Title: Mr. Punch's History of the Great War
Author: Punch
Language: English
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Mr. PUNCH'S

HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR

1919


First Impression July 1919
Second    "      July 1919
Third     "      August 1919
Fourth    "      August 1919
Fifth     "      September 1919
Sixth     "      October 1919
Seventh   "      October 1919



[Illustration: PEACE--THE SOWER]


TO THE READER


  _For whatsoever worth or wit appears
  In this mixed record of five hectic years,
  This tale of heroes, heroines--and others--
  Thank first "O. S." and then his band of brothers
  Who took their cue, with pencil and with pen,
  From the gay courage of our fighting men.
  Theirs be the praise, not his, who here supplies
  Merely the editorial hooks and eyes
  And, rich by proxy, prodigally spends
  The largess of his colleagues and his friends._

_C. L. G_.


PROLOGUE


Though a lover of peace, Mr. Punch from his earliest days has not been
unfamiliar with war. He was born during the Afghan campaign; in his youth
England fought side by side with the French in the Crimea; he saw the old
Queen bestow the first Victoria Crosses in 1857; he was moved and stirred
by the horrors and heroisms of the Indian Mutiny. A little later on, when
our relations with France were strained by the Imperialism of Louis
Napoleon, he had witnessed the rise of the volunteer movement and made
merry with the activities of the citizen soldier of Brook Green. Later on
again he had watched, not without grave misgiving, the growth of the great
Prussian war machine which crushed Denmark, overthrew Austria, and having
isolated France, overwhelmed her heroic resistance by superior numbers and
science, and stripped her of Alsace-Lorraine.

In May, 1864, Mr. Punch presented the King of Prussia with the "Order of
St. Gibbet" for his treatment of Denmark.

In August of the same year he portrayed the brigands dividing the spoil and
Prussia grabbing the lion's share, thus foreshadowing the inevitable
conflict with Austria.

In the war of 1870-1 he showed France on her knees but defying the new
Caesar, and arraigned Bismarck before the altar of Justice for demanding
exorbitant securities.

And in 1873, when the German occupation was ended by the payment of the
indemnity, in a flash of prophetic vision Mr. Punch pictured France,
vanquished but unsubdued, bidding her conqueror "Au revoir."

[Illustration: GAUL TO THE NEW CAESAR

"Defiance, Emperor, while I have strength to hurl it!"

_(Dec. 17, 1870)_]

More than forty years followed, years of peace and prosperity for Great
Britain, only broken by the South African war, the wounds of which were
healed by a generous settlement. But all the time Germany was preparing for
"The Day," steadily perfecting her war machine, enlarging her armies,
creating a great fleet, and piling up colossal supplies of guns and
munitions, while her professors and historians, harnessed to the car of
militarism, inflamed the people against England as the jealous enemy of
Germany's legitimate expansion. Abroad, like a great octopus, she was
fastening the tentacles of permeation and penetration in every corner of
the globe, honeycombing Russia and Belgium, France, England and America
with secret agents, spying and intriguing and abusing our hospitality. For
twenty-five years the Kaiser was our frequent and honoured, if somewhat
embarrassing, guest, professing friendship for England and admiration of
her ways, shooting at Sandringham, competing at Cowes, sending telegrams of
congratulation to the University boat-race winners, ingratiating himself
with all he met by his social gifts, his vivacious conversation, his
prodigious versatility and energy.

[Illustration:

THE REWARD OF (DE)MERIT

King Punch presenteth Prussia with the Order of "St. Gibbet."

(_May 7_, 1864)]

Mr. Punch was no enemy of Germany. He remembered--none better--the debt we
owe to her learning and her art; to Bach and Beethoven, to Handel, the
"dear Saxon" who adopted our citizenship; to Mendelssohn, who regarded
England as his second home; to her fairy tales and folk-lore; to the
Brothers Grimm and the _Struwwelpeter_; to the old kindly Germany
which has been driven mad by War Lords and Pan-Germans. If Mr. Punch's
awakening was gradual he at least recognised the dangerous elements in the
Kaiser's character as far back as October, 1888, when he underlined
Bismarck's warning against Caesarism. In March, 1890, appeared Tenniel's
famous cartoon "Dropping the Pilot"; in May of the same year the Kaiser
appears as the _Enfant Terrible_ of Europe, rocking the boat and
alarming his fellow-rulers. In January, 1892, he is the Imperial
Jack-in-the-Box with a finger in every pie; in March, 1892, the modern
Alexander, who

  Assumes the God,
  Affects to nod,
  And seems to shake the spheres;

though unfortunately never nodding in the way that Homer did. (This
cartoon, by the way, caused _Punch_ to be excluded for a while from
the Imperial Palace.)

In February, 1896, Mr. Punch drew the Kaiser as Fidgety Will. In January,
1897, he was the Imperial actor-manager casting himself for a leading part
in _Un Voyage en Chine_; in October of the same year he was "Cook's
Crusader," sympathising with the Turk at the time of the Cretan ultimatum;
and in April, 1903, the famous visit to Tangier suggested the Moor of
Potsdam wooing Morocco to the strains of

  "Unter den Linden"--always at Home,
  "Under the Limelight," wherever I roam.

[Illustration:

"AU REVOIR!"

GERMANY: "Farewell, Madam, and if--"

FRANCE: "Ha! We shall meet again!"

(_Sept. 27, 1873._)]

In 1905 the Kaiser was "The Sower of Tares," the enemy of Europe.

In 1910 he was Teutonising and Prussifying Turkey; in 1911 discovering to
his discomfort that the Triple Entente was a solid fact.

And in September, 1913, he was shown as unable to dissemble his
disappointment at the defeat of the German-trained Turkish army by the
Balkan League.

[Illustration: THE STORY OF FIDGETY WILHELM

(Up-to-date Version of "Struwwelpeter")

  "Let me see if Wilhelm can
  Be a little gentleman;
  Let me sec if he is able
  To sit still for once at table!"

  "But Fidgety Will
  He _won't_ sit still."

  Just like any bucking horse.
  "Wilhelm! We are getting cross!"

_Feb._ 1, 1896.]

[Illustration:

THE SOWER OF TARES

(_After Millais, Aug. 23, 1905_)]

So, too, with Turkey. From 1876 to 1913 Mr. Punch's cartoons on the Near
East are one continuous and illuminating commentary on Lord Salisbury's
historic admission that we had "backed the wrong horse," culminating in the
cartoon "Armageddon: a Diversion" in December, 1912, when Turkey says
"Good! If only all these other Christian nations get at one another's
throats I may have a dog's chance yet." Throughout the entire series the
Sick Man remains cynical and impenitent, blowing endless bubble-promises of
reform from his hookah, bullying and massacring his subject races whenever
he had the chance, playing off the jealousies of the Powers, one against
the other, to further his own sinister ends.

[Illustration: SOLID

GERMANY: "Donnerwetter! It's rock. I thought it was going to be paper."
(_Aug. 2, 1911_)]

Yet Mr. Punch does not wish to lay claim to any special prescience or
wisdom, for, in spite of lucid intervals of foresight, we were all deceived
by Germany. Nearly fifty years of peace had blinded us to fifty years of
relentless preparation for war. But if we were deceived by the treachery of
Germany's false professions, we had no monopoly of illusion. Germany made
the huge mistake of believing that we would stand out--that we dared not
support France in face of our troubles and divisions at home. She counted
on the pacific influences in a Liberal Cabinet, on the looseness of the
ties which bound us to our Dominions, on the "contemptible" numbers of our
Expeditionary Force, on the surrender of Belgium. She had willed the War;
the tragedy of Sarajevo gave her the excuse. There is no longer any need to
fix the responsibility. The roots of the world conflict which seemed
obscure to a neutral statesman have long been laid bare by the avowals of
the chief criminal. The story is told in the Memoir of Prince Lichnowsky,
in the revelations of Dr. Muehlon of Krupp's, in the official
correspondence that has come to light since the Revolution of Berlin.
Germany stands before the bar of civilisation as the _reus confitens_
in the cause of light against darkness, freedom against world enslavement.

So the War began, and if "when war begins then hell opens," the saying
gained a tenfold truth in the greatest War of all, when the aggressor at
once began to wage it on non-combatants, on the helpless and innocent, on
women and children, with a cold and deliberate ferocity unparalleled in
history. Let it now be frankly owned that in the shock of this discovery
Mr. Punch thought seriously of putting up his shutters. How could he carry
on in a shattered and mourning world? The chronicle that follows shows how
it became possible, thanks to the temper of all our people in all parts of
the Empire, above all to the unwavering confidence of our sailors and
soldiers, to that "wonderful spirit of light-heartedness, that perpetual
sense of the ridiculous" which, in the words of one of Mr. Punch's many
contributors from the front, "even under the most appalling conditions
never seemed to desert them, and which indeed seemed to flourish more
freely in the mud and rain of the front line trenches than in the
comparative comfort of billets or 'cushy jobs.'" Tommy gave Mr. Punch his
cue, and his high example was not thrown away on those at home, where, when
all allowance is made for shirkers and slackers and scaremongers, callous
pleasure-seekers, faint-hearted pacificists, rebels and traitors, the great
majority so bore themselves as to convince Mr. Punch that it was not only a
privilege but a duty to minister to mirth even at times when one hastened
to laugh for fear of being obliged to weep. In this resolve he was
fortified and encouraged, week after week, by the generous recognition of
his efforts which came from all parts of our far-flung line.

This is no formal History of the War in the strict or scientific sense of
the phrase; no detailed record of naval and military operations. There have
been many occasions on which silence or reticence seemed the only way to
maintain the national composure. It is _Mr. Punch's_ History of the
Great War, a mirror of varying moods, month by month, but reflecting in the
main how England remained steadfastly true to her best traditions; how all
sorts and conditions of men and women comported themselves throughout the
greatest ordeal that had ever befallen their race.



Mr. PUNCH'S HISTORY of the GREAT WAR



_August, 1914._


Four weeks ago we stood on the verge of the great upheaval and knew it not.
We were thinking of holidays; of cricket and golf and bathing, and then
were suddenly plunged in the deep waters of the greatest of all Wars. It
has been a month of rude awakening, of revelation, of discovery--of many
moods varying from confidence to deep misgiving, yet dominated by a sense
of relief that England has chosen the right course. Sir Edward Grey's
statement that we meant to stand by France and fulfil our obligations to
Belgium rallied all parties. "Thrice armed is he that hath his quarrel
just." The Fleet "stands fast" and the vigil of the North Sea has begun.
Lord Kitchener has gone to the War Office, and in twelve days from the
declaration of War our Expeditionary Force, the best trained and equipped
army that England has ever put into the field, landed in France. The
Dominions and India are staunch. Every able-bodied public school boy and
under-graduate of military age has joined the colours. The Admiralty is
crowded with living counterparts of Captain Kettle, offering their services
in any capacity, linking up the Merchant Marine with the Royal Navy in one
great solidarity of the sea.

The Empire is sound and united. So far the omens are good. But as the days
pass the colossal task of the Allies becomes increasingly apparent.
Peace-loving nations are confronted by a Power which has prepared for war
for forty years, equipped in every detail as no Power has ever been
equipped before, with a docile and well-disciplined people trained to arms,
fortified by a well-founded belief in their invincibility, reinforced by
armies of spies in every country, hostile or neutral. We are up against the
mightiest War-machine of all time, wonderful in organisation, joining the
savagery of the barbarian to the deadliest resources of modern science. The
revelation of the black soul of Germany is the greatest and the most
hideous surprise of this month of months, crowning long years of treachery
and the abuse of hospitality with an orgy of butchery and devastation--the
torture and massacre of old men, women and children, the shooting of
hostages, the sack and burning of towns and the destruction of ancient
seats of learning. Yet we feel that in trampling upon heroic Belgium, who
dared to bar the gate, Germany has outraged the conscience of the world and
sealed her ultimate doom.

The month closes in gloom, the fall of Liége, Namur and Brussels, the sack
of Louvain, and the repulse of the Russian raid into East Prussia at
Tannenberg following in rapid succession. Against these disasters we have
to set the brilliant engagement in the Heligoland Bight. But the onrush of
the Germans on the Western front is not stayed, though their time-table has
been thrown out by the self-sacrifice of the Belgians, the steadfast
courage of French's "contemptible little army" in the retreat from Mons,
and the bold decision of Smith-Dorrien, who saved the situation at Le
Cateau. In these days of apprehension and misgiving, clouded by alarming
rumours of a broken and annihilated army, it sometimes seems as though we
should never smile again. Where, in a world of blood and tears, can
_Punch_ exercise his function without outraging the fitness of things?
These doubts have been with us from the beginning, but they are already
being resolved by the discovery--another of the wonders of the time--that
on the very fringes of tragedy there is room for cheerfulness. When our
fighting men refuse to be downhearted in the direst peril, we at home
should follow their high example, note where we can the humours of the
fray, and "bear in silence though our hearts may bleed."

[Illustration:

BRAVO, BELGIUM!]

[Illustration: MEDICAL OFFICER: "Sorry I must reject you on account of your
teeth."

WOULD-BE-RECRUIT: "Man, ye're making a gran' mistake. I'm no wanting to
bite the Germans, I'm wanting to shoot 'em."]

Germany in one brief month has given us a wonderful exhibition of
conscienceless strength, of disciplined ferocity. She has shown an equally
amazing failure to read the character of her foes aright. We now know what
German Kultur means: but of the soul and spirit of England she knows
nothing. Least of all does she understand that formidable and incorrigible
levity which refuses to take hard knocks seriously. It will be our
privilege to assist in educating our enemies on these and other points,
even though, as Lord Kitchener thinks, it takes three years to do it. The
Mad Dog of Europe is loose, but we remember the fate of the dog who "to
serve some private ends went mad and bit the man." "The man recovered from
his bite, the dog it was that died." Meanwhile the Official Press Bureau
has begun its operations, the Prince of Wales's Relief Fund for the relief
of those who may suffer distress through the war is started, and in the
City

  Because beneath grey Northern Skies
    Some grey hulls heave and fall,
  The merchants sell their merchandise
    All just as usual.



_September, 1914._


Another month of revelations and reticences, of carnage and destruction,
loss and gain, with the miracle of the Marne as the first great sign of the
turning of the tide. On September 3 the Paris Government moved to Bordeaux,
on the 5th the retreat from Mons ended, on the 13th Joffre, always
unboastful and laconic, announced the rolling back of the invaders, on the
15th the battle of the Aisne had begun. What an Iliad of agony, endurance
and heroism lies behind these dates--the ordeal and deliverance of Paris,
the steadfastness of the "Contemptibles," the martyrdom of Belgium!

Day by day Germany unmasks herself more clearly in her true colours from
highest to lowest. The Kaiser reveals himself as a blasphemer and
hypocrite, the Imperial crocodile with the bleeding heart, the Crown Prince
as a common brigand, the High Command as chief instigators to ferocity, the
rank and file as docile instruments of butchery and torture, content to use
Belgium women as a screen when going into action.

  THE TWO GERMANIES

  Marvellous the utter transformation
  Of the spirit of the German nation!

  Once the land of poets, seers and sages,
  Who enchant us in their deathless pages,

  Holding high the torch of Truth, and earning
  Endless honour by their zeal for learning.

  Such the land that in an age uncouther
  Bred the soul-emancipating LUTHER.

  Such the land that made our debt the greater
  By the gift of _Faust_ and _Struwwelpeter_.

  Now the creed of Nietzsche, base, unholy,
  Guides the nation's brain and guides it solely.

  Now Mozart's serene and joyous magic
  Yields to RICHARD STRAUSS, the haemorrhagic.[A]

  Now the eagle changing to the vulture
  Preaches rapine in the name of culture.

  Now the Prussian _Junker_, blind with fury,
  Claims to be God's counsel, judge and jury,

  While the authentic German genius slumbers,
  Cast into the limbo of back numbers.

[Footnote A: Great play is made in Strauss's _Elektra_ with the
"slippery blood" motive.]

The campaign of lies goes on with immense energy in all neutral countries,
for the Kaiser is evidently of opinion that the pen is perhaps mightier
than the sword.

At home the great improvisation of the New Armies, undertaken by Lord
Kitchener in the teeth of much expert criticism, goes steadily on. Lord
Kitchener asked for 500,000 men, and he has got them. On September 10 the
House voted another half million. The open spaces in Hyde Park are given
over to training; women are beginning to take the place of men. Already the
spirit of the new soldiers is growing akin to that of the regulars. One of
Mr. Punch's brigade, who has begun to send his impressions of the mobilised
Territorials, sums it up very well when he says that, amateurs or
professionals, they are all very much alike. "Feed them like princes and
pamper them like babies, and they'll complain all the time. But stand them
up to be shot at and they'll take it as a joke, and rather a good joke,
too." Lord Roberts maintains a dignified reticence, but that is "Bobs'
way":

  He knew, none better, how 'twould be,
    And spoke his warning far and wide:
  He worked to save us ceaselessly,
    Setting his well-earned ease aside.

  We smiled and shrugged and went our way,
    Blind to the swift approaching blow:
  His every word proves true to-day,
    But no man hears, "I told you so!"

Meanwhile General Botha, Boer and Briton too, is on the war-path, and we
can, without an undue stretch of imagination, picture him composing a
telegram to the Kaiser in these terms: "Just off to repel another raid.
Your customary wire of congratulations should be addressed, 'British
Headquarters, German South-West Africa.'"

[Illustration: GOD (AND THE WOMEN) OUR SHIELD

Study of a German Gentleman going into Action]

The rigours of the Censorship are pressing hard on war correspondents.
Official news of importance trickles in in driblets: for the rest,
newspaper men, miles from the front, are driven to eke out their dispatches
with negligible trivialities. We know that Rheims Cathedral is suffering
wanton bombardment. And a great many of us believe that at least a quarter
of a million Russians have passed through England on their way to France.
The number of people who have seen them is large: that of those who have
seen people who have seen them is enormous.

[Illustration: PORTER: "Do I know if the Rooshuns has really come to
England? Well, sir, if this don't prove it, I don't know what do. A train
went through here full, and when it came back I knowed there'd been
Rooshuns in it, 'cause the cushions and floors was covered with snow."]

We gather that the Press Bureau has no notion whether the rumour is true or
not, and cannot think of any way of finding out. But it consents to its
publication in the hope that it will frighten the Kaiser. Apropos of the
Russians we learn that they have won a pronounced victory (though not by
us) at Przemysl.

Motto for the month: _Grattez le Prusse et vous trouverez le barbare_.

[Illustration: UNCONQUERABLE

THE KAISER: "So, you see--you've lost everything."

THE KING OF THE BELGIANS: "Not my soul."]



_October, 1914._


Antwerp has fallen and the Belgian Government removed to Havre. But the
spirit of the King and his army is unshaken.

Unshaken, too, is the courage of Burgomaster Max of Brussels, "who faced
the German bullies with the stiffest of stiff backs." The Kaiser has been
foiled in his hope of witnessing the fall of Nancy, the drive for the
Channel ports has begun at Ypres, and German submarines have retorted to
Mr. Churchill's threat to "dig out" the German Fleet "like rats" by
torpedoing three battleships. Trench warfare is in full and deadly swing,
but "Thomas of the light heart" refuses to be downhearted:

  He takes to fighting as a game,
  He does no talking through his hat
  Of holy missions: all the same
  He has his faith--be sure of that:
  He'll not disgrace his sporting breed
  Nor play what isn't cricket. There's his creed.

Last month Lord Kitchener paid a high tribute to the growing efficiency of
the "Terriers" and their readiness to go anywhere. _Punch's_
representative with the "Watch Dogs" fully bears out this praise. They have
been inoculated and are ready to move on. Some suggest India, others Egypt.
"But what tempted the majority was the thought of a season's shooting
without having to pay for so much as a gun licence, and so we decided for
the Continent."

News from the front continues scanty, and Joffre's laconic
_communiqués_ might in sum be versified as follows:

  On our left wing the state of things remains
  Unaltered on a general review,
  Our losses in the centre match our gains,
  And on our right wing there is nothing new.

Nor do we gain much enlightenment from the "Eyewitness" with G.H.Q., though
his literary skill in elegantly describing the things that do not matter
moves our admiration.

[Illustration: THE BULL-DOG BREED

OFFICER: "Now, my lad, do you know what you are placed here for?"

RECRUIT: "To prevent the henemy from landin', sir."

OFFICER: "And do you think you could prevent him landing all by yourself?"

RECRUIT: "Don't know, sir, I'm sure. But I'd have a damn good try!"]

The Kaiser's sons continue to distinguish themselves as first-class
looters, and the ban laid on the English language, including very properly
the word "gentleman," has been lifted in favour of Wilhelm Shakespeare.

The prophets are no longer so optimistic in predicting when the War will
end. One of Mr. Punch's young men suggests Christmas, 1918. But 500 German
prisoners have arrived at Templemore, co. Tipperary. It's a long, long way,
but they've got there at last.



_November, 1914_.


The miracle of the Marne has been followed by another miracle--that of
Ypres. Outgunned and outnumbered, our thin line has stemmed the rush to the
sea.

The road to Calais has been blocked like that to Paris. Heartening news
comes from afar of the fall of Tsing-tau before our redoubtable Japanese
allies, and with it the crumbling of Germany's scheme of an Oriental
Empire; of the British occupation of Basra; and of the sinking of the
_Emden_, thanks to the "good hunting" of the _Sydney_--the first
fruits of Australian aid. A new enemy has appeared in Turkey, but her
defection has its consolations. It is something to be rid of an
"unspeakable" incubus full of promises of reform never fulfilled, "sick"
but unrepentant, always turning European discord to bloody account at the
expense of her subject nationalities: in all respects a fitting partner for
her ally and master.

At sea our pain at the loss of the _Good Hope_ and _Monmouth_ off
Coronel is less than our pride in the spirit of the heroic Cradock, true
descendant of Grenville and Nelson, prompt to give battle against
overwhelming odds. The soul of the "Navy Eternal" draws fresh strength from
his example. So, too, does the Army from the death of Lord Roberts, the
"happy warrior," who passed away while visiting the Western front. The best
homage we can pay him is not grief or

    Vain regret for counsel given in vain,
  But service of our lives to keep her free
    The land he served: a pledge above his grave
  To give her even such a gift as he,
    The soul of loyalty, gave.

Even the Germans have paid reluctant tribute to one who, as Bonar Law said
in the House, "was in real life all, and more than all, that Colonel
Newcome was in fiction." He was the exemplar _in excelsis_ of those
"bantams," "little and good," who, after being rejected for their
diminutive stature, are now joining up under the new regulations:

  Apparently he's just as small,
    But since his size no more impedes him
  In spirit he is six foot tall--
    Because his country needs him.

[Illustration: THE EXCURSIONIST

TRIPPER WILHELM: "First Class to Paris."

CLERK: "Line blocked."

WILHELM: "Then make it Warsaw."

CLERK: "Line blocked."

WILHELM: "Well, what about Calais?"

CLERK: "Line blocked."

WILHELM: "Hang it! I _must_ go _somewhere_! I promised my people
I would."]

We have begun to think in millions. The war is costing a million a day. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer has launched a war loan of 230 millions and
doubled our income tax. The Prime Minister asks for an addition of a
million men to the Regular Army. But the country has not yet fully awakened
to the realities of war. Football clubs are concerned with the "jostling of
the ordinary patrons" by men in uniform. "Business as usual" is interpreted
as "pleasure as usual" in some quarters. Rumour is busy with stories of
mysterious prisoners in the Tower, with tales of huge guns which are to
shell us from Calais when the Germans get there; with reports (from neutral
sources) of the speedy advent of scores of Zeppelins and hundreds of
aeroplanes over London. But though

  Old England's dark o' nights and short
    Of 'buses: still she's much the sort
  Of place we always used to know.

[Illustration: T.B.D.

OFFICER'S STEWARD: "Will you take your bath, sir, before or after
haction?"]

It is otherwise with Belgium, with its shattered homes and wrecked towns.
The great Russian legend is still going strong, in spite of the statements
of the Under-Secretary for War, and, after all, why should the Germans do
all the story telling? By the way, a "German Truth Society" has been
founded. It is pleasant to know that it is realised over there at last that
there is a difference between Truth and German Truth. The British Navy, we
learn from the _Kölnische Zeitung_, "is in hiding." But our fragrant
contemporary need not worry. In due course the Germans shall have the
hiding.

In some ways the unchanged spirit of our people is rather disconcerting.
One of Mr. Punch's young men, happening to meet a music-hall acquaintance,
asked him how he thought the war was going, and met with the answer: "Oh, I
think the managers will have to give in." And the proposal to change the
name of Berlin Road at Lewisham has been rejected by the residents.



_December, 1914_.


In less than six weeks Coronel has been avenged at the battle of the
Falkland Islands:

  Hardened steel are our ships;
    Gallant tars are our men;
  We never are wordy
    (STURDEE, boys, STURDEE!),
  But quietly conquer again and again.

Here at least we can salute the vanquished. Admiral von Spee, who went down
with his doomed squadron, was a gallant and chivalrous antagonist, like
Captain Müller, of the _Emden_. Germany's retort, eight days later, by
bombarding Scarborough and Whitby, reveals the normal Hun:
  Come where you will--the seas are wide;
    And choose your Day--they're all alike;
  You'll find us ready when we ride
    In calm or storm and wait to strike;
  But--if of shame your shameless Huns
    Can yet retrieve some casual traces--
  Please fight our men and ships and guns,
    Not womenfolk and watering places.

Austria's "punitive expedition" has ended in disaster for the Austrians.
They entered Belgrade on the 2nd, and were driven out twelve days later by
the Serbs. King George has paid his first visit to the front, and made
General Foch a G.C.B. We know that the General is a great authority on
strategy, and that his name, correctly pronounced, rhymes with Boche, as
hero with Nero. He is evidently a man likely to be heard of again. Another
hitherto unfamiliar name that has cropped up is that of Herr Lissauer, who,
for writing a "Hymn of Hate" against England, has been decorated by the
Kaiser. This shows true magnanimity on the part of the Kaiser, in his
capacity of King of Prussia, since the "Hymn of Hate" turns out to be a
close adaptation of a poem composed by a Saxon patriot, in which Prussia,
not England, was held up to execration.

Kitchener's great improvisation is already bearing fruit, and the New
Armies are flocking to the support of the old. Indian troops are fighting
gallantly in three continents. King Albert "the unconquerable," in the
narrow strip of his country that still belongs to him, waits in unshaken
faith for the coming of the dawn. And as Christmas draws on the thoughts of
officers and men in the waterlogged trenches turn fondly homeward to
mothers, wives and sweethearts:

  Cheer up! I'm calling far away;
    And wireless you can hear.
  Cheer up! You know you'd have me stay
  And keep on trying day by day;
    We're winning, never fear.

Christmas at least brings the children's truce, and that is something to be
thankful for, but it is not the Christmas that we knew and long for:

ON EARTH--PEACE

  No stir of wings sweeps softly by;
    No angel comes with blinding light;
  Beneath the wild and wintry sky
    No shepherds watch their flocks to-night.

  In the dull thunder of the wind
    We hear the cruel guns afar,
  But in the glowering heavens we find
    No guiding, solitary star.

  But lo! on this our Lord's birthday,
    Lit by the glory whence she came,
  Peace, like a warrior, stands at bay,
    A swift, defiant, living flame!

  Full-armed she stands in shining mail,
    Erect, serene, unfaltering still,
  Shod with a strength that cannot fail,
    Strong with a fierce o'ermastering will.

  Where shattered homes and ruins be
    She fights through dark and desperate days;
  Beside the watchers on the sea
    She guards the Channel's narrow ways.

  Through iron hail and shattering shell,
    Where the dull earth is stained with red,
  Fearless she fronts the gates of Hell
    And shields the unforgotten dead.

  So stands she, with her all at stake,
    And battles for her own dear life,
  That by one victory she may make
    For evermore an end of strife.

[Illustration: THE CHILDREN'S PEACE

PEACE: "I'm glad that they, at least, have their Christmas unspoiled."]

Yet we have our minor war gains in the temporary disappearance of cranks
and faddists, some of whom have sunk without a ripple. And though the Press
Censor's suppressions and delays and inconsistencies provoke discontent in
the House and out of it, food for mirth turns up constantly in unexpected
quarters. The Crown Prince tells an American interviewer that there is no
War Party in Germany, nor has there ever been. The German General Staff
have begun to disguise set-backs under the convenient euphemism that the
situation has developed "according to expectation." An English village
worthy, discussing the prospects of invasion, comes to the reassuring
conclusion that "there can't be no battle in these parts, Jarge, for there
bain't no field suitable, as you may say; an' Squire, 'e won't lend 'em the
use of 'is park." The troubles of neutrality are neatly summed up in a
paper in a recent geography examination. "Holland is a low country, in fact
it is such a very low country that it is no wonder that it is dammed all
round."

The trials of mistresses on the home front are happily described in the
reply of a child to a small visitor who inquired after her mother. "Thank
you, poor mummie's a bit below herself this morning--what with the cook and
the Kaiser."

[Illustration:

POMPOUS LADY: "I shall descend at Knightsbridge."

TOMMY (aside): "Takes 'erself for a bloomin' Zeppelin!"]

We have to thank an ingenious correspondent for drawing up the following
"credibility index" for the guidance of perplexed newspaper readers:

  London, Paris, or Petrograd (official)                100
    "       "          "      (semi-official)            50
  Berlin (official)                                      25
  It is believed in military circles here that--         24
  A correspondent that has just returned from the
    firing-line tells me that--                          18
  Our correspondent at Rome announces that--             11
  Berlin (unofficial)                                    10
  I learn from a neutral merchant that--                  7
  A story is current in Venice to the effect that--       5
  It is rumoured that--                                   4
  I have heard to-day from a reliable source that--       3
  I learn on unassailable authority that--                2
  It is rumoured in Rotterdam that--                      1
  Wolff's Bureau states that--                            0



_January, 1915_.


