TOWARDS THE
GOAL

By the Author of "England's Effort"






TO

ANDRE CHEVRILLON

TRUE SON OF FRANCE

TRUE FRIEND OF ENGLAND

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK



TOWARDS THE GOAL



BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

AUTHOR OF " ENGLAND'S EFFORT," ETC.



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

THE HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT



LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1917



All Rights Reserved



INTEODUCTION

England has in this war reached a height
of achievement loftier than that which she
attained in the struggle with Napoleon ; and
she has reached that height in a far shorter
period. Her giant effort, crowned with a
success as wonderful as the effort itself, is
worthily described by the author of this
book. Mrs. Ward writes nobly on a noble
theme.

This war is the greatest the world has ever
seen. The vast size of the armies, the tremen-
dous slaughter, the loftiness of the heroism
shown, and the hideous horror of the brutaU-
ties committed, the valour of the fighting men,
and the extraordinary ingenuity of those who
have designed and built the fighting machines,
the burning patriotism of the people who
defend their hearthstones, and the far-reaching
complexity of the plans of the leaders — all are



vi INTRODUCTION

on a scale so huge tliat nothing in past history-
can be compared with them. The issues at
stake are elemental. The free peoples of the
world have banded together against tyran-
nous militarism and government by caste.
It is not too much to say that the outcome
will largely determine, for daring and hberty-
loving souls, whether or not life is worth living.
A Prussianised world would be as intolerable
as a world ruled over by Attila or by Timur
the Lame.

It is in this immense world- crisis that Eng-
land has played her part ; a part which has
grown greater month by month. Mrs. Ward
enables us to see the awakening of the national
soul which rendered it possible to play this
part ; and she describes the works by which
the faith of the soul justified itself.

AVhat she writes is of peculiar interest to
the United States. We have suffered, or are
suffering, in exaggerated form, from most
(not all) of the evils that were eating into the
fibre of the British character three years ago —
and in addition from some purely indigenous
ills of our own. If we are to cure ourselves
it must be by our own exertions ; our destiny
will certainly not be shaped for us, as was



INTRODUCTION vii

Germany's, by a few towering autocrats of
genius, such as Bismarck and Moltke. Mrs,
Ward shows us the people of England in the
act of curing their own ills, of making good,
by gigantic and self-sacrificing exertion in
the present, the folly and selfishness and greed
and soft slackness of the past. The fact that
England, when on the brink of destruction,
gathered her strength and strode resolutely
back to safety, is a fact of happy omen for us
in America, who are now just awaking to
the folly and selfishness and greed and soft
slackness that for some years we have been
showing.

As in America, so in England, a surfeit of
materiahsm had produced a lack of high
spiritual purpose in the nation at large ;
there was much confusion of ideas and ideals ;
and also much triviality, which was especially
offensive when it masqueraded under some
high-sounding name. An unhealthy senti-
mentality — the antithesis of morality — has
gone hand in hand with a peculiarly sordid
and repulsive materialism. The result was a
soil in which various noxious weeds flourished
rankly ; and of these the most noxious
was professional pacificism. The professional



viii INTRODUCTION

pacificist has at times festered in tlie diseased
tissue of almost every civilisation ; but it is
only within the last three-quarters of a century
that he has been a serious menace to the
peace of justice and righteousness. In conse-
quence, decent citizens are only beginning to
understand the base immorality of his preach-
ing and practice ; and he has been given
entirely undeserved credit for good inten-
tions. In England as in the United States,
domestic pacificism has been the most
potent ally of alien militarism. And in
both countries the extreme type has shown
itself profoundly unpatriotic. The damage
it has done the nation has been limited
only by its weakness and folly ; those who
have professed it have served the devil to
the full extent which their limited powers
permitted.

There were in England — just as there are
now in America — even worse foes to national
honour and efficiency. Greed and selfishness,
among capitalists and among labour leaders,
had to be grappled with. The sordid base-
ness which saw in the war only a chance for
additional money profits to the employer
was almost matched by the fierce selfishness



INTRODUCTION ix

which refused to consider a strike from any
but the standpoint of the strikers.

But the chief obstacle to be encountered in
rousing England was sheer short-sightedness.
A considerable time elapsed before it was
possible to make the people understand that
this was a people's war, that it was a matter
of vital personal concern to the people as a
whole, and to all individuals as individuals.
In America we are now encountering much the
same difficulties, due to much the same causes.

