Britain's Unsheathed Sword
By H.H. Asquith, England's Prime Minister
Stating the estimated costs of the war to Great Britain, outlining the operations of the French and British allied fleets in the Dardanelles, declaring the Allies' position in retaliation for the German "war zone" decree against Great Britain, and reaffirming the chief terms of peace, stated in his Guildhall speech of last November, on which alone England would consent to sheathe the sword, the following speech, delivered in the House of Commons on March 1, 1915, by Prime Minister Asquith, is one of the most important of the war.
In Committee of Supply.
Mr. Asquith, who was loudly cheered on rising, moved the supplementary vote of credit of £37,000,000 to meet the expenditure on naval and military operations and other expenditure arising out of the war during the year 1914-1915. He said:
The first of the two votes which appear upon the paper, the one which has just been read out, provides only for the financial year now expiring, and is a supplementary vote of credit. The vote that follows is a vote of credit for the financial year 1915-1916. I think it will probably be convenient if in submitting the first vote to the committee I make a general statement covering the whole matter. I may remind the committee that on Aug. 6 last year the House voted £100,000,000 in the first vote of credit, and that on Nov. 15 the House passed a supplementary vote of credit for £225,000,000, thus sanctioning total votes of credit for the now expiring financial year of £325,000,000. It has been found that this amount will not suffice for the expenditure which will have been incurred up to March 31, and we are therefore asking for a further vote of £37,000,000 to carry on the public service to that date. If the committee assents to our proposals it will raise the total amount granted by votes of credit for the year 1914-1915 to £362,000,000. I need not say anything as to the purposes for which this vote is required. They are the same as upon the last occasion. But I ought to draw attention to one feature in which the supplementary vote, which comes first, differs from the vote to be subsequently proposed for the services of the year 1915-1916. At the outbreak of the war the ordinary supply on a peace basis had been voted by the House, and consequently the votes of credit for the now current financial year, like those on all previous occasions, were to be taken in order to provide the amounts necessary for naval and military operations in addition to the ordinary grants of Parliament. It consequently follows that the expenditure charged, or chargeable, to votes of credit for this financial year represent, broadly speaking, the difference between the expenditure of the country on a peace footing and that expenditure upon a war footing. The total on that basis, if this supplementary vote is assented to, will be £362,000,000.
For reasons the validity of which the committee has recognized on previous occasions, I do not think it desirable to give the precise details of the items which make up the total, but without entering into that I may roughly apportion the expenditure. For the army and the navy, according to best estimates which can at present be framed, out of the total given there will be required approximately £275,000,000. That is in addition, as I have already pointed out, to the sum voted before the war for the army and the navy, which amounted in the aggregate to a little over £80,000,000. That leaves unaccounted for a balance of £87,000,000, of which approximately £38,000,000 represents advances for war expenditure made, or being made, to the self-governing dominions, Crown colonies, and protectorates, as explained in the Treasury minute last November, under which his Majesty's Government have undertaken to raise the loans required by the dominions to meet the heavy expenditure entailed upon them on the credit of the imperial exchequer. In addition to that sum of £38,000,000 there has been an advance to Belgium of £10,000,000, and to Serbia of £800,000. Further advances to these allies are under consideration, the details of which it is not possible yet to make public. The balance of, roughly, £28,000,000 is required for miscellaneous services covered by the vote of credit which have not yet been separately specified.
I think the committee will be interested to know what the actual cost of the war will have been to this country as far as we can estimate on March 31, the close of the financial year. The war will then have lasted for 240 days and the votes of credit up to that time, assuming this vote is carried, will amount to £362,000,000. It may be said, speaking generally, that the average expenditure from votes of credit will have been, roughly, £1,500,000 per day throughout the time. That, of course, is the excess due to the war over the expenditure on a peace footing. That represents the immediate charge to the taxpayers of this country for this year. But, as the committee knows, a portion of the expenditure consists of advances for the purpose of assisting or securing the food supplies of this country and will be recoverable in whole, or to a very large extent, in the near future. A further portion represents advances to the dominions and to other States which will be ultimately repaid. If these items are excluded from the account the average expenditure per day of the war is slightly lower, but after making full allowance for all the items which are in the nature of recoverable loans, the daily expenditure does not work out at less than £1,200,000.
These figures are averages taken over the whole period from the outbreak of the war, but at the outbreak of the war, after the initial expenditure on mobilization had been incurred, the daily expenditure was considerably below the average, as many charges had not yet matured. The expenditure has risen steadily and is now well over the daily average that I have given. To that figure must be added, in order to give a complete account of the matter, something for war services other than naval or military. At the beginning of the year these charges are not likely to be very considerable, but it will probably be within the mark to say that from April I we shall be spending over £1,700,000 a day above the normal, in consequence of the war.
