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or was only halting. This cannot here be described in detail; a few points must suffice. The First Corps, under Sir Douglas Haig, gained positions on that day by "skilful, bold, and decisive" action which alone enabled the British forces to maintain their foothold on the north bank during three weeks' severe fighting; the most difficult part of this work was achieved, round Vendresse and Troyon, by the Loyal North Lancashires, the Royal Sussex, the King's Royal Rifles, and the Northamptons, reinforced by the Coldstream Guards. The enemy was found to be making a determined stand against the Allies in a strongly entrenched position along the whole line from Compiègne to Reims, supported by heavy artillery set free by the fall of Maubeuge. The British troops, therefore, had to entrench thoroughly, and eventually to establish a regular system of relief in the trenches, the cavalry men taking their turn, and also to obtain heavy howitzer batteries from England, which were first used September 24. On the 16th the Army was reinforced by the 6th Division. On the 17th, 18th, 19th, the Germans heavily bombarded the trenches and the First Corps was heavily engaged; on the 17th the Northamptons crept in mist to within 100 yards of the enemy's trenches, and then cleared them with the bayonet; on the night of the 18th the Gloucesters advanced near Chivy, filled in the German trenches and took two Maxim guns. From the 23rd to the 26th the enemy was less active; but on the 26th, and especially on the night of the 27th-28th, there were renewed German attacks, which were beaten off, and were the last great German effort in the battle. Sir John French eulogised the conduct alike of officers and men; the total casualties in four weeks were 561 officers and 12,980 men, and the heavy rain and cold during most of the battle imposed a severe tax on the endurance of the troops. The German losses, it must be noted, were far heavier; and after the end of September the German resistance died down and permitted the removal of the British troops to Ypres.

All this was as yet only known vaguely; but a possible danger to London had been impressed afresh on the public by the issue through the police authorities of an Admiralty statement of the measures taken to protect the capital against an air raid. More searchlights had been mounted, as well as special guns; at Hendon aerodrome men and machines of the Naval Air Service were held

ready to pursue the raiders. Naval airships were to pay surprise visits, to test the effectiveness of the diminution of lighting; and for many months the darkness of the London streets, the consequent reduction in evening performances at the theatres, and (after the middle of November) the regulation that suburban trains must have their blinds drawn after nightfall, served as a reminder of the newest peril of modern war.

Besides all this, the conviction that Germany was essentially responsible for the war had been, if that were possible, intensified;

first, by Sir Edward Grey's effective reply to a bungling attack on the sincerity of Great Britain made through the Danish Press by the German Chancellor (Sept. 15, 16), and next by the issue of two important diplomatic publications: (1) Sir Maurice de Bunsen's lengthy despatch (Sept. 16) which showed that the AustroHungarian Government had pressed on the war against Serbia in harmony with the wishes of the population of Vienna and other leading cities, and that Germany had by her intervention destroyed the last hopes of a peaceful solution; (2) the Russian Orange Book (Sept. 21; see post, For. Hist., Chap. II., III.).

It was amid these impressions that the Prime Minister addressed a great meeting at the Round Room of the Dublin Mansion House on September 25, the Lord Mayor in the chair. A small section of the National Volunteers had issued an antirecruiting manifesto in the morning, and police and National Volunteers were ready to avert a disturbance, but these precautions were not needed. Mr. Asquith, who had an enthusiastic reception, said that he could base his title to speak on such service as he had tried throughout his political life to render Ireland. The Empire, as a family of nations, was united in defending principles vital to it and to civilisation and the progress of mankind. The proofs that Germany was responsible for the war were patent, manifold, and overwhelming; Germany had been preparing for a generation past, and had seized the opportunity of the Austro-Serbian dispute. But she made two profound miscalculations; as to the resistance of Belgium-to which he paid an eloquent tribute-and as to the attitude of England. She believed England to be paralysed by domestic disaffection and without interest in the conflict. But England had at stake her plighted word and the maintenance of the whole system of international good-will. In 1870 Mr. Gladstone had said that "the greatest triumph of our time would be the enthronement of public right as the governing idea of European politics." That meant that the small nations must have as good a title as the large ones to a place in the sun, and finally the establishment of a real European partnership, based on the recognition of equal right and established and enforced by a common will. The victory of the Allies would bring this within the range of European statesmanship. The cause of the small nations specially appealed to Ireland. Let her take her share in the war. The British Empire had always been proud of its Irish regiments and their leaders; and he specially appealed to the National Volunteers (after a brief reference to the contests which had become unthinkable) to form an Irish Brigade, or, better still, an Irish Army Corps. Local associations would be maintained as far as possible, and officers of the Volunteers might receive commissions. He was certain that the Volunteers would become an integral part of the defensive forces of the Crown. Old animosities were dead; what was needed was the free-will offering of a free people.