In England the most essential thing to be
done was to wake the people to their need,
and to guide them in meeting the need. The
next most essential was to shov/ to them, and
to the peoples in friendly lands, whether allied
or neutral, how the task was done ; and this
both as a reason for just pride in what had
been achieved and as an inspiration to further
effort.

Mrs. Ward's books — her former book and
her present one— accomphsh both purposes.
Every American who reads the present
volume must feel a hearty and profound
respect for the patriotism, energy, and effi-
ciency shown by the British people when they
became awake to the nature of the crisis ;



X INTRODUCTION

and furthermore, every American must feel
stirred with the desire to see his country now
emulate Britain's achievement.

In this volume Mrs. Ward draws a wonder-
ful picture of the English in the full tide of
their successful effort. From the beginning
England's naval effort and her money effort
have been extraordinary. By the time Mrs.
Ward's first book was written, the work of
industrial preparedness was in full blast ;
but it could yet not be said that England's
army in the field was the equal of the huge,
carefully prepared, thoroughly co-ordinated
military machines of those against whom
and beside whom it fought. Now, the Enghsh
army is itself as fine and as highly efficient a
military machine as the wisdom of man can
devise ; now, the valour and hardihood of
the individual soldier are being utihsed to
the full under a vast and perfected system
which enables those in control of the great
engine to use every unit in such fashion as to
aid in driving the mass forward to victory.

Even the Napoleonic contest was child's
play compared to this. Never has Great
Britain been put to such a test. Never since
the spacious days of Elizabeth has she been



INTRODUCTION xi

in such danger. Never, in any crisis, has she
risen to so lofty a height of self-sacrifice and
achievement. In the giant struggle against
Napoleon, England's own safety was secured
by the demoralisation of the French fleet.
But in this contest the German naval authori-
ties have at their disposal a fleet of extra-
ordinary efficiency, and have devised for use
on an extended scale the most formidable
and destructive of all instruments of marine
warfare. In previous coalitions England has
partially financed her continental allies ; in
this case the expenditures have been on an
unheard-of scale, and in consequence Eng-
land's industrial strength, in men and money,
in business and mercantile and agricultural
ability, has been drawn on as never before.
As in the days of Marlborough and Welling-
ton, so now, England has sent her troops to
the continent ; but whereas formerly her
expeditionary forces, although of excellent
quality, were numerically too small to be of
primary importance, at present her army is
already, by size as well as by excellence, a
factor of prime importance, in the military
situation ; and its relative as well as absolute
importance is steadily growing.



xii INTRODUCTION

And to her report of the present stage of
Great Britain's effort in the war, Mrs. Ward
has added some letters describing from her own
personal experience the ruin wrought by the
Germans in towns like Senlis and Gerbeviller,
and in the hundreds of villages in Northern,
Central, and Eastern France that now he
wrecked and desolate. And she has told in
detail, and from the evidence of eye-witnesses,
some of the piteous incidents of German cruelty
to the civihan population, which are already
burnt into the conscience of Europe, and
should never be forgotten till reparation has
been made.

Mrs. Ward's book is thus of high value as a
study of contemporary history. It is of at
least as high value as an inspiration to con-
structive patriotism.

Theodore Roosevelt.



Sagamore Hills,
May 1st, 1917.



/



CONTENTS



No. 1

England's Effort— Rapid March of Events— The Work of
the Navy — A Naval Base — What the Navy has done —
The Jutland Battle — The Submarine Peril — German
Lies — Shipbuilding — Disciplined Expectancy — Crossing
the Channel — The Minister of Munitions — Dr. Addison
— Increase of Munitions — A Gigantic Task — Arrival in
France — German Prisoners — A Eat Factory — A Use
for Everything — G.H.Q. — InteUigence Department —
" The Issue of the War "—An Aerodrome— The Task
of the Aviators — The Visitors' Chateau . pp. 1-26

No. 2

A French School— Our Soldiers and French Children— Nissen
Huts— Tanks— A Primeval Plough— A Division on the
March — Significant Preparations — Increase of Am-
munition—" The Fosses "—A Sacred Spot— Vimy Ridge
—The Sound of the Guns— A Talk with a General-
Why the Germans Retreat — Growth of the New Armies
—Soldiers at School . . . .pp. 27-43

