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Throughout the autumn of 1916 theNov. 9. German troops and people were encouraged with hints of peace by Christmastide. The Imperial Chancellor, in his speech of 9th November, spoke smooth words, and the mind of the nation was prepared for his declaration of 12th December in the Reichstag, and the dispatch on the same day of a summons to the enemies of Germany to enter into negotiations. Before we deal with these strange overtures, it is necessary to consider the state of mind which prompted them.

German diplomacy had never been distinguished by subtlety. He who ran might read as in large type the motives of her numerous pronunciamentos. The causes which she wished the world to believe guided her action were always explicitly stated, but the true reasons could be observed sticking out like the stuffing from a damaged marionette. In the present case she adopted the rôle of a generous conqueror. She had won in every field, but out of the fullness of her strength and the greatness of her soul she would condescend to treat with beaten antagonists for the sake of humanity and the world’s future. It is safe to say that the pose deceived no one except the more ignorant and credulous classes of her own people. She had begun the campaign with loud talk about the rights of Germany founded on a higher kultur, and with proclamations of her “will to power.” When her great offensive was foiled—but not till then—she discovered that she had always been waging a defensive war, and asked but the security of her own frontiers and the opportunity for peaceful development. Having failed with her bluster, she fell into the whine of the injured innocent. But her own spoken and written words, and, above all, her deeds, remained as damning evidence against her. If she abated one jot of her earlier pretensions, it was due not to a change of heart but to a change of circumstance.

Her first motive was prudential. The tide of her success had long ago begun to turn, and she wished to arrest the ebb while yet there was time. Deeply embarrassed as she was, she still occupied much foreign territory, which might be used as a bargaining asset. The Battle of the Somme had shown her that her military machine was being strained to breaking-point; once it broke all would be over, and at any cost the catastrophe must be averted. She had seen the Allied strength in the field grow to a pitch which she had believed impossible; but arguing from her own case, she considered that the effort had only been made at the expense of colossal sufferings, and that behind the Allies’ resolution lay a profound war weariness. An offer of negotiations might, she thought, be welcomed by the masses in the Allied nations, and forced by them on their governments. Once the belligerents consented to treat, she believed that she had certain advantages in any conference. She had much to give up which she could not hold, and her renunciation might win her the things which she considered vital to her future. Moreover, if her opponents were entangled in discussions, there was a chance of breaking up their unity and shifting the argument to minor issues. Her peril lay in the silence of her enemies. So long as they maintained their deadly unity on the broad principle that Germany had shattered the world’s peace, and must be prevented from doing it again, her protestations would not move them, and her bluster would only steel their hearts. But once let them sit down to argue on ways and means, and they would beyond doubt reveal divergences of purpose. It was a matter of life and death to her that the rift should appear in the Allied lute before she had suffered a final catastrophe.

Her overtures were made also with an eye to the neutral states, notably America. Their sufferings during the war had been grave, and the longer it lasted the more difficult became their position. They longed for peace, and would not scrutinize Germany’s motives with the acumen of her actual foes. It might be assumed that they would look at the war map, to which the Imperial Chancellor so often turned, with eyes more readily dazzled than those who had won during two years of conflict a truer sense of the military value of territorial conquests. They might take Germany’s claims at their face value, and be really impressed by her apparent magnanimity. In any case they would not be likely to welcome a summary bolting of the door against negotiations. If the Allies declined the offer, neutral opinion might force them to reconsider their refusal, and, if they persisted, be seriously alienated from them. To win the good will of neutrals, even if nothing more were gained, would be an immense advantage for Germany, for there lay her one hope of reconstruction.

Finally, she was thinking of her own people. They had at first been buoyed up with illusory dreams of a peace dictated to a conquered earth. Then, with accustomed docility, they had accepted the view that Germany was waging a war of self-defence, and fought for virtue and peace against the mailed wickedness of the world. God had been good to her, and the malice of her enemies had been confounded; but, to show the cleanness of her soul, she was willing to forget and forgive, and to forgo her just revenge for the sake of a quiet life. If proof were needed that the guilt of beginning the war did not lie on Germany, here, surely, was the last word; for, though victorious, she refused to take the responsibility of continuing it. The Emperor was a prince of peace as well as a lord of battles.

Action which proceeds from many mixed and conflicting motives is likely to be a blunder. The German peace offer was no exception to the rule. To impress the German people, it had to be couched in a tone of high rhetoric and conscious superiority; to win its way with neutrals, it must emphasize Germany’s past triumphs and present magnanimity. But these Notes would not appeal to the Allies, who denied the assumption, so for their benefit something was added in the nature of a threat. The mere fact that the attempt was made at all implied a confession of weakness, when Germany’s previous record was remembered. The consequence was that the impression left on men’s minds by the German overtures was one of maladroitness carried to the pitch of genius. Of all combinations of manner, the least likely to impress is a blend of truculence and sentimentality, of bluster and whine.

About the end of October the Emperor indited a letter to his Chancellor. Dismayed at the obstinacy of his enemies, he concluded that they were obsessed by “war psychosis” from which they possessed no liberator. “Making a peace proposal,” he wrote, “is an act necessary to deliver the world, including neutrals, from obsession. For such an act a ruler is wanted with a conscience, who feels responsible towards God, and who has a heart for his own and hostile peoples. A ruler is wanted who is inspired by a desire to deliver the world from sufferings without minding possible wrong interpretations of his act. I have the courage to do it. I will venture it, relying upon God.” The fall of Bucharest early in December gave the cue for the entry of the peacemaker. It was unfortunate for his purpose that Nivelle chose the same time to inflict a signal defeat at Verdun on the peacemaker’s all-conquering legions.

On 12th December the Imperial ChancellorDec. 12. made a speech in the Reichstag, in which he announced that, by the Emperor’s orders, he had that morning proposed to the hostile Powers to enter into peace negotiations, in an invitation submitted through the representatives of neutral states. His peroration gave the key to his motives, for it struck all the different notes:—

The Note^[1] began by emphasizing the “indestructible strength” of Germany and her allies. It explained that this strength was used only to defend their existence and the freedom of their natural development, and all their many victories had not changed this purpose. They asked for peace negotiations at which they would bring forward proposals “which would aim at assuring the existence, honour, and free development of their peoples, and would be such as to serve as a basis for the restoration of a lasting peace.” The Note gave no further hint of what such proposals would be.

The document was cunningly worded as to one part of its purpose—to impress the docile people of the Fatherland. It was less skilful in regard to its effect upon neutrals, for it emphasized as facts one baseless assumption—that Germany was already the victor; and one glaring falsehood—that the Allies were responsible for the origin of the war. Taken as a whole, the neutral world was not disposed to admit the first, and was most certainly inclined to deny the second. As for the Allies themselves, the net was spread too brazenly in their sight. An invitation to a conference based on such premises would, if accepted, put them wholly in a false position. It revealed the lines of the German argument—lines which admitted of no conceivable agreement. It was an empty offer, specifying no terms which Germany was willing to accept, and leaving them to be deduced from the arrogance of the peacemaker’s language. For the Allies to consider the thing for one moment would have been a waste of time in the serious business of winning battles. The way to peace lay on the Somme and the Isonzo, and not through some Swiss Council Chamber packed with disingenuous plenipotentiaries.

The humbug was too obvious to deceive anyDec. 30. but the slenderest and most perverse section of Allied opinion. It was promptly exposed in France by M. Briand, in Italy by Baron Sonnino, in Russia by M. Pokrovsky, and in Japan by Viscount Motono, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. On 30th December the French Government communicated to the United States Ambassador at Paris a formal answer,^[2] signed by Russia, France, Great Britain, Japan, Italy, Serbia, Belgium, Montenegro, Portugal, and Rumania. The document exposed most temperately but most clearly the illusory nature of Germany’s proposal. There could be no peace without retribution, reparation, and guarantees for the future; of these the German Note made no mention, and its truculence precluded any hope of assent to them. The overtures were merely an attempt to “justify in advance in the eyes of the world” some new series of crimes.

About the same time the German press took to publishing documents which showed that the Allies were right in their diagnosis of German tactics. One was the secret memorandum adopted six months before by the Council of the German Navy League, which, in sober, business-like language, laid down the minimum that Germany required as the result of war—a minimum which included the annexation of Belgium. More important still was the article published on New Year’s Eve in the Frankfurter Zeitung by Professor Meinecke of Freiburg on the development of Germany’s war plans. The historian admitted what the publicists had denied. Germany had entered upon a contest which only in the political sense could be called defensive; from the military point of view it was meant to be a “knock-out” war. It had failed at the Marne, and the later phase, the war of attrition, had failed before the Somme began. She had come to the conclusion that victory in the full sense was impossible. She therefore favoured “the idea that the sacrifices demanded by the continuation of the war can no longer bear any relation to the military results which can still be expected, and that it is statesmanlike, intelligent, and wise to abandon the intention of destruction, which after all does not lead to destruction, and to seek a reasonable compromise.” It was the truth. Having failed to destroy in the field, Germany sought to bargain; but the candour of the historian gave the lie to the unctuous rhetoric of the Imperial Chancellor and his master.

Close on the heels of the German overture came another Note of a very different kind. Mr. Wilson was now in the position which has been described as the most powerful enjoyed by any of the rulers of the world—that of an American President elected for a second term of office. The nation had affirmed by a great majority its confidence in him, and since, by the unwritten constitutional law of the United States, a third term as President is inadmissible, he was free from those considerations of tactics which must to some extent embarrass the most independent of party leaders. He was now able, if he so willed, to reopen the question of America’s neutrality, subject always to the restriction that as a constitutional ruler he must carry the nation along with him.

The election had been fought on narrow issues. Both parties had talked assiduously of the necessity of defending American rights against violation from any quarter; but Mr. Hughes, the Republican candidate, had contented himself with a general criticism of Mr. Wilson’s policy towards Mexico and Germany, and had taken no clear line on the question of intervention. There were German sympathizers as there were strong advocates of the Allies in the ranks of both sides. Mr. Wilson undoubtedly received the bulk of his popular support because he had kept America out of the war. Therefore his mandate was to uphold so far as was possible the existing status of peace. But, at the same time, in his election campaign he had kept to the fore a kind of internationalism. The policy of the “League to Enforce Peace” had been part of his programme, and this scheme for compulsory arbitration among the Powers of the world and the re-establishment of a definite code of public right, meant really a breach with the traditional foreign policy of America. It was clear that, in Mr. Wilson’s view, no nation, however powerful, could live for itself alone. In the speech in which he accepted his renomination he had declared: “No nation can any longer remain neutral as against any wilful destruction of the peace of the world. . . . The nations of the world must unite in joint guarantee that whatever is done to disturb the whole world’s life must first be tested in the court of the whole world’s opinion before it is attempted.” Mr. Wilson was therefore elected not merely to keep America at peace; he was given a mandate for international reform; and the two missions might well prove incompatible.

When, after his election, he looked round the horizon, he saw many clouds that promised storm. The darkest was the German submarine campaign. Germany, in spite of her pledge to Washington, was busily engaged in those very acts which in the preceding April he had condemned unsparingly. He saw, moreover, that the lot of neutrals was rapidly becoming unendurable, and that with Germany in her present temper the most pacific among them might be forced into a war of self-defence. Accordingly, he felt obliged to clear up the situation by asking the belligerents to define their real aims. Such a step had in the main a tactical purpose. Elected as a peace-President, he must be able to justify himself fully to his people if he were forced into a course which was not pacific. He had formulated an international policy with general assent. The war aims of the belligerents must be clearly shown to be in accord with, or antagonistic to, that policy before the United States could take sides. He felt that the compulsion of events was forcing him in the direction of war. He wished to point this out to the world, for it might have a restraining and sobering effect on the combatants. If he failed in that respect, he would at least prepare the mind of America for the inevitable.

The Note,^[3] which was presented on 18th December,Dec. 18. had no relation to the German peace proposals It was written, in part at any rate, before the Kaiser’s move, and, as we have seen, was a necessary consequence of Mr. Wilson’s new position. Its construction and wording were devised with skill to serve the President’s purpose. It stated that the published aim of both sets of belligerents appeared to be the same, and it defined these aims in a manner consonant with America’s declared views.

It was a skilful move, for by defining the aims of the Allies, and crediting these aims also to the Central Powers, it brought the conduct of the latter—which from the first day of the war had been a flagrant denial of these aims—into bold relief. The Note went on to invite a comparison of views in detail, since on generalities they seemed to be in agreement. It pointed out that the prolongation of the war to an aimless exhaustion would endanger the whole future of civilization. “The President is not proposing peace,” so ran the conclusion; “he is not even offering mediation. He is merely proposing that soundings be taken in order that we may learn, the neutral nations with the belligerents, how near the haven of peace may be for which all mankind longs with an intense and increasing longing.”

The purpose of the Note was not at first seen among the Allied peoples. Small blame to them for their misapprehension! Combatants engaged in a struggle of life and death have no time to appreciate the finesse of a third party who stands outside the fray. President Wilson’s definition of Germany’s war aims seemed to most people a misreading of the plain facts of the war, and of a thousand printed and spoken German declarations. His request to the Allies to formulate in detail their proposals seemed to be open to the same objection which Lincoln urged against those who clamoured for his plan of reconstruction before the North had won in the field. “I have laboriously endeavoured,” Lincoln said in 1863, “to avoid that question ever since it first began to be mooted, and thus to avoid confusion and disturbance in our own councils.” The Allied Governments judged more wisely. They saw Mr. Wilson’s purpose. They realized that he was being forced towards a breach with Germany, and that he must make certain in his own mind and the mind of his people that the cause for which the Allies fought was consistent with American ideals. Accordingly they received his Note with a true appreciation of its meaning, and patiently and temperately set forth their answer.

That answer^[4] was one of the most notable documents that ever emanated from European chanceries. In the friendliest spirit it declined to set out the Allied war aims in detail, since these could not be formulated till the hour for negotiations arrived.

The Allies associated themselves whole-heartedly with the projects of a League of the Nations, but pointed out that before such a league could come into being the present dispute must be settled. The malignant ill in the body politic must be cured before a regimen could be adopted to insure its future health. At the same time the Belgian Government submitted an answer^[5] to the American President, pointing the moral from the case of their country. “The barbarous manner in which the German Government has treated and still treats the Belgian nation does not allow us to presume that Germany will trouble in the future about guaranteeing the rights of weak nations which she has never ceased to trample underfoot since the moment when the war, let loose by her, began to decimate Europe.”

The American Note met with no response fromJan. 11-12, 1917. Germany. Chagrined by her failure to produce dissension among the Allies, and profoundly embarrassed by President Wilson’s overtures, she contented herself with an angry declaration to neutrals,^[6] a mixture of bad logic and bad history, and a string of denials of what she had in her palmier days admitted and gloried in. This came on January 11, 1917, and the next day the Emperor issued a proclamation to make certain that his tactics, if they had failed with the enemy, should at least have some success with the German people. The following is the text of this curious document, which confirmed, if confirmation was needed, the wisdom of the Allies’ conduct:—

The sympathetic reception of the Allied reply inJan. 22. America proved that the President had read aright the temper of his people, and that the Allied Governments had been correct in their interpretation of the meaning of his message. Britain and the United States were alike in one thing—both had regarded themselves in old days as extra-European Powers. But the logic of circumstances had brought one into the family of Europe, and the same force seemed about to bring the other into a fellowship which was not of Europe alone, but of the civilized world. On January 22, 1917, the President, deeming that the words of his Note needed amplification, delivered a remarkable address to the Senate, in which he unfolded his programme for a League of Peace. Such a league could only come into being after the present war was over, and on the nature of the settlement depended America’s support to guarantee the future. He outlined the terms which he would consider a satisfactory foundation for the new world. It must be a peace without victory—that is, a peace not dictated by a victor to a loser, leaving a heritage of resentment. It must be founded on the recognition of the equal rights of all States, great and small. It must be based on the principle that a people was not a chattel to hand from one sovereignty to another, but that governments only derived that power from the consent of the governed. It must assure, as far as possible, a direct outlet for every great people to the highways of the sea. The ocean must be free in practically all circumstances for the use of mankind, and armaments, both military and naval, must be limited.

From no one of these conditions were the Allies disposed to dissent. By “peace without victory” it was clear from the context that Mr. Wilson meant peace without that destruction and dismemberment of Germany which the Allies had expressly repudiated. In another sense there could be no peace without victory—victory over the mad absolutism and military pride of the Central Powers. Unless that was crushed to the earth, no sanctions, no guarantees, no system of treaties, no rectification of frontiers, no League of Peace, would endure for a decade; for it had long ago proclaimed itself above international law and a flouter of all rights, however sacred. If it were decisively beaten, the terms of peace mattered less, for the secular enemy of all peace would have disappeared. Victory, the right kind of victory, was, on Mr. Wilson’s own argument, the essential preliminary of any lasting settlement.

The best commentary on the situation wasJan. 16. provided by the dispatch, dated 16th January, written by Mr. Balfour in amplification of the Allied answer to Washington. It is worth quoting in full.

There come moments in the middle of any great toil when it is desirable for the good of the toiler’s soul that he straighten his back and look round. Respice finem is the best traveller’s maxim. Without a constant remembrance of the goal the pilgrim may find the rough places impassable, and will be prone to stray from the road. The value of President Wilson’s intervention was that it caused the Allies to reflect upon the purpose of the war. It emphasized the essential idealism of their cause, which had become dim in many minds from the intense preoccupation with detail which a desperate contest induces. It was well that it should be so, for events were in train in Russia and in America itself which were to change the whole complexion of the struggle, and set the ideal aspect foremost in the eye of the world. For the remainder of the war the question of ultimate aims was to be canvassed unceasingly, and every Ally had to examine itself, and discover its soul in the quest for a common denominator of purpose.

As for Germany, she too discovered herself,Jan. 31. and that speedily. The “terrors” which the Imperial Chancellor had proclaimed in his speech of 12th December were at once put into motion. On January 31, 1917, the German Government announced that from 1st February all sea traffic within certain zones adjoining Britain, France, and Italy, and in the Eastern Mediterranean would, “without further notice, be prevented by all weapons.” This meant that German submarines proposed to sink at sight within these areas all vessels, whether neutral or belligerent. The causes alleged were the illegality of the Allied blockade, and the Allied rejection of Germany’s peace offer. But Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg in the Reichstag set forth another reason. He had always been in favour, he said, of ruthless methods of submarine warfare, if they were best calculated to lead to a swift victory. “Last autumn the time was not yet ripe, but to-day the moment has come when with the greatest prospect of success we can undertake this enterprise. We must, therefore, delay no longer.” Germany, it would therefore appear, while amusing herself with peace overtures, was only waiting till she had sufficient ocean-going U boats to begin a new campaign of ruthlessness on an unprecedented scale. The Imperial Chancellor was a maladroit diplomat, who occasionally blundered into speaking the truth.

When von Falkenhayn forced the line of the Aluta, and Bucharest and Ploeshti fell, the eyes of Rumania turned naturally to the line of the Sereth, which for forty years had been the foundation of her strategy of defence. She had originally devised the position as a bar to a Russian invasion—a defence of Wallachia, should Moldavia be overrun. The situation was now reversed. Wallachia had gone, the enemy was coming from the west, and the river was the last bulwark of Moldavia. The fortifications which she had raised there were out of date, and in any case their front was in the wrong direction; but the natural strength of the Sereth line remained the same. Its flanks rested securely on the Carpathians in the north and the marshy Danube delta in the south. The right wing of the defenders must hold the mountain glens which descend from the Oitoz and Gyimes passes, the centre the open valley east of Focsani, while the left wing had a strong position behind the swamps of the lower river between Nomoloasa and Galatz. Such a position involved the evacuation of the whole of the Dobrudja, and it required that the Moldavian passes from the Gyimes northward should stand intact. For the northern extension of the Sereth line was the Trotus valley, running from the Gyimes to Okna; if that were forced, the position would be turned and Moldavia would be at the mercy of the invader.

Rumania.—Progress of the Invasion up to December 14, 1916.

By the end of the first week of December von Falkenhayn and von Mackensen, now operating together on a front of less than a hundred miles between the Buzeu Pass and the Danube, were moving eastward against the line of the Buzeu River and the Lower Jalomitsa. Their extreme right wing in the Dobrudja had for its object the clearing of that district, the ultimate crossing of the Danube below Galatz, and the invasion of Bessarabia. On their left the First Austrian Army was to attempt the forcing of the passes north of the Oitoz. The Rumanian campaign had now a very direct bearing upon the whole Russian position in the Bukovina and Galicia. If the Moldavian passes were forced, Lechitsky would be outflanked, and compelled to retire from the Bukovina, and the gains of the summer south of the Dniester would be lost. This fact, combined with the extreme fatigue of the Rumanian forces, meant that the campaign must now be in Russia’s hands. Her reinforcements had at last arrived—reinforcements which, if they had come earlier, might have prevented the loss of Wallachia. Lechitsky’s left wing had, since the beginning of November, taken over the defence of the Moldavian passes. Sakharov was in command in the Dobrudja; and after the fall of Bucharest the bulk of the Rumanians were withdrawn behind the front, to be reorganized under Averescu and Presan, now his Chief of Staff; while the defence of the Sereth line was entrusted to the new Russian divisions, to the command of which General Gourko was presently appointed. The Rumanian sector had become the fourth division of the long Russian front.

The enemy movement was a wheel to the north-east, the left wing, under von Falkenhayn, advancing slowly along the railway from Ploeshti to Rimnic Sarat, while von Kosch moved faster in the region towards the river, and the Bulgarians in the Dobrudja swung due north against Sakharov. The weary Rumanian detachment which had been fighting in the Predeal district made its escape, not without heavy losses, from the Prahova valley, and fought a stout rearguard action east of Ploeshti, on the Cricovul River. But only delaying actions were possible. By 14th December von FalkenhaynDec. 14. was in the town of Buzeu, and von Kosch was across the Jalomitsa. On the 17thDec. 17. the former had passed the river Buzeu on a wide front, and the latter was just south of Filipeshti. That same day, in the Dobrudja, Sakharov had fallen back thirty miles to a line running through the town of Babadag.

The Northern Dobrudja and the Danube Delta.

The immediate enemy objectives north of the Danube were the towns of Rimnic Sarat and Braila, the only two Wallachian centres still uncaptured. Von Mackensen, who held the chief command, resolved to avoid a direct attack on Braila, and to carry it by a turning movement in the Dobrudja. He concentrated his main strength on Rimnic Sarat, and after a four days’ battle, beginning on 22nd December,Dec. 22-27. entered the town on 27th December, taking many prisoners. On Christmas Day von Kosch carried Filipeshti, and von Falkenhayn’s victory at Rimnic Sarat compelled the defence in that region to fall back to Perichora. The next move was with the Bulgarians in the Dobrudja. By 23rd DecemberDec. 23. Sakharov’s left had reached the Danube Delta, and had crossed by the pontoon bridges at Tulcea and Isaccea to the Bessarabia shore. Beyond that there could be no movement, for the vast floating marshes of the Delta, which are neither land nor water, defied the enemy. That same day Sakharov’s remaining troops were concentrated in the extreme north-west corner of the district in front of the town of Macin. Macin lies at the point where the right branch of the river, which breaks off north of Hirshova, turns sharply to the west to join the left branch. It is only six miles from Braila, and formed its natural defence from the east. But such a position, with no good avenues of retreat, could not be safely held by Sakharov’s remnant. On January 4, 1917, Macin was evacuated,Jan. 4, 1917. and the Dobrudja was now wholly in the enemy’s hands. The Rumanian retreat had here been most skilfully managed, for though it traversed a desperate country in the depths of winter, a country with scarcely a road and with a broad river to pass at the end, it lost no more than 6,000 men. The Bulgarian guns now opened against Braila, and since that place formed no part of the Sereth position, it was evacuated. On 5thJan. 5. January von Kosch from the west and the Bulgarians from across the Danube joined hands in its streets. That same day the first German troops reached the Sereth east of the mouth of the Buzeu. The invaders were now in front of the final defences.

The Approach to Braila and Galatz from the Dobrudja.

Von Falkenhayn, farther north, had still to come into line. Pivoting on von Kosch’s new position, he swung north-eastward towards Focsani. The strength of the Sereth line was known, and it was on the left wing in the foothills, under Krafft von Delmensingen, that the success of the greater operations must depend. Before the Trotus valley is reached a number of lesser streams flow eastward to the Sereth—the Milcov, the Putna, the Subitza; and the Trotus itself receives on its right bank various small affluents. Each of these glens formed a defensive outpost for the main Trotus line. Here von Falkenhayn’s extreme left was operating in conjunction with the right of the First Austrian Army under von Gerok. The defence had not only to face the enemy advancing from the south-west, but also flanking attacks from the west and north through the high passes. For a fortnight—the first fortnight of 1917—a swaying battle was waged among the foothills. On 8th January von FalkenhaynJan. 8. entered Focsani, and from Neneshti for thirty miles northward occupied the banks of the Sereth. But the limit had been reached, and the advance was stayed. We may take 15thJan. 15. January as the date at which the Rumanian retreat definitely ended. Wallachia had gone, but Moldavia was intact, and a line had been found on which the defence could abide.

It was not till the end of the month that vonJan. 19. Mackensen desisted from his efforts. On 19th January he attempted to force the centre opposite Fundeni, but after a bloody battle failed to do more than clear the west bank of the river. Such a frost had set in as the oldest peasant in Rumania could not remember. The temperature fell below zero for weeks on end, and the Bulgarians in the Dobrudja attempted to turn the weather to their advantage. On the morning of 23rd January, in a thick fog, theyJan. 23. pushed through the frozen marshes of the Danube Delta, and managed to cross the channel of the river north of Tulcea. It was a barren exploit, for the Rumanians fell upon them and annihilated the detachment. The frost, which put the left flank of the defence in peril, was the salvation of the right flank in the mountains. Von Mackensen could not force the centre, and was compelled to depend upon his wings; but Krafft von Delmensingen and von Gerok found that the Carpathian winter immobilized them more effectively than any entrenchments of their opponents. A great peace fell upon the hills. “In the front-line trenches,” a correspondent wrote, “one hears every fifteen minutes a shot fired nonchalantly by one of the half-frozen posts, and every second hour the whistling of a shell let loose by an impatient gunner tired of the tranquillity of the mountains. Were it not for the visits of the German aeroplanes on the clear days—visits welcomed with heavy but innocuous artillery fire—one would certainly not guess that two hostile armies, in some places only some one hundred yards apart, are facing each other.”

Rumania.—Progress of the Invasion up to December 25, 1916.

The invader wreaked his vengeance upon hapless Wallachia. Disappointed in his hopes of great stores of grain and oil, he contented himself with introducing the methods of administration which had made his name anathema in Belgium and Poland. He requisitioned everything, and left the people to starve. He compelled the whole civilian population between eighteen and forty-two to work for him. He drove the embassies of neutral nations from Bucharest, that there might be no witnesses of his doings. He levied great sums as indemnities. He dispatched to Germany many members of the chief families as hostages, and used them as hostages have always been treated by a barbarous enemy. The Rumanian Government at Jassy could only look on in impotent wrath, and in its heart add new counts to the long reckoning.

Meanwhile the Rumanian Parliament had metDec. 22, 1916. at Jassy on 22nd December, and King Ferdinand in his speech from the throne had endeavoured to encourage his people. “Our Army has sustained the struggle according to the glorious traditions of our ancestors, and in a way which justifies us in regarding the future with perfect confidence. So far the war has imposed upon us great hardships and profound sacrifices. We shall bear them with courage, for we maintain a complete trust in the final victory of our Allies; and in spite of difficulties and sufferings, we are determined to struggle by their side with energy unto the end. . . . Before the common peril we must all show an added patriotism and unity of heart and mind.”

Scene of the Winter Campaign in Eastern Wallachia and Southern Moldavia.

On the 24th a proof was given of the nationalDec. 24. unity by the formation of a Coalition Government, which included M. Take Jonescu and some members of his party. The old Conservatives had disappeared from practical politics. Carp, still living in dread of Russia, frankly announced that, since Rumania’s victory must be Russia’s victory, he desired Rumania to be beaten. Marghiloman refused Bratianu’s offer to join the National Ministry, and remained in Bucharest, where he hobnobbed with his country’s enemies. Meantime the Government at Jassy most wisely set about the reform of certain domestic abuses, the existence of which had crippled Rumania in war. A scheme of universal and direct suffrage was drawn up to replace the old electoral college system, under which the peasants and working classes were virtually defranchised. Even more urgent was the question of land reform, for the Rumanian system of land tenure was still mediæval. Absentee landlords and speculative middlemen had divorced the peasant from the soil of his country. A scheme was prepared to give a large grant of Crown lands and to purchase vast areas compulsorily from the chief landowners, with the result that the percentage of the country under peasant proprietorship would rise from 53 to 85. Such reforms were an immediate necessity if the rank and file were to be sustained under their crushing burdens, and they were of vital import to the whole Alliance. They extended the principles of democracy within the ranks of those who were democracy’s champions.

When, in the beginning of 1917, the Austro-German threat against the Sereth line was made manifest, Russia, according to the rules of sound strategy, attempted a diversion on another part of the front. The Northern Army pushed westwardJan. 5, 1917. from Riga on 5th January over the frozen marshes, and carried the village of Kalntsem, west of the great Tirul marsh, taking some 800 prisoners and sixteen guns. They were immediately counter-attacked, but managed to hold the ground won. On the 9th a secondJan. 9. Russian attack was made about fifteen miles north of Dvinsk, and the island in the Dvina east of Glaudan was captured. The battle in the Riga sector continued for some days, and altogether thirty-two guns were taken. On the 24th a violent GermanJan. 24. counter-attack recovered some of the ground lost, taking about 1,000 prisoners. A second attack followed on the 30th, in the sector between KalntsemJan. 30. and Lake Babit, and again there was a slight withdrawal. During the same month there was some fighting in the corner of the Bukovina between Dorna Watra and Kimpolung. Lechitsky on 28th January broke throughJan. 28. the enemy’s position on a front of 3,000 yards, taking over 2,000 prisoners. A fortnight later von Koevess replied with a counterstroke which won two heights east of Jakobeny. All these actions were subsidiary to the Rumanian campaign, and meant no more than that Russia, when she believed that a bit of the enemy front had been weakened by the withdrawal of divisions to von Mackensen, took the opportunity of testing its strength. In that fierce weather no large movement could be conducted by Alexeiev. A frozen marsh might give him the chance of a local attack, but the front as a whole was bound in the rigours of a Russian winter.

Rumania.—Progress of the Invasion up to the latter part of January, 1917.

Even had the weather been favourable, it isJan. 17. doubtful whether Russia could have done more than devise here and there a small diversion. For with the new year it became clear to the world that her political life was approaching a crisis. All her commands, both civil and military, seemed to be in the melting-pot. General Shuvaiev,^[7] who had been Minister of War since March 1916, and had the complete confidence of the Duma, was removed on 17th January, and his place given to a former Chief of the General Staff, General Bieliaev. At the same time an epidemic of ill-health fell upon other ministers, and three—the Ministers of Finance, Commerce, and Foreign Affairs—were granted sick leave. M. Trepov, having held the office of Premier for just six weeks, retired, and gave place to Prince N. D. Golitzin, an undisguised reactionary; and Count Ignatiev, the only Liberal member of the Ministry, was removed from the Department of Education. The Emperor, in a rescript to Prince Golitzin, outlined the duties of the Government—a procedure which had not been adopted since 1905, and which seemed to foreshadow a still further weakening of constitutional government and a relapse into autocracy. The food question, too, was growing serious. It had been scandalously mismanaged, and in a great grain-producing country like Russia food was scarcer among the proletariat than with grain-importing belligerents who had all the difficulties of oversea transport. A dangerous spirit was rising in all classes of society, for it seemed clear that such a result could not have come about without corruption and bungling in high quarters. Finally, the armies at the front had much to complain of in the way of faulty transport and inadequate supplies.

The Emperor in his rescript touched upon these matters. “At the present moment,” he wrote, “when the tide of the Great War has turned, all the thoughts of all Russians, without distinction of nationality or class, are directed towards the valiant and glorious defenders of our country, who with keen expectation are awaiting the decisive encounter with the enemy. In complete union with our faithful Allies, not entertaining any thought of a conclusion of peace until final victory has been secured, I firmly believe that the Russian people, supporting the burden of war with self-denial, will accomplish their duty to the end, not stopping at any sacrifice. The national resources of our country are unending, and there is no danger of their becoming exhausted, as is apparently the case with our enemies.” This, said the ordinary Russian, was very well in its way; but the armies were not well supported, the poor were not fed, and the blame for this did not lie upon the Russian people, who had no real say in the government. The events of January caused a dark shadow of doubt to creep over the face of the State. The people saw strange forces at work which they could not interpret, but which they profoundly mistrusted. The Government, patched and tinkered at by the autocracy, was inadequate to the resolution of the nation. Russia is a slow and patient country. Shrewd observers on the spot about this time, while admitting that a revolution some day was inevitable, considered that it would be postponed till peace. But those familiar with the incalculable ways of revolutions refrained from prophesying. They knew that during a period of apparent calm some chance event—a speech, a manifesto, a street riot, a sudden death—may bring the bolt from the lowering sky.

BAGDAD.

We left the story of the war against Turkey at the point when, in August 1916, Sir Archibald Murray’s forces in Egypt had successfully repelled the Turkish offensive at Romani, while Sir Stanley Maude’s Army of Mesopotamia was slowly perfecting its preparations for the recovery of Kut. Yudenitch in the Caucasus, with Erzerum, Trebizond, and Erzinghian in his possession, was detaining at least half of Turkey’s total fighting strength, and Baratov with his small column was hanging somewhat precariously on the western borders of Persia. For the moment Turkey was safe, but her security was not solidly founded. She owed it rather to her opponent’s mistakes than to her own inherent strength. Her fifty odd divisions were widely scattered—half against Yudenitch, five or six in Galicia and the Dobrudja, three on the Tigris, five in Syria, and detachments on the Persian frontier, at Gallipoli, and on the Struma. If her enemies could combine, if Maude and Yudenitch could join hands, and Murray press northward through Syria, there was a chance of that decisive defeat in the field which would put her out of action. The Allies had blundered grievously; but they had learned much, and they had great assets. They had in Egypt an ideal offensive base, the advantages of which were only now being realized, and they had against them an enemy whose military strength had been heavily depleted by costly actions and weakened by every kind of internal distraction and misgovernment.

The distinction between the Western and Eastern schools of strategy was largely fictitious. No sane man denied the necessity of making the chief effort on the Western front, and few but admitted that victory was no less necessary in the East. Germany must be beaten in the theatre where her main forces were engaged, but it was not less important to cut her off from the Eastern line of conquest on which for a generation she had set her heart. Turkey, it was clear, must be brought to such a pass in the field that she would have to submit to the drastic terms of the Allies. Her policy had been thoroughly Germanized. She had flung off all her old treaty obligations and claimed the status of one of the Great Powers of Europe.^[8] She had lost her shadowy hegemony over Islam, for the Grand Sherif of Mecca, who at the close of 1916 became King of the Hedjaz, had called the Faithful to witness that the so-called Khalifs of Constantinople had at all times been puppets in the hands of some kind of Janissary, and that the new Janissaries from Prussia were conspicuously unsuited to be the guardians of the mysteries of the Faith. Turkey had thrown down a challenge which could only be answered by her destruction as an empire and as a suzerain Power.

There was every military reason for an energetic campaign against Turkey, for her immobilization would have immediate effects upon that Achilles heel of Prussianism, its Austrian and Bulgarian allies. The political reasons were even stronger, for no war of liberation could suffer the anomaly of the Near East to go unreformed. The Turk had been so long the nominal ally of Britain that many had come to regard him with an affectionate toleration, as a man regards the occasional misdeeds of a faithful and spirited dog. That the Turkish peasant was brave, hardy, and uncomplaining was beyond doubt; that a considerable section of the old Turkish gentry had good manners, a picturesque air, and certain virtues not too common in the modern world might be maintained with reason; but no sentimentalism could change the fact that the Turk and his kind had nowhere shown a trace of administrative genius or civic spirit, and that wherever he had set his foot he had blasted civilization. His race was like the wind from the desert which scorches and never fructifies or blesses. It was a military Power, competent only when in the saddle, with the sword drawn; but it had no gifts for the arts of peace, and no power to rebuild when it had broken down. Its history was, in the words of the Allied statement of war aims to President Wilson, a “bloody tyranny.” The old Turk was a blunderer with certain redeeming qualities; the new Turk was no less a blunderer, but he had lost the qualities and adopted with easy grace the worst vices of his Prussian masters, for Prussianism was terribly akin to the root characteristics of his tribe. Sir Mark Sykes has drawn a picture which is nearer the truth than the apologetics of English travellers who looked only at the surface.

Turkey embraced the richest and most enlightened lands of the old world, the cradle of civilization and of the Christian faith. The old proud empires from New Rome to Bagdad were not destroyed by Islam. The rich Ommayad culture and Bagdad under the Caliphs were the achievement of the eldest sons of Islam, the Arabs, who gave light and leading to all North Africa and one-third of Asia. They were destroyed by the Turk. Under his kindly rule Bagdad became a city of hovels, and Mesopotamia a swamp and a sand dune. Persecutions, over-taxation, corruption, and incompetence characterized all the centuries of his régime. Since the war began he had shown his natural instincts by causing the death of the better part of a million Armenians, and, partly from fecklessness and partly from malice, letting half the population of the Lebanon die of famine. The world had been very patient with him, but the cup of his offences now overflowed. So monstrous an anachronism as the Turkish Empire must be removed from the family of the nations, and the Turk must return to the part for which he had always been destined—that of the ruler of a tribal province.

Through the autumn months of 1916 Sir Archibald Murray was engaged in pushing the new railway eastward from Kantara across the Sinai desert. This kind of warfare was much the same as the old Sudan campaigns. The condition was that before each move large quantities of supplies had to be collected at an advanced base. An action was then fought to clear the front, and after it there was a pause while the railway was carried forward and a new reserve of supplies accumulated. The task was harder than in the Sudan, for there was no river to give water. In that thirsty land, after the Qatia basin was left behind, water was almost nonexistent, and supplies had to be brought by rail in tank trucks till a pipe-line could be laid. The work entailed was very great, but the organization of camel transport gradually bridged the gap between the railhead and the front. The soldiers in the French and Flanders trenches were inclined to look upon the Egyptian campaign as the longed-for war of movement. Movement there was, but it was less the movement of cavalry riding for an objective than the slow progress of engineers daily completing a small section of line in the sun-baked sand.

The headquarters of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force under Sir Archibald Murray were now at Cairo, and the Eastern Force, with headquarters at Ismailia, was under Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Dobell, the conqueror of the Cameroons. Of this the spearhead was the Desert Column, consisting mainly of Australian, New Zealand, and British mounted troops and camel corps, now under Lieutenant-General Sir Philip Chetwode, who had commanded the 2nd Cavalry Division on the French front. The immediate objective was El Arish, and during October and November much bombing work was done by the Royal Flying Corps, and there were various brilliant little cavalry reconnaissances. Between 13th and 17th October, for example,Oct. 13-17. the enemy position on the steep hills at Maghara, sixty-five miles east of Ismailia, was successfully reconnoitred after two difficult night marches. Meantime the railway was creeping on. At the end of October it was four miles east of Bir el Abd, and by 26th November itNov. 26. had reached Mazar. The enemy’s advanced position in front of El Arish and Masaid covered all the water in the area, and it was necessary to accumulate large supplies at railhead in case the operation of dislodging him should prove a slow one.

