“ORDERED OUT”

In Memoriam: Roberts, F.M., V.C.

Died on Service, 1914

“When I was ordered out——”

Lord Roberts, in a letter to the writer.

I

It was a score or more years ago, and at the Old Vagabond Club (now merged into the Playgoers) that I first met Lord Roberts. When he became the President of the Club, we celebrated the event by a dinner at which he was the guest of honour and Jerome K. Jerome was the Chairman. As one of the original members of the Club and as a member of the Executive Committee, I was introduced to the great soldier. All I expected was a bow, a handshake, and a “How-do-you-do,” but Lord Roberts was as good as to be more gracious and cordial than any great soldier, even if an Irishman, ever was before—so at least it seemed to me—to a scribbler of sorts, whom he was meeting for the first time. He was, in fact, so very kind that I was emboldened to ask a favour. Among the guests was a young officer in what was then the Artillery Volunteers. I knew it would immensely gratify him to meet the Field-Marshal, so towards the close of the conversation I ventured to say:

“It has been a very great honour and pleasure Lord Roberts, to me to meet you and to have this talk. I wonder whether you’ll think me trespassing on your kindness if I ask to be allowed to present an acquaintance of mine? He is a Volunteer Officer, a junior subaltern in the Artillery, and to meet you would, I am sure, be a red-letter day in his life. Would you allow me to present him?”

“Why of course. I shall be delighted. Bring him along by all means,” was the reply.

The young man was accordingly presented. The reader will hardly believe me when I say that this Volunteer Subaltern of Artillery thought well to instruct the Master Gunner in the science of gunnery, and in fact to tell the Field-Marshal what in his, the Volunteer Subaltern’s, opinion was wrong with the British Army.

Had Lord Roberts replied civilly but curtly, as some in his place would have done: “You think so, do you? Oh indeed! Very interesting, I’m sure. Good evening,” and walked away, one could hardly have wondered. But no, he heard the other out with perfect courtesy, if with resignation, and in his own mind, no doubt, with amusement.

I reminded Lord Roberts of the incident when I came to know him better, and he replied with a laugh:

“I recall the matter perfectly, for I like to think I have a retentive memory. Of course I was, as you say, amused at the young man’s assurance and confidence in his own military knowledge. Many very young men are prone either to too great diffidence or to too great assurance. I think, on the whole, I incline to envy the young man with plenty of assurance, especially as I was disposed to be diffident myself at his age, as many of us Irishmen, for all our seeming confidence, are. But in any case I owed it to you, who had introduced him, as well as to myself, to treat him outwardly at least with courtesy and consideration.”

That was Lord Roberts’ charming and kind way of putting it; but to me, a young man myself when the incident happened, it was a lesson in fine breeding and in fine manners on the part of a great soldier and great gentleman.

I heard afterwards that the Volunteer Subaltern of Artillery, in speaking at a Distribution of Prizes to members of his corps, the very evening following upon his one and only meeting with the Field-Marshal, made frequent use of such phrases as “When I was talking to Lord Roberts about the matter,” “What I told Lord Roberts ought to be done,” and so on, no doubt to his own satisfaction and possibly with the result that the members of the audience were for the first time made to realise what a very important figure he was in the military world. Later on, however, some one who knew the facts wrote to him suggesting that the book for which the world was literally panting was a work from his pen entitled My Recollections of Lord Roberts, and when the Boer War broke out, a telegram, purporting to come from Lord Roberts, urging the Volunteer Artilleryman to take supreme command in South Africa, was dispatched to him by a playful friend. I have no doubt the young man, who will now be getting elderly, would be the first to laugh at his own youthful self-confidence, and that if this paper should by any chance meet his eye, he will pardon me for thus, and for the first time, telling the tale in print.

Here is an instance of Lord Roberts’ kindness to and interest in younger men. A Territorial Captain—his brother, an officer in the Regular Army, told me the story—was taking part in a Field Day with his battalion in Berkshire. His instructions were that he was to hold a certain line of country at all costs. It so happened that the attack developed in a direction which made it necessary for him hurriedly to advance his men to a flank and away from his reserves, whom he had posted where they were under cover and out of sight of the enemy. The young officer (he was a junior subaltern recently joined) in command of the reserves evidently had very mistaken ideas in regard to discipline. His idea appeared to be that discipline consists in staying where you were originally told to stay, like the “boy on the burning deck” in the poem of Casabianca, until receiving orders to another effect. Needless to say, the very reverse is true. Soldiers to-day are taught clearly to observe events and to act on their own initiative should unexpected developments arise. Seeing that the tide of war was drifting the Firing Line and its supports away from the reserves, the duty of the officer commanding the reserves was, not to remain stodgily where he had originally been placed (to do that would be less obedience to discipline than a breach of discipline), but while keeping the reserves directly in signalling communication with the Firing Line, as well as under cover and out of sight of the enemy, so to alter his own dispositions as to be ready to reinforce and to reinforce quickly when called upon to do so.