No. 3

America Joins the Allies— The British Effort— Creating an
Army U Union Sacrie — Registration — Accommoda-

xiii



xiv CONTENTS

tion — Clothing — Anns and Equipment — A Critical Time

— A Long-continued Strain — Training O.T.C.'S —

Boy Officers — The First Three Armies — Our Wonderful
Soldiers — An Advanced Stage — The Final Result —
Spectacle of the Present — Snipers and Anti-snipers —
The Result pp. 44-65

No. 4

Vimy Ridge — The Morale of our Men — Mons. le Maire —
Ubiquitous Soldiers — The Somme — German Letters —
German Prisoners — Amiens — " Taking Over " a Line —
Poilus and Tommies — " Taking Over " Trenches —
French Trenches — Unnoticed Changes — Amiens Cathedral
— German Prisoners — Confidence . . pp. 66-86

No. 5

German Fictions — Winter Preparation — Albert — La Boisselle
and Ovillers — In the Track of War — Regained Ground —
Enemy Preparations — German Dug-outs — "There were
no Stragglers " — Contalmaison — Devastation — Retreat-
ing Germans — Death, Victory, Work — Work of the
R.E. — A Parachute — Approaching Victory pp. 87-103

No. 6

German Retreat — Enemy Losses — Need of Artillery —
Awaiting the Issue — Herr Zimmermann — Training —
A National Idea — Training — Fighting for Peace —
Stubbornness and Discipline — Training of Officers —
Responsibility — The British Soldier — Soldiers' Humour
— A Boy Hero — " They have done their job "—Casual-
ties — Reconnaissance — Air Fighting — Use of Aeroplanes
— Terms of Peace .... pp. 104-125



CONTENTS XV

No. 7

Amoag the French — German Barbarities — Beauty of France
—French Families— Paris— To SenUs— Senlis— The Cure
of Senhs — The German Occupation — August 30th,
1914— Germans in Senhs— German BrutaUty— A Savage
Revenge— A Burning City— Murder of the Mayor— Th©
Cure in the Cathedral— The Abbe's Narrative— False
Charges— Wanton Destruction— A Sudden Change —
Return of the French — Ermenonville— Scenes of Battle
— Vareddes PP. 126-152

No. 8

Battle of the Ourcq— Von Kluck's Mistake— Anniversary of
the Battle— Wreckage of War— A Burying Party— A
Funeral— A Five Days' Battle— Life-and-Death Fighting
— " Salut au Drapeau "—Meaux— Vareddes— Murders at
Vareddes— Von Kluck's Approach— The Turn of the Tide
—The Old Cure— German BrutaUties— Torturers— The
Cure's Sufferings—" He is a Spy "—A Weary March-
Outrages— Victims— Reparation— To Lorraine

pp. 153-17^

No. 9

Epernay-Chalons— Snow— Nancy— The French People—
r Union /Sacree— France and England— Nancy— Hill of
Leomont — The Grand Couronne— The Lorraine Cam-
paign— Taubes—Vitrimont?— Miss Polk— A Restored
Church — Society of Friends — Gerbeviller — Sceur Julie —
Mortagne — An Inexpiable Crime — Massacre of Gerbe-
viller — " Les Civils ont tire"— Soeur Julie — The Germans
come— German Wounded— Barbarities in Hospital —



xvi CONTENTS

Soeur Julie and Germans — The French Return — Germans
at Nancy — Nancy saved — A Warm Welcome — Adieu
to Lorraine ..... pp. 180-212

No. 10

Doctrine of Force — Disciplined Cruelty — German Professors
— Professor von Gierke — An Orgy of Crime — Return
Home — Russia — The Revolution — Liberty like Young
Wine — What will Russia do ? — America joins — America
and France — The British Advance — British Successes —
The Italians — A Soldier's Letter — Aircraft and Guns —
The_^German Effort — April Hopes — Submarines — Tradi-
tion of the Sea — Last Threads — The Food Situation —
More Arable Land — Village Patriotism — Food Prices —
The Labour Outlook — Finance — Messines — The Tragedy
of War — A Celtic Legend — Europe and America

pp. 213-246



TOWARDS THE GOAL

No. 1

3Iarch 24th, 1917.