Perhaps now I may say something which is not strictly in order on this vote, but concerns the vote of credit for the ensuing year, which amounts, as appears on the paper, to £250,000,000. The committee will at once observe an obvious distinction between the votes of credit taken for the current financial year and that which we propose to take for the ensuing year. As I have already pointed out, at the outbreak of war the ordinary supply of the year had been granted by the House, and accordingly the votes of credit for 1914-1915 were for the amounts required beyond the ordinary grants of Parliament for the cost of military and naval operations. When we came to frame the estimates for the ensuing year, 1915-1916, the Treasury was confronted with the difficulty, which amounted to an impossibility, of presenting to Parliament estimates in the customary form for navy and army expenditure, apart from the cost of the war. All the material circumstances have been set out in the Treasury minute of Feb. 5, and in principle have been approved by the House. As the committee will remember, the total of the estimates which we have presented for the army and the navy amount to only £15,000 for the army and £17,000 for the navy, and the remainder of the cost of both these services will be provided for out of votes of credit, and the vote of credit now being proposed provides for general army and navy service in as far as specific provision is not made for them in the small estimates already presented. This vote of credit, therefore, has two features which I believe are quite unique, and without precedent. In the first place, it is the largest single vote on record in the annals of this House, and, secondly, as I have said, it provides for the ordinary as well as for the emergency expenditure of the army and the navy. The House may ask on what principle or basis has this sum of £250,000,000 been arrived at. Of course it is difficult, and indeed impossible, to give any exact estimate, but as regards the period, so far as we can forecast it, for which this vote is being taken, it has been thought advisable to take a sum sufficient, so far as we can judge, to provide for all the expenditure which will come in course of payment up to approximately the second week in July—that is to say, a little over three months, or something like 100 days of war expenditure.
As regards the daily rate of expenditure—I have dealt hitherto with the expenditure up to March 31—the War Office calculates that from the beginning of April, 1915, the total expenditure on army services will be at the rate of £1,500,000 per day, with a tendency to increase. The total expenditure on the navy at the commencement of April will, it is calculated, amount to about £400,000 per day. The aggregate expenditure on the army and the navy services at the beginning of 1915-1916 is therefore £1,900,000 per day, with a tendency to increase, and for the purpose of our estimate the figure we have taken is a level £2,000,000 a day. On a peace footing the daily expenditure upon the army and the navy on the basis of the estimates approved last year was about £220,000 per day. So that the difference between £2,000,000 and £220,000 represents what we estimate to be the increased expenditure due to the war during the 100 days for which we are now providing.
There are other items belonging to the same category as those to which I have already referred in dealing with the supplementary vote with regard to advances to our own dominions and other States for which provision has also had to be made, and the balance of the total of £250,000,000 for which we are now asking, beyond the actual estimated expenditure for the army and the navy, will be applied to those and kindred or emergency purposes. Before I pass from the purely monetary aspect of the matter, it may be interesting to the committee to be reminded of what has been our expenditure upon the great wars of the past. In the great war which lasted for over twenty years, from 1793 to 1815, the total cost as estimated by the best authorities was £831,000,000. The Crimean war may be put down, taking everything into account, at £70,000,000. The total cost of the war charges in South Africa from 1899 to March 31, 1903, was estimated in a return presented to Parliament at £211,000,000. In presenting these two votes of credit the Government are making a large pecuniary demand on the House, a demand which in itself and beyond comparison is larger than has ever been made in the House of Commons by any British Minister in the whole course of our history.
We make it with the full conviction that after seven months of war the country and the whole empire are every whit as determined as they were at the outset [cheers] if need be at the cost of all we can command both in men and in money to bring a righteous cause to a triumphant issue. [Cheers.] There is much to encourage and to stimulate us in what we see. Nothing has shaken and nothing can shake our faith in the unbroken spirit of Belgium, [cheers,] in the undefeated heroism of indomitable Serbia, in the tenacity and resource with which our two great allies, one in the west and the other in the east, hold their far-flung lines and will continue to hold them till the hour comes for an irresistible advance. [Cheers.] Our own dominions and our great dependency of India have sent us splendid contributions of men, a large number of whom already are at the front, and before very long, in one or another of the actual theatres of war, the whole of them will be in the fighting line. [Cheers.] We hear today with great gratification that the Princess Patricia's Canadian regiment has been doing, during these last few days, most gallant and efficient service. [Cheers.]