By 20th December we were ready to strike, butDec. 20. the Turks did not await us. On the night of 19th December they evacuated the positions which they had so elaborately fortified. Their retreat was discovered by our airmen, and on the night of the 20th Australian and New Zealand mounted troops, supported by the Camel Corps, marched twenty miles, and reached El Arish at sunrise to find it empty. The Turkish garrison of 1,600 men had fallen back upon Magdhaba. Scottish troops entered El Arish some hours later, and the frontier town which for two years had been in the enemy’s hands was now restored to Egypt. Mine-sweeping operations were at once begun in the roadstead, a pier was built, and by the 24thDec. 24. supply ships from Port Said had begun unloading stores. We had won the necessary advanced base for the coming major operations.

The next step was to “round up” the retreatingDec. 23. garrison. At 12.45 a.m. on morning of 23rd December a flying column took the road under General Chauvel, and found the enemy at Magdhaba, twenty miles to the south-south-east, in a strong position on both banks of the Wadi el Arish. Then followed a very perfect little action. The Australian Light Horse and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles moved east of Magdhaba against the enemy’s right flank and rear, while the Imperial Camel Corps attacked in front. The reserves, in order to prevent escape, swung round from the north-west. Shortly after noon the Turkish position was completely surrounded. The mirage, however, impeded the work of the horse artillery batteries, and the entire absence of water made it clear that unless Magdhaba was carried soon the troops would have to be withdrawn. General Chauvel, accordingly, was given orders to press the attack, and by four o’clock, after a bayonet charge by a Light Horse regiment, the place was won. Our casualties were twelve officers and 134 other ranks killed and wounded; we took 1,282 prisoners, four mountain guns, one machine gun, and over one thousand rifles.

The Advance into Southern Syria from the Sinai Desert.

Our airplanes reported that the enemy hadJan. 8-9, 1917. entrenched himself at Magruntein, near Rafa, thirty miles north-east of El Arish; but General Dobell had to wait for supplies before he could strike a fresh blow. The new position was a formidable one, made up of a central keep surrounded by three strong series of works connected by trenches, with an open glacis in front of them. The Desert Column, under Sir Philip Chetwode, consisting of Australian and New Zealand Mounted Troops, British Yeomanry, and the Imperial Camel Corps, left El Arish on the evening of January 8, 1917, and at dawn on the 9th had surrounded the enemy. As at Magdhaba, the Australians and New Zealanders attacked on the right from the east, while the Camel Corps moved against the front. By 11 a.m. Rafa was taken, and by 4.45 p.m. the New Zealanders had captured the main redoubt. By 5.30 p.m. the action, which had lasted ten hours, was over, and a relieving enemy column, coming from Shellal, had been driven back. Our casualties were only 487 in all, and from the enemy we took 1,600 unwounded prisoners, six machine guns, four mountain guns, and a quantity of transport.

The two actions of Magdhaba and Rafa were models of desert campaigning, and showed the perfect co-operation of all arms. They were battles of the old type, where mobility and tactical boldness carried the day, and where from a neighbouring height every incident of the fight could be followed. The result was the clearing of the Sinai desert of all formed bodies of Turkish troops. Operations in the interior and the south, conducted by small flying columns of cavalry and camelry, had kept pace with the greater movement in the north. The British troops were now beyond the desert, on the edge of habitable country. The next objective was the Gaza-Beersheba line—the gateway to Syria.

During the last month of 1916 the western borders of Egypt were comparatively peaceful. The last flickering of rebellion was stamped out in Darfur in November, when the ex-sultan, Ali Dinar, was killed. The Baharia and Dakhla oases had been occupied without trouble, and our chief business on that frontier was that of police patrols and an occasional reconnaissance. But during January news came that Sayed Ahmed, the Grand Senussi, with his Commander-in-Chief, Mohammed Saleh, and a force of 1,200, was preparing to leave the Siwa oasis and return to Jaghbub. Major-General Watson, commanding the Western Forces, was ordered to advance on the Siwa and Girba oases, with the object of capturing the Grand Senussi and scattering his following. But to conduct any considerable force over the 200 waterless miles between Mersa Matruh and Siwa would have taken at least a month’s preparation, so the task was entrusted to a column of armoured motor cars under General Hodgson. The plan was for the main body to attack the enemy camp at Girba, while a detachment should hold the Munasib Pass—the only pass between Siwa and Jaghbub practicable for camels—and so deflect Sayed Ahmed’s flight into the waterless desert. On 3rd February theFeb. 3. main enemy camp at Girba was attacked. Saleh resisted strongly all day, while Sayed Ahmed made off westward. At dawn on the 4th Saleh, too, was in flight, and on theFeb. 4-5. 5th Siwa was entered without opposition. Meantime the Munasib detachment had occupied the pass and ambushed a party of the enemy. Sayed Ahmed was therefore forced to abandon his best route of retreat, and with his Commander-in-Chief make the best of a bad road to his distant sanctuary. The expedition, in the words of Sir Archibald Murray’s dispatch, “dealt a rude blow to the moral of the Senussi, left the Grand Senussi himself painfully making his way to Jaghbub through the rugged and waterless dunes, and freed my western front from the menace of his forces.”

Desert Operations on the Western Frontier of Egypt—the Advance to the Siwa Oasis.

In August Lieutenant-General Sir Stanley Maude, who had commanded the 13th Division, had succeeded Sir Percy Lake in command of the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force. The worst troubles of that army were now over. Hospital arrangements had been perfected, river transport had been reorganized, railway communications had been completed, and all the work behind the front, without which an advance of troops cannot be made, had reached a state of efficiency very different from the confusion of the early days. General Maude had before him an intricate strategical problem. His area of command stretched from the banks of the Euphrates to the walls of Ispahan, and it seemed as if the enemy aimed at containing the British on the Tigris, while striking towards Nasariyeh on the Euphrates in the west, and in the east waging a campaign through Persia against the safety of India. In these circumstances, the British Commander-in-Chief decided rightly that “to disseminate our troops in order to safeguard the various conflicting interests involved would have relegated us to a passive defensive everywhere.” The true policy was to strike at the enemy’s main centre, Bagdad, for a successful advance up the Tigris would relieve the pressure in Persia and on the Euphrates. Movement was, of course, impossible during the summer. The intense heat had tried the health of men who had already behind them an incredible record of desert warfare. The cooler days of the early autumn were employed in improving the training of all arms, accumulating supplies at the front, and bringing forward drafts for the different units. By the end of November the time was ripe for an advance. The battalions were up to strength and in good health and spirits, and the concentration on the river upstream from Sheikh Sa’ad was completed.

We have seen in an earlier volume that after the fall of Kut we had considerably advanced our lines before the advent of the Mesopotamian summer put an end to campaigning. In the beginning of December the Turkish front before Kut lay as follows:—On the left bank of the Tigris, fifteen miles from the town, they still held the Sannaiyat position—now much elaborated and strengthened—between the Suwaicha marsh and the river, and all the hinterland as far as Kut was covered with a series of reserve lines. On the right bank their front ran from a point on the Tigris three miles north-east of Kut, across the big loop which is called the Khadairi Bend, to the Shatt-el-Hai two miles below where it leaves the main river. There it crossed the Hai and ran north-west to the Shumran Bend of the Tigris. There was a pontoon bridge across the Hai close to its point of exit from the main river, and another across the Tigris at Shumran. Further, the enemy held the Hai itself for several miles below the bridgehead. Everywhere he had strong trench systems and wire entanglements. On the left bank we were within 120 yards of him at Sannaiyat; on the right bank our contact was less close, our advanced posts being about two miles from the Khadairi Bend and five miles from the Hai position.

The strategical situation was, on the whole, favourable for General Maude. The enemy’s lines on the right bank of the Tigris were a dozen miles upstream from those on the left bank. His communications were, therefore, in the technical phrase, “in prolongation of his battle front.” If we carried the line of the Hai, we should be in a position to threaten seriously the communications of the Sannaiyat lines. On the other hand, our own situation was fairly safe. The waterless desert made any flanking movement against us from the Hai precarious, and the Suwaicha marsh, if it protected the Turkish left flank, also secured our right. Again, the long front gave us many opportunities for feints to cover our real purpose. General Maude’s plan was simple and sound. His first object was to carry the Hai line, and then gradually to drive the enemy from the right bank of the river. If he succeeded in this, he would be able by constant attacks to make him nervous about his communications. Then a great effort could be made to force the Sannaiyat position, which would mean the fall of Kut. But even if this operation proved too difficult, it might be possible, when the enemy was sufficiently weakened and distracted, to cross the Tigris west of Kut and cut his communications. As we shall see, General Maude succeeded in each item of his plan.

By 12th December our concentration was complete,Dec. 12. and our troops in a position for attack. The British striking force was divided into two parts. That on the right, under Lieutenant-General A. S. Cobbe, V.C., was devoted to holding the enemy on the left bank of the river to the Sannaiyat position, and watching the right bank up to the Khadairi Bend; while that on the left, under Lieutenant-General W. R. Marshall (which included the cavalry), was by a surprise march to win a position on the Hai. All through the 13th General Cobbe bombardedDec. 13. Sannaiyat as if about to attack there, and that night General Marshall moved westward against the Hai. The enemy was taken by surprise, and without much difficulty we crossed at Atab and Basrugiyeh, about eight miles from Kut, clearing the ground on the western bank to the depth of over a mile. We then swung northward along both banks, as far as Kalah-Hadji-Fahan, some two and a half miles from Kut. Two pontoon bridges were constructed at Atab. During theDec. 14. next two days we pressed steadily forward, while our aircraft bombed the Turkish bridge of boats at Shumran, and compelled the enemy to remove it to the west side of the bend. The Turkish bridgehead at the exit of the Hai was now under a continuous bombardment. On the 18th we succeededDec. 18. in reaching the river between the Khadairi Bend and Kut, thereby severing the Turkish lateral communications on the right bank. This left the Turkish force in the Bend cut off on left and right, and sustained only by their connection with the enemy left flank across the river.

On 26th December the weather broke, and theDec. 26. rains fell steadily for a fortnight. The stream rose and spread over the countryside, so that our single-line railway, now extended to Atab, was worked with difficulty, and cavalry reconnaissances were hampered by the lagoons and sodden ground. Nevertheless, during the first weeks of 1917, we kept up a steady bombardment, and especially made the Turkish bridgehead at Shumran a precarious lodgment. An attempt by us on 20thJan. 20, 1917. January to bridge the Tigris four miles west of Shumran was anticipated by the enemy, and had to be abandoned. But the chief work of these days was the clearing of the Khadairi Bend. Our hold on the Hai had given us real advantages, the chief of which were that we were in a position to threaten constantly the Turkish communications west of Shumran; that we had removed the danger of any attack on Nasariyeh, on the Euphrates; and that we had cut off the enemy’s supplies from the rich country of the middle Hai. We had reached the banks of the Tigris south-east of Kut, but between that point and Magasis the Turks still held the right bank, and could in flood-time open the “bunds” and swamp part of our front. Obviously, before we could advance we must clear this Khadairi Bend, which would give us the mastery of the whole right bank from Kut downwards. The task was entrusted to General Cobbe, who, beginning operations on 5th January,Jan. 5-19. succeeded by the 19th in effecting his purpose. The ground was flat and bare, and exposed on both flanks to fire at close range from across the river. Hence many thousand yards of new trenches and covered approaches had to be dug in drenching rain and under continuous fire. The successive Turkish lines were carried by severe hand-to-hand fighting, which did much to weaken the enemy moral. “In spite of his tenacity,” wrote General Maude, “the enemy had more than met his match in the dash and resolution of our troops, and had learned a lesson which was to become more deeply ingrained on subsequent occasions.”

Meantime General Marshall was busy winningJan. 24. the last fragment of the Hai line, that corner close to the Tigris where the Turks held a strongly entrenched salient astride the lesser stream. It took him thirteen days to get into position for the attack; but on 24th January his trenches were within 400 yards of the enemy front. Next day he carried the Turkish first lineJan. 25. on a frontage of more than a mile, and his right wing also broke through the second line, thanks to the clearing of the Khadairi Bend. His left wing, on the western bank of the Hai, had a more difficult task; for it was opposed to heavy enfilading fire, and had the enemy in strength against it. At first it, too, won the Turkish second line, but after four attacks it was compelled to retire. Next morning two Punjabi battalions finally carried the position, and by the 28th we heldJan. 28. two miles of the position to a depth of from 300 to 700 yards. On 1st February theFeb. 1. Cheshires, on our right, won the enemy third line; but a similar gain on our left by two Sikh battalions could not be held against the Turkish counter-attack, supported by enfilading fire. Next day General MarshallFeb. 2. extended his left towards the Tigris, with a view to operating presently against the Dahra Bend—the loop of the river between Kut and the Shumran peninsula. On the 4th the wholeFeb. 4. of the left bank of the Hai was ours, and the Turks fell back to the Liquorice Factory, in the western angle between the Hai and the Tigris, and a line across the Dahra Bend.

The Recapture of Kut-el-Amara.

The enemy’s hold on the right bank of the TigrisFeb. 9. was now rapidly weakening, and the next step was to clear the Dahra Bend. The Liquorice Factory was kept under constant bombardment, for it was a nest of machine guns, and on the 9th the King’s Own won ground in the enemy’s centre, while on the left the Worcesters pushed their front to within 2,500 yards of the south end of the Shumran Bend. On the 10th there wasFeb. 10. a general forward movement, in spite of a high wind and a dust storm, and the Turks were compelled to evacuate the Liquorice Factory, and withdraw to a new line two and a half miles long well inside the Dahra Bend. NextFeb. 11. day we reached the Tigris, south-east of the Shumran Bend, and so enclosed the enemy. General Marshall resolved to attack the Turkish right centre, and several days were occupied with driving the enemy from advanced posts and constructing trenches and approaches for the coming assault. On the 15th we feintedFeb. 15. hard against the Turkish left, and this enabled the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and the South Wales Borderers to carry the enemy’s right centre on a broad front, since our barrage prevented him from transferring thither the men he had used to strengthen his left. Presently his left centre was carried by troops of the Buffs and the Dogras, who pushed north-eastward towards the Tigris, isolated the Turkish left, and took 1,000 prisoners. The enemy fell back across the river, leaving some 2,000 prisoners behind him, and by the morning of the 16th the Dahra Bend wasFeb. 16. wholly in our hands. “Thus terminated,” wrote General Maude, “a phase of severe fighting, brilliantly carried out. To eject the enemy from that horseshoe bend, bristling with trenches and commanded from across the river on three sides by hostile batteries and machine guns, called for offensive qualities of a high standard on the part of the troops. That such good results were achieved was due to the heroism and determination of the infantry, and to the close and ever-present support rendered by the artillery, whose accurate fire was assisted by efficient aeroplane observation.”

General Maude had now carried out the main preliminaries of his plan. He had won all the right bank of the Tigris in the vicinity of Kut. Khalil’s line now ran east and west from Sannaiyat to Shumran, with his left wing bent at right angles between the Suwaicha marsh and the river. It was geographically a strong defensive position, for it was protected throughout almost its whole length by the Tigris. But it had one weak point—at Shumran, where the enemy’s battle front and his line of communications met—and his fears for this point had compelled him to weaken other parts of his front. The moment had come for the British to cross the river, and the proper crossing place must be as far west as possible. If the crossing were to succeed, the forces at Sannaiyat must be kept closely engaged, and activities maintained along the whole river line. We hoped to enter by the back door, but if that was to be left ajar it was necessary to knock violently at the front door to distract the occupants.

On 17th February General Cobbe attacked atFeb. 17. Sannaiyat over sodden ground, for during the last few days the rain had fallen heavily. His attack was a surprise, and with little loss he carried the first and second lines on a frontage of 400 yards. Enemy counter-attacks, however, drove him back to his own lines before the evening. Then came a pause, while preparations were being made for the Shumran crossing, approaches being constructed and guns moved under cover of night, and the crews of the pontoons trained for their duties. On the 22nd part ofFeb. 22. General Cobbe’s forces—the Seaforths and a Punjabi battalion—again attacked at Sannaiyat, and after a day’s hard fighting secured the first two enemy trench lines. “The brilliant tenacity of the Seaforths throughout this day,” said the official dispatch, “deserves special mention.” That night we made a feint as if to cross at Kut and Magasis, and during the daylight we had allowed our preparations to be furtively observed, so that the enemy moved troops and guns to the Kut peninsula. OnFeb. 23. the 23rd came the real attempt. The place selected for the purpose was the south end of the Shumran Bend, and three ferries were provided immediately downstream. Just before dawn the work of the ferries began. The Norfolks, using the uppermost ferry, crossed with ease and took five machine guns and 300 prisoners. But the lower ferries, where two Gurkha battalions attempted to cross, came immediately under such a furious machine-gun fire that they had to be closed, though not until a gallant company of Gurkhas had reached the farther bank. By 7.30 a.m. three companies of Norfolks and 150 Gurkhas were across, and the work of building the bridge began. The Turkish guns were engaged by ours, and the Norfolks and Gurkhas, pressing inland and along the bank, were soon a mile north of the bridgehead. At 4.30 p.m. the bridge was open for traffic.

It was a crossing worthy to rank with the passage of the Aisne in September 1914; for if the Turkish strength was less formidable than the German, the swollen Tigris was a far greater barrier than the sluggish French stream.

That same day General Cobbe, at Sannaiyat,Feb. 24. had won the third, fourth, and fifth lines, and was busy making roads for his guns and transport across the tangle of ruined trenches. On the 24th General Marshall advanced in the Shumran Bend, fighting hard in the north-east corner, where a series of nullahs were honeycombed with machine-gun emplacements. That night the enemy, stoutly resisting, had been forced back 1,000 yards. Another division had crossed the bridge, and the cavalry, too, were over, and striving to break out from the peninsula to cut off Khalil’s retreat towards Bagdad. Our airplanes reported that every road was thronged with retiring troops, but the Turkish rearguards made a good defence, and our horsemen did not emerge from the peninsula till too late for a grand coup. That day General Cobbe carried the enemy’s sixth line at Sannaiyat, and marched on the Nakhailat and Suwada positions, only to find them empty. The desperate fortress, which had defied all our efforts in the early months of 1916, had yielded to the resolute assault of our infantry, supported by the distraction at Shumran. General Cobbe entered Kut unopposed, and the gunboats came upstream from Falahiyeh, and anchored off the town where exactly ten months before the Julnar had failed to run the blockade and bring food to Townshend’s famished remnant.

Meantime General Marshall’s forces and theFeb. 28. cavalry were hot upon Khalil’s track. Eight miles from Shumran the Turks attempted a stand, but were driven in with a loss of 400 prisoners. The cavalry on our right attempted to get round the Turkish flank, but were held up by entrenched infantry and the frequent marshes. The pursuit was in two columns—one following the river, and the other striking across country to the Sumar Bend in the hope of intercepting the enemy rearguards. But the Turkish retreat was, on the whole, well handled, and the bulk of his forces were too quick for us. Our gunboat flotilla had better luck, for it sunk or captured most of the enemy’s craft. Among its captures were the Firefly, the Sumana, and the Pioneer, vessels which we had lost in the preceding campaign. By 28th February General Marshall had arrived at Aziziyeh, halfway to Bagdad, where he halted to reorganize his communications, while General Cobbe’s forces closed to the front. Since the crossing of the Tigris we had taken 4,000 prisoners, of whom 188 were officers, 39 guns, 22 trench mortars, 11 machine guns, besides vast quantities of other material.

On 5th March the advance was renewed. GeneralMar. 5. Marshall marched eighteen miles to Zeur, while the cavalry pushed on seven miles further to Lajj, and had a successful brush in a dust storm with a Turkish rearguard, during which a Hussar regiment galloped straight through the enemy trenches. Next dayMar. 6. the Ctesiphon position was passed; it was found to be strongly entrenched but empty, and the cavalry got within three miles of the river Diala, which enters the Tigris from the east eight miles below Bagdad. Next day, 7th March,Mar. 7. our advanced front was in contact with the enemy along that river line.

The Advance from Kut to Bagdad.

Here it was clear the Turks proposed to attempt a stand. After sunset on the night of the 7th, when we launched our first pontoon, it was greeted by heavy rifle and machine-gun fire, and four later pontoons met the same fate. A small column from General Marshall’s force was ferried across the Tigris in order to enfilade the Diala position, and during the night of the 8th four attempts wereMar. 8. made to cross the Diala. One partially succeeded, and seventy men of the Loyal North Lancashires established a post in a loop of the river, and held it gallantly for twenty-four hours. At 4 a.m. on the morning ofMar. 10. the 10th General Marshall attacked again at two points a mile apart, and by 7 a.m. the East Lancashires and the Wiltshires had crossed and joined the Loyal North Lancashires. A bridge was constructed by noon, the riverside villages were cleared, and some hundreds of prisoners were taken. That night we were in touch with the enemy’s last position covering Bagdad from the south-east along the ridge called Tel Muhammad.

Sketch Map of the Operations for the Capture of Bagdad.

Meantime, on the 8th, a bridge had been thrownMar. 8. across the Tigris below the Diala mouth, and the cavalry and part of General Cobbe’s forces had crossed, and advanced against the Turkish position at Shawa Khan, which covered Bagdad from the direction of the Euphrates valley. Shawa Khan was easily taken on the morning ofMar. 9. the 9th, but we were kept busy for the rest of the day with the Turkish rearguard a mile and a half to the northward. During the night this rearguard fell back, and on the 10thMar. 10. we engaged it within three miles of Bagdad, while our cavalry from the west came within two miles of the railway station, which lies on the right bank of the Tigris. A furious dust storm checked our advance that day, and at midnight the enemy retired. Next morning,Mar. 11. 11th March, at 5.30 a.m., our troops groped their way through the dust into the railway station, and learned that the enemy force on the right bank had retired upstream beyond the city. Our advanced guards entered the suburbs on that bank, and the cavalry pressed the enemy to the north-west. Early that same morning General Marshall had discovered that the Turks were retreating from the Tel Muhammad ridge. He lost no time in pursuing them, but he found that the dust storm prevented him keeping contact with the enemy. An hour or two later he had entered Bagdad, and was warmly welcomed by the inhabitants, who were threatened with looting and burning by a riffraff of Kurds and Arabs. Order was presently restored, and the British flag hoisted over the city. The fleeing Turks had attempted to destroy the stores they could not remove, but a vast amount of military material was left behind. From the Arsenal we recovered the guns which Townshend had rendered useless before Kut surrendered.

The fall of Bagdad was an event of the first magnitude in the history of the war. It restored British prestige in the East which Kut and Gallipoli had shaken. It deprived the Teutonic League of a territory which had always played a vital part in their policy. It hit Turkey hard in her pride, and not less in her military strength. It cheered and enheartened our Allies, for Bagdad was so far the only famous city won from the enemy. But the chief importance of the success was its proof to the world of the moral of the British army and the British nation. We had been beaten, but we had not accepted defeat. We had fallen back, after our fashion, only to come again. The gallant dash had failed, so we had set ourselves resolutely to win by slow and sure stages. The Tigris Expedition was in many respects a parallel to our old Sudan campaign. In the one as in the other we had begun with improvisations and failed; in the one as in the other we had ended with methodical organization, and had succeeded. Victory following on failure is doubly creditable, and after the confusion and tragedy of our first Mesopotamian Expedition it was a proof of a stout national fibre that we could so nobly retrieve our mistakes.

The performance of Sir Stanley Maude would be hard to overpraise. On a broad basis of careful preparation he had constructed a strategical scheme as brilliant as it was simple. The tactical work had been marked by great resourcefulness and ingenuity, and by the most meticulous care. Here there was none of that lack of generalship which at other times had made fruitless the gallantry of our fighting men. But if the leadership was excellent, the stamina and courage of the troops were super-excellent. These were men who had for the most part been engaged for a year and a half in the same terrain, who had endured every extreme of heat and cold, who had suffered from the countless local diseases and the earlier disorder of the hospital and transport service, and who had in their memory more than one galling disaster. Of their achievement let their leader speak:—

The opening of 1917 found Russia in a state of artificial calm. The stormy November session of the Duma and the unanswered and unanswerable attacks upon the administration had, it appeared, produced no lasting result. The autocracy had won, as was shown by the appointment of Prince Golitzin as Premier, the rehabilitation of men whose career had been a public scandal, and above all by the increased activities of M. Protopopov, the principal agent of reaction. Yet behind the calm there was movement, the more significant because it was so quiet. The reasonable and patriotic elements in Russia’s life, the Duma, the Union of the Towns and Zemstvos, the Council of the Empire, the United Nobility—men of every shade of political opinion—were gradually drawing together. The extreme Socialists in the industrial areas were grouped, though with a different purpose, on the same side. The Army and the Army chiefs were in full sympathy. Opposed to this great mass of opinion stood the Court circle and the “dark forces”—small in numbers but all-powerful, for they controlled the administrative machine, and the secret police were their docile servants. That back-world of illiberalism, corruption, and neurotic mysticism was well aware that it was fighting for its life. It had forgotten all about the struggle with Germany and the interests of the nation. Its aim was to force on a futile revolution, to quench it in blood, to quell by terrorism any agitation for reform, and to entrench itself anew in power for another century. It had become wholly unnational, and it had also become desperate, for an event had happened at the close of the year 1916 which had been a challenge to an implacable vendetta.

Forty-four years before there had been born in the Siberian district of Tobolsk a certain Gregory Novikh, who, as he grew up, was given by his neighbours the name of Rasputin, which means “dirty dog.” He came of a peasant family, which, like many Siberian stocks, had a hereditary gift of mesmeric power. His youth was largely devoted to horse-stealing and perjury, and his prowess as a drunkard and a rural Don Juan was famous throughout the countryside. In early manhood he added another part to his repertoire. He became religious, let his hair grow long, and tramped about the world barefoot, while his long ostentatious fasts proclaimed his holiness. He was never in religious orders; but his fame as an ascetic grew, and the dignitaries of the Church turned a favourable eye on one who might prove a popular miracle worker. He did not change his habits, for on occasion he was as drunken as ever, and his immorality was flagrant; but it was not the first time that a Casanova had masqueraded in a hair shirt. Devout ladies of high rank heard of him and admitted him to their circles, and he played havoc among the devout ladies. His personal magnetism and his erotic mania gave him an uncanny power over hysterical women on the outlook for the miraculous.

Moscow was at first his sphere of influence; but his reputation spread far and wide, and no scandals could check it. He started a new cult, where dancing and debauchery were interspersed with mystical séances; and presently, through the medium of Madame Virubova, a powerful lady-in-waiting, he had the Imperial family among his devotees. The man was a scoundrel and a charlatan, but he must have had some strange quality of his own to attract and hold so great a following. He was given the office of Lighter of the Sacred Lamps in the Palace, but his real function was that of chief medicine man to a superstitious Court. His filthy peasant’s shirt was used as a charm to cure the little Tsarevitch of a fever. His lightest word became law, and he was consulted on matters of which he did not understand the names. Fashionable ladies fought for his favours; great ecclesiastics and ministers waited patiently in his anteroom. He was a man of middle height, with curious, deeply-set eyes, long thick hair, and a tangled beard, dressing always in peasant’s clothes, and rarely washing. Few more squalid figures have ever reached supreme power in a great nation.^[9]

After drink and women his chief passion was gold, and he found in politics full gratification for his avarice. To bribe Rasputin became the easiest, and often the only, way to high office. Those who opposed him or failed to cultivate him were dismissed. An unfriendly journalistic reference led to the suppression of the paper that printed it. He held the clergy for the most part in the hollow of his hand. He was a friend of Count Witte in his day, of Maklakov and Sukhomlinov, of Goremykin and Stürmer. He had much to do with the retirement of the Grand Duke Nicholas, who never concealed his contempt for him. At the end of 1916 he had four principal creatures through whom he conducted his business—Protopopov, the Minister of the Interior; Rajev, the Procurator of the Holy Synod; Manasevitch-Manuilov, a jackal of Stürmer’s; and Pitirim, the Metropolitan of Petrograd. Grand dukes and princes of the royal blood appealed to the Emperor and Empress to shake themselves loose from his shackles, and all that happened was the exile of the appellants. It is not probable that he had any serious pro-German proclivities, though he received much German gold. He had no considered views on high politics, and played for his low personal ends. But he was anti-national, inasmuch as he stood for the dark back-world of Russia, which must cease to exist if the Russian people were to emerge victorious from the war.^[10]

Such a man must live in perpetual danger, and it was noticed by those who interviewed him that during the winter he had begun to wear a hunted look, as if he heard the hounds on his trail. He had betrayed so many women that there was scarcely a noble family in Russia but had some wrong to avenge. He had been assaulted several times, and once he had been soundly beaten; but to the amazement of Europe he went on living. The events of November, however, in the Duma and the Council of the Empire showed him that his enemies were getting bolder. It was not the people at large whom he had to fear, for they scarcely knew of his existence. It was the nobility and the upper classes who wished to remove a plague spot from the national life. He grew frightened, shut himself up in his house, and only saw those who were first examined by his private bodyguard of secret police. Presently his alarm increased, and he tried to conceal his whereabouts; but by this time the ring was drawn close around him, and it was very certain that he would die.

On the night of 29th December, Prince Yusupov,Dec. 29. a young man of rank and wealth, who had been educated at Oxford, and had married a connection of the Imperial family, rang up Rasputin on the telephone, and asked him to supper at his house. Such supper-parties were no unusual things in the man’s experience, for he could drink any Guardsman under the table, and was famous as a ribald jester. Rather unwillingly he accepted the invitation, and was fetched by his host in his own car. The chauffeur, who was M. Purishkevitch, a Conservative member of the Duma from Bessarabia, followed them inside the house, where they found the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch.^[11] The party of three locked the door, and told Rasputin that he would never leave the place alive. He was given a pistol wherewith to shoot himself, but fired instead at the Grand Duke, and missed. Thereupon his executioners shot him dead. The noise attracted the attention of the police, who came to inquire as to its meaning. “We were getting rid of a troublesome dog,” they were told. The corpse was placed in the car, and taken to a lonely island in the Neva, where it was weighted with stones, and dropped through a hole in the ice. Bloodmarks on the snow and one of his goloshes were the only marks of the deed; but three days later the body was found. The executioners went home, and telephoned to the police to proclaim what they had done. Next evening the Bourse Gazette announcedDec 30. Rasputin’s death, and that night at the Imperial Theatre the audience celebrated the event with wild enthusiasm, and sang the National Hymn. The whole country applauded the equity of the deed, and regarded it less as a murder than as a judicial execution. The man had put himself where the law could not touch him, and representatives of the people and of the nobility ceremoniously and deliberately brought him within the pale of a rough justice.^[12]

The death of Gregory Rasputin was the first act in the Russian Revolution. It is the way of revolutions to have among their preliminaries some strange drama, apparently outside the main march of events, which yet in the retrospect is seen to be organically linked with it. In slaying him the Russian nobility made their reckoning with one who had smirched the honour of their class, and the next step was for the Russian people to take order with what was smirching the honour of the nation. But for the moment the autocracy drew the strings tighter. Rasputin was dead, but Protopopov remained. The Duma, which should have met on January 25, 1917, was postponed for a month, in order, it was stated, to give the new Premier, Prince Golitzin, time to revise the policy of his predecessors. The general congress of the Union of the Towns and Zemstvos had already been forbidden, and the police were given the right of being present at all private meetings of any organization.^[13] The censorship was drawn tight, and M. Katenin, a creature of M. Goremykin, was appointed to control it. The Minister of the Interior turned the ordinary work of his department over to his assistants, and devoted all his energies to the Press and the secret police. The numbers of the latter were greatly increased, and Petrograd was filled with them; while machine guns, sent from England for the Army and sorely needed at the front, were concealed on the roofs at strategical points everywhere throughout the city. All things were ripe for the forcing on of that abortive revolution which the reactionaries desired for their complete establishment in power.

The protagonist in this shameful business, Alexander Protopopov, will remain one of the enigmas of history. Originally a Liberal, he came to Western Europe in the summer of 1916 with a deputation of members of the Duma and the Council of the Empire, and delighted audiences in England and France with his perfervid oratory. He had great charm of manner, and a kind of earnest simplicity which deeply impressed those who met him. He talked the commonplaces of the Allied cause, but with a conviction and a warmth of imagination which made his speeches by far the best made by any foreign visitor to our shores since the outbreak of war. But those who were often in his company observed that he seemed to be living always at fever point. He suffered much from insomnia, and his talk was often wild and strained. On his way back to Russia he was believed to have had interviews with certain enemy agents in Stockholm, and to have spoken indiscreetly. On his return he fell completely into the hands of the Court party, and more especially of those elements which were represented by Rasputin. His neurotic temperament and his restless romantic imagination predisposed him to be influenced by the glamour of the Court and the necromancy of charlatans. He took to spending as much time at séances as in the Council Chamber. Towards the end he became known as the “Mad Minister,” and it is likely that his wits were seriously unhinged. That, at any rate, is the most charitable hypothesis on which to explain the aberrations of a man who had in his time done honest public service, and who was certainly no ordinary traitor.

During January and February the people seemed apathetic under the new tyranny. No one wanted revolution except the agitators who had made it their business, for the ordinary man realized that it would cripple the conduct of the war and play the game of the enemy. The reactionaries grew bolder, and on 9th February the LabourFeb. 9. group of M. Guchkov’s War Industry Committee—the equivalent to the British Ministry of Munitions—were arrested on a charge of conspiracy, and imprisoned without trial. The provocation was received with calm, for it was seen to be a provocation. M. Miliukov and some of the Labour leaders wrote appeals to the people to remain quiet, and their appeals were suppressed by the authorities. Petrograd was made a military district by itself, but even this menace failed to create disturbances. A British official commission was in Russia at the time, and its members, though they believed revolution to be inevitable some time or other, misjudged the popular temper, and thought that nothing would happen till after the war. OnFeb. 27. 27th February the Duma met amid bodyguards of police. In the Council of the Empire Scheglovitov, who had originally been dismissed from office along with Sukhomlinov, and in the Duma Markov, revealed themselves as the Government’s representatives, and it was clear that Protopopov was about to engineer new elections, that he might have a Duma to his liking. Things went so tamely that the reaction began to flatter itself that its enemies were cowed, and that it had already won the game. But Purishkevitch, an extreme Conservative and a sturdy patriot, spoke more truly than he knew when he concluded a fiery attack on Protopopov with the words, “Dawn is not yet, but it is behind the hills.”

In the meantime the people were hungry, and hunger is the great dissolvent of patience. It had been a bitter winter with heavy snowfalls, and the supply of food was scanty. The immense demands of the Army had strained the transport machinery to its utmost, and the situation was made worse by the restrictions imposed on the export of grain from one district to another, for in some areas there were large surplus stocks. The Government had no plan to deal with the shortage, and by February the daily bread ration in Petrograd, small at the best, looked as if it were about to fail. Patiently the people waited for hours in the bread queues, telling each other that their kinsfolk were enduring far worse hardships in the trenches, and that it behoved them to be patient for Russia’s sake. But word began to go round that before the spring came real starvation would be upon them, and there were many—social democrats in the factories, mysterious figures at the street corners—to point the moral and ask what was the use of a Government which could not give them bread. Long, straggling innocent processions began to wander about Petrograd, helpless people asking only food for their children. They seemed to beg and expostulate rather than demand.

Thursday, 8th March, was a day of clear, fineMar. 8. weather. In the afternoon there was a gala performance of Lermontov’s Masquerade at the Alexander Theatre, on which ten years’ preparation and vast sums of money had been lavished. All day long the women waited in the streets outside the bakers’ shops for a chance to get their dwindling bread ration. Panis et circenses—the old antidotes to revolution! In the Duma a debate on the question of food supplies was winding out its slow length. Everywhere there seemed a profound peace—the peace of apathy and disheartenment. But in the afternoon a small party of Cossacks galloped down the Nevski Prospect, causing the promenaders to ask whether there was trouble somewhere across the river. A little later a few bakers’ shops were looted in the poorer quarters, and a forlorn and orderly procession of students and workmen’s wives appeared on the Nevski. Protopopov’s spies reported that all was quiet; but they were wrong, for the revolution had begun. The breaking-point had been reached in the people’s temper, and all Russia was on the tiptoe of expectation, seeking for a sign.

Next day, Friday, the 9th, in the same bright,Mar. 9. cold weather, it became apparent that some change had taken place. The people by a common impulse flowed out into the streets. Some of the chief newspapers did not appear, and those that did contained solemn warnings about the crisis. The food debate in the Duma took a new turn, and the Government was appealed to to grapple with the provisioning of the capital. Crowds were everywhere, laughing, talking, and always expectant. The Cossack patrols stopped to fraternize with these groups, and seemed to be on the best of terms with them. Workmen chaffed and cheered the soldiers, and the soldiers could be heard assuring the people that they would not shoot at them, whatever their orders. “You are not going to fire on us, brothers,” cried the crowd to the troops; “we only want bread.” “No,” was the reply; “we are hungry, like yourselves.” Towards the police, on the other hand, there was no friendliness. Stones and bottles were thrown at them, and there was some shooting. Two workmen were arrested and taken into a courtyard, which was defended by a company of soldiers. The crowd tried to rush the courtyard to effect a rescue, and the soldiers seemed about to fire, when a band of Cossacks rode up, secured the arrested men, and delivered them to their friends. There was very little political speech-making. Late in the afternoon a workman, standing on a tub in the middle of the Nevski, announced that they must get rid of the Government. One of his hearers shouted, “Down with the war!” and was at once sternly rebuked. “Remember the blood of our brothers and sons must not be spilt for nothing. The thing to do is to get rid of the Government. Peace when it comes must be an honourable peace.”

Petrograd.

To the casual observer it seemed as if there was no purpose except idle curiosity in the great throngs. They seemed too tolerant and good-humoured to mean serious business. But to one who watched more closely it was clear that there was some kind of organization behind it all. Otherwise why the constant appeals for moderation made wherever there was a chance of the peace being broken? “The Government wants an excuse to crush the people. Do not play into their hands by rioting, but keep cool. The one great thing is to force the Government to go.” Something already had been achieved. There had been meetings and processions, and the soldiers had encouraged them. But it was hard to believe that these leaderless crowds could achieve anything great. They were unarmed and undisciplined, and in Petrograd there were at least 28,000 police, with many machine guns.

Next day, Saturday, the trams stopped running,Mar. 10. though the shops were still open, and the cinematograph shows crowded. The expectation had grown tenser, and the streets were more densely packed than ever. The workmen, having received their week’s pay, struck work and joined the throngs, and serious political talk took the place of the gossip and banter of the preceding day. The next move lay with the Government. Either it must satisfy the people, or it must coerce them.

The following morning, Sunday, the 11th, theMar. 11. Government acted. General Khabalov, the new military governor of Petrograd, plastered the city with proclamations, announcing that the police had orders to disperse all crowds, and that any workman who did not return to work on Monday morning would be sent to the trenches. No attention was paid to the first part, and the crowds in the streets were enormous, including women and children who had turned out from pure curiosity. It was noticed that the police patrols had been much strengthened, and that detachments of regulars had been brought in to assist. The Nevski Prospect was cleared from end to end and put under military guard, and the people took it calmly. There was a certain amount of firing on the crowds, with the result that some two hundred were killed. Observers, friendly to the Revolution, saw in the day another complete fiasco after the fashion of Russian revolts. But three significant incidents had occurred. A company of the Pavlovsk regiment had mutinied when told to fire on the people. The President of the Duma, M. Rodzianko, had telegraphed to the Emperor:—

He sent copies of his telegram to the different commanders-in-chief at the front, and asked for their support. The Government, after much hesitation, also acted, and Prince Golitzin finally prorogued the Duma, under discretionary powers which he had received from the Emperor. But the Duma refused to be prorogued, and elected a Provisional Committee which continued to sit. Rodzianko’s huge figure rose in the winter twilight, and, waving in his hand the order for dissolution, he announced that the Duma was now the sole constitutional authority of Russia.