This, however, he failed to do, and when his superior officer, finding himself hard pressed, signalled for the reserves, there was no reply.

Unfortunately there was neither a galloper nor a cyclist at hand to carry a message. “If I don’t get my reserves here in half an hour,” he said, “I shall lose the position, and the loss of this position may mean, probably will mean, victory for the enemy all along the line. It shan’t be so if I can help it. Now what can I do?”

Hurriedly but keenly he scanned the rolling Berkshire down around him. Towards the north, on the whity-brown high road that curved outward in a huge half-circle from the point where he was standing, he saw a cloud of dust. “A motor! and coming this way!” he exclaimed. “Follow me, Brown.” (This to a non-commissioned officer.) Stooping low, so as not to offer a target to the enemy, he sprinted northwards in a line which intersected the high road, at the nearest point which the oncoming car must pass.

The motor was almost on him as he reached the road, and leaping into the centre held up his hand. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said to the occupant, “but I’m in command of troops holding this position. We’re attacked in force, and my reserves are some distance away along the road in the direction you have come, near a copse. I’ve signalled for reinforcements, but they have not kept up their communications. I have neither a galloper nor a cyclist. If I get my reinforcements here in half an hour, I can hold the position. If I don’t, I lose it, and losing it means everything to the enemy. I wonder whether you’d be so very good as to lend me your car for a few minutes to carry a message!” “With the greatest pleasure,” said the occupant. Turning to the chauffeur he said, “You are entirely at this officer’s disposal. I shall walk on, and you can pick me up when he has done with you.” As he spoke he got out of the car, and as he lifted his cap, in response to the young officer’s salute and hasty word of thanks, the latter recognised Field-Marshal Lord Roberts.

A day or two later, the great soldier was celebrating his eightieth birthday, and received a letter from the officer in question. It was to remind Lord Roberts of the incident, to apologise for the liberty the young officer had taken in stopping the car, to thank him warmly for his kindness, and to mention that the reserves had been brought up at the double and in time to save the position. The officer concluded by asking to be allowed to congratulate the Field-Marshal on attaining his eightieth year and to express the hope that the great soldier might be spared to celebrate many similar anniversaries.

A reply came almost by return of post.

Dear Captain ——,

Many thanks for your letter and kind congratulations on my 80th birthday. I was delighted to be of assistance, and am even more delighted to learn the successful result of that assistance. You did the right and only thing in stopping my car. If ever you are this way and disengaged, I hope you will call and give me the pleasure of making the further acquaintance of so good and resourceful a soldier.

Yours truly,
Roberts.

After my first meeting with Lord Roberts at the Vagabond Club, I saw no more of him—except for a mere handshake and “How-do-you-do?” at a military function—for many years. Then I chanced, in April, 1910, to contribute to the London Quarterly Review an article on National Defence. It was addressed specially to Nonconformists, one of the opening paragraphs being as follows:

I do not for a moment believe that Nonconformists are one whit less patriotic than any other great religious body, but I fear there is some misconception on their part—due no doubt to the intolerance and the exaggeration of some of us who champion the cause of National Defence—in regard to our aims and our purposes. It is in the hope of removing some of these misconceptions that I pen the present paper.

The article I did not send to Lord Roberts, nor did I draw the attention of anyone connected with the National Service League of which he was President to it. I did nothing directly or indirectly to bring it under anyone’s notice. Yet a few days after the Review appeared, I received the following letter from him. The Rev. R. Allen of whom he speaks, I may say, was, and still is, an entire stranger to me, and I to him:

Englemere, Ascot, Berks,
April 4, 1910.

Dear Sir,

The Rev. R. Allen, a friend of many years’ standing, has been good enough to send me a copy of the London Quarterly Review for this month, and to draw my attention to the first article, written by you on “How to Defend England.”

I am delighted with the article itself, and with the very clear and convincing way in which you have put forward the advantages of military training and discipline for all our able-bodied young men as affecting not only the position of Great Britain as a World Power, but the individual moral and physical improvement of the men of the nation.

But I am still more delighted that such an article should be allowed to appear in a Journal published from the Wesleyan Book Room. I am quite at one with you in believing that Nonconformists are not one whit less patriotic than any other great religious body, but that there is some misconception on their part in regard to the aim and purpose of those who advocate universal military training for Home Defence.

My hope is that such misconception may be removed and that every Briton, whatever his position and whatever his sect, will realise the necessity for taking the defence of his country seriously.

Such articles as yours will do much to effect this, and to open the eyes of those who are now blind to England’s needs and England’s dangers before it is too late.

Yours truly,
Roberts.

Other men as greatly concerned in great matters as Lord Roberts was cannot always spare time to acknowledge and to show appreciation of work for a good cause, which is brought directly to their notice. Lord Roberts could find time, or perhaps I should say made time to write graciously about work the doer or the author of which had done nothing to bring that work under the Field-Marshal’s eye.