General von Kluck "never got round on the right." Calais is Calais still,
and the Kaiser, if he still wishes to give it a new name, may call it the
"Never, Never Land." "General Janvier" is doing his worst, but our men are
sticking it out through slush and slime. As for the Christmas truce and
fraternisation, the British officer who ended a situation that was proving
impossible by presenting a dingy Saxon with a copy of _Punch_ in
exchange for a packet of cigarettes, acted with a wise candour:

  For there he found, our dingy friend,
    Amid the trench's sobering slosh,
  What must have left him, by the end,
    A wiser, if a sadder, Boche,
  Seeing himself, with chastened mien,
  In that pellucid well of Truth serene.

There can be no "fraternising" with Fritz until he realises that he has
been fooled by his War Lords; and his awakening is a long way off. Lord
Kitchener has been charged with being "very economical in his information"
vouchsafed to the Lords, but it is well to be rid of illusions. This has
not been a month of great events. General Joffre is content with this
ceaseless "nibbling." The Kaiser, nourished by the flattery of his tame
professors, encourages the war on non-combatants.

The Turks are beginning to show a gift for euphemism in disguising their
reverses in the Caucasus, which shows that they have nothing to learn from
their masters; Austria, badly mauled by the Serbians, addresses awful
threats to Roumania; and the United States has issued a warning Note on
neutral trading. But the American Eagle is not the Eagle that we are up
against.

[Illustration: THE FLIGHT THAT FAILED

THE EMPEROR: "What! No babes, Sirrah?"

THE MURDERER: "Alas, Sire, none."

THE EMPEROR: "Well, then, no babes, no iron crosses."

(_Exit murderer, discouraged_.)]


The number of Mr. Punch's correspondents on active service steadily grows.
Some of them are at the Western front; others are still straining at the
leash at home; another of the _Punch_ brigade, with the very first
battalion of Territorials to land in India, has begun to send his
impressions of the shiny land; of friendly natives and unfriendly ants; of
the disappointment of being relegated to clerical duties instead of going
to the front; of the evaporation of visions of military glory in the
routine of typing, telephoning and telegraphing; of leisurely Oriental
methods. Being a soldier clerk in India is very different from being a
civilian clerk in England. Patience, good Territorials in India, your time
will come.

[Illustration: THE SHIRKERS' WAR NEWS

"There! What did I tell you? Northdown Lambs beaten--two to nothing."]

At home, though the "knut" has been commandeered and nobly transmogrified,
though women are increasingly occupied in war work and entering with
devotion and self-sacrifice on their new duties as substitutes for men, we
have not yet been wholly purged of levity and selfishness. Football news
has not receded into its true perspective; shirkers are more pre-occupied
with the defeat or victory of "Lambs" or "Wolves" in Lancashire than with
the stubborn defence, the infinite discomfort and the heavy losses of their
brothers in Flanders.

Overdressed fashionables pester wounded officers and men with their
unreasonable visits and futile queries. The enemies in our midst are not
all aliens; there are not a few natives we should like to see interned.

The Kaiser has had his first War birthday and, as the Prussian Government
has ordered that there shall be no public celebrations, this confirms the
rumours that he now wishes he had never been born.

Germany, says the _Cologne Gazette_ in an article on the food
question, "has still at hand a very large supply of pigs"--even after the
enormous number she has exported to Belgium. Germany, however, does not
only export pigs; her trade in "canards" with neutrals grows and grows,
chiefly with the United States, thanks to the untiring mendacity of
Bernstorff and Wolff. Compared with these efforts, the revelations of
English governesses at German courts, which are now finding their way into
print, make but a poor show.

As the British armies increase, the moustache of the British officer, one
of the most astonishing products of these astonishing times, grows "small
by degrees and beautifully less." Waxed ends, fashionable in a previous
generation, are now only worn by policemen, taxi-drivers and labour
leaders. The Kaiser remains faithful to the Mephistophelean form. But in
proof of his desire to make the best of both worlds, nether and celestial,
he continues to commandeer "Gott" on every occasion as his second in
command. Out-Heroding Herod as a murderer of innocents, he enters into a
competition of piety with his grandfather. For we should not forget that
the first German Emperor's messages to his wife in the Franco-Prussian War
were once summed up by Mr. Punch:

  Ten thousand French have gone below;
  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow.



_February, 1915_.


January ended with a knock for the Germans off the Dogger Bank, when the
_Blücher_ was sunk by our Battle-Cruiser Squadron:

  They say the _Lion_ and the _Tiger_ sweep
  Where once the Huns shelled babies from the deep,
  And _Blücher_, that great cruiser--12-inch guns
  Roar o'er his head, but cannot break his sleep.

And now it is the turn of "Johnny Turk," who has had _his_ knock on
the Suez Canal, and failed to solve the _Riddle of the Sands_ under
German guidance. Having safely locked up his High Seas Fleet in the Kiel
Canal, the Kaiser has ordered the U-boat blockade of England to begin by
the torpedoing of neutral as well as enemy merchant ships.

You may know a man by the company he keeps, and the Kaiser's friends are
now the Jolly Roger and Sir Roger Casement.

Valentine's Day has come and gone. Here are some lines from a damp but
undefeated lover in the trenches:

  Though the glittering knight whose charger
    Bore him on his lady's quest
  With an infinitely larger
    Share of warfare's pomp was blest,
  Yet he offered love no higher,
    No more difficult to quench,
  Than the filthy occupier
    Of this unromantic trench.

[Illustration: RUNNING AMOK

GERMAN BULL: "I know I'm making a rotten exhibition of myself; but I shall
tell everybody I was goaded into it."]

The fusion of classes in the camps of the New Armies outdoes the mixture of
"cook's son and duke's son" fifteen years ago. The old Universities are now
given up to a handful of coloured students, Rhodes' scholars and reluctant
crocks. As a set-off, however, a Swansea clergyman and football enthusiast
has held a "thanksgiving service for their good fortune against Newcastle
United." Meanwhile, the Under-Secretary for War has stated that the army
costs more in a week than the total estimates for the Waterloo campaign,
and that our casualties on the Western front alone have amounted to over
100,000. So what with submarine losses, ubiquitous German spies, the German
propaganda in America, and complaints of Government inactivity, the
pessimists are having a fine time. Tommy grouses of course, but then he
complains far more of the loss of a packet of cigarettes or a tin of
peppermints or a mouth-organ than of the loss of a limb.

Germany's attitude towards the United States tempers the blandishments of
the serenader with the occasional discharge of half-bricks. There is no
such inconsistency in the expression of her feelings about England.
Articles entitled "_Unser Hass gegen England_" constantly appear in
the German Press, and people are beginning to wonder whether the
_Hass_ is not the Kaiser. Apropos of newspapers, we are beginning to
harbour a certain envy of the Americans. Even their provincial organs often
contain important and cheering news of the doings of the British Army many
days before the Censor releases the information in England. Daylight saving
is again being talked of, and it would surely be an enormous boon to rush
the measure through now so that the Germans may have less darkness of which
to take advantage. And there is a general and reasonable feeling that more
use should be made of bands for recruiting. The ways of German musicians
are perplexing. Here is the amiable Herr Humperdinck, composer of "Hänsel
and Gretel," the very embodiment of the old German kindliness, signing the
Manifesto of patriotic artists and professors who execrate England, while
Strauss, the truculent "Mad Mullah" of the Art, holds aloof. Dr. Hans
Richter, who enjoyed English hospitality so long, now clamours for our
extinction; it is even said that he has asked to be allowed to conduct a
_Parsifal_ airship to this country.

[Illustration: STUDY OF A PRUSSIAN HOUSEHOLD HAVING ITS MORNING HATE]



_March, 1915._


A new and possibly momentous chapter has opened in the history of the War
by the attempt to force the Dardanelles. At the end of February the Allied
Fleet bombarded the forts at the entrance, and landed a party of
bluejackets. Since then these naval operations have been resumed, and our
new crack battleship _Queen Elizabeth_ has joined in the attack. We
have not got through the Narrows, and some sceptical critics are asking
what we should do if we got through to Constantinople, without a land
force. It is a great scheme, if it comes off; and the "only begetter" of
it, if report is true, is Mr. Winston Churchill, the strategist of the
Antwerp expedition, who now aspires to be the Dardanelson of our age.
Anyhow, the Sultan, lured on by the Imperial William o' the Wisp, is
already capable of envying even his predecessor:

  Abdul! I would that I had shared your plight,
    Or Europe seen my heels,
  Before the hour when Allah bound me tight
    To WILLIAM'S chariot-wheels!

Germany, always generous with other people's property, has begun to hint to
Italy possibilities of compensation in the shape of certain portions of
Austro-Hungarian territory. She has also declared that she is "fighting for
the independence of the small nations," including, of course, Belgium. In
further evidence of her humanity she has taken to spraying our soldiers in
the West with flaming petrol and squirting boiling pitch over our Russian
allies. It is positively a desecration of the word devil to apply it to the
Germans whether on land, on or under water, or in the air.

We have begun to "push" on the Western front, and Neuve Chapelle has been
captured, after a fierce battle and at terrible cost. Air raids are
becoming common in East Anglia and U-boats unpleasantly active in the North
Sea. Let us take off our hats to the mine-sweepers and trawlers, the new
and splendid auxiliaries of the Royal Navy. Grimsby is indeed a "name to
resound for ages" for what its fishermen have done and are doing in the war
against mine and submarine:

  Soles in the Silver Pit--an' there we'll let 'em lie;
  Cod on the Dogger--oh, we'll fetch 'em by an' by;
  War on the water--an' it's time to serve an' die,
    For there's wild work doin' on the North Sea ground.
  An' it's "Wake up, Johnnie!" they want you at the trawlin'
  (With your long sea-boots and your tarry old tarpaulin);
  All across the bitter seas duty comes a-callin'
    In the Winter's weather off the North Sea ground.
  It's well we've learned to laugh at fear--the sea has taught us how;
  It's well we've shaken hands with death--we'll not be strangers now,
  With death in every climbin' wave before the trawler's bow,
    An' the black spawn swimmin' on the North Sea ground.

[Illustration: WILLIAM O' THE WISP]

These brave men and their heroic brothers in the trenches are true
sportsmen as well as patriots, not those who interpret the need of
lightheartedness by the cult of "sport as usual" on the football field and
the racecourse. And the example of the Universities shines with the same
splendour. Of the scanty remnant that remain at Oxford and Cambridge all
the physically fit have joined the O.T.C. Boat-race day has passed, but the
crews are gone to "keep it long" and "pull it through" elsewhere:

  Not here their hour of great emprise;
    No mounting cheer towards Mortlake roars;
  Lulled to full tide the river lies
    Unfretted by the fighting oars;
  The long high toil of strenuous play
    Serves England elsewhere well to-day.

London changes daily. The sight of the female Jehu is becoming familiar;
the lake in St. James's Park has been drained and the water-fowl driven to
form a concentration camp by the sorry pool that remains beside the
Whitehall Gate.

Spy-hunting is prevalent in East Anglia, but the amateurs have not achieved
any convincing results. Spring poets are suffering from suspended
animation; there is a slump in crocuses, snowdrops, daffodils and lambkins.
Their "musings always turn away to men who're arming for the fray." The
clarion and the fife have ousted the pastoral ode. And our military and
naval experts, harassed by the Censor, take refuge in psychology.

The _Kölnische Zeitung_ has published a whole article on "Mr. Punch."
The writer, a Herr Professor, finds our cartoons lacking in "modest
refinement." Indeed, he goes so far as to say that the treatment of the
Kaiser savours of blasphemy. One is so apt to forget that the Kaiser is a
divinity, so prone to remember that Luther wrote, "We Germans are Germans,
and Germans we will remain--that is to say, pigs and brutish animals." This
was written in 1528: but "the example of the Middle Ages" is held up to-day
by German leaders as the true fount of inspiration.

[Illustration: THE WAR SPIRIT AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM

ARDENT EGYPTOLOGIST (who has lately joined the Civic Guard): "No, I seem to
have lost my enthusiasm for this group since I noticed Bes-Hathor-Horus was
out of step with the other two."]



_April_, 1915.


A hundred years ago Bismarck was born on April 1, the man who built with
blood and iron, but now only the blood remains. Yet one may doubt whether
even that strong and ruthless pilot would have commended the submarine crew
who sank the liner _Falaba_ and laughed at the cries and struggles of
drowning men and women. Sooner or later these crews are doomed to die the
death of rats:

  But you, who sent them out to do this shame;
    From whom they take their orders and their pay;
  For you--avenging wrath defers its claim,
    And Justice bides her day.

The tide of "frightfulness" rolls strong on land as on sea. The second
battle of Ypres has begun and the enemy has resorted to the use of a new
weapon--poison gas. He had already poisoned wells in South West Africa, but
this is an uglier outcome of the harnessing of science to the Powers of
Darkness. Italy grows restive in spite of the blandishments of Prince
Bülow, and as the month closes we hear of the landing of the Allies in
Gallipoli, just two months after the unsupported naval attempt to force the
Dardanelles. British and Australian and New Zealand troops have achieved
the impossible by incredible valour in face of murderous fire, and a
foothold has been won at tremendous cost of heroic lives. Letters from the
Western front continue cheerful, but it does not need much reading between
the lines to realise the odds with which our officers and men have to
contend, the endless discomfort and unending din. They are masters of a
gallant art of metaphor which belittles the most appalling horrors of
trench warfare; masters, too, of the art of extracting humorous relief from
the most trivial incidents.

On the home front we have to contend with a dangerous ally of the enemy in
Drink, and with the self-advertising politicians who do their bit by asking
unnecessary questions. Sometimes, but rarely, they succeed in eliciting
valuable information, as in Mr. Lloyd George's statement on the situation
at the front. We have now six times as many men in the field as formed the
original Expeditionary Force, and in the few days fighting round Neuve
Chapelle almost as much ammunition was expended by our guns as in the whole
of the two and three-quarter years of the Boer War.

[Illustration: THE HAUNTED SHIP

GHOST OF THE OLD PILOT: "I wonder if he would drop me _now!_"]

The Kaiser has been presented with another grandson, but it has not been
broken to the poor little fellow who he is. It is also reported that the
Kaiser has bestowed an Iron Cross on a learned pig--one of a very numerous
class.



_May, 1915_.


We often think that we must have got to the end of German "frightfulness,"
only to have our illusions promptly shattered by some fresh and amazing
explosion of calculated ferocity. Last month it was poison gas; now it is
the sinking of the _Lusitania_. Yet Mr. Punch had read the omens some
seven and a half years ago, when the records established by that liner had
created a jealousy in Germany which the Kaiser and his agents have now
appeased, but at what a cost! The House of Commons is an odd place, unique
in its characteristics. Looking round the benches when it reassembled on
May 10th, and noting the tone and purport of the inquiries addressed to the
First Lord, one might well suppose that nothing remarkable had happened
since Parliament adjourned. The questions were numerous but all practical,
and as unemotional as if they referred to outrages by a newly-discovered
race of fiends in human shape peopling Mars or Saturn. The First Lord,
equally undemonstrative, announced that the Board of Trade have ordered an
inquiry into the circumstances attending the disaster. Pending the result,
it would be premature to discuss the matter. Here we have the sublimation
of officialism and national phlegm. Of the 1,200 victims who went down in
this unarmed passenger ship about 200 were Americans. What will America say
or do?

[Illustration: AN OMEN OF 1908

Reproduced from "Christmas Cards for Celebrities," in _Mr. Punch's
Almanack_ of that year]

[Illustration: HAMLET U.S.A.

SCENE: The Ramparts of the White House.

PRESIDENT WILSON: "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!"

VOICE OF ROOSEVELT (_off_): "That's so!"]

  In silence you have looked on felon blows,
    On butcher's work of which the waste lands reek!
  Now in God's name, from Whom your greatness flows,
    Sister, will you not speak?

Many unofficial voices have been raised in horror, indignation, and even in
loud calls for intervention. The leaven works, but President Wilson, though
not unmoved, gives little sign of abandoning his philosophic neutrality.

In Europe it is otherwise. Italy has declared war on Austria; her people
have driven the Government to take the path of freedom and honour and break
the shackles of Germanism in finance, commerce and politics.

Italy has not declared war on Germany yet, but the fury of the German Press
is unbounded, and for the moment Germany's overworked Professors of Hate
have focused their energies on the new enemy, and its army of "vagabonds,
convicts, ruffians and mandolin-players," conveniently forgetting that the
spirit of Garibaldi is still an animating force, and that the King inherits
the determination of his grandfather and namesake.

On the Western front the enemy has been repulsed at Ypres. Lord Kitchener
has asked for another 300,000 men, and speaks confidently of our soon being
able to make good the shortage of ammunition.

On the Eastern front the Grand Duke Nicholas has been forced to give
ground; in Gallipoli slow progress is being made at heavy cost on land and
sea. The Turk is a redoubtable trench fighter and sniper; the difficulties
of the _terrain_ are indescribable, yet our men continue the epic
struggle with unabated heroism. King Constantine of Greece, improved in
health, construes his neutrality in terms of ever increasing benevolence to
his brother-in-law the Kaiser.

[Illustration: (series of six panels) THE REWARD OF KULTUR]

At home the great event has been the formation of a Coalition Government--a
two-handed sword, as we hope, to smite the enemy; while practical people
regard it rather as a "Coal and Ammunition Government." The cost of the War
is now Two Millions a day, and a new campaign of Posters and Publicity has
been inaugurated to promote recruiting. Volunteers, with scant official
recognition, continue their training on foot; the Hurst Park brigade
continue their activities, mainly on rubber wheels. An evening paper
announces:

VICTORY IN GALLIPOLI.

LATE WIRE FROM CHESTER.

Mr. Punch is prompted to comment:

  For these our Army does its bit,
    While they in turn peruse
  Death's honour-roll (should time permit)
    After the Betting News.

More agreeable is the sportsmanship of the trenches, where a correspondent
tells of the shooting of a hare and the recovery of the corpse, by a
reckless Tommy, from the turnip-field which separated our trenches from
those of Fritz.

Amongst other signs of the times the emergence of the Spy Play is to be
noted, in which the alien enemy within our gates is gloriously confounded.
Yet, if a certain section of the Press is to be believed, the dark and
sinister operations of the Hidden Hand continue unchecked.

The Germans as unconscious humorists maintain their supremacy _hors
concours_. A correspondent of the _Cologne Gazette_ was with other
journalists recently entertained to dinner in a French villa by the Crown
Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. "The party, while dining," we are told,
"talked of the defects of French taste, and Prince Rupprecht said that
French houses were full of horrors." True, O Prince, but the French are
determined to drive them out. Better still, in the month which witnessed
the sinking of the _Lusitania_ we read this panegyric of the Teuton in
_Die Welt_: "Clad in virtue and in peerless nobility of character,
unassailed by insidious enemies either within or without, girded about by
the benign influences of Kultur, the German, whether soldier or civilian,
pursues his destined way, fearless and serene."



_June, 1915._


The weeks that have passed since the sinking of the _Lusitania_ have
left Germany not merely impenitent but glorying in her crime. "The
destruction of the _Lusitania_," says Herr Baumgarten, Professor of
Theology, "should be greeted with jubilation and enthusiastic cheering, and
everybody who does not cheer is no real or true German." Many harsh things
have been said of the Germans, but nothing quite so bitter as this
suggestion for a test of nationality. But while Germany jubilates, her
Government is painfully anxious to explain everything to the satisfaction
of America. The conversations between the two Powers are continuous but
abortive. President Wilson's dove has returned to him, with the report
"Nothing doing," and the American eagle looks as if he would like to take
on the job.

Germany has had her first taste of real retaliation in the bombardment of
Karlsruhe by Allied airmen, and is furiously indignant at the attack on an
"unfortified and peaceful" town--which happens to be the headquarters of
the 14th German Army Corps and to contain an important arsenal as well as
large chemical, engineering and railway works. Also she is very angry with
Mr. Punch, and has honoured him and other British papers with a solemn
warning. Our performances, it seems, are "diligently noted, so that when
the day of reckoning arrives we shall know with whom we have to deal, and
how to deal with them effectually." It is evident that in spite of Italy's
entry into the war the mass of the Germans are still true to their old hate
of England.

[Illustration: ON THE BLACK LIST

KAISER (as executioner): "I'm going to hang you."

PUNCH: "Oh, you are, are you? Well, you don't seem to know how the scene
ends. It's the hangman that gets hanged."]

[Illustration: SOME BIRD

THE RETURNING DOVE (to President Woodrow Noah):

"Nothing doing."

THE EAGLE: "Say, Boss, what's the matter with trying me?"]

But Germany does not merely talk. She has been indulging in drastic
reprisals in consequence of Mr. Winston Churchill's memorandum on the
captured submarine crews. As a result 39 imprisoned British officers,
carefully selected, have been subjected to solitary confinement under
distressing conditions in return for Mr. Churchill's having hinted at
possible severities which were never carried out. Moral: Do not threaten
unless you mean to act. The retirement of Mr. Churchill to the seclusion of
the Duchy of Lancaster and the appointment of Mr. Balfour to the First
Lordship of the Admiralty afford hope that the release of the Thirty-Nine
from their special hardship will not be unduly postponed. The Coalition
Government is shaking down. A Ministry of Munitions has been created, with
Mr. Lloyd George in charge; and members of the Cabinet have decided to pool
their salaries with a view to their being divided equally. Mr. McKenna has
made his first appearance as Chancellor of the Exchequer and introduced a
Bill authorising the raising of a War Loan unlimited in extent, but, being
a man of moderate views, will be satisfied if nine hundred millions are
forthcoming. Lord Haldane has been succeeded in the Lord Chancellorship by
Lord Buckmaster, having caused by one unfortunate phrase a complete
oblivion of all the services rendered by his creation of the Territorial
system. The cry for "more men" has now changed to one for "more shells,"
and certain newspapers, always in search of a scapegoat, have entered on a
campaign directed against Lord Kitchener, the very man whom a few short
months ago they hailed as the saviour of the situation. Finding that the
public cannot live on their hot air, they are doing their best to make our
flesh creep and keep our feet cold. Let us hope that K. of K. will find the
Garter some slight protection against this hitting below the belt.

The Russian retreat continues, but there is no _débâcle._ Greece shows
signs of returning sanity in the restoration to power of her one strong
man, M. Venizelos. If there were a few more like him then (to adapt Porson)
"the Germanised Greek would be sadly to seek." As it is, he flourishes
exceedingly, under the patronage of a Prussianised Court.

In Gallipoli the deadly struggle goes on; our foothold has been
strengthened by bitter fighting and our lines pushed forward for three
miles by a few hundred yards--a big advance in modern trench warfare.
Blazing heat and a plague of flies add to the discomforts of our men, but a
new glory has been added to the ever growing vocabulary of the war in
"Anzac." There is a lull on the Western front, if such a word properly can
be applied to the ceaseless activities of the war of position, of daily
_strafe_ and counter-_strafe_.

At home, khaki weddings are becoming common form. By an inversion of the
old order the bride is now eclipsed by the bridegroom:

  'Tis well: the lack of fine array
    Best fits a sacrificial altar;
  Her man to-morrow joins the fray,
    And yet she does not falter;
  Simple her gown, but still we see
  The bride in all her bravery.

Society is losing much of its snap through the political truce. It is all
very well to talk of the lion lying down with the lamb, but of course it
makes life a distinctly duller business both for the lion and the lamb when
each has lost his or her dearest enemy. For the rest, there is a brisk
trade in anti-gas respirators, "lonely soldiers" are becoming victimised by
fair correspondents, and a new day has been added to the week--flag day.

Proverb for the month, suggested by the activities of the Imperial
infanticide: "The hand that wrecks the cradle rules the world."



_July, 1915_.


The last month of the first year of the war brings no promise of a speedy
end; it is not a month of great battles on land or sea, but rather of omens
and foreshadowings, good and evil. To the omens of victory belongs the
sinking of the _Pommern_, named after the great maritime province, so
long coveted by the Brandenburgers, the makers of Prussia and the true
begetters of Prussianism. Of good omen, too, has been the "clean sweep"
made by General Botha in German South-West Africa, where the enemy
surrendered unconditionally on July 9. And though the menace of the U-boat
grows daily, there _may_ be limits to America's seemingly
inexhaustible forbearance. There are happily none to the fortitude of our
bluejackets and trawlers.

Pundits in the Press, fortified by warnings from generals in various Home
Commands, display an increasing preoccupation with the likelihood of
invasion by sea. Mr. Punch naturally inclines to a sceptical attitude,
swayed by long adherence to the views of the Blue Water School and the
incredulousness of correspondents engaged in guarding likely spots on the
East Coast. With runaway raids by sea we are already acquainted, and their
growing frequency from the air is responsible for various suggested
precautions, official and otherwise--pails of sand and masks and
anti-asphyxiation mixtures--which are not viewed with much sympathy in the
trenches. _There_ the men meet the most disconcerting situations--as,
for example, the problem of spending a night in a flooded meadow occupied
by a thunderstorm--with irrelevant songs or fantasias on the mouth-organ.

[Illustration: FIRST TRAWLER SKIPPER (to friend who is due to sail by next
tide): "Are ye takin' any precautions against these submarines, Jock?"

SECOND SKIPPER: "Ay! Although I've been in the habit o' carryin' my bits of
bawbees wi' me, I went an' bankit them this mornin', an' I'm no taking ma
best oilskins or ma new seaboots."

FIRST SKIPPER; "Oh, _you're_ a'richt then. Ye'll hae practically
nothin' tae lose but yer life."]

  Oh, there ain't no band to cheer us up, there ain't no Highland pipers
  To keep our warlike ardure warm round New Chapelle and Wipers,
  So--since there's nothing like a tune to glad the 'eart o' man,
  Why Billy with his mouth-organ 'e does the best 'e can.

  Wet, 'ungry, thirsty, 'ot or cold, whatever may betide 'im,
  'E'll play upon the 'ob of 'ell while the breath is left inside 'im;
  And when we march up Potsdam Street, and goose-step through Berlin,
  Why Billy with 'is mouth-organ 'e'll play the Army in!

[Illustration: THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA

SINBAD THE KAISER: "This submarine business is going to get me into trouble
with America; but what can an All-Powerful do with a thing like this on his
back?"]

When officers come home on leave and find England standing where she did,
their views support the weather-beaten major who said that it was "worth
going to a little trouble and expense to keep _that_ intact." But you
can hardly expect people who live in trenches which have had to be rebuilt
twice daily for the last few months and are shelled at all hours of the day
or night, to compassionate the occasional trials of the home-keeping
bomb-dodger. The war, as it goes on, seems to bring out the best and the
worst that is in us. South Wales responded loyally to the call for
recruits, yet 200,000 miners are affected by the strike fever.

The House, where party strife for a brief space was hushed by mutual
consent, is now devastated by the energies of indiscreet, importunate,
egotistic or frankly disloyal question-mongers. We want a censorship of
Parliamentary Reports. The Press Bureau withholds records of shining
courage at the front lest they should enlighten the enemy, but gives full
publicity to those

  Who give us words in lieu of deeds,
  Content to blather while their country bleeds.

There is, however, some excuse for those importunates who wish to know on
what authority the Premier declared at Newcastle that neither our Allies
nor ourselves have been hampered by an insufficient supply of munitions. In
two months' fighting in Gallipoli our casualties have largely exceeded
those sustained by us during the whole of the Boer War. And financial
purists may be pardoned for their protests against extravagant expenditure
in view of the announcement that the war is now costing well over three
millions daily. The idea of National Registration has taken shape in a
Bill, which has passed its second reading. The notion of finding out what
everyone can do to help his country in her hour of need is excellent. But
the Government do not seem to have realised that half a million volunteer
soldiers have been waiting and ready for a job for the last six months:

  And when at last you come and say
    "What can you do? We ask for light
  On any service you can pay,"
    The answer is: "_You_ know all right,
  And all this weary while you knew it;
  The trouble was you wouldn't let us do it."

The German Press is not exactly the place where one expects to find
occasion for merriment. Yet listen to this from the _Neueste
Nachrichten_: "Our foes ask themselves continuously, How can we best get
at Germany's vital parts? What are her most vulnerable points? The answer
is, her humanity--her trustful honesty." Here, on the other hand, thousands
of people, by knocking months and years off their real age, have been
telling good straightforward lies for their country. At the Front euphemism
in describing hardship is mingled with circumlocution in official
terminology. Thus one C.O. is reported to refer to the enemy not as Germans
but "militant bodies of composite Teutonic origin."

A new and effectual cure for the conversion of pessimists at home has been
discovered. It is simply to out-do the prophets of ill at their own game.
The result is that they seek you out to tell you that an enemy submarine
has been sunk off the Scillies or that the Crown Prince is in the Tower. It
is the old story that optimists are those who have been associating with
pessimists and _vice versâ_. But seriousness is spreading. We are told
that even actresses are now being photographed with their mouths shut,
though one would have thought that at such a time all British
subjects--especially the "Odolisques" of the variety stage--ought to show
their teeth.



_August_, 1915.


Ordinary anniversaries lead to retrospect: after a year of the greatest of
all wars it is natural to indulge in a stock-taking of the national spirit,
and comforting to find that, in spite of disillusions and disappointments,
the alternation of exultations and agonies, the soul of the fighting men of
England remains unshaken and unconquerable. Three of the Great Powers of
Europe espoused the cause of Liberty a year ago; now there are four, and
the aid of Italy in engaging and detaching large Austrian forces enables us
to contemplate with greater equanimity a month of continuous Russian
withdrawal, and the tragic loss of Warsaw and the great fortresses of
Novo-Georgievsk and Brest-Litovsk. And if there is no outward sign of the
awakening of Germany, no slackening in frightfulness, no abatement in the
blasphemous and overweening confidence of her Ruler and his War-lords who
can tell whether they have not moments of self-distrust?

       *       *       *       *       *

THE WAYSIDE CALVARY. August 4th, 1915.

  Now with the full year Memory holds her tryst,
    Heavy with such a tale of bitter loss
  As never Earth has suffered since the Christ
          Hung for us on the Cross.

  If God, O Kaiser, makes the vision plain;
    Gives you on some lone Calvary to see
  The Man of Sorrows Who endured the pain
          And died to set us free--

  How will you face beneath its crown of thorn
    That figure stark against the smoking skies,
  The arms outstretched, the sacred head forlorn,
          And those reproachful eyes?

  How dare confront the false quest with the true,
    Or think what gulfs between the ideals lie
  Of Him Who died that men may live--and you
          Who live that man may die?

  Ah, turn your eyes away; He reads your heart;
    Pass on and, having done your work abhorred,
  Join hands with JUDAS in his place apart,
          You who betrayed your Lord.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is the way of modern war that we know little of what is going on, least
of all on sea. Some of our sailormen have had their chance in the
Heligoland Bight, off the Dogger Bank and Falkland Isles, and in the
Dardanelles. It is well that we should remember what we owe to the patient
vigil of their less fortunate comrades, the officers and men of the Grand
Fleet, and to the indefatigable and ubiquitous activities of the ships
officially classified as "Light Cruisers (Old)":

[Illustration: AFTER ONE YEAR]

  From Pole unto Pole, all the oceans between,
  Patrolling, protecting, unwearied, unseen,
  By night or by noonday, the Navy is there,
  And the out-of-date cruisers are doing their share,
  The creaky old cruisers whose day is not done,
  Built some time before Nineteen-hundred-and-one.

At any rate, we know for certain that British submarines have made their
way into the Baltic, a "sea change" extremely disquieting to the Germans,
who, for the rest, have suffered in a naval scrap in the Gulf of Riga with
the Russians. On the Western front our troops are suffering from two
plagues--large shells and little flies. These troubles have not prevented
them from scoring a small though costly success at Hooge. From Gallipoli
comes the news of fresh deeds of amazing heroism at Suvla Bay and Anzac.

The war of Notes goes on with unabated energy between Germany and the
U.S.A. At home a brief period has been set to the pernicious activities of
importunate inquisitors by the adjournment of the House till mid-September.
"Dr. Punch" is of opinion that the Mother of Parliaments is sorely in need
of a rest and needs every hour of a seven weeks' holiday. In the Thrift
campaign, which has now set in, everybody expects that everybody else
should do his duty; and the universal eruption of posters imploring us to
subscribe to the War Loan indicates the emergence of a new Art--that of
Government by advertisement. To the obvious appeals to duty, patriotism,
conscience, appeals to shame, appeals romantic and even facetious are now
added. It may be necessary, but the method is not dignified. All that can
be said is that "Govertisement," or government by advertisement, is better
than Government by the Press, a new terror with which we are daily
threatened.

Mr. Winston Churchill, the greatest of our quick-change political artists,
is said to be devoting his leisure to landscape painting. The particular
school that he favours is not publicly stated, but we have reason to
believe that he intends to be a Leader.

The Archbishop of Cologne says that, on being congratulated on his Eastern
successes, the Kaiser "turned his eyes to heaven with the most
indescribable expression of intense gratitude and religious fervour." Yes,
we can quite imagine that it beggared description. But there is no
difficulty in finding the right phrase for his address to the inhabitants
of Warsaw: "We wage war only against hostile troops, not against peaceful
citizens." It is not "_splendide mendax_." That is the due of boys who
overstate, and men who understate, their age in order to serve their
country in the field.

[Illustration: OFFICER (to boy of thirteen who, in his effort to get taken
on as a bugler, has given his age as sixteen): "Do you know where boys go
who tell lies?"

APPLICANT: "To the Front, sir."]

A correspondent reminds Mr. Punch that four years ago he wrote as follows:
"Lord Haldane, in defending the Territorials, declared that he expects to
be dead before any political party seriously suggests compulsory military
service. We understand that, since making this statement, our War Minister
has received a number of telegrams from Germany wishing him long life." But
we suspect that when he said dead he meant politically dead. Still, we owe
Lord Haldane the Territorials, and they are doing great work in Europe and
most valuable, if thankless, work in India. As "One of the _Punch_
brigade" writes: "The hearts of very few of the Territorials now
garrisoning India are in their work, though, of course, we know that
actually it is essential duty we are performing." "They also serve," who
patiently endure the dull routine of existence largely spent in a stifling
fort on the blistering and dust-swept plains, and find relief in the
smallest incident that breaks the monotony. As, for example, when a
quartermaster-sergeant was held up by a native guard at a bridge, and, on
demanding an explanation, had his attention directed to the notices on the
wall, "Elephants and traction engines are not allowed to cross this
bridge."



_September, 1915_.


The Tsar has succeeded the Grand Nicholas as Generalissimo of his armies,
and the great Russian retreat has ended. Yet it would be rash to say that
the one event has caused the other. Lord Kitchener's statement that on the
Eastern front the Germans had "almost shot their last bolt" is a better
summary, and when we reflect on their enormous superiority in artillery and
equipment, that is a great tribute to the strategy of the Grand Duke in
conducting the most difficult retreat of modern times. Germany, though a
mistress of the entire alphabet of frightfulness, is making increasing play
with the _U_'s and _Z_'s, and Admiral Percy Scott, who predicted
the dangers of the former, is now entrusted with the task of coping with
the latter menace.

Five months have elapsed since the sinking of the _Lusitania_ and the
pro-German campaign in the United States is more active than ever, thanks
to the untiring efforts of Count Bernstorff and his worthy ally, Dr. Dumba,
in promoting strikes and _sabotage_; but President Wilson, "Le Grand
Penseur," declines to be rushed by the interventionists, and is giving his
detached consideration to the "concessions" of the German Government in
regard to submarine warfare. But three thousand miles of ocean no longer
keep America free from strife. The enemy is within her gates, plotting,
spying and bribing. The lesser neutrals in Europe find it harder to
dissemble their sympathies, but Ferdinand of Bulgaria maintains a vulpine
inscrutability.

[Illustration: THE UNSINKABLE TIRP

GERMAN CHANCELLOR: "Well, thank Heaven, that's the last of Tirpitz."

TIRPITZ (reappearing): "I don't think!"]

By way of a sidelight on what happens on the Western front, a wounded
officer sends a characteristic account of his experiences after "going over
the top" at 3 A.M. "The first remark, as distinct from a shout that I heard
after leaving our parapet, came from Private Henry, my most notorious
malefactor. As the first attempt at a wire entanglement in our new position
went heavenward ten seconds after its emplacement, and a big tree just to
our right collapsed suddenly like a dying pig, he turned round with a grin,
observing: 'Well, sir, we _do_ see a bit of life, if we _don't_
make money.' I never saw a man all day who hadn't a grin ready when you
passed, and a bit of a _riposte_ if you passed the time of day with
him." Our officers only think of their men, and the men of their officers.
In Gallipoli our soldiers have discovered a new method of annoying the
Turk:

  We go and bathe, in shameless scores
    Beneath his baleful een,
  Disrobe, unscathed, on sacred shores
    And wallow in between;
  Nor does a soldier then assume
  His university costume,
  And though it makes the Faithful fume,
    It makes the Faithless clean.

The return of the wounded to England is marked by strange incidents,
pathetic and humorous. Thus it has been reserved for an officer, reported
dead in the casualty list, to ring up his people on the telephone and
correct "this silly story about my being killed." And the cheerfulness of
the limbless men in blue is something wonderful. They "jest at scars," but
not because they "never felt a wound." It is a high privilege to entertain
these light-hearted heroes, one of whom recently presented his partner in a
lawn tennis match with a fragment of shell taken direct from his
"stummick." And the recipient rightly treasures it as a love-token.

Parliament has reassembled, the inquisitors returning (unhappily) like
giants refreshed after their holiday. But they sometimes contribute to our
amusement, as when one relentless and complacent critic declared that, on
the matter of conscription, he should himself "prefer to be guided--very
largely--by Lord Kitchener." The concession is something. Most of the
importunate questionists are on the other side:

  "Take from us any joys you like," they cry;
    "We'd bear the loss, however much we missed 'em;
  Let truth and justice, fame and honour die,
    But spare, O spare, our Voluntary System!"

Amongst other signs of the times the increase of girl gardeners and the
sacrifice of flower beds to vegetables are to be noted. But War changes are
sometimes disconcerting, even when they are most salutary. For example,
there is the _cri de coeur_ of a passenger on a Clydebank tramcar in
Glasgow on Saturday night, with a lady conductor: "I canna jist bottom
this, Tam. It's Seterday nicht an' this is the Clydebank caur, an' there's
naebody singin' an' naebody fechtin' wi' the conductor." Liquor control
evidently does mean something.


[Illustration: A HANDY MAN

MARINE;(somewhat late for parade): "At six o'clock I was a bloomin'
'ousemaid: at seven o'clock I was a bloomin' valet; at eight o'clock I was
a bloomin' waiter; an' _now_ I'm a bloomin' soldier!"]

The War vocabulary grows and grows. "Pipsqueaks," "crumps" and "Jack
Johnsons," picturesque equivalents for unpleasant things, have long been
familiar even to arm-chair experts. The strangely named "Archie," and
"Pacifist," the dismay of scholars--a word "mean as what it's meant to
mean"--now come to be added to the list. A new and admirable explanation of
the R.F.A., "Ready for anyfink," is attributed to a street Arab. Our
children are mostly lapped in blissful ignorance, but their comments are
often illuminating. As, for instance, the suggestion of a small child asked
to give her idea of a suitable future for Germany and the Kaiser: "After
the war I wouldn't let Heligoland belong to anybody. I would put the
Germans there, and they should dig and dig and dig until it was all dug
into the sea. The Kaiser should be sent to America, and they should be as
rude as they liked to him. If he went in a train no one was to offer him a
seat; he was to hang on to a strap, and he is to be called Mr. Smith."
Cooks are being bribed to stay by the gift of War Bonds. Smart fashionables
are flocking to munition works, and some of them sometimes are not
unnaturally growing almost frightened at the organising talents they are
developing. So are other people.

A vigorous campaign against flies has been initiated by the journal which
describes itself as "that paper which gets things done." Nothing is too
small for it. Meanwhile it is announced that "Lord Northcliffe is
travelling and will be beyond the reach of correspondence until the end of
next week." Even he must have an occasional rest from his daily mail.

We have to apologise for any suggestion to the effect that the Huns are
devoid of humour. The German Society for the Protection and Preservation of
Monuments has held a meeting in Brussels and expressed its thanks to the
German Military Authorities for the care they had taken of the Monuments in
Belgium. The function ended with an excursion to Louvain, where the
delegates, no doubt, enjoyed a happy hour in the Library.



_October, 1915_.


September ended with the Western front once more ablaze, with bitter
fighting at Loos and a great French offensive in Champagne. With October
the focus of interest and anxiety shifts to the Balkans. Austrian armies,
stiffened with Germans, have again invaded Serbia and again occupied
Belgrade. The Allies have landed at Salonika, and Ferdinand of Bulgaria has
declared war on Serbia. Thus a new theatre of war has been opened, and
though it is well to be rid of a treacherous neutral, the conflict enters
on a fresh and formidable phase. When Ferdinand went to Bulgaria he is said
to have resolved that if ever there were to be any assassinations he would
be on the side of the assassins. He has been true to his word ever since
the removal of Stamboloff:

  Here stands the Moslem with his brutal sword
    Still red and reeking with Armenia's slaughter;
  Here, fresh from Belgium's wastes, the Christian Lord,
    His heart unsated by the wrong he wrought her;
  And you between them, on your brother's track,
  Sworn, for a bribe, to stick him in the back.

France and England have declared their intention of rendering all possible
help to Serbia in her new ordeal, but Greece, false to her treaty with
Serbia, and dominated by a pro-German Court and Government, hampers us at
every turn. "'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more." So Byron sang, and a
Byron _de nos jours_ adds a new stanza to his appeal:

  Lo, a new curse--the Teuton bane!
    Again rings out the trumpet call;
  France, England, Russia, joined again,
    For freedom fight, for Greece, for all;
  And Greece--shall she that call ignore?
  Then is she living Greece no more!

Life in the trenches grows more strenuous as the output of high explosive
increases, and the daily toll of our best and bravest makes grievous
reading for the elders at home, "who linger here and droop beneath the
heavy burden of our years," though many of them cheerfully undertake the
thankless fatigues of guarding the King's highway as specials. But letters
from the front still show the same genius for making light of hardship and
deadly peril, the same happy gift of extracting amusement from trivial
incidents. So those who spend their days and nights under heavy shell fire
and heavy rain write to tell you that "tea is the dominating factor of
war," or that "the mushrooming and ratting in their latest quarters" are
satisfactory. And even the wounded, in comparing the hazards of London with
those at the front, only indulge in mild irony at the expense of the
"staunch dare-devil souls who stay at home."

In Parliament Sir Edward Carson has explained the reasons of his
resignation of office--his difference from his colleagues in the
difficulties arising in the Eastern theatre of war; and a resolution has
been placed on the order-book proposing the appointment of a Committee of
Inquiry on the Dardanelles campaign. No abatement of the plague of
questions is yet noticeable, but some slight excuse may be found for the
"ragging" of the Censor. This anonymous worthy, it appears, recently
excised the words "and the Kings" from the well-known line in Mr. Kipling's
"Recessional":

  The Captains and the Kings depart.

Apparently the Censor cannot admit any reference to the movements of
royalty.

[Illustration: REALISATION

("When I went to Bulgaria I resolved that if there were to be any
assassinations I would be on the side of the assassins."
STATEMENT BY FERDINAND.)]

When the Kaiser was at Windsor in 1891 he told the Eton College Volunteers
he was glad to see so many of them taking an interest in the study of arms,
and hoped that if ever they had to draw their swords in earnest they would
use them to some purpose for their country. Now that there are three
thousand Etonians at the front he is beginning to be sorry he spoke. The
Kaiser, by his own confession, is sorry in another way. He has told a
Socialist deputy, "with tears in his eyes," that he was sincerely sorry for
France, which was "the greatest disappointment of his life." Even
crocodiles sometimes speak the truth unwittingly. Meanwhile the Hamburg
_Fremdenblatt_ asserts that, "We Germans would gladly follow the
Kaiser's lead through the very gates of hell, were it necessary." The
qualification is surely superfluous, in the light of the murder of the
heroic English hospital matron, Edith Cavell, at Brussels on October 12.
Her life was one long act of mercy. She died with unshaken fortitude after
the mockery of a trial on a charge of having assisted fugitive British and
Belgian prisoners to escape. But her great offence was that she was
English. The names of her chief assassins are General Baron von Biasing,
the Governor of Brussels, General von Sauberschweig, the Military Governor,
and the Baron von der Lancken, the Head of the Political Department. Many
years will pass before the echoes of that volley fired at dawn in a
Brussels prison yard will die away.

[Illustration: LANDLADY; "'Ere's the Zeppelins, sir!" LODGER: "Right-o! Put
'em down outside."]

A new phase has been reached in the Conscription controversy, and the
burning question appears to be whether the necessary men are to be
compelled to volunteer or persuaded to be compulsorily enrolled. One of our
novelist military experts, who is not always lucky with figures, though he
thoroughly enjoys them, is alleged to have discovered that there are no
more men than can be raised by conscription, but that the same does not, of
course, apply to the voluntary system.

The _Daily Mail_ asks, "Have we a Foreign Office?" We understand that
a search-party is going carefully through Carmelite House. We have
certainly got a Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, so efficient in the
discharge of his duties that he has made himself an accomplished landscape
painter in three months.

A visitor to a remote East Anglian village in search of rest has found
recreation in discussing with the inhabitants the Great War, of which he
found some of them had heard. "Them there Zett'lins," said one old woman,
"I almost shruk as I heerd the mucky varmints a-shovellin' on the
coals--dare, dare! How my pore heart did beat!" And an onlooker, who had
seen a bomb drop near a church, informed the visitor that it "fared to him
like the body of the chach a-floatin' away--that it did and all! It made a
clangin' like a covey of lorries with their innards broke loose." Another
inhabitant said that he had two boys fighting. "One on 'em is in France,
wherever that might be, and Jimmy's in that hare old Dardelles." He
couldn't rightly say when the elder had gone out, "but it might be a yare
ago come muck-spreadin'."



_November_, 1915.


More money and more men is still the cry. The war is now costing five
millions a day, and the new vote of credit for £400,000,000 will only carry
us on till the middle of February. This is "Derby's Day," and the new
Director of Recruiting inspires confidence in his ability to make good, in
spite of the Jeremiads of Lord Courtney and Lord Loreburn. The lot of a
Coalition Government is never easy, and public opinion clamours not for
Jeremiahs but for Jonahs to lighten the Ship of State. Mr. Winston
Churchill, wearying of his sinecure at the Duchy of Lancaster, has resigned
office, explained himself in a long speech, and rejoined his regiment at
the Western front. Lord Fisher, whose doubts and hesitations about the
Dardanelles expedition were referred to by the late First Lord, has been
content to leave his record of sixty-one years' service in the hands of his
countrymen. In the briefest maiden speech ever delivered in either House he
stated that it was "unfitting to make personal explanations affecting the
national interest when my country is in the midst of a great war." Here at
least the traditions of the "Silent Service" have been worthily maintained,
just as they are maintained by the Port Officer R.N.R. at an Oriental
seaport, a thousand miles from the front, out of the limelight, with no
chance of glory, with fever from morn till night, who "worries along by the
grace of God and the blessing of cheap cheroots."

In Flanders the rain has begun its winter session, and, as a military
humorist put it, trench warfare is becoming a constant drain. The problem
of parapet mending has been reduced to arithmetical form _à la_
Colenso, as follows: "If two inches of rain per diem brings down one
quarter of a company's parapet, and one company, working about twenty-six
hours per diem, can revet one-eighth of a company's parapet, how long will
your trenches last--given the additional premisses that no revetments to
speak of are to be had, and that two inches of rain is only a minimum
ration?" The infantryman finds the men of the R.F.C. interesting and
stimulating companions. "These airy fellows talk of war as if it were a
day's shooting, and they the cock pheasants with the best of the fun up
aloft. Upon my word, the hen who hatched such birds should be a proud, if
anxious, mother." The same correspondent sends a pleasant account of the
mutual estimates of French and English, prompted by their experiences as
brothers in arms. "Our idea of our Ally as a soldier is that his
_élan_ and gay courage are very much more remarkable even than
supposed; but for the dull, heavy work of continued warfare there is
wanted, if we may say so without offence, the more stolid qualities of the
English. On the other hand, the French opinion of their Ally as a soldier
is that his dash and devilment are really astonishing, even to the most
expectant critic; but for the sordid, monotonous strain of this trench
business it needs (a thousand pardons!) the duller persistence of the
French."

[Illustration: THE PERSUADING OF TINO]

In Greece the quick change of Premiers proceeds with kaleidoscopic
rapidity. The attitude of the successive Prime Ministers has been described
as (1) Tender and affectionate neutrality toward the Entente Powers; (2)
Malevolent impartiality toward the Central Powers; (3) Inert cupidity
toward all the belligerent Powers; (4) Genial inability; (5) Strict
pusillanimity.

Lord Milner has gone so far in the House of Lords as to say that "such war
news as is published has from first to last been seriously misleading." The
Balkan intelligence that is allowed to reach us does not exactly deserve
this censure. To call it misleading would be too high praise; it seldom
rises beyond a level of blameless irrelevance. It is hardly a burlesque of
the facts to say that a cable from Amsterdam informs us that the Copenhagen
correspondent of the _Echo de Paris_ learns from Salonika, _viâ_
Lemnos and Nijni Novgorod, that in high official circles in Bukarest it is
rumoured that in Constantinople the situation is considered grave; and then
we are warned that too much credence must not be given to this report. The
number of Censors at the Press Bureau being exactly forty, and their minute
knowledge of English literature having been displayed on several occasions,
it is said that Sir John Simon contemplates their incorporation as an
Academy of "Immortals--for the duration of the War."

[Illustration: PADDY (who has had his periscope smashed by a bullet): "Sure
there's seven years' bad luck for the poor devil that broke that, anyhow."]

Mr. Punch's Correspondent "Blanche" sends distressing details of some of
the new complaints contracted by smart war workers. These include
munition-wrists, shell-makers' crouch, neuro-committee-itis, and
Zeppelin-eye through looking up into the sky too long with a telescope.

A great deal depends on what you look at and what you look through. Thus
Mr. Walter Long says that when he reads carping criticisms upon the conduct
of the War he looks through his window at the people in the street and is
always surprised to see the quiet steadfast manner in which they are going
about their business. It is a good plan, but not always successful. The
Kaiser got his view of the Irish people through a Casement, and it was
entirely erroneous.

The _Cologne Gazette_ has stated that "there is in England no real
soldiers' humour such as we have." Certainly we have nothing like it,
though we confess to preferring the home-grown brand.



_December, 1915_


Kut and Ctesiphon, Ctesiphon and Kut. Thus may the events of the last month
in Mesopotamia, no longer a "blessed word," be expressed in a bald formula,
which takes no account of the unavailing heroism of General Townshend's
small but splendid force. Things have not been going well in the East. The
Allies have been unable to save Serbia, Monastir has fallen, and our lines
have been withdrawn to Salonika. The experts are now divided into two
camps, the Westerners and the Easterners, and the former, pointing to the
evacuation of Gallipoli, are loud in their denunciations of costly
"side-shows," and the folly of strengthening Germany's hold on Turkey by
killing out the Turks, instead of concentrating all our forces on killing
the Germans on the Western front. The time is not yet come to decide which
is right. But all are agreed with the British officer who described the
Australian soldier at Gallipoli as "the bravest thing God ever made," and
so prompted these lines:

  Bravest, where half a world of men
    Are brave beyond all earth's rewards,
  So stoutly none shall charge again
    Till the last breaking of the swords;
  Wounded or hale, won home from war,
    Or yonder by the Lone Pine laid;
  Give him his due for evermore--
    "The bravest thing God ever made!"

Though the wings of the angel of Peace cannot be heard, peace kite-flying
has already begun in Vienna, but Germany is anxious to represent it as
unauthorised and improper. Mr. Henry Ford's voyage to Europe on the
_Oscar II_ with a strangely assorted group of Pacificists does more
credit to his heart than his head, and the conflicting elements in his
party have earned for his ship the name of "The Tug of Peace." Anyhow,
England is taking no risks on the strength of these irregular "overtures."
A vote has been passed for a further increase of our "contemptible little
Army" to four millions; and the manufacture of high explosive goes on in an
ever-increasing ratio. Sir Douglas Haig has succeeded Sir John French as
Commander-in-Chief of our Armies in France; Sir William Robertson is the
new Chief of Staff--Scotsmen both of the finest type--and the appointments
are universally approved, even by the _Daily Mail_. The temper of the
men in France is well hit off by an officer when he says that "Atkins is
really best when an ordinary mortal might be contemplating suicide or
desertion." And officers arriving on leave at Victoria at 2 A.M. are driven
to the conclusion that they are sent back to England from time to time to
check their optimism, which at the front survives even being sent to
so-called rest camps in the middle of a malodorous marsh for nine hours'
military training _per diem_. The "philosophy of Thomas" is
inscrutable, but no doubt he derives satisfaction from comparisons:

  If we're standin' in two foot o' water, you see
  Quite likely the Boches are standin' in three;
  An' though the keen frost may be ticklin' our toes,
  'Oo doubts that the Boches' 'ole bodies is froze?

  So 'ere's our philosophy, simple an' plain:
  Wotever we 'ates in the bloomin' campaign,
  'Tis balm to our souls, as we grumble an' cuss,
  To feel that the Boches are 'atin' it wuss.

Hardest of all is the lot of the trooper in the trenches, who "thinks all
day and dreams all night of a slap-bang, tally-ho! open fight," but for the
time being "like a blinded mole toils in a furrow and lives in a hole."

[Illustration: AN UNAUTHORISED FLIRTATION

THE KAISER (to Austrian Emperor): "Franz! Franz! I'm surprised and
pained."]

The National Thrift campaign is carried on with great earnestness in
Parliament. Luxury, waste, unnecessary banquets, high legal salaries have
all come under the lash of the economy hunters. Of the maxim that "Charity
begins, at home," they have, however, so far shown no appreciation beyond
abstaining from voting any addition to their salary of £400 a year. Mr.
Asquith's announcement that he takes his salary, and is going to continue
taking it, has naturally lifted a great weight from the minds of these
vicarious champions of economy.

[Illustration: TOMMY (finding a German prisoner who speaks English): "Look
what you done to me, you blighters! 'Ere--'ave a cigarette?"]

Evidence of the chastened condition of the enemy is to be found in the
statement on the official notepaper of Wolff's Telegraphic Bureau "that it
assumes no responsibility of any kind for the accuracy of the news which it
circulates." But there is no confirmation of the report that its dispatches
will in future be known as "Lamb's Tales." The German Imperial Chancellor
has replied to an appeal from a deputation of German Roman Catholics on
behalf of the Armenians that "The German Government, in friendly
communication with the Turkish Government, has been at constant pains to
better the situation of Turkey's Christian subjects." Thanks to this
friendly intervention, more than half a million Armenians will never suffer
again from Turkish misrule.


Mr. Roosevelt has added to the picturesqueness of political invective by
describing Mr. Wilson's last Presidential message as "worthy of a Byzantine
logothete." It is not often that one finds a rough-rider and ex-cowboy who
is able to tackle a don in his own lingo. But Tommy at the front manages to
converse with the _poilu_ without any vocabulary at all:

  I met a chap the other day a-roostin' in a trench,
  'E didn't know a word of ours nor me a word of French,
  An' 'ow it was we managed--well, I cannot understand,
  But I never used the phrase-book, though I 'ad it in my hand.

  I winked at 'im to start with; 'e grinned from ear to ear;
  An' 'e says "Tipperary," an' I says "Sooveneer";
  'E 'ad my only Woodbine, I 'ad 'is thin cigar,
  Which set the ball a-rollin', an' so--well, there you are!

  I showed 'im next my wife an' kids, 'e up an' showed me 'is,
  Them funny little Frenchy kids with 'air all in a frizz;
  "Annette," 'e says, "Louise," 'e says, an' 'is tears began to fall;
  We was comrades when we parted, but we'd 'ardly spoke at all.



_January, 1916_.


The New Year brings us a mixed bag of tricks, good and bad. Our armies grow
in numbers and efficiency, in men and munitions. The new Commander-in-Chief
on the Western front, and his new Chief of Staff, inspire confidence in all
ranks, combatant and non-combatant. John Ward, the Labour Member, hitherto
a strong opponent of conscription, and now a full-blown Colonel, has
hurried over from the front to defend the Compulsory Service Bill in a
manly and animated speech, and the Bill, despite the "Pringling" and
pacificism of a small but local minority, has passed through Committee.

Against these encouraging omens we have to set the complete evacuation of
Gallipoli, the scene of unparalleled heroism and unavailing sacrifice, the
fall of Monastir, the overrunning of Serbia, labour troubles on the Clyde,
and the ignominious exemption of Ireland from the Military Service Bill.
General Townshend, _rebus angustis animosus_--"in a tight place but
full of beans"--is besieged in Kut, and the relieving forces have not been
able to dislodge the Turks. Climate and weather and _terrain_ are all
against us.

Humanitarian Pacificists are much impressed by Germany's piteous
lamentations over the brutality of the blockade. In these appeals to
America optimists detect signs of cracking. Cooler observers explain them
as evidence of her policy of shamming dead.

English mothers who have lost their only sons cannot be expected to show
sympathy for an Emperor who combines the professions of a Jekyll with the
ferocity of a Hyde. Yet few of them would rewrite the record of these short
lives; their pride is greater than their pain.

While the daily toll of life is heavy, War, shorn of its pomp and
pageantry, drags wearily in the trenches. The Lovelace of to-day is a
troglodyte, biding his time patiently, but often a prey to _ennui_.
This is how he writes to Lucasta to correct the portrait painted by her
fancy:

  Above, the sky is very grey, the world is very damp.
  His light the sun denies by day, the moon by night her lamp;
  Across the landscape, soaked and sad, the dull guns answer back,
  And through the twilight's futile hush spasmodic rifles crack.

  The papers haven't come to-day to show how England feels;
  The hours go lame and languidly between our Spartan meals;
  We've written letters till we're tired, with not a thing to tell
  Except that nothing's doing, weather beastly, writer well.

  So when you feel for us out here--as well I know you will--
  Then sympathise with thousands for their country sitting still;
  Don't picture battle-pieces by the lurid Press adored,
  But miles and miles of Britishers, in burrows, badly bored.

[Illustration:

FOR NEUTRALS

"Why do we torpedo passenger ships? Because we are being starved by the
infamous English."


FOR NATIVES

"Who says we are in distress? Look what our splendid organisation is
doing."]

Small wonder that Lovelace in the trenches envies the Flying Man:

  He rides aloof on god-like wings,
    Taking no thought of wire or mud,
  Saps, smells, or bugs--the mundane things
    That sour our lives and have our blood.