We have no reason to be otherwise than satisfied with the progress of recruiting here at home. [Cheers.] The territorial divisions now fully trained are capable—I say it advisedly—of confronting any troops in the world, [cheers,] and the new armies, which have lately been under the critical scrutiny of skilled observers, are fast realizing all our most sanguine hopes. A war carried on upon this gigantic scale and under conditions for which there is no example in history is not always or every day a picturesque or spectacular affair. Its operations are of necessity in appearance slow and dragging. Without entering into strategic details, I can assure the committee that with all the knowledge and experience which we have now gained, his Majesty's Government have never been more confident than they are today in the power as well as the will of the Allies to achieve ultimate and durable victory. [Cheers.] I will not enter in further detail to what I may call the general military situation, but I should like to call the attention of the committee for a few moments to one or two aspects of the war which of late have come prominently into view.
I will refer first to the operations which are now in progress in the Dardanelles. [Cheers.] It is a good rule in war to concentrate your forces on the main theatre and not to dissipate them in disconnected and sporadic adventures, however promising they may appear to be. That consideration, I need hardly say, has not been lost sight of in the councils of the Allies. There has been and there will be no denudation or impairment of the forces which are at work in Flanders, and both the French and ourselves will continue to give them the fullest, and we believe the most effective, support. Nor, what is equally important, has there for the purpose of these operations been any weakening of the grand fleet. [Cheers.] The enterprise which is now going on, and so far has gone on in a manner which reflects, as I think the House will agree, the highest credit on all concerned, was carefully considered and conceived with very distinct and definite objects—political, strategic, and economical. Some of these objects are so obvious as not to need statement and others are of such a character that it is perhaps better for the moment not to state them. [Laughter and cheers.] But I should like to advert for a moment, without any attempt to forecast the future, to two features in this matter. The first is, that it once more indicates and illustrates the close co-operation of the Allies—in this case the French and ourselves—in the new theatre and under somewhat dissimilar conditions to those which have hitherto prevailed, and to acknowledge what I am sure the House of Commons will be most ready to acknowledge, that the splendid contingent from the French Navy that our allies have supplied [cheers] is sharing to the full both the hazards and the glory of the enterprise. [Cheers.] The other point on which I think it is worth while to dwell for a moment is that this operation shows in a very significant way the copiousness and the variety of our naval resources. [Cheers.] In order to illustrate that remark, take the names of the ships which have actually been mentioned in the published dispatches. The Queen Elizabeth, [cheers,] the first ship to be commissioned of the newest type of what are called superdreadnoughts, with guns of power and range never hitherto known in naval warfare. [Cheers.] Side by side with her is the Agamemnon, the immediate predecessor of the dreadnought, and in association with them the Triumph, the Cornwallis, the Irresistible, the Vengeance, and the Albion—representing, I think I am right in saying, three or four different types of the older predreadnought battleship which have been so foolishly and so prematurely regarded in some quarters as obsolete or negligible—all bringing to bear the power of their formidable twelve-inch guns on the fortifications, with magnificent accuracy and with deadly effects. [Cheers.] When, as I have said, these proceedings are being conducted, so far as the navy is concerned, without subtraction of any sort or kind from the strength and effectiveness of the grand fleet, I think a word of congratulation is due to the Admiralty for the way in which it has utilized all its resources. [Cheers.]
I pass from that to another new factor in these military and naval operations—the so-called German "blockade" of our coasts. [Cheers.] I shall have to use some very plain language. [Cheers.] I may, perhaps, preface what I have to say by the observation that it does not come upon us as a surprise. [Cheers.] This war began on the part of Germany with the cynical repudiation [cheers] of a solemn treaty on the avowed grounds that when a nation's interests required it, right and good faith must give way to force. ["Hear, hear!">[ The war has been carried on, therefore, with a systematic—not an impulsive or a casual—but a systematic violation of all the conventions and practices by which international agreements had sought to mitigate and to regularize the clash of arms. [Cheers.] She has now, I will not say reached a climax, for we do not know what may yet be to come, but she has taken a further step without any precedent in history by mobilizing and organizing not upon the surface but under the surface of the sea a campaign of piracy and pillage. [Prolonged cheers.]
