Deeds of a Great Railway / A record of the enterprise and achievements of the London and North-Western Railway company during the Great War

by G. R. S. Darroch

Writing to the New York World in April, 1915, Mr. Gustav Roeder throws some light upon the state of mind of the German women alone. "Talk about your so-called atrocities which our men are said to have committed in Belgium," they said to me, "it would be nothing in comparison with what our men would do in England, and we women want to be there too."

As a sample of the treatment accorded to the unfortunate inhabitants of those portions of the fair land of France which the invader succeeded in over-running, we may take this deposition of the Times' special correspondent with the French Army as being sufficiently convincing. Writing under the date of March 21st, 1917, he says, "when the Germans left Noyon on Sunday, they took with them fifty young French girls, who, they said, were to act as officers' servants. When he (a distinguished French officer) was on a part of the Somme front now taken over by the British, he saw with his own eyes photographs, taken from German prisoners, of German officers sitting at dinner and being waited upon at table by naked women."

Even during the earliest days of the war, evidence was not wanting in proof of the fact that German Imperialist greed was in no way to be denied. "Heavy ransoms on French towns" was the heading to a paragraph in the Times of September 7th, 1914, and edifying to a degree was the subjoined list of towns from whose impotent inhabitants the jubilant Hun was setting to work to exact sums of money varying in proportion to their size and population.

Thus we learn that having imprisoned the Préfet du Nord, the Germans demanded from the town of Lille "a ransom of 7,000,000f (£280,000). At Armentières they were content with a ransom of 500,000f. (£20,000). At Amiens they have demanded 1,000,000f. (£40,000) and 100,000 cigars. Lens has been ransomed for 700,000f. (£28,000)." On yet a previous occasion (cp. the Times, August 22nd, 1914), the Press Bureau having obligingly announced that out of £15,000,000 of Treasury bills, for which the Treasury had invited tenders to be sent in, £10,000,000 was required for a loan from the British Government to Belgium, the Germans promptly decided that this good British gold might be turned to far more profitable account by themselves than by the Belgians for whom it was ostensibly intended, and proceeded forthwith to impose upon the city of Brussels a war contribution of eight million sterling. The All-Highest is credited with having expressed himself as being convinced that "the German people had in the Lord of Creation above an unconditional ally on whom it could absolutely rely." He must have felt, too, that his faithful subjects had in the British Government below a purblind benefactor whom they could regard as an unfailing source of revenue.

Some idea as to the aspirations and intentions which the Germans were keeping up their sleeves as concerning ourselves may be gathered from certain observations which were drawn up by the Allied Ministers at Jassy, with regard to the conditions imposed upon Rumania by the Central Powers, and which in their own words "demonstrate in the best possible manner the insatiable greed and hypocrisy of German Imperialism."

The actual terms of the treaty (of Bukarest) required, inter alia (cp. the Times, August 10th, 1918), "the entire male population of the occupied territories, that is to say of two-thirds of Rumania, between the ages of fourteen and sixty, to carry out such work as may be assigned to them. The penalties for disobedience include deportation and imprisonment, and in some cases, which are not expressly defined, even that of death. This treaty," as the Allied Ministers observed, "is a fair example of a German peace. We should consider it all the more closely inasmuch as the German delegates informed the Rumanian delegates, who were appalled at being required to accept such conditions, that they would appreciate their moderation when they knew those which would be imposed on the Western Powers after the victory of the Central Empires."

For the fact that "this England never did," and for the determination that she "never shall, lie at the proud foot of a conqueror," we owe it entirely to the grit of succeeding generations of British fighting men. "Wars may be won or lost," in the opinion of Sir Douglas Haig, "by the standard of health and moral of the opposing forces"; and because "the feeding and health of the fighting forces are dependent upon the rearward services, so it may be argued that with the rearward services rests victory or defeat."

In the same way, since, as we have already seen, the rearward services of the overseas forces depend for their sustenance upon the continued and successful operation of the home services of supply and transport, so it may be argued that upon the feeding and health of these latter services does the final issue hang.

Realising then, from the very outset, the import of the task devolving upon the great railways, appreciating, too, the truism that you cannot maintain an A1 engineering community any less than an "A1 Empire with a C3 population," Mr. Cooke determined on the course of inaugurating, in the immediate vicinity of Crewe Works, a canteen, which, rivalling similar establishments set up in well-nigh every Government-owned, or controlled, munition factory throughout the length and breadth of the land, was built and equipped with the most up-to-date cooking apparatus and utensils, at a cost of £3800, and this thanks entirely to the spontaneous generosity of the directors of the company, who further expressed their readiness to bear the cost of all maintenance charges, such as heating, lighting, and salaries of the kitchen staff. As a result, the men were enabled to purchase all commodities at actual cost price, at the same time finding that the meals provided were of that excellence which inclines one to "forgive anybody, even one's own relations."

There is not a shadow of doubt but that, as regards the rearward services both home and overseas, "our supply system has been developed into one of the most perfect in the world," and after being so largely instrumental in frustrating the aims of the common enemy, the only danger against which we had to guard was lest "the Ministers of the Allied Powers should lose by their pen what the Army had gained by the sword"; in which case the peace we had striven to secure—to quote the words of that great littérateur and statesman of a former generation, to wit George Canning—"would be the mere name of peace; not a wholesome or refreshing repose, but a feverish and troubled slumber."