Thenceforward, no work of mine in the cause for National Defence was allowed to pass unrecognised, once it came under the notice of Lord Roberts—and not very much happened of which in some way or another he did not come to hear.

He followed the doings even of the rank and file under his command, and, like the great leader of men that he was, he thought none of them too humble to be honoured and heartened before going into battle, by a message from himself.

For instance, I was asked to give an address on National Defence to a great gathering of men—some 1500 or more as it turned out—at an Assault-at-Arms in the Kursaal at Worthing. Naturally I never trespassed upon such a busy man’s time by writing to him, unless in answer to a letter from himself, or unless I had something important of which to speak. So as I had not heard from Lord Roberts for some time, and had had no cause to write to him, I did not suppose he as much as knew of the Worthing meeting. Yet in opening the proceedings, the Mayor announced that he had just received a telegram from Lord Roberts to the effect that he was delighted I was to be the speaker that night, and warmly commending what I had to say to the attention of the audience.

Such a message and from such a quarter, did more to assure me—an entire stranger to my audience—a welcome and a friendly hearing than I could otherwise have hoped to receive.

One “Lost Chord” in the way of an unread message from Lord Roberts I often regret.

In the company of Mr. Neville P. Edwards, then an organising secretary of the National Service League, I went as an Honorary Helper of the League on three caravan tours in Kent and Sussex.

The last tour closed only a week or two before the outbreak of war, and Lord Roberts, who followed our progress with the keenest interest, sent us on several occasions by letter or by telegram a special message to deliver in his name to our audiences. These messages directly warned his fellow-countrymen of the imminence of war and of the necessity for preparation. Remembering that in the towns we often had an audience of one or two thousand, and even in the villages, of some hundreds, there must be many persons who now recall the weightiness and the gravity of the great soldier’s words. And I venture to add that no one whose privilege it was to hear them is likely ever to forget the equally grave, eloquent, and memorable words which fell from the lips of Mr. Rudyard Kipling—who by his single pen has done more to awaken the young manhood of the nation to England’s needs than any other writer living or dead—when he presided over one of our meetings. It seemed to me one of the ironies of fate that in the very caravan from which Lord Roberts’ message and Mr. Kipling’s words—both urgent warnings of imminent war—had been delivered, I should a few weeks later set forth as an Honorary Recruiting Officer in search of men to fight in the very war which Lord Roberts and Mr. Kipling had so faithfully foretold.

Before taking the chair and introducing Mr. Edwards and myself to our audience, Mr. Kipling said to me:

“I have just had a telegram from the Chief. He sent his thanks to me for presiding at the meeting, and asks that I convey his thanks to Edwards and to you. It is a very interesting and characteristic message, and I will read it when making my closing remarks to the meeting at the end.”

It so happened that the latter part of the meeting was a Lantern Slide Lecture by Mr. Edwards. His last slide was a portrait of the King, seeing which some one started “God Save the King,” and the audience, taking this as ending the meeting, broke up, and so we lost not only Lord Roberts’ telegram, but Mr. Kipling’s equally coveted closing words.

In nothing that I attempted for the cause that was so near to his heart, was Lord Roberts more keenly interested than in a controversy in the spring and summer of 1914 between an opponent of National Service, a very distinguished divine and scholar, and myself. My opponent’s article was headed, “Why we cannot accept conscription,” and mine “Why we support Lord Roberts.” To a reprint of the controversy in booklet form, published immediately after the outbreak of war, the Rev. John Telford, B.A., contributed an Editorial Foreword, in which he said:

“This discussion of the question of national armaments aroused extraordinary interest among a very wide circle of readers, as it appeared in The Magazine of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in March, April, May and June of this year. It also led to much correspondence in other journals. No one then dreamed of the terrible significance which events were to attach to the subject.... Here are Mr. Kernahan’s words, printed last March, before any shadow had fallen across the sun. He says: ‘I have studied the question at home and abroad with as much closeness as was possible, and the more closely I study it the more convinced I am that we are well within the possibility of one of the most awful disasters that ever befell a great nation.’ In the light of to-day that is a remarkably verified warning.”

This controversy, on account of the importance attached to the issues involved, Lord Roberts followed with exceptional interest. One passage of arms between my opponent and myself I may be permitted to quote, since it centres around Lord Roberts himself.

“Mr. Kernahan proves,” my critic wrote, “that his special hero, Lord Roberts, is a truly Christian man. I would not question it for a moment. And yet—so terrible a power has familiarity with war to blind men’s eyes to its satanic wickedness—it was Lord Roberts who uttered in our Free Trade Hall at Manchester the cynical sentence about Germany’s right to strike when her hour came, which shocked even convinced conscriptionists on his platform. I wonder whether Lord Roberts approved of the way Germany struck when her hour came in 1870! Strange indeed to hear a Christian man echoing the very sentiments of Bismarck, who was so proud of the cunning lie by which he tricked France into a disastrous war!”