  The roads we trudged with feet of lead,
    The shadows of his pinions skim;
  The river where we piled our dead
    Is but a silver thread to him.

Lovelace in the air might tell another story; but both are at one with
their prototype in the spirit which made him say: "I could not love thee,
dear, so much, loved I not honour more," though neither of them would say
it.

In this context one may add that the Flying Men are not alone in exciting
envy. Bread is the staff of life, and in the view of certain officers in
the trenches the life of the Staff is one long loaf.

The discussion on the withdrawal of Members' salaries has died down. The
incident is now buried, and here is its epitaph:

  Some three-score years or so ago six hundred gallant men
  Made a charge that cost old England dear; they lost four hundred then:
  To-day six hundred make a charge that costs the country dear,
  But now they take four hundred each--four hundred pounds a year.

Our journalists have been visiting the Fleet, and one of them, in a burst
of candour tempered with caution, declares that "one would like to describe
much more than one has seen, but that is impossible." Some other
correspondents have found no such difficulty. But for admirable candour
commend us to the _Daily Mail_ of December 24, where we read, "The
_Daily Mail_ will not be published to-morrow, and for that reason we
seize the occasion to-day of bidding our readers a Merry Christmas"--and a
very good reason too. Mr. Punch is glad to reprint a ten-year-old girl's
essay on "Patriotism": "Patriotism is composed of patriots, and they are
people who live in Ireland and want Mr. Redmond or other people to be King
of Ireland. They are very brave, some of them, and are so called after St.
Patrick, who is Ireland's private saint. The patriots who are brave make
splendid soldiers. The patriots who are not brave go to America." And here
is a topical extract from a letter written to a loved one from the Front:

"I received your dear little note in a sandbag. You say that you hope the
sandbag stops a bullet. Well, to tell the truth, I hope it don't, as I have
been patching my trousers with it."

[Illustration:

TOMMY (dictating letter to be sent to his wife): "The nurses here are a
very plain lot--"

NURSE: "Oh, come! I say! That's not very polite to us."

TOMMY: "Never mind. Nurse, put it down. It'll please her!"]

Tommy is adding to his other great qualities that of diplomacy, to judge
from the incident illustrated above.



_February, 1916_.


The Epic of the Dardanelles is closed; that of Verdun has begun, and all
eyes are focused on the tremendous struggle for the famous fortress. The
Crown Prince has still his laurels to win, and it is clear that no
sacrifice of German "cannon fodder" will be too great to deter him from
pushing the stroke home. Fort Douaumont has fallen, and the hill of the
Mort Homme has already terribly justified its cadaverous name. The
War-lords of Germany are sorely in need of a spectacular success even
though they purchase it at a great price, for they are very far from having
everything their own way. Another Colony has gone the way of Tsing-tau, New
Guinea and South-West Africa. The German Kamerun has cried "Kamerad!"
General Smuts, like Botha, "Boer and Briton too," has gone off to take
command in East Africa, and in the Caucasus Erzerum has fallen to the
Russians. The Kaiser is reported to be bitterly disappointed with Allah.

Sir Edward Grey is not altogether satisfied with the conduct of the Neutral
Powers. He has no desire to make things as irksome to them as some of his
critics desire. But he has pointed out that in the matter of preventing
supplies from reaching the enemy by circuitous routes Great Britain has her
own work to do, and means to do it thoroughly.

The miraculous forbearance of President Wilson, in face of the activities
of Count Bernstorff, is even more trying to a good many of his countrymen
than it is to the belligerent Briton. Mr. Roosevelt, for instance, derives
no satisfaction from being the fellow-countryman of a man who can "knock
spots" off Job for patience. The _New York Life_ has long criticised
the President with a freedom far eclipsing anything in the British Press.
It has now crowned its "interventionist" campaign by a "John Bull number,"
the most generous and graceful tribute ever paid to England by the American
Press.

[Illustration: THE CHALLENGE

"Halt! Who comes there?" "Neutral." "Prove it!"

"What I would say to Neutrals is this: Do they admit our right to apply the
principles which were applied by the American Government in the war between
North and South--to apply those principles to modern conditions and to do
our best to prevent trade with the enemy through neutral countries? If the
answer is that we are not entitled to do that, then I must say definitely
it is a departure from neutrality."--SIR EDWARD GREY.]

[Illustration:

GRANNIE (dragged out of bed at 1.30 a.m., and being hurriedly dressed as
the bombs begin to fall): "Nancy, these stockings are not a pair."]

The Military Service Bill has passed through both Houses, and may be
trusted to hasten still further the amazing growth of our once
"contemptible little" Army. The pleasantest incident during the month at
Westminster has been the tribute paid to the gallantry and self-sacrifice
of the officers and men of our mercantile marine. The least satisfactory
aspect of Parliamentary activity has been the ventilation of silly rumours
at Question time, in which Mr. Ginnell has been so well to the fore as to
suggest some subtle connection between cattle-driving and hunting for
mares' nests.

Steps have already been taken to restrict the imports of luxuries, and
Ministers are believed to be unanimous in regarding "ginger" as an article
whose importation might be profitably curtailed. It has been calculated
that the annual expenses saved by the closing of the London Museums and
Galleries amount to about one-fifth of the public money spent on the
salaries of Members of Parliament. In other words:

  Let Art and Science die,
  But give us still our old Loquacity.

Intellectual retrenchment, of course, is desirable,

  But let us still keep open one collection
    Of curiosities and quaint antiques,
  Under immediate Cabinet direction--
    The finest specimens of talking freaks,
  Who constitute our most superb museum,
  Judged by the salaries with which we fee 'em.

Lord Sumner, however, seems to have no illusions on this score. He is
reported to have said that "if the House of Lords and the House of Commons
could be taken and thrown into a volcano every day the loss represented
would be less than the daily loss of the campaign." It sounds a drastic
remedy, but might be worth trying.

Field-Marshal Lord French has taken over the responsibility for home
defence against enemy aircraft, with Sir Percy Scott as his expert adviser.
But the status of Sir Percy, who, as officially announced, "has not quite
left the Admiralty and has not quite joined the War Office," seems to
suggest "a kind of giddy harumfrodite--soldier an' sailor too."

The War fosters the study of natural and unnatural history.

[Illustration: FIRST LADY: "That's one of them Australian soldiers."

SECOND LADY: "How do you know?"

FIRST LADY: "Why, can't you see the Kangaroo feathers in his hat?"]

Many early nestings are recorded as the result of mild weather, and at
least one occasional visitor _(Polonius bombifer_) has laid eggs in
various parts of the country.



_March_, 1916.


The month of the War god has again justified its name and its traditions.
Both entry and exit have been leonine. The new submarine "frightfulness"
began on the 1st, and the battle round Verdun, in which the fate of Paris,
to say the least, is involved, has raged with unabated fury throughout the
entire month.

Germany's junior partners, Turkey and Bulgaria, are for the moment more
concerned with bleeding Germany than with shedding their blood for her;
Enver Pasha is reported to have gone to pay a visit to the tomb of the
Prophet at Medina; Portugal, our oldest ally, is now officially at war with
Germany, and the dogs of frightfulness are already toasting "_der
Tagus_."

On our share of the Western front there is still what is nominally
described as a "lull." But, as a young Officer writes, "you must not
imagine that life here is all honey. Even here we do a bit for our
eight-and-sixpence." Once upon a time billets were billets. They now very
often admit of being shelled with equal exactitude from due in front and
due in rear, and water is laid on throughout. "It is a fact well known to
all our most widely circulated photographic dailies that the German gunners
waste a power of ammunition. The only criticism I have to make is that I
wish they would waste it more carefully. The way they go strewing the stuff
about around us is such that they're bound to hit someone or something
before long. Still, we have only two more days in these trenches, and they
seldom give us more than ten thousand shells a day."

[Illustration: Verdun, February--March, 1916]

Letters from second-lieutenants seldom go beyond a gentle reminder that
their life is not an Elysium. They offer a strange contrast to the
activities of Parliamentary grousers and scapegoat hunters. If the Germans
were in occupation of the Black Country, if Oxford were being daily shelled
as Rheims is, and if with a favouring breeze London could hear the dull
rumble of the bombardment as Paris can, one wonders if Members would still
be encumbering the Order-paper with the vexatious trivialities that now
find place there, or emitting what a patriotic Labour Member picturesquely
described as "the croakings and bleatings of the fatted lambs who have
besmirched their country." _Per contra_ we welcome the optimism of Mr.
Asquith in discussing new Votes of Credit, though he reminds us of Micawber
calculating his indebtedness for the benefit of Traddles. It will be
remembered that when the famous IOU had been handed over, Copperfield
remarked, "I am persuaded not only that this was quite the same to Mr.
Micawber as paying the money, but that Traddles himself hardly knew the
difference until he had had time to think about it." Then we have had the
surprising but welcome experience of Mr. Tim Healy championing the
Government against Sir John Simon's attack on the Military Service Bill;
and have listened to Lord Montagu of Beaulieu's urgent plea in the Lords
for unity of air control, a proposal which Lord Haldane declared could not
be adopted without some "violent thinking." Most remarkable of all has been
Mr. Churchill's intervention in the debate on the Naval Estimates, his
gloomy review of the situation--Mr. Churchill is always a pessimist when
out of office--and the marvellous magnanimity of his suggestion that Lord
Fisher should be reinstated at the Admiralty, on the ground that his former
antagonist was the only possible First Sea Lord. Mr. Balfour dealt so
faithfully with these criticisms and suggestions that there seems to be no
truth in the report that Mr. Churchill has been asked to join the
Government as Minister of Admonitions. A new and coruscating star has swum
into our Parliamentary ken in the shape of the Member for Mid-Herts, and
astronomers have labelled it "Pegasus [Greek: pi beta]." When the House of
Commons passed the Bill prohibiting duels it ought to have made an
exception in favour of its own Members. Nothing would have done more to
raise the tone of debate, for offenders against decorum would gradually
have eliminated one another. Yet Parliament has its merits, not the least
of them being the scope it still affords for hereditary talent. Lord Derby,
at the moment the most prominent man on the Home Front after the Premier,
is the grandson of the "Rupert of Debate," and the new Minister of Blockade
enters on his duties close on fifty years after another Lord Robert Cecil
entered the Cabinet of Lord Derby. So history repeats itself with a
difference. In spite of the Coalition, or perhaps because of it, the old
strife of Whigs and Tories has revived, though the lines of cleavage are
quite different from what they were. Thus the new Tories are the men who
believe that the War is going to be decided by battles in Flanders and the
North Sea, and would sacrifice everything for victory, even the privilege
of abusing the Government. The new Whigs are the men who consider that the
House of Commons is the decisive arena, and that even the defeat of the
Germans would be dearly purchased at the cost of the individual's right to
say and do what he pleased.

[Illustration: "He's kicked the Corporal!"

"He's kicked the Vet.!!"

"He's kicked the Transport Officer!!!"

"He's kicked the Colonel!!!!"

MULE HUMOUR]

[Illustration: THE VICAR: "These Salonikans, Mrs. Stubbs, are, of course,
the Thessalonians to whom St. Paul wrote his celebrated letters."

MRS. STUBBS: "Well, I 'ope 'e'd better luck with 'is than I 'ave. I sent my
boy out there three letters and two parcels, and I ain't got no answer to
'em yet."]

After the exhibition of Mr. Augustus John's portrait of Mr. Lloyd George,
the most startling personal event of the month has been the dismissal of
Grand Admiral Tirpitz. According to one account, he resigned because he
could not take the German Fleet out. According to another, it was because
he could no longer take the German people in.

At Oxford the Hebdomadal Council have suspended the filling of the
Professorship of Modern Greek for six months. Apparently there is no one
about just now who understands the modern Greek. A French correspondent
puts it somewhat differently: "_La Grèce Antique_: Hellas. _La Grèce
Moderne_: Hélas!"



_April, 1916_.


Who would have thought when the month opened that at its close a new front
within the Four Seas would be added to our far-flung line, Dublin's finest
street half ruined, Ireland placed under martial law? Certainly not Mr.
Birrell or Mr. Redmond or the Irish Nationalist Members. The staunchest
Unionist would acquit Mr. William O'Brien of any menace when in the Budget
Debate, three weeks before the Rebellion of Easter Week, he gave it as his
opinion that Ireland ought to be omitted from the Budget altogether. So,
too, with Mr. Tim Healy, whose principal complaint was that the tax on
railway tickets would put a premium on foreign travel; that people would go
to Paris instead of Dublin, and Switzerland instead of Killarney. No, so
far as the Government and Ireland's Parliamentary representatives went, it
was a bolt from the blue--or the green. Mr. Birrell, Chief Secretary for
Ireland for nine years, a longer period than any of his predecessors, has
shown himself conspicuous at once by his absence and his innocence, and
England in her hour of need, with the submarine peril daily growing and all
but starved out after a heroic defence, stands to pay dearly for the
privilege of entrusting the administration of Ireland to an absentee
humorist.

On the Western front Verdun still rivets all eyes. The German hordes are
closing in on the fortress, but at a heavier cost for each mile gained than
they have ever paid before.

Germany's colossal effort would inspire admiration as well as respect if
she would only fight clean. The ugly stories of her treatment of prisoners
have now culminated in the terrible record of the typhus-stricken camp at
Wittenberg, where the German doctors deserted their post.

[Illustration: THE REPUDIATION

Martin Luther (to Shakespeare): "I see my countrymen claim you as one of
them. You may thank God that you're not that. They have made my
Wittenberg--ay, and all Germany--to stink in my nostrils."]

[Illustration: THE GRAPES OF VERDUN

THE OLD FOX: "You don't seem to be getting much nearer them?"

THE CUB: "No, Father. Hadn't we better give it out that they're sour?"]

The report of Mr. Justice Younger's Committee, in which the tale of this
atrocity is fully told, is being circulated in neutral countries, and Mr.
Will Thorne has suggested that it should also be sent to our conscientious
objectors. It is well to administer some sort of corrective to the
information diffused by the neutral newsmonger:

  Who cheers us when we're in the blues,
  With reassuring German news,
  Of starving Berliners in queues?
      The Neutral.

  And then, soon after, tells us they
  Are feeding nicely all the day,
  And in the old familiar way?
      The Neutral.

  Who sees the Kaiser in Berlin,
  Dejected, haggard, old as sin,
  And shaking in his hoary skin?
      The Neutral.

  Then says he's quite a Sunny Jim,
  That buoyant health and youthful vim
  Are sticking out all over him?
      The Neutral.

  Who tells us tales of Krupp's new guns,
  Much larger than the other ones,
  And endless trains chock-full of Huns?
      The Neutral.

  And then, when our last hope has fled,
  Declares the Huns are either dead
  Or hopelessly dispirited?
      The Neutral.

  In short, who seems to be a blend
  Of Balaam's Ass, the bore's godsend,
  And _Mrs. Gamp's_ elusive friend?
      The Neutral.

In Parliament we have had the biggest Budget ever known introduced in the
shortest Budget speech of the last half-century, at any rate. Mr. Pemberton
Billing is doing his best every Tuesday to bring the atmosphere of the
aerodrome into the House. Mr. Tennant has promised his sympathetic
consideration to Mr. Billing's offer personally to organise raids on the
enemy's aircraft bases, and the House is bearing up as well as can be
expected under the shadow of this impending bereavement. Mr. Swift MacNeill
is busy with his patriotic effort to purge the roll of the Lords of the
peerages now held by enemy dukes. For the rest, up to Easter Week, the
Parliamentary situation has been described as "a cabal every afternoon and
a crisis every second day."

It is one of the strange outcomes of this wonderful time that there is more
gaiety as well as more suffering in hospitals during the War than in peace.
Certainly such a request would never have been heard in normal years as
that recently made by a nurse to a roomful of irrepressible Tommies at a
private hospital:

"A message has just come in to ask if the hospital will make a little less
noise as the lady next door has a touch of headache."

For shouting "The Zepps are coming!" a Grimsby girl has been fined £1. It
was urged in defence that the girl suffered from hallucinations, one being
that she was a daily newspaper proprietor. But the recent Zeppelin raids
have not been without their advantages. In a spirit of emulation an
ambitious hen at Acton has laid an egg weighing 5-1/4 oz.

[Illustration:

VISITOR (at Private Hospital): "Can I see Lieutenant Barker, please?"

MATRON: "We do not allow ordinary visiting. May I ask if you are a
relative?"

VISITOR (boldly): "Oh, yes! I'm his sister."

MATRON: "Dear me! I'm very glad to meet you. _I'm his mother_."]



_May, 1916_.


Verdun still holds out: that is the best news of the month. The French with
inexorable logic continue to exact the highest price for the smallest gain
of ground. If the Germans are ready to give 100,000 men for a hill or part
of a hill they may have it. If they will give a million men they may
perhaps have Verdun itself. But so far their Pyrrhic victories have stopped
short of this limit, and Verdun, like Ypres, battered, ruined and evacuated
by civilians, remains a symbol of Allied tenacity and the will to resist.

The months in war-time sometimes belie their traditions, but it is fitting
that in May we should have enlisted a new Ally--the Sun. The Daylight
Saving Bill became Law on May 17. Here is a true economy, and our only
regret is that Mr. Willett, the chief promoter of a scheme complacently
discussed during his lifetime as ingenious but impracticable, should not
have lived to witness its swift and unmurmuring acceptance under stress of
war.

The official _communiqués_ from the Irish Front in the earlier stages
of the Dublin rebellion did not long maintain their roseate complexion.
Even before the end of April a Secret Session--the second in a week--was
held to discuss the Irish situation. By a strange coincidence this Secret
Session immediately followed the grant by the Commons of a Return relating
to Irish Lunacy accounts. From the meagre official summary we gather that
the absence of reporters has at least the negative advantage of shortening
speeches. In a very few days, however, the Prime Minister discarded
reticence, admitting the gravity of the situation, the prevalence of street
fighting, the spread of the insurrection in the West, the appointment of
Sir John Maxwell to the supreme command, and the placing of the Irish
Government under his orders. The inevitable sequel--the execution of the
responsible insurrectionist leaders--has led to vehement protests from
Messrs. Dillon and O'Brien against militarist brutality. The House of
Commons is a strange place. When Mr. Birrell rose on May 3 to give an
account of his nine years' stewardship, the Unionists, and not the
Unionists alone, were thinking of a lamp-post in Whitehall. When he had
concluded his pathetic apologia and confessed his failure to estimate
accurately the strength of Sinn Fein, members were almost ready to fall on
his neck, but they no longer wanted his head.

[Illustration: HELD:]

[Illustration: WANTED--A ST. PATRICK

ST. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL: "I'm afraid I'm not so smart as my brother-saint at
dealing with this kind of thing. I'm apt to take reptiles too lightly."]

Even Sir Edward Carson admitted that Mr. Birrell had been well intentioned
and had done his best. By the middle of the month Mr. Asquith had gone to
Ireland, in the hope of discovering some arrangement for the future which
would commend itself to all parties. By the 25th he was back in his place
after nine days in Dublin. But he had no panacea of his own to prescribe;
no cut-and-dried plan for the regeneration of Ireland. All he could say was
that Mr. Lloyd George had been deputed by the Cabinet to confer with the
various Irish leaders, and the choice is generally approved. If anyone
knows how to handle high explosives without causing a premature concussion
it should be the Minister of Munitions.

Ireland has dominated the political scene at home, for it is impossible not
to connect our new commitments across St. George's Channel with the
introduction and passing of the new Military Service Bill establishing
compulsion for all men, married or single--always excepting Ireland. The
question of man-power is paramount. Mr. Asquith is at last convinced that
"Wait and See" must yield to "Do it Now": that the nation won't have the
sword of Damocles hanging over its head any longer, but will have
compulsion in its hand at once. On the progress of the War Mr. Asquith has
said little in Open Session, but any omission on his part has been made
good by Mr. Churchill, now home on unlimited leave, who has spoken at great
length on the proper use of armies.

Mr. Arthur Ponsonby and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, who raised the question of
Peace on Empire Day, urging the Government to open negotiations with
Germany, have elicited from the Foreign Secretary the deliberate statement
that the only terms of peace which the German Government had ever put
forward were the terms of victory for Germany, and that we could not reason
with the German people so long as they were fed with lies.

Mr. Henry James, who so nobly repaid the hospitality England was proud to
show him by adopting her nationality in her hour of greatest need, said
shortly before his death that nothing grieved him more than the constant
loss of England's "best blood, seed and breed." The mothers of England
"give their sons," but they know that the choice did not rest with them:

  We did not give you--all unasked you went,
    Sons of a greater motherhood than ours;
  To our proud hearts your young brief lives were lent,
    Then swept beyond us by resistless powers.
  Only we hear, when we have lost our all,
      That far clear call.

But how can the grief be measured of those

                     Whose best,
    Eager to serve a higher quest
  And in the Great Cause know the joy of battle,
    Gallant and young, by traitor hands,
    Leagued with a foe from alien lands,
  Struck down in cold blood, fell like butchered cattle?

Though Ireland is not for the moment a source of humour she contrives to be
the cause of it in others. A daily paper tells us that Sir Robert Chalmers
is to be "Permanent Under-Secretary of Ireland _pro tem_." Another
daily paper, the _Daily Mail,_ to be precise, has discovered a new
test of valour: "Mr. Hellish, a regular reader of the _Daily Mail_ for
years, was awarded the V.C. last month for conspicuous bravery."



_June, 1916_.


At last the long vigil in the North Sea has ended in the glorious if
indecisive battle of Jutland, the greatest sea fight since Trafalgar. Yet
was it indecisive? After the momentary dismay caused by the first Admiralty
_communiqué_ with its over-estimate of our losses, public confidence,
shaken where it was strongest, has been restored by further information and
by the admissions of the enemy. We have to mourn the loss of many ships,
still more the loss of splendid ships' companies and their heroic captains.
We can sympathise with the cruel disappointment of those who, after bearing
the brunt of the action, were robbed of the opportunity of overwhelming
their enemy by failing light and the exigencies of a strategy governed in
the last resort by political caution. But look at the sequel. The German
Fleet, badly battered, retires to port; and despite the paeans of
exultation from their Admirals, Kaiser, and Imperial Chancellor, remains
there throughout the month. Will it ever come out again? Meanwhile,
Wilhelmshaven is closed indefinitely, and nobody is allowed to see those
sheep in Wolff's clothing--the "victorious fleet." The true verdict, so
far as we can judge, may be expressed in homely phrase: The British Navy
has taken a knock but given a harder one. We can stand it and they can't.

[Illustration: THE LOST CHIEF

In Memory of Field-Marshal Earl Kitchener, Maker of Armies]

Within a week of Jutland the Empire has been stirred to its depths by the
tragic death of Lord Kitchener in the _Hampshire_, blown up by a mine
off the Shetlands on her voyage to Archangel. On the eve of starting on his
mission to Russia his last official act had been to meet his critics of the
House of Commons face to face, reply to their questions and leave them
silenced and admiring. On the day of the battle of Jutland these critics
had moved the Prime Minister to declare that Lord Kitchener was personally
entitled to the credit for the amazing expansion of the army. Sir Mark
Sykes, no mean authority, asserted that in Germany our War Secretary was
feared as a great organiser, while in the East his name was one to conjure
with; and Sir George Reid, a worthy representative of the Dominions,
observed that his chief fault was that he was "not clever at circulating
the cheap coin of calculated civilities which enable inferior men to rise
to positions to which they are not entitled." These tributes were delivered
in his lifetime; they deserve to be contrasted with the appreciations of
those journalists who clamoured for his appointment, then clamoured for his
dismissal, and profaned his passing with their insincere eulogies. Three
weeks of Recess elapsed before the Houses could render homage to the
illustrious dead. In the Lords the debt has been paid by a statesman, Lord
Lansdowne, a soldier, Lord French, and a friend, Lord Derby. In the Commons
the speeches were all touched with genuine emotion and the sense of
personal loss. Through all these various tributes rang the note of duty
well done, and Mr. Bonar Law did well to remind the House of the sure
instinct which caused Lord Kitchener to realise at the very outset the
gigantic nature of the present War. In a sense his loss is irreparable, yet
his great work was accomplished before he died. Sometimes accused of
expecting others to achieve the impossible, he had achieved it himself in
the crowning miracle of his life, the improvisation of the New Armies.

The violation of Greek territory by the Bulgarian troops, as might be
expected, has not led to any effective protest from King Constantine. On
the contrary, one seems to hear this benevolent neutral deprecating any
apology on the part of King Ferdinand: "Please make yourself at home. This
is Liberty Hall."

It is otherwise with the irruption of the Russians under General Brusiloff.
His great offensive is a source of offence to the Austrians, who have good
reason to complain that the "steam-roller" is exceeding the speed limit. Or
to change the metaphor, the bear and his tormentor have changed places.

Ireland has receded a little from her place in the limelight, and though
debates on martial law continue, and Irish members ask an inordinate number
of questions arising out of the hot Easter week in Dublin, the temperature
is no longer "98 in the shade" as a local wit described it at the time.
Ministers are extremely economical of information: the anticipated
settlement still hangs fire, and there are increasing fears that it will
not hold water.

[Illustration: THE FAR-REACHING EFFECT OF THE RUSSIAN PUSH]

A number of professional fortune-tellers have been fined at Southend for
having predicted Zeppelins. The fraudulent nature of their pretensions was
sufficiently manifest, since even the authorities had been unable to
foresee the Zeppelins until some time after they had arrived.

The discussions in Parliament and out of it of the way in which things get
into the papers which oughtn't to, are dying down. A daily paper, however,
has revived them by the headline, "Cabinet leekage." Now, why, in wonder,
do they spell it in that way?

It is quite impossible to keep pace with all the new incarnations of women
in war-time--'bus-conductress, ticket-collector, lift-girl, club waitress,
post-woman, bank clerk, motor-driver, farm-labourer, guide, munition maker.
There is nothing new in the function of ministering angel: the myriad
nurses in hospital here or abroad are only carrying out, though in greater
numbers than ever before, what has always been woman's mission. But
whenever he sees one of these new citizens, or hears fresh stories of their
address and ability, Mr. Punch is proud and delighted. Perhaps in the past,
even in the present, he may have been, or even still is, a little given to
chaff Englishwomen for some of their foibles, and even their aspirations.
But he never doubted how splendid they were at heart; he never for a moment
supposed they would be anything but ready and keen when the hour of need
struck.

[Illustration: FARMER (who has got a lady-help in the dairy): "'Ullo,
Missy, what in the world be ye doin'?"

LADY: "Well, you told me to water the cows, and I'm doing it. They don't
seem to like it much."]



_July, 1916_.


On the home front we have long been accustomed to the sound of guns, small
and great, but it has come from training camps and inspires confidence
rather than anxiety. We have been spared the horrors of invasion,
occupation, wholesale devastation. In certain areas the noise of bombs and
anti-aircraft guns has grown increasingly familiar, and on our south-east
and east coasts war from the air, on the sea, and under the sea has become
more and more audible as the months pass by. But July has brought us a new
experience--the sound fifty or sixty miles inland in peaceful rural
England, amid glorious midsummer weather, of the continual throbbing night
and day of the great guns on the Somme, where our first great offensive
opened on the 1st, and has continued with solid and substantial gains, some
set-backs, heavy losses for the Allies, still heavier for the enemy. Names
of villages and towns, which hitherto have been to most of us mere names on
the map, have now become luminous through shining deeds of glory and
sacrifice--Contalmaison and Mametz, Delville Wood, Thiepval and
Beaumont-Hamel, Serre and Pozières.

The victory, for victory it is, has not been celebrated in the German way.
England takes her triumphs as she takes defeats, without a sign of having
turned a hair:

  Yet we are proud because at last, at last
    We look upon the dawn of our desire;
  Because the weary waiting-time is passed
    And we have tried our temper in the fire;
      And proving word by deed
  Have kept the faith we pledged to France at need.

  But most because, from mine and desk and mart,
    Springing to face a task undreamed before,
  Our men, inspired to play their prentice part
    Like soldiers lessoned in the school of war,
      True to their breed and name,
  Went flawless through the fierce baptismal flame.

  And he who brought these armies into life,
    And on them set the impress of his will--
  Could he be moved by sound of mortal strife,
    There where he lies, their Captain, cold and still
      Under the shrouding tide,
  How would his great heart stir and glow with pride!

[Illustration: "TWO HEADS WITH BUT A SINGLE THOUGHT"

FIRST HEAD: "What prospects?" SECOND HEAD: "Rotten." FIRST HEAD: "Same
here."]

The results of the battle of the Somme are shown in a variety of ways: by
the reticence and admissions of the German Press, by its efforts to divert
attention to the exploits of the commercial submarine cruiser
_Deutschland_; above all, by the Kaiser's fresh explosions of piety.
"The Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be." There is no further sign
of his fleet, which remains crippled by its "victory." Nor can he, still
less his Ally, draw comfort from the situation on the Russian or Italian
fronts.

[Illustration: WELL DONE, THE NEW ARMY]

Mr. Punch finds the usual difficulty in getting any details from his
correspondents when they have been or are in the thick of the fighting.
Practically all that they have to say is that there was a "damned noise,"
that breakfast was delayed by the "morning hate," or that an angry sub
besought a weary O.C. "to ask our gunners not to serve faults into our
front line wire." One of them, however, a very wise young man, ventures on
the prediction that the War will last well into 1918. As the result of a
brief leave he has learned an important truth. "In England they assume that
you, having just arrived from France, _know_. When you return to
France, it is assumed that you, having just arrived from England,
_know_."

