Britain's Deadly Peril: Are We Told the Truth?

by William Le Queux

No, it has not!

I shall try to show, in the pages of this modest work, that the country has not been given the information to which it is plainly entitled respecting the actual military operations which have been accomplished. It is certainly not too much to say that the country has not been really definitely and clearly informed as to the measure of the effort it will be called upon to make in the future. I am not in the secrets of the War Office, and it is impossible to say what the policy of the Government will be, or what trump cards they hold, ready to play them when the real crisis comes. But there certainly is an urgent and growing need for very plain speaking. I speak plainly and without fear. We should like to be assured that the recruiting problem, upon the solution of which our final success must depend, is being dealt with on broad, wise, and statesmanlike lines, and that the Government will shrink from no measure which shall ensure our absolute military efficiency. I have no doubt that Lord Kitchener has a very accurate estimate of the total number of men he proposes to put into the field before the great forward movement begins, of the probable total wastage, and of the period for which, on the present basis of recruiting, that wastage can be made good.

The country would welcome some very definite and explicit statement, either from Mr. Asquith or Lord Kitchener, as to the real position, and as to whether the Government has absolute confidence that the requirements of the military authorities can be met under the existing condition of affairs. The time is, indeed, more than ripe for some grave and solemn warning to the people if, as I believe, the effort we have made up to now, great though it has undoubtedly been, has not been sufficient. We to-day need an authoritative declaration on the subject. There is far too strong a tendency, fostered by the undue reticence of the irresponsible Press Bureau and the screeching "victories" of the newspapers, to believe that things are going as well and smoothly as we could wish; and though I would strenuously deprecate an attitude of blank pessimism, the perils which hedge around a fatuous optimism are very great.

My firm conviction, and I think my readers will share in it, is that the great mass of public opinion is daily growing more and more apathetic towards the war, and truly that is not the mental attitude which will bring us with safety and credit through the tremendous ordeal which lies before us. The Government is not doing enough to drive home the fact that greater and still greater efforts will be required before the spectre of Prussian domination is finally laid to rest: the country at large, befogged by the newspapers, and sullenly angry at being kept in the dark to an extent hitherto unheard of, is in no mood to make the supreme sacrifices upon which final victory must depend. We are, as a result, not exercising our full strength: we are not doing enough, and our full strength will not be exerted until the Government takes the public into its confidence and tells them exactly what it requires and what it intends to have. That it would gain, rather than lose, by doing so, I have not the slightest doubt, while the gain to the world through the throwing into the scale of the solid weight of a fully aroused Britain would be simply incalculable.

While writing this, came the extraordinarily belated news of the decision of the Government to declare a strict blockade of the German coasts. It has been a matter of supreme bewilderment to every student of the war why this decision was not taken long before. Why should we have failed for so long to use the very strongest weapon which our indisputed control of the sea has placed in our hands, is one of those things which "no fellah can understand." We have been foolish enough to allow food, cotton, and certain other articles of "conditional contraband" free access to Germany, and it is beyond question that in so doing we have enormously prolonged the war. And all this, be it remembered, at a time when Germany was violating every law of God and man! Assume a reversal of the prevailing conditions: would Germany have been so foolishly indulgent towards us? Would she have treated us with more consideration than she showed towards the starving population of Paris in 1871? The very fact of our long inaction in this respect adds enormously to the strong suspicion that in other directions we are not doing as much as we should. Lord Fisher is credited with the saying, "The essence of war is violence: moderation in war is imbecility. Hit first, hit hard, hit everywhere."

I think it is safe to say that in more than one direction we have displayed an imbecility of moderation which has tended to encourage the Germans in the supreme folly of imagining that they are at liberty to play fast and loose with the opinion of the civilised world. Our treatment of German spies and enemy aliens in our midst is a classic example of our contemptuous tolerance of easily removable perils, just as much as is our incredible folly in neglecting to make the fullest use of our magnificent naval resources. Thanks to our tolerance, the Germans have been freely importing food and cotton, with probably an enormous quantity of copper smuggled through in the same ships. We have paid in the blood and lives of our gallant soldiers, husbands, brothers, lovers, while the Germans have laughed at us—and not without justice—as a nation of silly dolts and imbeciles. Yet we have tardily decided upon "retaliatory measures" which we were perfectly entitled to take the instant war was declared, only under the pressure of Germany's campaign of murder and piracy at sea! Are we doing enough in other directions?

Equally belated, and equally calculated to give the impression that we have been too slow in using our strength, is the attack upon the Dardanelles. It has long been a mystery why, in view of the tremendous results involved in such a blow at Germany's deluded ally, this attack was not made earlier. We do not know, and the Government do not enlighten us. But the delay has helped to send the price of bread to famine prices through blocking up the Russian wheat in the Black Sea ports; it has given the Turks and the Germans time to enormously strengthen the defences, and has prevented us from sending to our Russian friends that support in munitions of war of which they undoubtedly stood in need. There may, of course, have been good reasons for the delay, but if they exist, they have baffled the investigation of the most competent military and naval critics. It must never be forgotten that the reopening of the Dardanelles and the fall of Constantinople must exercise a far more potent influence on the progress of the war than, say, the relief of Antwerp—another example of singularly belated effort! It must, in fact, transform the whole position of the war and react with fatal effect through Turkey upon her Allies. Yet the war had been in progress for seven months before a serious attempt was made at what, directly Turkey joined in the war, must have been one of the primary objects of the Allies. What added price, I wonder, shall we be compelled to pay for that inexplicable delay, not merely in the increased cost of the necessaries of life at home and the expenses of the war abroad, but in the lives of our fighting men? For it must not be forgotten that a decisive blow at Turkey would do much to shorten the duration of the war. It would be a serious blow at Germany, and would be more than likely to precipitate the entrance into the struggle, on the side of the Allies, of Italy and the wavering Balkan States. In hard cash, the war is costing us nearly a million and a half a day. We have to pay it, sooner or later. The loss of life is more serious than the loss of wealth, and there is no doubt that both must be curtailed by any successful operation against the Turks.

The Army has, beyond question, lost thousands of recruits of the very best class owing to the parsimony displayed in the matter of making provision for the dependents of men who join the fighting forces. The scale originally proposed, it will be remembered, produced an outburst of indignation, and it was very soon amended in the right direction, but when all is said and done it operates with amazing injustice. One of the most striking features of the war has been the splendid patriotism shown by men who, in social rank, are decidedly above the average standard of recruits.

Many comparatively rich men have joined the Army as privates, and the roll descends in the social scale until we come down to the day labourer. We draw no distinction between the loyalty and devotion of any of our new soldiers, but it cannot be denied that the working of the system of separate allowances is exceedingly unfair to the men of the middle classes.

Financially, the family of the working-man is frequently better off through the absence of the husband and father at the front than it has ever been before—sometimes very much better off indeed. I am not complaining of that. But when we ascend a little in the scale we find a glaring inequality. The man earning, say, £250 a year, and having a wife and one child, finds, too often, that the price he has to pay for patriotism is to leave his family dependent upon the Government allowance of 17s. 6d. per week. Is it a matter for wonder that so many have hesitated to join? Can we praise too highly the patriotism of those who, even under such circumstances, have answered the call of duty?