The Earl of Meath, the Unionist Lord-Lieutenant of co. Dublin, also spoke; and Mr. John Redmond said that Ireland would feel bound in honour to take her place beside the other autonomous portions of the King's Dominions. She had been profoundly moved by the sufferings of Belgium, and he had promised Cardinal Mercier that Irishmen would avenge Louvain. Ireland's highest material interests were at stake in the war. After referring to the high proportion of Irishmen in the Army from the Peninsular War onwards he said that Ireland wanted an Irish Army Corps, and at the same time the Irish National Volunteers would be kept intact, and would be an inexhaustible source of strength to the new Army Corps and Army. Speaking for an overwhelming majority of the Nationalists, he said to the Prime Minister and Great Britain: "You have kept faith with Ireland; Ireland will keep faith with you." The Lord-Lieutenant, the Chief Secretary, Mr. Dillon, and Mr. Devlin spoke also, and the meeting closed with the singing of "God Save the King," "God Save Ireland," and "A Nation Once Again."

A day earlier the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in an impromptu speech at Criccieth, had mentioned that France and England had agreed that each should lend Belgium 10,000,000l. without interest, and that the Bank of England had been ready to let him have 40,000,000l. or more; and he urged Wales to be forward in recruiting for this eminently righteous war. He repeated this appeal at a great meeting in Cardiff (Sept. 29) called to promote the raising of a separate Welsh Army Corps. Wales, he said, would have under compulsory service to raise 250,000 men; it ought to provide 40,000 to 50,000 volunteers for the new Army. The war must be national, and conviction was essential to confidence. It was no picnic; but their war memories would compensate them. The Welsh were not a martial race; but neither were the men who composed Cromwell's Ironsides. If they failed through timidity, ignorance or indolence Welshmen would be unable to live down their evil repute for generations. In two months 36,000 men had joined the Army from Wales. If Welshmen came out manfully, the sons of Wales would have laid up for their native land treasures of honour and glory.

On the previous day, September 28, Belfast had celebrated the second anniversary of Ulster Day, which had not been dropped owing to the alleged breach by the Government of the "truce (p. 204). But the proceedings were very largely a demonstration of a broader patriotism. Sir Edward Carson, indeed, announced that after the war he proposed to summon the Provisional Government, which would repeal the Home Rule Act as affecting Ulster and enact simultaneously that the Volunteers should carry out this decision; meanwhile, let them throw themselves wholeheartedly into the patriotic action demanded by the time. And Mr. Bonar Law, at a great demonstration that evening, after giv

ing a formal pledge that the whole Unionist party would support Ulster unconditionally, repeated that Ulstermen had no ill-will to their Catholic fellow-countrymen, and went on to deal with the war. The meeting was called to stimulate Ulstermen to join the Army; such hesitation as there had been at first was due to the suddenness of the war, and it had not lasted long. The pressure put on individuals to join seemed to him detestable, and was utterly unnecessary. The Germans had been shown that we were not a decadent nation. We had reason to be proud of the Army, the Volunteers, and the spirit shown throughout the Empire. After urging the need of better allowances for dependants of soldiers, Mr. Bonar Law described the war as one of the greatest of crimes, due to one nation and largely to one man. The Germans had pulled down their spiritual altars and erected a temple to naked Force. It was Napoleonism without Napoleon. Apart from their Army they had made every possible mistakewith Italy, with Belgium, in neutral countries, as regarded the Dominions and India. The British people had no desire to humiliate the German people, but they were determined that the dread spectre that had haunted them should not do so again, and that the law of right, not of might, should govern the world.