My reply I venture to quote, since Lord Roberts was so good as to say it exactly interpreted his views and his position.

“Lord Roberts,” I wrote, “claimed no such ‘right’ for any nation wantonly and wickedly to force war upon another. He pointed out that when one nation has decided, for reasons of her own (possibly because she is ambitious and determined to play a great part in history), to force a war upon another nation, which possibly may decide to resist, if only because she is determined to hold to her own—the policy is that adopted by Germany. That policy—as a student of history as well as a soldier, Lord Roberts had to admit that it is often a winning policy—is to strike at what has been called the selected moment, or in other words, when she (Germany) is at her strongest, and the nation which she wishes to overthrow is weak. It was because Lord Roberts knew that this was and is Germany’s policy, and because he wellnigh despairs sometimes at the criminal apathy of his fellow-countrymen, and because he knows the consequences which must almost inevitably follow, that he felt compelled, under a terrible sense of responsibility, to speak out thus plainly. Had he, knowing what he does of Germany’s ambitions, intentions, and strength, and of England’s ignorance, weakness, and unpreparedness, elected to maintain a cowardly and traitorous silence—then, and not till then, would he be guilty of the ‘cynical’ and ‘satanic’ wickedness of which my opponent speaks.... For the latter cannot deny that Germany has not gone back in her ambition or in her strength since 1870. On the contrary, she has gone on, not only in piling up an army which, as Mr. Churchill warned the nation, is now four and a half millions in number, but also in the most strenuous effort to create a vast Navy, which she has said must be, shall be, greater than ours. With her huge army she needs no Navy for defence. It is, as has been said, a ‘luxury’ and is meant for attack, whereas to us a Navy is a matter of life and death. And my opponent knows that we have twice held out the hand of friendship to Germany with proposals to stay this insane race in armaments, and that her reply was more battleships, more soldiers, more guns.”

I do not print this passage here to reopen an old controversy, but because—though the details of Lord Roberts’ proposals will, in the light of recent events, require considerable modification—the main issues raised by him abide and must be reaffirmed. Here in England we have short memories. It is possible that in the bewildering happenings of the war and in the breathless interest with which, at its end, the shifting of frontiers and the striking of great balances will be watched, there is the danger, if only from reaction, that we slackly fall back into our previous national inertia and national apathy, and that the little puddles of party politics (dirty puddles for the most part) once again matter more to us than to hold sacred and inviolate the great Empire and these world-trusts which God has seen well to commit to Britain’s charge.

II

I have heard many noble tributes paid to Lord Roberts, but I remember none which touched him more than that of Sir William Robertson Nicoll at the Whitefriars’ Club. Lord Roberts was the club guest, that brilliant author and journalist Mr. John Foster Fraser being Chairman. I had the honour of being in the Vice-Chair.

The toast of Lord Roberts’ health was seconded by Sir William Robertson Nicoll, who was meeting the Field-Marshal for the first time. The Whitefriars’ dinner to Lord Roberts was merely a compliment to a great soldier. Not all of those present would have shared the views he entertained upon the question of National Service, and controversial issues were carefully excluded. Speaking, therefore, of Lord Roberts as a soldier, as a writer, and as a man, Sir William Robertson Nicoll, in one of the most graceful and generous tributes to which I have ever listened, assured him that by no class was our guest held in greater honour and affection than by the Nonconformists of this country and of every denomination. Lord Roberts knew that many Nonconformists differed from him in politics and upon the question of National Service, of which he was the acknowledged champion, and Sir William’s tribute so gracefully phrased, so obviously sincere in its expression of personal reverence and affection, touched and gratified him deeply.

That he felt a little sore, in regard to the misunderstanding of his views by some Nonconformists, is clear, I think, from a letter to me which lies before me as I write.

I happen to be a Churchman myself, but for the last eight or nine years before the war I devoted no inconsiderable portion of my time in trying to put the case for National Defence, as advocated by the Field-Marshal, before my many friends in the Nonconformist Churches, and I am glad and grateful to remember that, while not sharing my views, the editors of the great Nonconformist and Free Church organs gave me for the most part—there were exceptions—full opportunity to “state a case.” In April, 1913, a prominent Free Churchman of Hastings asked me to speak at the Brotherhood meeting in that town. I told him frankly that I dislike public speaking, but would do so if I were permitted to speak upon the subject of National Defence. My friend demurred, but it was finally arranged that I should first give a reading from a tiny booklet of my own, and after that I should speak for twenty minutes on the subject that lay so near my heart.

As this was the first occasion upon which an address upon National Defence was to be given at a Brotherhood meeting, Lord Roberts took deep interest in the matter. He was, indeed, so anxious to remove any misunderstanding which existed that he sent me a special message to deliver in his name to my audience. The message was in the form of a letter to myself, and as it puts his views very plainly, I print it here in full.

Englemere, Ascot,
Berks, 12.4.13.

