"No, dear, I'm afraid we shan't be at the dance to-night. Poor Herbert has got a touch of allotment feet."
On the Western Front the German soldiers' opinion of "retirement according to plan" may be expressed as "each for himself and the Devil take the Hindenburg." One of them, recently taken prisoner, actually wrote, "When we go to the Front we become the worst criminals." This generous attempt to shield his superiors deserves to be appreciated, but it does not dispel the belief that the worst criminals are still a good way behind the German lines. The inspired German Press has now got to the point of asserting that "there is no Hindenburg line." Well, that implies prophetic sense:
And if a British prophet may
Adopt their graphic present tense,
I would remark--and so forestall
A truth they'll never dare to trench on--
There is no Hindenburg at all,
Or none worth mention.
According to our Watch Dog correspondent, recent movements show that the lawless German "has attained little by his destructiveness save the discomfort of H.Q. Otherwise the War progresses as merrily as ever; more merrily, perhaps, owing to the difficulties to be overcome. Soldiers love difficulties to overcome. That is their business in life." This is the way that young officers write "in the brief interludes snatched from hard fighting and hard fatigues." Their letters "never pretend to be more than the gay and cynical banter of those who bring to the perils of life at the Front an incurable habit of humour, and they are typical of that brave spirit, essentially English, that makes light of the worst that fate can send." That is how one brave officer wrote of the letters of a dead comrade to Punch only a few weeks before his own death.
A BAD DREAM
SPECTRE: "Well, if you don't like the look of me, eat less bread."
The French have taken Craonne; saluting has been abolished in the Russian Army; and Germany has been giving practical proof of her friendliness to Spain by torpedoing her merchant ships. A new star has swum into the Revolutionary firmament, by name Lenin. According to the Swedish Press this interesting anarchist has been missing for two days, and it remains to be seen if he will yet make a hit. Meanwhile the Kaiser is doing his bit in the unfamiliar rôle of pro-Socialist.
Newmarket has become "a blasted heath," all horse-racing having been stopped,'to the great dismay of the Irish members. What are the hundred thousand young men (or is it two?), who refuse to fight for their country, to do? Mr. Lloyd George has produced and expounded his plan for an Irish Convention, at which Erin is to take a turn at her own harp, and the proposal has been favourably received, except by Mr. Ginnell, in whose ears the Convention "sounds the dirge of the Home Rule Act."
HIS LATEST!
THE KAISER: "This is sorry work for a Hohenzollern; still, necessity knows no traditions."
A Garden Glorified
Mr. Bonar Law has brought in a Budget, moved a vote of credit for 500 millions, and apologised for estimating the war expenditure at 5½ millions a day when it turned out to be 7½. The trivial lapse has been handsomely condoned by his predecessor, Mr. McKenna. The Budget debate was held with open doors, but produced a number of speeches much more suitable for the Secret Session which followed, and at which it appears from the Speaker's Report that nothing sensational was revealed.
The House of Commons, unchanged externally, has deteriorated spiritually, to judge by the temper of most of those who have remained behind. It is otherwise with other Institutions, some of which have been ennobled by disfigurement.
I knew a garden green and fair,
Flanking our London river's tide,
And you would think, to breathe its air
And roam its virgin lawns beside,
All shimmering in their velvet fleece,
"Nothing can hurt this haunt of Peace."
No trespass marred that close retreat;
Privileged were the few that went
Pacing its walks with measured beat
On legal contemplation bent;
And Inner Templars used to say:
"How well our garden looks to-day!"
But That which changes all has changed
This guarded pleasaunce, green and fair,
And soldier-ranks therein have ranged
And trod its beauties hard and bare,
Have tramped and tramped its fretted floor,
Learning the discipline of War.
And many a moon of Peace shall climb
Above that mimic field of Mars,
Before the healing touch of Time
With springing green shall hide its scars;
But Inner Templars smile and say:
"Our barrack-square looks well to-day! "
Good was that garden in their eyes,
Lovely its spell of long-ago;
Now waste and mired its glory lies,
And yet they hold it dearer so,
Who see beneath the wounds it bears
A grace no other garden wears.
For still the memory, never sere,
But fresh as after fallen rain,
Of those who learned their lesson here
And may not ever come again,
Gives to this garden, bruised and browned,
A greenness as of hallowed ground.
