had not yet by any means met ; but in
every shipyard in Great Britain and
America men were rivaling one another
to see who could rivet the greatest
number of bolts in one day, and there
was every prospect that sooner or later
the Allies would be able to build as
many ships as the German mines and
torpedoes could sink. In that day
the war would be won.
661
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
The restriction of imports was a
comparatively simple matter. Orders-
in-council were issued prohibiting the
importation of foreign fruit, tea, coffee,
cocoa, rum, wines, linen, books, and
generally all things that did not come
under the head of necessities. The
importation of other things, such as
paper and canned salmon, was re-
stricted by 25 or 50 per cent. On the
whole, it was estimated that the new
restrictions would effect a saving in
cargo space of nearly 1,000,000 tons,
and would thus go a long way to
counterbalance the loss of shipping
which had already taken place.
77INAL RESORT TO RATIONING OF FOOD.
Food economy, like recruiting, was
at first put on a voluntary basis. Lord
Devonport, who occupied the office of
Food Controller until the summer of
1917, hesitated, on account of practical
difficulties, to adopt a system of com-
pulsory rationing; and he merely put
people on their honor to ration them-
selves voluntarily according to a fixed
schedule. This voluntary rationing
undoubtedly resulted in a considerable
decrease in the consumption of food-
stuffs, for most people adhered to it
religiously; but it offered a loophole
for the glutton and the food-hoarder,
just as voluntary recruiting had offered
a loophole for the "slacker". A strong
demand consequently developed for a
compulsory system ; and Lord Rhondda,
who succeeded Lord Devonport as
Food Controller, acceded to this de-
mand, and in December, 1917, in-
augurated a system of compulsory
rationing by means of food cards.
Sugar was at first the only commodity
rationed; but the system worked with
unexpected smoothness, and in the
beginning of 1918 other foodstuffs were
rationed as well, notably meat.
Parallel with the food economy
campaign was the policy of liquor
control. The output of the breweries
and distilleries was rigorously re-
stricted; and by this means an annual
saving of hundreds of thousands of
tons of foodstuffs was effected. No
attempt was made to ration beer and
spirits, except on the part of the dealers,
662
and the prices of all kinds of spirituous
beverages rose to unheard-of heights,
until in the summer of 1918 prices
were fixed: but temperance advocates
believed that the restrictions imposed,
by limiting drunkenness, contributed
greatly to the effectiveness of the
British war effort.
EFFORTS TO STIMULATE PRODUCTION
OF FOOD.
Lastly, every effort was made to
stimulate food production in Great
Britain itself. A "back to the land"
propaganda was launched; local agri-
cultural committees were given au-
thority to place land under the plough,
with the result that tennis-courts,
golf-links, and ancient estates which
had not been under cultivation for a
century were transformed into potato
patches and wheat fields; generous
minimum prices for foodstuffs were
guaranteed by the government; and
a revival of agriculture took place
such as Great Britain had not seen
since the first half of the eighteenth
century. In every village and town
in England old men, women, and
boys of every grade of society had
their allotments of cultivated land,
which they worked in their hours after
business.
Taken all in all, "the race with death,"
as a German newspaper denominated
the anti-submarine struggle, imposed
on the British people unprecedented
privations and sacrifices. It involved
an experiment in state socialism such
as few people ever thought would
be made on British soil. Yet the
British nation accepted the situation
with a certain phlegmatic, but heroic
equanimity; and in the end the com-
bined result of the measures adopted
was that the Germans were cheated
of the victory which they had thought
was all but within their grasp.
rpHE SMALL EFFECT OF AIR-RAIDS.
Just as the submarine menace was
met and held, so the menace of the
German air-raiders was in the end
scotched. The first air-raids on England
were made by Zeppelin dirigibles,
which crossed the North Sea under
cover of dark and cloudy nights, and
TWO GIRLS CARRY ON A FARM
On a farm in Devonshire all the men employed 'were in the army, and the farmer was ill. His two daughters, one
eighteen the other fourteen, carried on all the work of the farm, milking, ploughing and taking care of the
calves and sheep and driving the animals to market. Picture British Official.
A GERMAN PICTURE OF ENGLISH GUNS
Though this picture was apparently made in France it was widely circulated in Germany as being made in England.
