the house of one of the most distinguished
of European pubhcists, M. Joseph Eeinach,
of the Figaro, I met, on our passage
through, the hvely, vigorous man, with his
look of Irish vivacity and force— M. Painleve
— who only a few days later was to succeed
General Lyautey as French Minister for Yv^ar.
At our own headquarters, I found opinion
as quietly confident as before. We were on
the point of entering Bapaume ; the " push-
ing up " was going extraordinarily well, owing
to the excellence of the stafi-work, and the
energy and efiiciency of all the auxiUary
services — the Engineers, and the Labour
Battahons, all the makers of roads and
railways, the builders of huts, and levellers
of shell-broken ground. And the vital im-
portance of the long struggle on the Somme
was becoming every day more evident. Only
about Russia, both in Paris and at G.H.Q.,
was there a kind of silence which meant
great anxiety. Lord Milner and General
Castelnau had returned from Petrograd. In
Paris, at any rate, it was not beheved that
they brought good news. All the huge efforts



No. 10] THE REVOLUTION 221

of the Allies to supply Kussia with money,
munitions, and transport, were they to go for
nothing, owing to some sinister and thwarting
influence which seemed to be stranghng the
national life ?

Then a few days after my return home,
the great explosion came, and when the first
tumult and dust of it cleared away, there,
indeed, was a strangely altered Europe !
From France, Great Britain, and America
went up a great cry of sympathy, of con-
gratulation. The Tsardom was gone ! — the
" dark forces '' had been overthrown ; the
pohtical exiles were free ; and Freedom
seemed to stand there on the Kussian soil
shading her bewildered eyes against the sun
of victory, amazed at her own deed.

But ten weeks have passed since then, and
it would be useless to disguise that the out-
burst of warm and sincere rejoicing that
greeted the overthrow of the Russian auto-
cracy has passed once more into anxiety.
Is Russia going to count any more in this
great struggle for a liberated Europe, or will
the forces of revolution devour each other,
till in the course of time the fated " saviour
of society " appears, and old tyrannies come



222 LIBERTY LIKE YOUNG WINE [No. 10

back ? General Smuts, himself the hero of
a national struggle which has ended happily
for both sides and the world, has been giving
adinirable expression here to the thoughts
of many hearts. First of all to the em.otion
with which all lovers of liberty have seen
the all but bloodless fall of the old tyranny.
*' It might have taken another fifty years or
a century of tragedy and suffering to have
brought it about ! But the enormous strain
of this war has done it, and the Russian people
stand free in their own house." Now, what
will they do with their freedom ? Ten weeks
have passed, and the Russian armies are still
disorganised, the Russian future uncertain.
Meanwhile Germany has been able to throw
against the Allies in France, and Austria has
been able to throw against Italy on the
Isonzo, forces which they think they need
no longer against Russia, and the pace of
victory has thereby been slackened. But
General Smuts makes his eloquent appeal
to the Russia which once held and broke
Napoleon :

"Liberty is like young wine — it mounts to
your head sometimes, and hberty, as a force
in the world, requires organisation and dis-



No. 10] WHAT WILL RUSSIA DO ? 223

cipline. . . . There must be organisation, and
there must be disciphne. The Russian people
are learning to-day the greatest lesson of hfe
— that to be free you must work very hard
and struggle very hard. They have the
sensation of freedom, now that their bonds
and shackles are gone, and no doubt they
feel the joy, the intoxication, of their new
experience ; but they are Hving in a world
which is not governed by formulas, however
cleverly devised, but in a world of brute
force, and unless that is smashed, even liberty
itself will suffer and cannot live."

Will the newly-freed forget those that are
still suSering and bound ? Will Russia for-
get Belgium ?— and forget Serbia ?

"Serbia was the reason why we went to
war. She was going to be crushed under
the Austrian heel, and Russia said this shall
not be allowed. Serbia has in that way
become the occasion probably of the greatest
movement for freedom the world has ever
seen. Are we going to forget Serbia ? No 1
We must stand by those martyr peoples who
liave stood by the great forces of the world.
If the great democracies of the world become
tired, if they become faint, if they halt by
the way, if they leave those little ones in the



224 AMERICA JOINS [No. 10

lurch, then they shall pay for it in wars more
horrible than human mind can foresee. I
am sure we shall stand by those little ones.
They have gone under, but we have not
gone under. England and America, France
and Paissia, have not gone under, and we
shall see them through, and shame on us if
ever the least thought enters our minds of
not seeing them through."

