THE DEATH LORD
THE KAISER (on reading the appalling tale of German losses): "What matter, so we Hohenzollerns survive?"
And what has England's answer been, apart from the stubborn and heroic resistance of her men on the Western Front? The answer is to be found in the immediate resolve to raise the age limit for service to 50, still more in the glorious exploit of Zeebrugge and Ostend, in the incredible valour of the men who volunteered for and carried through what is perhaps the most astonishing and audacious enterprise in the annals of the Navy.
The pageantry of war has gone, but here at least is a magnificence of achievement and self-sacrifice on the epic scale which beggars description and transcends praise. The hornet's nest that has pestered us so long, if not rooted out, has been badly damaged; our sailors, dead and living, have once more proved themselves masters of the impossible.
At home Parliament, resuming business after the Easter recess, began by giving a second Reading to a Drainage Bill, and ended its first sitting in an Irish bog. Ireland throughout the month has dominated the proceedings, aloof and irreconcilable, brooding over past wrongs, blind to the issues of the War and turning her back on its realities. Mr. Lloyd George's plan of making Home Rule contingent on compulsory service has been described by Mr. O'Brien as a declaration of war on Ireland. Another Nationalist Member, who at Question time urged on the War Office the necessity of according to its Irish employees exactly the same privileges and pay as were given to their British confrères, protested loudly a little later on against a Bill which inter alia extends to Irishmen the privilege of joining in the fight for freedom. Mr. Asquith questioned the policy of embracing Ireland in the Bill unless you could get general consent. Mr. Bonar Law bluntly replied that if Ireland was not to be called upon to help in this time of stress there would be an end of Home Rule, and that if the House would not sanction Irish conscription it would have to get another Government. It remained for Lord Dunraven, before the passing of the Bill in the House of Lords, to produce as "a very ardent Home Ruler" the most ingenious excuse for his countrymen's unwillingness to fight that has yet been heard. Ireland, he tells us, has been contaminated by the British refugees who had fled to that country to escape military service.
DRAKE'S WAY
Zeebrugge, St. George's Day, 1918
ADMIRAL DRAKE (to Admiral Keyes): "Bravo, sir. Tradition holds. My men singed a King's beard, and yours have singed a Kaiser's moustache."
The Prime Minister, in reviewing the military situation, has attributed the success of the Germans to their possessing the initiative and to the weather. Members have found it a little difficult to understand why, if even at the beginning of March the Allies were equal in numbers to the enemy on the West and if, thanks to the foresight of the Versailles Council, they knew in advance the strength and direction of the impending blow, they ever allowed the initiative to pass to the Germans. It is known that hundreds of thousands of men have been rushed out of England since the last week of March. Why, if Sir Douglas Haig asked for reserves, were they not sent sooner? These mysteries will be resolved some day. Meanwhile General Trenchard, late chief of the Air Staff, and by general consent an exceptionally brilliant and energetic officer, has retired into the limbo that temporarily contains Lord Jellicoe and Sir William Robertson. But Lord Rothermere (Lord Northcliffe's brother), who still retains the confidence of Mr. Pemberton Billing. remains, and all is well. The enemy possibly thinks it even better. "At least we should keep our heads," declared Mr. Pringle during the debate on the Man-Power Bill. We are not sure about this. It depends upon the heads.
It is a pity that the "New Oxford Dictionary" should have so nearly reached completion before the War and the emergence of hundreds of new words, now inevitably left out. The Air service has a new language of its own, witness the conversation faithfully reported by an expert: