It was tolerably clear, moreover, that the German ships, coming as they did from the Chinese coast, could not have obtained coal or provisions without some violation of neutrality; and it was found that they had been supplied by Kosmos liners from Chilean ports, by an American collier at Juan Fernandez, and by other ships at the Galapagos Islands, belonging to Ecuador. The Chilean Government had not been involved; but Ecuador and Colombia were suspected of breaches of neutrality. And in other quarters there were new dangers. The collapse of Maritz's rebellion at the Cape had been followed by a more serious rising led by Generals de Wet and Beyers; and the British forces had suffered a serious reverse on November 2 in German East Africa.
It was amid these impressions that the Lord Mayor's banquet was held at the Guildhall (Nov. 10). The first toast after the loyal toasts was that of "Our Allies," proposed by Mr. Balfour. He described the capture of Tsingtau as a most dramatic answer to one of the most insulting messages ever sent from one Sovereign to another [in 1897] and as a good omen for those still fighting the arch-enemy in Europe. Russia had shown not only dogged and boundless courage, but unexpected powers of organisation; the war had brought out the military genius not only of a nation, but of a man (the Grand Duke Nicholas). As for the gallant French, never would the time grow dim in which they and the British fought side by side against the common foe of civilisation. Serbia, to preserve the peace of the world, had been prepared to give up everything short of her national existence, but she had gallantly defended it, and there was no chance now that Austria would wrest it from her. The case of Belgium was even more tragic. Cynicism could go no farther than the Germans had carried it, and the memory of the accumulated infamy of their transaction would be remembered after the crime, great as it was, had been adequately expiated. The Allies were fighting for civilisation and the cause of small States, and whether the war was short or long, they would triumph. They had behind them all the finest moral influences of the civilised world.
M. Cambon, the French Ambassador, in reply, said that Europe had suffered invasions of barbarians in the past, but had never yet seen barbarism raised to dogma and reinforced by science. But its professors had not foreseen that they would come into conflict with the conscience of the civilised world.
The First Lord of the Admiralty, responding to the toast of "The Imperial Forces of the Crown," said that it was thanks to the Navy that they were there. In a recent conversation with Sir John Jellicoe and his chief Admiral they had remarked that Cornwallis was three years off Brest and Nelson more than two off Toulon; they themselves were only just beginning, and their turn would come. The multiplied duties of the Navy arising from the curious and novel conditions of naval warfare forced them to expose a target to the enemy incomparably larger than any target exposed to our own daring and vigilant sailors. The Navy was making good the motto "Business as usual"; the economic stringency resulting from a blockade required time to reach its full effectiveness; but in the sixth, ninth, or twelfth month they would see results gradually and silently achieved which would spell the doom of Germany. The Navy, too, gave Britain and the British Empire the time to realise their vast military power. At the end of a hundred days of war the Navy was actually and relatively stronger than when war was declared, particularly in the branches most influential in the struggle.
Earl Kitchener, who also responded, said that every officer returning from the front said that the men were doing splendidly. He eulogised the Regular, Territorial, and Indian troops, and those of each Ally, remarking that General Joffre was not only a great soldier, but a great man. The British Empire was fighting for its existence; only if that fact were realised could there come the great national and moral impulse without which Governments and armies could do little. He had no complaint to make of the response to his appeal for men, and the progress in military training of those already enlisted was remarkable; but he would want more men, and, still more, till the enemy was crushed. He alluded, briefly, to the inevitable discomforts of the recruits, as having been already greatly diminished, and remarked that the German use of elaborate destructive machinery was facilitated by their having fixed the date of war beforehand. He referred briefly to the gallant conduct of the Army in the trenches, to the Dominion contingents, and to the 1,250,000 soldiers in training in Great Britain eagerly waiting for the call. Every man would, in doing his duty, sustain the credit of the British Army, which had never stood higher.
The Prime Minister, in responding to the toast of His Majesty's Ministers, referred to the annexation of Bosnia and the Turkish revolution, the first as the earliest cause of the war, the second as raising vain hopes of the renascence of Turkey. Not the Turkish people, but the Ottoman Government, had sent Turkey to her doom. Great Britain had no quarrel with the Moslem subjects of the Sultan; millions of Mohammedans were among the most loyal subjects of the King; she was prepared, if necessary, to defend their Holy Places against all invaders. The Turkish Empire had committed suicide. Reviewing the financial measures taken by the Government, Mr. Asquith made special mention of the services of the Lord Chief Justice (Lord Reading), and of Mr. Walter Cunliffe, Governor of the Bank of England, on whom a Peerage was conferred. He warned his hearers that, though little was seen of the war save darkened streets and a preponderance of khaki-clad men, it would be a long-drawn out struggle, but there was nothing in the warfare of the past 100 days to damp British hopes or impair British resolve. The enemy had tried in turn three separate objectives—Paris, Warsaw, Calais; from each in turn they had retired balked and frustrated; but that was not enough. We should not sheathe the sword until Belgium recovered all and more than all that she had sacrificed, until France was adequately secured against the menace of aggression, until the rights of the smaller nationalities were placed on an unassailable foundation, until the military dominion of Prussia was fully and finally destroyed. It was a great task, worthy of a great nation. The Primate and the Lord Chief Justice were among the other speakers.
On the same evening the Chancellor of the Exchequer addressed a great Nonconformist recruiting meeting at the City Temple. The principle that drew him to resist his own country in the Boer War, he said—defence of small nationalities—had brought him there. One of the greatest French generals, describing his own experience, had said to him that "the man responsible for this war had the soul of a devil." Great Britain was not responsible. We were organised for defence—against all the Powers of the world. We had raised the greatest Volunteer Army on record, and in a few months we should double it. For an aggressive war we could not have raised a tenth of it. At the outbreak of war we were on better terms with Germany than we had been for fifteen years. The vulture had been hanging over Belgium, but it pounced, not on a rabbit, but on a hedgehog, and had been bleeding and sore ever since. We now knew that the counsellors of Germany had planned and organised the murder of peaceful neighbours, and even fixed the date to suit themselves. Peace at any price was not a Christian principle. The surest way of establishing peace on earth was to make the way of the peacebreaker too hard for rulers to tread. After denouncing German action in Belgium and coupling the Turks of the East with their fitting comrades the Turks of the West, he referred to the cost of the war—which would not be grudged—and condemned those who approved of the war and left the necessary sacrifices to others. Could Britain, fighting one of the most chivalrous wars the world had ever seen, not rely on her children to rally to her honour?
The encouragement given by these speeches had already been begun by the news that the Königsberg had been shut up in East Africa by H.M.S. Chatham and the Emden destroyed by H.M.A.S. Sydney at the Cocos or Keeling Islands (Chron., Nov. 10); and the sinking of H.M.S. Niger by a submarine next day in the Downs, two miles off Deal, served merely as a salutary reminder that the war was near at hand. And the unity of the nation was further emphasised during the short session of Parliament which now began.
Parliament was opened by the King in person on November 11, with much the usual ceremony, save that the State coach with the famous cream-coloured horses was replaced by a glass coach with black horses. Many of the King's servants trained in Court ceremonial had gone to the front; the dresses of the Queen and most of the Peeresses in the House of Lords were black; and several members of the Commons wore khaki. (The members serving in the Navy, Army, and Auxiliary Forces numbered 126.) The King read his speech, of which only portions can be here given. The salient passage referring to the entry of Turkey into the war was as follows:—