Noble and sincere words ! One can but
hope that the echoes of them may reach the
ear and heart of Russia.

But if towards Russia the sky that seemed
to have cleared so suddenly is at present
clouded and obscure — " westward, look, the
land is bright ! "

A fortnight after the abdication of the
Tsar, Congress met in Washington, and Pre-
sident Wilson's speech announcing war be-
tween G ermany and Am erica had rung through
the w^orld. All that you, sir, the constant
friend and champion of the Alhes, and still
more of their cause, and all that those who feel
with you in the States have hoped for so
long, is now to be fulfilled. It may take some
time for your country, across those thousand
miles of sea, to realise the war, to feel it in



No. 10] AMERICA AND FRANCE 225

every nerve, as we do. But in these seven
weeks — how much you have done, as well as
said ! You have welcomed the British mission
in a way to warm our British hearts; you
have shown the French mission how passion-
ately America feels for France. You have
sent us American destroyers, which have
already played their part in a substantial
reduction of the submarine losses. You have
lent the Alhes 150 milhons sterhng. You
have passed a Bill which will ultimately
give you an army of two million men. You
are raising such troops as will immediately
increase the number of Americans in France
to 100,000 — equalhng five German divisions.
You are sending us ten thousand doctors to
England and France, and hundreds of them
have already arrived. You have doubled
the personnel of your Navy, and increased
your Regular Army by nearly 180,000 men.
You are constructing 3,500 aeroplanes, and
training 6,000 airmen. And you are now
talking of 100,000 aeroplanes !
Not bad, for seven weeks !

• • • • «

For the Allies also those seven weeks have
been full of achievement. On Easter Monday,
16



226 THE BRITISH ADVANCE [No. 10

April 9th, the Battle of Arras began, with the
brilhant capture by the Canadians of that
very Vimy ridge I had seen on March 2nd,
from the plateau of Notre Dame de Lorette,
lying in the middle distance under the spring
sunshine. That exposed hill-side — those
batteries through whioh I had walked —
those crowded roads, and travelUng guns,
those marching troops and piled ammunition
dumps ! — how the recollection of them gave
accent and fire to the picture of the battle
as the telegrams from the front built it up
day by day before one's eyes ! Week by
week, afterwards, with a mastery in artillery
and in aviation that nothing could withstand,
the British Army pushed on through April.
After the first great attack which gave us the
Vimy ridge and brought our line close to Lens
in the north, and to the neighbourhood of
BuUecourt in the south, the 23rd of April saw
the second British advance, which gave us
Gavrelle and Guemappe, and made further
breaches in the Hindenburg Hne. On April
16th the French made their magnificent
attack in Champagne, with 10,000 prisoners
on the first day (increased to 31,000 by May
24th)— followed by the capture of the im-



No. 10] BRITISH SUCCESSES 227

mensely important positions of Moronvillers
and Craonne. Altogether the AUies in Httle
more than a month took 50,000 prisoners,
and large numbers of guns. General Allenby,
for instance, captured 150 guns. General Home
64, while General Byng formed three " Pan-
Germanic groups " out of his. We recovered
many square miles of the robbed territory of
France — 40 villages one day, 100 villages
another ; while the condition in which the
Germans had left both the recovered territory
and its inhabitants has steeled once more
the determination of the nations at war with
Germany to put an end to " this particular
form of ill-doing on the part of an uncivihsed
race.''

During May there has been no such striking
advance on either the French or British fronts,
though Rceux and Bullecourt, both very
important points, from their bearing on the
Drocourt-Queant line, behind which lie Douai
and Cambrai, have been captured by the
British, and the French have continuously
bettered their line and defied the most desper-
ate counter-attacks. But May has been
specially Italy's month ! The Itahan offensive
on the Isonzo, and the Carso, beginning



