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The Message, a novel by Alec John Dawson |
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Part 2. The Awakening - Chapter 14. "For God, Our Race, And Duty" |
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_ PART II. THE AWAKENING CHAPTER XIV. "FOR GOD, OUR RACE, AND DUTY"
We had two other meetings before finally taking train for London; but virtually our campaign was brought to an end at Guildford. Our peregrination ended there, but the Canadian preachers continued their pilgrimage till long afterwards. Scores of rich men were anxious to finance these expounders of the new teaching, and even to build them churches. But Stairs and Reynolds were both agreed in wanting no churches. Their mission was to the public as a whole. When we returned to our headquarters in London, the membership of The Citizens stood within a few hundreds of three million and a half of able-bodied men. And still new members were being sworn in every day. Some few of these members had contributed as much as five thousand pounds to our funds. Very many had contributed a fifth of that sum, and very many more had given in hundreds of pounds. There were some who gave us pence, and they were very cordially thanked, giving as they did from the slenderest of purses. There were women who had sold dresses and jewels for us, hundreds of them; and there were little children whose pocket-money had helped to swell the armament and instruction funds. Joseph Farquharson, the well-known coal and iron magnate, who had been famous for his "Little England" sentiments--a man who had boasted of his parochialism--must have learned very much from the invasion and the teaching of the new movement. He gave one hundred thousand pounds to The Citizens after John Crondall's first address in Newcastle. When Crondall attended the famous Council at the War Office, he did so as the founder and representative of the most formidable organization ever known in England. He had no official standing at the Council: he took his seat there as an unofficial commoner. Yet, in a sense, he held the defensive strength of Britain in his hand. But several of the Ministers and officials who formed that Council were members of our Executive, and our relations with the Government were already well defined and thoroughly harmonious. It was from the War Office that we received the bronze badge which was supplied to every sworn Citizen and bore our watchword--"For God, our Race, and Duty"; and the Government had given substantial aid in the matter of equipment and instruction. But now John Crondall represented three million and a half of British men, all sworn to respond instantly to his call as President of the Executive. And every Citizen had some training--was then receiving some training. "The Canadian preachers waked and inspired the people; we swore them in," said John Crondall modestly. "Their worth is the faith in them, and their faith spells Duty. That's what makes The Citizens formidable." "The grace of God," Stairs called it; and so did many others. Crondall bowed to that, and added a line from his favourite poet: "Then it's the grace of God in those 'Who are neither children nor gods, but men in a world of men!'" he said. No wise man has ever doubted, so far as I know, that simple piety, simple religion, "British Christianity," was the motive force at work behind the whole of the revival movement. Without that foundation, the enduring results achieved must have been impossible. But this was entirely unlike any previously known religious revival, in that it supplied no emotional food whatever. There was no room for sentimentality, still less for hysteria, in the acceptation of George Stairs's message from that "Stern Daughter of the Voice of God," whose name is Duty. Tears and protestations were neither sought nor found among converts to the faith which taught all to be up and doing in Duty's name. From the records, I know that eight weeks passed after the famous Council at the War Office before England spoke. When I say that during that time I acted as my chief's representative in controlling an office of over ninety clerks (all drilled men and fair shots), besides several times traversing the length and breadth of the kingdom on special missions, it will be understood that the period was to me a good deal more like eight days. During that time, too, I was able to help Constance Grey in her organization of the women helpers' branch of The Citizens, in which over nine thousand members were enrolled. Constance had an executive committee of twenty-five volunteer workers, who spent money and energy ungrudgingly in helping her. We kept in close touch with the heads of provincial committees during the whole of that period, and several times we communicated by means of printed circular letters, franked gratis for us by the War Office, with every single Citizen. Then came the day of the now historic telegram which the Post Office was authorized to transmit to every sworn Citizen in the kingdom: "Be ready! 'For God, our Race, and Duty.'" This was signed by John Crondall, and came after some days of detailed instruction and preparation. It has been urged by some writers that the Government was at fault in the matter of its famous declaration of war with Germany. It has been pointed out that for the sake of a point of etiquette, the Government had no right to yield a single advantage to an enemy whose conduct toward us had shown neither mercy nor courtesy. There is a good deal to be said for this criticism; but, when all is said and done, I believe that every Englishman is glad at heart that our Government took this course. I believe it added strength to our fighting arm; I believe it added weight and consequence to the first blows struck. Be that as it may, there was no sign of hesitancy or weakness in the action of the Government when the declaration had once been made; and it speaks well for the deliberate thoroughness of all preparations that, twenty-four hours after the declaration, every one of the nine German garrisons in the kingdom was hemmed in by land and by sea. On the land side the Germans were besieged by more than three million armed men. Almost the whole strength of the British Navy was then concentrated upon the patrolling of