Dear Mr. Roosevelt,^ — It may be now
frankly confessed — (you, some time ago, gave
me leave to publish your original letter, as it
might seem opportune) — that it was you who
gave the impulse last year, which led to the
writing of the first series of Letters on " Eng-
land's Effort " in the war, which were pub-
lished in book form in June 1916. Your
appeal — that I should write a general account
for America of the part played by England
in the vast struggle — found me in our quiet
country house, busy with quite other work,
and at first I thought it impossible that I
could attempt so new a task as you proposed
to me. But support and encouragement came
from our own authorities, and hke many other
thousands of Enghsh women under orders, I
could only go and do my best. I spent some
2



2 ENGLAND'S EFFORT [No. 1

time in the Munition areas, watching the enor-
mous and rapid development of our war in-
dustries and of the astonishing part played in
it by women ; I was allowed to visit a portion
of the Fleet, and finally, to spend twelve days in
France, ten of them among the great supply
bases and hospital camps, with two days at
the British Headquarters, and on the front,
near Poperinghe, and Richebourg St. Vaast.

The result was a short book which has been
translated into many foreign tongues — French,
Itahan, Dutch, German, Russian, Portuguese,
and Japanese — which has brought me many
American letters from many different States,
and has been perhaps most widely read of all
among our own people. For we all read
newspapers, and we all forget them ! In tliis
vast and changing struggle, events huddle on
each other, so that the new blurs and wipes
out the old. There is always room — ^is there
not ? — for such a personal narrative as may
recall to us the main outhnes, and the cliief
determining factors of a war in which — often
— everything seems to us in flux, and our eyes,
amid the tumult of the stream, are apt to lose
sight of the landmarks on its bank, and the
signs of the approaching goal.



No. 1] RAPID MARCH OF EVENTS 3

And now again — after a year — I have been
attempting a similar task, with renewed and
cordial help from our authorities at home and
abroad. And I venture to address these new
Letters directly to yourself, as to that Ameri-
can of all others to whom this second chapter
on England's Effort may look for sympathy.
Whither are we tending — ^your country and
mine ? Congress meets on April 1st. Before
this Letter reaches you great decisions will have
been taken. I will not attempt to speculate.
The logic of facts will sweep our nations
together in some sort of intimate union — of
that I have no doubt.

How much further, then, has Great Britain
marched since the Spring of last year — how
much nearer is she to the end ? One can but
answer such questions in the most fragmentary
and tentative way, relying for the most part
on the opinions and information of those who
know, those who are in the van of action, at
home and abroad, but also on one's own per-
sonal impressions of an incomparable scene.
And every day, almost, at this breathless
moment, the answer of yesterday may become
obsolete.

I left our Headquarters in France, for in-



4 THE WORK OF THE NAVY [No. 1

stance, some days before the news of the
Russian revolution reached London, and while
the Somme retirement was still in its earher
stages. Immediately afterwards the events of
one short week transformed the whole poHtical
aspect of Europe, and may well prove to have
changed the face of the war — although as to
that, let there be no dogmatising yet ! But
before the pace becomes faster still, and before
the unfolding of those great and perhaps
final events we may now dimly foresee, let me
try and seize the impressions of some memor-
able weeks and bring them to bear — so far
as the war is concerned — on those questions
which, in the present state of affairs, must in-
terest you in America scarcely less than they
interest us here. Where, in fact, do we stand ?
Any kind of answer must begin with the
Navy. For, in the case of Great Britain, and
indeed scarcely less in the case of the Alhes,
that is the foundation of everything. To
yourself the facts will all be famihar — but for
the benefit of those innumerable friends of
the Allies in Europe and America whom I
would fain reach with the help of your great
name, I will run through a few of the recent —
the ground — facts of the past year, as I



No. 1] A NAVAL BASE 5

myself ran tLrougli fhem a few days ago,
before, with an Admiralty permit, I went down
to one of tlie most interesting naval bases on
our coast and found myself amid a group of
men engaged night and day in grappling with
the submarine menace which threatens not
only Great Britain, not only the AlHes, but
yourselves, and every neutral nation. It is
well to go back to these facts. They are
indeed worthy of this island nation, and her
seaborn children.