Dear Mr. Kernahan,

I am very glad to learn that when asked to speak at the Brotherhood Meeting which is to take place in your own town on Sunday the 20th instant, you refused to do so unless you were allowed to deal with the question of National Service.

I know that there are many very well-meaning people who think that all military training is an abomination, and who are convinced that the life of youth in barracks is a continued round of vice and immorality of all kinds. I am prepared to admit that this certainly was true 200 years ago, and possibly it was true even at the beginning of the last century. During Marlborough’s wars we know from history that the ranks of the Regular Army were filled up by taking broken men of all kinds, and forcing them into the service.

Any man who was really on his last legs—broken debtors, tramps and vagabonds, condemned felons—these and such as these were forced into the ranks. Can it be wondered if the Army got a bad name? and, as we know, there is nothing so hard to live down as a really evil reputation. But all this is changed and has been changed for some years. Have we not heard that the Chief Constable of the county of Cambridge announced, after the Army manoeuvres, that although 45,000 men had been turned loose in the area for which he was responsible, yet not a single accusation for wrongdoing had been brought against any of these soldiers? Have not the papers just recently told us that 10,000 men taken at random from the garrison at Aldershot have been billeted upon the inhabitants in the Hartley district, that these men were willingly received by the people of the district in their houses, and that again, in this instance, there has not been one complaint of misconduct? I must confess that I am pained, as well as surprised, when I find that those who profess, and profess very loudly, that they are followers of Christ, should still look upon the defenders of their country with such unchristian suspicion and dislike.

I should like you to read out to the meeting the following extract which occurs in an article on “Germany and the Germans,” by Mr. Price Collier. It can be found in the current issue of Scribner’s Magazine: “Military training makes youths better and stronger citizens and produces that self-respect, self-control and cosmopolitan sympathy which more than aught else lessen the chances of conflict. I can vouch for it that there are fewer personal jealousies, bickerings, quarrels, in the mess room or below decks of a warship, or in a soldiers’ camp, than in many Church and Sunday School assemblies, in many club smoking-rooms, in many ladies’ sewing and reading circles. Nothing does away more surely with quarrelsomeness than the training of men to get on together comfortably. Each giving way a little in the narrow lanes of life, so that each may pass without moral shoving. There are no such successful schools for the teaching of this fundamental diplomacy as the sister-services: the Army and the Navy.”

Here is another extract [Lord Roberts then goes on himself] from a New Zealand paper which was forwarded to me by a friend in that Dominion: “The Rev. W. Ready, the well-known Methodist Minister, took up a strong stand on the subject of military training at a meeting of the Society of Friends held in Auckland last week. Mr. Ready, who was present by invitation, was taken to task for some remarks he had made on the subject at the recent Methodist Conference. He thereupon explained to the meeting his attitude at the Conference. There was a time, he had told the Conference, when he held the opinion that camps were very immoral, and not places to which youths should be sent; but since he had had his sons attending camp as Territorials, he had been converted into believing that these camps were moral and were well-regulated. Every instinct of his moral nature went against compulsory training, but he had his sons in the Territorials. At this point there were cries of ‘Shame’ from the assembled members of the Society of Friends, but Mr. Ready stuck to his guns and declared that he was not going to advise his boys to break the law, merely because he objected on principle to military training. The Defence Act was now the law of the land, and he would no more advocate his sons breaking the law than he would support the English Suffragettes in their militant tactics. This is both sound ethics and common sense, and Mr. Ready has done the community a service in emphasising the duty of every man to obey the law. The change in his opinions on the subject of camps is interesting and gratifying, and should be noted by those who profess to be so concerned about their evil influences.”

I sincerely hope that your discourse at the Brotherhood Meeting will help to dissipate the suspicions against military life and all connected with it.

Yours very truly,
Roberts.

Lord Roberts made some appreciative remarks about my own work in the cause of National Defence. These I took the liberty of omitting when reading his letter at the Brotherhood Meeting, and I venture to follow a similar course in transcribing it here. Otherwise this very interesting letter is given exactly as he wrote it.

That the great soldier should, in his eighty-first year, have been at the pains to write so lengthy a letter for one of the rank and file, merely, of his supporters to read at a meeting held in a Nonconformist Church, bears witness not only to Lord Roberts’ unwearying energies, but also to his earnest desire, one might even say his anxiety, that the case for National Defence should be fully and fairly put before his fellow Britons of the Free Churches. Had he lived to see the magnificent response made by every denomination of the Free Churches—not even excepting some members of the Society of Friends—in sending the flower of its young manhood to the heroic task of subduing the monster of Prussian militarism, it would have added gladness and thankfulness to his “Nunc Dimittis,” when within sound of the guns the hero-soul of the great soldier, patriot and Christian, passed into the presence of his God.