228 THE ITALIANS [No. 10

on May 14th, in ten days achieved more
than any onlooker had dared to hope. In
the section between Tohiiino and Gorizia
where the Isonzo runs in a fine gorge, the
western bank belonging to Italy, and the
eastern to Austria, all the important heights
on the eastern bank across the river, except
one that may fall to them any day, have been
carried by the superb fighting of the Itahans,
amongst whom. Dante's fellow citizens, the
Florentine regiment, and regiments drawn
from the rich Tuscan hills have specially
distinguished themselves. While on the Carso,
that rock-wilderness which stretches between
Gorizia and Trieste, where fighting, especially
in hot weather, suppHes a suprem.e test of
human endurance, the ItaHans have pushed
on and on, from point to point, till now they
are within ten miles of Trieste. British
artillery is with the Itahan Army, and British
guns have been shelhng mihtary quarters
and stores in the outskirts of Trieste, while
British monitors are co-operating at sea.
The end is not yet, for the Austrians will
fight to their last man for Trieste ; and owing
to the Russian situation the Austrians have
been able to draw reinforcements from Gahcia,



No. 10] A SOLDIER'S LETTER 229

which have seriously stiffened the task of Italy.
But the omens are all good, and the Itahan
nation is more sohdly behind its army than
ever before.

So that in spite of the apparent lull in the
Alhed offensive on the French front, during
the later weeks of May, all has really been
going well. The only result of the furious
German attempts to recover the ground lost
in April has been to exhaust the strength of
the attackers ; and the Allied cause is steadily
profited thereby. Our own troops have never
been more sure of final victory. Let me quote
a soldier's plain and graphic letter, recently
pubhshed :

" This break-away from trench war gives us
a much better time. We know now that we
are the top dogs, and that we are keeping
the Germans on the move. And they're busy
wondering all the time ; they don't know
where the next whack is coming from. Mind
you, I'm far from saying that we can get them
out of the Hindenburg line without a lot of
fighting yet, but it is only a question of time.
It's a different sensation going over the top
now from what it was in the early days. You
see, we used to know that our guns were not



230 A SOLDIER'S LETTER [No. 10

nearly so many as the Germans', and that
we hadn't the stuff to put over. Now we
just chmb out of a trench and walk behind
a curtain of fire. It makes a difference.
It seems to me we are steadily beating the
Boche at his own game. He used to be
strong in the matter of guns, but that's been
taken from him. He used gas — do you
remember the way the Canadians got the
first lot ? Well, now our gas shells are a bit
too strong for him, and so are our flame shells.
I bet he \\'ishes now that he hadn't thought
of his flame-throwers ! . . . Then there's
another thing, and that's the way our chaps
keep improving. The Fritzes are not so
good as they used to be. You get up against
a bunch now and again that fight well, but
we begin to see more of the ' Kamerad '
business. It's as much up to the people at
home to see this thing through as it is to
the men out here. We need the guns and
shells to blow the Germans out of the strong
places that they've had years to build and
dig, and the folks at home can leave the rest
to us. We can do the job all right if they
back us up and don't get tired. I think
we've shown them that too. You'll get all
that from the papers, but maybe it comes
better from a soldier. You can take it from
me that it's true. I've seen the begimiing,



No. 10] AIRCRAFT AND GUNS 231

and I've been in places where things were
pretty desperate for us, and I've seen the
start of the finish. The difference is marvellous.
I've only had an army education, and it
might strike you that I'm not able to judge.
I'm a soldier though, and I look at it as a
soldier. I say, give us the stuff, keep on
giving us the tools and the men to use them,
and — it may be soon or it may be long — we'll
beat the Boche to his knees."

The truth seems to be that the Germans
are outmatched, first and foremost, in air-
craft and in guns. You will remember the
quiet certainty of our young Fhght-Com-
mander on March 1st — " When the next big
offensive comes, we shall down them, just
as we did on the Somme." The prophecy
has been made good, abundantly good ! —
at the cost of many a precious hfe. The air
observation on our side has been far better
and more daring than that on the German
side ; and the work of our artillery has been
proportionately more accurate and more
effective.

As to guns and ammunition, " the number
of heavy shells fired in the first week of the
present offensive — says an ofiicial account —



232 THE GERMAN EFFORT [No. 10

" was nearly twice as great as it was in the
first week of the Somme offensive, and in the
second week it was 6|- times as great as it
was in the second week of the Somme offensive.
As a result of this great artillery fire, which
had never been exceeded in the whole course
of the war, a great saving of British hfe
has been effected.'^ And no praise can be
too high for our gunners. In a field where,
two years ago, Germany had the undisputed
predominance, we have now beaten her alike
in the supply of guns and in the daring and
efficiency of our gunners.

Nevertheless, let there be no foohsh under-
estimate of the still formidable strength of
the Germans. The British and French mis-
sions will have brought to your Govermnent
all available information on this point. There
can be no doubt that a *' wonderful '' effort,
as one of our Ministers calls it, has been
made by Germany during the past winter.
She has mobihsed all her people for the war
as she has never done yet. She has increased
her munitions and put fresh divisions in the
field. The estimates of her present fighting
strength given by our mihtary writers and
correspondents do not differ very much.



No. 10] APRIL HOPES 233

Colonel Repington, in The Times, puts the
German fighting men on both fronts at
4,500,000, with 500,000 on the Hnes of com-
munication, and a milhon in the German
depots. Mr. Belloc's estimate is somewhat
less, but not materially difierent. Both
writers agree that we are in presence of
Germany's last and greatest efiort, that she
has no more behind, and that if the Alhes go
on as they have begun — and now with the
help of America — 'this summer should witness
the fulfilment at least of that forecast which
I reported to you in my earher letters as so
general among the chiefs of our Army in
France — i.e. *' this year will see the war
decided, but may not see it ended." Since
I came home, indeed, more optimistic pro-
phecies have reached me from France. For
some weeks after the American declaration
of war, " V/e shall be home by Christmas ! "
was the common cry — and amongst some of
the best-informed.

But the Russian situation has no doubt
reacted to some extent on these April hopes.
And it is clear that, during April and early
May, under the stimulus of the submarine
successes, German spirits have temporarily



234 SUBMARINES [No. 10

revived. Never have the Junkers been more
truculent, never have the Pan- Germans talked
wilder nonsense about " annexation "" and
" indemnities.'' Until quite recently at any
rate, the whole German nation — -except no
doubt a cautious and intelligent few at the
real sources of information — beheved that
the submarine campaign would soon " bring
England to her knees."' They were so con-
fident, that they ran the last great risk — they
'brought America into the War !

How does it look now ? The situation is
still critical and dangerous. But I recall the
half-smiling pi^ophecy of my naval host, in
the middle of March, as we stood together
on the deck of his ship, looking over his
curtseying and newlyrhatched flock of
destroyers gathered round him in harbour.
Was it not, perhaps, as near the mark as that
of our airmen hosts on March 1st has proved
itself to be ? "Have patience and you'll see
great things ! The situation is serious, but
quite healthy." Two months, and a httle
more, since the words were spoken : — and
week by week, heavy as it still is, the toll
of submarine loss is at least kept in check,
and your Navy, now at work with ours —



No. 10] TRADITION OF THE SEA 235

most fitting and welcome Nemesis ! — is helping
England to punish and baffle the " uncivihsed
race/' who, if they had their way, would blacken
and defile for ever the old and glorious record
of man upon the sea. You, who store such
things in your enviable memory, will recollect
how in the Odyssey, that kindly race of singers
and wrestlers, the Phseacians, are the escorts
and conveyers of all who need and ask for
protection at sea. They keep the water-
ways for civilised men, against pirates and
assassins, as your nation and ours mean to
keep them in the future. It is true that a
treacherous sea-god, jealous of any inter-
ference with his right to slay and drown at
will, smote the gallant ship that bore Odysseus
safely home, on her return, and made a rock
of her for ever. Poseidon may stand for
the Kaiser of the story. He is gone, however,
with all his kin ! But the humane and civi-
lising tradition of the sea, which this legend
carries back into the dawn of time — it shall
be for the AlHes — shall it not ? — in this war,
to rescue it, once and for ever, from the
criminal violence which would stain the free
paths of ocean with the murder and sudden
death of those who have been in all history



236 LAST THREADS [No. 10

the objects of men's compassion and care-



the wounded, the helpless, the woman, and
the child.

• • • • •

For the rest, let me gather up a few last
threads of this second instalment of our British
story.