Are we—can we—here I address myself to the neutral countries of the world—are we to or can we sit quiet as though we were still under the protection of the restraining rules and the humanizing usages of civilized warfare? [Cheers.] We think we cannot. [Cheers.] The enemy, borrowing what I may, perhaps, for this purpose call a neutral flag from the vocabulary of diplomacy, describe these newly adopted measures by a grotesque and puerile perversion of language as a "blockade." [Laughter.] What is a blockade? A blockade consists in sealing up the war ports of a belligerent against sea-borne traffic by encircling their coasts with an impenetrable ring of ships of war. [Cheers.]
Where are these ships of war? [Cheers.] Where is the German Navy? [Cheers.] What has become of those gigantic battleships and cruisers on which so many millions of money have been spent and in which such vast hopes and ambitions have been invested? I think, if my memory serves me, they have only twice during the course of these seven months been seen upon the open sea. Their object in both cases was the same—murder, [cheers,] civilian outrage, and wholesale destruction of property in undefended seaside towns, and on each occasion when they caught sight of the approach of a British force they showed a clean pair of heels, and they hurried back at the top of their speed to the safe seclusion of their mine fields and their closely guarded forts.
Lord R. CECIL—Not all. [Laughter.]
Mr. ASQUITH—No; some had misadventures on the way. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] The plain truth is—the German fleet is not blockading, cannot blockade, and never will blockade our coasts.
I propose now to read to the committee the statement which has been prepared by his Majesty's Government and which will be public property tomorrow. It declares, I hope in sufficiently plain and unmistakable terms, the view which we take, not only of our rights, but of our duty. [Cheers.]
Germany has declared that the English Channel, the north and west coasts of France, and the waters around the British Isles are a "war area" and has officially notified that all enemy ships found in that area will be destroyed and that neutral vessels may be exposed to danger. This is, in effect, a claim to torpedo at sight, without regard to the safety of crew or passengers, any merchant vessel under any flag. As it is not in the power of the German Admiralty to maintain any surface craft in these waters, the attack can only be delivered by submarine agency. The law and custom of nations in regard to attacks on commerce have always presumed that the first duty of the captor of a merchant vessel is to bring it before a prize court, where it may be tried, and where the regularity of the capture may be challenged, and where neutrals may recover their cargoes. The sinking of prizes is in itself a questionable act, to be resorted to only in extraordinary circumstances and after provision has been made for the safety of all the crew or passengers—if there are passengers on board. The responsibility for discriminating between neutral and enemy vessels, and between neutral and enemy cargo, obviously rests with the attacking ship, whose duty it is to verify the status and character of the vessel and cargo and to preserve all papers before sinking or even capturing the ship. So, also, is the humane duty to provide for the safety of the crews of merchant vessels, whether neutral or enemy, an obligation on every belligerent. It is on this basis that all previous discussions of the law for regulating warfare at sea have proceeded.
The German submarine fulfills none of these obligations. She enjoys no local command of the waters in which she operates. She does not take her captures within the jurisdiction of a prize court; she carries no prize crew which she can put on board the prize she seizes. She uses no effective means of discriminating between a neutral and an enemy vessel; she does not receive on board, for safety, the crew of the vessel she sinks. Her methods of warfare are, therefore, entirely outside the scope of any of the international instruments regulating operations against commerce in time of war. The German declaration substitutes indiscriminate destruction for regulated capture. [Cheers.] Germany is adopting these methods against peaceful traders and non-combatant crews with the avowed object of preventing commodities of all kinds, including food for the civil population, from reaching or leaving the British Isles and Northern France.
Her opponents are therefore driven to frame retaliatory measures [loud cheers] in order, in their turn, to prevent commodities of any kind [loud cheers] from reaching or leaving the German Empire. [Renewed cheers.] These measures will, however, be enforced by the British and French Governments, without risk to neutral ships or to neutral or non-combatant lives, and with strict observance of the dictates of humanity. The British and French Governments will therefore hold themselves free to detain and take into port ships carrying goods of presumed enemy destination, ownership, or origin. It is not intended to confiscate such vessels or cargoes unless they would be otherwise liable to confiscation. Vessels with cargoes which have sailed before this date will not be affected. [Loud cheers.]
That, Sir, is our reply. [Cheers.] I may say, before I comment upon it, that the suggestion which I see is put forward from a German quarter that we have rejected some proposal or suggestion made to the two powers by the United States Government—I will not say anything more than that it is quite untrue. On the contrary, all we have said to the United States Government is that we are taking it into careful consideration in consultation with our allies.