Here I may perhaps be allowed to say a word about a prayer which has often been attributed to Lord Roberts, and was in fact, soon after his death, printed by a leading religious journal as “composed by the late Lord Roberts and presented by him to the soldiers serving under his command in the South African war.” The same prayer has repeatedly been attributed to Lord Roberts in magazines, books and newspapers; and, as the correspondence which I have permission to quote will show, I shall be following Lord Roberts’ own wishes in doing what I can, once and for all, to set the matter right.

Here is the prayer as given in the religious journal of which I have spoken:

Almighty Father, I have often sinned against Thee. Oh, wash me in the precious blood of the Lamb of God. Fill me with Thy Holy Spirit, that I may lead a new life. Spare me to see again those whom I love at home, or fit me for Thy presence in peace. Strengthen us to quit ourselves like men in our right and just cause. Keep us faithful unto death, calm in danger, patient in suffering, merciful as well as brave; true to our Queen, our country, and colours. If it be Thy will, enable us to win victory for England; but, above all, grant us a better victory over temptation and sin, over life and death, that we may be more than conquerors, through Him who loved us and laid down His life for us, Jesus our Saviour, the Captain of the Army of God. Amen.

The first appearance of the prayer as by Lord Roberts was, I believe, in a volume published some years ago at Kansas City, U.S.A., and edited by Dr. Stephen Abbott Northrop. It was entitled A Cloud of Witnesses, and I had from the first my suspicions about the prayer’s authenticity, for, though I never think or thought of Lord Roberts as other than a deeply religious man, I found it difficult to think of him as one who elected to write prayers for publication. Mentioning the matter to Lord Roberts himself one day, I found him very much mystified by what he heard. “I have not the slightest recollection of ever writing a prayer,” he protested, and, later on, when writing on another matter, he recurred to the subject, asking me if I could send him a copy of the prayer. I did so, and received the following letter:

Almond’s Hotel, Clifford Street,
London, W.

(The only undated letter I ever remember receiving from Lord Roberts.)

Dear Kernahan,

I am afraid I cannot claim the honour of writing the beautiful prayer you found in the Cloud of Witnesses—at least I think that is the name of the book you mentioned—but I am away from home and have not got your letter by me.

I thought it might have been the prayer General Colley wrote before “Majuba,” but it is not.

I should like to find out where the author of the book got the prayer, and why he gave me as the writer of it.

Yours very truly,
Roberts.

My reply was to send Lord Roberts the book to see for himself. He returned it, carefully packed and addressed in his own handwriting, with the letter which I here transcribe:

Almond’s Hotel, Clifford Street,
London, W., 1.2.14.

Dear Kernahan,

I return A Cloud of Witnesses with many thanks. It is very curious about the prayer. I have no recollection of writing it, and I am wondering how Dr. Abbott Northrop got hold of it. What a fine collection of sentiments and opinions he has got together!

Yours sincerely,
Roberts.

There, so far as I was concerned, the matter dropped, but when next I saw Lord Roberts he again expressed his curiosity in regard to the mystery by which the prayer was attributed to him, and his desire to unravel it, asking me if I heard any more of it to let him know.

That I was of some service to him in the matter was due more to chance than to any mystery-unravelling merit of my own.

A friend who is interested in religious work among soldiers lent me a little book, with the request that I would look into it and return it at my leisure. I opened the volume somewhat indifferently, and the first thing to catch my eye was the very prayer which Lord Roberts and I had been discussing. The book stated that it had been written by the late Archbishop Alexander for the use of the troops in South Africa, and so exactly expressed the faith and feelings of Lord Roberts that he had it printed at his own cost and sent it to his various officers, asking them to distribute it to all ranks under their command.

That the prayer was ultimately attributed to the Field-Marshal instead of to the Archbishop I diagnose thus: Even though “Tommy” was specifically informed that it was composed by Archbishop Alexander—to “Tommy” that information meant little or nothing. But to “Tommy” the fact that it had been specially sent to him by his beloved “Bobs” would mean everything; and so, no doubt, it became known as “Lord Roberts’ prayer,” and as “Lord Roberts’ prayer” it came to the knowledge of the editor of A Cloud of Witnesses, and was printed in good faith by him over the Field-Marshal’s signature in that book, whence it was reproduced, equally in good faith, in other prints.

But to recur to the little book in which I found the prayer attributed, and rightly, to the Archbishop. With the owner’s permission I sent it to Lord Roberts to see for himself how, in my opinion—and he entirely agreed with me—the mistake originally arose. His reply has a characteristic touch, for though he went out to South Africa to take supreme command, his soldier-like way of putting it is “When I was ordered out.” Nor is the reference to failing memory without pathos to those whose smallest service to the cause he had so at heart—National Defence—was never forgotten by one of the greatest-hearted and most generous of men and of chiefs.

Almond’s Hotel, Clifford Street,
London, W., 15th Feb., 1914.

Dear Kernahan,

I cannot think how I could have forgotten about the prayer, for I myself asked the Primate to write it. I knew him well, and I was greatly struck by the few verses he wrote about “War” shortly after the trouble in South Africa had commenced.