our coasts generally, and the blockading of the German-garrisoned ports particularly. Thirty-six hours had not passed when the German battle-ships Hohenzollern and Kaiserin, and the cruisers Elbe and Deutschland, were totally destroyed off Portsmouth and Cardiff respectively; Britain's only loss at that time being the Corfe Castle, almost the smallest among the huge flotilla of armed merchantmen which had been subsidized and fitted out by the Government that year. I believe all the authorities had admitted that, once it was known that our declaration had reached Berlin, the British tactics could not have been excelled for daring, promptitude, and devastating thoroughness. It is true that Masterman, in his well-known History of the War, urges that much loss of life might have been spared at Portsmouth and Devonport "if more deliberate and cautious tactics had been adopted, and the British authorities had been content to achieve their ends a little less hurriedly." But Masterman is well answered by the passage in General Hatfield's Introduction to Low's important work, which tells us that: "The British plan of campaign did not admit of leisurely tactics or great economy. Britain was striking a blow for freedom, for her very life. Failure would have meant no ordinary loss, but mere extinction. The loss of British life in such strongly armed centres as Portsmouth was very great. It was the price demanded by the immediate end of Britain's war policy, which was to bring the enemy to terms without the terrible risks which delay would have represented, for the outlying and comparatively defenceless portions of our own Empire. When the price is measured and analyzed in cold blood, the objective should be as carefully considered. The price may have been high; the result purchased was marvellous. It should be borne in mind, too, that Britain's military arm, while unquestionably long and strong (almost unmanageably so, perhaps), was chiefly composed of what, despite the excellent instructive routine of The Citizens, must, from the technical standpoint, be called raw levies. Yet that great citizen army, by reason of its fine patriotism, was able in less than one hundred hours from the time of the declaration, to defeat, disarm, and extinguish as a fighting force some three hundred thousand of the most perfectly trained troops in the world. That was the immediate objective of Britain's war policy; or, to be exact, the accomplishment of that in one week was our object. It was done in four days; and, notwithstanding the unexpected turn of events afterwards, no military man will ever doubt that the achievement was worth the price paid. It strengthened Britain's hand as nothing else could have strengthened it. It gave us at the outset that unmistakable lead which, in war as in a race, is of incalculable value to its possessors." And, the General might have added, as so many other writers have, that no civilized and thinking men ever went more cheerfully and bravely to their deaths, or earned more gladly the eternal reward of Duty accomplished, than did The Citizens, the "raw levies," with their stiffening of regulars, who fell at Portsmouth and Devonport. They were not perfectly disciplined men, in the professional sense, or one must suppose they would have paid some heed to General Sir Robert Calder's repeated orders to retire. But they were British citizens of as fine a calibre as any Nelson or Wellington knew, and they carried the Sword of Duty that day into the camp of an enemy who, with all his skill, had not learned, till it was written in his blood for survivors to read, that England had awakened from her long sleep. For my part, if retrospective power were mine, I would not raise a finger to rob those stern converts of their glorious end. It is easy to be wise after the event, but no Government could have foretold the cynical policy adopted by Berlin. No one could have guessed that the German Government would have said, in effect, that it was perfectly indifferent to the fate of nearly three hundred thousand of its own loyal subjects and defenders, and that Britain might starve or keep them at her own pleasure. After all, the flower of the German Army was in England, and only a Government to the last degree desperate, unscrupulous, and cynical could have adopted Germany's callous attitude at this juncture. Britain's aim was not at all the annihilation of Germany, but the freeing of her own soil; and it was natural that our Government should have acted on the assumption that this could safely be demanded when we held a great German army captive, by way of hostage. The British aim was a sound one, and it was attained. That it did not bring about the results anticipated was due to no fault in our Government, nor even to any lack of foresight upon their part; but solely to the cynical rapacity of a ruler whose ambition had made him fey, or of a Court so far out of touch with the country which supported it as to have lost its sense of honour. In the meantime, though saddled with a huge army of prisoners, and the poorer by her loss of eighteen thousand gallant citizens, Britain had freed her shores. In an even shorter time than was occupied over the invasion, the yoke of the invader had been torn in sunder, and not one armed enemy was left in England. And for our losses--the shedding of that British blood partook of the nature of a sacrament; it was life-giving. By that fiery jet we were baptized again. England had found herself. Once more His people had been found worthy to bear the Sword of the Lord. Britain that had slept, was wide-eyed and fearless again, as in the glorious days which saw the rise of her Empire. Throughout the land one watchword ran: "For God, our Race, and Duty!" We had heard and answered to the poet's call:
I find it easy to believe and read between the lines of the grim official record which told us that outside Portsmouth "white-haired men smiled over the graves of their sons, and armed youths were heard singing triumphant chants while burying their fathers." Meantime, simple folk in the southern country lanes of Dorset and of Hampshire (Tarn Regis yokels among them, no doubt) heard the dull, rumbling thunder of great guns at sea, and the talk ran on naval warfare. _ |
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