Of that vast section of the war concerned
with the care and transport of the wounded,
and the health of the Army, it is not my
purpose to speak at length in these Letters.
Like everything else it has been steadily and
eagerly perfected during the past year. Never
have the wounded in battle, in any war, been so
tenderly and skilfully cared for ; — never have
such intelhgence and goodwill been appHed to
the health conditions of such huge masses of
men. Nor is it necessary to dwell again, as
I did last year, on the wonderful work of women
in the war. It has grown in complexity and
bulk ; women-workers in munitions are now .
nearly a fifth of the whole body ; but essenti-
ally the general aspect of it has not changed
much in the last twelve months.

But what has changed is the food situation,
owing partly to submarine attack, and partly
to the general shortage in the food-supply of



No. 10] THE FOOD SITUATION 237

tlie world. In one of my earlier letters I spoke
with anxiety of the still unsettled question —
Will the house-wives and mothers of the
nation reahse — in time — our food necessities ?
Will their thrift-work in the homes com-
plete the munition-work of women in the
factories ? Or must we submit to the ration-
system, with all its cumbrous inequalities, and
its hosts of officials ; because the will and
intelligence of our people, which have risen so
remarkably to the other tasks of this war, are
not equal to the task of checking food con-
sumption without compulsion ?

It looks now as though they would be equal.
Since my earher letter the country has been
more and more generally covered with the
National War Savings Committees which have
been carrying into food-economy the energy
they spent originally on the raising of the last
great War Loan. The consumption of bread
and flour throughout the country has gone
down — not yet sufficiently — but enough to
show that the idea has taken hold: — "Save
bread, and helj) victory I " And since your
declaration of war it strengthens our own
effort to know that America with her bound-
less food-supphes is standing by, and that



238 MORE ARABLE LAND [No. 10

her man-and sea-power are now to be com-
bined with ours in defeating the last effort of
Germany to secure by submarine piracy what
she cannot win on the battle-field.

Meanwhile changes which will have far-
reaching consequences after the war are taking
place in our own home food- supply. The long
neglect of our home agriculture, the slow and
painful dwdndhng of our country populations,
are to come to an end. The Government calls
for the somng of three million additional acres
_pf wheat in Great Britain ; and throughout the
country the steam tractors are at work
ploughing up land which has either never
borne wheat, or which has ceased to bear it
for nearly a century. Thirty-five thousand
acres of corn land are to be added to the
national store in this county of Hertfordshire
alone. The wages of agricultural labourers
have risen by more than one-third. The
farmers are to be protected and encouraged
as they never have been since the Cob-
denite revolution ; and the Corn Production
Bill now passing through Parhament shows
what the grim lesson of this war has done to
change the old and easy optimism of our
people.



No. 10] VILLAGE PATRIOTISM 239

As to the energy that has been thrown into
other means of food- supply, let the potatoes
now growing in the flower-beds in front of
Buckingham Palace stand for a symbol of it !
The potato-crop of this year — barring accidents
— will be enormous ; and the whole hfe of our
country villages has been quickened by the
effort that has been made to increase the
produce of the cottage gardens and allotments.
The pride and pleasure of the women and the
old men in what they have been able to do at
home, while their sons and husbands are
fighting at the front, is moving to see. Food
prices are very high ; Hfe in spite of increased
wages is hard. But the heart of England is set
on winning this war ; and the letters which
pass between the fathers and mothers in this
village where I live, and the sons at the front,
in whom they take a daily and hourly pride,
would not give Germany much comfort could
she read them. I take this little scene, as an
illustration, fresh from the hfe of my own
village :

Imagine a visitor, on behalf of the food-
economy movement, endeavouring to persuade
a village mother to come to some cookery
lessons organised by the local committee.



240 FOOD PRICES [No. 10

Mrs. S. is discovered sitting at a table on
whicli are preparations for a meal. She
receives the visitor and the visitor's remarks
with an air — quite unconscious — of tragic
meditation ; and her honest lab our- stained
hand sweeps over the things on the table.

" Cheese ! '' — she says, at last — ^ ' eight fence
the 'arf pound ! "

A pause. The hand points in another
direction.

" Lard — sevenpence — that scrubby httle
piece ! Sugar ! sixpence 'apenny the pound.
The best part of two shilhn's gone ! Whatever
are we comin' to ? "

Gloom descends on the little kitchen. The
visitor is at a loss — when suddenly the round,
m.otherly face changes. — " But there now ! I'm