Next day the soldiers followed suit. Monday,Mar. 12. 12th March, was to prove the decisive day, and a movement which had begun by slow and halting stages was to become a whirlwind. During the night the two operative forces of the Revolution had made their decision. The troops—both the Petrograd garrison and those brought in as reinforcements—were aware what their orders would be, and were resolved to disobey them. They could not shoot down their own class. The consciously revolutionary elements in the army were small, and this resolve was simply the revolt of human nature against an unnatural task. At the same time the Socialist organizations among the workmen were preparing their own scheme. If the old régime were dissolved they would be ready with an alternative.

Before nine o’clock the streets were black with people, and it was curious to note that on the crust of the volcano much of the normal life of the city continued. Men went about their ordinary avocations till they were pulled up by some lava stream from the eruption. The crisis came early in the day. The Preobrajenski Guards regiment, the flower of the Household troops, were ordered to fire on the mob; instead, they shot their more unpopular officers. The Volynski regiment was sent to coerce them, and joined in the mutiny. The united forces swept down on the Arsenal, and after a short resistance carried the place, and provided the Revolution with munitions of war. Then began a day of sheer naked chaos. The soldiers had no plans, and drifted from quarter to quarter, intoxicated with their new freedom, but still maintaining a semblance of discipline. There was no looting, and little drunkenness. No leader appeared, and the force of some 25,000 men—made up of the Preobrajenski, Volynski, Litovski, Kexholmski, and Sapper regiments^[14]—swung from street to street, as if moved by some elemental law. The headquarters of the autocracy fell one by one. At 11 a.m. the Courts of Law were on fire. Then the various prisons were stormed, and a host of political prisoners, as well as ordinary criminals, released. In the afternoon the great fortress of SS. Peter and Paul surrendered. And all day the nests of the secret police were being smoked out. The chief office was raided, and the papers which it contained were burned in the street. The Bastille of the old régime had fallen to the Revolution.

There was now no semblance of Government in Petrograd except the Duma, still sitting under Rodzianko’s presidency. The Emperor had not replied to the first telegram, so a second was dispatched still more strongly worded. Then about midday came the news that the Emperor had wired to the Minister of War that he was coming; that he had appointed Ivanov to the supreme command of the Army, and that he was bringing troops from the northern front to quell the rising. The Duma continued its session, scarcely less at a loss than the crowds now parading the streets. It did not realize as yet the completeness of the victory of the Revolution, and so missed the chance of riding the storm. Presently came deputations from the insurgent troops, who were informed of the messages sent to the Emperor. The Socialist deputies addressed them, and bade them at all costs maintain order, since order was vital to the cause of freedom. The regular Duma guard was removed, and a new “bodyguard from the pavement” substituted. In the afternoon the Duma conferred in secret, and chose an Executive Committee of twelve men to act as a Provisional Government. Their names were Rodzianko, Nekrasov, Konovalov, Dmitrikov, Lvov, Rjenski, Karaulov, Miliukov, Schledlovski, Shulgin, Tcheidze, and Kerenski. Outside its walls another committee was also being formed, a committee of workmen and social revolutionaries; and since they were in the van of the actual work of the Revolution, they speedily obtained a great influence over the troops now pouring into Petrograd. But the centre of gravity was still with the Duma, and all that Monday soldiers, workmen, and students thronged its doors, listening to speeches, and making new constitutions every half-hour. The chief Duma leaders visited the various barracks, and the trend of all appeals was the same—maintain order and discipline, or your new-found liberty is lost. All day prisoners were brought in—officials, and those of the police who had escaped the fury of the mob. One of these was Scheglovitov, the President of the Council of the Empire, and a pillar of the “dark forces.” When the night fell the Admiralty searchlights lit the Nevski from end to end, as if to prove that the old secret ways had perished. Close on midnight a shabby man in a dirty fur coat spoke to one of the Duma guards. “Take me,” he said, “to the Committee of the Duma. I surrender myself voluntarily, for I seek only the welfare of our country. My name is Protopopov.”

The Revolution had been achieved in Petrograd,Mar. 13. but not yet in Russia. The Emperor had still to disclose his hand. The views of the great army beyond the walls of the capital were still unknown. But on Tuesday it became plain that no opposition need be feared from that army. Every regiment that reached Petrograd went over whole-heartedly to the Revolution. On that day, 13th March, the Duma Committee, now a little clearer in its mind, grappled with the immediate problems of government. It was composed mainly of men who would be called Moderates in other countries, men who desired a stable constitutional government on the lines of the Western democracies. It had to fear reaction on the one hand, and on the other the extremism of the Council of Labour, which had already organized itself more completely than the Duma, and had a great following both among the Petrograd proletariat and the incoming troops. Any strife between the two would lead to a bloody commune, and give reaction a chance to re-establish itself; so the Duma Committee, using its two members Tcheidze and Kerenski as its liaison with the extremists, strove to keep in line with the other. All Tuesday the Tauris Palace was one babel of talk. Soldiers, students, Jews, workmen, and Socialist agitators held their meetings and camped on its floor; while its courts were a mixture of arsenal and eating-house, and in quieter corners the harassed members of the Executive Committee made plans for getting supplies into the city, argued with Labour delegates, and strove to forecast the future. News had come that Moscow accepted the Revolution; but next day the Emperor was expected, and Ivanov might even then be marching a great army to take order with the new régime.

Meantime, in the streets strange dramas were being enacted. The Admiralty buildings at one end of the Nevski Prospect had been besieged for thirty-six hours. It was the last stronghold of the old Government, and thither General Khabalov had retired on the outbreak of the revolt. On Tuesday morning a letter was sent to the Naval Minister, Grigorovitch, announcing that if the place was not surrendered within half an hour it would be destroyed by the big guns from the fortress of SS. Peter and Paul. Khabalov capitulated, the troops marched out, and on the gates appeared the notice: “Under the protection of the State Duma.” The Astoria Hotel, which had been a caravanserai for officers, was attacked, since shots had been fired on the crowd from its roof. The same thing happened elsewhere, for Protopopov’s machine guns were still in position on the housetops, and the police did not surrender without a struggle. The taking of those wretched creatures provided the chief instances of barbarities during the first stage of the Revolution. When captured they were promptly murdered, often under revolting circumstances, for the people had a long and bitter count against them. During that day, too, the rest of the leaders of the old Government were made prisoners—Stürmer and Pitirim and Kurlov; Dubrovin, a leader of the “Black Hundred;” and Sukhomlinov, who was only saved from being torn in pieces by the interposition of Kerenski.

On Wednesday, the 14th, the Revolution inMar. 14. Petrograd was virtually over, and the interest centred in the relations between the Executive Committee of the Duma and the Council of Labour, which had now grown into the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates, the Soviet, which was to become a familiar name in Europe. Such sovereignty as now existed was divided between them; and, as the Revolution spread, and the armies of Brussilov and Ruzsky announced their adherence, there seemed danger of a revolution within the Revolution, of civil war between two sides whose feet were alike set on the new path. The Socialists rained proclamations—some of them noble and statesmanlike, some of them visionary and foolish, such as that which abolished saluting for private soldiers off duty and proclaimed that “the orders of the War Committee must be obeyed, saving only on those occasions when they shall contravene the orders and regulations of the Council of Labour Deputies and Military Delegates.” The appeal of the Duma Committee was more wisely inspired:—

Meantime there was the Emperor. He had not been deposed, and, to the vast majority of the Russian people, was still sovereign and father. On Wednesday, the 14th, he was coming to Petrograd. He had already dispatched Ivanov, whom he regarded as the bulwark of his throne, with a battalion composed of Knights of St. George, to take command of the troops in the capital. But Ivanov never reached the city. His train came within a few stations of Tsarkoe Selo, where it was held up; and, after wandering aimlessly for some time up and down the line, he received instructions from General Ruzsky to return to Pskov.

The same fate befell Ivanov’s master. On theMar. 15. 14th he tried to reach Petrograd; but he got no farther than the little station of Bologoi, where workmen had pulled up the track, and he was compelled to return to Pskov. At 2 a.m. on the morning of the 15th he sent for Ruzsky, and told him: “I have decided to give way, and grant a responsible Ministry. What is your view?” The manifesto, already signed, lay on the table. Ruzsky advised him to get in touch with Rodzianko, and himself telephoned to the Duma in Petrograd and to the other generals. The replies he received made it clear that there was no other course than abdication, and at 10 a.m. he made his report to the Emperor, saying that his view was confirmed not only by Rodzianko, but by Alexeiev, Brussilov, Ewarts, and the Grand Duke Nicholas. Rodzianko could not leave Petrograd; but Guchkov and Shulgin arrived in the evening, and found the Emperor in the royal train, haggard, unwashed, and weary. He had no one in attendance except his veteran aide-de-camp, Count Fredericks. He asked to be told the truth, and he heard that the Army, led by his own Household troops, had joined the Revolution. “What do you want me to do?” he asked. “You must abdicate,” Guchkov told him, “in favour of your son, with the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch as Regent. Such is the decision of the new Government.” The Emperor covered his eyes. “I cannot be separated from my boy,” he said. “I will hand the throne to my brother. Give me a sheet of paper.”

On that sheet of paper he wrote these words:—

But Amurath was not to succeed thus simply to Amurath. When Guchkov brought back his report and the fateful sheet of paper, he found Petrograd seething with constitutional squabbles. The Moderates—the bulk of the Duma Committee—sought a Constitutional Monarchy; the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates desired a republic in so far as they had considered forms of government at all. The abdication of the Emperor was still unknown when, on Thursday afternoon, Miliukov made a speech in the Duma which declared the names of the new Ministers. These were Prince George Lvov, Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior; Miliukov, Foreign Affairs; Guchkov, War and Marine; Kerenski, Justice; Terestchenko, Finance; Shingarev, Agriculture; Konovalov, Commerce and Industries; Nekrasov, Ways and Communications; Manuilov, Public Instruction; Godnev, State Comptroller; Vladimir Lvov, Procurator of the Holy Synod; and Rodichev, Finnish Affairs. It was in the most exact sense a coalition, for it included representatives of every party of the left and centre. The Premier, Manuilov, Miliukov, Rodichev, Shingarev, and Nekrasov were Cadets; V. Lvov was a Liberal Nationalist; Godnev and Guchkov were Octobrists; Konovalov and Terestchenko were Liberals; and Kerenski was a Labour Socialist. Miliukov explained the credentials of the new Ministry.

He concluded by informing his hearers that “the despot who has brought Russia to the brink of ruin will either abdicate of his free will or be deposed.” He added that the Grand Duke Michael would be appointed Regent. This announcement was the spark to the explosion. The Soviet at once demanded a republic, and for an hour or two it seemed as if the new Government would disappear in the horrors of a commune. The situation was saved by Kerenski. He went straightway to the Soviet meeting, and broke into its heated debate with words which stamped him as a true leader of men. “Comrades,” he cried, “I have been appointed Minister of Justice. No one is a more ardent republican than I; but we must bide our time. Nothing can come to its full growth at once. We shall have our republic, but we must first win the war, and then we can do what we will. The need of the moment is organization and discipline, and that need will not wait.” His candour and earnestness carried the day. The Soviet passed a resolution in support of the Provisional Government by a majority of 1,000 to 15, and the new régime entered upon office.

But it was clear that the arrangement made byMar. 16. Guchkov in the royal train at Pskov could not stand. Late on the night of Thursday, the 15th, a deputation, led by Prince Lvov, and including Kerenski, sought out the Grand Duke Michael, and informed him that the people demanded that he should renounce the Regency, and relegate all powers to the Provisional Government until a Constituent Assembly could decide upon the future. The Grand Duke bowed to fate, and on the morning of Friday, 16th, there was issued a declaration in his name which rang the knell of the Romanov dynasty. “I am firmly resolved,” so it ran, “to accept the Supreme Power only if this should be the desire of our great people, who must, by means of a plebiscite through their representatives in the Constituent Assembly, establish the form of Government and the new fundamental laws of the Russian State. Invoking God’s blessing, I therefore request all citizens of Russia to obey the Provisional Government, set up on the initiative of the Duma, and invested with plenary powers, until, within as short a time as possible, the Constituent Assembly, elected on a basis of equal, universal, and secret suffrage, shall enforce the will of the nation regarding the future form of the constitution.”

This was on Friday, 16th March. A week before Protopopov had been in power, and his police had been established in every corner of Petrograd; the patient bread queues had been waiting in the streets; and the rank and fashion of the capital had been thronging to the Alexander Theatre. Now these things were as if they had never been. The sacred monarchy had disappeared, the strongholds of reaction had been obliterated as if by a sponge, and agitators, but lately lurking in dens and corners and dreading the sight of a soldier, were now leading Guards regiments under the red flag and dictating their terms to grand dukes and princes. No more dramatic peripeteia was ever witnessed in the chequered history of human freedom.

The fall of the Emperor was received among the Allies with mixed feelings. Even those who warmly acclaimed the Revolution, and recognized the hopeless inadequacy of his rule, could not view without some natural regret the fate of a man who since the first day of the war had been scrupulously loyal to the Alliance; who, as was proved by his creation of the Hague conferences, had many generous and far-sighted ideals; and who, on the admission of all who knew him, was in character mild, courteous, and humane. Moreover, in the West there is always a lingering sentiment for disinherited kings—a sentiment sprung of that intense historic imagination which is the birthright of France and Britain. Il garde au cœur les richesses stériles d’un grand nombre de rois oubliés. In Russia, where people think more abstractly, and have small care for the bric-a-brac of history, there is none of this feeling. Plants like Jacobitism and Legitimism do not now flourish east of the Vistula. Hence it was with some surprise that Western observers watched the utter eclipse of the Tsardom, which they had been taught to regard as something intertwined with the fibre of Russian folk-thought and religion. But among a people so heterogeneous and so little integrated by a common educational standard, such sudden reversals of thought were not unnatural. The Russian mind remained as before, loyal to its own peculiar mysticism, but the ideal of a thing called liberty could supplant with ease the ideal of a paternal king. A race which has so little visualizing power among its mental furniture is not the stuff of which impassioned royalists are made.

The House of Romanov deserved its fate. It had allowed itself to become an anachronism in the modern world, a mediæval fragment in line neither with the bludgeoning German absolutism nor the freedom of Italy and Britain. A stronger man than Nicholas might have established an efficient autocracy with the complete assent of his people; a wiser man could have transformed the Tsardom into a constitutional kingship. Nicholas wavered between the two, and was incapable of the sustained intellectual effort necessary to follow either course. His sympathies were, on the whole, liberal; but he was easily swayed by his entourage, and especially by his wife. He did not blunder from lack of warning. The Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovitch told him the truth the preceding Christmas, and was banished for his pains. “Your first impulse and decision are always remarkably true and right. But as soon as other influence supervenes you begin to waver, and your ultimate decisions are not the same.” The worst influence was the wife whom he deeply loved. The Empress Alexandra Feodorovna will live in history with Henrietta Maria of England and Marie Antoinette of France as an instance of a devoted queen who dethroned her consort. In her eyes popular leaders were no more than traitors, to whom she hoped some day to give short shrift. She was possessed with whimsies about divine right, and her one object in life was to hand on the Russian crown to her son with no atom of its power and glory diminished. Her shallow and neurotic mind, played upon by every wind of superstition, was incapable of distinguishing true men from false, or of discerning the best means of realizing her ambitions. In the end she had so surrounded herself and her husband with scoundrels and charlatans that the Court stank in the nostrils of decent citizens, and when it was assailed there was none to defend it. The autocracy collapsed from its own inherent rottenness. The Revolution succeeded not because it was well planned and brilliantly led, for there was neither plan nor leading. It won because there was no opposition. The old order ended at the first challenge, for it had become mere lath and plaster.

The Revolution triumphed in a week, and at a cost of human life far lower than any other movement of the same magnitude had ever shown. So, at any rate, it seemed to Western observers; but the view was scarcely accurate. What happened was a coup d’état, supported by nearly all the troops, and such strokes are usually swift and bloodless. The real Revolution was yet to come; on Friday, 16th March, it might fairly be said that it had scarcely begun. The cause of its immediate success was the adhesion of the army, for in these days of machine guns no revolt can hope to succeed for a day if the men who control the guns are hostile. The decision as to who inspired it is more difficult. Without the Duma, the only nucleus of government, the business would have marched into naked chaos; there would have been a commune in Petrograd, and probably in other cities; and it is certain that the Army would not have been united, the great commanders would not have accepted the change, and presently there would have been civil war. At the same time, without the driving force of the working classes of the capital it is possible that the Revolution would have ended in a barren compromise. The Duma had not the power of free initiative. Even the Provisional Committee contained too many types of political thought to enable it to speak with a clear voice. Its moderate elements, the men who understood the mechanism of government, were the men who had already failed in the struggle with the autocracy. Even a strong man like Guchkov, who had laboured hard to provide munitions for the army, had found his work hampered and nullified. The taint of failure was on them all, and the public mind turned naturally to the extremists, who had never sought to work with the old régime, who had never ceased to preach a root-and-branch destruction. Revolutions are violent things, and their first result must always be to give a hearing to the fanatic rather than to the politique. The prestige and the initiative lay with the impromptu organization of the Petrograd proletariat.

The dominant fact was that a great gap had been created, and that the gap must be filled. There were two rival theories as to the method and the principles to be followed—that of the constitutionalists and that of the extremists—and it may be useful to examine these more closely. The constitutionalists, who were represented by the Provisional Government formed on 15th March, realized that Russia was in the throes of a great war, and that some kind of stable administration was needed without an hour’s delay. There were all shades of opinion in their ranks, for some would have preferred to maintain the dynasty under new constitutional restrictions, while others were ready to accept a republic; but all were practical men who were willing to jettison their pet theories and look squarely at facts. Their aim was a Committee of Public Safety, which would guide Russia to peace, and then, with fuller knowledge and ampler leisure, prepare a constitution, as Alexander Hamilton had prepared a constitution for the United States after freedom had been won. The Premier, Prince Lvov, was a specialist in local government, a man who had busied himself not with political speculation but with instant practical needs. Miliukov and Shingarev were of the same cast of mind as somewhat doctrinaire British Liberals; Guchkov—to continue the British parallel—was a moderate Conservative; Terestchenko was a rich and enlightened employer of labour, a Tory democrat; Vladimir Lvov was a Liberal country gentleman. Their following lay in the professional classes, the business men, the country gentry, and the bourgeoisie. They alone in Russia had any understanding of foreign politics and of the main problems of the war. They represented all the store of administrative experience which the country possessed. Worthy, honest, and patriotic, they had kept flying the banner of a reasonable freedom during the dark days; but they had failed in the past to achieve reform, and the memory of that failure clung to them. They were not by nature makers of revolutions. They lacked the fiery appeal, the daimonic personality, which awes and attracts great masses of men. Logical, capable, intensely respectable, they were also a little dull. They were wholly right in their perception of the needs of their country; but when an excited populace is clamouring for a new heaven and a new earth, it will not be greatly attracted by a plan for stable government. Moreover, the very blackness of the old régime seemed to demand a sensational and violent reversal. “So foul a sky clears not without a storm.”

The extremists of the Council of Workmen and Soldiers represented a far narrower class. They stood for the working population of Petrograd, and in a lesser degree for industrial Russia; but Russia is not a highly industrialized country, and the workmen are a mere handful compared with the many millions of the peasantry. The rank and file were profoundly ignorant on all questions of government, and the leaders were little better. Their strength lay in the fact that they preached a creed which was the antithesis of all that had gone before, and which combined ideals that were capable of appealing both to a narrow class interest and to the generous and imaginative side of the Russian mind. That creed might be described as Socialism, but it was Socialism with a difference; and if we would understand it, we must note the two channels in which Russian Socialistic theory flowed for the generation preceding the Revolution.

At the source of each channel we find two remarkable thinkers—the Russian Lavrov and the German Marx. Lavrov, whose Lettres Historiques appeared in 1868, sought a philosophy of history and of society based upon the development of the individual. He found his ideal in a Socialist state, where the State should not be a tyrant overriding the individual, but should give the fullest scope for that “maximizing” of the individual life which was what he understood by moral progress. This view received some support from the teaching of Bakunin, who carried his individualism so far as to deny the moral value of the State altogether. Lavrov’s point of view was always that of the historian. Liberty was his keyword, rather than justice; and he wished to conserve in Russia all the primitive Socialism of the peasant communities and the traditional folk-culture of the Slav. He made his appeal not only to the industrial classes, but to the intellectuals, and very notably to the peasants, and agrarian reform was a chief feature in his programme. Such a creed did not preach class war in the common sense, and it was keenly alive to the organic value of national life. From it sprang the Social Revolutionary party, which about 1900 began to come into prominence in Russia. Typical members at the date of the Revolution were Kerenski and Tchernov. It was essentially a native Russian product, and it is hard to find for it a foreign parallel, though it had certain resemblances to the British Fabian Society and to the Nationalist section of French Socialism.

To the hard materialism of Karl Marx the only factors worth consideration were the forces of economic evolution. To him the State was everything, the individual nothing, and he construed the State rigidly in the terms of a single class. Justice was his keyword, and liberty was disregarded. The revolution which he sought was essentially a class revolution, and hence he looked upon nationalism as an obstacle to the realization of his aims. Directly from Marx’s teaching sprang the Social Democratic party in Russia, which in 1884 was founded in Switzerland by Plekhanov and others. The teaching spread rapidly among the Russian industrial classes, and in some form or other was, at the date of the Revolution, the creed of the great majority of Russian workmen. But the harsh intransigence of the Marxian system was not altogether suited to Russian soil, and in 1907 the party had split into two. The Bolsheviki, or Maximalists, under the leadership of Lenin, drew narrowly the class distinction, and regarded the intellectuals, the bourgeoisie, and even the peasants, as enemies. They were international in their aims, and sought not the re-creation of Russia, but the triumph of one class throughout the world. They were for the most part bitter and arid doctrinaires, who clung to an abstract creed as their Tablets of Sinai, and met every problem by a reference to the letter of their law. Of practical ability they had not a vestige, but they had the driving force which even the shallowest fanaticism gives. The Menshoviki, or Minimalists, were of a saner type. Though they claimed for the working classes of the world the importance due to their numbers, they did not ignore other classes. They set their eyes on definite practical reforms, and were willing to use the existing machinery of the State for their purpose. The Great War broadened the divergence between the two groups. The Minimalists, led by men like Plekhanov, Martov, and Tseretelli, accepted the war as a part of their programme. They recognized that Prussianism was the great enemy of their creed, and that nationalism must precede internationalism. They saw that the cause for which the Allies fought was their own cause, the cause of every worker in the world. Behind them they had beyond doubt the great majority of Russian Social Democrats. To the Bolsheviki the fate of their country mattered not at all, provided that their own crude ideas of social reconstruction survived the calamity. They were eager for peace on any terms, that they might get on with their own war, that class war which recognized no political frontiers.

The Council of Workmen and Soldiers was made up of the two divisions of the Social Democrats and a limited number of Social Revolutionaries. It represented, as we have said, only a fraction of Russia; but it was in Petrograd, at the centre of affairs, and it was vocal, while other sections were dumb. Its majority were sensible men, who saw that victory in the war was essential to the safeguarding of their new-won freedom, and who had a wider outlook in political matters than the interests of one class. But even the best of them were ignorant, and inexperienced in public affairs. It is not easy for those who have long been compelled to work in the dark to come suddenly into the full glare of responsibility. With the best will in the world there must be a certain jealousy, a certain suspicion, a certain mauvaise honte due to the strangeness of it all. Precious time was wasted in the discussion of half-baked ideals when the nation cried out for action. Discipline, the supreme need in war, is hard to come at in a debating society. But the gravest peril arose from the intractable minority, whose leaders, willingly assisted by Germany, were even then speeding across Europe to the storm centre. In a time of confusion the wildest creed is often the most acceptable, and these men had a method in their madness, and could play cunningly on the weakness of a sorely-tried and most malleable people. Some were beyond doubt in German pay; the majority were as honest as they were perverse. But unhappily in times of stress the rogue is not more dangerous than the fool.

The first news of the Revolution enheartened and inspired every ally of Russia. It seemed as if the deadweight which had clogged her efforts was now removed. She had been a giant with one arm shackled, but now she had the full use of her limbs. Corruption and favouritism, which had weakened her mighty purpose, would flourish no longer in the clear air of freedom. She was now wholly in line with the other democracies, and the old suspicion of an autocracy, which had always existed in some degree in Britain and America, was dispelled from the minds of her well-wishers. Her Revolution had been swiftly and completely carried out with the assistance of the army. More than a century before, the soldiers of revolutionary France had scattered their enemies. Would not the same be true of the soldiers of revolutionary Russia?

These high hopes were based on false analogies. Russia had gained freedom, but she was not yet confirmed in it. If the Revolution was to endure, the war against Germany must be won, and any cataclysmic change, however beneficent in its ultimate effect, must weaken her fighting strength in the immediate present. The extremists, who, if they did not make the Revolution, were its loudest propagandists, were admittedly anti-national; not like the extremists of the French Revolution, who never lost their nationalist character. Moreover, the former were avowed pacificists, while the latter preached every folly but a hollow peace. The Maximalists wished to end one war to begin another; and while there might be little enthusiasm for the second part of their programme, the first had a dangerous appeal to a people who had lost terribly of its manhood, and had suffered for two and a half years unspeakable privations. In the villages, according to one observer at the time, “the commonest record is that, of a number of adult brothers, only one is left still at the front, and sending home what money he can (a soldier’s pay is three roubles a month); the families of all club together. The work of the fields is done by women. Any man fit to return to the line does so, some of them five or six times. Everywhere, in numbers unheard of in any other war, are to be seen helpless cripples, bringing home to all who see them the horrors of modern armaments and the present struggle.”

To a nation which had suffered thus, and which was essentially peace-loving and humane and without a tincture of military pride, immediate peace buttressed by vague formulas about the status quo ante, and “no annexations or indemnities,” had an uncanny charm. They did not understand the phrases, but they liked the sound, and owing to the lack of popular education they were unable to read the deeper meaning of the war. Already the Council of Workmen and Soldiers were extolling the maxim of “peace without annexations or indemnities”—no invention of their own, but a phrase borrowed from the Zimmerwald manifesto of September 1915, signed by the Russian Lenin and the Swiss Robert Grimm. What could the Russian peasant make of foreign words like contributsia and annexia? He thought the first the name of a town which ought not to be surrendered, and the second the name of a fifth daughter of the Emperor!^[15] But if they meant peace he would shout for them, and in the next breath he would shout for the liberation of Belgium and Serbia, which meant a victorious war. It all spelled confusion and bewilderment and irresolution.

The case was still graver with the army. The Russian army did not need to be democratized; it was already the most democratic force in the world. Relations between officers and men were uniformly excellent. But it was not a highly disciplined army; for, being spread out on a long, thin line, with sometimes no more than 150 men to the mile, the commanders had not the troops under their hand. It was a superb field for propaganda, and the Council of Workmen and Soldiers, seeing in it the only hope of reaction, resolved to “democratize” the army in their own peculiar fashion. Hundreds of emissaries were dispatched, and there was no one to say them nay. Already a carnival of loose talk was beginning. The men were told that the officers were bloodsuckers and tyrants, when they had always looked upon them as friends. The glib formulas of the demagogues were preached to audiences which had not the education to judge them truly. The army whose influence had made the Revolution was the last hope for the establishment of a stable Government, had there been some one with sufficient authority to veto this crazy electioneering. But military discipline is a delicate plant, and to set up the hustings in the field has before this wrecked many a gallant force. Those who loved and admired the Russian soldier, and regarded his campaigns as the summit of mortal heroism and endurance, saw with consternation his exposure to this incredible trial. He was called to debate in his ignorance on the foundations of statecraft in the presence of a vigilant enemy.

A revolution may at the outset be the work of many; but its establishment is usually the task of one man—a Cæsar, a Cromwell, a Napoleon. Among the extremists there was no such man, for in the nature of things he must not be extreme; he may dream dreams and see visions, but he must have an iron hand and a clear eye for realities. In the respectable circle of the Duma statesmen, competent, honest, brilliant even, he seemed to be lacking. Guchkov was the nearest approach; but Guchkov had no magnetism to compel a following, and the man of destiny must be a trait d’union between the practical administrators and the masses. One figure alone seemed to stand out from the others—a young man barely thirty-five, the son of a Siberian schoolmaster, hitherto an obscure Petrograd lawyer, and a somewhat flamboyant orator in Labour circles. His haggard white face and melancholy eyes showed his bodily frailty, and indeed he was one who walked very close to death. From the first day of the Revolution Alexander Kerenski did not waver. Himself a Red Republican and an extreme Socialist, he seemed to recognize that a country cannot be saved by ideals alone, and to gird himself for the rough work of construction. His fervent speeches kept the new Provisional Government from being wrecked at the start, and he had his way alike with the elder statesmen of the Duma and the firebrands and amateurs of the Workmen’s Council. He had the wild courage of one who lives always on the brink of the grave, and the magnetism of a man who has a foot in the other world. Here, so at the moment it seemed, was a true “swallower of formulas,” a second Mirabeau. Would he die, like Mirabeau, before he could guide the Revolution aright? Would he faint by the wayside, baffled by problems too great for mortal solution, and handicapped by the trammels of his old environment? Or would he live to lead his people beyond the wilderness to the Promised Land?

The war had been begun by Austria’s action, and throughout the campaign the position of the Dual Monarchy had a very special interest of its own. In the field she was wholly subordinate to German authority; but a population of fifty millions cannot become a mere pawn in the military game, and there was that in her constitution and history which might not prove wholly tractable under the mandates of Berlin. Besides, she was the key of German policy. She held the gate of that Eastern expansion which was the major part of the complex system of German ambitions. Of all the members of the Teutonic League she had the least zest for war, after the first fatal step had been taken. She stood at the worst to lose most, and at the best to gain little. Her loose internal structure and the heterogeneity of races within her borders precluded that solid national integration for war which Germany had possessed from the start. Moreover, of all the members of the League, except Turkey, she had suffered most. Her armies had been time and again defeated, and she had been compelled to take the first shock of each Russian offensive. Such pride as she had had been cut to the quick by her Prussian taskmasters, and she had seen her best troops and her chief generals moved about the map without her assent. Further, the economic strain was growing desperate. Every corner of the land was hungry, and her Government made no effort to distribute food stocks with anything like justice among the different classes.

Beyond doubt in the autumn of 1916 Austria was very weary of war, and certain observers in the West were inclined to toy with the idea of a separate peace with the Hapsburg Empire. These views were especially strong in Britain, which had always had a lingering tenderness for Austria. The Austrian Germans were a pleasant race, well-mannered and unaggressive; the Austrian nobility were popular in England, and travelling Englishmen were well received in Vienna; while, as regards Hungary, ever since the days of Kossuth the Magyars had been protégés of England, and England had set the fashions in Budapest. For some curious reason the most rigid and intolerant aristocracy in the world had acquired a democratic halo in British eyes. As for the Allies at large, no one of them, save Italy, felt for Austria that resolute antipathy which Germany inspired in all. Austria had done many evil deeds, but it was felt that her crimes sprang from weakness and confusion rather than policy. It seemed reasonable to argue that a country which had suffered so much and which had so little to gain by continuing the war might be detached from the Teutonic League. The hope was idle. The Germans in Austria and the Magyars in Hungary were fighting for what they held dearest in the world—their racial predominance. It was no case of a unified nation doing battle for its pride, but of certain classes, who had arrogated authority, defending their privileges. Again, assuming the will to secede from Germany, there was not the power. The Austro-Hungarian troops were inextricably interwoven with the German forces, and could not act as a distinct army. There could be no separate peace with Austria unless she were beaten to her knees in the field.

Without Austria the Mitteleuropa ideal was impossible, and Mitteleuropa, in some form or other, was always at the root of German policy. Germany, with the help of the Magyars, had for half a century pulled the strings of the Hapsburg puppets. It was her support, rather than the personality of Francis Joseph, that kept the incoherent Empire together. On the other hand, Austria-Hungary was essential to the Berlin-Bagdad scheme—that Drang nach Osten, undertaken not for the sake of foreign adventure, but in order to consolidate the fatherland and to provide a continuous block of territory, economically self-sufficient and strategically invulnerable, to counterbalance the sea-united British Empire. The longer the war lasted the clearer it became that this extension to the south-east was the one thing Germany could not forgo and remain the Germany of the Hohenzollerns. Long before 1914 she had stretched her tentacles beyond the Balkans, over Anatolia, northern Syria, and Mesopotamia. By November 1916 she had conquered Poland, Serbia, and the better part of Wallachia, and with Bulgaria and Turkey as her satellites the bloc was complete. She did not content herself with the military occupation of these territories. The guns were scarcely silent before she had begun their political and economic reorganization with a view to the Mitteleuropa hegemony. Should Austria fail her the linch-pin would drop out of the whole machine, and Germany had no intention of permitting such defection.

But the Hapsburg Empire could not in the nature of things be a very docile or cordial ally. In Western Europe race and language are the main determinants of nationality, for there the State and the people are bound by a thousand moral links forged during a long history. In Eastern Europe, where frontiers are younger things, and in comparatively modern times populations have frequently changed masters, the institutions of the State have not impressed themselves, and the chief factor in forming nationality is language. German-speaking subjects of Austria were German in thought and outlook; Czechs, Slovenes, and Slovaks had their special culture and special civic aspirations. Nationality in Eastern Europe had linguistic and racial rather than political foundations. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was a museum of diverse nationalities. In Austria there were some ten million Germans as against more than eighteen millions of Czechs, Poles, Ruthenes, Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes. In Hungary there were under ten million Magyars as against over eleven million Rumanians, Croats, Serbs, Germans, and Slovaks. In each state a form of parliamentary government existed, which was so arranged as to put the power into the hands of the race which was numerically the weaker. “The Austro-Hungarian Empire is a union of two states, each ruled by a minority and in the interests of that minority. One may safely say that the majority of the population is anti-Austrian and anti-Hungarian. The situation is unique in the whole of Europe. The State, being deprived of its most essential basis—national predominance—maintains its existence artificially by setting one part of the population against the other.” The whole thing was a moral anomaly, and would not have continued save for the support of Germany from beyond the frontiers. But the natural forces of evolution could not be restrained, and every year it became harder to keep the inorganic mass from dissolution.

The German “War Map” at the close of 1916.

The constitution of the Dual Monarchy rested upon an arrangement made in 1867 to meet the wishes of two races, the Germans and the Magyars. It was parliamentary government of a farcical type. Representation bore no relation to numerical strength. Of the 516 deputies in the Austrian Parliament, 233 were Germans, which meant that the German minority had only to find 26 votes outside their ranks to give them control. Had representation been fairly based on population, the Germans would have held only 160 seats. Again, though universal suffrage existed, it was not combined with responsible government; for the Emperor appointed the administration, and if he desired, he could, under paragraph 14 of the Constitution, govern without parliamentary sanction. In Hungary the farce was more shameless. The Parliament, apart from the Croatia-Slavonia delegation, consisted of 413 deputies, of whom 405 were Magyars and eight represented the other races, who should, on the population basis, have been entitled to 198 seats. Further, Hungary was the home of every kind of electoral corruption and tyranny. Public funds were spent shamelessly on gerrymandering elections; results were falsified; troops were turned out to “preserve order” in doubtful districts, which meant that a reign of terror kept the Slav and Rumanian voters from the polls, and any politician complaining to the authorities was likely to find himself in prison on a charge of high treason. The oligarchy throughout the whole Empire used the forms of popular government to establish a tyranny as complete as the most naked mediæval absolutism.

Ethnographical Map of Austria-Hungary and its Border Lands.

The main Austro-Hungarian internal problem was, therefore, the struggle of the other races against the German-Magyar minority rule. Hence the country was never unanimous for the war; it probably did not show even a majority for the war. Only the Germans and the Magyars accepted the Prussian policy. The Poles hated the Germans, though a considerable number, owing to their suspicion of Russia, accepted the lead of Vienna. The same was true of the Ruthenes in Eastern Galicia. But all the other races, the Czechs and the Slovaks, the Croats and the Slovenes, the Rumanians and the Italians, were hostile to the Central Powers. Partly they were irredentists, like the last two, looking for succour from their nationals across the borders. Partly they were self-subsistent nationalities—the Northern Slav group of Czechs and Slovaks with Polish and Ruthene allies, and the Southern Slav group of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs—whose ideal was racial unity. Hence Austria-Hungary had constant domestic difficulties during the campaigns. She had troubles in the field, for she could not count on the loyalty of certain units in her forces, and had to mix Czech and Italian troops carefully among Magyar and German; and she had troubles at home, for the old game of political repression had to be played by more drastic methods. Up to January 1916, as many as 3,463 civilians had been executed for treason—330 in the Trentino, 290 in Trieste, 60 in Fiume, 208 in Istria and Dalmatia, 800 in Bosnia, 720 in Bohemia, 245 in Moravia, 480 in Galicia, and 330 in the Bukovina.^[16]

But the difficulties of Austria-Hungary as an ally of Germany did not come only from the oppressed nationalities. The Magyars were indeed whole-heartedly on the side of Prussia. They sought the preservation of their privileges, and they hated democracy as sternly as any Pomeranian junker. They had their own overweening racial pride, which might later make friction in the working of Mitteleuropa, but for the present they judged that their interest lay in Germany’s triumph. But in Austria itself there were rifts within the lute. The Court officials, the bureaucracy, and the hierarchy were on Germany’s side. So were the German bourgeoisie; so were the rich financial houses, largely controlled by Jews. The strange spectacle was presented of the Christian-Socialist party, clerical and anti-Semitic, joining hands with the National Union of Liberals, Semitic and anti-clerical, in the honourable task of working “pour le Roi de Prusse.” But certain powerful elements were jealous of German interference. The ancient nobility had no intention of playing the part of puppets pulled from Berlin, and loved the German as little as the Slav. The Army, the chief unifying force in the Empire, speedily lost its admiration for its highly efficient ally. By the autumn of 1916 the great Austrian families and the whole corps of officers were in the mood to take offence at any hint of German dictation. The Dual Monarchy was consequently no easy problem for Germany to handle. The non-German races, with the exception of the Magyars, were avowedly hostile, and they formed the bulk of the population; while the Austrian magnates cast jealous eyes on every proposal from Berlin, and were resolved to assert the interests of their caste against an ally who treated the whole earth as material out of which to make real her grandiose dream.

On October 27, 1916, after the murder of theOct. 27. Austrian Premier, Count Sturgkh, Dr. Ernst von Koerber was entrusted with the formation of a new Cabinet. The Austrian Parliament, unlike the Hungarian Parliament, had never been in session during the war; it had been prorogued in March 1914, and had remained suspended. No public meetings had been allowed, the censorship was rigid, and Sturgkh’s career, till Dr. Adler’s bullet cut it short, was peace itself compared with that of other belligerent statesmen. Koerber was an honest and fairly liberal bureaucrat, strongly pro-Austrian, and he was not disposed to listen readily to Pan-German extremism. His task was threefold—to agree with Germany on the future of Poland, to carry a new Ausgleich with Hungary, and to strengthen the non-Slav elements in the Austrian Parliament by the grant of a larger autonomy to Galicia. All three tasks raised the question of relations with Germany. Austria had accepted unwillingly the German scheme as to Poland, which was given effect to by the proclamation of November 5, 1916; but she hoped by her scheme of Galician autonomy so to embarrass the German settlement as to revive the Austrian solution which Berlin had rejected. As to the new Ausgleich with Hungary, it had been proposed to make it run for twenty years, so as to make easy the economic rapprochement with Germany on which the Mitteleuropa scheme depended. It was clear that Koerber was inclined to prove refractory to German guidance on all points, and the pro-German faction in Austria took alarm. The new Premier was bombarded with protests and memoranda from the National Union, the Christian Socialists, and other jackals of Berlin. He proposed to submit the new Ausgleich to Parliament, and to this for obvious reasons both the Austro-Germans and the Magyars were opposed. Its advantages to Hungary were too apparent; its severe burden in the shape of food taxation upon the Austrian proletariat too glaring. On 13th December heDec. 13. found himself compelled to resign.

