A great poster headed “Englishmen,” here reproduced, was seen everywhere. The whole country was flooded with it, and thousands upon thousands of heroic Britons, from the poorest to the wealthiest, clamoured to enrol themselves. The movement was an absolutely national one in every sense of the word. The name of Gerald Graham, the new champion of England’s power, was upon everyone’s tongue. Daily he spoke in the various towns in the west of England, in Plymouth, Taunton, Cardiff, Portsmouth, and Southampton, and, assisted by the influential committee, among whom were many brilliant speakers and men whose names were as household words, he aroused the country to the highest pitch of hatred against the enemy. The defenders, as they drilled in various centres through the whole of the west of England, were a strange and incongruous body. Grey-bearded Army pensioners ranged side by side with keen, enthusiastic youths, advised them and gave them the benefit of their expert knowledge. Volunteer officers in many cases assumed command, together with retired drill sergeants. The digging of trenches and the making of fortifications were assigned to navvies, bricklayers, platelayers, and agricultural labourers, large bodies of
ENGLISHMEN!
Your Homes are Desecrated!
Your Children are Starving!
Your Loved Ones are Dead!
WILL YOU REMAIN IN COWARDLY INACTIVITY?
The German Eagle flies over London. Hull, Newcastle, and Birmingham are in ruins. Manchester is a German City. Norfolk, Essex, and Suffolk form a German colony.
The Kaiser’s troops have brought death, ruin, and starvation upon you.
WILL YOU BECOME GERMANS?
NO!
Join THE DEFENDERS and fight for England.
You have England’s Millions beside you.