On Sunday, the 28th of June 1914, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria, and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, paid a visit to Serajevo, the capital of Bosnia, and were there murdered by Bosnian assassins. It has not been proved that Germany had any part in the murder, but she was quite willing to take advantage of it. The Kiel canal, joining the Baltic with the North Sea had just been widened to admit the largest battleships, and the German army had just been raised to an unexampled strength. The gun was loaded and pointed; if it was allowed to be fired by accident the military rulers of Germany were much to blame. They were not in the habit of trusting any part of their plans to accident. But the excitement caused by the Archduke's murder was allowed to die away, and an uneasy calm succeeded. On the 23rd of July the Austrian Government, alleging that the Serajevo assassinations had been planned in Belgrade, presented to Serbia, with the declared approval of Germany, an ultimatum, containing demands of so extreme a character that the acceptance of them would have meant the abandonment by Serbia of her national independence. Serbia appealed to Russia, and, acting on Russia's advice, accepted all the demands except two. These two, which involved the appointment of Austro-Hungarian delegates to assist in administering the internal affairs of Serbia, were not bluntly rejected; Serbia asked that they should be referred to the Hague Tribunal. Austria replied by withdrawing her minister, declaring war upon Serbia, and bombarding Belgrade. This action was bound to involve Russia, who could not stand by and see the Slavonic States of southern Europe destroyed and annexed. But the Russian Government, along with the Governments of France, Great Britain, and Italy, did their utmost to preserve the peace. They suggested mediation and a conference of the Powers. Germany alone refused. Alleging that Russia had already mobilized her army, she decreed a state of war, and on Saturday, the 1st of August, declared war upon Russia. France by her treaty with Russia would shortly have become involved; but the German Government would not wait for her. They judged it all-important to gain a military success at the very start of the war, and to this everything had to give way. They declared war on France, and massed armies along the frontier between Liége and Luxembourg, with the intention of forcing a passage through Belgium. England, who was one of the guarantors of the integrity of Belgium, was thus involved. At 11.0 p.m. on the 4th of August, Great Britain declared war on Germany, and the World War had begun.
The events of the twelve days from the 23rd of July to the 4th of August, when they shall be set forth in detail, will furnish volumes of history. Those who study them minutely are in some danger of failing to see the wood for the trees. The attitude of the nations was made clear enough during these days. When Austria issued her ultimatum, many people in England thought of it as a portent of renewed distant trouble in the Balkans, to be quickly begun and soon ended. It was not so regarded in Germany. The people of Germany, though they were not in the confidence of their Government, were sufficiently familiar with its mode of operation to recognize the challenge to Serbia for what it was, Germany's chosen occasion for her great war. The citizens not only of Berlin, but of the Rhineland, and of little northern towns on the Kiel canal, went mad with joy; there was shouting and song and public festivity. Meantime in England, as the truth dawned, there were hushed voices and an intense solemnity. The day had come, and no one doubted the severity of the ordeal. Yet neither did any one, except an unhappy few who had been nursed in folly and illusion, doubt the necessity of taking up the challenge. The country was united. Not only was the safety and existence of the British Commonwealth involved, but the great principle of civilization, difficult to name, but perhaps best called by the appealing name of decency, which bids man remember that he is frail and that it behoves him to be considerate and pitiful and sincere, had been flouted by the arrogant military rulers of Germany. Great Britain had a navy; her army and her air force, for the purposes of a great European war, were yet to make. The motive that was to supply her with millions of volunteers was not only patriotism, though patriotism was strong, but a sense that her cause, in this war, was the cause of humanity. There are many who will gladly fight to raise their country and people in power and prosperity above other countries and other peoples. There are many also among English-speaking peoples who are unwilling to fight for any such end. But they are fighters, and they will fight to protect the weak and to assert the right. They are a reserve worth enlisting in any army; it was by their help that the opponents of Germany attained to a conquering strength. The systematic cruelties of Germany, inflicted by order on the helpless populations of Serbia and Belgium and northern France, are not matter of controversy; they have been proved by many extant military documents and by the testimony of many living witnesses. They were designed to reduce whole peoples to a state of impotent terror, beneath the level of humanity. The apology made for them, that by shortening resistance to the inevitable they were in effect merciful, is a blasphemous apology, which puts Germany in the place of the Almighty. The effect anticipated did not follow. The system of terrorism hardened and prolonged resistance; it launched against Germany the chivalry of the world; it created for use against Germany the chivalry of the air; and it left Germany unhonoured in her ultimate downfall.