Meanwhile the moral strength of the British case was emphasised by the elaborate reply of British theologians (Sept. 30) to an appeal issued by German theologians to Evangelical Christians abroad. This appeal described Germany as "confronted in other lands by a systematic network of lies." It attributed the war to the interference of Russia in the Servian dispute, complained that Russia had been joined by those who "by blood and history and faith are our brothers," and said that against a world in arms, Germans had to defend their existence, individuality, culture, and honour. "Unnameable horrors" had been committed against Germans living peaceably abroad, women and children, wounded and physicians; heathen Japan had been called in under pretext of an alliance; the mission fields indicated as most important by the World Missionary Conference, mid-Africa and Eastern Asia, were now the scenes of bitter rivalry between the peoples specially responsible for their Christianisation; the signatories, for the sake, not of Germany, but of the world-task of the Christian peoples in the decisive hour of the world-mission, addressed themselves to Evangelical Christians abroad, and repudiated German responsibility for the war and its consequences to the development of God's kingdom on earth. The British reply, signed by the two English Archbishops, the Primates of Ireland and Scotland, the Bishops of London, Winchester, and Ossory, the Chairman of the World Missionary Conference, and a host of other Anglican and Free Church divines and University dignitaries, began by a calm review of the origin of the war, and the violation of Belgian neutrality. It went on to note the absence of reference to the

teachings of Treitschke and Bernhardi, questioned the allegation of atrocities, deplored the signatories' severance from German Christians and the effects of the war in the mission field, and declared that, dear to them as was the cause of peace, the principles of truth and honour were yet more dear. They took their stand for international good faith, the safeguarding of smaller nationalities, and the upholding of the essential conditions of brotherhood among the nations of the world.

But, though the British people supported the war with practical unanimity, it was found necessary to stimulate recruiting by a platform campaign. A more effective method would doubtless have been to give news from the front; but few details were given of the great battle on the Aisne, and the feats of particular corps were not mentioned for fear that the enemy should find out what troops it had to face. War correspondents, again, were not allowed at the front, and arrangements to permit them were vetoed, after long waiting, by the War Office. An official account, by an "eye-witness," was supplied to the Press; but it contained little that was definite. Popular feeling was encouraged by the surrender of Duala and the investment of Tsingtau, and exasperated by the Emden's raid on Madras; but recruiting was couraged only by advertisement and by speech-making, following the Ministerial lead.

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The Prime Minister concluded his part in this campaign at Cardiff, where he addressed a thoroughly representative meeting of 9,000 persons (Oct. 2). He began by laying stress on the unparalleled unity of the British Empire in the war, which was due neither to ambition nor to ill-will. In regard to Germany in particular, British policy had aimed at establishing a firm basis for cordial relations; Ministers had repeatedly said that friendships with certain Powers did not imply coldness or hostility to others; but, as the Foreign Secretary had said (Nov. 27, 1911), “One does not make new friendships worth having by deserting old ones." Mr. Asquith then made an important disclosure. In 1912 the Cabinet had formally notified the German Government that Britain would "neither make nor join in any unprovoked attack on Germany." "Aggression upon Germany is not the subject and forms no part of any treaty, understanding, or combination to which Britain is now a party, nor will she become a party to anything that has such an object." But the German Government asked Britain for an absolute pledge of neutrality if Germany were engaged in war, and this at a time when Germany was enormously increasing both her aggressive and defensive forces, especially at sea. Only one answer was possible, but the British Government had continued, especially during the Balkan crisis, to work for peace. Both from a domestic and an international point of view the war could only be regarded as among the worst of catastrophes for Britain, but not the worst. In the four weeks since his Guildhall speech (p. 197)

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