Meantime on Tuesday, 21st November, theNov. 21. Emperor Joseph had died. He was in his eighty-sixth year—the oldest sovereign in the world. He had reigned for sixty-eight years, having begun his active political life just after the fall of Metternich. He had fought many wars, and had always been beaten; he had had to yield time and again his most cherished convictions; he had suffered the deepest public and private sorrows; and in the end he had come to be regarded as one of the permanent things in Europe from his sheer length of life and tenacity in suffering. He was the last believer in the old theory of the divine right of monarchs (for the German Emperor held a more modern variant), and this passionate faith gave him strength and constancy. To this creed everything was sacrificed—ease, family affection, private honour, the well-being of individuals and of nations—until he became an inhuman monarchical machine, grinding out decisions like an automaton. His age and his afflictions persuaded the world to judge him kindly, and indeed the tragic loneliness of his life made the predominant feeling one of pity. But if we try him by any serious standard, we cannot set him among the good sovereigns of the world, and still less among the great. He was cold-hearted and selfish, ignorant and narrow-minded. He grossly misruled the peoples entrusted to his care, he brought misfortunes upon Europe, and in the end he left his country ruined, bleeding, and bankrupt. The cause he fought for was not noble or wise, but only a vaster form of egotism. At no time in his career had he any true perception of the forces at work in the world. He broke his head against new powers which he did not foresee, and then sat in the dust to be commiserated. The tragedy lay in a mind so meanly furnished being charged with the control of such mighty destinies. He was a self-deceiver, living in a fanciful world of his own to which he feebly sought to make facts conform. He had the dignity and patience of his strange house, and in the fullest degree the essential Hapsburg weakness. In the words of Hermann Bahr: “Among Hapsburg princes there have been men of genius and simpletons, turbulent men and tranquil, jolly men and curmudgeons, victors and vanquished, sociable souls and recluses; but one trait is common to them all—they have lacked the sense of reality.”

His successor on the throne was his great-nephew, the Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, the son of that Archduke Otto who was the younger brother of the murdered Francis Ferdinand. He was in his thirtieth year, and had for some months been commanding in chief on the southern section of the Eastern front. The new Emperor had some of the characteristics of his father, and shared in his personal popularity. He was known as a good sportsman and a young man of frank and engaging manners; but he had scarcely the education to fit him to sit on the most difficult throne in Europe. He was reported to have shared the trialist views of his uncle, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and his two years of campaigning had done something to sour his temper towards the martinets of Berlin. He wished to safeguard the remains of his sovereignty, and it was believed that he might show a certain independence in policy. If he accepted Mitteleuropa, it would be because of the interests of Austria-Hungary and not from subservience to his German ally.

Dr. von Koerber’s fall seemed like the triumphDec. 20. of Berlin and Budapest over Vienna. Dr. Spitzmueller was entrusted with the formation of a fresh Ministry, whose immediate business was to carry the new Ausgleich. But Spitzmueller found it impossible to proceed without summoning Parliament, and such a step would raise other controversial matters which he wished to keep slumbering. By 20th December he had failed to make any headway, and a Bohemian noble, Count Clam-Martinitz, was called to the task. At first sight this appeared to mark the dawn of a new policy. The young Emperor seemed to be about to surround himself with the advisers of his uncle, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand. Baron Burian, the faithful disciple of Tisza, who had succeeded Count Berchtold in January 1915 as Foreign Minister, was replaced by a Czech, Count Ottokar Czernin, who had been noted in the past for his anti-Magyar leanings. Another advocate of compromise with the Slav nationalities, Dr. Baernreither, entered the Cabinet. The Premier himself was a Czech, though of the Germanized variety. The inclusion of Dr. Urban was a concession to the German nationalists, but on the whole the new Ministry had a federalist complexion. The more reactionary of the Court officials and the permanent civil servants disappeared, including the notorious Count Forgach; and Count Berchtold, who had always been at odds with Tisza, became Court Chamberlain. It looked as if the Emperor Charles intended to make a stand against the tyranny alike of Berlin and Budapest.

But the appearance was illusory. The Bohemian members were at heart German centralists, and had nothing in common with the true Czech nationalists, such as Kramarz and Masaryk. The Emperor may have wished to win the confidence of the Northern and the Southern Slavs, but he set about it the wrong way. Count Clam-Martinitz’s programme was substantially the same as his predecessor’s. He had to summon Parliament to pass the Ausgleich, but he had first of all to make certain changes in the Constitution by imperial edict. These changes—the minimum of the German demands—were, first, the exclusion of Galicia so as to give the German element a clear majority in the Austrian Parliament; second, the breaking up of Bohemia into national “circles,” so as to relieve the German minority from the rule of the Czech majority in the Bohemian diet; third, the use of German as the official language throughout Austria; and, lastly, the alteration of the standing orders of Parliament so as to give complete control to the German majority which would remain after the exclusion of Galicia.

For the first three months of 1917 Count Clam-Martinitz attempted, by secret cabals and open negotiations, to carry out his instructions. But the Galician business proved a stumbling-block. The German nationalists were eager to see the Galician members removed from Parliament, but they were not so eager to recognize Galicia’s economic and financial independence. The Austrian bureaucracy and the military chiefs insisted upon certain measures, such as the centralized control of the railways, lest the coherence of the Empire should be weakened. The Poles, who wished the exclusion of Galicia, were by no means inclined to leave any Galician matters still under the authority of the Parliament at Vienna, unless they retained a direct influence in that Parliament. About the end of January the postponement of the Galician question began to be urged; and this meant also the postponement of the change in the standing orders, for the Germans did not wish the rule of the majority to be established, unless they themselves were sure of being always that majority. Upon this welter of intrigue and counter-intrigue fell like a thunderbolt the news of the Russian Revolution.

The situation was at once transformed. If Russia was to be preoccupied with her internal affairs so that her military effort languished, there was a chance of Austria coming to terms with her. But if an understanding was to be reached, it was essential that Austrian policy should wear a democratic air, and above all that she should appear to be liberal towards the Slav nationalities. Accordingly, all the four main German demands must be dropped, and the Ausgleich with Hungary must be argued on a new basis. We shall see in a later chapter what were the overtures from Vienna to Petrograd; in the meantime our concern is with the effect upon Austria’sApril 14, 1917. internal politics. On 14th April Austria made her offer to Russia. On 16th April a CabinetApril 16. Council at Vienna decided to summon Parliament without any previous imperial enactments. This upset all the plans of the German party, and the two German ministers resigned. The National Union and the Christian Socialists held a conference and demanded an audience with the Emperor. The latter spoke them fair, and gave assurances which led the ministers to withdraw their resignations. He promised to take in hand at once the exclusion of Galicia, and foreshadowed certain concessions to the German economic and financial view. The object was clear. Peace negotiations were not to be hampered by a display of autocratic orders changing the Constitution to the disadvantage of the Slavs, but, on the contrary, the Russian democracy was to be cajoled by the sight of parliamentary government. The change was one of tactics only, not of policy. Austria was to be Germanized after the conclusion of peace, not before.

Parliament met on 30th May, and Count Clam-MartinitzMay 30. found his position impossible. The negotiations with Russia had not proceeded smoothly. Whatever attitude the new Government in Petrograd might adopt to the war aims of the Allies, it had very little to say to the overtures from Vienna. The Poles had become intractable, encouraged by Russia’s proclamation of a complete and independent Poland. On the first day of the session the Czechs and the Southern Slavs demanded national union, and they could not be put off with the old answer. Many ancient grievances against the Germans were ventilated, and the three members of the Cabinet who had served under Sturgkh were attacked with great bitterness and candour. OnJune 16. 16th June the Polish group resolved to vote against the Budget, and this decision compelled Clam-Martinitz to resign. On 24th June Dr.June 24. Seidler formed a stop-gap Ministry of obedient civil servants.

Meantime in Hungary one remarkable event had happened. In the last week of May Count Tisza fell from power. Up to the date of his fall he seemed to be more secure in office than any of his predecessors. He had negotiated the still unconfirmed Ausgleich, which represented an uncommonly good bargain for Hungary as against Austria. He was the close ally of Berlin, as befitted one who was responsible for the war. The Magyars and the Prussians had natural affinities which Count Julius Andrassy was never tired of pointing out, and though Tisza had no enthusiasm for Mitteleuropa, he had less for the ideals of the Allies. His following in Parliament was strong, for the opposition was never more than a bogus thing, to be used as a means of blackmailing the Emperor. He held a singular position for a man of his antecedents. A member of the ancient untitled Hungarian gentry (the title of Count, the badge of the Austrian connection, was inherited from his uncle, and was not twenty-four years old), he was by far the strongest man in the whole Dual Monarchy. A staunch Calvinist, he dictated to Austria, the most Catholic country in Europe. His power came from his narrowness, his courage, and his contempt for opponents. He laughed alike at those who made speeches against him and those who tried to murder him. He bullied and baited all who threatened him, from the Emperor down to the petty aristocrats of the opposition. He scorned tact and conciliation as the weapons of weaklings. His own instrument was the hammer, and he brought it down hard on the heads of all who stood in his way.

Such a figure must rouse fierce antagonisms, and Tisza fell because he had made too many foes. His rivals in Parliament joined forces with the Emperor, and the combination was too much for him. But there was never any question of a change of policy. The three Counts—Andrassy, Apponyi, and Karolyi—were all sworn to Germany’s cause abroad and strong for Magyar domination at home, though the last had a few progressive phrases which deceived casual observers in Western Europe. It was a change of personalities, not of principles. The new Premier, Count Maurice Esterhazy, was a typical young Hungarian nobleman, who had been educated at Oxford, and ten years earlier would have been a declared Anglophil. He had been a brother-officer of the Emperor, and had an urbanity and tolerance which had been lacking in his masterful predecessor. But Tisza, though out of office, remained in power, and the bonds which Germany had riveted were in no way loosened. The forces of Austria-Hungary were internally a little more confused than before, but their orientation had not changed.

The Austrian situation has been analyzed at a length which may seem too great for its importance, because Austria was at the moment very prominent in political discussion. There had grown up among certain sections of the Allies an idea that something might be done with her. It was believed that the friction between Berlin and Vienna had become intense, that the Russian revolution had shaken the old Hapsburg intransigence, and that a reasonable settlement of the question of the subject nationalities might be secured from Austria without her complete dismemberment. There is no doubt that the Emperor Charles favoured some kind of federation, like his uncle before him; but it was a federation in name only, and left the real grievances unreformed. The Dual Monarchy depended for its very existence upon Germany, and so long as it remained so long would Germany dominate its attitude. The Austrian Germans would refuse, as in 1870, to permit any anti-German tendency in Austria’s foreign policy, and they would insist upon their own domination in the Austrian Government. The Magyar minority in Hungary would never admit any interference with their political supremacy or allow an acre of soil within the boundaries of Hungary to be removed from their authority. Their attitude had remained the same since 1848, and the ideas of Andrassy the Elder and Koloman Tisza were the ideas of their sons. As long as the Dual Monarchy continued, there must be German domination in Austria and Magyar domination in Hungary, intense dissatisfaction among the subject races, and irredentist claims by the border states. While this lasted the Hapsburg power must be in a condition of unstable equilibrium, and be compelled to look outside for support. That support could come only from Germany, as regards whom Austria-Hungary must continue in political, economic, and military dependency. For the Allies to think they could treat with Austria as an independent unit was as barren a hope as that of detaching the German Socialists from their national cause. When Austria spoke smooth things of democracy and seemed to hold out a friendly hand, it was because she had her orders from her dictatorial ally. “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.”

Mr. Lloyd George’s new Ministry entered upon office faced by a host of problems as intricate as any which had appeared during the course of the war. Rumania had been overrun, and was now making a last stand on the lines of the Sereth. Greece was in a state of naked chaos. In Russia the incompetence of the bureaucracy was now grossly apparent. The campaign in the West had reached the apparent stagnation which comes with mid-winter, and in consequence the attention of the people was diverted to domestic criticism. The peace overtures of Germany and President Wilson’s Note had produced a situation which called for a wary and patient diplomacy. At home the increased activity of the German submarines had raised acutely the question of food and supplies. The need of men for the Army was more urgent than ever if the strategic purpose of the armies in the field was not to be compromised. But the new Government had one clear advantage. It had been accepted by the people as a Government of action, and the country at large was prepared to make any effort which it should direct. It was in the eyes of most men a “business Government,” an executive committee for the whole nation. Hence when, in his first speech in the House of Commons on 19th December, the new Prime Minister sketched a programme of large and drastic measures, his demands were willingly granted. He summoned the country to a national Lent, an honourable competition in sacrifice. He asked that every available acre should be used for the production of food, and that the over-consumption of the rich should be cut down to the compulsory level of the poor. He proposed a system of immediate National Service for War. He announced that the Government would complete their control over mines and shipping. He warned his hearers that such as gave their trust to the new administration in the hope of a speedy victory would be doomed to disappointment—that there was a long and difficult road still to travel before victory was won. But his tone was one of grave yet buoyant confidence; and he gave a new encouragement to those who believed that the resources of the whole Empire should be mobilized by his promise to summon at an early date an Imperial War Conference. The country looked kindly at his committee of experts, and was ready to grant them a fair field for their energy. No Ministry ever entered upon office accompanied by a more general good will.

The linch-pin of the machine was the Prime Minister himself. This is not the place to attempt an estimate of Mr. Lloyd George’s singular career—a career with no parallel in British history. His great merit as a popular leader was his complete comprehensibility. No atmosphere of mystery surrounded his character or his talents. The qualities and the defects of both were evident to all, and the plain man found in them something which he could himself apprehend—positive merits, positive weaknesses—so that he could give or withhold his confidence as if he were dealing with a familiar friend. This power of producing a sense of intimacy among millions who have never seen his face or heard his voice is the greatest of assets for a democratic statesman. Mr. Lloyd George had it not only for Britain but for all the world. He was a living figure everywhere—as well known in France as M. Briand, as much a popular character in America as Mr. Roosevelt or Mr. Wilson. A reputation such as Mr. Balfour’s or even Mr. Asquith’s was a local thing which grew dim beyond the seas; but Mr. Lloyd George’s was like an electric current whose strength was scarcely lessened by transmission over great distances. When he spoke he was understood by the whole round earth. His speeches made exactly the appeal which he intended, whether heard in London or read in Paris and Petrograd. He spoke a universal tongue, and his supreme strength lay in this universality, in his abounding share of a common humanity. It is a rare and happy gift, and while it has been possessed by certain artists and thinkers, it has been the endowment of but few statesmen.

Apart from this special genius, his most notable qualities were courage and energy. He had the stoutest heart in a crisis, and was exhilarated rather than depressed by misfortunes. Nor was it merely passive courage—the power of enduring bravely. He went out to meet the enemy, and his whole career was a continuous offensive. His strength was that he was desperately in earnest. The Allied cause now made the same emotional appeal to him that the handicaps and sufferings of the poor had made in earlier days. He was not only energetic himself, but an inspirer of energy in others. Like a gadfly he stung all his environment to life. He was inordinately quick at grasping the essentials of a problem, and with him the deed did not wait long on the thought. It remained to be seen whether this instinct for action was combined with an equal sagacity in counsel and prescience in judgment, for it is a rule of mortality that the considering brain and the active will are not commonly found together in the same being. It was not enough that such a man should choose able colleagues, for his temperamental dominance was so strong that the subtlest and shrewdest of advisers would be apt to be dragged along at his impetuous chariot wheels. It was clear that he would never falter in the struggle; but there was the risk that his fine ardour might be sometimes wasted through misdirection, and that paths might be chosen in haste which would have to be abandoned later.

He was above all things the inspirer and comforter of the nation through the medium of the spoken word. As an orator he was in a unique position. There have been greater speakers—men who have had at their disposal a more complete armoury of all the weapons of rhetoric and debate—but there have been few indeed who have had his noble and poignant simplicity. He had not the golden eloquence of Lord Rosebery, rich in historical allusion and imagery; or Mr. Balfour’s architectural power, which made each part of the argument fall into its place with a mathematical precision; or the austere elevation, like that of the English Bible, which is found in the best speeches of Abraham Lincoln. His oratory was altogether less accomplished, the product of a native talent rather than of a laborious apprenticeship. At its worst it was merely noisy, the robustious hammer-and-tongs business of the hustings. In its average quality it was homely, vigorous, hard-hitting, and always effective, giving the ordinary man something he could readily understand, and providing the answer to his opponents which the ordinary man desired to give. But at its best it became true poetry, a rare and exquisite music which lingered on the air like an old song, and transformed the dusty arena of politics as a rich sunset transfigures the dingiest landscape. Such passages were usually illustrations drawn from some episode of the natural world or some recollection of boyhood. They were never recondite; but their use was so apt, their presentation so beautiful, that they came to the mind of his hearers with the shock of a revelation. Take such a passage as this from his speech at Carnarvon on 3rd February; it was spoken among the Welsh hills at the close of a bitter winter:—

It is simplicity itself, but it is the simplicity of genius. Save in a few rare utterances of Cromwell, you will search the history of British oratory in vain for a parallel. And because it was poetry its appeal was world wide, for true poetry knows no frontiers of race or tongue.

The machinery which the Prime Minister had announced on his accession to office seemed at first sight adequate to his purpose. The old Cabinet of twenty-three had been too large and cumbrous; it had met infrequently, and it had kept no minutes. The special War Committee which existed had been too informal and too ill-defined in its powers to be effective. Mr. Lloyd George’s War Cabinet was five in number, and only one of its members, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, had the cares of a heavy department to distract him. Lord Curzon was President of the Council—not an onerous post; Lord Milner and Mr. Arthur Henderson had no portfolios; and the Prime Minister held no office but that of Prime Minister. The body of five had their hands free to direct the management of the campaigns. They were picked men who brought to the common stock a great endowment of consultative and executive competence. Mr. Arthur Henderson was a Labour Leader with a wide knowledge of the mind of the British workers, and he had the patience and sagacity and unrhetorical patriotism of the best type of his class. Mr. Bonar Law was a business man with a high reputation for practical ability, and his remarkable skill in debate made him an admirable exponent of policy in Parliament. Lord Curzon had been the most successful Viceroy of India since Dalhousie. Lord Milner had been the civilian leader in a long and difficult war, and had borne the weight of the reconstruction of South Africa. All who had ever worked with him were aware that he possessed administrative talents which were probably not equalled by any contemporary Englishman. And at the head of this distinguished junta was Mr. Lloyd George, with his magnetic energy and his quick imagination. It seemed on paper an ideal arrangement for the conduct of the campaigns. It was a proof of the elasticity of the British Constitution that a wholly novel machinery could come into being at once without legislative sanction, without debate in Parliament or in the country, on the authority of one man.

But those who examined the scheme closely, while fully alive to its merits, saw certain dangers in the near future. The new War Cabinet was the only Cabinet. The other members of the Ministry were departmental heads, without opportunity for consultation or collective decision except in so far as they might be summoned to attend the War Cabinet at odd meetings. But the British Constitution is based on collective resolutions and collective responsibility. Again, while the major business was the war, the normal government of the country had to be carried on; important decisions must be taken in such matters as finance, education, and labour, which might be purely domestic in character, but which required the assent of the whole Government; and even in internal affairs many problems might bear a war complexion. Hence it seemed certain that the War Cabinet would have to perform not only the special functions for which it was created, but to do the work of the old normal Cabinet as well. In practice its membership could not be limited to five, for other Ministers would require to be constantly in attendance; and in practice it could not confine itself to problems directly arising out of the war, but must include in its province the whole government of Britain. Finally, one of Mr. Lloyd George’s first acts was to create a number of new departments—Shipping Control, National Service, Food Control, Pensions—which were not branches of old departments, but directly responsible to the War Cabinet itself. It looked as if the Committee of five might be swamped with endless matters of detail, referred to them because there was no other mode of reference.

At first, however, the danger was not pressing, and the War Cabinet, sitting in almost continuous session, endeavoured to draw together the threads of war administration. It showed great courage and energy in grappling both with internal and foreign problems. The Prime Minister went to Paris and Rome, Lord Milner was dispatched to Russia, conferences of the Allies became frequent, and—most vital of all—a War Conference of the British Empire was called for the early spring. This conference took the form of a temporary enlargement of the War Cabinet, the Dominions Prime Ministers or their representatives and the Indian delegates being included for the purpose in its membership. It was the eighth conference of the Empire which had been held since the first Jubilee Conference of 1887. At the earlier ones the main questions discussed had been Imperial Defence, Imperial Reciprocity, and Imperial Consolidation; but the vital question of co-operation in war had not been seriously raised till the conference of 1909. It had been developed at the Coronation Conference of 1911, when Sir Edward Grey took the representatives of the Dominions into his confidence on matters of foreign policy. But up to the outbreak of hostilities these deliberations had not resulted in the devising of any real machinery for united effort. The old doctrine of a loose partnership of self-governing peoples held its ground—a friendly partnership based on frequent consultations, but a partnership in which the main burden both of responsibility and of action lay upon Britain herself. The war had wholly changed the outlook both of the Mother Country and of the Dominions. Co-operation in the field, in finance, and in all forms of war activity had become a tremendous reality. But the machinery of co-operation was still faulty. The conduct of the campaigns and of foreign policy still rested exclusively with the British Government. This would have been well enough had the Dominions’ contribution been made merely out of loyalty and friendship for the parent land. But that was not the main motive. Australian and Canadian, New Zealander and South African fought side by side with British troops, not primarily in defence of Britain but in defence of their own homelands, and in defence of those ideals of civilization and international honour which they realized to be the only securities for their future freedom and peace. Hence there must be co-operation not only in effort but in the direction of that effort, and from this practical and responsible partnership in the conduct of war there must follow a true partnership in the conduct of peace. The Prime Minister was under no delusion. “You do not suppose that the overseas nations can raise and place in the field armies containing an enormous proportion of their best manhood, and not want to have a say, and a real say, in determining the use to which they are to be put. . . . Up to the present the British Government has shouldered the responsibility for the policy of the war practically alone. It now wishes to know that in its measures for prosecuting the war to a finish, and in its negotiations for peace, it will be carrying out a policy agreed upon by the representatives of the whole Empire sitting in council together. . . . Of this I am certain: the peoples of the Empire will have found a unity in the war such as never existed before it—a unity not only in history but of purpose. . . . Do you tell me that the peoples who have stood together and staked everything in order to bring about the liberation of the world are not going to find some way of perpetuating that unity afterwards on an equal basis?”

The first great problem which the new Ministry had to face was the need for men. The requirements of the Army were growing, and it was calculated that, to keep the forces in the field up to the strength required by the strategic purposes of the High Command, 200,000 extra men must be found before the end of the summer. In March 1917 Mr. Bonar Law told the House of Commons that since the beginning of the year recruits had fallen short of the number estimated by 100,000. To meet the demand, a comprehensive new examination of discharged and rejected persons was undertaken which would enable the military authorities to deal with a million men. Such a “combing-out” involved many hardships. The doctors, acting under urgent War Office instructions, were inclined to be liberal in their view of what constituted physical efficiency, and thousands who had been hitherto rejected or placed in a low class found themselves passed for general service. In the same way the tribunals were slow to grant exemptions, and pleas which a year before had been allowed were now summarily dismissed. The principle was undoubtedly sound—that every man fit to be in the fighting line should go there unless his services were required for national work of equal importance at home. But the word “fit” was far too loosely construed: men were drafted into the line who retired to hospital after the first week of service, and thereby increased the cost of our army without adding one atom to its strength.

Side by side with this purely military scheme there was established an organization for National civilian service, similar to that set up in Germany the previous autumn. The idea was excellent—to find substitutes for men engaged in vital industries and in military service by calling in men over age or debarred by some physical handicap from fighting. The country was split up into recruiting areas, and an appeal was made for volunteers, both men and women. An attempt was made to compile a great register in which should be set down the ability of each volunteer for the different branches of national work. Unfortunately the mechanism was cumbrously devised, and volunteers were demanded before any scheme for their utilization had been framed. The result was that men and women were kept waiting indefinitely, or hastily assigned to incongruous tasks. It would have been wiser, perhaps, if the work had begun at the other end, and a schedule of jobs had been prepared before the levy was called for.

The National Service Department, much criticized and labouring amid hopeless difficulties, did something to ease the situation, but it cannot be said to have realized the aim of its promoters. The scheme of the military authorities, on the other hand, secured large numbers of men; but it involved so many mistakes that during the spring and summer it had to be constantly revised. Many of the blunders were so glaring that they inspired an unpleasant sense of insecurity and injustice among the people. It was too often forgotten that, having grafted compulsion upon an old voluntary plan, we had thereby improvised a system far less scientific and equitable than that which existed among conscript countries. Many thousands had volunteered in the early days of the war who under a proper scheme would have remained at home, and consequently our later compulsory methods could not be applied in a fair field. For a sedentary man of forty with a family and a business depending on his own efforts to be hurried into the ranks was a very real hardship, which the sight of multitudes of young men reserved for so-called vital industries did not tend to alleviate. The country, recognizing the urgent necessity of the case, bore the anomalies with amazing good humour, and that the protests were on the whole so few spoke volumes for the patience and patriotism of the nation.

Scarcely less urgent was the supply of food andFeb. 23. raw materials which the success of the German submarine campaign forced into prominence. In a later chapter we shall consider the nature of that campaign; here it is sufficient to note its results upon our domestic policy. On February 23, 1917, the Prime Minister informed the House of Commons that the ultimate success of the Allied cause depended, in his opinion, on solving the tonnage difficulties with which they were confronted. New restrictions were imposed on all imports not essential to the prosecution of the war. Certain forms of non-essential home production, such as brewing and distilling, were rigorously cut down. A great effort was made to increase the building of new standardized merchant ships. Home production was stimulated in such matters as timber and iron ore, and notably in the provision of food supplies. In order to extend agricultural effort, farmers were guaranteed certain minimum prices for wheat and oats and potatoes, that they might be induced to put pastoral lands under crop; a minimum wage was fixed for agricultural labour; and landlords were forbidden to raise rents except with the consent of the Board of Agriculture. These, and many other schemes, were aimed at the conservation and increase of British economic strength; for it was realized that the enemy was directing against it his most serious attack, and that a long and stern struggle lay before the nation. A kind of practical communalism came into being. No national asset could any longer be kept under unrestricted private management if the strength of Britain was to be mobilized for war; and State interference reached a height which three years before would have staggered the most clamorous Socialist. An example was the Government control of all coal mines, which came into force in February 1917. The truth was that Britain was blockaded, and her policy must be that of a beleaguered city. Germany was in the same position, and the world saw the astounding result of two sets of belligerents each reduced by the other to a condition of economic stringency, the one by above-water and the other by under-water naval operations. At the same time there could be no comparison between the kinds of stringency. In Mr. Lloyd George’s phrase, there was a vast difference between privation and deprivation; and the former had been for some time the lot of Germany, but was still unknown in Britain.

The food problem, which was the one whichMay 2. affected most notably the average man, was dealt with by a set of curious measures, which included experiments not always well considered. Mr. Runciman, the President of the Board of Trade under the former Government, began in November 1916 with the adoption of a form of “standard” bread, and with certain restrictions on the meals served in restaurants. When Lord Devonport became Food Controller, he found the position with regard to the grain supply very serious, and by a multiplicity of orders culminating in the Government control of all the chief flour mills, he endeavoured to prevent the waste of food stuffs. Stocks of sugar were also short, and during the first half of the year 1917 there was a very great dearth of potatoes. In February he appealed to patriotic households to accept a voluntary scale of rations, and the Royal Proclamation of 2nd May urged the nation to a united campaign of food economy. These measures were greatly assisted by the educational efforts of the new Director-General of Food Economy, Mr. Kennedy Jones. Apart from restriction of consumption, there was a general attempt on the part of householders who had access to the land, whether in the shape of gardens or allotments, to increase the food supplies by the planting of potatoes and other vegetables. Shortage was followed by high prices, which bore heavily on the poorer classes and were attributed by many to the “profiteering” of the large dealers. Lord Devonport’s sporadic efforts to control these prices were attended with no great success; and the matter was not firmly handled till he had retired and given place to Lord Rhondda, the former President of the Local Government Board, who by his system of examining traders’ books gave the country confidence that such high prices as remained were the inevitable effects of war and not of private greed.

The first financial measure of the new GovernmentFeb. 16. was a gigantic loan which was expounded by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at a great meeting in the Guildhall. The amount was unlimited, and was to be raised in two issues: a 5 per cent. loan, issued at 95, and repayable at par on June 1, 1947; and a 4 per cent. loan, issued at par, and repayable on October 15, 1942. The interest on the first issue was subject to income tax, and the yield was therefore £4, 2s. 3d. per cent.; the interest of the second was free from tax. A sinking fund was instituted of 1¾ per cent. per annum. The Four and a Half per cent. War Loan and Five and Six per cent. Exchequer Bond issues were convertible into the new loan at par, but there was no right of conversion into any future War Loan. The scheme was brilliantly advertised, and when the lists closed on 16th February it was found that the Loan had yielded in new money £1,000,000,000, which was £300,000,000 in excess of Mr. Bonar Law’s provisional estimate. No such result had as yet been attained in any belligerent country, and the amount subscribed exceeded the results of the two previous British Loans added together. There were no subscriptions from the Banks, which were therefore left free to finance the general business of the country. Some 8,000,000 people had subscribed, as contrasted with Germany’s highest figure of 4,000,000, though the population of Germany was 50 per cent. larger than that of Britain. A little later it was announced that the Government of India had agreed to subscribe £100,000,000 to the general expenditure of the war.

These heroic measures were needed, for the costFeb. 12. of the campaigns was rising rapidly. On 12th February the Chancellor of the Exchequer declared that the average daily expenditure had risen to £5,790,000—an increase of over a million a day since the beginning of the financial year. Such an increase was inevitable. There were now fourteen times as many troops on the different fronts as at the beginning of the war; and, as compared with the average in the first year, the smallest increase in the different types of munitions was twenty-eight fold. The rate was soon to be greatly added to, for in the first nine weeks of the new financial year, 1917-18, the daily average had risen to £7,884,000. Mr. Bonar Law’s first Budget, introduced in April, showed an actual deficit on the past year of £1,624,685,000, to be met out of Loan money. His estimate for the year 1917-18 was an expenditure of £2,290,381,000 and a revenue of £638,600,000, leaving a deficit of £1,651,781,000. There were no new taxes, but a new revenue of £27,000,000 was estimated for, chiefly from the raising of the tobacco duty and the increase of the Excess Profits Tax from 60 to 80 per cent. The figures were so vast that the most vigilant of financial critics were struck dumb; the thing was not in pari materia with anything in their past experience or even in their wildest imaginings. The State was contracting a colossal debt to its citizens; but it was an internal indebtedness, and the worst difficulties concerning foreign payments were in process of being solved by the entry of America into the war. Britain was expending her accumulated savings, but she had not yet trenched seriously upon the assets necessary for the production of her national income. Moreover, a growing part of her outlay was coming back into her war chest. The campaign of the War Savings Committee, conducted quietly and persistently through the land, was not only bringing a considerable part of the high wages now current back to the use of the State, but was inculcating habits of thrift and investment in classes who might otherwise have been demoralized by the changed conditions of the world.

The opening of 1917 saw no change in the mass of British opinion towards the war, save perhaps a certain hardening. The long struggle of the Somme had brought home to the nation the magnitude of the toil and the greatness of the needful sacrifices; and, as Germany’s policy unfolded itself and as a fuller idea of her aims built itself slowly in the minds of those not given to reflect upon international politics, the conviction grew that no halfway house could be found between victory and defeat. The peace overtures of December 1916 did, it is true, induce the faint-hearted to urge that a victory in the field was impossible, and that peace must be sought by negotiation, and the easily beguiled to cry out that there were signs in Germany of a change of heart, which it was the Allies’ duty to encourage.^[17] But of pacificism in the dangerous sense there were few signs, and the plea for “peace by negotiation” sprang in most cases from an error of head rather than of heart. In every great struggle there will be a certain class who in the name of democracy choose to set themselves against the tide of popular opinion, and out of a kind of spiritual and intellectual pride misread facts which are plain to less sophisticated souls. Such views were middle-class and not popular; and they were found, not among those who were bearing the burden of the contest, but in the small minority who even in war contrived to lead a sheltered life.

But if there was no weakening in purpose, the country, as the third year of war drew to a close, was suffering beyond doubt from a considerable degree of war weariness. The revulsion from the hope of an early and dramatic close had plunged many into a dogged apathy. The losses on the Somme had been felt in every class, and very especially in those classes which had small military knowledge and could not view the campaign in a true perspective. It was remarked that in certain districts the temper of the people seemed to have lost its edge. They were resolute to go on to the end, but they had ceased to envisage that end, and were like a man towards the end of a day’s journey who dully places one foot behind another without the sanguine enterprise of the morning hours. Workmen were weary with the strain of three years’ overwork, and all were dazed with the long anxiety. The effect of staleness, which was to be noticed among troops who had been kept too long in the firing-line, was beginning to appear among the civilian population at home. It is the lesson of all wars: the stronger military force will win pourvu que les civils tiennent. But what had been an academic postulate in the early days of the campaign was now revealed as a most vital truth. The nation was determined to hold, but it realized that the endeavour might bring it very near to the limits of its strength.

The class which suffered most was the least vocal. In a struggle which called forth the best from all conditions of life it would be idle to compute degrees of sacrifice; but if we were to single out one class as especially heroic, it would be what is commonly called the “lower middle”—the minor walks of commerce and the professions. A young man of the upper classes had, as a rule, a comfortable background behind him. The workman had his trade or craft to return to, and his separation allowance was generally sufficient to keep his belongings in the mode of livelihood to which they had been accustomed. But take the man who had built up a little business by his own efforts, or had just won a footing in one of the professions. When he enlisted, he sacrificed all the results of his past toil; if he survived, he would have to start again from the beginning. The little shop or business was closed down, his professional chances disappeared. No separation allowance, no pay as a second-lieutenant, could keep his home going on the old scale of modest respectability. It was from this class, it should be remembered, that the bulk of the officers of the New Armies were drawn. For it there was no chance of exemption, for its work was not regarded as of national importance. It had no trade union to watch its interests, and no popular Press to expound its hardships. But of all the many sacrifices to which the nation was called it bore the heaviest share. It was a melancholy experience to walk through the fringes of an industrial town. In the artisan area life seemed to be going on as before. The streets in the daytime were full of women and children, and in the evening the fathers of families came back from work as in the times of peace. But in the “residential” quarters, where the rows of small villas housed the clerk, the shopkeeper, and the minor professions, every second house was closed. A section of society, which above all others prided itself on the little platform it had won in the struggle for life, saw its foundations destroyed.

The position of Labour during the early part of 1917 was to some small extent influenced by the Russian Revolution. War is a time when the whole world acquires a new sensitiveness, and the cataclysm in Russia made itself felt in remote quarters, as a great storm at sea will affect peaceful backwaters far up a tidal river. There were stirrings and questionings abroad which did not formulate themselves in any revolutionary creed, but gave a special edge to the existing labour difficulties. Continual minor disputes and occasional strikes were proof of a real unsettlement; but it was too often assumed that this was mainly due to a small bunch of unpatriotic agitators. Agitators there were who, taking advantage of the absence of responsible leaders, preached the cruder doctrines of syndicalism and the class war, and had a fair field owing to the fact that the Government did not organize counter propaganda. The ordinary Briton was accustomed to a good deal of public speaking; but the war had dried up the usual founts of political oratory, and the extremist was left to provide most of the talking. But the influence of the firebrand was strictly limited. The real cause of unrest—apart from the inevitable war weariness—was to be found in certain specific grievances and discontents. It is important to recognize that Labour had a good case, and was not making trouble out of mere selfish perversity.

The old charter of Trade Union rights had been abrogated during the war with the consent of the Unions. It was too often forgotten what this sacrifice entailed. In other countries less highly industrialized than Britain the land remained as the sheet-anchor of the peasant. But in industrial Britain the workman was cut off from his ancient natural security, and had to seek an artificial defence. This he found in the rules of his Union, without which he was an economic waif unable to bargain on a fair basis. Hence he regarded any infringement of his Union rules as a weakening of the safeguards essential to his very existence. He consented to drastic alterations on the understanding that they were purely war measures; but he was naturally jealous that the plea of military necessity should not be used to impair his ultimate rights, of which he stood as the trustee not only for himself but for his kinsmen in the trenches. Anything which seemed to point to a delay in the restitution of his old status after the war made him acutely uneasy; and his suspicion was not lessened by foolish talk on the part of some employers about a complete revision of the industrial system involving the repeal of the Factory Acts and the Trade Disputes Act. It seemed to him that in standing up for his rights, as he conceived them, he was resisting Prussianism as much as the troops in the field. But in time of war, when new urgencies appeared with each day, it was very hard for a Government to keep the strict letter of a contract with Labour. The British workman was not unreasonable, and when a fresh necessity was made clear to him he would usually accept it. But unfortunately the war had largely deprived him of the services of the men who might have done the explaining. His old leaders had been for the most part absorbed into the Government, and in the stress of heavy executive duties were unable to keep in close touch with their followers. Moreover, the mere sight of them as part of the official machine caused them to be regarded with a certain suspicion. The consequence was that a new type of leader came into prominence—younger and less responsible men, who took a stand not only against the Government but against the proper Trade Union officials. Of such a type were the Shop Stewards in the engineering trades. Originally they had been merely agents of the district committees; but, since they were the only Union officials left in intimate contact with the men, they acquired new powers, and became the spokesmen of the workers not only against the State but against the Union executives. The strike of the engineers in May was organized in defiance of their Union by a self-elected committee of Shop Stewards. Finally, there was a very general suspicion of “profiteering.” The men objected to sacrifice their Union rules in order, as they thought, to swell the profits of private employers; and they bore with impatience the high cost of living, because they suspected that private monopolies and corners played as large a part in producing it as the dislocation of war.

In handling this difficult situation the Government made frequent mistakes. The whole State organization was overworked, and there were many departmental delays in starting the agreed machinery, and especially in adjudicating on differences between employers and employed. But the main sources of trouble in the May strikes were the withdrawal of the Trade Card scheme and the extension of dilution to private work. These two points demand a short explanation, for they were typical of the kind of disputes which, without discredit to both sides, were bound to arise. In order to prevent the confusion of work from the sudden calling up of skilled men, and to get rid of the suspicion that an employer could punish a man he disliked by declaring him no longer indispensable, the Trade Card scheme was passed in November 1916, under which every member of an engineering union was absolutely exempted from military service. It was obviously a bad arrangement, for it was hard to see why exemption should be based on membership of a particular Union and not on national utility; and other Unions, not thus protected, viewed the scheme with suspicion. When, early in 1917, the Army authorities began to press for more men, the Government, instead of trying to negotiate a fresh agreement, simply announced that the Trade Card scheme would terminate as from 1st May. The “dilution” question was even more delicate. The principle of dilution in munition work—which, be it remembered, involved the most sacred principles of the craft Unions—had been accepted by Labour in 1915, on the understanding that no dilution should be enforced on work other than war work. But the necessities of the Army, and the importance at the same time of keeping private industry alive, caused the Government to bethink itself of dilution in private work. In November 1916 it came to an arrangement with most of the Unions, but not with the engineers. Nevertheless it introduced the Munitions of War Bill, 1917, to give the Ministry of Munitions power “to carry into effect a scheme of dilution of skilled labour by the introduction of less skilled labour (both male and female) upon private work.”