The German plan of campaign, it was rightly believed, was a swift invasion and disablement of France, to be followed by more prolonged operations against Russia. By this plan the German army was to reach Paris on the fortieth day after mobilization. There was no promise that Great Britain would help France, but the attitude of Germany had long been so threatening that the General Staffs of the two countries had taken counsel with each other concerning the best manner of employing the British forces in the event of common resistance to German aggression. It had been provisionally agreed that the British army should be concentrated on the left flank of the French army, in the area between Avesnes and Le Cateau, but this agreement was based on the assumption that the two armies would be mobilized simultaneously. When the principal British Ministers and the leading members of the naval and military staffs assembled at Downing street on the 5th and 6th of August, we were already behindhand, and the whole question of the employment and disposition of the expeditionary force had to be reopened. It was expected by some soldiers and some civilians that the little British army would be landed at a point on the coast of France or Belgium whence it could strike at the flank of the German invaders. The strategic advantages of that idea had to yield to the enormous importance of giving moral and material support to our Allies by fighting at their side; moreover, there could be no assurance that the coast of Belgium would not fall into the hands of the Germans at a very early stage in the campaign. Accordingly, it was agreed to ship our army to France, and to leave the manner of its employment to be settled in concert with the French.
The original British Expeditionary Force, under the command of Field-Marshal Sir John French, began to embark on the 9th of August; by the 20th its concentration in a pear-shaped area between Maubeuge and Le Cateau was complete. It consisted of the First Army Corps, under Lieutenant-General Sir Douglas Haig; the Second Army Corps, under Lieutenant-General Sir James Grierson, who died soon after landing in France and was succeeded by General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien; and the Cavalry Division, under Major-General E. H. H. Allenby. The Germans made no attempt to interfere with the transport of the expeditionary force from England to France. They had many other things to think of, and there is evidence to show that they viewed with satisfaction the placing of that admirable little force in a situation where they hoped that they could cut it off and annihilate it. That they were disappointed in this hope was due not a little to the activity and efficiency of the newest arm, numbering about a thousand, all told, the Royal Flying Corps.
The Royal Flying Corps took the field under the command of Brigadier-General Sir David Henderson. It consisted of Headquarters, Aeroplane Squadrons Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5, and an Aircraft Park. Fairly complete arrangements, thought out in detail, had been made some months earlier for its mobilization. Each squadron was to mobilize at its peace station, and was to be ready to move on the fourth day. On that day the aeroplanes were to move, by air, first to Dover, and thence, on the sixth day, to the field base in the theatre of war. The horses, horse-vehicles, and motor-bicycles, together with a certain amount of baggage and supplies, were to travel by rail, and the mechanical transport and trailers by road, to the appointed port of embarkation, there to be shipped for the overseas base. The Aircraft Park, numbering twelve officers and a hundred and sixty-two other ranks, with four motor-cycles and twenty-four aeroplanes in cases, were to leave Farnborough for Avonmouth on the seventh day. Instructions were issued naming the hour and place of departure of the various trains, with detailed orders as to machines, personnel, transport, and petrol. On the second day of mobilization a detachment from No. 6 Squadron was to proceed to Dover, there to make ready a landing-ground for the other squadrons, and to provide for replenishment of fuel and minor repairs to aircraft. Squadron commanders were urged to work out all necessary arrangements for the journey. How carefully they did this is shown by some of the entries in the squadron diaries. In the diary of No. 2 Squadron (Major C. J. Burke's) a list is given of the articles that were to be carried on each of the machines flying over to France. Besides revolvers, glasses, a spare pair of goggles, and a roll of tools, pilots were ordered to carry with them a water-bottle containing boiled water, a small stove, and, in the haversack, biscuits, cold meat, a piece of chocolate, and a packet of soup-making material.
The programme for mobilization was, in the main, successfully carried out. The headquarters of the Royal Flying Corps left Farnborough for Southampton on the night of the 11th of August, their motor transport having gone before. They embarked at Southampton, with their horses, and reached Amiens on the morning of the 13th. The movements of the Aircraft Park, though it was the last unit to leave England, may be next recorded, because it was in effect the travelling base of the squadrons. The personnel and equipment were entrained at Farnborough during the evening of Saturday, the 15th of August, and travelled to Avonmouth. Of the twenty machines allotted to them only four, all Sopwith Tabloids, were actually taken over in cases. Of the other sixteen (nine B.E. 2's, one B.E. 2 c, three B.E. 8's, and three Henri Farmans) about half were used to bring the squadrons up to establishment; the remainder were flown over to Amiens by the personnel of the Aircraft Park, or by the spare pilots who accompanied the squadrons. The Aircraft Park embarked at Avonmouth very early on the morning of the 17th, arriving at Boulogne on the night of the 18th. They disembarked, an unfamiliar apparition, on the following morning. The landing officer had no precedent to guide him in dealing with them. Wing Commander W. D. Beatty tells how a wire was dispatched to General Headquarters: 'An unnumbered unit without aeroplanes which calls itself an Aircraft Park has arrived. What are we to do with it?' If the question was not promptly answered at Boulogne it was answered later on. The original Aircraft Park was the nucleus of that vast system of supply and repair which supported the squadrons operating on the western front and kept them in fighting trim.
