The Balkan business is a startling knockout for those enthusiasts who see in the development of small States salvation for the world! If people would only accept the fact that this is a material world they would not be surprised at the situation. Myself, I consider that our diplomacy has failed, probably because it did not offer tempting enough bribes to Bulgaria and Greece. No matter; what is the fate of a few tuppenny-ha'penny Balkan States, who have never done a thing worth doing, beside that of the British Empire! Why should we always play the philanthropic idiot towards all these wretched little nations? As if any of them—or anyone else, for that matter, in international politics—knows the meaning of the word gratitude! However righteous our policy may have been, it doesn't seem to have worked in South-East Europe, and the Boches appear to have got home first there. I don't think it is so much a triumph for their diplomacy as a judgment on the blundering stupidity of ours. But when all's said and done, the alliance or hostility of a few Bulgars, Greeks or Roumanians doesn't count for so much, anyhow. "Come the three corners of the world in arms, and we shall shock them. Naught shall make us rue, if England to herself do rest but true."
Have you seen the obituary notices of Captain Osmond Williams,[4] of the Welsh Guards? His funeral took place not half a mile from the spot where we were at the time. The 19th Hussars was once his old regiment, and as he was simply idolised by the men, crowds of them went to the burial. He had a most romantic career—a career that might have stepped out of the pages of Scott or Dumas.
Yesterday I played Soccer for Headquarters against the 15th Hussars. We beat them 2 to 1. However, I can't work up any enthusiasm for Soccer. Oh! for a real game of Rugger. Still, the Tommies—the English ones, at least—think Soccer the only game, so one must cut one's cloth to one's opportunities. It is something to get a game of any sort out here. Is the October number of The Alleynian out yet? I hope they keep their war list up to date. Our Roll of Honour is as good as anybody's, and should be carefully attended to.
October 20th, 1915.
Whom do you think I met the other day leading a column of motor lorries up to our brigade H.Q.? No less a person than G. P. S. Clark, the centre three-quarter who scored that wonderful try against Haileybury in my first year in the team—running and feinting his way through right from his own line. He is a motor expert, and has been gazetted to the M.T. branch of the A.S.C.
Is there any chance of my getting the post of A.D.C. to a Welsh brigadier? If the Welsh division is due out presently it would be rather a good job. But if it involved my coming back to England for any length of time I wouldn't take it. I am perfectly satisfied with my present work, but still would very much like to become a real combatant. Against the defect of short sight I can put the following points:
- (a) Three months of Active Service, almost invariably in the neighbourhood of the firing-line; on several occasions right up in it.
- (b) I have always been attached to the Headquarters of a Cavalry Brigade, have been in the closest contact with the Brigade Staff, and have taken my orders from the Staff Captain direct—a very large proportion of those orders about real Staff work.
- (c) I have now a real linguistic fluency in French; pretty useful German also.
- (d) I have been acting under the supervision of a Supply Officer, whose work I do when he is away, and I know the system of transport and supply backwards.
- (e) I have a thorough knowledge of how to make up supplies by requisition and purchase on the countryside.
- (f) On the march I move at the head of the limbers which form the Cavalry Divisional train, and am second in command of them all, so I know something about that branch of work, too.
- (g) I am quite a useful horseman.
You may say on reading the above list of virtues that a glass case is the right place for me, but I know to the full that if one wants one of these "knutty" jobs one has to represent oneself as a sort of little tin god. Now don't imagine that I am dissatisfied with my present job. I am more than pleased with it; still I am very keen to become a fighting soldier.
October 25th, 1915.
My present quarters are in a mill. I have a fine large room, also first-rate stabling for my horses. Brigade Headquarters are in one of those magnificent châteaux that are dotted over this part of France. A gorgeous place it must have been in time of peace, and so it is now except that it is beginning to show signs of war-wear and constant use.