The result of these measures was that Labour did not know where it stood. Explicit pledges had been violated, and the explanations did not harmonize. The Ministry of Munitions declared that it only wanted to spread skilled men more evenly over the whole industrial system, and not to take them for the Army; but the military authorities made no secret of the fact that they expected to get large drafts from the engineering trades. There was the further grievance that the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to abolish the limitations originally placed on the profits of controlled establishments, and leave the employers subject only to the Excess Profits Tax. The result of this atmosphere of suspicion was the outbreak of trouble in May in some thirty munitions areas in defiance of the executives of the Unions. A quarter of a million men were affected, and the arrest of the chief strike leaders did not improve the situation. Ultimately the men were released, and an arrangement was reached with the strikers under which the Government made important concessions as to the obnoxious legislation which they had contemplated.

Incidents such as this showed the difficulties which attended co-operation between a Government, forced constantly by new needs into new measures, and Labour, suspicious of the intentions of the State, out of touch with its experienced leaders, and profoundly jealous about the future fate of those rights which it had temporarily surrendered. It may be doubted whether the making of a strike a punishable offence under the first Munitions of War Act in July 1915 was a wise step, for it deprived unrest of a natural outlet, and caused doubts to breed like mosquitoes on stagnant water. Yet, when all has been said, overt discontent was the exception and not the rule. There was no sounder patriotism or stauncher resolution anywhere in the Allied nations than among the workers of Britain. When we remember the strain and monotony of their toil, the innumerable grounds for suspicion open to them, and the blunders in tactics made, sometimes avoidably and sometimes unavoidably, by the Government, we may well conclude that the chief characteristic of British Labour during the war was not petulant unrest, but an amazing stamina and patience.

In earlier chapters we have examined the stages in the ripening of American opinion against the aims and methods of the Teutonic League. It was a slow process, for the great republic had a long road to travel from her historic isolation to the point of junction with the Allies in Europe. She had started with three principles which had always been the foundation of her policy. The first was the Monroe doctrine—that she would not interfere in European disputes or entangle herself in any foreign alliance, and that her one external interest was to keep the New World free from foreign aggression. The second was that she would persistently labour to secure such a maritime code as would insure to the whole world the freedom of the seas. For this purpose she had assisted Britain to clear out the Barbary pirates, and, save during the stress of her Civil War, she had leaned towards the doctrine of the inviolability of private property at sea, a generous free list, and a narrow definition of contraband. The third was an endeavour to substitute a judicial for a military settlement of disputes between nations. These principles of policy were very dear to her, and to a desire to safeguard them she added the hope that, if she could keep aloof from the war in Europe, she might be in a position at its close to take the lead in rebuilding a ruined world and healing the wounds of the nations.

But the American people were of Cromwell’s opinion that “it is necessary at all times to look at facts.” Slowly and with bitter disappointment they learned that isolation was not feasible; that there could be no freedom at sea unless they did their share in winning freedom on land; that right instead of might could not be set on the throne of the earth unless they were willing to restrain the Power that worshipped force; that they could not bind up the wounds of the world unless they compelled the oppressor to sheathe the sword. It was not always easy for the Allies to watch with patience the progress of this gradual disillusionment; it was so very gradual, apparently so blind to actualities, so much in love with the technicalities of a law which had been long since shattered. But the wiser statesmen in Europe saw that, behind the academic decorum of America, the forces of enlightenment were at work, and they possessed their souls in patience. For with a strong people a slow change is a sure change.

The initial atrocities in Belgium and France had induced in the greater part of the educated class in America the conviction that Germany was a menace to civilization. But such a conviction was still far removed from the feeling that America was called on to play an active part in the war. America’s pride was first wounded by Germany’s insistence that as a neutral the United States had no right to trade in munitions with the Allied Powers. The American view was well stated in the official presentation of America’s case issued after she entered the struggle by the Committee of Public Information. “If, with all other neutrals, we refused to sell munitions to belligerents, we could never in time of a war of our own obtain munitions from neutrals, and the nation which had accumulated the largest reserves of war supplies in times of peace would be assured of victory. The militarist state that invested its money in arsenals would be at a fatal advantage over a free people that invested its money in schools. To write into international law that neutrals should not trade in munitions would be to hand over the world to the rule of the nation with the largest armament factories.” Then came the sinking of the Lusitania, and the preposterous demand that America should surrender her right of free travel by sea. Concurrent with the prevarications and belated apologies of Berlin ran a campaign of German machination and outrages in the New World. To quote again from the same document: “In this country official agents of the Central Powers—protected from a criminal prosecution by diplomatic immunity—conspired against our internal peace, placed spies and agents provocateurs throughout the length and breadth of our land, and even in high positions of trust in departments of our Government. While expressing a cordial friendship for the people of the United States, the Government of Germany had its agents at work both in Latin America and in Japan. They bought and subsidized papers and supported speakers there to arouse feelings of bitterness and distrust against us in those friendly nations, in order to embroil us in war. They were inciting to insurrection in Cuba, in Haiti, and in Santo Domingo; their hostile hand was stretched out to take the Danish Islands; and everywhere in South America they were abroad sowing the seeds of dissension, trying to stir up one nation against another, and all against the United States. In their sum these various operations amounted to direct assault of the Monroe doctrine.”

The complicated negotiations between Washington and Berlin have already been described in these pages. When on May 4, 1916, Germany grudgingly promised that ships should not be sunk without warning, it seemed as if the controversy was settled. But meantime two currents of opinion in America had been growing in volume. One was the desire to make this war the last fought under the old bad conditions of international isolation, to devise a League to Enforce Peace, which would police the world on behalf of international justice. Of such ideals President Wilson was a declared champion. The second was the conviction that this war was in very truth America’s war; that the Allies were fighting for America’s interests, the greatest of which was the maintenance of public right. To this creed Mr. Root and Mr. Roosevelt had borne eloquent testimony. In the light of it the various diplomatic wrangles with Britain over her naval policy became things of small moment. “As long as militarism continues to be a serious danger, peaceful neutral nations, by insisting on the emancipation of commerce from interference by sea-power, would be adopting a suicidal policy. . . . The control of commerce in war is now exercised by Great Britain because she possesses a preponderant navy. Rather than that control should be emasculated, Great Britain must be allowed to continue its exercise. . . . We are more than ever sure that this nation does right in accepting the British blockade and defying the submarine. It does right, because the war against Britain, France, and Belgium is a war against the civilization of which we are a part. To be fair in such a war would be a betrayal.”^[18]

The Presidential election during the autumn of 1916 caused public discussion on the question to languish, but it did not stop the steady growth of opinion. Then came the revival of German submarine activity in the early winter, and the hectoring German peace proposals, which boasted so loudly of German conquests, and asked the world to accept them as the basis of all negotiations. President Wilson, secure in power by his second election, and pledged to the ideal of a League of Nations, dispatched his own request to the belligerents to define their aims, for he saw very clearly that the hour of America’s decision was drawing nigh. The interchange of notes which followed cleared the air, and established the fact that American and Allied opinion were moving in the same channels. OnJan. 22, 1917. 22nd January the President, in an eloquent address to the Senate, outlined the kind of peace which America could guarantee. The area of agreement had been defined, and the essential difference was soon to leap into blinding clarity. For on 31st JanuaryJan. 31. Germany tore up all her former promises, and informed Washington that she was about to enter upon an unrestricted submarine campaign.

The Rubicon had been reached, and there couldFeb. 3. be no turning back. The German Ambassador was handed his passports on 3rd February and Mr. Gerard summoned from Berlin. On the same day the President announced to both Houses of Congress the severance of diplomatic relations with Germany. He showed by his speeches that he took the step unwillingly. He drew a distinction between the German people and the German Government—the old distinction which idealists in democratic countries were apt to cling to till facts forced them to relinquish it. He declared that he could not believe that the German Government meant “to do in fact what they have warned us they feel at liberty to do,” and that only “actual overt acts” would convince him of their hostile purpose. But he ended with the solemn announcement that if American ships were sunk and American lives were lost he would come again to Congress and ask for power to take the necessary steps for the protection of his people.

The immediate result of the German decree was that American passenger ships were deterred from sailing for Europe. This brought the situation home very vividly to the dwellers on the Eastern states, but had only a remote interest for the inhabitants of the West and the middle West. At first there was no very flagrant offence against American shipping, though the Housatonic was sunk on 3rd February and the LymanFeb. 3, 13, 26. M. Law on 13th February. But the situation was none the less intolerable, and on the 26th President Wilson again addressed Congress, pointing out that Germany had placed a practical embargo on America’s shipping, and asking for authority to arm her vessels effectually for defence. What he contemplated was an armed neutrality which should stop short of war. On 1st March the House ofMar. 1. Representatives gave this authority by 403 votes to 13, but in the Senate a similar vote was held up by a handful of pacificists, and could not be passed before the session came automatically to an end on 4th March. Nevertheless anMar. 4. overwhelming majority of the Senate signed a manifesto in favour of the Bill. Meantime various events had roused the temper of the country. On 26th February the Laconia was sunk and eight Americans drowned. On 1st March there was publishedMar. 1. an order issued on 19th January by Herr Zimmermann, the German Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs, to the German Minister in Mexico. The latter was instructed to form an alliance with Mexico in the event of war breaking out between Germany and the United States, and to offer as a bribe the provinces of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. In the same document it was suggested that efforts might be made to seduce Japan from the Allies and bring her into partnership with Germany. Such proposals inspired the deepest resentment in the West and the Middle West, where the submarine atrocities were least realized. And there was one point in them which showed thoughtful Americans that the policy of “armed neutrality” could not be maintained. Germany had proposed to Carranza “to make war together and to make peace together.” This could only mean that, even if she avoided war, America would be forced one day or another to negotiate a settlement with Germany. Peace would not come to her automatically on the conclusion of hostilities, and her position in peace negotiations would depend on how the war ended. President Wilson clearly felt that his present policy could not endure. In his inaugural address of 5th March, he said: “We have been obliged to arm ourselves to make good our claim to a certain minimum of right and of freedom of action. We stand firm in armed neutrality, since it seems that in no other way we can demonstrate what it is we insist upon and cannot forgo. We may be drawn on by circumstances, not by our own purpose or desire, to a more active assertion of our rights as we see them and a more immediate association with the great struggle itself.”

The order for arming merchant ships wasMar. 12, 16, 17. issued by the American Government on the 12th of March. A week later came the “overt acts” of which the President had spoken. On the 16th the Vigilancia was sunk and five American lives lost. On the 17th the City of Memphis and the Illinois followed suit. On the 21st the Healdton was torpedoedMar. 21. off the Dutch coast and outside the prohibited zone, and seven Americans perished. On 1st April came the loss of theApril 1. Aztec, when twenty-eight Americans were lost. The defiance was flagrant and unmistakable. The feeling against Germany rose to fever heat. At last the country was ripe for the final step. In the words of the official statement: “Judging the German Government now in the light of our own experience through the long and patient years of our honest attempt to keep the peace, we could see the Great Autocracy and read her record through the war. And we found that record damnable. . . . With a fanatical faith in the destiny of German kultur as the system that must rule the world, the Imperial Government’s actions have through years of boasting, double dealing, and deceit, tended towards aggression upon the rights of others. . . . Its record . . . has given not only to the Allies but to liberal peoples throughout the world the conviction that this menace to human liberties everywhere must be utterly shorn of its power for harm. For the evil it has effected has ranged far out of Europe—out upon the open seas, where its submarines, in defiance of law and the concepts of humanity, have blown up neutral vessels and covered the waves with the dead and dying, men and women and children alike. Its agents have conspired against the peace of neutral nations everywhere, sowing the seeds of dissension, ceaselessly endeavouring by tortuous methods of deceit, of bribery, false promises, and intimidation, to stir up brother nations one against the other, in order that the liberal world might not be able to unite, in order that the Autocracy might emerge triumphant from the war. All this we know from our own experience with the Imperial Government. As they have dealt with Europe, so they have dealt with us and with all mankind.”

The case against Germany was plain, and anApril 2. event had occurred which made an alliance easier with Germany’s foes. On 9th March the Revolution broke out in Petrograd; by 16th March the autocracy had fallen and a popular Government ruled in Russia. The issue was now clear to all, not as a strife between dynasties, but as the eternal war of liberty and despotism, and no free people could be deaf to the call. The special session of Congress was advanced by a fortnight, and on 2nd April President Wilson asked it for a declaration of war.

The President’s message on that day will rank among the greatest of America’s many famous State documents.^[19] Couched in terms of studied moderation and dignity, it stated not only the case of America against Germany, but of civilization against barbarism and popular government against tyranny. He began with an indictment of the submarine campaign, recalling the promise given on May 4, 1916, and its complete reversal by the decree of January 31, 1917. “Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships^[20] and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the proscribed areas by the German Government itself, and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle.” Germany had swept away the last fragments of international rights, and her new warfare was not against commerce only but against mankind.

He admitted that when he spoke on 26th February he had hoped that an armed neutrality would be sufficient to protect his people. But Germany was resolved to treat the armed guards placed on merchantmen as mere pirates beyond the pale of law. “Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce what it is meant to prevent; it is perfectly certain to draw us into war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents.^[21] There is only one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making: we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life. With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking, and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States.”

He outlined the urgent practical requirements. War would involve the organization and mobilization of all the national resources of the country; the immediate full equipment of the navy; the immediate addition of half a million men to the armed forces under the principle of universal service, and the authorization of further levies as soon as they could be handled. Above all it involved “the utmost practicable co-operation in counsel and action with the Governments now at war with Germany,” and the extension to them of the most liberal financial credits. The problem was twofold—to prepare America for war, and at the same time to supply the Allied nations with the materials which they needed. “They are in the field, and we should help them in every way to be effective there.”

The declaration was complete, explicit, and uncompromising; but the President did not end there. His conclusion raised the argument to a higher sphere, for he gave expression to the eternal principles for which America entered the field. He restated his hope for the establishment of peace based upon the reign of law. “Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable when the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic Governments backed by organized force, which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.” He had dreamed of a League of Nations, but there could be no honest friendship with autocracies. “Self-governing nations do not fill their neighbour states with spies. . . . Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. . . . A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic Government could be trusted to keep faith with it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honour, a partnership of opinion. Intrigues would cut its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would, and render account to no one, would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free people can hold their purpose and their honour steady to a common end, and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.”

“The world must be made safe for democracy.” This phrase was the keystone of the speech, and it will stand among the dozen great dicta of modern history. Almost in the strain of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, the message concluded:—

Under the American Constitution the right toApril 4. declare war lay with Congress. The President’s message was received with stormy enthusiasm by the audience which listened to it, and a thrill of assent ran through the length and breadth of the country. The debate in the two Houses revealed a preponderant weight of opinion for war. Senator Stone, the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, went into frank opposition, and various senators attacked the resolution on such grounds as that the war was a struggle of financiers which did not concern the people at large, or that the Republic was being made a catspaw by the reactionary British monarchy. Echoes of anti-British feeling, the dregs of the romantic views of history once taught in American schools, were heard throughout the discussion. But the great issues were eloquently stated by men like Senator Lodge, and Senator John Sharp Williams of Mississippi delivered a passionate protest against the old hack criticism of Britain. “Magna Charta, the Declaration of Rights, the Bill of Rights, included in the Constitution in its first ten amendments—the very principles embodied in the Constitution derived from colonial experience under English rule—all came from England, a country whose high priest was John Milton, whose sweet singer was Burns, whose great intellect was Shakespeare, whose great warriors for liberty were Hampden and Sidney and Simon de Montfort.” On 4th April the Senate passed the war resolution by 82 votes to six.

Next day it was introduced in the House ofApril 5. Representatives by Mr. Flood of Virginia, and the debate which followed showed that a good deal of confusion still existed among the members. Some defended it on the broadest lines of world policy and international right, others took the narrower ground of American interests. Its critics lamented the end of the Monroe doctrine, or expressed simply the humanitarian repugnance to bloodshed, or attacked Britain’s naval policy, or revelled in the old spread-eagle republicanism. Said one gentleman from Nevada: “All crowned heads look alike to me, and I do not want to sleep with any of them, whether it be the Kaiser, the Mikado, John Bull, or the Sultan of Turkey. This fight is not of our making, and we had better keep out of it. I do not think Uncle Sam looks good mixed up with any of them. I want to tell you that every man, woman, and child in the country would applaud if we would take both John Bull and the Kaiser and bump their royal noddles together, open up all seas, and treat them both alike.”

The arguments of the opposition were for the most part trivial, and were easily met by the supporters of the resolution; but they proved that a considerable section of the nation, its mental joints stiffened from two and a half years of neutrality, found some difficulty in adjusting itself to the new conditions. They were not quite certain about their new allies, but on the whole they were certain about their enemies. The speech of Mr. Foss of Illinois expressed with vigour the predominant attitude towards Germany. “As a reward for our neutrality what have we received at the hands of William II.? He has set the torch of the incendiary to our factories, our workshops, our ships, and our wharves. He has laid the bomb of the assassin in our munition plants and the holds of our ships. He has sought to corrupt our manhood with a selfish dream of peace when there is no peace. He has wilfully butchered our citizens on the high seas. He has destroyed our commerce. He seeks to terrorize us with his devilish policy of frightfulness. He has violated every canon of international decency, and set at naught every solemn treaty and every precept of international law. He has plunged the world into the maddest orgy of blood, rapine, and murder which history records. He has intrigued against our peace at home and abroad. He seeks to destroy our civilization. Patience is no longer a virtue, further endurance is cowardice, submission to Prussian demands is slavery.”

On 6th April, by a majority of 373 votes to 50,April 6. the House of Representatives passed the resolution, which ran as follows: “Whereas the Imperial German Government have committed repeated acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of America: Therefore be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled: That a state of war between the United States and the Imperial German Government which has been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared; and that the President be, and he is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial German Government; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.”

The entrance of America into the war on the Allied side meant an immediate increase of strength in certain vital matters. She was the greatest workshop on earth, and the high mechanical talent of her people was invaluable in what was largely a war of engineers. She had immense wealth to put into the common stock. She had a powerful fleet, though one somewhat lacking in the lighter type of vessel which was the chief need of the moment, and she had an unlimited capacity for shipbuilding. Her army was small, but its officers were among the most highly trained in the world, and her great reserves of man-power gave her the chance of almost unlimited expansion. It would be some time before she could make her potential strength actual, but in the meantime she solved the worst financial difficulties of the Allies, and her accession made ultimate victory certain. Like her cousins of Britain, she was a nation slow to move, but she would walk resolutely on the path she had chosen to the end of the journey.

Her coming made victory certain, and the right kind of victory. For she entered upon war not for any parochial ends, but for the reorganization of the world’s life on a sane basis. Her organic internationalism—the more comprehensive since it was a reaction against a traditional policy of isolation—was in starker antagonism to Prussianism than any of the ordinary schemes of territorial readjustment in Europe. Her motives were a mingling of the best conclusions which American thought had reached during the past three years, the dream of a pacific alliance of all peoples, the recognition that peace could only be won on the basis of a common freedom, and the desire to reconstitute public right on a surer foundation than partial treaties. She restated the ideals which had been at the back of the minds of all the Allies from the start, but had been somewhat overlaid by the urgent problems of the hour, and she prepared to give these ideals the support of the whole of her mighty practical strength.

President Wilson had justified his policy of waiting. The debates on the declaration of war showed that the public mind of America was still in some doubt and confusion, and if this were so even at that late hour, it is probable that the President could not have secured the national assent he needed at any earlier date. Fortunately the very districts most averse to war were those where his personal prestige was greatest. He had played his part with incomparable skill. He had suffered Germany herself to prepare the American people for intervention, and Germany had laboured manfully to that end. He had allowed the spectacle of American powerlessness in the titanic struggle to be always before the popular mind till the people grew uneasy and asked for guidance. He had shown infinite patience and courtesy, so that no accusation of petulance or haste could be brought against him. But when the case was proved and the challenge became gross he struck promptly and struck hard. If in the eyes of his critics he had not always stated the issue truly and had shown an easiness of temper which came perilously near complaisance, it was now clear that he had had a purpose in it all. As soon as he felt himself strong enough for action he had not delayed. He had brought the whole nation into line on a matter which meant the reversal of every traditional mode of thought; and when we reflect on the centrifugal tendency of American life, and its stout conservatism, we must confess that such a feat demanded a high order of genius in statecraft.

1. The German Proposal to the Allies.

(December 12, 1916.)

(Addressed to the American Chargé d’Affaires in Berlin.)

The most formidable war known to history has been ravaging for two and a half years a great part of the world. That catastrophe, which the bonds of a common civilization more than a thousand years old could not stop, strikes mankind in its most precious patrimony; it threatens to bury under its ruins the moral and physical progress on which Europe prided itself at the dawn of the 20th century. In that strife Germany and her Allies, Austria-Hungary and Turkey, have given proof of their indestructible strength in winning considerable successes at war. Their unshakable lines resist ceaseless attacks of their enemies’ arms. The recent diversion in the Balkans was speedily and victoriously thwarted. The latest events have demonstrated that a continuation of the war cannot break their resisting power. The general situation has justified their hope of fresh successes. It was for the defence of their existence and freedom of their national development that the four Allied Powers were constrained to take up arms. The exploits of their armies have brought no change therein. Not for an instant have they swerved from the conviction that the respect of the rights of other nations is not in any degree incompatible with their own rights and legitimate interests. They do not seek to crush or annihilate their adversaries. Conscious of their military and economic strength, and ready to carry on to the end, if they must, the struggle that is forced upon them, but animated at the same time by the desire to stem the flood of blood and to bring the horrors of war to an end, the four allied Powers propose to enter even now into peace negotiations. They feel sure that the propositions which they would bring forward, and which would aim at assuring the existence, honour, and free development of their peoples, would be such as to serve as a basis for the restoration of a lasting peace.

If, notwithstanding this offer of peace and conciliation, the struggle should continue, the four allied Powers are resolved to carry it on to an end, while solemnly disclaiming any responsibility before mankind and history.

The Imperial Government has the honour to ask through your obliging medium the Government of the United States to be pleased to transmit the present communication to the Government of the French Republic, to the Royal Government of Great Britain, to the Imperial Government of Japan, to the Royal Government of Roumania, to the Imperial Government of Russia, and to the Royal Government of Serbia.

I take this opportunity to renew to you, Mr. Chargé d’Affaires, the assurance of my high consideration.

2. The Allies’ Reply to German Peace Note.

(Translation of French Text.)

The Allied Governments of Russia, France, Great Britain, Japan, Italy, Serbia, Belgium, Montenegro, Portugal, and Roumania, united for the defence of the freedom of nations and faithful to their undertakings not to lay down their arms except in common accord, have decided to return a joint answer to the illusory peace proposals which have been addressed to them by the Governments of the enemy Powers through the intermediary of the United States, Spain, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

As a prelude to any reply, the Allied Powers feel bound to protest strongly against the two material assertions made in the Note from the enemy Powers, the one professing to throw upon the Allies the responsibility of the war, and the other proclaiming the victory of the Central Powers.

The Allies cannot admit a claim which is thus untrue in each particular, and is sufficient alone to render sterile all attempt at negotiations.

The Allied nations for 30 months have had to endure a war which they had done everything to avoid. They have shown by their actions their devotion to peace. This devotion is as strong to-day as it was in 1914; and after the violation by Germany of her solemn engagements, Germany’s promise is no sufficient foundation on which to re-establish the peace which she broke.

A mere suggestion, without statement of terms, that negotiations should be opened, is not an offer of peace. The putting forward by the Imperial Government of a sham proposal, lacking all substance and precision, would appear to be less an offer of peace than a war manœuvre.

It is founded on a calculated misinterpretation of the character of the struggle in the past, the present, and the future.

As for the past, the German Note takes no account of the facts, dates, and figures which establish that the war was desired, provoked, and declared by Germany and Austria-Hungary.

At the Hague Conference it was the German delegate who refused all proposals for disarmament. In July 1914 it was Austria-Hungary who, after having addressed to Serbia an unprecedented ultimatum, declared war upon her in spite of the satisfaction which had at once been accorded. The Central Empires then rejected all attempts made by the Entente to bring about a pacific solution of a purely local conflict. Great Britain suggested a Conference, France proposed an International Commission, the Emperor of Russia asked the German Emperor to go to arbitration, and Russia and Austria-Hungary came to an understanding on the eve of the conflict; but to all these efforts Germany gave neither answer nor effect. Belgium was invaded by an Empire which had guaranteed her neutrality, and which has had the assurance to proclaim that treaties were “scraps of paper” and that “necessity knows no law.”

At the present moment these sham offers on the part of Germany rest on a “War Map” of Europe alone, which represents nothing more than a superficial and passing phase of the situation, and not the real strength of the belligerents. A peace concluded upon these terms would be only to the advantage of the aggressors, who, after imagining that they would reach their goal in two months, discovered after two years that they could never attain it.

As for the future, the disasters caused by the German declaration of war and the innumerable outrages committed by Germany and her Allies against both belligerents and neutrals demand penalties, reparation, and guarantees; Germany avoids the mention of any of these.

In reality these overtures made by the Central Powers are nothing more than a calculated attempt to influence the future course of the war, and to end it by imposing a German peace.

The object of these overtures is to create dissension in public opinion in Allied countries. But that public opinion has, in spite of all the sacrifices endured by the Allies, already given its answer with admirable firmness, and has denounced the empty pretence of the declaration of the Enemy Powers.

They have the further object of stiffening public opinion in Germany and in the countries allied to her, one and all, already severely tried by their losses, worn out by economic pressure and crushed by the supreme effort which has been imposed upon their inhabitants.

They endeavoured to deceive and intimidate public opinion in neutral countries whose inhabitants have long since made up their minds where the initial responsibility rests, have recognized existing responsibilities, and are far too enlightened to favour the designs of Germany by abandoning the defence of human freedom.

Finally, these overtures attempt to justify in advance in the eyes of the world a new series of crimes—submarine warfare, deportations, forced labour, and forced enlistment of inhabitants against their own countries, and violations of neutrality.

Fully conscious of the gravity of this moment, but equally conscious of its requirements, the Allied Governments, closely united to one another and in perfect sympathy with their peoples, refuse to consider a proposal which is empty and insincere.

Once again the Allies declare that no peace is possible so long as they have not secured reparation of violated rights and liberties, recognition of the principle of nationalities, and of the free existence of small States; so long as they have not brought about a settlement calculated to end, once and for all, causes which have constituted a perpetual menace to the nations, and to afford the only effective guarantees for the future security of the world.

In conclusion, the Allied Powers think it necessary to put forward the following considerations, which show the special situation of Belgium after two and a half years of war.

In virtue of international treaties signed by five great European Powers, of whom Germany was one, Belgium enjoyed, before the war, a special status, rendering her territory inviolable and placing her, under the guarantee of the Powers, outside all European conflicts. She was, however, in spite of these treaties, the first to suffer the aggression of Germany. For this reason the Belgian Government think it necessary to define the aims which Belgium has never ceased to pursue, while fighting side by side with the Entente Powers for right and justice.

Belgium has always scrupulously fulfilled the duties which her neutrality imposed upon her. She has taken up arms to defend her independence and her neutrality violated by Germany, and to show that she remains faithful to her international obligations. On August 4, 1914, in the Reichstag, the German Chancellor admitted that this aggression constituted an injustice contrary to the laws of nations and pledged himself in the name of Germany to repair it.

During two and a half years this injustice has been cruelly aggravated by the proceedings of the occupying forces, which have exhausted the resources of the country, ruined its industries, devastated its towns and villages, and have been responsible for innumerable massacres, executions, and imprisonments. At this very moment, while Germany is proclaiming peace and humanity to the world she is deporting Belgian citizens by thousands and reducing them to slavery.

Belgium, before the war, asked for nothing but to live in harmony with all her neighbours. Her King and her Government have but one aim—the re-establishment of peace and justice. But they desire only that peace which would assure to their country legitimate reparation, guarantees, and safeguards for the future.

3. President Wilson’s Note.

(December 18, 1916.)

The President of the United States has instructed me to suggest to the Government of His Britannic Majesty a course of action with regard to the present war which he hopes that His Majesty’s Government will take under consideration, as suggested in the most friendly spirit and as coming not only from a friend, but also as coming from the representative of a neutral nation, whose interests have been most seriously affected by the war, and whose concern for its early conclusion arises out of a manifest necessity to determine how best to safeguard those interests if the war is to continue.

The suggestion which I am instructed to make, the President has long had it in mind to offer. He is somewhat embarrassed to offer it at this particular time, because it may now seem to have been prompted by the recent overtures of the Central Powers. It is, in fact, in no way associated with them in its origin, and the President would have delayed offering it until those overtures had been answered, but for the fact that it also concerns the question of peace and may best be considered in connection with other proposals which have the same end in view. The President can only beg that his suggestion be considered entirely on its own merits, and as if it had been made in other circumstances.

The President suggests that an early occasion be sought to call out from all the nations now at war such an avowal of their respective views as to the terms upon which the war might be concluded and the arrangements which would be deemed satisfactory as a guarantee against its renewal or the kindling of any similar conflict in the future, as would make it possible frankly to compare them. He is indifferent as to the means taken to accomplish this. He would be happy himself to serve, or even to take the initiative in its accomplishment, in any way that might prove acceptable, but he has no desire to determine the method or the instrumentality. One way will be as acceptable to him as another, if only the great object he has in mind be attained.

He takes the liberty of calling attention to the fact that the objects which the statesmen of the belligerents on both sides have in mind in this war are virtually the same, as stated in general terms to their own people and to the world. Each side desires to make the rights and privileges of weak peoples and small States as secure against aggression or denial in the future as the rights and privileges of the great and powerful States now at war. Each wishes itself to be made secure in the future, along with all other nations and peoples, against the recurrence of wars like this, and against aggression or selfish interference of any kind. Each would be jealous of the formation of any more rival leagues to preserve an uncertain balance of power amidst multiplying suspicions; but each is ready to consider the formation of a league of nations to ensure peace and justice throughout the world. Before that final step can be taken, however, each deems it necessary first to settle the issues of the present war upon terms which will certainly safeguard the independence, the territorial integrity, and the political and commercial freedom of the nations involved.

In the measures to be taken to secure the future peace of the world the people and the Government of the United States are as vitally and as directly interested as the Governments now at war. Their interest, moreover, in the means to be adopted to relieve the smaller and weaker peoples of the world of the peril of wrong and violence, is as quick and ardent as that of any other people or Government. They stand ready, and even eager, to co-operate in the accomplishment of these ends when the war is over, with every influence and resource at their command. But the war must first be concluded. The terms upon which it is to be concluded, they are not at liberty to suggest; but the President does feel that it is his right and his duty to point out their intimate interest in its conclusion, lest it should presently be too late to accomplish the greater things which lie beyond its conclusion, lest the situation of neutral nations, now exceedingly hard to endure, be rendered altogether intolerable, and lest, more than all, an injury be done to civilization itself which can never be atoned or repaired.

The President, therefore, feels altogether justified in suggesting an immediate opportunity for a comparison of views as to the terms which must precede these ultimate arrangements for the peace of the world which all desire, and in which the neutral nations as well as those at war are ready to play their full responsible part. If the contest must continue to proceed towards undefined ends by slow attrition, until one group of belligerents or the other is exhausted, if million after million of human lives must continue to be offered up until on the one side or the other there are no more to offer, if resentments must be kindled that can never cool and despairs engendered from which there can be no recovery, hopes of peace and of the willing concert of free peoples will be rendered vain and idle.

The life of the entire world has been profoundly affected. Every part of the great family of mankind has felt the burden and terror of this unprecedented contest of arms. No nation in the civilized world can be said in truth to stand outside its influence or to be safe against its disturbing effects. And yet the concrete objects for which it is being waged have never been definitely stated.

The leaders of the several belligerents have, as has been said, stated those objects in general terms. But, stated in general terms, they seem the same on both sides. Never yet have the authoritative spokesmen of either side avowed the precise objects which would, if attained, satisfy them and their people that the war had been fought out. The world has been left to conjecture what definite results, what actual exchange of guarantees, what political or territorial changes or readjustments, what stage of military success even, would bring the war to an end.

It may be that peace is nearer than we know; that the terms which the belligerents on the one side and on the other would deem it necessary to insist upon are not so irreconcilable as some have feared; that an interchange of views would clear the way at least for conference and make the permanent concord of the nations a hope of the immediate future, a concert of nations immediately practicable.

The President is not proposing peace; he is not even offering mediation. He is merely proposing that soundings be taken in order that we may learn, the neutral nations with the belligerents, how near the haven of peace may be for which all mankind longs with an intense and increasing longing. He believes that the spirit in which he speaks and the objects which he seeks will be understood by all concerned, and he confidently hopes for a response which will bring a new light into the affairs of the world.

United States Embassy, London.

4. The Allies’ Reply to President Wilson.

(January 10, 1917.)

I.—The Allied Governments have received the Note delivered to them on 19th November in the name of the United States Government. They have studied it with the care enjoined upon them both by their accurate sense of the gravity of the moment and by their sincere friendship for the American people.

II.—In general, they make a point of declaring that they pay homage to the loftiness of the sentiments inspiring the American Note, and that they associate themselves whole-heartedly with the plan of creating a League of the Nations to ensure peace and justice throughout the world. They recognize all the advantages that would accrue to the cause of humanity and civilization by the establishment of international settlements designed to avoid violent conflicts between the nations—settlements which ought to be attended by the sanctions necessary to assure their execution, and thus to prevent fresh aggressions from being made easier by an apparent security.

III.—But a discussion of future arrangements designed to ensure a lasting peace presupposes a satisfactory settlement of the present conflict. The Allies feel a desire as deep as that of the United States Government to see ended, at the earliest possible moment, the war for which the Central Powers are responsible, and which inflicts sufferings so cruel upon humanity. But they judge it impossible to-day to bring about a peace that shall assure to them the reparation, the restitution, and the guarantees to which they are entitled by the aggression for which the responsibility lies upon the Central Powers, and of which the very principle tended to undermine the safety of Europe—a peace that shall also permit the establishment upon firm foundations of the future of the nations of Europe. The Allied nations are conscious that they are fighting, not for selfish interests, but, above all, to safeguard the independence of peoples, right, and humanity.

IV.—The Allies are fully alive to and deplore the losses and sufferings which the war causes neutrals, as well as belligerents, to endure; but they do not hold themselves responsible, since in no way did they desire or provoke this war; and they make every effort to lessen such damage to the full extent compatible with the inexorable requirements of their defence against the violence and the pitfalls of the foe.

V.—Hence they note with satisfaction the declaration that, as regards its origin, the American communication was in no wise associated with that of the Central Powers, transmitted on 18th December by the United States Government; neither do they doubt the resolve of that Government to avoid even the appearance of giving any, albeit only moral, support to the responsible authors of the war.

VI.—The Allied Governments hold themselves bound to make a stand in the friendliest yet in the clearest way against the establishment in the American Note of a likeness between the two belligerent groups; this likeness, founded upon the public statements of the Central Powers, conflicts directly with the evidence, both as regards the responsibilities for the past and the guarantees for the future. In mentioning this likeness President Wilson certainly did not mean to associate himself with it.

VII.—If at this moment there be established historical fact, it is the aggressive will of Germany and Austria to ensure their mastery over Europe and their economic domination over the world. By her declaration of war, by the immediate violation of Belgium and Luxemburg, and by the way she has carried on the struggle, Germany has also proved her systematic contempt of every principle of humanity and of all respect for small States; in proportion as the conflict has developed, the attitude of the Central Powers and of their Allies has been a continual challenge to humanity and civilization. Need we recall the horrors that accompanied the invasion of Belgium and of Serbia, the atrocious rule laid upon the invaded countries, the massacre of hundreds of thousands of inoffensive Armenians, the barbarities committed against the inhabitants of Syria, the Zeppelin raids upon open towns, the destruction by submarines of passenger steamers and merchantmen, even under neutral flags, the cruel treatment inflicted upon prisoners of war, the judicial murders of Miss Cavell and of Captain Fryatt, the deportation and the reduction to slavery of civil populations? The accomplishment of such a series of crimes, perpetrated without any regard for the universal reprobation they aroused, amply explains to President Wilson the protest of the Allies.

VIII.—They consider that the Note they handed to the United States in reply to the German Note answers the question put by the American Government, and forms, according to the words of that Government, “an avowal of their respective views as to the terms on which the war might be concluded.” Mr. Wilson wishes for more: he desires that the belligerent Powers should define, in the full light of day, their aims in prosecuting the war. The Allies find no difficulty in answering this request. Their war aims are well known: they have been repeatedly defined by the heads of their various Governments. These war aims will only be set forth in detail, with all the compensations and equitable indemnities for harm suffered, at the moment of negotiation. But the civilized world knows that they imply, necessarily and first of all, the restoration of Belgium, Serbia, and Montenegro, with the compensations due to them; the evacuation of the invaded territories in France, in Russia, in Roumania, with just reparation; the reorganization of Europe, guaranteed by a stable régime and based at once on respect for nationalities and on the right to full security and liberty of economic development possessed by all peoples, small and great, and at the same time upon territorial conventions and international settlements such as to guarantee land and sea frontiers against unjustified attack; the restitution of provinces formerly torn from the Allies by force or against the wish of their inhabitants; the liberation of the Italians, as also of the Slavs, Rumanians, and Czecho-Slovaks from foreign domination; the setting free of the populations subject to the bloody tyranny of the Turks; and the turning out of Europe of the Ottoman Empire as decidedly foreign to Western civilization.

IX.—The intentions of His Majesty the Emperor of Russia in regard to Poland have been clearly indicated by the manifesto he has just addressed to his armies.

X.—There is no need to say that, if the Allies desire to shield Europe from the covetous brutality of Prussian militarism, the extermination and the political disappearance of the German peoples have never, as has been pretended, formed part of their designs. They desire above all to ensure peace on the principles of liberty and justice, and upon the inviolable fidelity to international engagements by which the Government of the United States have ever been inspired.

XI.—United in the pursuit of this lofty aim, the Allies are determined, severally and jointly, to act with all their power and to make all sacrifices to carry to a victorious end a conflict upon which, they are convinced, depend not only their own welfare and prosperity but the future of civilization itself.

5. Belgium’s Answer to President Wilson.

(January 15, 1917.)

The Belgian Government has associated itself with the reply of all the Allies to the President of the United States, and desires to pay a special tribute to the sentiments of humanity which have caused the President to send his Note to the belligerent Powers. And it highly esteems the friendship of which he makes himself the well-wishing interpreter towards Belgium.

It would like to see as much as Dr. Woodrow Wilson the present war terminate as soon as possible. But the President appears to believe that the statesmen of the two opposing camps are pursuing the same war aims. The case of Belgium unfortunately proves that this is not so.

Unlike the Central Powers, Belgium has never had any ideas of conquest. The barbarous manner in which the German Government has treated and still treats the Belgian nation does not allow us to presume that Germany will trouble in the future about guaranteeing the rights of weak nations which she has never ceased to trample under foot since the moment when the war, let loose by her, began to decimate Europe. On the other hand, the Belgian Government notes with pleasure and confidence the assurance that the United States is anxious to co-operate in the measures which will be taken after the conclusion of peace to protect and guarantee the small nations against violence and oppression.