On the 21st of August the Aircraft Park moved up to Amiens, to make an advanced base for the squadrons, which were already at Maubeuge. Three days were spent at Amiens in unloading, unpacking, and setting up workshops. Then, on the 25th, they received orders to retire to Le Havre. The retreat from Mons had begun, and Boulogne was being evacuated by the British troops. How far the wave of invasion would flow could not be certainly known; on the 30th of August, at the request of the French admiral who commanded at Le Havre, the machines belonging to the Aircraft Park were employed to carry out reconnaissances along the coast roads; on the following day German cavalry entered Amiens. There was a real danger that stores and machines landed in northern France for the use of the Royal Flying Corps might fall into the hands of the Germans; accordingly a base was established, for the reception of stores from England, at St.-Nazaire, on the Loire. The advanced base of the Aircraft Park moved up, by successive stages, as the prospects of the Allies improved, first from Le Havre to Le Mans, then, at the end of September, to Juvisy, near Paris; lastly, in mid-October, the port base was moved from St.-Nazaire to Rouen, and at the end of October the advanced base left Juvisy for St.-Omer, which became its permanent station during the earlier part of the war.
The squadrons flew to France. No. 2 Squadron, at Montrose, had the hardest task. Its pilots started on their southward flight to Farnborough as early as the 3rd of August; after some accidents they all reached Dover. Their transport left Montrose by rail on the morning of the 8th of August and arrived the same evening at Prince's Dock, Govan, near Glasgow, where the lorries and stores were loaded on S.S. Dogra for Boulogne. No. 3 Squadron was at Netheravon when war broke out; on the 12th of August the machines flew to Dover and the transport moved off by road to Southampton, where it was embarked for Boulogne. The squadron suffered a loss at Netheravon. Second Lieutenant R. R. Skene, a skilful pilot, with Air Mechanic R. K. Barlow as passenger, crashed his machine soon after taking off; both pilot and passenger were killed. No. 4 Squadron on the 31st of July had been sent to Eastchurch, to assist the navy in preparations for home defence and to be ready for mobilization. From Eastchurch the machines flew to Dover and the transport proceeded to Southampton. By the evening of the 12th of August the machines of Nos. 2, 3, and 4 Squadrons were at Dover. At midnight Lieutenant-Colonel F. H. Sykes arrived, and orders were given for all machines to be ready to fly over at 6.0 a.m. the following morning, the 13th of August.
The first machine of No. 2 Squadron to start left at 6.25 a.m., and the first to arrive landed at Amiens at 8.20 a.m. This machine was flown by Lieutenant H. D. Harvey-Kelly, one of the lightest hearted and highest spirited of the young pilots who gave their lives in the war. The machines of No. 3 Squadron arrived safely at Amiens, with the exception of one piloted by Second Lieutenant E. N. Fuller, who with his mechanic did not rejoin his squadron until five days later at Maubeuge. One flight of No. 4 Squadron remained at Dover to carry out patrol duties, but a wireless flight, consisting of three officers who had made a study of wireless telegraphy, was attached to the squadron, and was taken overseas with it. Some of the aeroplanes of No. 4 Squadron were damaged on the way over by following their leader, Captain F. J. L. Cogan, who was forced by engine failure to land in a ploughed field in France.
No. 5 Squadron moved a little later than the other three. It was delayed by a shortage of shipping and a series of accidents to the machines. When the Concentration Camp broke up, this squadron had gone to occupy its new station at Gosport. On the 14th, when starting out for Dover, Captain G. I. Carmichael wrecked his machine at Gosport; on the same day Lieutenant R. O. Abercromby and Lieutenant H. F. Glanville damaged their machines at Shoreham, and Lieutenant H. le M. Brock damaged his at Salmer. The squadron flew from Dover to France on the 15th of August; Captain Carmichael, having obtained a new machine, flew over on that same day; Lieutenant Brock rejoined the squadron at Maubeuge on the 20th; Lieutenants Abercromby and Glanville on the 22nd. Lieutenant R. M. Vaughan, who had flown over with the squadron, also rejoined it on the 22nd; he had made a forced landing near Boulogne, had been arrested by the French, and was imprisoned for nearly a week.