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The Message, a novel by Alec John Dawson |
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Part 2. The Awakening - Chapter 15. "Single Heart And Single Sword" |
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_ PART II. THE AWAKENING CHAPTER XV. "SINGLE HEART AND SINGLE SWORD"
The learned German, Professor Elberfeld, has told the world, in sentences of portentous length and complication, that "the petty trader's instincts which form the most typical characteristic of the British race" came notably to the fore in our treatment of the German prisoners of war who were held under military surveillance in the British ports which they had garrisoned. The learned professor notes with bitter contempt that no wines, spirits, cigars, or "other customary delicacies" were supplied to our prisoners, and that the German officers received very little more than the rations served to their men. The professor makes no mention of one or two other pertinent facts in this connection; as, for example, that none of these "customary delicacies" were supplied to the British troops. We may endure his reproaches with the more fortitude, I think, when we remember that the German Government absolutely ignored our invitation to send weekly shipments of supplies under a white flag for the towns they had garrisoned on British soil. It is known that the officers in command of the German forces in England had previously maintained a very lavish and luxurious scale of living; in the same way that, since the invasion of England, extravagance was said to have reached unparallelled heights in Germany itself. But the British Government which had reached depletion of our own supplies, by assisting our prisoners to maintain a luxurious scale of living while held as hostages, would certainly have forfeited the confidence of the public, and justly so. Upon the whole, it is safe to say that German sneers at British parsimony and Puritanism may fairly be accepted as tribute, and, as such, need in no sense be resented. As soon as we received Germany's cynical reply to Britain's demand for a complete withdrawal of all the invasion claims, it became evident that the war was to be a prolonged and bitter one, and that no further purpose could be served by the original British plan of campaign, which, as its object had been the freeing of our own soil, had been based on the assumption that the defeat and capture of the invader's forces would be sufficient. Troops had to be despatched at once to South Africa, where German overlordship had aroused the combined opposition of the Boers and the British. This opposition burst at once into open hostility immediately the news of England's declaration of war reached South Africa. While the Boers and the British, united in a common cause, were carrying war into German Southwest Africa, troops from German East Africa were said to have landed in Delagoa Bay, and to be advancing southward. In all this, the British cause was well served by Germany's initial blunder; by the huge mistake which cost her four-fifths of her naval strength at a blow. This mistake in Germany's policy was distinctly traceable to one cause: the national arrogance which, since the invasion, had approached near to madness; which had now led Germany into contemptuously underrating the striking power still remaining in the British Navy. It was true that, prior to the invasion, our Navy had been consistently starved and impoverished by "The Destroyers." It was that, of course, which had first earned them their title. But Germany herself, when she struck her great blow at England, hardly wounded the British Navy at all. Her cunning had drawn our ships into a Mediterranean impasse when they were sadly needed upon our coasts, and her strategy had actually destroyed one British line of battle-ship, one cruiser, and two gunboats. But that was the whole extent of the naval damage inflicted by her at the time of the invasion. But the lesson she gave at the same time was of incalculable value to us. The ships she destroyed had been manned by practically untrained, short-handed crews, hurriedly rushed out of Portsmouth barracks. Yet German arrogance positively inspired Berlin with the impression that the Navies of the two countries had tried conclusions, and that our fleet had been proved practically ineffective. Prior to the invasion our Navy had indeed reached a low ebb. Living always in barracks, under the pernicious system gradually forced upon the country by "The Destroyers" in the name of economy, our bluejackets had fallen steadily from their one high standard of discipline and efficiency into an incompetent, sullen, half-mutinous state, due solely to the criminal parsimony and destructive neglect of an Administration which aimed at "peace at any price," and adopted, of all means, the measures most calculated to provoke foreign attack. But, since the invasion, an indescribable spirit of emulation, a veritable fury of endeavour, had welded the British fleet into a formidable state of efficiency. First "The Destroyers," actuated by a combination of panic and remorse, and then the first Free Government, representing the convinced feeling of the public, had lavished liberality upon the Navy since the invasion. Increased pay, newly awakened patriotism, the general change in the spirit of the age, all had combined to fill the Admiralty recruiting offices with applicants. Almost all our ships had been kept practically continuously at sea. "The Destroyers'" murderous policy in naval matters had been completely reversed, and our fleet was served