In Parliament Ireland is beginning to suffer from a rival in unenviable
notoriety. Mesopotamia does not smell particularly sweet just now, but that
may add to its usefulness as a red herring. Geographers are said to have
some difficulty in defining its exact boundaries, but the Government are
probably quite convinced that it is situate between the Devil and the Deep
Sea. Two Special Commissions are to be set up to inquire into the
Mesopotamian and Dardanelles Expeditions. Public opinion has been painfully
stirred by the harrowing details which have come to light of the
preventible sufferings endured by British troops. From their point of view
the supply of their medical needs, now guaranteed, is worth a wilderness of
Special Commissions. But Ireland still holds the floor, though Mr. Asquith
is frugal of information as to the prospective Irish Bill and has
deprecated discussion of the Hardinge Report, the most scarifying public
document of our times. The Lords, unembarrassed by any embargo, have
discussed the Report in a spirit which must make Mr. Birrell thank his
stars that he got in his confession first. But why, he may ask, should he
be judged by Lord Hardinge, himself a prospective defendant at the bar of
public opinion?

Following the lead of a certain section of the Press, certain Members have
begun to wax vocal on the subject of reprisals, uninterned Aliens, and the
Hidden Hand. Their appeals to the Home Office to go on the spy-trail have
not met with much sympathy so far. An alleged Austrian taxi-driver has
turned out to be a harmless Scotsman with an impediment in his speech. More
interesting has been the sudden re-emergence of Mr. John Burns. He sank
without a trace two years ago, but has now bobbed up to denounce the
proposal to strengthen the Charing Cross railway-bridge. We could have
wished that he had been ready to "keep the bridge" in another sense; but at
least he has been a silent Pacificist. Mr. Winston Churchill, when his
journalistic labours permit, has contributed to the debates, and Lord
Haldane has again delivered his famous lecture on the defects of English
education. But for Parliamentary sagacity _in excelsis_ commend us to
Mr. McCallum Scott. He is seriously perturbed about the shortage of
sausage-skins and, in spite of the bland assurance of Mr. Harcourt that
supplies are ample, is alleged to be planning a fresh campaign with the
assistance of Mr. Hogge. Another shortage has given rise to no anxiety, but
rather the reverse. In a police court it was recently stated that there are
no longer any tramps in England. Evidently the appeal of that stirring old
song, "Tramp! tramp! tramp! the boys are marching," has not been without
its effect.

[Illustration: CONJURER (unconscious of the approach of hostile aircraft):
"Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, I want you to watch me closely."]

Yet another endurable shortage is reported from the seaside, where an old
sailor on the local sea front has been lamenting the spiritual starvation
brought about by the war. "Why," he said, "for the first time for twenty
years we ain't got no performing fleas down here." And performers, when
they do come, are not always successful in riveting the attention of their
audience.



_August, 1916_.


The third year of the War opens well for the Allies; so well that the
Kaiser has again issued a statement denying that he is responsible for it.
The Big Push on the Somme goes on steadily, thanks to fine leadership, the
steadfast heroism of the New Armies, and the loyal co-operation of the
munition-workers at home, who have deferred their holiday rather than
hamper their brothers in the trenches by a lessened output.

Here one fact may suffice as a sample. The weekly consumption of high
explosives by the Army is now between eleven and twelve thousand times as
much as it was in September, 1914. Yet when a lieutenant is asked to state
what it is really like being along with the B.E.F. when it is in its
pushful mood, he sedulously eschews heroics, and will not commit himself to
saying more than that it's all right--that he doesn't think there is any
cause for anxiety. "We seem to have ceased to have sensations out here. It
is a matter of business; the only question is how long is it going to take
to complete." So, too, with the Tommies. "Wonderful," declares the man in
the ranks to persistent seekers after thrilling descriptions of war. "You
never see the like. Across in them trenches there was real soda-water in
bottles." To return to our lieutenant, he "simply can't help being a little
sorry for the Boche now that his wild oats are coming home to roost." Even
his poetic friends, formerly soulful and precious, take this restrained
view. The Attributes of the Enemy are thus summed up by one trench bard:

  If Boches laughed and Huns were gents,
  They'd own their share of continents;
  There'd be no fuss, and, what is more,
  There wouldn't even be a war.
  Whereas the end of all this tosh
  Can only be there'll be no Boche.

[Illustration: THE BIG PUSH

MUNITION WORKER: "Well, I'm not taking a holiday myself just yet, but I'm
sending these kids of mine for a little trip on the Continent."]

Another poet, an R.F.C. man, adopts the same vein, void alike of hate or
exultation:

  Returning from my morning fly
  I met a Fokker in the sky,
  And, judging from its swift descent,
  It had a nasty accident.
  On thinking further of the same
  I rather fear I was to blame.

It is easy to understand why the enemy nations find England so
disappointing and unsatisfying to be at war with.

Italy, too, has had her Big Push on the Isonzo, capturing Monte Sabotino,
which had defied her for fifteen months, and Gorizia--a triumph of
scientific preparation and intrepid assault. The Austrian poison-gas attack
on the Asiago plateau has been avenged, and the objectives of the long and
ineffectual offensive of the previous winter carried with thousands of
prisoners at a comparatively cheap price. To add to Austria's humiliation
her armies on the Eastern Front have been placed under the Prussian
Hindenburg. And Rumania has joined the Allies at the end of what has been a
very bad month for the Central Empires. English newspapers have been
excluded from Germany, and Berlin has added truthless to meatless days. But
the Germans have long since found a substitute for veracity as well as for
leather and butter and rubber and bread. They are said to have found a
substitute for International Law, and it is an open secret that they are
even now in search of a substitute for victory. We might even suggest a few
more substitutes which have not yet been utilised. As, for example, a
substitute for Verdun with the German flag flying over it; substitutes for
several German Colonies; a substitute for Austria as an ally; and
substitutes for Kultur and Organisation and Efficiency and World Power and
the Mailed Fist and the Crown Prince and the Kaiser and the War and all the
things that haven't come off.

Various momentous decisions have been arrived at in Parliament. The Cabinet
are _not_ to be cinematographed, and unnecessary taxi-whistling is to
be suppressed, without any prejudice to the squealing of importunate
chatterers below the gangway. Ireland has again dominated the Parliamentary
scene; the Nationalists have resumed their freedom of action with attacks
on Sir John Maxwell and martial law, and are displaying an embarrassing
industry reminiscent of the 'Eighties. Mr. Ginnell has been removed by
order of the Speaker; Mr. Duke has succeeded Mr. Birrell; and the
discussion of three Irish Bills has bulked so large that one might almost
forget we were at war. In such brief moments as could be spared from Irish
affairs the Premier has proposed a fresh Vote of Credit for 450 millions,
has introduced a Bill for extending the life of Parliament, and another
establishing a new Register. The last has been unmercifully belaboured in
debate, the Prime Minister himself describing it as "a halting, lopsided,
temporary makeshift." The apparently insoluble problem is that of enabling
soldiers in the trenches to exercise the franchise. Soldiers and sailors
can very well wait for their votes, but not for their money, and the delays
in providing pensions for discharged men have been condemned by members of
all parties. So the War is not altogether forgotten by the House. Mr. Lloyd
George, the new War Secretary, without wasting breath on the pessimistic
comments of his colleague Mr. Churchill, has given an encouraging survey of
the general situation. The cry has gone up that Mr. Hughes Must Come Back
from Australia, and Mr. Swift MacNeill has been rewarded for his
pertinacity by extracting a promise from Mr. Asquith that he will purge the
Peerage of its enemy Dukes. Better still is the solemn assurance of the
Premier that the Government are taking steps to discover the identity of
all those who are in any way responsible for the judicial murder of Captain
Fryatt--the worst instance of calculated atrocity against non-combatants
since the murder of Nurse Cavell.

The education of our New Armies is full of strange and noble surprises. Now
it is an ex-shop boy converted into an R.H.A. driver. Or again it is a
Tommy learning to appreciate the heroism of a French peasant woman:

  'Er bloke's out scrappin' with the rest,
    Pushin' a bay'net in Argonne;
  She wears 'is photo on 'er breast,
    "_Mon Jean_," she sez--the French for John.

  She 'ears the guns boom night an' day;
    She sees the shrapnel burstin' black;
  The sweaty columns march away,
    The stretchers bringin' of 'em back.

  She ain't got no war-leggin's on;
    'Er picture's never in the Press,
  Out scoutin'. She finds breeks "_no bon_,"
    An' carries on in last year's dress.

  At dawn she tows a spotty cow
    To graze upon the village green;
  She plods for miles be'ind a plough,
    An' takes our washin' in between.

  She tills a patch o' spuds besides,
    An' burnt like copper in the sun,
  She tosses 'ay all day, then rides
    The 'orse 'ome when the job is done.

  The times is 'ard--I got me woes,
    With blistered feet an' this an' that,
  An' she's got 'ers, the good Lord knows,
    Although she never chews the fat.

  But when the Boche 'as gulped 'is pill,
    An' crawled 'ome to 'is bloomin' Spree,
  We'll go upon the bust, we will,
    Madame an' Monsieur Jean an' me.

Or once more it is the young officer shaving himself in a captured German
dug-out before an old looking-glass looted from a _château_ by a dead
German, and apologising to its rightful owner:

  Madame, at the end of this long campaign,
  When France comes into her own again
  In the setting where only she can shine,
  As you in your mirror of rare design--
       Forgive me, who dare
       In a German lair
  To shave in your mirror at Pozières.

Then there are "lonely soldiers" in India, envious of their more fortunate
comrades in Flanders, and soldiers quite the reverse of lonely during their
well-earned leave.


[Illustration:

THE CAPTAIN: "Your brother is doing splendidly in the Battalion. Before
long he'll be our best man."

THE SISTER: "Oh, Reginald! Really, this is so very sudden."]

The education of those on the Home Front is also proceeding. There are some
maids who announce the approach of Zeppelins as if they were ordinary
visitors. There are others who politely decline to exchange a seat at an
attic window for the security of the basement.

[Illustration:

MISTRESS (coming to maid's room as the Zeppelins approach): "Jane! Jane!
Won't you come downstairs with the rest of us?"

LITTLE MAID: "Oh, thank you, Mum, but I can see beautiful from here, Mum."]

According to the German papers Prince Frederick Leopold of Prussia has been
severely reprimanded by the Kaiser for permitting his wild swine to escape
from their enclosure and damage neighbouring property. It would be
interesting to know if Prince Leopold excused himself on the ground that he
had merely followed the All Highest's distinguished example. When Princes
are rebuked common editors cannot hope to escape censure. The editor of the
_Vorwärts_ has again been arrested, the reason given being that the
newspaper does not truthfully represent Germany's position in the War. If
the title of the organ is any indication of its contents the charge would
appear to be more than justified.



_September, 1916_.


"IAN HAY" wrote a fine book on "The First Hundred Thousand"--the first
batch of Kitchener's Army. Another book, equally glorious, remains to be
written about another Hundred Thousand--the Sweepers of the Sea. And with
them are to be reckoned the heroes of the little ships of whom we hear
naught save the laconic record in a daily paper that "the small steamer
------ struck a mine yesterday and sank," and that all the crew were lost:

  Who to the deep in ships go down,
   Great marvels do behold,
  But comes the day when some must drown
   In the grey sea and cold.
  For galleons lost great bells do toll,
   But now we must implore
  God's ear for sunken Little Ships
   Who are not heard of more.

  When ships of war put out to sea,
   They go with guns and mail,
  That so the chance may equal be
   Should foemen them assail;
  But Little Ships men's errands run,
   And are not clad for strife;
  God's mercy, then, on Little Ships
   Who cannot fight for life.

  To warm and cure, to clothe and feed,
   They stoutly put to sea,
  And since that men of them had need
   Made light of jeopardy;
  Each in her hour her fate did meet,
   Nor flinched nor made outcry;
  God's love be with these Little Ships
   Who could not choose but die.

  To friar and nun, and every one
   Who lives to save and tend,
  Sisters were these whose work is done
   And cometh thus to end;
  Full well they knew what risk they ran
   But still were strong to give;
  God's grace for all the Little Ships
   Who died that men might live.

September has brought us good tidings by land and air. Thiepval and Combles
are ours, and the plague of the Zeppelins has been stayed. The downing of
the Zepp at Cuffley by Lieutenant Robinson gave North London the most
thrilling aerial spectacle ever witnessed. There has been much diversity of
opinion as to the safest place to be in during a Zeppelin raid--under cover
or in the open, on the top floor or in the basement; but recent experiences
suggest that by far the most dangerous place on those occasions is in a
Zeppelin. But perhaps the most momentous event of the month has been the
coming of the Tanks, a most humorous and formidable addition to the
_fauna_ of the battlefield--half battleship, half caterpillar--which
have given the Germans the surprise of their lives, a surprise all the more
effective for being sudden and complete. The Germans, no doubt, have their
surprise packets in store for us, but we can safely predict that they are
not likely to be at once so comic and so efficient as these unlovely but
painstaking monsters. As an officer at the front writes to a friend: "These
animals look so dreadfully competent, I am quite sure they can swim. Thus,
any day now, as you go to your business in the City, you may meet one of
them trundling up Ludgate Hill, looking like nothing on earth and not
behaving like a gentleman." As for the relations between the Allies in the
field the same correspondent contributes some enlightening details. The
French aren't English and the English aren't French, and difficulties are
bound to arise. The course of true love never did run smooth. Here it
started, as it generally does, with a rush; infatuation was succeeded by
friction, and that in turn by the orthodox aftermath of reconciliation.
"How do we stand now? We have settled down to one of those attachments
which have such an eternity before them in the future that they permit of
no gushing in the present." The War goes well on the Western Front, the
worst news being the report that the Kaiser has undertaken to refrain in
future from active participation in the conduct of military operations.

[Illustration:

THE SWEEPERS OF THE SEA.

MR. PUNCH: "Risky work, isn't it?"

TRAWLER SKIPPER: "That's why there's a hundred thousand of us doin' it."]

Peace reigns at Westminster, where legislators are agreeably conspicuous by
their absence. But other agencies are active. According to an advertisement
in the _Nation_ the Fabian Research Department have issued two
Reports, "together with a Project for a Supernatural Authority that will
Prevent War." The egg, on the authority of the _Daily Mail_, is
"disappearing from our breakfast table," but even the humblest of us can
still enjoy our daily mare's nest. The effect of the Zeppelin on the young
has already been shown; but even the elderly own its stimulating influence.



_October, 1916_.


Mr. Punch's correspondents at the Front have an incorrigible habit of
euphemism and levity. Even when things go well they are never betrayed into
heroics, but adhere to the schoolboy formula of "not half bad," just as in
the blackest hours they would not admit that things were more than "pretty
beastly." Yet sometimes they deviate for a moment into really enlightening
comment. No better summary of the situation as it stands in the third year
of the War can be given than in the words of the faithful "Watch-dog," who
has long been on duty in trench and dug-out and crater-hole:--

"This War has ceased to become an occupation befitting a
gentleman--gentleman, that is, of the true Prussian breed. It was a happy
and honourable task so long as it consisted of civilising the world at
large with high explosive, poisonous gas and burning oil, and the world at
large was not too ready to answer back. To persist in this stern business,
in face of the foolish and ignoble obstinacy of the adversary, required
great courage and strength of mind; but the Prussian is essentially
courageous and strong. Things came to a pretty pass, however, when the
wicked adversary made himself some guns and shells and took to being stern
on his own. People who behave like that, especially after they have been
conquered, are not to be mixed with--anything to keep aloof from such. One
had to leave Combles, one had to leave Thiepval, one may even have to leave
Bapaume to avoid the pest; these nasty French and English persons, with
their disgusting tanks, intrude everywhere nowadays." The German engineer
is being hoist with his own petard:

  Yet you may suck sweet solace from the thought
   That not in vain the seed was sown,
  That half the recent havoc we have wrought
   Was based on methods all your own;
  And smile to hear our heavy batteries
  Pound you with imitation's purest flatteries.

Yet, at best, this is sorry comfort for the Kaiser.

[Illustration: THE REJUVENATING EFFECT OF ZEPPELINS]

It is not a picnic for the men in our front line. Reports that the
situation is "normal" or "quiet" or "uneventful" represent more or less
correctly what is happening at G.H.Q., Divisional Headquarters, Brigade
Headquarters, or even Battalion Headquarters. They represent understatement
to the _n_th when applied to the front trenches. But listen again to
the "Watch-dog." He admits that some of our diamonds are not smooth, but
adds "for myself I welcome every touch of nature in these our warriors. It
is good to be in the midst of them, for they thrive as never before, and
their comforts are few enough these wet bloody days."

The Crown Prince, after seven months of ineffective carnage before Verdun,
has been giving an interview to an American ex-clergyman, representing the
Hearst anti-British newspapers, in which he appears in the light of a
tender-hearted philanthropist, longing for peace, mercy, and the delights
of home-life. Mr. Lloyd George, in an interview with an American
journalist, has defined our policy as that of delivering a "knock out" to
Prussian military despotism, a pugilistic metaphor which has wounded some
of our Pacificists. Our Zeppelin bag is growing; Count Zeppelin has sworn
to destroy London or die, but now that John Bull is getting his eye in, the
oath savours of suicide.

[Illustration:

THE SUNLIGHT-LOSER

KAISER (as his sainted Grandfather's clock strikes three): "The British are
just putting their clocks back an hour. I wish I could put ours back about
three years."]

The Allies have presented an ultimatum to Greece, but Mr. Asquith's appeal
to the traditions of ancient Hellas is wasted on King Constantine, who, if
he had lived in the days of Marathon and Salamis, would undoubtedly have
been a pro-Persian. As for his future, Mr. Punch ventures on a prediction:

  Tino, if some day Hellas should arise
    A phoenix soaring from her present cinders,
  Think not to share her passage to the skies
    Or furnish purple copy for her Pindars;
  You'll be in exile, if you don't take care,
  Along with brother William, Lord knows where!

A couple of months ago, on the occasion of sharks appearing on the Atlantic
coast of the U.S.A., it was freely intimated at the fashionable
watering-places that there was such a thing as being too proud to bathe.
Now a new and untimely irritant has turned up off the same shores in the
shape of U-boats. Their advent is all the more inconsiderate in view of the
impending Presidential Election, at which Mr. Wilson's claim is based on
having kept America out of the War.

[Illustration:

COMRADES IN VICTORY

Combles, September 26th

POILU: "Bravo, mon vieux!"

TOMMY: "Same to you, mate."]

Members have returned to St. Stephen's refreshed by seven weeks' holiday,
and the Nationalists have been recruiting their energies, but unfortunately
nothing else, in Ireland. By way of signalising his restoration, after an
apology, Mr. Ginnell handed in thirty-nine questions--the fruits of his
enforced leisure. The woes of the interned Sinn Feiners who have been
condemned to sleep in a disused distillery at Frongoch have been duly
brought forward and the House invited to declare that "the system of
government at present maintained in Ireland is inconsistent with the
principles for which the Allies are fighting in Europe." The system of
administration in Ireland is, and always has been, inconsistent with any
settled principles whatsoever; but to propose such a motion now is
equivalent to affirming that Ireland is being treated by Great Britain as
Belgium and Poland and Serbia have been treated by Germany. Mr. Redmond
made no attempt to prove this absurd thesis, but when he demanded that
martial law should be withdrawn and the interned rebels let loose in a
Home-ruled Ireland--while the embers of the rebellion were still
dangerously smouldering--he asked too much even of that amicable and
trustful beast, the British Lion. Mr. Duke is not exactly a sparkling
orator, but he said one thing which needed saying, namely, that Irishmen
ought to work out a scheme of Home Rule for themselves, and lay it before
Parliament, instead of expecting Englishmen to do their work for them and
then complaining of the result. In the division-lobby the Nationalists
received the assistance of some forty or fifty British Members, who
supported the motion, Mr. Punch suspects, more out of hatred of the
Coalition than of love for Ireland. But they were easily out-voted by
British Home Rulers alone. The impression left by the debate was that the
Nationalist Members had a great deal more sympathy with the Sinn Feiners
than they had with the innocent victims of the rebellion.

[Illustration:

MOTHER: "Come away, Jimmy! Maybe it ain't properly stuffed."]

The need of a War propaganda at home is illustrated by the answers to
correspondents in the _Leeds Mercury_. "Reasonable questions" are
invited, and here is one of the answers: "T.B.--No, it is not General Sir
William Robertson, but the Rev. Sir William Robertson Nicoll who edits
_The British Weekly_." But then, as another journal pathetically
observes, "About nine-tenths of what we say is of no earthly importance to
anybody." Further light is thrown on this confession by the claim of an
Islington applicant for exemption: "Once I was a circus clown, but now I am
on an evening newspaper."

We are grateful to Russia for her efforts, but, as our artist shows above,
the plain person is apparently uncertain as to the quality of our Ally.

We are glad to learn that, on the suggestion of Mr. Asquith, the Lord
Mayor's banquet will be "of a simple nature." Apropos of diet, an officer
expecting leave writes: "My London programme is fixed; first a Turkish
bath, and then a nice fried sole." History repeats itself. A fried sole was
the luxury which officers who served in the Boer War declared that they
enjoyed most of all after their campaigning.



_November, 1916._


Francis Joseph of Austria has died on the tottering throne which has been
his for nearly seventy years. In early days he had been hated, but he had
shown valour. Later on he had shown wisdom, and had been pitied for his
misfortunes. It was a crowning irony of fate which condemned him in old age
to become the dupe and tool of an Assassin. He should have died before the
War--certainly before the tragedy of Sarajevo.

The British Push has extended to the Ancre, and the Crown Prince, reduced
to the position of a pawn in Hindenburg's game, maintains a precarious hold
on the remote suburbs of Verdun. Well may he be sick, after nine months of
futile carnage, of a name which already ranks in renown with Thermopylae.

As the credit of the Crown Prince wanes, so the cult of Hindenburg waxes.

[Illustration:

HINDENBURGITIS; OR, THE PRUSSIAN HOME MADE BEAUTIFUL]

Monastir has been recaptured by the Serbians and French; but Germany has
had her victories too, and, continuing her warfare against the Red Cross,
has sunk two hospital ships. Germany's U-boat policy is going to win her
the War. At least so Marshal Hindenburg says, and the view is shared by
that surprising person the neutral journalist. But in the meantime it
subjects the affections of the neutral sailorman to a severe trial.

King Constantine, however, remains unshaken in his devotion to German
interests. He has also shown marked originality by making up a Cabinet
exclusively composed of University Professors. But some critics scent in
his action a hint of compulsory Ministerial Service, and predict Labour
troubles.

At home we have to note the steady set of the tide of public opinion in
favour of Food Control. The name of the Dictator is not yet declared, but
the announcement cannot be long postponed. Whoever he may be, he is not to
be envied. We have also to note the steady growth on every side of
Government bungalows--the haunts (if some critics are to be believed) of
the Great Uncombed, even of the Hidden Hand. The men of forty-one were not
wanted last March. Mr. Lloyd George tells us that they are wanted now, or
it would mean the loss of two Army Corps. The Germans, by the way, appear
to be arriving at a just conception of their relative value. Lord Newton
has informed the Lords that the enemy is prepared to release 600 English
civilian prisoners in return for some 4,000 to 7,000 Germans. Parliament
has developed a new grievance: Ministers have confided to Pressmen
information denied to M.P.'s. And a cruel wrong has been done to Erin,
according to Mr. Dillon, by the application of Greenwich time to Ireland,
by which that country has been compelled to surrender its precious
privilege of being twenty-five minutes behind the times. The injustice is
so bitter that it has reconciled Mr. Dillon and Mr. Healy.

The Premier has hinted that if the House insisted on having fuller
information than it receives at present another Secret Session might be
held. When one considers the vital problems on which Parliament now
concentrates its energies--the supply of cocaine to dentists, the
withholding of pictures of the Tanks, etc.--one feels that there should be
a Secret Session at least once a week. Indeed, if the House were to sit
permanently with closed doors, unobserved and unreported, the country might
be all the better for it.

[Illustration:

A STRAIN ON THE AFFECTIONS

NORWEGIAN (to Swede): "What--you here, too. I thought you were a friend of
Germany?"

SWEDE: "I was."]

It is the fashion in some quarters to make out that fathers do not realise
the sacrifice made by their sons, but complacently acquiesce in it while
they sit comfortably at home over the fire. Mr. Punch has not met these
fathers. The fathers--and still more the mothers--that he knows recognise
only too well the unpayable nature of their debt.

  They held, against the storms of fate,
    In war's tremendous game,
  A little land inviolate
    Within a world of flame.

  They looked on scarred and ruined lands,
    On shell-wrecked fields forlorn,
  And gave to us, with open hands,
    Full fields of yellow corn;

  The silence wrought in wood and stone
    Whose aisles our fathers trod;
  The pines that stand apart, alone,
    Like sentinels of God.

  With generous hands they paid the price,
    Unconscious of the cost,
  But we must gauge the sacrifice
    By all that they have lost.

  The joy of young adventurous ways,
    Of keen and undimmed sight,
  The eager tramp through sunny days,
    The dreamless sleep of night,

  The happy hours that come and go,
    In youth's untiring quest,
  They gave, because they willed it so,
    With some light-hearted jest.

  No lavish love of future years,
    No passionate regret,
  No gift of sacrifice or tears
    Can ever pay the debt.

Yet if ever you try to express this indebtedness to the wonderful young men
who survive, they turn the whole thing into a jest and tell you, for
example, that only two things really interest them, "Europe and their
stomachs"--nothing in between matters.

[Illustration: PAT (examining fare): "May the divil destroy the Germans!"

SUB: "Well, they don't do you much harm, anyway. You don't get near enough
to 'em."

PAT: "Do they not, thin? Have they not kilt all the half-crown officers and
left nothing but the shillin' ones?"]

Guy Fawkes Day has come and gone without fireworks, pursuant to the Defence
of the Realm Act. Even Parliament omitted to sit. Apropos of Secret
Sessions, Lord Northcliffe has been accused of having had one all to
himself and some five hundred other gentlemen at a club luncheon. The
_Daily Mail_ describes the debate on the subject as a "gross waste of
time," which seems to come perilously near _lèse-majesté!_ But then,
as a writer in the _Evening News_--another Northcliffe paper--safely
observes, "It is the failing of many people to say what they think without
thinking."



_December, 1916_.


Rumania has unhappily given Germany the chance of a cheap and spectacular
triumph--of which, after being badly pounded on the Somme, she was sorely
in need. Here was a comparatively small nation, whom the Germans could
crush under their heel as they had crushed Belgium and Serbia. So in
Rumania they concentrated all the men they could spare from other fronts
and put them under their best generals. Their first plans were thwarted,
but eventually the big guns had their way and Bukarest fell. Then, after
the usual display of bunting and joy-bells in Berlin, was the moment to
make a noble offer of peace. The German peace overtures remind one of Mr.
Punch's correspondents of the American advertisement: "If John Robinson,
with whose wife I eloped six months ago, will take her back, all will be
forgiven."

The shadowy proposals of those who preach humanity while they practise
unrestricted frightfulness have not deceived the Allies. They know, and
have let the enemy know, that they must go on until they have made sure of
an enduring peace by reducing the Central Empires to impotence for evil.

When Mr. Asquith announced in the House on December 4 the King's approval
of Reconstruction, few Members guessed that in twenty-four hours he would
have ceased to be Prime Minister and that Mr. Lloyd George would have begun
Cabinet-making. There has been much talk of intrigue. But John Bull doesn't
care who leads the country so long as he leads it to victory. And as for
Certain People Somewhere in France, we shall probably not be far wrong in
interpreting their view of the present change as follows:

  Thank God, we keep no politicians here;
    Fighting's our game, not talking; all we ask
  Is men and means to face the coming year
    And consummate our task.

  Give us the strongest leaders you can find,
    Tory or Liberal, not a toss care we,
  So they are swift to act and know their mind
    Too well to wait and see.

[Illustration: THE RETURN OF THE MOCK TURTLE-DOVE

KAISER          }
                }(breathlessly): "Well?"
BETHMANN-HOLLWEG}

THE BIRD: "Wouldn't even look at me!"]

The ultimate verdict on Mr. Asquith's services to the State as Prime
Minister for the first two and a half years of the War will not be founded
on the Press Campaign which has helped to secure his downfall. But, as one
of the most bitterly and unjustly assailed ex-Ministers has said, "personal
reputations must wait till the end of the War." Meanwhile, we have a
Premier who, whatever his faults, cannot be charged with supineness.

[Illustration:

THE NEW CONDUCTOR

Opening of the 1917 Overture]

Mr. Bonar Law, the new Leader of the House, has made his first appearance
as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Moving a further Vote of Credit for 400
millions, he disclosed the fact that the daily cost of the War was nearer
six than five millions. In regard to the peace proposals he found himself
unable to better the late Prime Minister's statement that the Allies would
require "adequate reparation for the past and adequate security for the
future." In lucidity and dignity of statement Mr. Asquith was certainly
above criticism. Lord Devonport has been appointed Food Controller and
warned us of rigours to come. The most thrilling speech heard at
Westminster this month has been that of Major Willie Redmond, fresh from
the invigorating atmosphere of the front. While some seventy odd
Nationalist Members are mainly occupied in brooding over Ireland's woes,
two are serving in the trenches--William Redmond and Stephen Gwynn, both of
them middle-aged men. _O si sic omnes_!

Our wounded need all their patience to put up with the curiosity of
non-combatants. A lady, after asking a Tommy on leave what the stripes on
his arm were for, being told that they were one for each time he was
wounded, is reported to have observed, "Dear me! How extraordinary that you
should be wounded three times in the same place!" Even real affection is
not always happily expressed.

[Illustration:

"Have you brought me any souvenirs?"

"Only this little bullet that the doctor took out of my side."

"I wish it had been a German helmet."]