It pretended to show that the English were so much alarmed by the threat of German invasion that they were
retaining heavy guns in England and scattering them all through the country-side near the sea, instead of sem
them to France. Feature Photo Service.
663
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
BACK TO THE LAND
This picture shows the woman prize-winner for harrow-
ing and driving in Cornwall, where the heavy soil re-
quires a steady hand.
dropped bombs promiscuously over
the east of England. These raids
wrought occasionally no small damage ;
but on the whole they proved a failure,
not because of the effectiveness of the
British defenses, but on account of
atmospheric conditions and other prac-
tical or technical difficulties. The
Germans then had resort to aeroplane
raids. These were made at first on
moonlit nights, and they proved more
difficult to deal with than the Zeppelin
raids. Then, growing bolder, the
Germans ventured on daylight raids;
and the first daylight raid, which took
place in Kent in May, 1917, did great
havoc.
Gradually, however, the British anti-
aircraft defenses were improved. Lon-
don, which was the chief object of
attack, was provided with a plentiful
supply of anti-aircraft artillery; an
elaborate system of air-raid warnings
was evolved, which gave time for
precautionary measures; and the grow-
ing ascendancy of the British air
forces made it increasingly dangerous
for the Germans to attack England.
Very little of the damage done, more-
over, was of military importance; and
664
RELEASING MEN FOR MILITARY SERVICE
A woman acting as a bricklayer's assistant in an English
village. Others cleaned and painted ships, sawed
lumber, even carried coal.
during the last stages of the war any
German air-raids on England were
undertaken, apparently, more with
the hope of pinning down a part of the
British air-forces to the defense of
England than with the hope of obtain-
ing any decisive result through terror
or demolition. Throughout the war,
indeed, the German air-raids on Eng-
land, far from weakening the resolution
of the British people, rather steeled it,
and thus contributed in the long run
to the downfall of Germany.
nnHE GREAT WAR EFFORT OF 1917-1918.
During 1917 and 1918 everyone
recognized that the crisis of the war
was approaching; and Great Britain
strained every nerve to make her
weight felt as strongly as possible.
To cite statistics with regard to the
magnitude of the British war effort
during these years would merely be-
wilder without convincing; a clearer
idea may be gained from a few simple
but significant facts. By the begin-
ning of 1918 the military age in Great
Britain had been raised to fifty years
and lowered to eighteen; the medical
standard for recruits had been lowered
A PARTY OF THE W.A.A.C. AT TOURS
This group of the W.A.A.C. was detailed to do clerical work in the American Central Record office at Tours. The
workers are shown on a little island made into a play-ground for war-workers of all nationalities which was in charge
of a young American Y.W.C.A. worker, in the centre of the picture.
WOMEN'S ARMY AUXILIARY CORPS IN BARRACKS
military authority while on duty and did almost everything a man could do
665
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
repeatedly, and all exemptions revised;
the principle was adopted that all pri-
vate considerations, 'of* whatever sort,
should give way before the needs of the
state, and every man who was not
physically unfit was forced either into
the army and navy,' or"r. into some in-
dustry, such as munitions, shipbuild-
ing, or agriculture, wjhich ,was essential
to the prosecution of- the war. By
1918, ' indeed, there ^was hardly an
otiose man In 'the British Isles, out-
side 'of Ireland; and "thV total enlist-
ments in the army had soared to a
figure around six millions.
THE WORK OF WOMEN IN WAR AND IN-
DUSTRY.
An even more striking illustration
of war effort was to be Jound in the
work of the women. Frohi the begin-
ning the women of GreaV Britain had
enlisted in large numbers' as hospital
workers and as makers of soldiers'
comforts; and when the munitions
crisis arose, great numbers of them
entered the munition factories. Some
factories indeed came to be staffed
almost wholly by women. Then, when
the problem of man-power came to the
fore in 1917, women flocked into service
in a score of different spheres, where
they had never been seen before. A
Women's Army Auxiliary Corps was
formed as an adjunct of the army;
and these "Waacs", as they were
familiarly known, more than justified
their existence by relieving for duty
at the front men who heretofore had
been held on the lines of communica-
tion. Similar corps were formed also
in connection with the navy and the
air forces; the former were known as
"Wrens" (Women's Royal Naval Serv-
ice), and the latter as "Wrafs" (Wom-
en's Royal Air Force). Large numbers
of "land girls" volunteered for work on
the farms; women became bank clerks,
taxi drivers, bus conductors, and even
railway hands. In every branch of life
women stepped up and took the places
of the men who had gone to the front;
and the remarkable feature of this
social revolution was that it was the
result of voluntary effort.
Still another illustration of the war
effort of the British people was seen
666
in the sphere of finance. Although by
1918 the cost of the war had risen in
Great Britain to over 6,000,000 a
day, and the national debt had grown
to over six times its pre-war size,
Great Britain was able to meet a con-
siderable part of the cost of the war
out of an enormously increased tax
revenue. The tax on quite moderate
incomes rose to 4 7s! 6d. in the pound;
and on large incomes it rose to more
than los. This 'taxation, however,
did not prevent the country from sub-
scribing liberally to the government
loans; and of the war loans and victory
loans issued nearly three-fourths of
the total was taken up in the country
itself.
THE "WILL-TO- VICTORY" IN THE GOVERN-
MENT.
Government action in 1917 and 1918
afforded many evidences of the Lloyd
George Cabinet's determination to
prosecute the war to a successful
issue. Every effort was made to keep
the Cabinet at the highest point of
efficiency. Mention has already been
made of the substitution in June, 1917,
of Lord Rhondda for Lord Devonport
as Food Controller. Lord Rhondda,
one of the ablest business men in Great
Britain, undertook the duties of Food
Controller against the advice of his
physicians, and he died when his work
was accomplished, as true a martyr to
the cause as any soldier that died at the
front. In July, 1917, Sir Edward
Carson was superseded as First Lord of
the Admiralty by Sir Eric Geddes, one
of the "supermen" thrown up by the
war, a civilian who had risen to the
rank of Major-General in the army
and Vice- Admiral in the navy. In
August, 1917, Mr. Arthur Henderson,
the representative of Labor in the War
Cabinet, was forced to resign on ac-
count of his equivocal attitude toward
the International Labor Conference
at Stockholm, where it was apparently
proposed that British and German
Socialists should sit side by side and
discuss the terms of peace; and his
place in the War Cabinet was taken
by Mr. George N. Barnes, who had
opposed sending British delegates to
the Conference.
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
THE DEPARTMENT OF PROPAGANDA OR-
GANIZED.
A singular illustration of the efficien-
cy of the British government was seen
in the creation, in February, 1918, of
a department of Propaganda. This
department was placed in charge of
Lord Beaverbrook, a Canadian finan-
cier who had had a meteoric career in
British politics, and who had played
a leading part in the formation of the
Lloyd George Cabinet; and the over-
sight of propaganda in enemy coun-
tries was given to Lord Northcliffe,
whose great abilities had previously
been employed in a special mission to
the United States. The new depart-
ment was the result of a realization that
the issue of the war was likely to be
decided as much on the home-front
as on the battlefield, and that the
struggle had now entered the realm
of psychology.
The work of the department was
twofold. On the one hand, it devoted
itself to strengthening the "will-to-
victory" of the British .people and
their allies, through the newspapers,
through books and pamphlets, and
even through the cinema; and on the
other hand, it strove to break down the
will of the Germans and their allies
by getting the facts about the war
effort of the Allies and . the United
States into the Central Empires, if
only through literature scattered over
enemy countries by British airmen.
That the propaganda carried out was
successful in weakening the German
resistance was proved, during the war,
by captured German army orders, and
has been amply corroborated, since
the armistice, by the narratives which
the German generals and admirals have
poured from the press.
THE IMPERIAL WAR CABINET IS ORGAN-
IZED.
As the war entered, moreover, on
its final stages, the British machinery
for the direction of the war grew
steadily better. The creation of the
War Cabinet paved the way for the
formation in March, 1917, of the
Imperial War Cabinet, in which sat,
not only the members of the British
War Cabinet, but also the Prime
Ministers of the British overseas Do-
minions. This new body, which was
well described as a "Cabinet of Govern-
ments, " and which possessed not merely
advisory but executive powers, pro-
vided what had hitherto been lacking,
a unified control for the war effort of
the British Empire. Later, in No-
vember, 1917, largely as a result of the
insistence of Mr. Lloyd George, a
Supreme War Council was set up at
Paris, which gave the same sort of
unity to the war effort of all the Allies
that the Imperial War Cabinet had
given to the war effort of the British
Empire; and the culmination of the
process was reached in March, 1918,
when Marshal Foch was made General-
issimo of the Allied armies on the West-
ern Front.
/CRITICISM OF THE GOVERNMENT SOME-
\_s TIMES HEARD.
The Lloyd George government, of
course, did not escape criticism. At
times, indeed, criticism of both the
policy and conduct of the administra-
tion was hardly less vigorous than it
had been under the Asquithian regime.
But it was criticism of a different kind.
Little complaint was heard of vacilla-
tion or dilatoriness in government
action ; most of the critics of the govern-
ment were people who believed, on
various grounds, that the policy of
the government was too thoroughgoing.
From the beginning a part of the
Labor party and the extreme Radical
wing of the Liberal party had been
opposed to the war ; and under the Lloyd
George regime this pacifist element
grew bolder and more active. They
attacked nearly every measure whereby
the government sought to strengthen
the war effort of Great Britain; and
they continually advocated "a peace
by negotiation" rather than a decision
on the battlefield. As the war dragged
on, a certain war-weariness, which be-
gan to appear among some people,
gave to this party an accession of
strength; and they received support
from an unexpected quarter when,
in November, 1917, no less a person
than Lord Lansdowne wrote a letter
to The Times urging that peace ne-
gotiations with the Germans should
667
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
be opened. But among the rank and
file of the British people these pacifists
were regarded as disloyal, and their
attacks probably strengthened the
government rather than weakened it.
T-xISAGREEMENT IN ARMY AND NAVAL
\_) CIRCLES.
An attack from a different angle
was that conducted by certain groups
connected with the War Office and the
Admiralty. In this campaign a number
of questions were at issue. The
"Westerners" those who believed
that the war was to be decided on the
Western Front objected to the various
"side-shows" which the government
was conducting atSaloniki, in Palestine,
and in Mesopotamia; and an element in
British military circles condemned
what they regarded as the undue central-
ization of authority in the hands of an
Allied Generalissimo. The old cry
was heard that the politicians were
bedeviling the conduct of the war.
Unfortunately, in the controversies
that arose, personalities seemed to play
a considerable part. The friends of
Lord Jellicoe were angry at his dis-
missal from the post of First Sea Lord;
the friends of General Sir W. R. Rob-
ertson were angry at his having been
forced out of the position of Chief of
the General Staff over the question
of the unity of the Allied command;
and when, on May 6, 1918, General
Sir Frederick Maurice, the Director
of Military Operations at the War
Office, wrote a letter to The Times
accusing Mr. Lloyd George of having
misled the House of Commons with
false information, the personal feeling
between the professional soldiers and
the politicians became all too apparent.
The attack resulted only in a parlia-
mentary victory for Mr. Lloyd George;
General Maurice was disciplined by
the Army Council ; and as soon as the
tide turned in France in the summer of
1918, and the advantages of the unity
of command became apparent, the
attack died down.
>-pHE DAY OF VICTORY FINALLY ARRIVES.
The victory of the Allies in the
autumn of 1918 the collapse of Bul-
garia, the break-up of Austria-Hun-
gary, the defeat of Germany was
almost a personal triumph for Mr.
Lloyd George. It proved the soundness
of his views with regard to the prosecu-
tion of the war; and it justified the
shining optimism with which he in-
spired the people of Great Britain even
in the darkest days of the struggle.
His presence at the head of affairs in
Great Britain during the critical years
of 1917 and 1918 was worth many
army corps to the Allies; and it was
not surprising that, as the war closed,
he became a popular idol among the
majority of his countrymen. The
general elections held at the end of
1918 resulted in the tribute of an over-
whelming victory for the Lloyd George
government a tribute rendered more
remarkable since a new Act (the Repre-
sentation of the People Act, 1918) had
enormously widened the electorate,
inaugurating not only manhood suf-
frage, but female suffrage as well.
But great as was the contribution
made by Mr. Lloyd George and his
colleagues in the government to the
final victory of the Allied arms, the
chief credit for the war effort of Great
Britain rests with the average British
citizen. Encompassed about with dan-
gers of which he had never dreamt,
faced with famine, subject to restric-
tions against which at other times his
liberty-loving soul would have re-
volted, enduring the daily torture of
the casualty lists, and often mourning
the fact that the light of his life had
gone out, the average Britisher never-
theless played his part with stolid and
unfaltering constancy not doubting
that the clouds would break. Never,
not even in the Napoleonic Wars, did
the prosaic heroism of the British
people shine more brightly or clearly
than in the Great War of 1914-1918.