by a great flotilla of magnificently armed leviathans of the Mercantile Marine, including two of the fastest steamships in the world, all subsidized by Government. We know now that exact official records of these facts were filed in the Intelligence Department at Berlin. But German arrogance prohibited their right comprehension, and Britain's declaration of war was instantly followed by an Imperial order which, in effect, divided the available strength of the German Navy into eight fleets, and despatched these to eight of the nine British ports garrisoned by German troops, with orders of almost childish simplicity. These ports were to be taken, and British insurrection crushed, ashore and afloat. If the German Navy had been free of its Imperial Commander-in-Chief, and of the insensate arrogance of his entourage, it could have struck a terrible blow at the British Empire, while almost the whole fighting strength of our Navy was concentrated upon the defence of England. As it was, this fine opportunity was flung aside, and with it the greater part of Germany's fleet. Divided into eight small squadrons, their ships were at the mercy of our concentrated striking force. Our men fell upon them with a Berserker fury born of humiliation silently endured, and followed by eight or nine months of the finest sort of sea-training which could possibly be devised. The few crippled ships of the German fleet which survived those terrible North Sea and Channel engagements must have borne with them into their home waters a bitter lesson to the ruler whom they left, so far as effective striking power was concerned, without a Navy. Here, again, critics have said that our tactics showed an extravagant disregard of cost, both as to men and material. But here also the hostile critics overlook various vital considerations. The destruction of Germany's sea-striking power at this juncture was worth literally anything that Britain could give; not perhaps in England's immediate interest, but in the interests of the Empire, without which England would occupy but a very insignificant place among the powers of civilization. Then, too, the moral of our bluejackets has to be considered. Since the invasion and the sinking of the Dreadnought, ours had become a Navy of Berserkers. The Duty teaching, coming after the invasion, made running fire of our men's blood. They fought their ships as Nelson's men fought theirs, and with the same invincible success. It was said the Terrible's men positively courted the penalty of mutiny in time of war by refusing to turn in, in watches, after forty-two hours of continuous fighting. There remained work to be done, and the "Terribles" refused to leave it undone. The commander who had lessened the weight of the blow struck by Britain's Navy, in the interests of prudence or economy, would have shown himself blind to the significance of the new spirit with which England's awakening had endowed her sons; the stern spirit of the twentieth-century faith which gave us for watchword, "For God, our Race, and Duty!" With the major portion of our Navy still in fighting trim, and twenty-five-knot liners speeding southward laden with British troops, it speedily became evident that Germany's chance of landing further troops in South Africa was hardly worth serious consideration, now that her naval power was gone. On the other hand, it was known that the enemy had already massed great bodies of troops in East and Southwest Africa, and it became the immediate business of the British Admiralty to see that German oversea communications should be cut off. Further, we had to face ominous news of German preparations for aggression in the Pacific and in the near East, with persistent rumours of a hurriedly aggressive alliance with Russia for action in the Far East. The attitude of Berlin itself was amazingly cynical, as it had been from the very time of the unprovoked invasion of our shores. In effect, the Kaiser said: "You hold a German Army as prisoners of war, and you have destroyed my Navy; but you dare not invade my territory, and I defy you to hit upon any other means of enforcing your demands. You can do nothing further." The British demands, made directly the German troops in England were in our hands, were, briefly, for the complete withdrawal of the whole of claims enforced by Germany at the time of the invasion. That, then, was the position when I returned to our London headquarters from a journey I had undertaken for my chief in connection with the work of drafting large numbers of Citizens back from the camps into private life. Various questions had to be placed in writing before every Citizen as to his attitude in the matter of possible future calls made upon his services. I had only heard of seven cases of men physically fit failing to express perfect readiness to respond to any future call for active service at home or abroad, in case of British need. Here was a shield of which I knew both sides well. The thing impressed me more than I can tell, or most folk would understand nowadays. I knew so well how the god of business (which served to cover all individual pursuit of money or pleasure) would have been invoked to prove the utter impracticability of this--one short year before. I looked back toward my Fleet Street days, and I thanked God for the awakening of England, which had included my own awakening. My return to London was a matter of considerable personal interest to me, for Constance Grey was there, having been recalled by John Crondall from her active superintendence of nursing at Portsmouth. _ |
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