The tenderness with which King Constantine is still treated, even after the
riot in Athens in which our bluejackets have been badly mishandled, is
taxing the patience of moderate men. Mr. Punch, for example, exasperated by
the cumulative effect of Tino's misdeeds, has been goaded into making a
formidable forecast of surrender or exit:

  You say your single aim is just to use
    Your regal gifts for your beloved nation;
  Why, then, I see the obvious line to choose,
    Meaning, of course, the path of abdication;
  Make up your so-called mind--I frankly would--
  To leave your country for your country's good.

The German Emperor was prevented from being present at the funeral of the
late Emperor Francis Joseph by a chill. One is tempted to think that in a
lucid interval of self-criticism William of Hohenzollern may have wished to
spare his aged victim this crowning mockery.

Motto for Meatless Days: "The time is out of joint." This is a _raison de
plus_ for establishing an _Entente_ in the kitchen and getting
Marianne to show Britannia how to cook a cabbage.



_January, 1917_.


Though the chariots of War still drive heavily, 1917 finds the Allies in
good heart--"war-weary but war-hardened." The long agony of Verdun has
ended in triumph for the French, and Great Britain has answered the Peace
Talk of Berlin by calling a War Conference of the Empire. The New Year has
brought us a new Prime Minister, a new Cabinet, a new style of Minister.
Captains of Commerce are diverted from their own business for the benefit
of the country. In spite of all rumours to the contrary Lord Northcliffe
remains outside the new Government, but his interest in it is, at present,
friendly. It is very well understood, however, that everyone must behave.
And in this context Mr. Punch feels that a tribute is due to the outgoing
Premier. Always reserved and intent, he discouraged Press gossip to such a
degree as actually to have turned the key on the Tenth Muse. Interviewers
had no chance. He came into office, held it and left it without a single
concession to Demos' love of personalia.

[Illustration: THE DAWN OF DOUBT

GRETCHEN: "I wonder if this gentleman really is my good angel after all!"]

Germany has not yet changed her Chancellor, though he is being bitterly
attacked for his "silly ideas of humanity"--and her rulers have certainly
shown no change of heart. General von Bissing's retirement from Belgium is
due to health, not repentance. The Kaiser still talks of his "conscience"
and "courage" in freeing the world from the pressure which weighs upon all.
He is still the same Kaiser and Constantine the same "Tino," who, as the
_Berliner Tageblatt_ bluntly remarks, "has as much right to be heard
as a common criminal." Yet signs are not wanting of misgivings in the
German people.

Mr. Wilson has launched a new phrase on the world--"Peace without Victory";
but War is not going to be ended by phrases, and the man who is doing more
than anyone else to end it--the British infantryman--has no use for them:

  The gunner rides on horseback, he lives in luxury,
  The sapper has his dug-out as cushy as can be,
  The flying man's a sportsman, but his home's a long way back,
  In painted tent or straw-spread barn or cosy little shack;
  Gunner and sapper and flying man (and each to his job say I)
  Have tickled the Hun with mine or gun or bombed him from on high,
  But the quiet work, and the dirty work, since ever the War began,
  Is the work that never shows at all, the work of the infantryman.

  The guns can pound the villages and smash the trenches in,
  And the Hun is fain for home again when the T.M.B.s begin,
  And the Vickers gun is a useful one to sweep a parapet,
  But the real work is the work that's done with bomb and bayonet.
  Load him down from heel to crown with tools and grub and kit,
  He's always there where the fighting is--he's there unless he's hit;
  Over the mud and the blasted earth he goes where the living can;
  He's in at the death while he yet has breath, the British   infantryman!

  Trudge and slip on the shell-hole's lip, and fall in the clinging mire--
  Steady in front, go steady! Close up there! Mind the wire!
  Double behind where the pathways wind! Jump clear of the ditch, jump
                clear!
  Lost touch at the back? Oh, halt in front! And duck when the shells come
                near!
  Carrying parties all night long, all day in a muddy trench,
  With your feet in the wet and your head in the rain and the sodden
                khaki's stench!
  Then over the top in the morning, and onward all you can--
  This is the work that wins the War, the work of the infantryman.

And if anyone should think that this means the permanent establishment of
militarism in our midst let him be comforted by the saying of an old
sergeant-major when asked to give a character of one of his men. "He's a
good man in the trenches, and a good man in a scrap; but you'll never make
a soldier of him." The new armies fight all the harder because they want to
make an end not of this war but of all wars. As for the regulars, there is
no need to enlarge on their valour. But it is pleasant to put on record the
description of an officer's servant which has reached Mr. Punch from
France: "Valet, cook, porter, boots, chamber-maid, ostler, carpenter,
upholsterer, mechanic, inventor, needlewoman, coalheaver, diplomat, barber,
linguist (home-made), clerk, universal provider, complete pantechnicon and
infallible bodyguard, he is also a soldier, if a very old soldier, and a
man of the most human kind."

Parliament is not sitting, but there is, unfortunately, no truth in the
report that in order to provide billets for 5,000 new typists and
incidentally to win the War, the Government has commandeered the Houses of
Parliament. The _Times Literary Supplement_ received 335 books of
original verse in 1916, and it is rumoured that Mr. Edward Marsh may very
shortly take up his duties as Minister of Poetry and the Fine Arts. Mr.
Marsh has not yet decided whether he will appoint Mr. Asquith or Mr.
Winston Churchill as his private secretary. Meanwhile, a full list of the
private secretaries of the new private secretaries of the members of the
new Government may at any moment be disclosed to a long suffering public.

On the Home Front the situation shows that a famous literary critic was
also a true prophet:

  O Matthew Arnold! You were right:
  We need more Sweetness and more Light;
  For till we break the brutal foe,
  Our sugar's short, our lights are low.

The domestic problem daily grows more acute. A maid, who asked for a rise
in her wages to which her mistress demurred, explained that the gentleman
she walked out with had just got a job in a munition factory and she would
be obliged to dress up to him.

[Illustration:

COOK (who, after interview with prospective mistress, is going to think it
over):

"'Ullo! Prambilator! If you'd told me you 'ad children I needn't have
troubled meself to 'ave come."

THE PROSPECTIVE MISTRESS: "Oh! B-but if you think the place would
otherwise suit you, I dare say we could board the children out."]

Maids are human, however, though their psychology is sometimes
disconcerting. One who was told by her mistress not to worry because her
young man had gone into the trenches responded cheerfully, "Oh, no, ma'am,
I've left off worrying now. He can't walk out with anyone else while he's
there."

[Illustration: THE RECRUIT WHO TOOK TO IT KINDLY]



_February_ 1917,


The rulers of Germany--the Kaiser and his War-lords--proclaimed themselves
the enemies of the human race in the first weeks of the War. But it has
taken two years and a half to break down the apparently inexhaustible
patience of the greatest of the neutrals. A year and three-quarters has
elapsed since the sinking of the _Lusitania_. The forbearance of
President Wilson--in the face of accumulated insults, interference in the
internal politics of the United States, the promotion of strikes and
_sabotage_ by the agents of Count Bernstorff--has exposed him to hard
and even bitter criticism from his countrymen. Perhaps he over-estimated
the strength of the German-American and Pacificist elements. But his
difficulties are great, and his long suffering diplomacy has at least this
merit, that if America enters the War it will be as a united people.
Germany's decision to resort to unrestricted submarine warfare on February
1 is the last straw: now even Mr. Henry Ford has offered to place his works
at the disposal of the American authorities.

Day by day we read long lists of merchant vessels sunk by U-boats, and
while the Admiralty's reticence on the progress of the anti-submarine
campaign is legitimate and necessary, the withholding of statistics of new
construction does not make for optimism. Victory will be ours, but not
without effort. The great crisis of the War is not passed. That has been
the burden of all the speeches at the opening of Parliament from the King's
downward.

Lord Curzon, who declared that we were now approaching "the supreme and
terrible climax of the War," has spoken of the late Duke of Norfolk as a
man "diffident about powers which were in excess of the ordinary." Is not
that true of the British race as a whole? Only now, under the stress of a
long-drawn-out conflict, is it discovering the variety and strength of its
latent forces. The tide is turning rapidly in Mesopotamia. General Maude,
who never failed to inspire the men under his command on the Western front
with a fine offensive spirit, has already justified his appointment by
capturing Kut, and starting on a great drive towards Baghdad.

[Illustration: THE LAST THROW]

On the Salonika front, to quote from one of Mr. Punch's ever-increasing
staff of correspondents, "all our prospects are pleasing and only Bulgar
vile." On the Western front the British have taken Grandcourt, and our
"Mudlarks," encamped on an ocean of ooze, preserve a miraculous equanimity
in spite of the attention of rats and cockroaches and the vagaries of the
transport mule.

[Illustration:

HEAD OF GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT (in his private room in recently commandeered
hotel): "Boy! Bring some more coal!"]

At home the commandeering of hotels to house the new Ministries proceeds
apace, and a request from an inquiring peer for a comprehensive return of
all the buildings requisitioned and the staffs employed has been declined
on the ground that to provide it would put too great a strain on officials
engaged on work essential to winning the War.

The criticisms on the late Cabinet for its bloated size have certainly not
led to any improvement in this respect, and one of the late Ministers has
complained that the Administration has been further magnified until, if all
its members, including under-secretaries, were present, they would fill not
one but three Treasury Benches. Already this is a much congested district
at question-time and the daily scene of a great push. Up to the present
there are, however, only thirty-three actual Ministers of the Crown, and
their salaries only amount to the trifle of £133,000. The setting up of a
War Cabinet, "a body utterly unknown to the law," has excited the
resentment of Mr. Swift MacNeill, whose reverence for the Constitution
(save in so far as it applies to Ireland) knows no bounds; and Mr. Lynch
has expressed the view that it would be a good idea if Ireland were
specially represented at the Peace Conference, in order that her delegates
might assert her right to self-government.

England, in February, 1917, seems to deserve the title of "the great Loan
Land." Amateurs of anagrams have found satisfaction in the identity of
"Bonar Law" with "War Loan B." As a cynic has remarked, "in the midst of
life we are in debt." But the champions of national economy are not happy.
The staff of the new Pensions Minister, it is announced, will be over two
thousand. It is still hoped, however, that there may be a small surplus
which can be devoted to the needs of disabled soldiers. Our great warriors
are in danger of being swamped by our small but innumerable officials.

[Illustration: A PLAIN DUTY

"Well, good-bye, old chap, and good luck! I'm going in here to do my bit,
the best way I can. The more everybody scrapes together for the War Loan,
the sooner you'll be back from the trenches."]

The older Universities, given over for two years to wounded soldiers and a
handful of physically unfit or coloured undergraduates, are regaining a
semblance of life by the housing of cadet battalions in some colleges. The
Rhodes scholars have all joined up, and normal academic life is still in
abeyance:

  In Tom his Quad the Bloods no longer flourish;
    Balliol is bare of all but mild Hindoos;
  The stalwart oars that Isis used to nourish
    Are in the trenches giving Fritz the Blues,
      And many a stout D.D.
  Is digging trenches with the V.T.C.

[Illustration: The Brothers Tingo, who are exempted from military service,
do their bit by helping to train ladies who are going on the land.]

It is true that Mr. Bernard Shaw has visited the front. No reason is
assigned for this rash act, and too little has been made of the fact that
he wore khaki just like an ordinary person. Amongst other signs of the
times we note that women are to be licensed as taxi-drivers:

  War has taught the truth that shines
  Through the poet's noble lines:
  "Common are to either sex
  _Artifex and opifex_."

A new danger is involved in the spread of the Army Signalling Alphabet. The
names of Societies are threatened. The dignity of Degrees is menaced by a
code which converts B.A. into Beer Ack. Initials are no longer sacred, and
the great T.P. will become Toc Pip O'Connor, unless some Emma Pip
introduces a Bill to prevent the sacrilege.



_March,_ 1917.


With the end of Tsardom in Russia, the fall of Baghdad, and the strategic
retreat of Hindenburg on the Western front, all crowded into one month,
March fully maintains its reputation for making history at the expense of
Caesars and Kaisers. It seems only the other day when the Tsar's assumption
of the title of Generalissimo lent new strength to the legend of the
"Little Father." But the forces of "unholy Russia"--Pro-German Ministers
and the sinister figure of Rasputin--have combined to his undoing, and now
none is so poor to do him reverence. In the House of Commons everybody
seems pleased, including Mr. Devlin, who has been quite statesmanlike in
his appreciation, and the Prime Minister, in one of his angelic visits to
the House, evoked loud cheers by describing the Revolution as one of the
landmarks in the history of the world. But no one noticed that Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman's outburst in 1906, just after the dissolution of
Russia's first elected Parliament: "_La Duma est morte; vive la Duma_!
" has now been justified by the event--at any rate for the moment, for
Revolutions are rich in surprises and reactions. The capture of Baghdad
inspires no misgivings, except in the bosoms of Nationalist members, who
detect in the manifesto issued by General Maude fresh evidences of British
hypocrisy.

The fleet of Dutch merchantmen, which has been sunk by a waiting submarine,
sailed under a German guarantee of "relative security." Germany is so often
misunderstood. It should be obvious by this time that her attitude to
International Law has always been one of approximate reverence. The shells
with which she bombarded Rheims Cathedral were contingent shells, and the
_Lusitania_ was sunk by a relative torpedo. Neutrals all over the
world, who are smarting just now under a fresh manifestation of Germany's
respective goodwill, should try to realise before they take any action what
is the precise situation of our chief enemy: He has (relatively) won the
War; he has (virtually) broken the resistance of the Allies; he has
(conditionally) ample supplies for his people; in particular he is
(morally) rich in potatoes. His finances at first sight appear to be pretty
heavily involved, but that soon will be adjusted by (hypothetical)
indemnities; he has enormous (proportional) reserves of men; he has
(theoretically) blockaded Great Britain, and his final victory is
(controvertibly) at hand. But his most impressive argument, which cannot
fail to come home to hesitating Neutrals, is to be found in his latest
exhibition of offensive power, namely, in his (putative) advance--upon the
Ancre.

A grave statement made by the Under-Secretary for War as to the recent
losses of the Royal Flying Corps on the Western front and the increased
activity of the German airmen has created some natural depression. The
command of the air fluctuates, but the spirit of our airmen is a sure
earnest that the balance will be redressed in our favour. Mr. Punch has
already paid his tribute to the British infantryman. Let him now do his
homage to the heroes whose end is so often disguised under the laconic
announcement: "One of our machines did not return."

[Illustration: ALSO RAN

WILHELM: "Are you luring them on, like me?" MEHMED: "I'm afraid I am!"]

  I like to think it did not fall to earth,
    A wounded bird that trails a broken wing,
  But to the heavenly blue that gave it birth,
    Faded in silence, a mysterious thing,
  Cleaving its radiant course where honour lies
  Like a winged victory mounting to the skies.

  The clouds received it, and the pathless night;
    Swift as a flame, its eager force unspent,
  We saw no limit to its daring flight;
    Only its pilot knew the way it went,
  And how it pierced the maze of flickering stars
  Straight to its goal in the red planet Mars.

  So to the entrance of that fiery gate,
    Borne by no current, driven by no breeze,
  Knowing no guide but some compelling fate,
    Bold navigators of uncharted seas,
  Courage and youth went proudly sweeping by,
  To win the unchallenged freedom of the sky.

Parliament has been occupied with many matters, from the Report of the
Dardanelles Commission to the grievances of Scots bee-keepers. The woes of
Ireland have not been forgotten, and the Nationalists have been busily
engaged in getting Home Rule out of cold storage. Hitherto every attempt of
the British Sisyphus to roll the Stone of Destiny up the Hill of Tara has
found a couple of Irishmen at the top ready to roll it down again. Let us
hope that this time they will co-operate to install it there as the throne
of a loyal and united Ireland. Believers in the "Hidden Hand" have been on
the war-path, and as a result of prolonged discussion as to the
responsibility for the failure of the effort to force the Dardanelles, the
House is evidently of opinion that Lord Fisher might now be let alone by
foes and friends. The idea of blaming _Queen Elisabeth_ for the fiasco
is so entirely satisfactory to all parties concerned that one wonders why
the Commission couldn't have thought of that itself.

[Illustration: THE INFECTIOUS HORNPIPE]

Mr. Bernard Shaw, returned from his "joy-ride" at the Front, has declared
that "there is no monument more enduring than brass"; the general feeling,
however, is that there is a kind of brass that is beyond enduring.
Armageddon is justified since it has given him a perfectly glorious time.
He is obliged, in honesty, to state that the style of some of the buildings
wrecked by the Germans was quite second rate. He entered and emerged from
the battle zone without any vulgar emotion; remaining immune from pity,
sorrow, or tears. In short:

  He went through the fiery furnace, but never a hair was missed
  From the heels of our most colossal Arch-Super-Egotist.

According to the latest news from Sofia, 35,000 Bulgarian geese are to be
allowed to go to Germany. As in the case of the Bulgarian Fox who went to
Vienna, there appears to be little likelihood that they will ever return.

[Illustration: FOOD RESTRICTION

SCENE: HOTEL.

LITTLE GIRL: "Oh, Mummy! They've given me a dirty plate."

MOTHER: "Hush, darling. That's the soup."]

Apropos of food supplies, Lord Devonport has developed a sense of judicial
humour, having approved a new dietary for prisoners, under which the bread
ration will be cut down to 63 ounces per week, or just one ounce less than
the allowance of the free and independent Englishman. The latest morning
greeting is now: "_Comment vous Devonportez-vous?_"



_April_, 1917.


Once more the rulers of Germany have failed to read the soul of another
nation. They thought there was no limit to America's forbearance, and they
thought wrong. America is now "all in" on the side of the Allies. The Stars
and Stripes and the Union Jack are flying side by side over the Houses of
Parliament. On the motion introduced in both Houses to welcome our new
Ally, Mr. Bonar Law, paraphrasing Canning, declared that the New World had
stepped in to redress the balance of the old; Mr. Asquith, with a
fellow-feeling, no doubt, lauded the patience which had enabled President
Wilson to carry with him a united nation; and Lord Curzon quoted Bret
Harte. The memory of some unfortunate phrases is obliterated by the
President's historic message to Congress, and his stirring appeal to his
countrymen to throw their entire weight into the Allied scale. The War,
physically as well as morally, is now _Germania contra Mundum_. Yet,
while we hail the advent of a powerful and determined Ally, there is no
disposition to throw up our hats. The raw material of manpower in America
is magnificent in numbers and quality, but it has to be equipped and
trained and brought across the Atlantic. Many months, perhaps a whole year,
must elapse before its weight can be felt on the battle front. The
transport of a million men over submarine-infested seas is no easy task.
But while we must wait for the coming of the Americans on land, their help
in patrolling the seas may be counted on speedily.

[Illustration:

THE NEW-COMER: "My village, I think?"

THE ONE IN POSSESSION: "Sorry, old thing; I took it half-an-hour ago."]

[Illustration: SWOOPING FROM THE WEST

(_It is the intention of our new Ally to assist us in the patrolling of
the Atlantic_.)]

The British have entered Péronne; the Canadians have captured Vimy Ridge.
But the full extent of German frightfulness has never been so clearly
displayed as in their retreat. Here, for once, the German account of their
own doings is true. "In the course of these last months great stretches of
French territory have been turned by us into a dead country. It varies in
width from 10 to 12 or 13 kilometres, and extends along the whole of our
new positions. No village or farm was left standing, no road was left
passable, no railway track or embankment was left in being. Where once were
woods, there are gaunt rows of stumps; the wells have been blown up.... In
front of our new positions runs, like a gigantic ribbon, our Empire of
Death" (_Lokal Anzeiger_, March 18, 1917). The general opinion of the
Boche among the British troops is that he is only good at one thing, and
that is destroying other people's property. One of Mr. Punch's
correspondents writes to say that while the flattened villages and severed
fruit trees are a gruesome spectacle, for him "all else was forgotten in
speechless admiration of the French people.

"Their self-restraint and adaptability are beyond words. These hundreds of
honest people, just relieved from the domineering of the Master Swine, and
restored to their own good France again, were neither hysterical nor
exhausted." The names of the new German lines--Wotan and Siegfried and
Hunding--are not without significance. We accept the omen: it will not be
long before we hear of fresh German activities in the _Götterdämmerung_
line. Count Reventlow has informed the Kaiser that without victory a
continuation of the Monarchy is improbable. The "repercussion" of
Revolution is making itself felt. Even the Crown Prince is reported
to have felt misgivings as to the infection of anti-monarchial ideas,
and Mr. Punch is moved to forecast possibilities of upheaval:

  Not that the Teuton's stolid wits
    Are built to plan so rude a plot;
  Somehow I cannot picture Fritz
    Careering as a _sans-culotte_;
  Schooled to obedience, hand and heart,
    I can imagine nothing odder
  Than such behaviour on the part
    Of inoffensive cannon-fodder.

  And yet one never really knows.
    You cannot feed his massive trunk
  On fairy tales of beaten foes,
    Or Hindenburg's "victorious" bunk;
  And if his rations run too short
    Through this accursed British blockade,
  Even the worm may turn and sport
    A revolutionary cockade.

On the German Roll of Dishonour this month appears the name of one who has
been _grande et conspicuum nostro quoque tempore monstrum_. Baron
Moritz Ferdinand von Bissing, the German Military Governor-General of
Belgium, who was largely responsible for the murder of Nurse Cavell and the
chief instigator of the infamous Belgian deportations, after being granted
a rest from his labours, is reported to have died "of overwork." Here for
once we find ourselves in perfect agreement with the official German view.
In a recent character sketch of the deceased Baron, the _Cologne
Gazette_ observed, "He is a fine musician, and his execution was good."
It would have been.

The proceedings in Parliament do not call for extended comment. Mr. Asquith
has handsomely recanted his hostility to women's suffrage, admitting that
by their splendid services in the war women have worked out their own
electoral salvation. An old spelling-book used to tell us that "it is
agreeable to watch the unparalleled embarrassment of a harassed pedlar when
gauging the symmetry of a peeled pear." Lord Devonport, occupied in
deciding on the exact architecture and decoration of the Bath bun (official
sealed pattern), would make a companion picture. For the rest the House has
been occupied with the mysteries of combing and re-combing. The best War
saying of the month was that of Mr. Swift MacNeill, in reference to
proposed peace overtures, that it would be time enough to talk about peace
when the Germans ceased to blow up hospital ships.

[Illustration:

DYNASTIC AMENITIES

LITTLE WILLIE (of Prussia): "As one Crown Prince to another, isn't your
Hindenburg line getting a bit shaky?"

RUPPRECHT (of Bavaria): "Well, as one Crown Prince to another, what about
your Hohenzollern line?"]

Although the streets may have been sweetened by the absence of posters,
days will come, it must be remembered, when we shall badly miss them. It
goes painfully to one's heart to think that the embargo, if it is ever
lifted, will not be lifted in time for most of the events which we all most
desire--events that clamour to be recorded in the largest black type, such
as "Strasbourg French Again," "Flight of the Crown Prince," "Revolution in
Germany," "The Kaiser a Captive," and last and best of all, "Peace." But
Mr. Punch, with many others, has no sympathy to spare for the sorrows of
the headline artist deprived for the time being of his chief opportunity of
scaremongering.

In the competition of heroism and self-sacrifice the prize must fall to the
young--to the Tommy and the Second Lieutenant before all. Yet a very good
mark is due to the retired Admirals who have accepted commissions in the
R.N.R., and are mine-sweeping or submarine-hunting in command of trawlers.
Yes, "Captain Dug-out, R.N.R.," is a fine disproof of _si vieillesse
pouvait_.

[Illustration: TORPEDOED MINE-SWEEPER (to his pal): "As I was a-saying,
Bob, when we was interrupted, it's my belief as 'ow the submarine blokes
ain't on 'arf as risky a job as the boys in the airy-o-planes."]

According to the _Pall Mall Gazette_, Mr. Lloyd George's double was
seen at Cardiff the other day. The suggestion that there are two Lloyd
Georges has caused consternation among the German Headquarters Staff. But
we are not exempt from troubles and anxieties in England. The bones of a
woolly rhinoceros have been dug up twenty-three feet below the surface at
High Wycombe, and very strong language has been used in the locality
concerning this gross example of food-hoarding. The weather, too, has been
behaving oddly. On one day of Eastertide there was an inch of snow in
Liverpool, followed by hailstones, lightning, thunder, and a gale of wind.
Summer has certainly arrived very early. But at least we are to be spared a
General Election this year--for fear that it might clash with the other
War.



_May_, 1917.


In England, once but no longer merry though not downhearted, in this once
merry month of May, the question of Food and Food Production now dominates
all others. It is the one subject that the House of Commons seems to care
about. John Bull, who has invested a mint of money in other lands, realises
that it is high time that he put something into his own--in the shape of
Corn Bounties. Mr. Prothero, in moving the second reading of the Corn
Production Bill, while admitting that he had originally been opposed to
State interference with agriculture, showed all the zeal of the convert--to
the dismay of the hard-shell Free Traders.

The Food Controller asks us to curtail our consumption of bread by
one-fourth. Here, at least, non-combatants have an opportunity of showing
themselves to be as good patriots as the Germans and of earning the
epitaph: "Much as he loved the staff of life, he loved his country even
more."

[Illustration: "No, dear, I'm afraid we shan't be at the dance to-night.
Poor Herbert has got a touch of allotment feet."]

On the Western Front the German soldiers' opinion of "retirement according
to plan" may be expressed as "each for himself and the Devil take the
Hindenburg." One of them, recently taken prisoner, actually wrote, "When we
go to the Front we become the worst criminals." This generous attempt to
shield his superiors deserves to be appreciated, but it does not dispel the
belief that the worst criminals are still a good way behind the German
lines. The inspired German Press has now got to the point of asserting that
"there is no Hindenburg line." Well, that implies prophetic sense:

  And if a British prophet may
    Adopt their graphic present tense,
  I would remark--and so forestall
    A truth they'll never dare to trench on--
  _There is no Hindenburg at all,
    Or none worth mention_.

According to our Watch Dog correspondent, recent movements show that the
lawless German "has attained little by his destructiveness save the
discomfort of H.Q. Otherwise the War progresses as merrily as ever; more
merrily, perhaps, owing to the difficulties to be overcome. Soldiers love
difficulties to overcome. That is their business in life." This is the way
that young officers write "in the brief interludes snatched from hard
fighting and hard fatigues." Their letters "never pretend to be more than
the gay and cynical banter of those who bring to the perils of life at the
Front an incurable habit of humour, and they are typical of that brave
spirit, essentially English, that makes light of the worst that fate can
send." That is how one brave officer wrote of the letters of a dead comrade
to _Punch_ only a few weeks before his own death.

[Illustration: A BAD DREAM

SPECTRE: "Well, if you don't like the look of me, eat less bread."]

The French have taken Craonne; saluting has been abolished in the Russian
Army; and Germany has been giving practical proof of her friendliness to
Spain by torpedoing her merchant ships. A new star has swum into the
Revolutionary firmament, by name Lenin. According to the Swedish Press this
interesting anarchist has been missing for two days, and it remains to be
seen if he will yet make a hit. Meanwhile the Kaiser is doing his bit in
the unfamiliar rôle of pro-Socialist.

Newmarket has become "a blasted heath," all horse-racing having been
stopped, to the great dismay of the Irish members. What are the hundred
thousand young men (or is it two?), who refuse to fight for their country,
to do? Mr. Lloyd George has produced and expounded his plan for an Irish
Convention, at which Erin is to take a turn at her own harp, and the
proposal has been favourably received, except by Mr. Ginnell, in whose ears
the Convention "sounds the dirge of the Home Rule Act."

[Illustration: HIS LATEST!

THE KAISER: "This is sorry work for a Hohenzollern; still, necessity knows
no traditions."]


_A Garden Glorified_

Mr. Bonar Law has brought in a Budget, moved a vote of credit for 500
millions, and apologised for estimating the war expenditure at 5 1/2
millions a day when it turned out to be 7 1/2. The trivial lapse has
been handsomely condoned by his predecessor, Mr. McKenna. The Budget
debate was held with open doors, but produced a number of speeches much
more suitable for the Secret Session which followed, and at which it
appears from the Speaker's Report that nothing sensational was revealed.

The House of Commons, unchanged externally, has deteriorated spiritually,
to judge by the temper of most of those who have remained behind. It is
otherwise with other Institutions, some of which have been ennobled by
disfigurement.

  A PLACE OF ARMS

  I knew a garden green and fair,
    Flanking our London river's tide,
  And you would think, to breathe its air
    And roam its virgin lawns beside,
  All shimmering in their velvet fleece,
  "Nothing can hurt this haunt of Peace."

  No trespass marred that close retreat;
    Privileged were the few that went
  Pacing its walks with measured beat
    On legal contemplation bent;
  And Inner Templars used to say:
  "How well our garden looks to-day!"

  But That which changes all has changed
    This guarded pleasaunce, green and fair,
  And soldier-ranks therein have ranged
    And trod its beauties hard and bare,
  Have tramped and tramped its fretted floor,
  Learning the discipline of War.

  And many a moon of Peace shall climb
    Above that mimic field of Mars,
  Before the healing touch of Time
    With springing green shall hide its scars;
  But Inner Templars smile and say:
  "Our barrack-square looks well to-day!"

  Good was that garden in their eyes,
    Lovely its spell of long-ago;
  Now waste and mired its glory lies,
    And yet they hold it dearer so,
  Who see beneath the wounds it bears
  A grace no other garden wears.

  For still the memory, never sere,
    But fresh as after fallen rain,
  Of those who learned their lesson here
    And may not ever come again,
  Gives to this garden, bruised and browned,
  A greenness as of hallowed ground.