Previous to the German ultimatum, Belgium only desired to live on good terms with all her neighbours. She carried out with scrupulous loyalty towards each one of them the duties imposed upon her by her neutrality. How has she been rewarded by Germany for the confidence she displayed towards her?

Without notice, without reasonable grounds, her neutrality was violated, her territory invaded, and the Chancellor of the Empire, in announcing to the Reichstag this violation of right and of treaties, was obliged to acknowledge the iniquity of such an act, and to promise that it should be repaired.

But the Germans, after the occupation of Belgian territory, failed to observe the laws governing the rights of nations or the prescription of the conventions of the Hague.

By contributions as heavy as they are arbitrary, they have dried up the resources of the country. They have wilfully ruined its industries, destroyed entire towns, killed or imprisoned a considerable number of inhabitants, and even now, while they are loudly telling the world of their desire to put an end to the horrors of the war, they are taking pains to increase the severity of the occupation by dragging thousands of Belgian workers into servitude.

If any country has the right to claim it took up arms to defend its existence it is assuredly Belgium. Forced either to fight or to submit to shame, she evidently desires that an end be put to the unheard-of sufferings of her people, but she could only accept a peace which would assure to her, together with equitable reparations, security and guarantees for the future.

The American people, even since the beginning of the war, has shown towards the oppressed Belgian nation the deepest sympathy. It is an American Committee—the Commission for Relief in Belgium—which, working in close conjunction with the Government of the King and the National Committee, is displaying untiring devotion and marvellous activity in the revictualling of Belgium.

The King gladly avails himself of the opportunity to express his profound gratitude to the Commission for Relief as well as to the generous Americans so desirous of relieving the misery of the Belgian people.

Further, nowhere more than in the United States have the raids on and the deportations of Belgian civilians caused such a spontaneous movement of indignant protest and reprobation.

These circumstances, to the honour of the American people, inspire the Government of the King with the legitimate hope that, at the final settlement of this long war, the voice of the Entente Powers will find an unanimous echo in the United States to claim for the Belgian nation, the innocent victim of German ambition and cupidity, the rank and place to which its unblemished past, the bravery of its soldiers, its fidelity to honour, and its remarkable industrial characteristics, assign it among civilized nations.

6. The German Note to Neutrals.

(January 11, 1917.)

The Imperial Government is aware that the Government of the United States of America, the Royal Spanish Government, and the Swiss Government have received the reply of their enemies to the Note of 12th December, in which Germany, in concert with her allies, proposed to enter forthwith into peace negotiations. Our enemies rejected this proposal, arguing that it was a proposal without sincerity and without meaning. The form in which they couched their communication makes a reply to them impossible. But the German Government thinks it important to communicate to the neutral Powers its view of the state of affairs.

The Central Powers have no reason to enter again into a controversy regarding the origin of the world war. History will judge on whom the blame of the war falls. Its judgment will as little pass over the encircling policy of England, the revanche policy of France, and Russia’s aspiration after Constantinople as over the provocation by Serbia, the Sarajevo murders, and the complete Russian mobilization, which meant war on Germany.

Germany and her allies, who were obliged to take up arms to defend their freedom and their existence, regard this, which was their war aim, as attained. On the other hand, the Enemy Powers have departed more and more from the realization of their plans, which, according to the statements of their responsible statesmen, are directed, among other things, towards the conquest of Alsace-Lorraine and several Prussian provinces, the humiliation and diminution of Austria-Hungary, the disintegration of Turkey, and the dismemberment of Bulgaria. In view of such war aims, the demand for reparation, restitution, and guarantees in the mouth of our enemies sounds strange.

Our enemies describe the peace offer of the four allied Powers as a war manœuvre. Germany and her Allies most emphatically protest against such a falsification of their motives, which they openly stated. Their conviction was that a just peace acceptable to all belligerents was possible, that it could be brought about, and that further bloodshed could not be justified. Their readiness to make known their peace conditions without reservation at the opening of negotiations disproves any doubt of their sincerity.

Our enemies, in whose power it was to examine the real value of our offer, neither made any examination nor made counter-proposals. Instead of that, they declared that peace was impossible so long as the restoration of violated rights and liberties, the acknowledgment of the principle of nationalities, and the free existence of small States were not guaranteed. The sincerity which our enemies deny to the proposal of the four allied Powers cannot be allowed by the world to these demands if it recalls the fate of the Irish people, the destruction of the freedom and independence of the Boer Republics, the subjection of Northern Africa by England, France, and Italy, the suppression of foreign nationalities in Russia, and, finally, the oppression of Greece, which is unexampled in history.

Moreover, in regard to the alleged violation of international rights by the four allied Powers, those Powers which, from the beginning of the war, have trampled upon right and torn up the treaties on which it was based have no right to protest. Already in the first weeks of the war England had renounced the Declaration of London, the contents of which her own delegates had recognized as binding in international law, and in the further course of the war she most seriously violated the Declaration of Paris, so that, owing to her arbitrary measures, a state of lawlessness began in the war at sea. The starvation campaign against Germany and the pressure on neutrals exercised in England’s interest are no less grossly contrary to the rules of international law than to the laws of humanity.

Equally inconsistent with international law and the principles of civilization is the employment of coloured troops in Europe and the extension of the war to Africa, which has been brought about in violation of existing treaties. It undermines the reputation of the white race in this part of the globe. The inhuman treatment of prisoners, especially in Africa and Russia, the deportation of the civil population from East Prussia, Alsace-Lorraine, Galicia, and the Bukovina are further proofs of our enemies’ disregard for right and civilization.

At the end of their Note of 30th December our enemies refer to the special position of Belgium. The Imperial Government is unable to admit that the Belgian Government has always observed its obligations. Already before the war Belgium was under the influence of England and leaned towards England and France, thereby herself violating the spirit of the treaties which guaranteed her independence and neutrality.

Twice the Imperial Government declared to the Belgian Government that it was not entering Belgium as an enemy, and entreated it to save the country from the horrors of war. In this case it offered Belgium a guarantee for the full integrity and independence of the kingdom and to pay for all the damage which might be caused by German troops marching through the country. It is known that in 1887 the Royal British Government was determined not to oppose on these conditions the claiming of a right of way through Belgium. The Belgian Government refused the repeated offer of the Imperial Government. On it and on those Powers who induced it to take up this attitude falls the responsibility for the fate which befell Belgium.

The accusation about German war methods in Belgium and the measures which were taken there in the interests of military safety have been repeatedly repudiated as untrue by the Imperial Government. It again emphatically protests against these calumnies.

Germany and her Allies made an honest attempt to terminate the war and pave the way for an understanding among the belligerents. The Imperial Government declares that it solely depended on the decision of our enemies whether the road to peace should be taken or not. The enemy Governments have refused to take this road. On them falls the full responsibility for the continuation of bloodshed.

But the four allied Powers will prosecute the fight with calm trust and confidence in their good cause until a peace has been gained which guarantees to their own peoples, honour, existence, freedom, and development, and gives all the Powers of the European Continent the benefit of working united in mutual esteem at the solution of the great problems of civilization.

The Secretary of State for War has received the following dispatches from General Sir Archibald Murray, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., Commander-in-Chief, Egyptian Expeditionary Force:—

General Headquarters,

Egyptian Expeditionary Force,

1st March 1917.

My Lord,

I have the honour to submit a report on the operations of the Force under my command from 1st October 1916 to 28th February 1917.

1. During the months of October and November and the first half of December there were no important operations upon my Eastern front, though a successful reconnaissance against the enemy positions at Gebel El Rakwa and Maghara, 65 miles east of Ismailia, was carried out between the 13th and 17th October by a small force of Australian Light Horse, Yeomanry and Camel Corps. This operation not only needed careful preparation, but entailed two night marches over exceedingly difficult sand dune country, the difficulties being increased on the second night by the presence of a thick fog. On the early morning of the 15th the enemy was located holding a strong position on the high precipitous hills of Maghara. The force, attacking in two columns, dislodged the enemy from his advanced position, capturing a few prisoners. At the same time the enemy’s camp was repeatedly bombed by our aeroplanes, which furnished invaluable assistance throughout the operation. After an engagement lasting two hours the force withdrew unmolested, and reached Bayud on the 17th without the loss of a single camel. The operation was well carried out, and valuable information was obtained regarding the enemy’s dispositions and the nature of the country.

With this exception, all was quiet on the Eastern front. The unexpected evidence of our mobility given to the enemy by the successful reconnaissance against Mazar, which I recorded in my last dispatch, and the losses suffered by the Turks during this affair, had given the enemy sufficient uneasiness to induce him to withdraw altogether from Mazar, and towards the end of October his nearest troops were in the neighbourhood of Ujret el Zol and Masaid, about seven and four miles west of El Arish, respectively. The enemy also maintained various small posts in the neighbourhood of Maghara, with small garrisons further south at Hassana and Nekhl. About the same time the railway towards El Arish, which had been making steady and uninterrupted progress, was in the neighbourhood of Bir Salmana, some four miles east of Bir el Abd. The Australian and New Zealand mounted troops, with a force of Yeomanry attached, had advanced from Romani, and were covering the advance and the railway construction east of Salmana with brigades thrown out to their flanks and rear.

2. On the 23rd October, in order to be in closer touch with the civil authority, I moved my General Headquarters from Ismailia to Cairo, and at the same time the new Headquarters of the Eastern Force came into existence at Ismailia under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Dobell, K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O. At the same time the headquarters of the Inspector-General of Communications, which had always been in Cairo, were merged in General Headquarters, and on the lapse of his appointment Lieutenant-General Sir E. A. Altham, K.C.B., C.M.G., to my great personal regret, returned to England.

3. The first half of November was mainly occupied in making the necessary arrangements for pressing forward our advance towards El Arish. In the south a small column under Brigadier-General P. C. Palin, C.B., marched on Sinn Bisher and Bir um Gurf, 30 miles south-east of Suez, on the 15th and 16th November, and attacked and drove off some enemy posted in the hills.

The Progress of the Desert Railway.

During the latter part of the month the cavalry gradually pushed forward in advance of the railway, which by 26th November reached Mazar. Reconnaissances by mounted troops were pushed forward to within 8 miles of El Arish by 17th November, when the enemy’s outposts were located at Ujret el Zol; on 28th November a mounted patrol was pushed through to Bir el Masmi, little more than 3 miles south-west of El Arish; and from this time our patrols were constantly in touch with the enemy’s position at El Arish-Masaid. Throughout the month the enemy’s aircraft showed considerable activity, attacking the railhead and the bivouacs of our advanced troops with bombs. Little damage, however, was done, and our own aircraft retained complete superiority in the air. The Royal Flying Corps in this month visited Magdhaba, Sheikh Zowaid, and Khan Yunus for reconnaissance purposes, and on the 11th November made very successful bomb attacks on Bir Saba and Magdhaba. At Bir Saba special attention was paid to the aerodrome and the railway station, both of which were damaged. Presumably in retaliation for the air raid at Bir Saba one hostile aeroplane dropped bombs on Cairo on the 13th, causing some casualties among the civil population and killing one private; no other damage of a military nature was done. The Royal Flying Corps promptly replied by heavily bombing the enemy’s camp at Magdhaba by moonlight on the same night. On the 17th November the enemy’s camps at Masaid were heavily bombed by four machines in reply to the appearance of a hostile machine at Suez the same morning.

By the 1st December the railway was east of Mazar. During the first week of December constant patrols were sent out by the cavalry, and the country was thoroughly reconnoitred in the area Mazar-Risan Aneiza—Bir Lahfan—Bir el Masmi. In the meantime the enemy maintained his position of El Arish and Masaid, and in order to afford him no inducement to withdraw until such time as I should be ready to strike, mounted patrols were ordered to be as unostentatious as possible.

4. On the 7th December Lieutenant-General Sir P. W. Chetwode, Bt., C.B., D.S.O., assumed command of the Desert Column, shortly afterwards moving his Headquarters from Bir el Abd to Mazar. Since January the force had gradually pushed right across the Sinai desert, fighting when necessary, organizing and constructing incessantly in the heavy sand and hot sun. The pressure on the enemy in other theatres and our success at Romani were undoubtedly contributing factors to this advance, but the main factor—without which all liberty of action and any tactical victory would have been nugatory—was work, intense and unremitting. To regain this peninsula, the true frontier of Egypt, hundreds of miles of road and railway had been built, hundreds of miles of water piping had been laid, filters capable of supplying 1,500,000 gallons of water a day, and reservoirs had been installed, and tons of stone transported from distant quarries. Kantara had been transformed from a small canal village into an important railway and water terminus with wharves and cranes and a railway ferry; and the desert, till then almost destitute of human habitation, showed the successive marks of our advance in the shape of strong positions firmly entrenched and protected by hundreds of miles of barbed wire, of standing camps where troops could shelter in comfortable huts, of tanks and reservoirs, of railway stations and sidings, of aerodromes and of signal stations and wireless installations, by all of which the desert was subdued and made habitable, and adequate lines of communication established between the advancing troops and their ever-receding base. Moreover, not only had British troops laboured incessantly through the summer and autumn, but the body of organized native labour had grown. The necessity of combining the protection and maintenance, including the important work of sanitation, of this large force of workers, British and native, with that steady progress on the railway, roads, and pipes which was vital to the success of my operations, put the severest strain upon all energies and resources. But the problem of feeding the workers without starving the work was solved by the good will and energy of all concerned.

Moreover, organization kept pace with construction. The equipment of the fighting units with camel transport, which had reached its first stage of completion at the time of the Romani battle, had been perfected by the middle of December, the allotment of camels to units having been worked out with the minutest precision. A large number of additional camels were provided for convoying supplies and water from the railhead to the front. The striking force was now completely mobile, and the troops had grown skilful in meeting the special problems of desert campaigning.

Water Difficulties.

5. But no organization could entirely overcome the chief difficulty which had faced us all through the year—the adequate provision of water for the troops. In fact, during this final period this difficulty was accentuated by the rapid advance of troops and railway with which the water supply could not keep pace. Moreover, my troops had passed out of the water-bearing Qatia basin, and had reached a tract in which local water was almost nonexistent. From Romani to Bir el Abd the local water, though generally somewhat brackish, had been always employed for the horses, mules, and camels, and it had been found that, if the necessary precautions were taken, it had no ill effect upon our troops, at all events for a limited period. East of Bir el Abd the situation is altogether different. Water is found in comparatively few and widely separated localities. Such as exists is generally too brackish for human consumption, and the wells east of the water line are so widely separated and are of so small capacity that it is a matter of great difficulty—sometimes a complete impossibility—to water any large number of animals. This latter fact greatly restricted the employment of mounted troops. During the first half of November, also, the pipe-line was not yet delivering water at Romani, and the water for the advanced troops had therefore to be brought up by rail in tank trucks and stored in improvised tanks at railway sidings made for that purpose. Since the railway had reached kilo. 109, considerable strain was thrown on its resources for this period owing to the necessity for maintaining the rate of construction, for forwarding material for the construction of the pipe-line, for supplying the troops, and for undertaking the long haulage of great quantities of water in addition. By the 17th November, however, the water situation was somewhat relieved by the delivery of water through the pipe-line at Romani. Thereafter the water difficulty again increased as the railway advanced, until the pipe-line delivered water at Bir el Abd, thereby again reducing the distance over which rail-borne water had to be carried. But as the month advanced the water question presented itself more insistently than ever. Every tactical preparation for the offensive had been made, naval co-operation planned, and arrangements made for the landing of stores and construction of piers as soon as El Arish was in my possession. But the difficulty of water supply, even with my advanced railhead, was immense. The enemy was so disposed as to cover all the available water in the neighbourhood of El Arish and Masaid. Between his position and ours, and south of his position, no water could be found; nor had search in the Wadi el-Arish south of the town, by parties sent in by night, proved more successful. The enemy was disposed in depth covering all the water in the area—there being about four miles between his outpost line and his third line of defence. If, therefore, he should be able to force us to spend two days in the operation of driving him from his position, it would be necessary to carry forward very large quantities of water on camels for the men and animals of the formations engaged. This entailed the establishment of a very large reserve of water at railhead, and the preparation of elaborate arrangements for the forwarding and distribution of water.

The Turkish garrison at El Arish consisted of some 1,600 infantry in all, in a strong entrenched position. Between the 9th and 14th December increased activity was shown by the Turks, and our aircraft and mounted patrols reported the construction of new works, while the enemy camps at Magdhaba and Abu Aweigila were reported to have increased in size. On these indications of a probable reinforcement to the enemy, the final preparations were pushed on with most strenuous determination. Had rain only fallen, an earlier move could have been made; but as it was, the water supply for the striking force was not adequately secured till 20th December.

Occupation of El Arish.

6. The swiftness of our final preparations was rewarded, but not immediately, by a successful engagement. We had been too quick for the enemy, but he had recognized it, and, knowing that reinforcements would arrive too late, had hurriedly withdrawn his troops from Masaid and El Arish. This retirement was reported by the Royal Flying Corps on the 20th December, and the Australian and New Zealand mounted troops and Imperial Camel Corps were ordered to move on El Arish the same night. Scottish troops were to move in support of the mounted troops. Accordingly, after a skilfully conducted march of twenty miles in the moonless night, the Australian Light Horse and Imperial Camel Corps surrounded the enemy’s position. Light Horse patrols reached El Arish about sunrise, and found it unoccupied. By 7.20 a.m. the Light Horse were east of El Arish, the Imperial Camel Corps south of the town, another party of Light Horse was about Masaid, and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles were at Masmi. During the day our aircraft reported about 1,600 of the enemy on the march in two columns in the neighbourhood of Magdhaba and Abu Aweigila. Sheikh Zowaid and Rafa appeared to be clear of the enemy. Maghara had been evacuated, and the enemy was apparently in process of withdrawing from the neighbouring posts. By the night of the 21st December, therefore, the re-occupation of El Arish had been effected, and the enemy was evacuating, or had evacuated, his positions west of a north and south line through that place, except those at Nekhl and Hassana. The aircraft, moreover, reported that the garrison of the latter place seemed also to be reduced.

On the 22nd December the Scottish troops were about El Arish and Bittia. Mine-sweeping operations were at once commenced in the roadstead under the direction of Captain A. H. Williamson, M.V.O., R.N., while the erection of a pier was taken in hand. In forty-eight hours the roadstead was cleared of mines, and the supply ships from Port Said began unloading stores and supplies on the 24th. Supplies were also hastened to El Arish by camel convoy, since it was of the utmost importance to accumulate at once a sufficient amount to give our mounted troops a further radius of action. Our aircraft were exceedingly active during the day. A successful attack was made on the railway bridge at Tel-el-Sharia, north of El Arish, El Auja and Bir Saba were effectively bombed, and two battalions of Turkish troops located by the Royal Flying Corps at Magdhaba, some 20 miles south of El Arish, were attacked with bombs by thirteen of our aeroplanes and suffered many casualties.

In order to emphasize the capture of El Arish, in the Southern Canal area a column assembled near Bir Mabeiuk on the 22nd December, and on the following days advanced through the Mitla Pass and by the Darb el Haj as far as Sudr el Heitan, more than halfway to Nekhl. This column destroyed various enemy posts and entrenchments, but, finding no enemy, returned on the 25th.

Battle of Magdhaba.

7. The enemy having temporarily succeeded in eluding us, it was of the utmost importance to strike any of his forces that remained within our reach. I had always anticipated that, should the enemy choose to abandon El Arish, his line of retreat would be through Magdhaba and Abu Aweigila towards El Auja. These anticipations were confirmed by the report of the Royal Flying Corps that an enemy force of about two regiments was at Magdhaba. It appeared likely that this force consisted of the 1,600 infantry which had composed the garrison of El Arish, and that it was preparing to hold Magdhaba as a rearguard. Orders were given that a mounted force should push forward with all haste against the enemy, and arrangements were made accordingly by General Sir Charles Dobell for the move of most of the Australian and New Zealand mounted troops, with the Imperial Camel Corps, against Magdhaba and Abu Aweigila on the night of the 22nd-23rd. Major-General Sir H. G. Chauvel, K.C.M.G., C.B., was in command of the column.

8. Starting at 12.45 a.m. on 23rd December, the flying column halted at 4.50 a.m. in an open plain about four miles from Magdhaba, whence the enemy’s bivouac fires could plainly be seen. General Chauvel, with his staff and subordinate commanders, immediately undertook a personal reconnaissance of the enemy’s position, and soon after 8 a.m., by which time the first aeroplane reports had been received, the attack was set in motion.

The enemy had taken up a position on both banks of the Wadi el-Arish, and was very strongly posted in a rough circle of from 3,000 to 3,500 yards diameter. Five large closed works, exceedingly well sited, formed the principal defences, and between these works was a system of well-constructed and concealed trenches and rifle pits.

General Chauvel’s plan of attack was as follows:—

The New Zealand Mounted Rifles and Australian Light Horse, both under the command of Brigadier-General E. W. C. Chaytor, C.B., were to move to the east of Magdhaba and to swing round to attack the enemy’s right and rear. The Imperial Camel Corps were to move direct against Magdhaba to attack the enemy in front—that is, from the north-west. Other Australian mounted troops were at the outset in reserve. Between 8.45 a.m. and 9.30 a.m. the attack developed, and at the latter hour General Chaytor moved a Light Horse Regiment and part of a Machine Gun Squadron on a wide turning movement round the rear of the enemy’s position with orders to come in from the south. A little later two regiments of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles were dispatched in more or less the same direction, though making a less wide detour, with orders to move on Magdhaba from the east. In the meantime the Imperial Camel Corps were making progress, though somewhat slowly.

At 10 a.m. the aircraft reports indicated the possibility that the enemy might try to escape. Thereupon General Chauvel ordered the mounted troops in reserve, less one regiment, to push in from the north-west. The troops moved forward at a trot, and, coming under shrapnel fire, increased the pace to a gallop. The enemy then opened a very heavy rifle and machine-gun fire; whereupon the force swung to its right, and gained cover in the Wadi, where, dismounting, it began an attack against the left of the enemy position.

Between noon and 1.30 p.m. the enemy’s position was practically surrounded, but for some little time it had been found increasingly difficult to make progress. The horse artillery batteries had been greatly hindered by the mirage and the difficulty of getting forward observation, the ground round the enemy’s position being absolutely flat and devoid of cover.

In the meantime reports were received from the Field Squadron that no water could be found. Unless Magdhaba could be taken during the day, therefore, it was probable that our troops would have to withdraw, as none of the horses had been watered since the evening of the 22nd, and the nearest water, except that in the enemy’s position, was at El Arish. General Chauvel reported the situation to the Desert Column accordingly, and received orders to maintain the attack.

But before this communication arrived the situation had begun to improve. Some Australian mounted troops, pressing on against the enemy’s left, captured a work on the west of the Wadi, taking about 100 prisoners. At 2 p.m. two regiments of the Australian Light Horse, coming in from the north-east, were within 200 yards of the position, in close touch with the Imperial Camel Corps advancing from the north-west. A quarter of an hour later the attack of a third regiment of this force was pressing heavily on the enemy from the south. By three o’clock the New Zealand Mounted Rifles were within 600 yards of the enemy’s trenches on the east.

From this time forward the pressure on the enemy increased from all sides. Before half-past three the force from the Wadi and the Imperial Camel Corps attacked the second line of the enemy’s trenches, and at four o’clock the former carried one of the main redoubts, taking 130 prisoners, including the Turkish Commander. Immediately after this, part of a Light Horse Regiment charged in from the south, mounted and with fixed bayonets, and by half-past four all organized resistance was over, and the enemy was surrendering everywhere.

The total number of prisoners taken in this fine action was 1,282, including some 50 wounded. A large number of the enemy were buried by our troops on the position. Four mountain guns, one machine gun, and 1,052 rifles were captured, and 200 more rifles were destroyed.

Our own casualties were 12 officers and 134 other ranks killed and wounded. It was possible to give every attention to our wounded before moving them back to El Arish, owing to the fact that the enemy had a permanent and well-equipped hospital at Magdhaba, to which they were taken as soon as the action was over.

The troops marched back to El Arish during the night of 23rd-24th December.

Battle of Rafa.

9. On 27th December the Royal Flying Corps reported that an entrenched position was being prepared by the enemy at Magruntein, near Rafa. Work on this position was continued during the following day, and it was occupied by a garrison equivalent to about two battalions with mountain guns. It was not at the moment possible for me, owing to difficulties of supply, to push on and occupy Rafa permanently. Since, however, the enemy had again placed a small detached garrison within striking distance of my mounted troops, I determined, if possible, to repeat the success at Magdhaba by surrounding and capturing the Magruntein position also. On 7th January I communicated this decision to General Dobell, who entrusted the operation to Lieutenant-General Sir Philip Chetwode, Bt., C.B., D.S.O., commanding the Desert Column, who set out from El Arish on the evening of the 8th-9th with a force consisting of Yeomanry, Australian and New Zealand mounted troops, and the Imperial Camel Corps, with a battery of artillery attached.

So efficiently and swiftly was the approach march carried out that the enemy was completely surprised, and by dawn on 9th January his position was almost entirely surrounded before he became aware of the presence of any large forces in his vicinity. The position, however, was a formidable one. It consisted of three strong series of works connected by trenches, one series facing west, one facing south-west, and one facing south and south-east. The whole was dominated by a central keep or redoubt, some 2,000 yards south-west of Rafa. Moreover, the ground in front of these works was entirely open and devoid of cover, and in their immediate neighbourhood was almost a glacis.

The guns, with which aeroplanes were co-operating, started to register at 7.20 a.m. The main attack, to be carried out by Major-General Sir H. G. Chauvel, K.C.M.G., C.B., General Officer Commanding Australian and New Zealand Mounted Troops, was timed for 10 a.m., with the New Zealand Mounted Rifles on the right, attacking from the east, some Australian Light Horse on their left, attacking from the east and south-east, while the Imperial Camel Corps attacked the works in their front from the south-east. A body of Australian Light Horse were in reserve and the Yeomanry in column reserve. Shortly after 10 a.m., parties of Turks, who were attempting to leave Rafa by the Khan Yunus road, were met and captured by the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, who galloped the Police barracks and Machine Gun post, capturing six Germans (including one officer), two Turkish officers, and 163 other ranks.

Before 11 a.m. Rafa was occupied, and two regiments of the troops in reserve were advanced against the works on the left of the troops attacking from the east and south-east. Some Australian Light Horse and the Camel Corps were ordered to press their attack on the works facing south-west, and about the same time the remainder of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, with a body of Light Horse, galloped an open space south of the Police post, and established themselves 300 yards east of the nearest enemy work. The Yeomanry were also ordered to deploy against the western works, and to attack in conjunction with the Camel Corps. The encircling movement was now practically complete, save for a gap in the north-west between the New Zealand Brigade and the Yeomanry.

At 12.20 p.m. one of the Horse Artillery batteries moved forward some 1,500 yards to support the attack of the Yeomanry. By 1 o’clock our troops were within 600 yards of the southern and western trenches, which were being shelled with good effect by our artillery. By 2 p.m. the right of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles had linked up with the left of the Yeomanry, and was pressing its attack on the rear of one of the enemy’s works. General Chetwode now issued orders for a concerted attack on the “Redoubt,” or central keep, by the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, and all other available troops of the Australian and New Zealand mounted force, to commence at 3.30 p.m. The Yeomanry was ordered to co-operate against the rear of the work. By 3.15 p.m. two of the enemy’s works had been captured and further prisoners had been taken.

While the attack on the central redoubt was developing, information was received, both from patrols and from the Royal Flying Corps, that an enemy relieving force was marching from Shellal on Rafa. This force was attacked frequently with bombs and machine-gun fire by our aeroplanes with success. General Chetwode did not allow this threat, which complicated his situation, to affect the execution of his purpose. He at once gave orders for the attack to be pressed with vigour. The troops, admirably supported by the artillery, advanced with great gallantry, and at 4.45 p.m. the New Zealand Mounted Rifles captured the redoubt with brilliant dash, covering the last 800 yards in two rushes, supported by machine-gun fire. By this achievement they were able to take the lower lying works in reverse, and these soon fell to the Camel Corps, the Yeomanry, and the Australian Light Horse. By 5.30 p.m. all organized resistance was over, and the enemy’s position with all its garrison was captured, while a detachment of the Australian Light Horse, which had come in contact with the force marching from Shellal, drove off the enemy without difficulty. Our troops now withdrew, taking with them all prisoners, animals, and material captured; one regiment and a light car patrol, which were left to clear the battlefield, withdrew unmolested on the following day.

In this fine action, which lasted for ten hours, the entire enemy force, with its commander, was accounted for. More than 1,600 unwounded prisoners were taken, including one German officer and five German non-commissioned officers. In addition, six machine guns, four mountain guns, and a number of camels and mules were captured. Our casualties were comparatively light, amounting to 487 in all, of which 71 were killed, 415 wounded, and one was missing.

Result of Operations.

10. The result of these successful operations was that the province of Sinai, which for two years had been partially occupied by the Turks, was freed of all formed bodies of Turkish troops. The destruction of his rearguard at Magdhaba compelled the enemy to withdraw from Maghara, Hassana, and Nekhl, all of which were clear by the 31st December, and the victory at Magruntein had driven him over the frontier at Rafa, which he did not attempt to reoccupy. For this achievement I am greatly indebted to Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Dobell, K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., and his Staff for their unremitting efforts during the whole period to make our advance, as it was, rapid and decisive. To them are mainly due the excellent organization and dispositions which ensured success without delay, and, above all, the perfection of arrangements for maintaining the troops in a waterless district far ahead of the railway, without which the dash and endurance of our troops would have been of no avail. The foresight, rapid decision, and excellent arrangements of General Sir P. Chetwode and the Staff of the Desert Column, the skilful leadership of General Chauvel, the cheerful endurance by the troops concerned of the fatigue and hardships entailed by the Magdhaba operations, and their gallantry and dash at Magruntein, are also worthy of the highest praise. During the actions the work of the Royal Flying Corps in co-operation with the mounted troops was admirable. Not only were the enemy harassed with bombs and machine-gun fire throughout, but the aircraft reconnaissance was as reliable as it was untiring. General Chauvel and General Chetwode were kept constantly and accurately informed both of the enemy’s movements and of the progress of their own widely dispersed troops, and the co-operation of the aircraft with the artillery was excellent. During the engagement at Magruntein the Royal Flying Corps, besides attacking the entrenched enemy and his relieving column, made a very successful raid on Bir Saba.

11. As a result of the action near Rafa the enemy immediately began to concentrate his forces near Shellal, west of which place he began rapidly to prepare a strong defensive position near Weli Sheikh Nuran, with the object of covering his lines of communication and supply along the railway running into Bir Saba from the north, and along the Jerusalem-Hebron-Bir Saba road. The preparation of this position has continued up to the present date. During the earlier portion of January considerable activity was shown by the enemy’s aircraft, both in reconnaissances and in small bombing raids. On the other hand, the effect of our recent success on his moral was proved by the very marked increase in the number of deserters who came into our lines.

In the meantime arrangements had been progressing with a view to the concentration of additional troops towards El Arish.

In general, the period following the action at Magruntein was, on my eastern front, devoted to preparations for a further advance. Invaluable work was done during this period by the Royal Navy in transporting and landing supplies from the sea at El Arish. The coast is exceptionally unfavourable for operations of this kind, owing to strong currents, a shelving and shifting beach, and a heavy surf. Nevertheless, owing to the whole-hearted co-operation of Vice-Admiral Sir R. E. Wemyss, K.C.B., C.M.G., M.V.O., and those under him, a large amount of stores and supplies was landed. Before the end of the month the railway station at El Arish was completed.

12. During the month of February, on the eastern front, the railway, in spite of many difficulties, owing to the heavy sand, was gradually pushed out along the coast. The period generally was devoted to the perfection of the El Arish position, and to energetic training of the troops. Our cavalry patrols kept the country up to and beyond Rafa continuously under observation, and steps were taken to bring in the local Bedouins.

On 23rd February, information having been received that Khan Yunus had been evacuated, a reconnaissance was carried out against that place by the New Zealand Mounted Rifles. The column, arriving at dawn, found the position strongly held, and, after manœuvring the enemy out of his front line of defence and capturing prisoners, withdrew without difficulty. Continuous pressure maintained by our troops in this neighbourhood, however, induced the enemy to withdraw the garrison of Khan Yunus, which was entered by our cavalry without opposition on 28th February.

The Campaign in the Interior.

During the month also a successful minor operation was carried out in the interior of the Sinai Peninsula. Information having been received that the enemy had re-established small posts at Hassana and Nekhl, with the object of regaining his prestige in the eyes of the Bedouins, I ordered a combined operation against those two places to be undertaken by three mobile columns of cavalry and camelry—one column starting from El Arish against Hassana, and two starting from Serapeum and Suez respectively, against Nekhl. The advance was so timed that all the columns should arrive at their destinations at dawn on 18th February. The column from El Arish surrounded Hassana by daybreak on the 18th. The garrison of three officers and nineteen other ranks at once surrendered without resistance. The town was searched, and a few camels, 21 rifles, and 2,400 rounds of small-arms ammunition were found.

The northernmost of the Nekhl columns, leaving Zogha (some twenty-three miles east of the Great Bitter Lake), which was its point of concentration, marched through the Baha Pass to Themada, twenty-five miles north-west of Nekhl, where it arrived on the 16th. On the following day a patrol sent forward towards the Nekhl-Hassana road was fired on from the hills, and in the afternoon it was further reported that the road was clear and that men could be seen leaving Nekhl in an easterly direction. The advanced patrol captured four of the enemy and ten camels, but was prevented from crossing the plain east of Nekhl by rifle fire from about fifty of the enemy who had temporarily halted in the foothills on the Nekhl-Akaba road. Nekhl was entered that evening by a squadron of the Australian Light Horse, who captured two Bedouins and one Turk, the town being otherwise empty. Further pursuit of the enemy was impossible owing to darkness, and the remnants of the garrison were able to make good their escape eastwards along the waterless road towards Akaba. The main body entered Nekhl at dawn on the 18th, and the Southern Column from Suez reached the town at 9 a.m. The latter column, which included detachments of Indian infantry, had marched from Abu Tif (20 miles south-east of Suez) through the difficult Bir Abu Garad Pass to Ain Sudr, and thence to Nekhl. The total captures at Nekhl were eleven prisoners, one field gun, a number of rifles, 16,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition, 250 rounds of gun ammunition, and a quantity of stores and explosives. These well-executed and carefully organized operations gave one more proof to the enemy of the mobility of our mounted troops, and of their power to strike over considerable stretches of waterless desert. The excellent arrangements for the Nekhl operation reflect great credit on Brigadier-General P. C. Palin, C.B., and his staff.

The Western Front.

13. During most of the period under review the Western Front has been quiet. My advance to the Baharia and Dakhla Oases was accomplished without opposition, and the subsequent task on that front was that of policing its large area and guarding against the possibility of further raids on the part of the Senussi.

On 4th October Major-General W. A. Watson, C.B., C.I.E., took over the command of the Western Force. By this date a column had already been concentrated at Shusha, three miles west of Samalut, for the purpose of conducting operations in the Baharia Oasis. A few days later, however, reliable intelligence was received to the effect that Sayed Ahmed, who had already left the Dakhla Oasis for Baharia, had left Baharia for Siwa on 9th October, the majority of his force preceding him, the rearguard following on the next day. It is probable that the news of my impending advance and the sickness and lack of food in the oasis, which impaired the moral of his troops, were deciding factors in determining his retreat. An immediate endeavour to intercept the enemy’s rearguard was made by concentrating all available light armed cars west of Baharia, but the distance to be covered and the sandy nature of the country prevented the success of the attempt. Small mobile columns were at once pushed into the oases of Baharia (110 miles west of Samalut) and Dahkla (75 miles west of Kharga), and all the enemy who had not accompanied the retreat, some 300 in number, were captured with little resistance. The Harra wells on the edge of the Baharia Oasis were captured by a detachment of the Imperial Camel Corps on the 17th, and on the 19th a detachment of the same corps entered the oasis and took possession of the villages of Harra, Mendisha, Bawitti, and Kasr. This oasis was soon completely in our possession, and the Baharia railway commenced receiving traffic. A light Car Patrol and a detachment of Imperial Camel Corps, starting from Kharga, covered 70 miles of desert and occupied Tenida, in the Dakhla Oasis, by the 17th. The light cars pushed on to Budkulu, capturing a tabur of 45 men and 10 camels; and on the 19th the Camel Corps detachment reached Bir Sheikh Mohammed, five miles west of Kasr Dahkla, and captured 40 more prisoners. From the 20th to the 22nd a thorough “drive” was made of the oasis, with a systematic search of the villages, which resulted in the capture of 50 more of the enemy, besides many political prisoners. By the end of the month the oasis was entirely clear of the enemy.

During the following month permanent garrisons were established in these two oases. The Baharia garrison marched out on 6th November and encamped on the escarpment at Legalit Gate, where a very healthy site has been found. The inhabitants, who were undoubtedly glad to be rid of the Senussi, all turned out to welcome the troops, and so far throughout the oasis the latter have always been well received. General Watson himself visited the oasis on 16th November, and held a durbar on the 17th at Bawitti, which was attended by the Omdas, Sheikhs, and principal inhabitants. The Union Jack was hoisted in the presence of a guard of honour. On 15th November a patrol left Legalit to reconnoitre the Farafra Oasis. The town of Farafra was entered on the 19th. All Senussi followers were separated from the inhabitants, and a search made for arms, with the result that 18 Senussi prisoners and 12 rifles were taken. The patrol left Farafra on the 20th.

During December General Watson visited Dakhla and held a durbar on the 19th. The task of re-instituting civil administration in both the Baharia and Dakhla Oases has now been taken over by the civil authorities, to the gratification of the inhabitants, and trade is being encouraged as much as possible.

In the other sections of the Western Front the work done by the light and armoured cars, owing to the dash and enterprise of their officers, has been uniformly excellent. They are the terror of all the ill-disposed in the Western Desert, and to them, as much as to any, is due the satisfactory state of things which exists throughout from the coast down to the Fayum. The geographical information obtained by these patrols is also invaluable.

14. During October, under the direction of the Italian authorities, a combined British and Italian naval reconnaissance was carried out at Ageila, 32 miles west of Tobruk, where a large camp of followers of Idris and Nuri, with guns and a quantity of ammunition, was reported. The camp was shelled, serious casualties being inflicted. On 27th October a light armoured car patrol, accompanied by Lieutenant Tescione of the Italian Army, reconnoitred an enemy camp at Zowia Jansur, the Muhafzia holding the camp being driven off into the sand dunes by machine-gun fire. During November and December much valuable information of the desert routes in the Coastal Section was obtained by patrols. In the Maghara Section several attempts were made by the light car patrols to find a practicable route to the El Qara Oasis, but the boggy ground and high sand dunes on each occasion defeated the attempt. Towards the end of November an interesting and useful reconnaissance was made from Aswan through the Kurkur Oasis to Beris, on the southernmost end of the Kharga Oasis. The total distance covered was 336 miles.

