The last month of the first year of the war brings no promise of a speedy end; it is not a month of great battles on land or sea, but rather of omens and foreshadowings, good and evil. To the omens of victory belongs the sinking of the Pommern, named after the great maritime province, so long coveted by the Brandenburgers, the makers of Prussia and the true begetters of Prussianism. Of good omen, too, has been the "clean sweep" made by General Botha in German South-West Africa, where the enemy surrendered unconditionally on July 9. And though the menace of the U-boat grows daily, there may be limits to America's seemingly inexhaustible forbearance. There are happily none to the fortitude of our bluejackets and trawlers.Pundits in the Press, fortified by warnings from generals in various Home Commands, display an increasing preoccupation with the likelihood of invasion by sea. Mr. Punch naturally inclines to a sceptical attitude, swayed by long adherence to the views of the Blue Water School and the incredulousness of correspondents engaged in guarding likely spots on the East Coast. With runaway raids by sea we are already acquainted, and their growing frequency from the air is responsible for various suggested precautions, official and otherwise--pails of sand and masks and anti-asphyxiation mixtures--which are not viewed with much sympathy in the trenches. There the men meet the most disconcerting situations--as, for example, the problem of spending a night in a flooded meadow occupied by a thunderstorm--with irrelevant songs or fantasias on the mouth-organ.
TRAWLER SKIPPER
FIRST TRAWLER SKIPPER (to friend who is due to sail by next tide): "Are ye takin' any precautions against these submarines, Jock?"
SECOND SKIPPER: "Ay! Although I've been in the habit o' carryin' my bits of bawbees wi' me, I went an' bankit them this mornin', an' I'm no taking ma best oilskins or ma new seaboots."
FIRST SKIPPER; " Oh, you're a'richt then. Ye'll hae practically nothin' tae lose but yer life."
Oh, there ain't no band to cheer us up, there ain't no Highland pipers
To keep our warlike ardure warm round New Chapelle and Wipers,
So--since there's nothing like a tune to glad the 'eart o' man,
Why Billy with his mouth-organ 'e does the best 'e can.
Wet, 'ungry, thirsty, 'ot or cold, whatever may betide 'im,
'E'll play upon the 'ob of 'ell while the breath is left inside 'im;
And when we march up Potsdam Street, and goose-step through Berlin,
Why Billy with 'is mouth-organ 'e'll play the Army in!
THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA
THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA
SINBAD THE KAISER: "This submarine business is going to get me into trouble with America; but what can an All-Powerful do with a thing like this on his back?"
When officers come home on leave and find England standing where she did, their views support the weather-beaten major who said that it was "worth going to a little trouble and expense to keep that intact." But you can hardly expect people who live in trenches which have had to be rebuilt twice daily for the last few months and are shelled at all hours of the day or night, to compassionate the occasional trials of the home-keeping bomb-dodger. The war, as it goes on, seems to bring out the best and the worst that is in us. South Wales responded loyally to the call for recruits, yet 200,000 miners are affected by the strike fever.
The House, where party strife for a brief space was hushed by mutual consent, is now devastated by the energies of indiscreet, importunate, egotistic or frankly disloyal question-mongers. We want a censorship of Parliamentary Reports. The Press Bureau withholds records of shining courage at the front lest they should enlighten the enemy, but gives full publicity to those
Who give us words in lieu of deeds,
Content to blather while their country bleeds.
There is, however, some excuse for those importunates who wish to know on what authority the Premier declared at Newcastle that neither our Allies nor ourselves have been hampered by an insufficient supply of munitions. In two months' fighting in Gallipoli our casualties have largely exceeded those sustained by us during the whole of the Boer War. And financial purists may be pardoned for their protests against extravagant expenditure in view of the announcement that the war is now costing well over three millions daily. The idea of National Registration has taken shape in a Bill, which has passed its second reading. The notion of finding out what everyone can do to help his country in her hour of need is excellent. But the Government do not seem to have realised that half a million volunteer soldiers have been waiting and ready for a job for the last six months:
And when at last you come and say
"What can you do? We ask for light
On any service you can pay,"
The answer is: " You know all right,
And all this weary while you knew it;
The trouble was you wouldn't let us do it."
The German Press is not exactly the place where one expects to find occasion for merriment. Yet listen to this from the Neueste Nachrichten: "Our foes ask themselves continuously, How can we best get at Germany's vital parts? What are her most vulnerable points? The answer is, her humanity--her trustful honesty." Here, on the other hand, thousands of people, by knocking months and years off their real age, have been telling good straightforward lies for their country. At the Front euphemism in describing hardship is mingled with circumlocution in official terminology. Thus one C.O. is reported to refer to the enemy not as Germans but "militant bodies of composite Teutonic origin."
A new and effectual cure for the conversion of pessimists at home has been discovered. It is simply to out-do the prophets of ill at their own game. The result is that they seek you out to tell you that an enemy submarine has been sunk off the Scillies or that the Crown Prince is in the Tower. It is the old story that optimists are those who have been associating with pessimists and vice versÂ. But seriousness is spreading. We are told that even actresses are now being photographed with their mouths shut, though one would have thought that at such a time all British subjects--especially the "Odolisques" of the variety stage--ought to show their teeth.