News comes from Athens that King Constantine is realising his position and contemplates abdication in favour of the Crown Prince George. It is not yet known in whose favour the Crown Prince George will abdicate. In this context the Kölnische Zeitung is worth quoting. "The German people," it says, "will not soon forget what they owe to their future Emperor." This spasm of candour is not confined to the Rhineland. The keenest minds in Germany, says a Berlin correspondent, are now seeking to discover the secret of the Fatherland's world-wide unpopularity. It is this absurd sensitiveness on the part of our cultured opponent that is causing some of her best friends in this country to lose hope.
Genius has been denned as an infinite capacity for taking pains; and if the definition is sound, genius cannot be denied to the painstaking officials who test the physical fitness of recruits--"as in the picture."
The month has witnessed the amendment of the President's much discussed phrase: "Too proud to fight" has now become "Proud to fight too." Another revised version is suggested by Margarine: C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas le beurre. The German Food Controller laments the mysterious disappearance of five million four hundred thousand pigs this year. The idea of having the Crown Prince's baggage searched does not seem to have been found feasible.
OUR PERSEVERING OFFICIALS
Or, the Recruit that was passed at the thirteenth examination.
June, 1917.
Within some eleven weeks of the Declaration of War by the U.S.A., the first American troops have been landed in France. Even the Kaiser has begun to abate his thrasonic tone, declaring that "it is not the Prussian way to praise oneself," and that "it is now a matter of holding out, however long it lasts."
But other events besides the arrival of the Americans have helped to bring about this altered tone. The capture of Messines Ridge, after the biggest bang in history, has given him something to think about. His brother-in-law, Constantine of Greece, has at last thrown up the sponge and abdicated. "Tino's" place of exile is not yet fixed. The odds seem to be on Switzerland, but Mr. Punch recommends Denmark. There is no place like home:
Try some ancestral palace, well appointed;
For choice the one where Hamlet nursed his spite,
Who found the times had grown a bit disjointed
And he was not the man to put 'em right;
And there consult on that enchanted shore
The ghosts of Elsinore.
Brazil has also entered the War, and Germany is now able to shoot in almost any direction without any appreciable risk of hitting a friend.
Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig gave the nation a birthday present on his own birthday, in the shape of a dispatch which is as strong and straight as himself:
Frugal in speech, yet more than once impelled
To utter words of confidence and cheer
Whereat some dismal publicists rebelled
As premature, ill-founded, insincere--
Words none the less triumphantly upheld
By Victory's verdict, resonantly clear,
Words that inspired misgiving in the foe
Because you do not prophesy--you know.
Steadfast and calm, unmoved by blame or praise,
By local checks or Fortune's strange caprices,
You dedicate laborious nights and days
To shattering the Hun machine to pieces;
And howsoe'er at times the battle sways
The Army's trust in your command increases;
Patient in preparation, swift in deed,
We find in you the leader that we need.
A WORD OF ILL OMEN
CROWN PRINCE (to Kaiser, drafting his next speech): "For Gott's sake, father, be careful this time, and don't call the American Army 'contemptible.'"
A new feature of the German armies are the special "storm-troops"; men picked for their youth, vigour, and daring, and fortified by a specially liberal diet for the carrying out of counter-attacks. Even our ordinary British soldiers, who are constantly compelled to take these brave fellows prisoners, bear witness to the ferocity of their appearance.
On our Home Front the Germans have shown considerable activity of late. Daylight air-raids are no longer the monopoly of the South-east coast; they have extended to London. And a weekly paper, conspicuous for the insistence with which it proclaims its superiority to all others, has been asking: If 17 German aeroplanes can visit and bomb London in broad daylight, what is to prevent our enemy from sending 170 or even 1,700? Fortunately the average man and woman pays no heed to this scare-mongering, and goes about his or her business, if not rejoicing, at any rate in the conviction that the Gothas are not going to have it all their own way.
Considering that the "Fort of London" had been drenched with the "ghastly dew" of aerial navies barely three hours before Parliament met on June 13, Members showed themselves uncommon calm. They were at their best a few days earlier in paying homage to Major Willie Redmond. It had been his ambition to be Father of the House: he had been elected thirty-four years ago; but in reality he was the Eternal Boy from the far-off time when it was his nightly delight to "cheek" Mr. Speaker Brand with delightful exuberance until the moment of his glorious death in Flanders, whither he had gone at an age when most of his compeers were content to play the critic in a snug corner of the smoking-room. Personal affection combined with admiration for his gallantry to inspire the speeches in which Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Asquith, and Sir Edward Carson enshrined the most remarkable tribute ever paid to a private Member.