15. During the month of January I received intelligence that Sayed Ahmed, the Grand Senussi, with his Commander-in-Chief, Mohammed Saleh, whose force amounted to some 1,200 men, was making preparations to depart from the Siwa Oasis and to retire to Jaghbub. With the intention of capturing Sayed Ahmed if possible, and of inflicting as much loss as possible on his followers, I gave orders on the 21st January that operations were to be undertaken against the Siwa and Girba Oases at the earliest possible moment by a mixed force, to consist of Imperial Camel Companies and armoured cars. Preparations for the march of such a force, however, over the 200 miles of waterless desert between Mersa Matruh and Siwa would have taken at least one month, and the expenditure of so much time was put out of the question by a reliable report received towards the end of the month that Sayed Ahmed and his followers were on the point of leaving Siwa. I therefore ordered an immediate reconnaissance of the Siwa and Girba Oases, to be undertaken by a column consisting entirely of armoured motor cars, and supplied by motor transport based on Mersa Matruh, with the object of verifying the above report, and of inflicting as much loss as possible on such part of the enemy forces as might be met with. Command of this column was entrusted to Brigadier-General H. W. Hodgson, C.V.O., C.B., whose plan was to attack the enemy camp at Girba with his main body, and to detach two armoured motor batteries to block the pass at Garet-el-Munasib—the only pass between Siwa and Jaghbub practicable for camels—so that should Sayed Ahmed, as was probable, take to flight, casualties might be inflicted on his retreating column by the detached batteries, and his march be deflected into the waterless sand dunes.

16. The fighting force of three light armoured batteries and three light car patrols was concentrated at Mersa Matruh by the evening of the 29th January. Owing, however, to a severe sandstorm, some of the heavy lorries of the heavy supply column did not arrive there from Dabaa till the 31st. The light supply column moved out from Mersa Matruh on the same day, and the fighting force moved out early the following morning. The column, having halted for the night on the road, moved to the point of concentration halfway between Gebel Lamlaz and Neqb el Shegga Pass, 185 miles from Matruh. This long march over the desert track was carried out in good time, and all units reached the point of concentration on 2nd February. After a reconnaissance towards the Siwa Oasis, orders were given for an advance on Girba—at the western end of the Siwa Oasis—on the following day, and for the move of the detachment allotted to block the Munasib Pass.

By 9 a.m. on 3rd February all units had successfully descended the pass north-east of Girba and moved off to the attack, the advanced guard being divided into three parties of two armoured cars each, one of which was to attack each of the three enemy camps already located. The enemy was located in rough ground close under the rocky escarpment; he was completely surprised by the arrival of the armoured cars, and thrown into considerable confusion. Brisk fire was opened on the enemy, who at once took to the cliffs and rocks beyond the camps and returned our fire. The advanced guard was now reinforced, but, owing to the very rough nature of the country, it was impossible for the cars to approach nearer than a distance of 800 yards from the enemy without serious risk of getting stuck. As the action progressed, it became evident that the enemy, who was engaging the armoured cars with two guns and two machine guns, was in considerable force and did not intend to retire without a fight. Information obtained from deserters showed that the strength of the enemy at Girba was 850, while Sayed Ahmed, Mohammed Saleh, and some 400 or 500 men were at Siwa. As afterwards appeared, Mohammed Saleh left to take command at Girba at the beginning of the engagement, while Sayed Ahmed and his force made off to the westward. General Hodgson, who made skilful arrangements for extricating his force in case of a threat directed by the Siwa party on his left flank and rear, continued the action all day. The light armoured cars, though unable to get closer than 400 yards from the enemy’s position, kept the enemy under an accurate fire, inflicting some casualties. Towards evening the enemy’s fire died down, though occasional bursts were fired from his machine guns during the night.

At 5 a.m. on the 4th February the enemy fired four final rounds from his guns and several bursts of machine-gun fire. Fires were seen beyond his camp, movements of men and animals could be distinguished, and the sounds of small-arms ammunition being burnt were heard. By dawn he had completely evacuated his position. The rest of the day was spent in destroying the enemy’s camp, reconnoitring towards Siwa and resting the troops, and on the following morning, 5th February, the column entered Siwa without opposition. A parade, at which the local sheikhs were assembled, was held before the court-house, and a salute of nine guns fired with a Krupp gun that had been brought from Matruh in a motor lorry. Arrangements were then made for the collection of all rifles, and for the repair of the passes leading down to the escarpment. The reception given to our troops by the inhabitants of the oasis was friendly, and reports from them confirmed the fact that the enemy had incurred considerable casualties. The column left the town on the same afternoon, and reached the point of concentration on the following day.

Meanwhile, the Munasib detachment, consisting of armoured cars and a light car patrol, had reached its position on the evening of the 3rd February. It was found impossible to get the armoured cars down the steep escarpment, and they were forced to remain at a point 18 miles north of Munasib during the operations. The light car patrol and one car managed to get down the escarpment and take up a position at Munasib. On the 4th this detachment captured a small convoy of mailbags proceeding east to Siwa, and on the 5th it was able to intercept and cut up the leading parties of the enemy retreating from Girba. Subsequently the enemy established a post out of reach of the cars, and warned all subsequent parties of the enemy to turn into the sand dunes before reaching the pass. The detachment was therefore ordered to return to the point of concentration, as there was no chance of further successful action. The whole column returned to Matruh on the 8th February, having sustained no casualties to personnel beyond three officers slightly wounded, or to material besides the loss of one tender with broken springs. The enemy’s losses were 40 killed, including two Senussi officers, and 200 wounded, including five Turkish officers; 70 rifles were brought in and 150 destroyed; 3,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition were brought in and 2,000 destroyed, besides what was burnt by the enemy; 40 of the enemy’s camels were killed, and a large number of shelters and tents were burnt.

17. Though the capture of Sayed Ahmed and Mohammed Saleh was wanting to the complete success of the operations, the fighting troops—supported most admirably by the supply column working under extremely arduous conditions—accomplished all that was possible under the circumstances, and great credit is due to General Hodgson and his staff. The expedition, which at my request was accompanied by Captain Caccia, the Italian Military Attaché, dealt a rude blow to the moral of the Senussi, left the Grand Senussi himself painfully making his way to Jaghbub through the rugged and waterless dunes, and freed my western front from the menace of his forces.

On 14th February No. 2 Light Armoured Car Battery left Sollum to reconnoitre the road to Melfa. During this reconnaissance two enemy caravans were met and destroyed.

18. The outstanding features of the period covered by this dispatch have been: on the eastern front the rapid progress of the railways, and on the western front the work of the armoured cars. For the speed at which the railway has been pushed out along the desert to El Arish and beyond, the greatest credit is due to Colonel Sir G. Macauley, K.C.M.G., C.B., Director of Railways, the officers of his staff, and the officers and men of the railway companies. In spite of endless difficulties owing to heavy sand and lack of water, they maintained by their strenuous efforts a rate of advance which was not far behind that of the fighting troops, and were largely instrumental in enabling the latter to keep the enemy under a continual pressure.

I have already referred to the excellent work of the armoured cars and light car patrols on the western front. Their mobility, and the skill and energy with which they are handled, have made them an ideal arm for the western desert, where the sand is not so heavy as on the east. It is not too much to say that the successful clearance of the western oases, and the satisfactory state of affairs which now exists on the western front, are due more to the dash and enterprise of the armoured car batteries and the light car patrols than to any other cause, and the enemy has found many times to his cost that their range of action is far beyond that of any troops mounted on horses or camels.

The work of the Imperial Camel Corps has been excellent throughout. This corps includes Australian, New Zealand, and Imperial units, and the efficiency of the camel companies is largely due to the efforts of the instructional staff at the headquarters of the corps at Abbassia, which has been continuously engaged in their training.

A great deal of the work of supplying the troops on both fronts has been done by the Camel Transport Corps, a unit which has been raised in this country since the commencement of operations, and which has invariably carried out its duties with the utmost efficiency.

The execution of the enormous amount of work necessitated by our advance on the eastern front would have been quite impossible had it not been for the Egyptian Labour Corps, which began to be recruited in this country early in 1916. The officers of this corps have been largely found among gentlemen who are resident in this country and are familiar with the language and customs of the population.

My relations with the High Commissioner, General Sir F. R. Wingate, G.C.B., G.C.V.O., K.C.M.G., D.S.O., have always been most cordial, and I should like to express my gratitude for his ready assistance and valuable advice, which have always been at my disposal.

I also wish to express my grateful appreciation of the services of all the officers employed as King’s Messengers. The risks involved were not small, as is proved by the fact that one officer was drowned, and another, when his ship was torpedoed, was forced to sink his dispatches; nevertheless, this duty has always been faithfully and efficiently performed.

I have, in a former dispatch, referred to the admirable work of the Red Cross and Order of St. John in this country, under the direction of Sir Courtauld Thomson, C.B. I desire now to express my obligation to those ladies and gentlemen who have given voluntary aid in connection with these institutions, and who have worked with a devotion deserving of the highest praise in the interests of the sick and wounded. Not only have they earned the gratitude of the individuals they looked after, but also they deserve the thanks of their country, as they have materially contributed towards the rapid convalescence, and therefore to the maintenance of the fighting efficiency, of the forces under my command.

The operations which I have had the honour to describe in this dispatch, and which have resulted in the freeing of Egyptian territory of all formed bodies of the enemy, could not have been successfully carried out by the forces in the field but for the devotion, energy, and skill of the Headquarters Staff, and Heads of the Administrative Services.

I have on previous occasions expressed my appreciation of the able manner in which Major-General A. L. Lynden Bell, C.B., C.M.G., Chief of the General Staff, has discharged his duties. I wish again to bring this officer prominently to notice for his admirable work during the period under review.

The abolition of the Inspector-Generalship, Lines of Communication, has thrown upon my deputy Quartermaster-General, Major-General W. Campbell, C.B., D.S.O., and my Deputy Adjutant-General, Major-General J. Adye, C.B., the whole of the work previously performed by the Inspector-General of Communications, and these duties they have had to discharge in addition to the normal work in connection with an Army in the Field. The eastward advance has also now lengthened the lines of communication to something like 200 miles. I wish, therefore, specially to acknowledge the excellent work done by these two officers, and I shall have the pleasure of bringing before you the names of a number of Officers of the Administrative Services in this connection.

I wish to bring to your notice the excellent manner in which my Assistant Military Secretary, Lieutenant-Colonel S. H. Pollen, C.M.G., has performed the exceptionally heavy work of his department.

A list of those Officers, Non-commissioned officers, and men whom I desire to bring to your special notice in connection with these operations will be forwarded at an early date.

I have the honour to be,

Your Lordship’s most obedient Servant,

A. J. MURRAY, General,

Commander-in-Chief, Egyptian Expeditionary Force.

The Secretary of State for War has received the following dispatch addressed to the Chief of the General Staff, India, by Lieutenant-General Sir Stanley Maude, K.C.B., Commander-in-Chief, Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force:—

General Headquarters,

Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force,

April 10, 1917.

Sir,

1. I have the honour to submit herewith a report on the operations carried out by the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force for the period extending from August 28, 1916, the date upon which I assumed command of the Army, until March 31, 1917, three weeks after the fall of Baghdad.

2. The area over which the responsibilities of the Army extended was a wide one, embracing Falahiyeh, on the Tigris; Ispahan (exclusive), in Persia; Bushire, on the Persian Gulf; and Nasariyeh, on the Euphrates. Briefly put, the enemy’s plan appeared to be to contain our main forces on the Tigris, whilst a vigorous campaign, which would directly threaten India, was being developed in Persia. There were indications, too, of an impending move down the Euphrates towards Nasariyeh. To disseminate our troops in order to safeguard the various conflicting interests involved would have relegated us to a passive defensive everywhere, and it seemed clear from the outset that the true solution of the problem was a resolute offensive, with concentrated forces, on the Tigris, thus effectively threatening Baghdad, the centre from which the enemy’s columns were operating. Such a stroke pursued with energy and success would, it was felt, automatically relieve the pressure in Persia and on the Euphrates, and preserve quiet in all districts with the security of which we were charged.

This then was the principle which guided the subsequent operations, which may be conveniently grouped into phases as follows:—

Preliminary Preparations: 28th August to
12th December.

3. It was of paramount importance, in view of the approach of the rainy season, that no undue delay should take place in regard to the resumption of active operations, but before these could be undertaken with reasonable prospect of success it was necessary:—

It was therefore considered desirable to retain General Headquarters at Basrah till the end of October, in order to systematize, co-ordinate and expand (b) and (c), whilst (a) and (d) continued concurrently and subsequently.

4. Steady progress was made on the lines so carefully designed and developed by my predecessor, Lieut.-General Sir Percy Lake, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., to whom my warm thanks are due for the firm foundations which had been laid for the ensuing winter campaign. The growth of Basrah as a military port and base continued, and the laying of railways was completed. The subsidence of the floods and the organization of local and imported labour removed obstacles which had hitherto hindered development, although conversely the lack of water in the rivers, and consequent groundings of rivercraft, gave rise to anxiety from time to time. The Directorate of Inland Water Transport was created, and accessions of men and material arrived from overseas, as well as additional rivercraft; whilst the influx of adequate and experienced personnel for the Directorates of Port Administration and Conservancy, Works, Railways, Supply and Transport and Ordnance enabled these services to cope more adequately with their responsibilities in maintaining the field Army. Hospital accommodation was reviewed and still further expanded, whilst the Remount and Veterinary Services were overhauled and reconstituted. Changes were also made in the organization of the Army, the grouping of formations and units was readjusted, and alterations were made in the system of command. The line of communication defences was recast and additional lines of communication units for administrative purposes were provided. Establishments for all units whether on the various fronts or on the L. of C., were fixed, whilst the provision of mechanical transport and an increase in animals and vehicles enabled the land transport with the Force to be reconstituted.

5. During the latter part of October the Army was fortunate in receiving a visit from the incoming Commander-in-Chief in India, General Sir Charles Monro, G.C.M.G., K.C.B. His Excellency made an extended tour of the theatre of operations, and his advice and comments on various matters are of the greatest value to myself personally, whilst the Army hailed his visit with the liveliest satisfaction, feeling that he would assume his office with first-hand and sympathetic knowledge of our needs and difficulties.

6. Matters had by this time developed so satisfactorily that during His Excellency’s visit General Headquarters were moved to the front at Arab Village. Before joining there myself I carried out short tours of inspection on the Karun front at Ahwaz, proceeding as far as the Oilfields, so as to make further provision for their local security, and on the Euphrates front at Nasariyeh. At both places satisfactory conditions prevailed.

By the end of November preliminary preparations were well advanced. A steady stream of reinforcements had been moving up the Tigris for some weeks, and drafts were joining their units, making good the wastage of the summer. The troops had shaken off the ill-effects of the hot weather, and their war training had improved. Stores, ammunition, and supplies were accumulating rapidly at the front, our communications were assured, and it seemed clear that it was only a matter of days before offensive operations could be justifiably undertaken. Training camps which had been formed at Amarah were broken up, and the general concentration upstream of Sheikh Sa’ad was completed.

7. At the beginning of December the enemy still occupied the same positions on the Tigris front which he had occupied during the summer. On the left bank of the Tigris he held the Sannaiyat position, flanked on one side by the Suwaikieh Marsh and on the other by the river. In this position he had withstood our attacks on three occasions during the previous April. Since then he had strengthened and elaborated this trench system, and a series of successive positions extended back as far as Kut, fifteen miles in the rear. The river bank from Sannaiyat to Kut was also entrenched.

On the right bank of the Tigris the enemy held the line to which he had withdrawn in May when he evacuated the Sinn position. This line extended from a point on the Tigris three miles north-east of Kut in a south-westerly direction across the Khadairi Bend to the River Hai, two miles below its exit from the Tigris, and thence across the Hai to the north-west. There was a pontoon bridge across the Hai near its junction with the Tigris which was protected by the trench system in that vicinity. These defences also covered the approaches from the east and south to another pontoon bridge which the Turks had constructed across the Tigris on the eastern side of the Shumran peninsula. The enemy occupied the line of the Hai for several miles below the bridgehead position with posts and mounted Arab auxiliaries.

On the left bank of the Tigris our trenches were within 120 yards of the Turkish front line at Sannaiyat. On the right bank our troops were established some eleven miles upstream of Sannaiyat, with advanced posts about two miles from those of the Turks opposite the Khadairi Bend, and some five miles from his position on the Hai.

In the positions outlined above desultory warfare, with intermittent artillery and aerial activity, had continued for some months.

Strategically we were better situated than the enemy. The withdrawal of the bulk of his troops from the right bank of the Tigris left him with his communications in prolongation of his battle front. If we established ourselves on the Hai it would mean that we should be able to strike at those communications, or at least at the point of junction between his field units and his communications. On the other hand, we were exposed to no such danger. The Suwaikieh Marsh, although it protected the northern flank of the Sannaiyat position, also formed an obstacle which necessitated a wide detour through a district at times marshy, at others waterless, to reach the river line behind us. Again, our troops were suitably disposed to meet any attempt from the Hai to turn our left flank, and thus strike our communications—a movement which would have involved long marches, with difficulties as regards water and supplies.

It was decided therefore to operate as follows:—First, to secure possession of the Hai; secondly, to clear the Turkish trench systems still remaining on the right bank of the Tigris; thirdly, to sap the enemy’s strength by constant attacks, and give him no rest; fourthly, to compel him to give up the Sannaiyat position, or in default of that, to extend his attenuated forces more and more to counter our strokes against his communications; and lastly, to cross the Tigris at the weakest part of his line as far west as possible, and so sever his communications. In carrying out this programme our extended line offered good opportunities for making successful feints to cover our real intention.

The Consolidation of our Position on the Hai:
from 13th December to 4th January.

8. By the 12th the concentration of our troops upstream of Sheikh Sa’ad was complete. To the force under Lieut.-General A. S. Cobbe, V.C., K.C.B., D.S.O., was assigned the task of holding the enemy to his positions on the left bank of the Tigris and of piqueting the right bank as far as Sinn Banks, while the cavalry and the force under Lieut.-General W. R. Marshall, K.C.B., were, by a surprise march, to secure and entrench a position on the Hai.

During the night of the 12th-13th Lieut.-General Marshall’s force completed its concentration in the forward area on the right bank. On the 13th General Headquarters moved forward to Sinn, whilst Lieut.-General Cobbe bombarded the Turkish trenches on the left bank, so as to give the impression that an attack on Sannaiyat was intended.

On the night of the 13th-14th the cavalry and Lieut.-General Marshall’s force marched westward to the Hai, and at 6 a.m. crossed that river at Basrugiyeh and Atab respectively. The enemy was surprised, and the force, pivoting on its right, moved up the left (or eastern) bank of the Hai, whilst the cavalry cleared the right (or western) bank, driving the enemy’s advanced troops back on to the Hai bridgehead position, which was strongly held. Two pontoon bridges were thrown across the Hai at Atab, the right flank of the force under Lieut.-General Marshall was secured by linking up its old front line defences with its new position on the Hai, and Lieut.-General Cobbe continued to demonstrate against Sannaiyat.

During the night of the 14th-15th our aeroplanes, flying by moonlight, bombed the Turkish bridge over the Tigris east of the Shumran peninsula, which the enemy was endeavouring to move further upstream, and the pontoons, breaking adrift, were scattered. By the 18th the enemy succeeded in reestablishing this bridge to the west of Shumran.

Between the 15th and 18th Lieut.-General Marshall extended his hold northwards and westwards, and pressure against the enemy’s Hai bridgehead position was continued, whilst bombardments destroyed his bridge and sunk several of his pontoon ferries. Except for some patrolling and sniping, the enemy showed no offensive enterprise; but he worked hard at his defences every night.

On the 18th we interposed between the two Turkish trench systems on the right bank of the Tigris opposite Kut, thus severing the enemy’s lateral communications on this bank, and giving us command of the river upstream of the Khadairi Bend. The extent of river line to be watched by Lieut.-General Cobbe was now extended up to this point.

9. The remainder of the month and the first part of January were devoted to consolidating our position on the Hai. Communications were improved by making additional bridges and by the construction of roads, and the light railway was pushed forward to the Hai. Operations were hampered by heavy rain which fell during the last week in December and the first week in January, flooding large tracts of country, and by a sudden rise in the river which occurred early in the new year. The single-line light railway and the land transport were materially affected, and only sheer determination on the part of those concerned enabled them to carry on their functions under these trying conditions.

Where the ground was not too sodden by rain and floods our cavalry was constantly engaged during this period in reconnaissances, in harassing the enemy’s communications west of the Hai, and in raids, capturing stock and grain. For example, on the 18th the cavalry, with a detachment of infantry, operating west of Shumran, drove the enemy from his trenches and shelled his bridge and shipping, and on the 20th, while a similar raid was being made against the Shumran bridge area and bombardments were being carried out around Kut and at Sannaiyat, a column of all arms essayed to bridge the Tigris four miles west of Shumran. But as our arrival there had been anticipated by the enemy, and the further bank was found to be strongly entrenched, the troops were ordered to withdraw after some gallant attempts to launch pontoons had been made, and after some Turks found on the right bank had been taken prisoners.

As the result of our occupation of the Hai, we had:—

The Operations in the Khadairi Bend:
5th to 19th January.

10. It was evident that the enemy intended to maintain his hold on the right bank of the Tigris, and preparations were accordingly made to reduce these trench systems. His position in the Khadairi Bend was a menace to our communications with the Hai, for in the event of a high flood he could inundate portions of our line by opening the river bunds. It was therefore decided to clear the Khadairi Bend in the first instance, and this operation was assigned to the force under Lieut.-General Cobbe. The enemy held a well-prepared line some 2,600 yards long, facing east. The ground in front was flat and bare, except for a belt of low brushwood along the river bank on the northern flank. At the southern end, 200 yards from the river and parallel to it, was a double row of sandhills, on which the enemy had constructed a strong point with covered-in machine-gun emplacements. The front of the position was swept by fire from both flanks from the left bank of the river. There was a second line in the rear, at distances varying from 500 to 1,000 yards from the front line, whilst between the two were trenches and nalas prepared for defence. The southern portion of the second line, and some sandhills 400 yards behind it, formed a last position, and the garrison had communication with the left bank by means of ferries, which, owing to the conformation of the river bend, were protected from direct rifle and machine-gun fire so long as this retired position was held.

Our troops drove in the Turkish advanced posts, but progress was slow, as many of the trenches had to be made by sapping. On the 7th our trenches were within 200 to 350 yards of the enemy, the rain had ceased, and as the ground was beginning to dry, preparations for the assault were made. This preliminary stage had involved digging some 25,000 yards of trench under trying conditions—constant rain and exposure to enfilade, as well as direct fire.

On the 7th and 8th bombardments were carried out. On the 9th a successful assault was delivered with small loss on a front of 600 yards against the southern end of the Turkish line, but a thick mist hindered further artillery support and facilitated counter-attack by the enemy. Severe hand-to-hand fighting ensued, but the Gurkhas and Mahrattas on the left reached the river bend, having inflicted severe casualties on the enemy. On the right our troops continued to gain ground along the trenches and nalas, until a heavy counter-attack, made under cover of the mist, temporarily checked its progress. This counter-attack was defeated with heavy loss by the resolute resistance of the Manchesters, a frontier Rifle Regiment, and a detachment of Sikh Pioneers. The ground gained was consolidated during the night.

Prior to the attack on the 9th, raids had been made into the enemy’s front line at Sannaiyat. Simultaneously a diversion was carried out by Lieut.-General Marshall against the Hai bridgehead, whilst other intended operations west of the Hai by the cavalry and a detachment of Lieut.-General Marshall’s force were necessarily abandoned on account of the mist.

12. On the 10th the attack was resumed in foggy weather, and the enemy was pressed back trench by trench till, by nightfall, he had fallen back to his last position.

On the 11th an unsuccessful attack was made on this position. Our troops reached their objective, but were driven back by a strong counter-attack. A further counter-attack, which attempted to recover trenches which we had taken on the previous day, suffered heavily from our artillery and machine guns during its retirement. On this occasion a battalion of Sikhs specially distinguished themselves.

On the same day the cavalry occupied Hai Town and remained there several days. A considerable quantity of arms, ammunition, and supplies was captured, and on our withdrawal an attack made on our troops as they retired received well-merited punishment, a Jat Lancer Regiment executing a brilliant charge.

13. Owing to the open nature of the ground now confronting our troops, and in view of the fact that it was commanded at close range from both flanks from across the river, it was decided to construct covered approaches and trenches in which to assemble the troops under cover prior to the assault.

By the 17th the forward trench system was completed, and one by one the enemy’s advanced posts had been captured. A strong point, which would enfilade the attack, only remained. On the night of the 17th-18th our troops captured and lost this redoubt twice. They retook it again on the 18th and held it.

The final assault was fixed for the 19th, but during the night of the 18th-19th the enemy, under cover of rifle and machine-gun fire, retired across the river.

During these operations the fighting had been severe and mainly hand-to-hand, but the enemy, in spite of his tenacity, had more than met his match in the dash and resolution of our troops, and had learnt a lesson which was to become more deeply ingrained on subsequent occasions. The enemy’s losses, judging from the number of dead found by us, were very heavy, and we captured many prisoners and a considerable quantity of war stores.

The Operations against the Hai Salient:
from 20th January to 5th February.

14. On the 11th, while Lieut.-General Cobbe was still engaged in clearing the Khadairi Bend, Lieut.-General Marshall commenced preparations for the reduction of the Hai salient—the extensive trench system which the Turks held astride the Hai river near its junction with the Tigris, and for a fortnight we gained ground steadily in face of strong opposition, until on the 24th our trenches were within 400 yards of the enemy’s front line.

15. On the 25th the enemy’s front line astride the Hai was captured on a frontage of about 1,800 yards. On the eastern (or left) bank our troops extended their success to the Turkish second line, and consolidated and held all ground won in spite of counter-attacks during the day and following night. The enemy lost heavily, both from our bombardment and in violent hand-to-hand encounters. On the western (or right) bank the task was a severe one. The trench system attacked was elaborate and offered facilities for counter-attack. The enemy was in considerable strength on this bank, and guns and machine guns in skilfully concealed positions enfiladed our advance. Our objective was secured, but the Turks made four counter-attacks. The first was repulsed; the second reached the captured line, and was about to recapture it when a gallant charge across the open by the Royal Warwicks restored the situation; the third was broken up by our artillery fire; the fourth, supported by artillery and trench mortars, forced our infantry back to their own trenches. As it was now late, further attack was postponed till the following morning.

On the 26th the assault was renewed by two Punjabi battalions with complete success, and the captured trenches were at once consolidated. Subsequently our gains were increased by bombing attacks and with the bayonet in face of stubborn opposition, and a counter-attack in the afternoon was repulsed by our artillery. Meanwhile our troops had considerably increased their hold on the enemy’s position east of the Hai by bombing attacks, though their progress was hampered by the battered condition of the trenches and by the numbers of Turkish dead lying in them. On this bank the first and second lines, on a frontage of 2,000 yards, were captured by the 27th, and on the following day the whole of the front line had been secured on a frontage of two miles and to a depth varying from 300 to 700 yards, the enemy withdrawing to an inner line.

On the 27th and 28th our troops penetrated further into the Turkish defences west of the Hai by bombing attacks supported by artillery barrage, and consolidated their position in the first four lines of trenches on a frontage of 600 yards. On the 29th they secured more trenches by means of infantry raids supported by artillery.

16. The movements of the cavalry had meanwhile been restricted by the waterlogged state of the ground. It had been intended to move the Division via Bedrah and Jessan against the enemy’s rear, so as to synchronize with Lieut.-General Marshall’s attack, and reconnaissance showed that the proposal was feasible, but soon after the movement had commenced a heavy thunderstorm burst over the district, and the flooding of the Marsh of Jessan and its neighbourhood rendered progress impracticable, and the attempt was abandoned. The work done by the cavalry in man-handling guns and vehicles on this occasion was especially commendable.

17. After a short pause to readjust our dispositions, the centre of the enemy’s third line on the eastern (or left) bank of the Hai was successfully assaulted by the Cheshires on 1st February. Bombers pushed rapidly east and west until the whole trench had been secured from the Tigris to the Hai on a front of about 2,100 yards, and an attempted counter-attack was broken by our artillery. The enemy’s casualties were heavy, and many prisoners were taken. On the western (or right) bank the two Sikh battalions captured the enemy’s position on a front of 500 yards, but our troops—especially the left of the attack—were subjected to artillery and machine-gun fire in enfilade. The trench system was complicated and difficult to consolidate, and it was not long before the Turks delivered a counter-attack in strength. The most advanced parties of our infantry met the enemy’s charge in brilliant style by a counter charge in the open, and casualties on both sides were severe. The preponderance of weight was, however, with the enemy, and our troops, in spite of great gallantry, were forced back by sheer weight of numbers to their original front line.

Owing to foggy weather on the 2nd, which hampered artillery registration, a renewal of the attack was deferred until the 3rd, but meanwhile Lieut.-General Marshall extended his left north-westwards towards the Tigris at Yusufiyah, with a view to enclosing the Dahra Bend ultimately.

18. On the 3rd the Devons and a Gurkha battalion carried the enemy’s first and second lines, and a series of counter-attacks by the Turks, which continued up till dark, withered away under our shrapnel and machine-gun fire. Our troops east of the Hai co-operated with machine-gun and rifle fire, and two counter-attacks by the enemy on the left bank of the Hai during the day were satisfactorily disposed of. In the evening there were indications that he was contemplating withdrawal to the right bank, and by daybreak on the 4th the whole of the left bank had passed into our possession. That night there was heavy rifle fire on our front up to midnight, when it gradually died away. Patrols before dawn encountered little opposition, and the enemy was found to have fallen back to the Liquorice Factory and a line east and west across the Dahra Bend.

During this period the splendid fighting qualities of the infantry were well seconded by the bold support rendered by the artillery, and by the ceaseless work carried out by the Royal Flying Corps. These operations had again resulted in heavy losses to the enemy, as testified to by the dead found, and many prisoners—besides arms, ammunition, equipment and stores—had been taken, whilst the Turks now only retained a fast vanishing hold on the right bank of the Tigris.

The Operations in the Dahra Bend:
6th to 16th February.

19. The 6th to the 8th were days of preparation, but continuous pressure on the enemy was maintained day and night by vigorous patrolling and intermittent bombardment, and many minor enterprises were undertaken whereby losses were inflicted and advanced posts wrested from him. An assault on the Liquorice Factory would have been costly; therefore it was decided to deal with it by howitzer and machine-gun fire, so as to render it untenable—or at least prevent the garrison from enfilading our troops as they moved north.

On the 9th the Liquorice Factory was bombarded, and simultaneously the King’s Own effected a lodgment in the centre of the enemy’s line, thereafter gaining ground rapidly forward and to both flanks. Repeated attacks by the enemy’s bombers met with no success, and two attempted counter-attacks were quickly suppressed by our artillery. Further west the Worcesters, working towards Yusufiyah and west of that place, captured some advanced posts, trenches and prisoners, and established a line within 2,500 yards of the Tigris at the southern end of the Shumran Bend.

On the 10th our infantry in the trenches west of the Liquorice Factory, who had been subjected all night to repeated bombing attacks, began early to extend our hold on the enemy’s front line. This movement was followed by a bombardment directed against machine guns located at Kut and along the left bank of the Tigris, which were bringing a galling fire to bear against our right. During this, The Buffs and a Gurkha battalion dashed forward and, joining hands with the King’s Own on their left, the whole line advanced northwards. As communication trenches did not exist, any movement was necessarily across the open, and was subject to a hot fire from concealed machine guns on the left bank; but in spite of this, progress was made all along the front to depths varying from 300 to 2,000 yards, our success compelling the enemy to evacuate the Liquorice Factory. Artillery observation was much hindered by a high wind and dust storm.

20. The operations of the 10th and the information obtained by patrols during the night of the 10th-11th made it clear that the enemy had withdrawn to an inner line, approximately two and a half miles long, across the Dahra Bend, with advanced posts strongly held. Weather conditions rendered aerial reconnaissance impracticable, and some readjustment of our front was necessary before further attack upon his trenches could be justified; but on the 11th our infantry established a post on the Tigris south-east of the Shumran peninsula, and on the following day extended our hold on the right bank. The enemy was finally enclosed in the Dahra Bend by the 13th.

An attack against the enemy’s right centre offered the best prospects of success, and this involved the construction of trenches and approaches for the accommodation of troops destined for the assault. The foreground was, however, occupied by the enemy’s piquets, and the dispersal of these necessitated a series of minor combats between our patrols and the enemy’s covering troops, as well as some severe fighting on the 12th. Opposite our right an important point was brilliantly captured by assault across the open on the 12th by an Indian Grenadier battalion, and retained, in spite of heavy fire during the advance and two counter-attacks launched subsequently. This success not only deprived the enemy of a point from which he could enfilade most of his own front, but enabled us to force the withdrawal of his advanced posts in the eastern section of his position.

During the four days of preparation, although there were indications that the enemy intended to stand and fight, the most likely ferry points were bombarded every night lest transfers of men and stores across the Tigris might be in progress.

21. Early on the 15th the Loyal North Lancashires captured a strong point opposite our left, which enfiladed the approaches to the enemy’s right and centre, the retiring Turks losing heavily from our machine-gun fire. An hour later the enemy’s extreme left was subjected to a short bombardment and feint attack. This caused the enemy to disclose his barrage in front of our right, and indicated that our constant activity on this part of his front had been successful in making him believe that our main attack would be made against that part of his line.

Shortly after the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and South Wales Borderers carried the enemy’s right centre in dashing style on a front of 700 yards, and extended their success by bombing to a depth of 500 yards on a frontage of 1,000 yards, taking many prisoners. Several half-hearted counter-attacks ensued, which were crushed by our artillery and machine guns, and it became evident that the enemy had strengthened his left and could not transfer troops back to his centre on account of our barrage. A little later the enemy’s left centre was captured by the Buffs and Dogras, and pushing on in a north-easterly direction to the bank of the Tigris they isolated the enemy’s extreme left, where about 1,000 Turks surrendered. By nightfall the only resistance was from some trenches in the right rear of the position, covering about a mile of the Tigris bank, from which the enemy were trying to escape across the river, and it had been intended to clear these remaining trenches by a combined operation during the night, but two companies of a Gurkha battalion, acting on their own initiative, obtained a footing in them and took 98 prisoners. By the morning of the 16th they had completed their task, having taken 264 more prisoners. The total number of prisoners taken on the 15th and 16th was 2,005, and the Dahra Bend was cleared of the enemy.

Thus terminated a phase of severe fighting, brilliantly carried out. To eject the enemy from this horseshoe bend, bristling with trenches and commanded from across the river on three sides by hostile batteries and machine guns, called for offensive qualities of a high standard on the part of the troops. That such good results were achieved was due to the heroism and determination of the infantry, and to the close and ever-present support rendered by the artillery, whose accurate fire was assisted by efficient aeroplane observation. Very heavy rain fell on the night of the 15th-16th, and torrential rain during the afternoon and night of the 16th, bivouacs and trenches being flooded out.

22. The enemy had now, after two months of strenuous fighting, been driven entirely from the right bank of the Tigris in the neighbourhood of Kut. He still held, however, a very strong position defensively, in that it was protected from Sannaiyat to Shumran by the Tigris, which also afforded security to his communications running along the left bank of that river. The successive lines at Sannaiyat, which had been consistently strengthened for nearly a year, barred the way on a narrow front to an advance on our part along the left bank, whilst north of Sannaiyat the Suwaikieh Marsh and the Marsh of Jessan rendered the Turks immune from attack from the north. On the other hand we had, by the application of constant pressure to the vicinity of Shumran, where the enemy’s battle line and communications met, compelled him so to weaken and expand his front that his attenuated forces were found to present vulnerable points if these could be ascertained. The moment then seemed ripe to cross the river and commence conclusions with the enemy on the left bank. To effect this it was important that his attention should be engaged about Sannaiyat and along the river line between Sannaiyat and Kut, whilst the main stroke was being prepared and delivered as far west as possible.

The Capture of Sannaiyat and Passage of the Tigris:
from 17th to 24th February.

23. While Lieut.-General Marshall’s force was engaged in the Dahra Bend, Lieut.-General Cobbe maintained constant activity along the Sannaiyat front, and as soon as the right bank had been cleared orders were issued for Sannaiyat to be attacked on the 17th.

The sodden condition of the ground, consequent on heavy rain during the preceding day and night, hampered final preparations, but the first and second lines, on a frontage of about 400 yards, were captured by a surprise assault with little loss. Before the captured trenches, however, could be consolidated, they were subjected to heavy fire from artillery and trench mortars, and were strongly counter-attacked by the enemy. The first counter-attack was dispersed, but the second regained for the enemy his lost ground, except on the river bank, where a party of Gurkhas maintained themselves until dusk, and were then withdrawn. Although we had failed to hold the trenches won, considerable loss had been inflicted on the enemy, especially during the counter-attacks, and the operations had served their purpose in attracting the enemy to the Sannaiyat front.

The waterlogged state of the country and a high flood on the Tigris now necessitated a pause, but the time was usefully employed in methodical preparation for the passage of the Tigris about Shumran. Positions for guns and machine guns to support the crossing were selected, approaches and ramps were made, and crews were trained to man the pontoons. In order to keep our intentions concealed, it was necessary that most of the details, including the movement of guns, should be carried out under cover of night. Opposite Sannaiyat, where it was intended to renew the assault, artillery barrages were carried out daily, in order to induce the enemy to expect such barrages unaccompanied by an assault as part of the daily routine. Minor diversions were also planned to deceive the enemy as to the point at which it was intended to cross the river.

On the 22nd the Seaforths and a Punjabi battalion assaulted Sannaiyat, with the same objective as on the 17th. The enemy were again taken by surprise, and our losses were slight. A series of counter-attacks followed, and the first three were repulsed without difficulty. The fourth drove back our left, but the Punjabis, reinforced by an Indian Rifle battalion and assisted by the fire of the Seaforths, who were still holding the Turkish trenches on the right front, re-established their position. Two more counter-attacks which followed were defeated. As soon as the captured position had been consolidated two frontier force regiments assaulted the trenches still held by the enemy in prolongation of and to the north of those already occupied by us. A counter-attack forced our right back temporarily, but the situation was restored by the arrival of reinforcements, and by nightfall we were in secure occupation of the first two lines of Sannaiyat. The brilliant tenacity of the Seaforths throughout this day deserves special mention.

Feints in connection with the passage of the Tigris were made on the nights of the 22nd-23rd opposite Kut and at Magasis respectively. Opposite Kut preparations for bridging the Tigris opposite the Liquorice Factory, under cover of a bombardment of Kut, were made furtively in daylight, and every detail, down to the erection of observation ladders, was provided for. The result was, as afterwards ascertained, that the enemy moved infantry and guns into the Kut peninsula, and these could not be re-transferred to the actual point of crossing in time to be of any use. The feint at Magasis consisted of a raid across the river, made by a detachment of Punjabis, assisted by parties of Sappers and Miners and of the Sikh Pioneers. This bold raid was successfully carried out with trifling loss, and the detachment returned with a captured trench mortar.

The site selected for the passage of the Tigris was at the south end of the Shumran Bend, where the bridge was to be thrown, and three ferrying places were located immediately downstream of this point. Just before daybreak on the 23rd the three ferries began to work. The first trip at the ferry immediately below the bridge site, where the Norfolks crossed, was a complete surprise, and five machine guns and some 300 prisoners were captured. Two battalions of Gurkhas, who were using the two lower ferries, were met by a staggering fire before they reached the left bank, but in spite of losses in men and pontoons, they pressed on gallantly and effected a landing. The two downstream ferries were soon under such heavy machine-gun fire that they had to be closed, and all ferrying was subsequently carried on by means of the upstream ferry. By 7.30 a.m. about three companies of the Norfolks and some 150 of the Gurkhas were on the left bank. The enemy’s artillery became increasingly active, but was vigorously engaged by ours, and the construction of the bridge commenced. The Norfolks pushed rapidly upstream on the left bank, taking many prisoners, whilst our machine guns on the right bank, west of the Shumran Bend, inflicted casualties on those Turks who tried to escape. The Gurkha battalions on the right and centre were meeting with more opposition and their progress was slower. By 3 p.m. all three battalions were established on an east and west line one mile north of the bridge site, and a fourth battalion was being ferried over. The enemy attempted to counter-attack down the centre of the peninsula, and to reinforce along its western edge, but both attempts were foiled by the quickness and accuracy of our artillery. At 4.30 p.m. the bridge was ready for traffic.

