TOPICS OF THE DAY.
FAIRLY WELL—SO FAR.
WE are not going to begin shouting before we are out of the wood. We say this out of no foolish superstition that it is unlucky to do so, but for the very plain and good reason that we are not out of the wood, though we admit that during the week things have gone fairly well, and that the prospects look somewhat brighter. But even so our success may well turn out to be temporary. Indeed, we might almost say that in one sense it is certain to prove temporary, because a campaign with fairly equal forces such as are now arrayed against each other is bound to sway backwards and forwards. All that we have a right to hope for is that on the balance of, say, two months the swaying in the western theatre of the war will prove to be slightly in our favour. If it does, then things will be well with us. If it does not, and the balance goes the other way, it is quite as true that all will not be lost. Instead, the very worst we shall endure then will be that the war will be prolonged, and that we shall have to fall back, as it were, upon our friend Time, who, whether in victory or defeat, remains always on the side of the Allies.
The essential thing to remember, assuming that our successes should turn out to be substantial, which of course they are not at present, is that even if the German advance is at first stayed, and then to some extent rolled back, we shall need quite as much as ever every man that can possibly be obtained to reinforce the British Army. If we were to clear France of the German troops by the end of September—a most unlikely hypothesis, we admit—we should still want, as we have always insisted, to train not half a million but a million men. Even if foiled in her attempt to invade France, even if deprived of any help from her Austrian ally by Russian successes in the eastern theatre of the war, Germany would be a most formidable foe. Fighting to defend her own territories with some six million men under arms, she would not be overcome without the most terrific efforts on our part, and without losses which would make our armies wither as the meadows have been withering under the September sun. At the very best we are going to prove the absolute truth of the military aphorism that though the Navy can protect our shores, only an Army, and a great Army and a well-trained Army, can bring a war to an end and free us from the awful disaster of prolonged hostilities. But we have not got a great and a well- trained Army, and before us lies the colossal task of making one. And here we -would beg our daily contemporaries not to put impediments in the way of raising that Army by enthusiastic headlines about "A Boom in Recruiting," and so forth. There is no boom in recruiting. It is true that a great number of very gallant, patriotic, and self-sacrificing young men have come forward in answer to the country's call. They individually are no doubt splendid, but to say that is a very different thing from saying that the response from the country as a whole has been splendid. The Government hitherto have only asked for one man in every hundred of the population, and that tiny contingent has not yet been made good. It is true, again, that many small communities and some big have given us five or six times their quotas ; but this fact, good as it is, only shows how very great the hanging back must have been in some parts of the country. Instead of relapsing into a state of fatuous self-complacency over the glorious response of the nation, what we ought to do is to fix our eyes on the places that are not making an adequate response, and try to make them understand what must be the nation's peril if we cannot get the men, and get them quickly, so that they may be trained while there is yet time. We must not teach the nation to pat itself on the back and talk bunkum to itself, but rather make it
spe and feel that even when towns and shires have given
nine or ten times their quota they must still regard them- selves as unprofitable servants. This is the spirit in which we may yet conquer. To indulge in cheap rhetoric about " our noble selves " is not a sign of victory. Once more, if we are to end the war with safety and with honour the Allies have got to beat the strongest mili- tary nation in the world, fighting with its back to the wall, and therefore not merely capable of heroic deeds, but compelled to heroic deeds by the tremendous force of despair. The great military caste in Germany will lay much of the world waste before it gives in, for it knows that it is a case of all or nothing. Unless it can win it will be wiped out. Therefore it will fight as perhaps no body of men has ever fought before. The grim deter- mination of the Prussian military clan, supported as it will be by the splendid national patriotism of the German nation—for the Germans will not desert their rulers in their agony—is a great fighting asset, and it may take many sacrifices, much blood, and much treasure to overcome it.
We have dwelt upon the German assets first. We may now dwell upon those that tell in our favour. The first of these assets is time ; but that there is no need to discuss.
