that mortal
men could, and I am satisfied that they will do their part to
the end of this War until we secure our final victory.
COLONEL C. E. YATE.
COLONEL YATE: May I, as an old Indian officer, be
permitted to say one word to associate myself.with what
the Prime Minister has told us regarding the doings of the
Indian Army in this War? We must remember that the.
70,000 men who formed the first force from India landed
in France in the autumn of 1914, just about the time of
the first battle of Ypres, and that they came just in time
to fill up the gaps then, and to help to hold the trenches
until our New Army was ready. Those men came over at
a moment's notice-the first Indians, I may say, that ever
67
came over to fight in Europe, utterly strange and foreign
to the country. We all know that Indians can stand heat,
and we know, as the result of the Thibet Expedition, they
can stand cold, but what Indians cannot stand is wet and
cold. Now, the way those 70,000 men stuck it out there
through the whole of that terrible winter of 1914-15 is a
thing that should always remain in our memory for genera-
tions to come. They took their share in the trenches. I
have often heard described the terrible sufferings they went
through-how, when they got out of the trenches, their feet
were so swollen that they could hardly crawl back to their
billets; how the little Ghurkas were up to the waist in
mud, and it took two men to get them out of the trenches.
Well, those men stuck it all through the winter of 1914-15,
and we owe them undying gratitude for what they did.
THE INDIAN ARMY.
-
The Infantry afterwards went to Mesopotamia. The
Indian Cavalry are still in France, and will have their
fourth winter there this year. Not one of those men has
had leave, and yet there is not a murmur. Those Indian
cavalrymen have lands and have great cause to want to get
home, and yet there they are. We hear continual com-
plaints here of men not getting leave for eighteen months,
yet those men have been nearly four years in France and
have never had any. It is the same with the Indian Army
in East Africa; the men have never had any leave, and we
hear no grumbling. The Indian Army also has served
in Egypt and done well there. They have also won admira-
tion in Salonika and elsewhere. I need not say a word
about Mesopotamia or as to how the Indian Forces stuck
it throughout the whole siege. The country owes a great
debt of gratitude to the Indian Army, and I am proud to
think that they have now received this mark of apprecia-
tion.
The Question was put and agreed to.
68
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