News comes from Athens that King Constantine is realising his position and
contemplates abdication in favour of the Crown Prince George. It is not yet
known in whose favour the Crown Prince George will abdicate. In this
context the _Kölnische Zeitung_ is worth quoting. "The German people,"
it says, "will not soon forget what they owe to their future Emperor." This
spasm of candour is not confined to the Rhineland. The keenest minds in
Germany, says a Berlin correspondent, are now seeking to discover the
secret of the Fatherland's world-wide unpopularity. It is this absurd
sensitiveness on the part of our cultured opponent that is causing some of
her best friends in this country to lose hope.

Genius has been denned as an infinite capacity for taking pains; and if the
definition is sound, genius cannot be denied to the painstaking officials
who test the physical fitness of recruits--"as in the picture."

The month has witnessed the amendment of the President's much discussed
phrase: "Too proud to fight" has now become "Proud to fight too." Another
revised version is suggested by Margarine: _C'est magnifique, mais ce
n'est pas le beurre_. The German Food Controller laments the mysterious
disappearance of five million four hundred thousand pigs this year. The
idea of having the Crown Prince's baggage searched does not seem to have
been found feasible.

[Illustration: OUR PERSEVERING OFFICIALS

Or, the Recruit that was passed at the thirteenth examination.]



_June_, 1917.


Within some eleven weeks of the Declaration of War by the U.S.A., the first
American troops have been landed in France. Even the Kaiser has begun to
abate his thrasonic tone, declaring that "it is not the Prussian way to
praise oneself," and that "it is now a matter of holding out, however long
it lasts."

But other events besides the arrival of the Americans have helped to bring
about this altered tone. The capture of Messines Ridge, after the biggest
bang in history, has given him something to think about. His
brother-in-law, Constantine of Greece, has at last thrown up the sponge and
abdicated. "Tino's" place of exile is not yet fixed. The odds seem to be on
Switzerland, but Mr. Punch recommends Denmark. There is no place like home:

  Try some ancestral palace, well appointed;
    For choice the one where Hamlet nursed his spite,
  Who found the times had grown a bit disjointed
    And he was not the man to put 'em right;
  And there consult on that enchanted shore
        The ghosts of Elsinore.

Brazil has also entered the War, and Germany is now able to shoot in almost
any direction without any appreciable risk of hitting a friend.

Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig gave the nation a birthday present on his
own birthday, in the shape of a dispatch which is as strong and straight as
himself:

  Frugal in speech, yet more than once impelled
    To utter words of confidence and cheer
  Whereat some dismal publicists rebelled
    As premature, ill-founded, insincere--
  Words none the less triumphantly upheld
    By Victory's verdict, resonantly clear,
  Words that inspired misgiving in the foe
    Because you do not prophesy--you _know_.

  Steadfast and calm, unmoved by blame or praise,
    By local checks or Fortune's strange caprices,
  You dedicate laborious nights and days
    To shattering the Hun machine to pieces;
  And howsoe'er at times the battle sways
    The Army's trust in your command increases;
  Patient in preparation, swift in deed,
  We find in you the leader that we need.

[Illustration: A WORD OF ILL OMEN

CROWN PRINCE (to Kaiser, drafting his next speech): "For Gott's sake,
father, be careful this time, and don't call the American Army
'contemptible.'"]

A new feature of the German armies are the special "storm-troops"; men
picked for their youth, vigour, and daring, and fortified by a specially
liberal diet for the carrying out of counter-attacks. Even our ordinary
British soldiers, who are constantly compelled to take these brave fellows
prisoners, bear witness to the ferocity of their appearance.

On our Home Front the Germans have shown considerable activity of late.
Daylight air-raids are no longer the monopoly of the South-east coast; they
have extended to London. And a weekly paper, conspicuous for the insistence
with which it proclaims its superiority to all others, has been asking: If
17 German aeroplanes can visit and bomb London in broad daylight, what is
to prevent our enemy from sending 170 or even 1,700? Fortunately the
average man and woman pays no heed to this scare-mongering, and goes about
his or her business, if not rejoicing, at any rate in the conviction that
the Gothas are not going to have it all their own way.

Considering that the "Fort of London" had been drenched with the "ghastly
dew" of aerial navies barely three hours before Parliament met on June 13,
Members showed themselves uncommon calm. They were at their best a few days
earlier in paying homage to Major Willie Redmond. It had been his ambition
to be Father of the House: he had been elected thirty-four years ago; but
in reality he was the Eternal Boy from the far-off time when it was his
nightly delight to "cheek" Mr. Speaker Brand with delightful exuberance
until the moment of his glorious death in Flanders, whither he had gone at
an age when most of his compeers were content to play the critic in a snug
corner of the smoking-room. Personal affection combined with admiration for
his gallantry to inspire the speeches in which Mr. Lloyd George, Mr.
Asquith, and Sir Edward Carson enshrined the most remarkable tribute ever
paid to a private Member.

Mr. Balfour has returned safe and sound from his Mission to the States, and
received a warm welcome on all sides. Even the ranks of Tuscany, on the
Irish benches, could not forbear to cheer their old opponent. Besides
securing American gold for his country, he has transferred some American
bronze to his complexion. If anything, he appears to have sharpened his
natural faculty for skilful evasion and polite repartee by his encounter
with Transatlantic journalists. In fact everybody is pleased to see him
back except perhaps certain curious members, who find him even more chary
of information than his deputy, Lord Robert Cecil. The mystery of Lord
Northcliffe's visit to the States has been cleared up. Certain journals,
believed to enjoy his confidence, had described him as "Mr. Balfour's
successor." Certain other journals, whose confidence he does not enjoy, had
declined to believe this. The fact as stated by Mr. Bonar Law is that "it
is hoped that Lord Northcliffe will be able to carry on the work begun by
Mr. Balfour as head of the British Mission in America. He is expected to
co-ordinate and supervise the work of all the Departmental Missions." It
has been interesting to learn that his lordship "will have the right of
communicating direct with the Prime Minister"--a thing which, of course, he
has never done before. Meanwhile, the fact remains that his departure has
been hailed with many a dry eye, and that the public seem to be enduring
their temporary bereavement with fortitude.

[Illustration: MRS. GREEN TO MRS. JONES (who is gazing at an aeroplane):
"My word! I shouldn't care for one of _them_ flying things to settle
on me."]

Far too much fuss has been made about trying to stop Messrs. Ramsay
MacDonald and Jowett from leaving England. So far as we can gather they did
not threaten to return to this country afterwards. There is no end to the
woes of Pacificists, conscientious or otherwise. The Press campaign against
young men of military age engaged in Government offices is causing some of
them sleepless days. Even on the stage the "conchy" is not safe.

[Illustration: STAGE MANAGER: "The elephant's putting in a very spirited
performance to-night."

CARPENTER. "Yessir. You see, the new hind-legs is a discharged soldier, and
the front legs is an out-and-out pacificist."]

The King has done a popular act in abolishing the German titles held by
members of his family, and Mr. Kennedy Jones has won widespread approval by
declaring that beer is a food.

Lord Devonport's retirement from the post of Food Controller has been
received with equanimity. There is a touch of imagination, almost of
romance, in the appointment of his successor, the redoubtable Lord Rhondda,
who as "D.A." was alternately the bogy and idol of the Welsh miners, and
who, after being the head of the greatest profit-making enterprise in the
Welsh coalfields, is now summoned to carry on war against the profiteers in
the provision trade.

In Germany a number of lunatics have been called up for military service,
and the annual report of one institution at Stettin states that "the
asylums are proud that their inmates are allowed to serve their
Fatherland." It appears, however, that the results are not always
satisfactory, though no complaints have been heard on our side.



_July_, 1917.


The War, so Lord Northcliffe has informed the Washington Red Cross
Committee, has only just begun. Whether this utterance be regarded as a
statement of fact or an explosion of rhetoric, it has at least one merit.
The United States cannot but regard it as a happy coincidence that their
entry into the War synchronises with the initial operations. The dog-days
are always busy times for the Dogs of War, and the last month of the third
year opened with the new Russian Offensive under Brusiloff, and closed with
the beginning of the Third Battle of Ypres. The War in the air and under
the sea rages with unabated intensity, and in both Houses the policy of
unmitigated reprisals on German cities has found strenuous advocates. But
Lord Derby, our new Minister of War, will have none of it. British
aeroplanes shall only be employed in bombing where some distinctly military
object is to be achieved. But this decision does not involve any slackness
in defensive measures. We have learned how to deal with the Zepp, and now
we are going to attend to the Gotha. As for the U-boats, the Admiralty says
little but does much. And we are adding to vigilance, valour, and the
resources of applied science the further aid of agriculture.

In the old days the Kaiser was once described as "indefatigably changing
Chancellors and uniforms." Dr. Bethmann-Hollweg has now gone the way of his
greater predecessors--Bismarck and Caprivi, Prince Hohenlohe and Prince
Bülow.

[Illustration: THE TUBER'S REPARTEE

GERMAN PIRATE; "Gott strafe England!"

BRITISH POTATO: "Tuber über Alles!"]

The Princes and the Peers depart, and the Doctors are following suit.
Bethmann-Hollweg, immortalised by one fatal phrase, has been at last hunted
from office by the extremists whom he sought to restrain, and Dr.
Michaelis, a second-rate administrator, of negligible antecedents, succeeds
to his uneasy chair, while the Kaiser maintains his pose as the friend of
the people. He has congratulated his Bayreuth Dragoons on their prowess,
which has given joy "to old Fritz up in Elysian fields":

  Perhaps; but what if he is down below?
  In any case, what we should like to know
  Is how his modern namesake, Private Fritz,
  Enjoys the fun of being blown to bits
  Because his Emperor has lost his wits.

[Illustration: THE SCRAPPER SCRAPPED]

_Delirant reges_: but there are bright exceptions. On July 17 our King
in Council decreed that the Royal House should be known henceforth as the
House of Windsor. Parliament has been flooded with the backwash of the
Mesopotamia Commission, and at last on third thoughts the Government has
decided not to set up a new tribunal to try the persons affected by the
Report. Mr. Austen Chamberlain has resigned office amid general regret. The
Government have refused, "on the representations of the Foreign Secretary,"
to accept the twice proffered resignation of Lord Hardinge. The plain
person is driven to the conclusion that if there are no unsinkable ships
there are some unsinkable officials. For the rest the question mainly
agitating Members has been "to warn or not to warn." The Lord Mayor has
announced that he will not ring the great bell of St. Paul's; but the Home
Secretary states that the public will be warned in future when an air raid
is actually imminent.

[Illustration: BUSY CITY MAN TO HIS PARTNER (as one of the new air-raid
warnings gets to work): "If you'll leave me in here for the warnings I'll
carry on while you take shelter during the raids."]

During these visitations there is nothing handier than a comfortable and
capacious Cave, but the Home Secretary has his limitations. When Mr. King
asked him to be more careful about interning alien friends without trial,
since he (Mr. King) had just heard of the great reception accorded in
Petrograd to one Trotsky on his release from internment, Sir George Cave
replied that he was sorry he had never heard of Trotsky.

Lord Rhondda reigns in Lord Devonport's place, and will doubtless profit by
his predecessor's experience. It is a thankless job, but the great body of
the nation is determined that he shall have fair play and will support him
through thick and thin in any policy, however drastic, that he may
recommend to their reason and their patriotism. This business of
food-controlling is new to us as well as to him, but we are willing to be
led, and we are even willing to be driven, and we are grateful to him for
having engaged his reputation and skill and firmness in the task of leading
or driving us.

The War has its _grandes heures_, its colossal glories and disasters,
but the tragedy of the "little things" affects the mind of the simple
soldier with a peculiar force--the "little gardens rooted up, the same as
might be ours"; "the little 'ouses all in 'eaps, the same as might be
mine"; and worst of all, "the little kids, as might 'ave been our own."
Apropos of resentment, England has lost first place in Germany, for America
is said to be the most hated country now. The "morning hate" of the German
family with ragtime obbligato must be a terrible thing! General von Blume,
it is true, says that America's intervention is no more than "a straw." But
which straw? The last?

[Illustration:

GRANDPAPA (to small Teuton struggling with home-lessons): "Come, Fritz, is
your task so difficult?"

FRITZ: "It is indeed. I have to learn all the names of _all_ the
countries that misunderstand the All-Highest."]

It is reported that ex-King Constantine is to receive £20,000 a year
unemployment benefit, and Mr. Punch, in prophetic vein, pictures him as
offering advice to his illustrious brother-in-law:

  Were it not wise, dear William, ere the day
    When Revolution goes for crowns and things,
  To cut your loss betimes and come this way
    And start a coterie of exiled Kings?

In the words of a valued correspondent (a temporary captain suddenly
summoned from the trenches to the Staff), "there is this to be said about
being at war--you never know what is going to happen to you next."



_August, 1917_.


With the opening of the fourth year of the War Freedom renews her vow,
fortified by the aid of the "Gigantic Daughter of the West," and undaunted
by the collapse of our Eastern Ally, brought about by anarchy, German gold
and the fraternisation of Russian and German soldiers. The Kaiser, making
the most of this timely boon, has once more been following in Bellona's
train (her _train de luxe_) in search of cheap _réclame_ on the
Galician front, to witness the triumphs of his new Ally, Revolutionary
Russia:

  But though she fail us in the final test,
    Not there, not there, my child, the end shall be,
    But where, without your option, France and we
  Have made our own arrangements in the West.

[Illustration: RUSSIA'S DARK HOUR]

It is another story on the Western Front, where the British are closing in
on the wrecked remains of Lens, and the Crown Prince's chance of breaking
hearts along "The Ladies' Way" grows more and more remote.

[Illustration: THE OPTIMIST

"If this is the right village, then we're all right. The instructions is
clear--'Go past the post-office and sharp to the left afore you come to the
church.'"]

A recent resolution of the Reichstag has been welcomed by Mr. Ramsay
MacDonald as the solemn pronouncement of a sovereign people, only requiring
the endorsement of the British Government to produce an immediate and
equitable peace. But not much was left of this pleasant theory after Mr.
Asquith had dealt it a few sledge-hammer blows. "So far as we know," he
said, "the influence of the Reichstag, not only upon the composition but
upon the policy of the German Government, remains what it always has
been--a practically negligible quantity."

The Reminiscences of Mr. Gerard, the late German Ambassador in Berlin, are
causing much perturbation in German Court circles. In one of his
conversations with Mr. Gerard, the Kaiser told him "there is no longer any
International Law."

  Little scraps of paper,
    Little drops of ink,
  Make the Kaiser caper
    And the Nations think.

The real voice of Labour is not that of the delegates who want to go to the
International Socialist Conference at Stockholm to talk to Fritz, but of
the Tommy who, after a short "leaf," goes cheerfully back to France to
fight him. And the fomenters of class hatred will not find much support
from the "men in blue." Mr. Punch has had occasion to rebuke the levity of
smart fashionables who visit the wounded and weary them by idiotic
questions. He is glad to show the other side of the picture in the tribute
paid to the V.A.D. of the proper sort:

  There's an angel in our ward as keeps a-flittin' to and fro,
  With fifty eyes upon 'er wherever she may go;
  She's as pretty as a picture, and as bright as mercury,
  And she wears the cap and apron of a V.A.D.

  The Matron she is gracious, and the Sister she is kind,
  But they wasn't born just yesterday, and lets you know their mind;
  The M.O. and the Padre is as thoughtful as can be,
  But they ain't so good to look at as our V.A.D.

  Not like them that wash a teacup in an orficer's canteen,
  And then "Engaged in War Work" in the weekly Press is seen;
  She's on the trot from morn to night and busy as a bee,
  And there's 'eaps of wounded Tommies bless that V.A.D.

Our Grand Fleet keeps its strenuous, unceasing vigil in the North Sea. But
we must not forget the merchant mariners now serving under the Windsor
House Flag in the North Atlantic trade:

  "We sweep a bit and we fight a bit--an' that's what we like the best--
  But a towin' job or a salvage job, they all go in with the rest;
  When we ain't too busy upsettin' old Fritz an' 'is frightfulness blockade
  A bit of all sorts don't come amiss in the North Atlantic trade."

  "And who's your skipper, and what is he like?" "Oh, well, if you want to
                know,
  I'm sailing under a hard-case mate as I sailed with years ago;
  'E's big as a bucko an' full o' beans, the same as 'e used to be
  When I knowed 'im last in the windbag days when first I followed the sea.
  'E was worth two men at the lee fore brace, an' three at the bunt of a
                sail;
  'E'd a voice you could 'ear to the royal yards in the teeth of a Cape
                'Orn gale;
  But now 'e's a full-blown lootenant, an' wears the twisted braid,
  Commandin' one of 'is Majesty's ships in the North Atlantic trade."

  "And what is the ship you're sailin' in?" "Oh, she's a bit of a terror.
  She ain't no bloomin' levvyathan, an' that's no fatal error!
  She scoops the seas like a gravy spoon when the gales are up an' blowin',
  But Fritz 'e loves 'er above a bit when 'er fightin' fangs are showin'.
  The liners go their stately way an' the cruisers take their ease,
  But where would they be if it wasn't for us with the water up to our
                knees?
  We're wadin' when their soles are wet, we're swimmin' when they wade,
  For I tell you small craft gets it a treat in the North Atlantic trade!"

  "An' what is the port you're plying to?" "When the last long trick is
                done
  There'll some come back to the old 'ome port--'ere's 'opin' I'll be one;
  But some 'ave made a new landfall, an' sighted another shore,
  An' it ain't no use to watch for them, for they won't come 'ome no more.
  There ain't no harbour dues to pay when once they're over the bar,
  Moored bow and stern in a quiet berth where the lost three-deckers are.
  An' there's Nelson 'oldin' is' one 'and out an' welcomin' them that's
                made
  The roads o' Glory an' the Port of Death in the North Atlantic trade."

[Illustration:

DOCTOR: "Your throat is in a very bad state. Have you ever tried gargling
with salt water?"

SKIPPER: "Yus, I've been torpedoed six times."]

Parliament has devoted many hours of talk to the discussion of Mr.
Henderson's visit to Paris in company with Mr. Ramsay MacDonald to attend a
Conference of French and Russian Socialists. As member of the War Cabinet
and Secretary of the Labour Party he seems to have resembled one of those
twin salad bottles from which oil and vinegar can be dispensed alternately
but not together. The attempt to combine the two functions could only end
as it began--in a double fiasco. Mr. Henderson has resigned, and Mr.
Winston Churchill has been appointed Minister of Munitions. Many reasons
have been assigned for his reinclusion in the Ministry. Some say that it
was done to muzzle Mr. MacCallum Scott, hitherto one of the most
pertinacious of questionists, who, as Mr. Churchill's private secretary, is
now debarred by Parliamentary etiquette from the exercise of these
inquisitorial functions. Others say it was done to muzzle Mr. Churchill.
Contrary to expectation, Mr. Churchill has succeeded in piloting the
Munitions of War Bill through its remaining stages in double quick time.
Its progress was accelerated by his willingness to abolish the leaving
certificate, which a workman hitherto had to procure before changing one
job for another. Having had unequalled experience in this respect, he is
convinced that the leaving certificate is a useless formality.

Food stocks going up, thanks to the energy of the farmers and the economy
of consumers; German submarines going down, thanks to the Navy; Russia
recovering herself; Britain and France advancing hand in hand on the
Western Front, and our enemies fumbling for peace--that was the gist of the
message with which the Prime Minister sped the parting Commons. "I have
resigned," Mr. Kennedy Jones tells us, "because there is no further need
for my services." Several politicians are of opinion that this was not a
valid reason. A boy of eighteen recently told a Stratford magistrate that
he had given up his job because he only got twenty-five shillings a week.
The question of wages is becoming acute in Germany too, and it is announced
that all salaries in the Diplomatic Service have been reduced. We always
said that frightfulness didn't really pay.



_September, 1917_.


Thanks to the collapse of the Russian armies and "fraternisation," Germany
has occupied Riga. But her chief exploits of late must be looked for
outside the sphere of military operations. She has added a new phrase to
the vocabulary of frightfulness, _spurlos versenkt_ in the
instructions to her submarine commanders for dealing with neutral
merchantmen. As for the position into which Sweden has been lured by
allowing her diplomatic agents to assist Germany's secret service, Mr.
Punch would hardly go the length of saying that it justifies the revision
of the National Anthem so as to read, "Confound their Scandi-knavish
tricks." But he finds it hard to accept Sweden's professions of official
rectitude, and so does President Wilson.

The German Press accuses the United States of having stolen the cipher key
of the Luxburg dispatches. It is this sort of thing that is gradually
convincing Germany that it is beneath her dignity to fight with a nation
like America. And the growing conviction in the United States that there
can be no peace with the Hohenzollerns only tends to fortify this view in
Court circles. The Kaiser's protestations of his love for his people become
more strident every day.

[Illustration: PERFECT INNOCENCE

CONSTABLE WOODROW WILSON: "That's a very mischievous thing to do."

SWEDEN: "Please, sir, I didn't know it was loaded."]

In Russia the Provisional Government has been dissolved and a Republic
proclaimed. If eloquence can save the situation, Mr. Kerensky is the man to
do it; but so far the men of few words have gone farthest in the war. A
"History of the Russian Revolution" has already been published. The pen may
not be mightier than the sword to-day, but it manages to keep ahead of it.

With fresh enemy battalions, as well as batteries, constantly arriving from
Russia, the Italians have been hard pressed; but their great assault on San
Gabriele has saved the Bainsizza plateau. The Italian success has been
remarkable, but the Russian collapse has prevented it from being pushed
home. On the Western front no great events are recorded, but the mills of
death grind on with ever-increasing assistance from the resources of
applied science and the new art of _camouflage_. Yet the dominion of
din and death and discomfort is still unable to impair our soldiers'
capacity of extracting amusement from trivialities.

[Illustration: TRIALS OF A CAMOUFLAGE OFFICER

SERGEANT-MAJOR: "Beg pardon, sir, I was to ask if you'd step up to the
battery, sir."

CAMOUFLAGE OFFICER: "What's the matter?"

SERGEANT-MAJOR: "It's those painted grass screens, sir. The mules have
eaten them."]

[Illustration: THE INSEPARABLE

THE KAISER (to his people): "Do not listen to those who would sow
dissension between us. _I will never desert you_."]

The weather has been so persistently wet that it looks as if this year the
Channel had decided to swim Great Britain. A correspondent, in a list of
improbable events on an "extraordinary day" at the front, gives as the
culminating entry, "It did not rain on the day of the offensive."

[Illustration:

C.O. (to sentry): "Do you know the Defence Scheme for this sector of the
line, my man?"

TOMMY: "Yes, sir."

C.O.: "Well, what is it, then?"

TOMMY. "To stay 'ere an' fight like 'ell."]

When Parliament is not sitting and trying to make us "sit up," and when war
news is scant, old people at home sometimes fall into a mood of wistful
reverie, and contrast the Germany they once knew with the Germany of
to-day.

A LOST LAND

  A childhood land of mountain ways,
  Where earthy gnomes and forest fays,
  Kind, foolish giants, gentle bears,
  Sport with the peasant as he fares
  Affrighted through the forest glades,
  And lead sweet, wistful little maids
  Lost in the woods, forlorn, alone,
  To princely lovers and a throne.

  Dear haunted land of gorge and glen,
  Ah me! the dreams, the dreams of men!

  A learned law of wise old books
  And men with meditative looks,
  Who move in quaint red-gabled towns,
  And sit in gravely-folded gowns,
  Divining in deep-laden speech
  The world's supreme arcana--each
  A homely god to listening youth,
  Eager to tear the veil of Truth;

  Mild votaries of book and pen--
  Alas, the dreams, the dreams of men!

  A music land whose life is wrought
  In movements of melodious thought;
  In symphony, great wave on wave--
  Or fugue elusive, swift and grave;
  A singing land, whose lyric rhymes
  Float on the air like village chimes;
  Music and verse--the deepest part
  Of a whole nation's thinking heart!

  Oh land of Now, oh land of Then!
  Dear God! the dreams, the dreams of men!

  Slave nation in a land of hate,
  Where are the things that made you great?
  Child-hearted once--oh, deep defiled,
  Dare you look now upon a child?

  Your lore--a hideous mask wherein
  Self-worship hides its monstrous sin--
  Music and verse, divinely wed--
  How can these live where love is dead?

  Oh depths beneath sweet human ken,
  God help the dreams, the dreams of men!

The Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, is preparing for a trip to the
North Pole in 1918. Additional interest now attaches to this spot as being
the only territory whose neutrality the Germans have omitted to violate.
Apropos of neutrals, the crew of the U-boat interned at Cadiz has been
allowed to land on giving their word of honour not to leave Spain during
the continuance of the War. The mystery of how the word "honour" came into
their possession is not explained. It is easier to explain that the Second
Division, in which Mr. E.D. Morel is now serving, is not the one which
fought at the battle of Mons.



_October, 1917_.


Another month of losses and gains. Against the breakthrough at Caporetto on
the Isonzo we have to set the steady advance of Allenby on the Palestine
front, and the decision arrived at by an extraordinary meeting of German
Reichstag members that the Germans cannot hope for victory in the field. We
see nothing extraordinary in this. The Reichstag may not yet be able to
influence policy, but it is not blind to facts--to the terribly heavy
losses involved in our enemy's desperate efforts to prevent us from
occupying the ridges above the Ypres-Menin road, and so forcing him to face
the winter on the low ground. Then, too, there has been the ominous mutiny
of the German sailors at Kiel. The ringleaders have been executed, but they
may have preferred death to another speech from the Kaiser. Dr. Michaelis,
that "transient embarrassed phantom," has joined the ranks of the
dismissed. No sooner had the _Berliner Tageblatt_ pointed out that
"Dr. Michaelis was a good Chancellor as Chancellors go" than he went.
Another of the German doctor politicians has been delivering his soul on
the failure of Pro-German propaganda in memorable fashion. Dr. Dernburg, in
_Deutsche Politik_, tells us that "steadfastness and righteousness are
the qualities which the German people value in the highest degree, and
which have brought it a good and honourable reputation in the whole world.
When we make experiments in lies and deceptions, intrigue and low cunning,
we suffer hopeless and brutal failure. Our lies are coarse and improbable,
our ambiguity is pitiful simplicity. The history of the War proves this by
a hundred examples. When our enemies poured all these things upon us like a
hailstorm, and we convinced ourselves of the effectiveness of such tactics,
we tried to imitate them. But these tactics will not fit the German. We are
rough but moral, we are credulous but honest." Before this touching picture
of the German Innocents very much abroad, the Machiavellian Briton can only
take refuge in silent amazement.

[Illustration: THE DANCE OF DEATH

THE KAISER: "Stop! I'm tired."

DEATH: "I started at your bidding; I stop when I choose."]

Parliament has reassembled, and Mr. Punch has been moved to ask Why?
Various reasons would no doubt be returned by various members. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer wants to obtain a further Vote of Credit. The
new National Party wish to justify their existence; and those incarnate
notes of interrogation--Messrs. King, Hogge and Pemberton Billing--would
like Parliament to be in permanent session in order that the world might
have the daily benefit of their searching investigations. There has been a
certain liveliness on the Hibernian front, but we hope that Mr. Asquith was
justified in assuming that the Sinn Fein excesses were only an expression
of the "rhetorical and contingent belligerency" always present in Ireland,
and that in spite of them the Convention would make all things right.
Meanwhile, the Sinn Feiners have refused to take part in it. And not a
single Nationalist member has denounced them for their dereliction; indeed,
Mr. T.M. Healy has even given them his blessing, for what it is worth. Of
more immediate importance has been Mr. Bonar Law's announcement of the
Government's intention to set up a new Air Ministry, and "to employ our
machines over German towns so far as military needs render us free to take
such action."

[Illustration: A PLACE IN THE MOON

HANS: "How beautiful a moon, my love, for showing up England to our gallant
airmen!"

GRETCHEN: "Yes, dearest, but may it not show up the Fatherland to the
brutal enemy one of these nights?"]

In the earlier stages of the War we looked on the moon as our friend. Now
that inconstant orb has become our enemy, and the only German opera that we
look forward to seeing is _Die Gothadämmerung_. A circular has been
issued by the Feline Defence League appealing to owners of cats to bring
them inside the house during air-raids. When they are left on the roof it
would seem that their agility causes them to be mistaken for aerial
torpedoes. We note that the practice of giving air-raid warnings by notice
published in the following morning's papers has been abandoned only after
the most exhaustive tests. The advocates of "darkness and composure" have
not been very happy in their arguments, but they are at least preferable to
the members of Parliament deservedly trounced by Mr. Bonar Law, who
declared that if their craven squealings were typical he should despair of
victory. Meanwhile, we have to congratulate our gallant French allies on
their splendid bag of Zepps. But the space which our Press allots to air
raids moves Mr. Punch to wonder and scorn. Our casualties from that source
are never one-tenth so heavy as those in France on days when G.H.Q. reports
"everything quiet on the Western front." Still worse is the temper of some
of our society weeklies, which have set their faces like flint against any
serious reference to the War, and go imperturbably along the old
ante-bellum lines, "snapping" smart people at the races or in the Row, or
reproducing the devastating beauty of a revue chorus, and this at a time
when every day brings the tidings of irreparable loss to hundreds of
families.

       *       *       *       *       *


MISSING

  "He was last seen going over the parapet into the German trenches."

  What did you find after war's fierce alarms,
    When the kind earth gave you a resting-place,
  And comforting night gathered you in her arms,
    With light dew falling on your upturned face?

  Did your heart beat, remembering what had been?
    Did you still hear around you, as you lay,
  The wings of airmen sweeping by unseen,
    The thunder of the guns at close of day?