The second is the Fleet ; but this again calls for little com- ment, unless it is to point out that, if we could only get the great sea action over and destroy the German Navy, and so set our ships free, they might do a very great deal that they cannot do while the German Fleet remains in being. The chief asset that we have for shortening the war remains the character of our Army. It is small, but it has something better even than numbers, though numbers are important a perfect moral, a moral which can stand temporary defeat, and, what is still more difficult, stand the strain of a long-drawn retreat without the slightest loss of heart. In peace time we had most of us got a little tired of the conventional saying about Englishmen not knowing when they are beaten. We see now that the convention was a truth, and we recognize its incomparable value. If our generals, our officers, or our men had known that they were beaten in their five days of rearguard actions, not only would they never have been able to extricate themselves from the terrible position in which they were placed, but even if fate had helped them to escape they would have ceased to be fighting units. As it was, when they took the offensive last Sunday after a couple of days' rest, they were in quite as good heart and quite as efficient as, or rather in better heart and more efficient than, when they advanced at Mons on the first day of their share in the war. They were quite unaware that they had been beaten. The attitude, indeed, of the rank-and-file seems to have been one of nothing but grumbling criticism and disappointment. The privates appear to have thought that owing to some piece of mere military pedantry they had been forced to withdraw when they had much better have been attacking, and they are probably at this moment, now that they are moving forward and gaining a certain success, temporary or the reverse as time will show, telling each other how this "proves" how much better their plan of pushing on would have been if it had been pursued from the beginning and they had not been "messed about" day after day in silly rearguard actions. As a matter of fact, of course, the falling-back policy was absolutely necessary. If it had not been carried out, and carried out promptly, nothing could have saved the Army. As it was, indeed, the main body of our troops was only preserved from encirclement by the splendid tenacity shown by General Smith-Dorrien and the men under him. But though General Smith-Dorrien deserves all the praise he can get from us, and does get from General French, we must not forget what we also owe to the Commander-in-Chief of the forces in the field. General French had to ask General Smith-Dorrien to per- form a miracle, and he asked him to do so with the quiet confidence that it would be performed—as it was. To give such orders as he gave and to risk all on their performance requires a steadiness of nerve and a moral courage which are beyond all praise. The great-heartedness, the valour, the sense of duty in the Expeditionary Force are our greatest asset. That force has saved itself by its own exertions, and will save France by its example. We do not by this mean to suggest that the French troops have fought any- thing but supremely well, nor do we wish for one moment to snatch from them any part of their well-earned laurels. Still, they will, we believe, be the first to admit that the fate of war forced upon our troops a specially arduous task, and that the task was performed to the admiration of every French soldier. It is a commonplace that the French are better at attack than retreat. When they are next called upon to fall back, as may very well happen, we feel sure that every French soldier will be determined to show that he and his comrades can retreat as well as " les Tommies."
Our next asset is the spirit of the people at home. The men at the front are good, but, as an English racing man might say, " We've got some young ones in training at home that seem pretty fair." Indeed. we have. We are beginning to see in the newspapers and in Parliament complaints, very likely well founded in particular instances, as to the discomforts which have to be endured by men and officers and all concerned owing to the sudden rush of recruits. We are told that the men do not get their money as quickly as they ought, that they have to sleep in crowded barracks, and that already they are being attacked in their beds by the light troops of war. Very possibly ; but that is the price which we are bound to pay for not remembering in peace time to make preparations. In any case, we trust our readers will not imagine that these complaints will have the least effect in stopping the flow of recruits. A visit to any barracks where recruits are being sworn in will soon dissipate idle fears as to the men resenting the inconveniences, or, if you will, hardships, to which we have just alluded. They are out for hardships, and are not going to bother about a few flea-bites. That the young ones will soon be shaped into good soldiers is obvious to any one who knows anything of military training. The men are burning to get out to the front, and they know they cannot go there until they are trained. Therefore there is a general determination to get over the preliminaries which will make them efficient in quite half the time or less that is usually taken by recruits. A proof of this is to be found in the way in which the Territorial units are being turned into efficient soldiers. It was the good fortune of the present writer to ride with some details of a London Territorial regiment on Tuesday just as they were reaching the end of a fifteen-mile tramp on a tarred main road grown sticky in the blazing sun. Yet the men showed no sign whatever of distress. Their physique was as excellent as their discipline, and their officers were evidently able to look upon such things as attending to their men in a bivouac as something quite normal, and not a matter for doubt, hesitation, and anxiety. Last of our assets, but not least, is the aid that is being furnished by the Empire. The Canadians will soon be here, and following closely upon their heels will be the New Zealanders and the Australians. They will come not in one batch, but, if necessary, in a continuous stream. Look, too, at the splendid response to the call made by India. We looked for some forty thousand men, and are getting seventy thousand. India is not merely sending help, but sending the best kind of help in the best kind of way. All classes in our great Asiatic Empire are taking an intense pride and interest in their contribution, and the native feudatory Princes of India are coming to serve with their troops. People have said that the coming of the Indian contingent is the most picturesque thing that has ever happened in history. It is something a great deal more than that. It is a proof that at the back of their minds the Indian peoples know that we are in India as trustees and not as tyrants or pillagers. The help that India is giving us to-day would have been impossible had our rule been what the Germans have declared it to be, or what the natives of India have sometimes pretended it to be. If we were really nothing but big callous bullies, would the bullied want to bring us aid
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