Mr. Balfour has returned safe and sound from his Mission to the States, and received a warm welcome on all sides. Even the ranks of Tuscany, on the Irish benches, could not forbear to cheer their old opponent. Besides securing American gold for his country, he has transferred some American bronze to his complexion. If anything, he appears to have sharpened his natural faculty for skilful evasion and polite repartee by his encounter with Transatlantic journalists. In fact everybody is pleased to see him back except perhaps certain curious members, who find him even more chary of information than his deputy, Lord Robert Cecil. The mystery of Lord Northcliffe's visit to the States has been cleared up. Certain journals, believed to enjoy his confidence, had described him as "Mr. Balfour's successor." Certain other journals, whose confidence he does not enjoy, had declined to believe this. The fact as stated by Mr. Bonar Law is that "it is hoped that Lord Northcliffe will be able to carry on the work begun by Mr. Balfour as head of the British Mission in America. He is expected to co-ordinate and supervise the work of all the Departmental Missions." It has been interesting to learn that his lordship "will have the right of communicating direct with the Prime Minister"--a thing which, of course, he has never done before. Meanwhile, the fact remains that his departure has been hailed with many a dry eye, and that the public seem to be enduring their temporary bereavement with fortitude.
MRS. GREEN TO MRS. JONES (who is gazing at an aeroplane): "My word! I shouldn't care for one of them flying things to settle on me."
Far too much fuss has been made about trying to stop Messrs. Ramsay MacDonald and Jowett from leaving England. So far as we can gather they did not threaten to return to this country afterwards. There is no end to the woes of Pacificists, conscientious or otherwise. The Press campaign against young men of military age engaged in Government offices is causing some of them sleepless days. Even on the stage the "conchy" is not safe.
STAGE MANAGER: "The elephant's putting in a very spirited performance to-night."
CARPENTER. "Yessir. You see, the new hind-legs is a discharged soldier, and the front legs is an out-and-out pacificist."
The King has done a popular act in abolishing the German titles held by members of his family, and Mr. Kennedy Jones has won widespread approval by declaring that beer is a food.
Lord Devonport's retirement from the post of Food Controller has been received with equanimity. There is a touch of imagination, almost of romance, in the appointment of his successor, the redoubtable Lord Rhondda, who as "D.A." was alternately the bogy and idol of the Welsh miners, and who, after being the head of the greatest profit-making enterprise in the Welsh coalfields, is now summoned to carry on war against the profiteers in the provision trade.
In Germany a number of lunatics have been called up for military service, and the annual report of one institution at Stettin states that "the asylums are proud that their inmates are allowed to serve their Fatherland." It appears, however, that the results are not always satisfactory, though no complaints have been heard on our side.
July, 1917.
The War, so Lord Northcliffe has informed the Washington Red Cross Committee, has only just begun. Whether this utterance be regarded as a statement of fact or an explosion of rhetoric, it has at least one merit. The United States cannot but regard it as a happy coincidence that their entry into the War synchronises with the initial operations. The dog-days are always busy times for the Dogs of War, and the last month of the third year opened with the new Russian Offensive under Brusiloff, and closed with the beginning of the Third Battle of Ypres. The War in the air and under the sea rages with unabated intensity, and in both Houses the policy of unmitigated reprisals on German cities has found strenuous advocates. But Lord Derby, our new Minister of War, will have none of it. British aeroplanes shall only be employed in bombing where some distinctly military object is to be achieved. But this decision does not involve any slackness in defensive measures. We have learned how to deal with the Zepp, and now we are going to attend to the Gotha. As for the U-boats, the Admiralty says little but does much. And we are adding to vigilance, valour, and the resources of applied science the further aid of agriculture.
In the old days the Kaiser was once described as "indefatigably changing Chancellors and uniforms." Dr. Bethmann-Hollweg has now gone the way of his greater predecessors--Bismarck and Caprivi, Prince Hohenlohe and Prince Bülow.
THE TUBER'S REPARTEE
GERMAN PIRATE; "Gott strafe England!"
BRITISH POTATO: "Tuber über Alles!"
The Princes and the Peers depart, and the Doctors are following suit. Bethmann-Hollweg, immortalised by one fatal phrase, has been at last hunted from office by the extremists whom he sought to restrain, and Dr. Michaelis, a second-rate administrator, of negligible antecedents, succeeds to his uneasy chair, while the Kaiser maintains his pose as the friend of the people. He has congratulated his Bayreuth Dragoons on their prowess, which has given joy "to old Fritz up in Elysian fields":
Perhaps; but what if he is down below?
In any case, what we should like to know
Is how his modern namesake, Private Fritz,
Enjoys the fun of being blown to bits
Because his Emperor has lost his wits.