Now the committee will have observed that in the statement which I have just read of the retaliatory measures we propose to adopt, the words "blockade" and "contraband" and other technical terms of international law do not occur. And advisedly so. In dealing with an opponent who has openly repudiated all the principles both of law and of humanity we are not going to allow our efforts to be strangled in a network of juridical niceties. [Cheers.] We do not intend to put into operation any measures which we do not think to be effective, [cheers,] and I need not say we shall carefully avoid any measure which would violate the rules either of humanity or of honesty. But, subject to those two conditions, I say not only to our enemy, but I say it on behalf of the Government, and I hope on behalf of the House of Commons, that under existing conditions there is no form of economic pressure to which we do not consider ourselves entitled to resort. [Loud cheers.] If, as a consequence, neutrals suffer inconvenience and loss of trade, we regret it, but we beg them to remember that this phase of the war was not initiated by us. [Cheers.] We do not propose either to assassinate their seamen or to destroy their goods. What we are doing we do solely in self-defense.
If, again, as is possible, hardship is caused to the civil and non-combatant population of the enemy by the cutting off of supplies, we are not doing more in this respect than was done in the days when Germany still acknowledged the authority of the law of nations sanctioned by the first and the greatest of her Chancellors, and as practiced by the expressed declaration of his successor. We are quite prepared to submit to the arbitrament of neutral opinion in this war in the circumstances in which we have been placed. We have been moderate and restrained, and we have abstained from things which we were provoked and tempted to do, and we have adopted the policy which recommends itself to reason, common sense, and to justice.
This new aspect of the war only serves to illustrate and to emphasize the truth that the gravity and the magnitude of the task which we have undertaken does not diminish, but increases, as the months roll by. The call for men to join our fighting forces, which is our primary need, has been and is being nobly responded to here at home and throughout the empire. That call, we say with all plainness and directness, was never more urgent or more imperious than today. For this is a war not only of men but of material. To take only one illustration, the expenditure upon ammunition on both sides has been on a scale and at a rate which is not only without all precedent but is far in excess of any expert forecast. At such a time patriotism has cast a heavy burden on the shoulders of all who are engaged in trades or manufactures which directly or indirectly minister to the equipment of our forces. It is a burden, let me add, which falls, or ought to fall, with even weight on both employers and employed. [Cheers.] Differences as to remuneration or as to profit, as to hours and conditions of labor, which in ordinary times might well justify a temporary cessation of work should no longer be allowed to do so. The first duty of all concerned is to go on producing with might and main what the safety of the State requires, [cheers,] and if this is done I can say with perfect confidence the Government on its part will insure a prompt and equitable settlement of disputed points, and in cases of proved necessity will give on behalf of the State such help as is in their power. [Cheers.] Sailors and soldiers, employers and workmen in the industrial world are all at this moment partners and co-operators in one great enterprise. The men in the shipyards and the engineering shops, the workers in the textile factories, the miner who sends the coal to the surface, the dockyard laborer who helps to load and unload the ships, and those who employ and organize and supervise their labors are one and all rendering to their country a service as vital and as indispensable as the gallant men who line the trenches in Flanders or in France or who are bombarding fortresses in the Dardanelles. [Cheers.]
I hear sometimes whispers, hardly more than whispers, of possible terms of peace. Peace is the greatest human good, but this is not the time to talk of peace. Those who talk of peace, however excellent their intentions, are in my judgment victims, I will not say of wanton, but of grievous self-delusion. Just now we are in the stress and tumult of a tempest which is shaking the foundations of the earth. The time to talk of peace is when the great tasks in which we and our allies embarked on the long and stormy voyage are within sight of accomplishment. Speaking at the Guildhall at the Lord Mayor's banquet last November I used this language, which has since been repeated almost in the same terms by the Prime Minister of France, and which I believe represents the settled sentiment and purpose of the country. I said:
We shall never sheathe the sword which we have not lightly drawn until Belgium recovers in full measure all and more than she has sacrificed, until France is adequately secured against the menace of aggression, until the rights of the smaller nationalities of Europe are placed upon an unassailable foundation, and until the military domination of Prussia is wholly and finally destroyed. [Cheers.]
What I said early in November, now, after four months, I repeat today. We have not relaxed nor shall we relax in the pursuit of every one and all of the aims which I have described. These are great purposes, and to achieve them we must draw upon all our resources, both material and spiritual. On the one side, the material side, the demands presented in these votes is for men, for money, for the fullest equipment of the purposes of war. On the other side, what I have called the spiritual side, the appeal is to those ancient inbred qualities of our race which have never failed us in times of stress—qualities of self-mastery, self-sacrifice, patience, tenacity, willingness to bear one another's burdens, a unity which springs from the dominating sense of a common duty, unfailing faith, inflexible resolve. [Loud cheers.]