When I was ordered out I wrote to the Primate and asked him to write out a short prayer. I had some thousand copies printed and distributed.

I am so glad you discovered who the author was, although your doing so proves and makes me sad to think that my memory is not so good as I thought it was.

I am returning your little book. I wish I could have kept it.

Yours sincerely,
Roberts.

My next meeting with Lord Roberts was twelve days later, and was at No. 10 Downing Street, Mr. Asquith’s official residence. Lord Roberts said, among other things, in the talk we had together on that occasion that he was very much indebted to me for the promptness with which I had unravelled the mystery about himself and the Archbishop, and went on gravely:

“I very much dislike having attributed to me a prayer which I did not write. It is not, as you know, that I do not believe in prayer. I have humbly asked God’s help and guidance in everything that I undertook all through my life, and never more so than now, when I am an old man, and His call may be very near. But——” he hesitated a moment, “offering up a brief prayer—it may only be the words ‘God help me!’—before going into action, or in some time of difficulty, is one thing; and sitting down to write, to print and publish a prayer for others is quite another thing—for a soldier, at least. That was why I asked my friend the Archbishop to compose the prayer. It was for him, God’s minister, a clergyman, not for me, a soldier, to do it.”

Lord Roberts then asked me to advise him how best to prevent a recurrence of the error by which the prayer was attributed to him. I replied that if he wished I would on his behalf write to the editor of A Cloud of Witnesses pointing out the mistake, and suggesting that an erratum slip, making the correction, be inserted in all copies of the book already printed, and that the Archbishop’s name replace that of Lord Roberts in any future edition.

“I shall be so much obliged if you will,” he said gratefully. “May I leave it to you, and will you let me know when you hear from him?”

I promised to do so, and carried the promise into effect, sending Lord Roberts, when I received it, the editor’s reply, in which, after expressing regret for the error, he undertook to do what was proposed. That Lord Roberts felt strongly about the matter, and was most anxious that the correction should be made, will be seen by the following letter which I received the morning after I had seen him at Downing Street:

Englemere, Ascot, Berks,
28th Feb., 1914.

Dear Kernahan,

Thanks for your letter of the 21st instant and for sending me the little book, which I wish I could have kept. Would it be possible to communicate with the author of the book you sent me in which the prayer of the Primate of Ireland appeared under my name? I should like to have this corrected, as it is quite wrong that I should have the credit of being the author of such a beautiful prayer when I was only the indirect means of it being written.

(Thus far Lord Roberts’ letter was typed. Then in his own strong, clear, firm hand the letter concluded as follows): This letter was dictated before I met you yesterday. I only send it as a reminder.

I may just add in conclusion that “the little book” which he twice, almost wistfully, said he wished he could have kept (if I remember rightly it told, among other things, of his son’s death in South Africa) was by the courtesy of the friend from whom I had borrowed it, reforwarded to Lord Roberts, and was by him gratefully and gladly acknowledged.

III

Even as an old man—though none of us who knew and loved him could ever bring ourselves to think of Lord Roberts as old—his energy was amazing, and the amount of work he got through was stupendous. His mere correspondence alone would have kept any other man going all day and with no moment to spare for the many great issues with which his name was connected. He accomplished so much because he practised in his own life the organisation, if not indeed the National Service which he preached to the nation—the organisation which, as he foresaw, would be so tremendous a driving power behind Germany when the time came for her to force a war upon this country, the war which he even more clearly foresaw.

As an instance of how Lord Roberts systematised his days, I may mention that a friend of mine and his, recently returned from Bulgaria, wished to see him to put certain military facts before him, and also, if I remember rightly, to present him with some interesting trophies of the war which he knew the Field-Marshal would prize. He wrote accordingly and asked for an appointment. Lord Roberts replied by return of post, from Almond’s Hotel, Clifford Street, W., to say that he was then in town but was returning to Ascot the following day. “If it will be saving you a railway journey—and I know what a busy man you are,” he wrote, “to see me here at the Hotel, instead of at Ascot, by all means let it be so. But I am afraid, if not too early for you, it must be at 8.30 in the morning, as the rest of my day is already mapped out.”

My friend smiled sadly in telling me the story. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “8.30, and even later, generally sees me tubbing, shaving, or at best breakfasting, but if 8.30 was not too early for a great soldier who had turned 80 to be up, and ready to receive visitors, I could hardly plead that 8.30 was too early for me,” and the appointment was made.

IV

Like most Irishmen, Lord Roberts had a keen sense of humour. At a public dinner at which I was present he had for a near neighbour, at the high table, Lord Willoughby de Broke, who in his after-dinner speech had occasion to refer to the Territorial Army.

“If I am asked,” he said, “whether a young man should join the Territorial Army, my answer is invariably ‘Yes,’ and for three reasons. The first reason is that he will, perhaps for the first time in his life, be coming under the salutary influence of Discipline, and I say confidently and without fear of contradiction, that there is no finer influence for a young fellow than that of Discipline.”