To begin with, the 'personnel of the British
Navy, which at the beginning of the war was
140,000, was last year 300,000. This year it
is 400,000, or very nearly three times what
it was before the war. Then as to ships, — " If
we were strong in capital ships at the begin-
ning of the war " — said Mr. Balfour, last Sep-
tember, " we are yet stronger now — absolutely
and relatively — and in regard to cruisers and
destroyers there is absolutely no comparison
between our strength in 1914 and our strength
now. There is no part of our naval strength
in which we have not got a greater supply,
and in some departments an incomparably
greater supply than we had on August 4th,
1914. . . . The tonnage of the Navy has in-



6 WHAT THE NAVY HAS DONE [No. 1

creased by well over a million tons since war
began/'

So Mr. Balfour, six months ago. Five
months later, it fell to Sir Edward Carson to
move the naval estimates, under pressure, as
we all know, of the submarine anxiety. He
spoke in the frankest and plainest language of
that anxiety, as did the Prime Minister in his
now famous speech of February 22nd, and as
did the speakers in the House of Lords, Lord
Lytton, Lord Curzon and Lord Beresford, on
the same date. The attach is not yet clieched.
The danger is not over. Still again— look at
some of the facts ! In two years and a quarter
of war —

Eight million men moved across the seas —

almost without mishap.
Nine million and a half tons of explosives

carried to our own armies and those of

our Allies.
Over a million horses and mules ; and —
Over forty-seven million gallons of petrol

supplied to the armies.
And besides, twenty-five thousand ships

have been examined for contraband of

war, on the high seas, or in harbour,

since the war began.



No. 1] THE JUTLAND BATTLE 7

And at this, one must pause a moment to
tliinlc — once again — what it means ; to call up
the familiar image of Britain's ships, large and
small, scattered over the wide Atlantic and
the approaches to the North Sea, watching
there through winter and summer, storm and
fair, and so carrying out, relentlessly, the
blockade of Germany, through every circum-
stance often of danger and difficulty ; with
every consideration for neutral interests that
is compatible with this desperate war, in which
the very existence of England is concerned ;
and without the sacrifice of a single life, unless
it be the lives of British sailors, often lost in
these boardings of passing ships, amid the
darkness and storm of winter seas. There,
indeed, in these " wave-beaten " ships, as in
the watching fleets of the Enghsh Admirals
outside Toulon and Brest, while Napoleon was
marching triumphantly about Europe, lies
the root fact of the war. It is a commonplace,
but one that has been " proved upon our
pulses.'' Who does not remember the shock
that went through England — and the civilised
world — when the first partial news of the
Battle of Jutland reached London, and we
were told our own losses, before Vv^e knew either



8 THE SUBMARINE PERIL [No. 1

tlie losses of tlie enemy or tlie general result
of the battle 1 It was neither fear, nor panic ;
but it was as though the nation, holding its
breath, realised for the first time where, for it,
lay the vital elements of being. The depths
in us were stirred. We knew in very deed that
we were the children of the sea !

And now again the depths are stirred. The
development of the submarine attack has set
us a new and stern task, and we are " strait-
ened till it be accomplished.'' The great
battle-ships seem almost to have left the stage.
In less than three months, 626,000 tons
of British, neutral and allied shipping have
been destroyed. Since the beginning of the
war we — Great Britain — have lost over two
million tons of shipping, and our Allies and
the neutrals have lost almost as much. There
is a certain shortage of food in Great Britain,
and a shortage of many other things besides.
Writing about the middle of February, an
important German newspaper raised a shout
of jubilation. " The whole sea was as if swept
clean at one blow " — by the announcement of
the intensified " blockade " of the first of
February. So the German scribe. But again
the facts shoot up, hard and irreducible,



No. 1] GERMAN LIES 9

through the sea of comment. While the Ger-
man newspapers were shouting to each other,
the sea was so far from being " swept clean/'
that twelve thousand ships had actually passed
in and out of British ports in the first eighteen
days of the " blockade/' And at any moment
during those days, at least 3,000 ships could
have been found traversing the " danger zone,'*
which the Germans imagined themselves to
have barred. One is reminded of the Ham-
hurger Nachrichten last year, after the Zeppehn
raid in January 1916. " Enghsh industry hes
in ruins/' said that astonishing print. " The
sea has been swept clean,'' says one of its
brethren now. Yet all the while, there, in
the danger zone, whenever, by day or night,
one turns one's thoughts to it, are the three
thousand ships ; and there in the course of a
fortnight, are the twelve thousand ships going
and coming.

Yet all the same, as I have said before,
there is danger and there is anxiety. The
neutrals — save America — -have been intimi-
dated ; they are keeping their ships in har-
bour ; and to do without their tonnage is a
serious matter for us. Meanwhile, the best
brains in naval England are at work, and one