By nightfall, as a result of the day’s operations, our troops had, by their unconquerable valour and determination, forced a passage across a river in flood, 340 yards wide, in face of strong opposition, and had secured a position 2,000 yards in depth, covering the bridgehead, while ahead of this line our patrols were acting vigorously against the enemy’s advanced detachments, who had suffered heavy losses, including about 700 prisoners taken in all. The infantry of one division were across and another division was ready to follow.

25. While the crossing at Shumran was proceeding, Lieut.-General Cobbe had secured the third and fourth lines at Sannaiyat. Bombing parties occupied the fifth line later, and work was carried on all night making roads across the maze of trenches for the passage of artillery and transport.

26. Early on the 24th our troops in the Shumran Bend resumed the advance supported by machine guns and artillery from the right bank. The enemy held on tenaciously at the north-east corner of the peninsula, where there is a series of nalas in which a number of machine guns were concealed; but after a strenuous fight lasting for four or five hours, he was forced back, and two field and two machine guns and many prisoners fell into our possession. Further west our troops were engaged with strong enemy forces in the intricate mass of ruins, mounds, and nalas which lie to the north-west of Shumran, and rapid progress was impossible; but towards evening the enemy had been pushed back to a depth of 1,000 yards, although he still resisted stubbornly. While this fighting was in progress the cavalry, the artillery, and another division crossed the bridge. The cavalry attempted to break through at the northern end of the Shumran Bend to operate against the enemy’s rear along the Baghdad road, by which aeroplanes reported hostile columns to be retreating, but strong Turkish rearguards entrenched in nalas prevented them from issuing from the peninsula. That evening the troops closed up, ready to advance early next morning. There was every indication that the enemy was in full retreat and that the force which had opposed us all day was a strong and very resolute rearguard, which would probably withdraw by night. During this day’s fighting at Shumran heavy losses had been inflicted on the enemy, and our captures had been increased in all to 4 field guns, 8 machine guns, some 1,650 prisoners, and a large quantity of rifles, ammunition, equipment, and war stores. The gunboats were now ordered upstream from Falahiyeh, and reached Kut the same evening.

27. While these events were happening at Shumran, Lieut.-General Cobbe cleared the enemy’s sixth line at Sannaiyat, the Nakhailat and Suwada positions, and the left bank as far as Kut without much opposition.

The capture of the Sannaiyat position, which the Turks believed to be impregnable, had only been accomplished after a fierce struggle, in which our infantry, closely supported by our artillery, displayed great gallantry and endurance against a brave and determined enemy. The latter had again suffered severely. Many trenches were choked with corpses, and the open ground where counter-attacks had taken place was strewn with them.

The Advance on Baghdad:
from 25th February to 11th March.

28. Early in the morning on the 25th, the cavalry and Lieut.-General Marshall’s force moved north-west in pursuit of the enemy, whose rearguards had retired in the night. The gunboats also proceeded upstream. Our troops came in contact with the enemy about eight miles from Shumran, and drove him back, in spite of stubborn resistance, to his main position two miles further west, where the Turks, strong in artillery, were disposed in trenches and nalas. Our guns, handled with dash, gave valuable support, but were handicapped in this flat country by being in the open, whilst the Turkish guns were concealed in gun pits. After a severe fight, our infantry gained a footing in the enemy’s position and took about 400 prisoners. The cavalry on the northern flank had been checked by entrenched infantry, and were unable to envelop the Turkish rearguard. The Royal Navy on our left flank co-operated with excellent effect in the bombardment of the enemy’s position during the day.

On the 26th, one column, following the bend of the river, advanced to force any position which the enemy might be holding on the left bank of the Tigris, whilst another column of all arms marched direct to the Sumar Bend in order to intercept him. His retreat proved, however, to be too rapid. Stripping themselves of guns and other encumbrances, the Turks just evaded our troops, who had made a forced march across some eighteen miles of arid plain. Our cavalry came up with the enemy’s rear parties and shelled his rearguard, entrenched near Nahr Kellak.

29. The gunboat flotilla, proceeding upstream full speed ahead, came under very heavy fire at the closest range from guns, machine guns and rifles, to which it replied vigorously. In spite of casualties and damage to the vessels the flotilla held on its course past the rearguard position, and did considerable execution among the enemy’s retreating columns. Further upstream many of the enemy’s craft were struggling to get away, and the Royal Navy pressed forward in pursuit. The hostile vessels were soon within easy range, and several surrendered, including the armed tug Sumana, which had been captured at Kut when that place fell. The Turkish steamer Basra, full of troops and wounded, surrendered when brought to by a shell which killed and wounded some German machine gunners. H.M.S. Firefly, captured from us during the retreat from Ctesiphon, in 1915, kept up a running fight, but after being hit several times she fell into our hands, the enemy making an unsuccessful attempt to set fire to her magazine. The Pioneer, badly hit by our fire, was also taken, as well as some barges laden with munitions. Our gunboats were in touch with and shelled the retreating enemy during most of the 27th, and his retirement was harassed by the cavalry until after dark, when his troops were streaming through Aziziyeh in great confusion.

30. The pursuit was broken off at Aziziyeh (50 miles from Kut and halfway to Baghdad), where the gunboats, cavalry, and Lieut.-General Marshall’s infantry were concentrated during the pause necessary to reorganize our extended line of communication preparatory to a further advance. Lieut.-General Cobbe’s force closed to the front, clearing the battlefields and protecting the line of march. Immense quantities of equipment, ammunition, rifles, vehicles and stores of all kinds lay scattered throughout the 80 miles over which the enemy had retreated under pressure, and marauders on looting intent did not hesitate to attack small parties who stood in their way.

Since crossing the Tigris we had captured some 4,000 prisoners, of whom 188 were officers, 39 guns, 22 trench mortars, 11 machine guns, H.M.S. Firefly, Sumana (recaptured), Pioneer, Basra, and several smaller vessels, besides ten barges, pontoons, and other bridging material, quantities of rifles, bayonets, equipment, ammunition and explosives, vehicles and miscellaneous stores of all kinds. In addition, the enemy threw into the river or otherwise destroyed several guns and much war material.

31. On the 5th, the supply situation having been rapidly readjusted, Lieut.-General Marshall marched to Zeur (18 miles), preceded by the cavalry, which moved 7 miles further to Lajj. Here the Turkish rearguard was found in an entrenched position, very difficult to locate by reason of a dense dust storm that was blowing and of a network of nalas, with which the country is intersected. The cavalry was hotly engaged with the enemy in this locality throughout the day, and took some prisoners. A noticeable feature of the day’s work was a brilliant charge made, mounted, by the Hussars straight into the Turkish trenches. The enemy retreated during the night.

The dust storm continued on the 6th, when the cavalry, carrying out some useful reconnaissances, got within three miles of the Dialah river, and picked up some prisoners. The Ctesiphon position, strongly entrenched, was found unoccupied. There was evidence that the enemy had intended to hold it, but the rapidity of our advance had evidently prevented him from doing so. Lieut.-General Marshall followed the cavalry to Bustan (17 miles), and the head of Lieut.-General Cobbe’s column reached Zeur.

On the 7th our advanced guard came in contact with the enemy on the line of the Dialah river, which joins the Tigris on its left bank, about 8 miles below Baghdad. As the ground was absolutely flat and devoid of cover it was decided to make no further advance till after sunset. Our gunboats and artillery, however, came into action against the hostile guns.

32. Measures for driving the enemy’s infantry from the Dialah were initiated on the night of the 7th-8th. It appeared as though the enemy had retired, but when the first pontoon was launched it was riddled by rifle and machine-gun fire. A second attempt was made with artillery and machine-gun co-operation. Five pontoons were launched, but they were all stopped by withering fire from concealed machine guns. They floated downstream, and were afterwards recovered in the Tigris river with a few wounded survivors on board, and further ferrying enterprises were for the time being deemed impracticable. It now became evident that, although the line of the Dialah was not held strongly, it was well defended by numerous guns and machine guns skilfully sited, and the bright moonlight favoured the defence. To assist in forcing the passage a small column from the force under Lieut.-General Marshall was ferried across the Tigris in order to enfilade the enemy’s position with its guns from the right bank of that river.

During the night of the 8th-9th, after an intense bombardment of the opposite bank, an attempt was made to ferry troops across the Dialah river from four separate points. The main enterprise achieved a qualified success, the most northern ferry being able to work for nearly an hour before it was stopped by very deadly rifle and machine-gun fire, and we established a small post on the right bank. When day broke this party of seventy of the Loyal North Lancashires had driven off two determined counter-attacks, and were still maintaining themselves in a small loop of the river bund. For the next twenty-two hours, until the passage of the river had been completely forced, the detachment held on gallantly in its isolated position, under constant close fire from the surrounding buildings, trenches and gardens being subjected to reverse as well as enfilade fire from distant points along the right bank.

33. On the 8th a bridge was constructed across the Tigris, half a mile below Bawi, and the cavalry, followed by a portion of Lieut.-General Cobbe’s force, crossed to the right bank in order to drive the enemy from positions which our aeroplanes reported that he had occupied about Shawa Khan, and north-west of that place, covering Baghdad from the south and south-west. The advance of our troops was much impeded by numerous nalas and water-cuts, which had to be ramped to render them passable. During the forenoon of the 9th Shawa Khan was occupied without much opposition, and aeroplanes reported another position one and a half miles to the north-west, and some six miles south of Baghdad, as strongly held. Our attack against this developed later from the south and south-west in an endeavour to turn the enemy’s right flank. The cavalry, which at first had been operating on our left flank, withdrew later, as the horses needed water; but our infantry were still engaged before this position when darkness fell, touch with the enemy being kept up by means of patrols, and the advance was resumed as soon as indications of his withdrawal were noticed.

On the morning of the 10th our troops were again engaged with the Turkish rearguard within three miles of Baghdad, and our cavalry patrols reached a point two miles west of Baghdad Railway Station, where they were checked by the enemy’s fire. A gale and blinding dust storm limited vision to a few yards, and under these conditions, reconnaissance and co-ordination of movements became difficult. The dry wind and dust and the absence of water away from the river added greatly to the discomfort of the troops and animals. About midnight patrols reported the enemy to be retiring. The dust storm was still raging, but following the Decauville railway as a guide our troops occupied Baghdad Railway Station at 5.55 a.m., and it was ascertained that the enemy on the right bank had retired upstream of Baghdad. Troops detailed in advance occupied the city, and the cavalry moved on Kadhimain, some four miles north-west of Baghdad, where they secured some prisoners.

34. On the left bank of the Tigris Lieut.-General Marshall had, during the 9th, elaborated preparations for forcing the passage of the Dialah. At 4 a.m., on the 10th, the crossing began at two points a mile apart, and met with considerable opposition; but by 7 a.m. the East Lancashires and Wiltshires were across, and had linked up with the detachment of Loyal North Lancashires which had so heroically held its ground there. Motor lighters carrying infantry to attack the enemy’s right flank above the mouth of the Dialah grounded lower down the river, and took no part in the operation. The bridge across the Dialah was completed by noon, and our troops pushing steadily on drove the enemy from the riverside villages of Saidah, Dibaiyi, and Qararah—the latter strongly defended with machine guns—and finally faced the enemy’s last position covering Baghdad along the Tel Muhammad Ridge. These operations had resulted in the capture of 300 prisoners and a large quantity of arms, ammunition, and equipment; whilst severe loss had been inflicted on the enemy in killed and wounded, over 300 of his dead being found by our troops.

During the night of the 10th-11th close touch with the enemy was maintained by patrols, and at 1.30 a.m. on the 11th it was reported that the Turks were retiring. The Tel Muhammad position was at once occupied, and patrols pushed beyond it, but contact with the enemy was lost in the dust storm. Early on the 11th Lieut.-General Marshall advanced rapidly on Baghdad, and entered the city amid manifestations of satisfaction on the part of the inhabitants. A state of anarchy had existed for some hours, Kurds and Arabs looting the bazaars and setting fire indiscriminately at various points. Infantry guards provided for in advance were, however, soon on the spot, order was restored without difficulty, and the British flag hoisted over the city. In the afternoon the gunboat flotilla proceeding upstream in line ahead formation anchored off the British Residency, and the two forces under Lieut.-Generals Marshall and Cobbe provided for the security of the approaches to the city, being disposed one on either bank of the river. For over a fortnight before we entered Baghdad the enemy had been removing stores and articles of military value, and destroying property which he could not remove; but an immense quantity of booty, part damaged, part undamaged, remained. This included guns, machine guns, rifles, ammunition, machinery, railway workshops, railway material, rolling stock, ice and soda water plant, pipes, pumps, cranes, winches, signal and telegraph equipment, and hospital accessories. In the Arsenal were found among some cannon of considerable antiquity all the guns (rendered useless by General Townshend) which fell into the enemy’s hands at the capitulation of Kut in April 1916.

The Operations Subsequent to the Fall of Baghdad:
from 12th to 31st March.

35. With the near approach of the flood season it was now necessary to obtain control of the river bunds upstream of the city, and Yahudie and Kasirin on the left bank of the Tigris, 20 and 28 miles respectively above Baghdad, were consequently occupied on the 13th and 14th. On the right bank of the Tigris the retreating enemy had entrenched a strong position south of Mushaidie Railway Station some 20 miles north of Baghdad. Lieut.-General Cobbe was entrusted with the mission of securing the bunds on this bank, and on the night of the 13th-14th a column marched from Baghdad and reached Tadjiye Station by daybreak on the 14th. The Turkish position was some seven miles in extent, extending from the river in a north-easterly direction towards the railway, which runs due north and south. The western flank rested on successive lines of sandhills which lie on both sides of the railway line, whilst east of the railway the defensive system centred in two dominant heights, linked to each other and to the river by a series of trenches, nalas, and irrigation cuts. In front lay a bare flat plain, whilst undulating ground behind gave the enemy concealment for manœuvre and cover for reserves. It was decided to attack the Turkish right flank with the whole force, as such a movement aimed directly at the enemy’s railhead and general reserve would turn the main position east of the railway.

Our troops advanced on both sides of the railway, supported by artillery barrage, whilst the Cavalry operating on the western flank took the enemy’s position in enfilade and in reverse with rifle and machine-gun fire. Communication was maintained with our gunboats, which co-operated by shelling points in the Turkish line. Ridge after ridge was captured in spite of infantry and artillery fire, which was sometimes intense, until the Black Watch and Gurkhas by a brilliant charge carried the main position, inflicting severe casualties on the enemy. Fighting continued after nightfall, and at Mushaidie Station the enemy made his last stand, but the Black Watch and Gurkhas rushed the station at midnight and pursued the enemy for half a mile beyond.

The enemy’s flight was now so rapid that touch was not obtained again, and on the 16th our aeroplanes reported stragglers over a depth of 20 miles, the nearest being 25 miles north of Mushaidie. These operations had involved continuous marching and stiff fighting, almost without a break, for two nights and a day, in which our troops displayed fine endurance and determination.

36. On the 14th a post was established on the right bank of the Dialah, opposite Baqubah, 30 miles north-east of Baghdad, which was held by the enemy. On the night of the 17th-18th a column effected a surprise crossing over the Dialah five miles below Baqubah, and our troops entered the town the following morning, inflicting some casualties on the Turkish detachment, and capturing some prisoners and stores. Baqubah is the centre of a district rich in supplies, and its occupation was essential as a preliminary to further operations to assist our Russian Allies, who were advancing through Persia by way of Kermanshah and Kasr-i-Shirin, with the 13th Turkish Corps falling back on Kifri before them.

37. On the 19th our troops occupied Feluja, 35 miles west of Baghdad, on the Euphrates, driving out the Turkish garrison, which retired up the right bank of the Euphrates. The occupation of Feluja, with Nasariyeh already in our possession, gave us control over the middle Euphrates from both ends.

38. The arrival of our Allies at Khanikin was now momentarily expected, and a column was concentrated at Baqubah with the object of holding the enemy’s retreating columns to their ground till such time as the Russians could come up, or alternatively of inflicting loss on them should they weaken their front and endeavour to cross the Dialah. This column moved out on the 20th and occupied Shahraban on the 23rd, the enemy having retired on the previous night. A few prisoners and large supplies of grain were captured. Five miles to the north-east of Shahraban lies the commanding ridge of Jebel Hamrin, where the enemy held a strong position covering Kizil Robat and the road to Khanikin, and here our troops were actively engaged with him from the 24th until the end of the month.

On the right bank of the Dialah the enemy also held a position along the Jebel Hamrin about Deli Abbas and Lambaral covering the approaches to the Kifri road. The cavalry was instructed to work up the right bank of the Dialah, so as to co-operate with our troops on the left bank in obstructing the retirement of the Turkish forces.

On the left bank of the Dialah our progress was slow, owing to the difficult nature of the country, which is intersected by canals and deep nalas, some of them full of water, but on the night of the 24th-25th part of the force moved forward to test the strength of the enemy in our front. By daybreak our infantry had established itself in the foothills, and the advance to the main ridge began. Hostile piquets were driven in, and the lower crest of the hills was gained; but beyond this another crest rose 2,500 yards away, and the intervening country was much broken with hillocks and ravines. The advance continued towards the line held by the enemy about 1,000 yards north of the captured crest, but as he now began to show considerable strength, it was deemed inadvisable to press the advance further. The subsequent withdrawal of the column was followed up closely by the enemy; but several strong attacks were beaten off, and an attempted charge against our right flank by his cavalry was dispersed by rifle and gun fire. During the withdrawal the enemy, who necessarily came out into the open, suffered heavily, and the offensive enterprise of his infantry slackened visibly as the day wore on. The Manchesters specially distinguished themselves by their gallantry and steadiness on this occasion.

The advance of our Allies had been delayed in a difficult pass east of Khanikin, mainly owing to weather conditions, and in consequence up to the close of the period under review we had not gained touch with them; but our column still maintained its position, harassing the Turkish retreat and securing a number of prisoners.

39. About the 26th there were indications that a converging movement was being made by part of the 13th Corps down the right bank of the Dialah from Deli Abbas, and by the 18th Corps along the left bank of the Tigris from Shatt el Adhaim against our troops in the vicinity of Deltawa, apparently with the intention of assisting the withdrawal of the 13th Corps from before the Russians. A column was accordingly concentrated at Khan Nahrwan to deal with the Shatt el Adhaim force whilst the cavalry contained the Deli Abbas force. On the 27th the enemy made a determined attempt to move down the right bank of the Dialah towards Deltawa; but our cavalry, skilfully handled in some difficult ground, resisted the enemy’s advance from successive positions, inflicting severe losses, and finally checked the forward movement that evening. Next day the enemy fell back towards Deli Abbas, followed up by our cavalry.

The Turkish force from Shatt el Adhaim held an entrenched position between Dogameh and Himma, and during the night of the 28th-29th our troops deployed for attack in suitable positions. The attack was well pressed from the east and north till about midday, when the mirage became so bad that artillery support was impracticable. Later in the evening it was renewed, and in spite of fierce counter-attacks we secured the greater part of the enemy’s position, although he still held a few trenches when darkness fell. His losses had evidently been severe, as we buried over 190 bodies, and we took many prisoners, whilst the enemy retired during the night behind the Shatt el Adhaim.

The total number of prisoners taken during the period 13th December to 31st March was 7,921.

Operations on Other Fronts:
28th August to 31st March.

40. The period with which this dispatch deals was devoid of important incidents on the Karun and Bushire fronts. On the Euphrates front, in the early part of September, guerilla warfare was commenced against our camps and patrols round As Sahilan. Immediate steps were taken to crush this hostile concentration before it became formidable, and on 11th September a column moved out from Nasariyeh which destroyed the towers and fortifications of As Sahilan. Our comparatively small column was opposed by some 5,000 enemy irregulars, who fought boldly; but the steady behaviour of our troops gave them no opening, and before midday the enemy withdrew, having lost, as it was afterwards ascertained, 436 killed and some 800 wounded. This prompt lesson had an excellent effect round Nasariyeh, and no further hostilities of any importance occurred during the period under review. The only Turkish Regular detachment on the Euphrates was a small one at Samawa, and when Baghdad fell this detachment retreated to Feluja, whence it was subsequently ejected by our troops from Baghdad.

41. On the lines of communications during the same period the daily routine of our defence troops was only occasionally broken by raids, which were suitably dealt with by our posts and mobile columns.

42. Owing to the attention drawn to the Tigris front by the severe fighting in progress there, the situation had remained comparatively quiet. Considerable progress, however, was made in many ways. This was especially the case at Nasariyeh, where much was done to develop the administration of the town and the surrounding country, whilst at Ahwaz various projects were carried into effect which placed our position in that neighbourhood on a more satisfactory basis. Considerable credit is due to the commanders on the Euphrates, Karun, and Bushire fronts, and on the lines of communication defences, for the manner in which they maintained peaceful conditions in their neighbourhood and the efficiency of their troops.

Summary.

43. The above is a brief record of the operations carried out during seven months by the army in Mesopotamia—the first three and a half months a period of preparation, the last three and a half months one of action. During the latter the fighting has been strenuous and continuous, and the strain imposed upon all ranks, both at the front and on the lines of communication, severe. But they have responded whole-heartedly to every call that has been made upon them, and their reward has been the measure of their success. The nature of the operations has been as varied as it has been complex, and the training of the troops has been tested, first in the fierce hand-to-hand fighting in trench warfare round Kut and Sannaiyat, and later in the more open battles which characterized the operations in the Dahra Bend, the passage of the Tigris, the advance on Baghdad, and the subsequent actions. From this ordeal they have emerged with a proud record, and have dealt the enemy a series of stinging blows, the full significance of which will not be easily effaced. British and Indian troops working side by side have vied with each other in their efforts to close with the enemy, and all ranks have been imbued throughout with that offensive spirit which is the soldier’s finest jewel.

The operations have involved long hours and strenuous work, as well as great responsibilities, for commanders and their staffs; but by sheer hard work and a determination to succeed they have risen superior to every obstacle and compelled success.

As regards the regimental Commanders and the regimental Officers, Warrant and Non-commissioned Officers and men, it is not easy to do justice to their sterling performances. In spite of the youth and consequent lack of training and experience among some of their officers and non-commissioned officers, leadership has never faltered; whilst all ranks, by their heroism, endurance, and devotion to duty, have almost daily affirmed their superiority over their opponents in the bitterest struggles. Each difficulty encountered seemed but to steel the determination to overcome it. It may, then, be truly said that not only have the traditions of these ancient British and Indian regiments been in safe keeping in the hands of their present representatives, but that these have even added fresh lustre to the records on their time-honoured scrolls. Where fighting was almost daily in progress it is difficult to particularize, but the fierce encounters west of the Hai, the passages of the Tigris and Dialah, and the final storming of the Sannaiyat position may perhaps be mentioned as typical of all that is best in the British and Indian soldier.

For the success achieved the fighting spirit of the troops has been mainly responsible, but the dash and gallantry of individuals and units have been welded into a powerful weapon by that absolute sympathy which has existed between both services and all branches.

To the Royal Navy the thanks of the Army are due for the thorough way in which they carried out somewhat restricted but none the less important duties during the earlier part of this period. The fact that the enemy barred the way at Sannaiyat necessitated their work being at first limited to assisting in the protection of our water communications, co-operating with our detachment on the Euphrates front, and occasionally shelling the enemy’s position at Sannaiyat, where the Naval Kite Balloon Section rendered good service in observation work. Their opportunity came later, when after the passage of the Tigris they pressed forward in pursuit and rendered the brilliant and substantial services described above.

The work of the Cavalry has been difficult. The flat terrain intersected with nalas obstructed movement without providing cover, and the state of the country after heavy rains made progress even for short distances laborious. The absence of water, too, away from the river limited its radius of action. Nevertheless its reconnaissance work and the blows delivered against the enemy’s communications helped in no small way to bring about that dissipation of his forces which was so essential to our success, and the pressure applied after the passage of the Tigris to the retreating enemy was instrumental in completing his final rout.

The unison in which Artillery, Infantry, Machine-Gun Corps and Air Service worked has been admirable. The combination of irresistible gallantry and devotion to duty evinced by the Infantry and Machine-Gun Corps was equalled by the determination of the Artillery to render their comrades the closest support. Batteries were pushed forward to points within effective range of the enemy’s riflemen, and the forward observing officers and their detachments, in order to obtain the best results for their guns in this flat and difficult country, were always to be found with the leading lines of infantry. The intense but methodical fire of our guns formed a screen of shells under which our infantry advanced boldly, whilst the accuracy of our gun fire was largely assisted by the excellent observation work done by the Royal Flying Corps. The activity of the latter throughout the operations was unbounded in co-operation with artillery, air combats, reconnaissance, raiding, bombing, and photography. The R.F.C. at the outset wrested the command of the air from the enemy, and subsequently by skill and ceaseless energy maintained its superiority, in spite of the heavy strain thrown on personnel and machines.

Closely allied to the Infantry throughout the fighting, and especially during the period of trench warfare, were the Field companies, Sapper and Miner companies, and Pioneer battalions. Their work was as daring as it was tireless, and was of inestimable value in planning, supplementing, and improving by their technical knowledge the work done by the Infantry.

Owing to the conditions under which fighting has taken place, a heavy strain has been placed upon the Signal Service and Telegraph Department, and especially during the rapid advance after the passage of the Tigris. That the communications of the Army were so well maintained testifies to the efficiency and high sense of duty among all ranks in both branches. Their work, especially in the case of those with advanced formations, was frequently carried out under conditions of considerable danger, in which conspicuous gallantry was frequently needed and displayed.

The zeal and scientific knowledge evinced by the Field Survey Department is best exemplified by the fact that since the commencement of the campaign accurate surveys of an area of over 13,000 square miles of country have been produced, which have been of the greatest value to the Army.

44. One of the features peculiar to this campaign is the length of the lines of communications which we have necessarily had to adopt. In consequence the difficulties by which the Administrative Services and Departments, both in the field and on the lines of communications, have been confronted have been exceptional. The success or failure of the operations has so largely depended upon their efficiency, that a substantial measure of credit is due to the Directors and their Assistants and all ranks of those Services and Departments who by capable methods and unwearied energy have surmounted all obstacles and regularly met the needs of the fighting troops with ample supplies, munitions, and stores, and have been the means of providing every comfort obtainable for the sick and wounded.

As in the case of the fighting troops, the interdependence of these Services and Departments has necessitated the closest co-operation, and equally successful has been the result. We have relied upon three classes of transport—river, rail, and road, the latter being further subdivided into motor and animal transport. The work in all cases has been peculiarly heavy. The newly formed Inland Water Transport Directorate had first to fill its ranks and then develop its organization and provide for its many indispensable requirements; but the personnel, making light of these very real obstacles to rapid progress, worked unceasingly, with the result that night and day an endless chain of rivercraft passed up and down the river, thereby assuring the maintenance of the troops at the front.

The rainy season was one of continuous anxiety for the railways (especially as regards the light one between Sheikh Sa’ad and Atab) and the road transport. Every ingenuity possible was, however, brought to bear on the problem, and vigour and determination on the part of all concerned once more carried the day.

To the Directorate of Port Administration and Conservancy much credit is due for the development of the Port of Basrah on an efficient basis, and for the method and smoothness with which the vast fleet of steamers which has served this expedition has been handled, as well as for the provision of many facilities in connection therewith. The monthly statistics bear eloquent testimony to the efficiency of this Department.

The excellent work done by the Director of Sea Transport and his assistants also deserves more than passing recognition in view of the amount of shipping involved.

Our long line of communications has complicated the delivery of supplies and ordnance stores at the front considerably. Although large stocks of foodstuffs, munitions, and stores were available at the Base early in the autumn, accurate calculations and ceaseless activity on the part of all ranks were required to ensure their delivery to the troops punctually and in due proportion. Difficult as the problem was whilst the Army was sedentary in the vicinity of Sannaiyat and Kut, it became more and more complex as the advance proceeded. The strain on the personnel was increasingly severe, and the fact that throughout this period the troops at the front were well maintained in all respects constitutes a fine record for the Supply Service and Ordnance Department.

In dealing with the problems at the Base and on the Lines of Communication, the responsibilities of the Works Directorate have been very heavy, but the many problems have been resolutely handled with that resourcefulness and success which are so characteristic of the Royal Engineers. Road-making, water supply, and building and reclamation work at the Base alone have reached vast dimensions, and have demanded constant attention and thorough organization.

Since the termination of the hot weather the health of the troops has been uniformly good, and our well-equipped hospitals have been more than adequate to meet the calls made upon them by sick patients. Throughout the operations the evacuation of the wounded was carried out on model lines, and the arrangements made for the comfort and rapid transfer of patients from the field units to the hospitals on the Lines of Communication reflect much credit on those concerned. Whilst those on the Lines of Communication have done their share efficiently, the work of the Medical Services at the front has maintained its high reputation. During the operations the strain thrown upon all has been heavy, and the courage and devotion to duty displayed by the personnel on the battlefield has only been equalled by the zeal and energy of those in the field units. In this connection the valuable services rendered by the consulting surgeons and physicians demand special mention, whilst the thanks of the Army are due to the Nursing Sisters for their indefatigable services in tending the sick and wounded. These ladies have by their devoted work under difficult conditions of climate and surroundings set an example of which they may well be proud.

The wastage of horses during continuous operations under trying conditions has necessarily been large, but the Remount Department has, though assisted by few facilities and faced by many obstacles, by practical methods, foresight and adaptability, successfully met the demands made upon it.

Sickness and battle casualties have placed a strain upon the resources of the Veterinary Department which has been met by wise anticipation and considerable efficiency.

The chaplains—always to the fore where danger calls—have been untiring in their attention to the spiritual needs of the troops and in their ministrations to the sick and wounded, not only in the field ambulances and hospitals, but also on the battlefield.

The Postal Service has been handicapped by the long distances to be covered, and by the fact that other articles requiring carriage claimed precedence in order of urgency. It has had heavy mails to deal with, and its duties have been well carried out.

45. I should like further to express my thanks to those individuals and organizations which, though not strictly military, have rendered valuable services to the Army. Foremost among these I would mention the British Red Cross Society, which has worthily maintained its splendid record throughout this campaign. The sterling work performed by its personnel, and its bountiful provision of motor launches, motor ambulances, and gifts, have been the means of alleviating much suffering.

The ceaseless labours of the organizers and committees of the various war-gift societies, both in England and India, and the liberality of the subscribers to these funds, have contributed largely to the comfort and well-being of the troops, especially in regard to their recreations, and our heartfelt gratitude is due to them all.

The officials and personnel of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company have displayed courtesy and willingness to assist, and have given us facilities which have been of great value to our troops.

The Young Men’s Christian Association has been indefatigable in its exertions to enliven and improve the surroundings of the troops, and has with my approval opened additional branches throughout the country, which have been immensely appreciated.

46. The thanks of the Army are due for the prompt manner in which our necessarily large demands have been sent overseas from England, India, and Egypt. This factor has contributed in no small measure to the successes achieved.

47. During the operations the Commanders have had great responsibility, and have justified fully their selection for the posts they hold.

Lieut.-General W. R. Marshall, K.C.B., has commanded his troops with determination and judgment. His quiet, imperturbable manner, his coolness and decision, inspire confidence among his subordinates, whilst his bold methods and intelligent appreciation and rapid execution of orders have been of the greatest value.

Lieut.-General A. S. Cobbe, V.C., K.C.B., D.S.O., has commanded with marked ability. Always methodical and thorough in his plans, he brings to bear upon their execution a complete knowledge of the details of his profession. These qualities, added to a thorough grasp of the possibilities and limitations of the various arms, have enabled him to make the most of his opportunities wherever severe fighting has been involved.

48. To my Staff at General Headquarters and on the lines of communication (including the lines of communication defences), as well as to the technical advisers attached, my warmest thanks are due for the whole-hearted and vigorous support which I have received from them throughout, and for the efficient manner in which they have discharged their functions.

Major-General A. W. Money, K.C.B., C.S.I., Chief of the General Staff, has carried out his responsible duties most competently. He has not spared himself in giving me every assistance, and his knowledge of Indian, and indeed Eastern conditions, has frequently been of great value to me.

Of Major-General G. F. MacMunn, K.C.B., D.S.O., Inspector-General of Communications, it is not too much to say that his responsibilities have been immense. The repeated calls made on him by me during these protracted operations have never once failed to elicit a satisfactory response, and the thoroughness and elasticity of his organization was never better exemplified than in the efficiency maintained on the lines of communication during the rapid advance on Baghdad, and subsequent to our arrival at that city. Optimistic by nature, he readily brushes aside obstacles, whether imaginary or real.

49. This dispatch would not be complete without a reference to the valuable services rendered to the Army by Lieut.-Colonel Sir Percy Cox, K.C.S.I., K.C.I.E., and the political officers working under his direction. His advice has been invaluable to me on many occasions, and the tranquil state of the country from Baghdad to Basra at the present time is in itself an additional testimony to his already well-established reputation.

50. A list giving the names of those Officers, Warrant and Non-commissioned Officers, and Men whose services are deemed deserving of special mention will follow.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

F. S. MAUDE, Lieutenant-General:

Commanding-in-Chief,

Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force.

Gentlemen of the Congress:

I have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately, which it is neither right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume the responsibility of making.

On the 3rd of February last I officially laid before you the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German Government, that on and after the 1st day of February it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Mediterranean. That had seemed to be the object of the German submarine warfare earlier in the war, but since April of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat restrained the commanders of its undersea craft, in conformity with its promise, then given to us, that passenger boats should not be sunk, and that due warning would be given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek to destroy, when no resistance was offered or escape attempted, and care taken that their crews were given at least a fair chance to save their lives in their open boats. The precautions taken were meagre and haphazard enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a certain degree of restraint was observed.

The new policy has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent to the bottom without warning and without thought of help or mercy for those on board—the vessels of friendly neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hospital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely bereaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter were provided with safe conduct through the proscribed areas by the German Government itself and were distinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of principle.

I was for a little while unable to believe that such things would in fact be done by any Government that had hitherto subscribed to humane practices of civilized nations. International law had its origin in the attempt to set up some law which would be respected and observed upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion and where lay the free highways of the world. By painful stage after stage has that law been built up with meagre enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that could be accomplished, but always with a clear view, at least, of what the heart and conscience of mankind demanded.

This minimum of right the German Government has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity, and because it had no weapons which it could use at sea except these, which it is impossible to employ, as it is employing them, without throwing to the wind all scruples of humanity or of respect for the understandings that were supposed to underlie the intercourse of the world.

I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton and wholesale destruction of the lives of non-combatants—men, women, and children engaged in pursuits which have always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people cannot be. The present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind.

It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of; but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination.

The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feelings away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the Nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.

When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last, I thought it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws, when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks, as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase upon the open sea. It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavour to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all.

The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed even in the defence of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making: we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.

With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it; and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defence, but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war.

What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practical co-operation in counsel and action with the Governments now at war with Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those Governments of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs.

It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the Nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible.

It will involve the immediate full equipment of the Navy in all respects, but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy’s submarines.

It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States, already provided for by law in case of war, of at least 500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training.

It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well-conceived taxation.

I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation, because it seems to me that it would be most unwise to base the credits which will now be necessary entirely on money borrowed. It is our duty, I most respectfully urge, to protect our people, so far as we may, against the very serious hardships and evils which would be likely to arise out of the inflation which would be produced by vast loans.

In carrying out the measures by which these things are to be accomplished we should keep constantly in mind the wisdom of interfering as little as possible in our own preparation and in the equipment of our own military forces with the duty—for it will be a very practical duty—of supplying the nations already at war with Germany with the materials which they can obtain only from us or by our assistance. They are in the field, and we should help them in every way to be effective there.

I shall take the liberty of suggesting through the several executive departments of the Government, for the consideration of your committees, measures for the accomplishment of the several objects I have mentioned. I hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as having been framed after very careful thought by the branch of the Government upon whom the responsibility of conducting the war and safeguarding the Nation will most directly fall.

While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world, what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the Nation has been altered or clouded by them. I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the 22nd of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed Congress on the 3rd of February and on the 26th of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power, and to set up among the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of those principles.

Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments, backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.

We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling toward them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their Government acted in entering the war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old unhappy days, when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellowmen as pawns and tools.

Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbour States with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation’s affairs.

A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honour, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would, and render account to no one, would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free people can hold their purpose and their honour steady to a common end, and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.

Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew her best to have been always in fact democratic at heart in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual attitude toward life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great generous Russian people have been added, in all their native majesty and might, to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a league of honour.

One of the things that have served to convince us that the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our friend is that from the very outset of the present war it has filled our unsuspecting communities, and even our offices of government, with spies, and set criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, our peace within and without, our industries, and our commerce. Indeed it is now evident that its spies were here even before the war began, and it is unhappily not a matter of conjecture, but a fact proven in our courts of justice, that the intrigues which have more than once come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dislocating the industries of the country, have been carried on at the instigation, with the support, and even under the personal directions of official agents of the Imperial Government accredited to the Government of the United States.

Even in checking these things and trying to extirpate them, we have sought to put the most generous interpretation possible upon them, because we knew that their source lay not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the German people toward us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant of them as we ourselves were), but only in the selfish designs of a Government that did what it pleased and told its people nothing. But they have played their part in serving to convince us at last that that Government entertains no real friendship for us, and means to act against our peace and security at its convenience. That it means to stir up enemies against us at our very doors, the intercepted note to the German minister at Mexico City is eloquent evidence.

We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose because we know that in such a Government, following such methods, we can never have a friend; and that in the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be no assured security for the democratic Governments of the world. We are now about to accept the gage of battle with the natural foe to liberty, and shall, if necessary, spend the whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pretensions and its power. We are glad now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretence about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included; for the rights of nations, great and small, and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.

Just because we fight without rancour and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free people, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.

I have said nothing of the Governments allied with the Imperial Government of Germany because they have not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right and our honour. The Austro-Hungarian Government has, indeed, avowed its unqualified indorsement and acceptance of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted now without disguise by the Imperial German Government, and it has therefore not been possible for this Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the ambassador recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary; but that Government has not actually engaged in warfare against citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter this war only where we are clearly forced into it because there are no other means of defending our rights.

It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not with enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible Government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck.

We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early re-establishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us, however hard it may be for them for the time being to believe that this is spoken from our hearts. We have borne with their present Government through all these bitter months because of that friendship, exercising a patience and forbearance which would otherwise have been impossible.

We shall happily still have an opportunity to prove that friendship, in our daily attitude and actions toward the millions of men and women of German birth and native sympathy who live among us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove it toward all who are in fact loyal to their neighbours and to the Government in the hour of test. They are most of them as true and loyal Americans as if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining the few who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it will be dealt with with a firm hand of stern repression; but if it lifts its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and without countenance except from a lawless and malignant few.

It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great, peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance.

But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts—for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own Governments, for the rights and liberties of small nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free people as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything that we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured.

God helping her, she can do no other.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

The footnotes have been renumbered sequentially throughout the entire book.

A cover which is placed in the public domain was created for this ebook.

[The end of Nelson’s History of the War, Volume XVIII, by John Buchan]