W. S. WALLACE.
668
French infantry awaiting attack
CHAPTER XLI
M. Poilu, As I Knew Him
AN ENGLISHMAN'S COMPARISON OF THE FRENCH AND THE
BRITISH SOLDIER
BY BASIL CLARKE
POILU, the French soldier?
Which way shall one turn to find
the type? Take the bearded old man
you see in the roadway there, sitting
with his hammer beside a heap of
stones. He is bent and rheumatic; his
eyes are failing, and, despite the
spectacles he wears behind his stone-
breaker's goggles, he can hardly see
the stones he is so busily breaking. His
lunch is by his side a loaf, an apple
and half a bottle of mixed wine and
water. He will work there from sunrise
till sundown, and the"n, with bent
back and slow step, he will hobble to
some neighboring cottable to sup and
sleep. A quaint, pathetic old figure!
But he is a French soldier, none the
less: His weather-worn blue coat was
served out to him by a regimental
commissariat goodness knows how
many years ago. His corduroy trou-
sers are also uniform; his cap is the
uniform peak cap of the French Army.
BOTH OF THESE OLD MEN SOLDIERS OF
FRANCE.
Soon, perhaps, you may see this old
Poilu 's corporal come along the road to
take a look at the work done, and to
pass censure if the amount is too little.
The corporal is, perhaps, just as old as
the stonebreaker himself. He may
wear the stripe of the "caporal" be-
cause his sight is a little better or
because he can walk along the roads
at a whole mile an hour instead of only
at half a mile. Both are equally
soldiers of France, and they work for
soldier's pay which is the luxurious
sum of three or five sous (three cents
to five cents) a day.
THE FRENCH ARMY AND THE FRENCH
NATION SYNONYMOUS.
They may never go near the front.
They may be now, as you watch them,
a good fifty miles away from the near-
est trench. But over the roads they
make or mend pass the troops and the
stores, the horses and the guns, that
go to the winning of France's battles.
And just as those guns are necessary
so also are the stones for the roads that
take the guns, and the stonebreakers
that break the stones for the roads that
take the guns. It is like the "House
that Jack Built" over again; and in
France, when the house is to be built
is a war to be won, every man necessary
for building that house is caught up
in that immense and all-embracing
labor net, the Army of the French
Republic. He may make you a boot
or pull you -out a tooth, bake you a loaf
or bury you, but he becomes a soldier.
The French Army just now is the
French nation.
669
HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR
To take the French equivalent,
therefore, of the British soldier you
must take the French fighting soldier.
This is not so all-comprehensive a
term as the term French soldier, who
is everyone. Gunners, sappers, horse
and foot there are numerous : types
enough of the French "fighting
soldier" and the wider age limit that
THE PASSION AND THE FIERCENESS OF
THE FRENCH.
First, then, I think the French
soldier is the fiercest of all the soldiers
fighting in this war. His war spirit
burns him. It is a passion. I shall
never forget the face and the eyes of the
infantry sergeant who one night, early
in the war, came across me in a French
exists in the French Army -yields troop train (to which one of his men
SOLDIERS INCAPABLE OF ACTIVE SERVICE MENDING ROADS
These old men, decrepit, and perhaps half blind are, nevertheless, soldiers of France under military discipline.
Every man on the rolls who could render service in any capacity was called to the colors. Though entirely in-
capable of service in the trenches he might be set to making munitions, farming, building roads, or any one of a
dozen other occupations all of which helped to carry on the war.
greater contrasts in individual types
than are to be found in even our own
Army. To reduce the French fighting
soldiers to a type, therefore, to take,
that is, all the types of French soldier,
and in the manner of those horrid
little sums we used to do at school, to
take their G. C. M. or H. C. F. and
say this is the French fighting soldier
type would be rather speculative
mathematics. I don't think one could
do it. What I will try to do instead
is to set down certain qualities which
I think belong especially to the French
soldier, at least to a greater degree
than to any others.
670
had invited me), and, as he stood with
a lantern peering into my face, said,
"Swear to me that you are not a
Boche." Even though I was not a
Boche the look in that man's eyes
quite scared me then and still remains