These were sentiments that appealed to a soldier, and of the many approving cries of “Hear! Hear!” which came from all parts of the room, none rang more whole-heartedly than those of Lord Roberts.

“My second reason,” went on the speaker, “is that the young man will thereby be discharging a patriotic duty. To-day we are all thinking too much of our rights, rarely of our responsibilities, and in my opinion every able-bodied young fellow, whether he be a duke’s son, a draper’s son, or the son of a costermonger, should be trained to defend his country against an invader in her hour of need.”

Once again Lord Willoughby de Broke was expressing the very sentiments with which Lord Roberts’ name was so closely associated, and again it was the great soldier’s “Hear! Hear!” which was most emphatic.

“And lastly,” concluded the speaker, “my reason for advising every young fellow to join the Territorial Army is that it gives him a chance of—getting away from his wife for a night or a week or a fortnight without putting him to the trouble of hashing up some silly excuse which she knows is as palpably a fake and a lie as he does himself.”

Thus far Lord Willoughby de Broke had spoken with such grave earnestness that we were all prepared as heartily to endorse his third reason as his previous ones. Lord Roberts had, in fact, raised his right hand above his left to applaud when the speaker sprang this surprise upon us, and especially upon those of us who were married, for the dinner was graced by the presence of Lady Willoughby de Broke and Lady Roberts, as well as by other ladies, the wives, daughters, and sisters of those present.

For one second the company, if I may so phrase it, “gaped” open-mouthed at the trap into which they had been led, and then there was a great roar of laughter, in which no one more heartily joined than did Lady Willoughby de Broke, Lady Roberts, and Lord Roberts himself.

I recall another and grimmer instance of Lord Roberts’ sense of humour. On February 27, 1914, he introduced to the Prime Minister a Deputation whose object was to plead the cause of National Service. When I say that it was a great occasion I am not expressing my own opinion, but that of a distinguished member of the Deputation who has since written and published in pamphlet form an official account of the proceedings.

“Those of us who look forward,” he writes, “to an early fruition of the hopes which we have cherished and the aims for which we have worked for so many years past, will ever look back upon Friday, the 27th of February, 1914, as a milestone, a red-letter day in the History of National Service. “All the circumstances conspired to stamp a great occasion with the greatness which belonged to it. The importance of the Cause needs no illustration from the present writer. In Lord Roberts’ well-known words, ‘National Service means not only national safety; it means national health, national strength, national honour, and national prosperity.’

“The Deputation included some of the greatest and most distinguished men of the day, and—a most significant and important factor—the greatness was in nearly every case not inherited but achieved by conspicuous service in the fields of national and imperial endeavour. Three Field-Marshals, including our veteran leader who has carried our flag to victory with honour in Asia and Africa and served King and country for fifty-five years; two Admirals of the Fleet, one of whom was in command of the International Forces at Crete, and the other commanded the International Naval Forces in China at the time of the Boxer Rebellion; an ex-Viceroy of India, prominent representatives of the Church and of Nonconformity; the editor of one of the most influential weeklies, and representatives of literature, science, and industry.”

Of this Deputation I was, by Lord Roberts’ personal invitation and wish, a member, and as I arrived in good time I had an opportunity of some conversation with him in the ante-room before we passed into the Library in which Mr. Asquith was to receive us.

Seeing that one of his hands was swathed in bandages, I inquired the reason.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” he said smilingly. “I’ve often been accused of having too many irons in the fire, but this time it is a case of having a hand too much in the fire. Just before leaving my hotel this morning, my foot slipped on the marble paving of the hall, and in falling forward and trying to save myself, I thrust my hand between the bars of the fire, and so got a bit of a burn. But it’s a mere nothing, and of no consequence.”

So far from being, as Lord Roberts said, a mere nothing, I have since heard that the burn was, on the contrary, excessively painful, but all through the lengthy and trying ordeal of introducing the different members of the Deputation, listening to, and commenting upon what was said, as well as listening to and replying to the Prime Minister’s very important and brilliantly able speech, Lord Roberts was the alertest, cheeriest, and most watchful of those present. A burn that would have distressed and possibly have distracted the attention of a much younger man, and that must necessarily have caused constant and severe pain, the gallant old soldier, then nearing his 82nd year, treated as of no consequence and dismissed with a lightly uttered jest. To the last it was of others, never of himself, that he thought. On this particular occasion he was pleading (to use his own words) “as plainly as an old man has the right to speak, in the face of emergencies which would be far less terrible to him personally than to generations of Britons yet unborn.” That was not many months before his death, and though I saw and talked with Field-Marshal Earl Roberts, V.C., on other and later occasions, I shall to my life’s end picture him as I saw him then—his burned and bandaged hand throbbing with pain of which he showed no single sign, thrust behind him and out of sight, as eloquently, gravely, almost passionately, he warned his hearers of a possible national disaster, the consequences of which would be “far less terrible to him personally than to generations of Britons yet unborn.”

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