  All nature stoops to guard your lonely bed;
    Sunshine and rain fall with their calming breath;
  You need no pall, so young and newly dead,
    Where the Lost Legion triumphs over death.

  When with the morrow's dawn the bugle blew,
    For the first time it summoned you in vain,
  The Last Post does not sound for such as you,
    But God's Reveille wakens you again.

The discomforts of railway travelling do not diminish. But impatient
passengers may find comfort in a maxim of R. L. Stevenson: "To travel
hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." And further solace is
forthcoming in the fact that our enemies are even worse off than we are.
Railway fares in Germany have been doubled; but it is doubtful if this
transparent artifice will prevent the Kaiser from going about the place
making speeches to his troops on all the fronts. Here all classes are
united by the solidarity of inconvenience. And they all have different ways
of meeting it. But we really think more care should be taken by the
authorities to see that while waging war on the Continent they do not
forget the defence of those at home. The fact that Mr. Winston Churchill
and Mr. Horatio Bottomley were away in France at the same time looks like
gross carelessness. In this context we may note the report that the Eskimos
had not until quite recently heard of war, which seems to argue slackness
on the part of the circulation manager of the _Daily Mail_.


[Illustration:

STOUT LADY (discussing the best thing to do in an air-raid): "Well, I
always runs about meself. You see, as my 'usband sez, an' very reasonable
too, a movin' targit is more difficult to 'it."]



_November, 1917_.


The best and the worst news comes from the outlying fronts. Allenby's
triumphant advance is unchecked in Palestine. Gaza has fallen. The British
are in Jaffa. Jerusalem is threatened. The German-Austrian drive which
began at Caporetto has been stemmed, and the Italians, stiffened by a
British army under General Plumer, are standing firm on the Piave. In
Mesopotamia we deplore the death of the gallant Maude, a great general and
a great gentleman, beloved by all ranks, whose career is an abiding answer
to those who maintain that no good can come out of our public schools or
the Staff training of regular officers. In Russia the Bolshevist _coup
d'état_ has overthrown the Kerensky _règime_ and installed as
dictator Lenin, a _déclassé_ aristocrat, always the most dangerous of
revolutionaries. On the Western front the tide has flowed and ebbed. The
Germans have yielded ground on the _Chemin des Dames_, the British
have stormed Passchendaele Ridge, but at terrible cost, and General Byng's
brilliant surprise attack and victory at Cambrai has been followed by the
fierce reaction of ten days later. But perhaps the greatest sensation of
the month has been Mr. Lloyd George's Paris speech, with its disquieting
references to the situation on the Western front, and its announcement of
the formation of the new Allied Council. The Premier's defence of, and, we
may perhaps say, recomposition of his Paris oration before the House of
Commons has appeased criticism without entirely convincing those who have
been anxious to know how the Allied Council would work, and what would be
the relations between the Council's military advisers and the existing
General Staff of the countries concerned. But as Mr. Lloyd George confessed
that he had deliberately made a "disagreeable speech" in Paris in order to
get it talked about, the Press critics whom he rebuked will probably
consider themselves absolved.

[ILLUSTRATION: A GREAT INCENTIVE

MEHMED (reading dispatch from the All-Highest): "Defend Jerusalem at all
costs for my sake. I was once there myself."]

[ILLUSTRATION: ONE UP!]

Parliament has for once repelled the gibe that it has ceased to represent
the people in the tribute of praise paid by Lords and Commons to our
sailors and soldiers and all the other gallant folk who are helping us to
win the War. On the strength of this capacity for rising to the occasion
one may pass over the many sittings at which a small minority of
Pacificists and irrelevant inquisitors have dragged the House down to the
depths of ineptitude or worse. In the debate on the Air Force in Committee,
one member, if we count speeches and interruptions, addressed the House
exactly one hundred times, and it is worthy of note that his last words
were: "This is what you call muzzling the House of Commons." If we were
to believe some critics, the British Navy is directed by a set of
doddering old gentlemen who are afraid to let it go at the Germans, and
cannot even safeguard it from attack. The truth, as expounded by the
First Lord, Sir Eric Geddes, in his maiden speech, is quite different.
Despite the Jeremiads of superannuated sailors and political longshoremen,
the Admiralty is not going to Davy Jones's locker, but under its present
chiefs, who have, with very few exceptions, seen service in this War,
maintains and supplements its glorious record.

Save for an occasional game of "tip and run," as with the North Sea convoy,
enemy vessels have disappeared on the surface of the ocean; and the long
arm of the British Navy is now stretching down into the depths and up into
the skies in successful pursuit of them. If the nation hardly realises what
it owes to the men of the Fleet and their splendid comrades of the
Auxiliary Services, it is because this work is done with such thoroughness
and so little fuss, and, as Mr. Asquith put it, "in the twilight and not in
the limelight."

[ILLUSTRATION:

AUNT MARIA: "Do you know I once actually saw the Kaiser riding through the
streets of London as bold as brass. If I'd known then what I know now I'd
have told a policeman."]

The general sense of the community is now practically agreed that
compulsory rationing must come, and the sooner the better. Lord Rhondda is
still hopeful that John Bull will tighten his own belt and save him the
trouble. But if we fail, the machinery for compulsion is all ready.

Reuter reports that a British prisoner has been sentenced to a year's
imprisonment for calling the Germans "Huns." On the Western front Tommy
usually calls them "Allymans," "Jerry," or "Fritz." But even if this
prisoner did use the word he cannot be blamed. The choice was the Kaiser's
when, as Attila's understudy, "Go forth," he said, "my sons. Go and behave
exactly as the Huns."

Apropos of the Kaiser, it appears that a certain Herr Stegerwald,
addressing a Berlin meeting, said: "We went to war at the side of the
Kaiser, and the All-Highest will return from war with us." If we may be
permitted to say anything, we expect he will be leading by at least a
couple of lengths.

The versatility and inventive genius of the Prime Minister provoke mingled
comment. An old Parliamentarian, when asked to what party Mr. Lloyd George
now belonged, recently answered: "He used to be a Radical; he will some day
be a Conservative; and at present he is the leader of the Improvisatories."



_December, 1917_.


It seems useless to attempt to cope with the staggering multiplicity of
events crowded into the last few weeks. Jerusalem captured in this last
crusade, which realises the dream of Coeur de Lion; Russia "down and out"
as a result of the armistice and the Brest-Litovsk Conference; Germany's
last colony conquered in East Africa; Lord Lansdowne's letter; the
retirement of Lord Jellicoe; while in one single week Cuba has declared war
on Austria, the Kaiser has threatened to make a Christmas peace offer, and
Mr. Bernard Shaw has described himself as "a mere individual." We have
traversed the whole gamut of sensation from the sublime and tragic to the
ridiculous; and Armageddon, vulgarised by the vulgar repetition of the
journalist, has redeemed its significance in the dispatches from our
Palestine front. The simplicity and dignity of General Allenby's entry into
the Syrian town--

  Where on His grave with shining eyes
  The Syrian stars look down--

afford a happy contrast to the boastful pagentry of the Kaiser's visit in
1898. Meanwhile it has not yet been decided in Berlin what the Sultan of
Turkey thinks of the capture of Jerusalem.

[ILLUSTRATION: BETRAYED

THE PANDER: "Come on; come and be kissed by him."]

Where Russia is concerned Mr. Balfour wisely declines to be included among
the prophets; all he knows is that she has not yet evolved a Government
with which we can negotiate.

There _is_ a Government in Germany, but neither Government nor people
afford excuse for the negotiations which Lord Lansdowne, in a fit of
war-weariness, has advocated in his letter to the _Daily Telegraph_.
His unfortunate intervention, playing into the hands of Pacificists and
Pro-Boches, is all the more to be deplored in a public servant who has
crowned a long, disinterested and distinguished career by an act of
grievous disservice to his country. British grit will win, declares Sir
William Robertson; but our elderly statesmen must refrain from dropping
theirs into the machinery. Happily the Government are determined to give no
more publicity to the letter than they can help. On the Vote of Credit for
550 millions the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been invited by Mr. Dillon
to make a survey of the military situation, and has replied that all the
relevant facts are known already. "The War is going on; the Government and
the country intend it shall go on; and money is necessary to make it go
on." That was a good answer to a member who has certainly done little to
receive special consideration. Not only do we need money; we need men to
supply the gaps caused by our withdrawal of troops to Italy and the
constant wastage on all fronts.

Mr. Balfour, as we have seen, abstains from prophecy. Mr. Dillon, who, with
other Nationalists, bitterly resents the decision of the Government to
apply the rules of arithmetic to the redistribution of seats in their
beloved country, has indulged in a terrifying forecast which ought to be
placed on record. He has threatened the House with the possibility that at
the next General Election he and his colleagues might be wiped out of
existence.

Tommy is a very great man, but he is not a great linguist, though he always
gets what he wants by the aid of signs or telepathy. Three years and some
odd months have not changed his point of view, and now for Thomas to find
himself in Italy is only to discover another lot of people who cannot
understand or make themselves understood. "Alliances," as a correspondent
from Italy puts it, "are things as wonderful to see as they are magnificent
to read about. I do, however, regard with something approaching alarm the
new language which will be evolved to put the lot of us on complete
speaking terms."

[Illustration: THE NEED OF MEN

MR. PUNCH (to the Comber-out): "More power to your elbow, sir. But when are
you going to fill up that silly gap?"

SIR AUCKLAND GEDDES: "Hush! Hush! We're waiting for the Millennium."]

[Illustration:

THE NEW LANGUAGE

TOMMY (to inquisitive French children): "Nah, then, alley toot sweet, an
the tooter the sweeter!"]

Lord Rhondda, who listened from the Peers' gallery to the recent debate in
the Commons on Food Control, has received a quantity of advice intended to
help him in minding his p's and q's, particularly the latter. In China, we
read in the _Daily Express_, a chicken can still be purchased for
sixpence; intending purchasers should note, however, that at present the
return fare to Shanghai brings the total cost to a figure a trifle in
excess of the present London prices. More bread is being eaten than ever,
according to the Food Controller: but it appears that the stuff is now
eaten by itself instead of being spread thinly on butter, as in pre-war
days. Bloaters have reached the unprecedented price of sixpence each. This
is no more, as we have seen, than a chicken fetches in China, but it is
enough to dispel the hope that bloaters, at any rate over the Christmas
season, would remain within the reach of the upper classes. At a Guildford
charity _fête_ the winner of a hurdle race has been awarded a new-laid
egg. If he succeeds in winning it three years in succession it is to become
his own property.

Christmas has come round again, and peace still seems a far-off thing.
"What shall he have that killed the deer?" someone asks somebody else in
_As You Like It_. But there is a better question than that, and it is
this: "What shall they have that preserve the little dears?" And the answer
is--honour and support. For there can be no doubt that in these critical
times, when the life of the best and bravest and strongest is so cheap, no
duty is more important than the cherishing of infancy, and the provision of
seasonable joys to the youngest generation, gentle and simple. More than
ever Mr. Punch welcomes the coming of Santa Klaus:

  Thou who on earth was namèd Nicholas--
    There be dull clods who doubt thy magic power
    To tour the sleeping world in half-an-hour,
  And pop down all the chimneys as you pass
    With woolly lambs and dolls of frabjous size
    For grubby hands and wonder-laden eyes.

  Not so thy singer, who believes in thee
    Because he has a young and foolish spirit;
    Because the simple faith that bards inherit
  Of happiness is still the master key,
    Opening life's treasure-house to whoso clings
    To the dim beauty of imagined things.



_January, 1918_.


While avoiding as a rule the fashionable _rôle_ of prophet, Mr. Punch
is occasionally tempted to indulge in prediction. The year 1918, in which
France is greeting in increasing numbers the heirs of the Pilgrim Fathers,
is going to be America's year. As for the Kaiser,

  A Fatherland Poet was busy of late
  In making the Kaiser a new Hymn of Hate;
  Perhaps, ere its echoes have time to grow dim,
  The Huns may be learning a new Hate of Him.

In this prophetic strain Mr. Punch has been musing on the fortunes of the
Hohenzollerns under a German Republic. Will the ex-Kaiser be appointed to
the post of official Gatherer of Scraps of Paper, or start in business as a
second-hand wardrobe dealer with a large assortment of slightly soiled
uniforms? Or will he be ordered to ring a joy-bell on the anniversary of
the inauguration of the German Republic?

[Illustration:

The ex-Kaiser is appointed to the post of official gatherer of scraps of
paper.]

These are attractive speculations, but a trifle previous, while hospital
ships are still being torpedoed, U-boats are busy at Funchal, and the bonds
of German influence and penetration are being forged anew at Brest-Litovsk.
The latest news from that quarter seems to indicate that the Kaiser desires
peace--at any rate for the duration of the War. And already there is a talk
of a German counter-offensive on a colossal scale on the Western front. So
that Mr. Punch's message for the New Year is couched in no spirit of
premature jubilation, but rather appeals for fortitude and endurance.

[Illustration: TO ALL AT HOME]

How needful such an appeal is may be gathered from the proceedings at
Westminster, less fit for the Mother than the Mummy of Parliaments, where
"doleful questionists" exhume imaginary grievances or display their "nerve"
by claiming the increase in pay recently granted to fighting men for
conscientious objectors in the Non-Combatant Corps. The interest taken by
one of this group in Army Dentistry inspires the wish that "the treatment
of jaw-cases" mentioned by the Under-Secretary for War could be applied on
the Parliamentary front. Head-hunting is in full swing. This classical
sport, as practised in Borneo, involved the discharge of poisoned darts
through a blow-pipe, and the House of Commons has not materially altered
the method. In the attack of January 23 it is supposed that the Head of the
Government was aimed at; but most of the shots went wide and hit the Head
of our Army in France. Ministers have not distinguished themselves except
by their capacity for "butting-in" and eating their words. Public opinion
has been inflamed rather than enlightened by the discussions on unity of
command, and the newspaper campaign directed against our War chiefs.
Meanwhile, the Suffragists have triumphantly surmounted their last obstacle
in the House of Lords, and Votes for Women is now an accomplished fact. But
the Irish Andromeda still awaits her Perseus, gazing wanly at her various
champions in Convention. The Ulsterman's plea for conscription in Ireland
has been rejected after Sir Auckland Geddes had declared that it would be
of no use as a solution of the present difficulty. He did not give his
reasons, but they are believed to be Conventional. Mr. Barnes has described
the Government as "living on the top of a veritable volcano," but, in spite
of the context, the phrase must not be taken to refer to the Minister of
Munitions, who, as everybody knows, cannot be sat upon.

Military experts tell us that this is a "Q" war, meaning thereby that the
Quartermaster-General's department is the one that matters. Naval experts
sometimes drop hints attaching another significance to that twisty letter.
Harassed house-keepers are beginning to think that this is a "queue-war,"
and look to Lord Rhondda to end it. For the moment the elusive rabbit has
scored a point against the Food Controller, but public confidence in his
ability is not shaken. All classes are being drawn together by a communion
of inconvenience. The sporting miner's wife can no longer afford dog
biscuits: "Our dog's got to eat what we eats now." And the pathetic appeal
of the smart fashionable for lump sugar, on the ground that her darling
Fido cannot be expected to catch a spoonful of Demerara from the end of his
nose, leaves the grocer cold. A dairyman charged with selling
unsatisfactory milk has explained to the Bench that his cows were suffering
from shell-shock. He himself is now suffering from shell-out-shock. At
Ramsgate a shopkeeper has exhibited a notice in his window announcing that
"better days are in store." What most people want is butter days.

[Illustration:

ORDERLY SERGEANT: "Lights out, there."

VOICE FROM THE HUT: "It's the moon, Sergint."

ORDERLY SERGEANT: "I don't give a d--- what it is. Put it out!"]

The disquieting activities of the "giddy Gotha" involve drastic enforcement
of the lighting orders, and the moon is still an object of suspicion.
Pessimists and those critics who are never content unless each day brings a
spectacular success, seem to have taken for their motto: "It's not what I
mean, but what I say, that matters." But the moods of the non-combatant are
truly chameleonic. Civilians summoned to the War Office pass from
confidence to abasement, and from abasement to megalomania in the space of
half an hour.

Turkey, it appears, has sent an urgent appeal to Berlin for funds. The
disaster to the _Goeben_ can be endured, since the Sultan can now
declare a foreshore claim, and do a little salvage profiteering; but
Palestine is another matter. Since General Allenby's advance "running"
expenses have swallowed up a formidable total. The War is teaching us many
things, including geography. We are taking a lively interest in the
Ukraine, and the newspapers daily add to our stock of interesting
knowledge. Apropos of General Allenby's entry into Jerusalem, we learn that
"the predominance of the tar brush in the streets added to the brightness
of the scene," and in connection with his return to Cairo, that "the
MacCabean Boy Scouts" took part in the reception--presumably the Cadet
Corps of the Jordan Highlanders. But the most reassuring news comes from
the enemy Press. "It is simply a miracle," says the _Cologne Gazette_,
"that the Germans have so loyally stood by their leaders," and for once we
are wholly in agreement with our German contemporary.

If Mr. Punch may exert his privilege of turning abruptly to grave from gay,
the claim may be allowed on behalf of the youngest generation, already
remembered in the chronicle of last month.

CHILDREN OF CONSOLATION

  By the red road of storm and stress
    Their fathers' footsteps trod,
  They come, a cloud of witnesses,
    The messengers of God.

  Cradled upon some radiant gleam,
    Like living hopes they lie,
  The rainbow beauty of a dream
    Against a stormy sky.

  Before the tears of love were dried,
    Or anguish comfort knew,
  The gates of home were opened wide
    To let the pilgrims through.

  Pledges of faith, divinely fair,
    From peaceful worlds above
  Against the onslaught of despair
    They hold the fort of love.

[Illustration:

THE CIVILIAN AND THE WAR OFFICE

I am bidden to the War Office.

I depart for it.

I approach it.

I enter.

I am not observed.

I am still not observed.

I am observed.

I am spoken to (and still live).

I continue to be spoken to.

I am spoken to quite nicely.

I am shaken hands with.

I take my leave.]



_February, 1918_.


"Watchman, what of the night?" The hours pass amid the clash of rumours and
discordant voices--optimist, pessimist, pacificist. Only in the answer of
the fighting man, who knows and says little, but is ready for anything, do
we find the best remedy for impatience and misgiving:

  "Soldier, what of the night?"
    "Vainly ye question of me;
  I know not, I hear not nor see;
    The voice of the prophet is dumb
  Here in the heart of the fight.
    I count the hours on their way;
  I know not when morning shall come;
    Enough that I work for the day."

The first Brest-Litovsk Treaty has been signed, followed in nine days by
the German invasion of Russia, an apt comment on what an English paper, by
a misprint which is really an inspiration, calls "the Brest Nogotiations."

The record of the Bolshevist régime is already deeply stained with the
massacre of the innocents, but Lenin and Trotsky can plead an august
example. More than fourteen thousand British non-combatants--men, women and
children--have been murdered by the Kaiser's command. And the rigorous
suppression of the strikes in Berlin furnishes a useful test of his recent
avowals of sympathy with democratic ideals. By way of a set-off the German
Press Bureau has circulated a legend of civil war in London, bristling with
circumstantial inaccuracies. The enemy's successes in the field--the
occupation of Reval and the recapture of Trebizond--are the direct outcome
of the Russian _débâcle_. Our capture of Jericho marks a further stage
in a sustained triumph of good generalship and hard fighting, which
verifies an old prophecy current among the Arabs in Palestine and Syria,
viz. that when the waters of the Nile flow into Palestine, a prophet from
the West will drive the Turk out of the Arab countries. The first part of
the prophecy was fulfilled by the pipe-line which has brought Nile water
(taken from the fresh-water canal) for the use of the Egyptian
Expeditionary Force across the Sinai desert to the neighbourhood of Gaza.
The second part was fulfilled by the fact that General Allenby's name is
rendered in Arabic by exactly the same letters which form the words "El
Nebi," i.e. the Prophet.

[Illustration:

THE LIBERATORS

FIRST BOLSHEVIK: "Let me see; we've made an end of Law, Credit, Treaties,
the Army and the Navy. Is there anything else to abolish?"

SECOND BOLSHEVIK: "What about War?"

FIRST BOLSHEVIK: "Good! And Peace too. Away with both of 'em!"]

At home we have seen the end of the seventh session of a Parliament which
by its own rash Act should have committed suicide two years ago. Truly the
Kaiser has a lot to answer for. On the last day but one of the session 184
questions were put, the information extracted from Ministers being, as
usual, in inverse ratio to the curiosity of the questioners. The opening of
the eighth session showed no change in this respect. The debate on the
Address degenerated into a series of personal attacks on the Premier by
members who, not without high example, regard this as the easiest road to
fame. The only persons who have a right to congratulate themselves on the
discussion are the members of the German General Staff, who may not have
learned anything that they did not know before, but have undoubtedly had
certain shrewd suspicions confirmed. Mr. Bonar Law, in one of his engaging
bursts of self-revelation, observed that he had no more interest in this
Prime Minister than he had in the last; but the House generally seemed to
agree with Mr. Adamson, the Labour leader, who, before changing horses
again, wanted to be sure that he was going to get a better team. A week
later, on the day on which the Prince of Wales took his seat in the Lords,
Lord Derby endeavoured to explain why the Government had parted with Sir
William Robertson, the Chief of the Imperial Staff, and replaced him by
General Wilson. It is hard to say whether the Peers were convinced.
Simultaneously in the House of Commons the Prime Minister was engaged in
the same task, but with greater success. Mr. Lloyd George has no equal in
the art of persuading an audience to share his faith in himself. How far
our military chiefs approved the recent decision of the Versailles
Conference is not known. But everyone applauds the patriotic
self-effacement of Sir William Robertson in silently accepting the Eastern
Command at home.

In Parliament the question of food has been discussed in both Houses with
the greatest gusto. Throughout the country it is the chief topic of
conversation.

[Illustration: SECRET DIPLOMACY

WIFE: "George, there are two strange men digging up the garden."

GEORGE: "It's all right, dear. A brainy idea of mine to get the garden dug
up. I wrote an anonymous letter to the Food Controller and told him there
was a large box of food buried there."

WIFE: "Heavens! But there _is_!"]

To the ordinary queues we now have to add processions of conscientious
disgorgers patriotically evading prosecution. The problem "Is tea a food or
is it not?" convulses our Courts, and the axioms of Euclid call for
revision as follows:

"Parallel lines are those which in a queue, if only produced far enough,
never mean meat."

"If there be two queues outside two different butchers' shops, and the
length and the breadth of one queue be equal to the length and breadth of
the other queue, each to each, but the supplies in one shop are greater
than the supplies in the other shop, then the persons in the one queue will
get more meat than those in the other queue, which is absurd, and Rhondda
ought to see about it."

All the same, Lord Rhondda is a stout fellow who goes on his way with an
imperviousness to criticism--criticism that is often selfish and
contemptible--which augurs well for his ultimate success in the most
thankless of all jobs.

[Illustration:

INDIGNANT WAR-WORKER: "And she actually asked me if I didn't think I might
be doing something! Me? And I haven't missed a charity matinée for the last
three months."]

Food at the front is another matter, and Mr. Punch is glad to print the
tribute of one of his war-poets to the "Cookers":

  The Company Cook is no great fighter,
    And there's never a medal for _him_ to wear,
  Though he camps in the shell-swept waste, poor blighter,
    And many a cook has "copped it" there;
  But the boys go over on beans and bacon,
    And Tommy is best when Tommy has dined,
  So here's to the Cookers, the plucky old Cookers,
    And the sooty old Cooks that waddle behind.

"It is Germany," says a German paper, "who will speak the last word in this
War." Yes, and the last word will be "Kamerad!" But that word will be
spoken in spite of many pseudo-war-workers on the Home Front.

Among the many wonders of the War one of the most wonderful is the
sailor-man, three times, four times, five times torpedoed, who yet wants to
sail once more. But there is one thing that he never wants to do again--to
"pal" with Fritz the square-head:

  "When peace is signed and treaties made an' trade begins again,
  There's some'll shake a German's 'and an' never see the stain;
  But _not me_," says Dan the sailor-man, "not me, as God's on high--
  Lord knows it's bitter in an open boat to see your shipmates die."

Among the ignoble curiosities of the time we note the following
advertisements in a Manchester newspaper of "wants" in our "indispensable"
industries: "Tennis ball inflators, cutters and makers" and "Caramel
wrappers"; while a Brighton paper has "Wanted, two dozen living flies
weekly during the remainder of winter for two Italian frogs."

The situation in Ireland remains unchanged, and suggests the following
historical division of eras. (1) Pagan era; (2) Christian era; (3) De
Valera.



_March, 1918_.


Once again the month of the War-God has been true to its name. March,
opening in suspense, with the Kaiser and his Chancellor still talking of
peace, has closed in a crisis of acute anxiety for the Allies. The expected
has happened; the long-advertised German attack has been delivered in the
West, and the war of movement has begun.

Breaking through the Fifth British Army, in five days the Germans have
advanced twenty-five miles, to within artillery range of Amiens and the
main lateral railway behind the British lines. Bapaume and Péronne have
fallen. The Americans have entered the war in the firing line. It is the
beginning of the end, the supreme test of the soul of the nation:

  The little things of which we lately chattered--
    The dearth of taxis or the dawn of Spring;
  Themes we discussed as though they really mattered,
    Like rationed meat or raiders on the wing;--

  How thin it seems to-day, this vacant prattle,
    Drowned by the thunder rolling in the West,
  Voice of the great arbitrament of battle
    That puts our temper to the final test.

  Thither our eyes are turned, our hearts are straining,
    Where those we love, whose courage laughs at fear,
  Amid the storm of steel around them raining,
    Go to their death for all we hold most dear.

  New-born of this supremest hour of trial,
    In quiet confidence shall be our strength,
  Fixed on a faith that will not take denial
    Nor doubt that we have found our soul at length.

  O England, staunch of nerve and strong of sinew,
    Best when you face the odds and stand at bay;
  Now show a watching world what stuff is in you!
    Now make your soldiers proud of you to-day!

Of our soldiers we at home cannot be too proud, from Field-Marshal to
officer's servant. As one of Mr. Punch's correspondents at the front
writes: "Dawn to me hereafter will not be personified as a rosy-fingered
damsel or a lovely swift-footed deity, but as a sturdy little man in khaki,
crimson-eared with cold, heralded and escorted by frozen wafts of outer
air, bearing in one knobby fist a pair of boots, and in the other a tin mug
of black and smoking tea." As for the charities and courtesies of war, as
interpreted by our soldiers, Mr. Punch can wish for no better illustration
than in these lines on "The German graves":

  I wonder are there roses still
    In Ablain St. Nazaire,
  And crosses girt with daffodil
    In that old garden there.
  I wonder if the long grass waves
    With wild-flowers just the same,
  Where Germans made their soldiers' graves
    Before the English came?

  The English set those crosses straight
    And kept the legends clean;
  The English made the wicket-gate
    And left the garden green;
  And now who knows what regiments dwell
    In Ablain St. Nazaire?
  But I would have them guard as well
    The graves we guarded there.

  And when at last the Prussians pass
    Among those mounds and see
  The reverent cornflowers crowd the grass
    Because of you and me,
  They'll give, perhaps, one humble thought
    To all the "English fools"
  Who fought as never men have fought
    But somehow kept the rules.

[Illustration: MADE IN GERMANY

CIVILISATION: "What's that supposed to represent?"

IMPERIAL ARTIST: "Why, 'Peace,' of course."

CIVILISATION: "Well, I don't recognise it--and I never shall."]

To turn from the crowning ordeal of our Armies to the activities of British
politicians on the eve of the great German attack is not a soul-animating
experience. Indeed, the efforts of Messrs. Snowden and Trevelyan, Pringle
and King almost justify the assumption that Hindenburg would have launched
his offensive earlier but for his desire not to interfere with the great
offensive conducted by his friends on the Westminster front. Our
anti-patriots, however, are placed in a dilemma. They were bound to side
with Germany, because of their rooted belief that England always must be
wrong. They were bound to hail the Bolshevik self-determinators because of
their entirely sound views on peace at any price. But now their two loves
are fighting like cats. Hence the problem: "Which am I (both can't well be
right), Pro-German or Pro-Trotskyite?" Discussions of pig shortage,
commandeered premises, the relations of the Government and Press, and the
duties of the Directors of Propaganda leave us cold or impatient. But
members of all parties have been united in genuine grief over the death of
Mr. John Redmond, snatched away just when his distracted country most
needed his moderating influence. For in their anxiety not to interfere with
the deliberations of those patriotic Irishmen who are trying to settle how
Ireland shall be governed in the future, the Government are allowing it to
become ungovernable by anybody. A new and agreeable Parliamentary
innovation has been introduced by Sir Eric Geddes in the shape of an
immense diagram showing the downward tendency of the U-boat activities.
Other orators might with advantage follow this method. Indeed, there are
some whose speeches would be more enjoyable if they were all diagrams. As
for that pledge of the New Citizenship, the Education Bill, the debate on
the second reading has been such a long eulogy of its author that Mr.
Fisher would be well advised to offer a propitiatory sacrifice to Nemesis.

[Illustration:

BY SPECIAL REQUEST

CUSTOMER: "Here, waiter, take a coupon off this and ask the band to play
five-penn'orth of 'The Roast Beef of Old England.'"]

Compulsory rationing is now an established fact, and the temporary
disappearance of marmalade from the breakfast table has called forth many a
_cri de coeur_. As one lyrist puts it:

  Let Beef and Butter, Rolls and Rabbits fade,
  But give me back my love, my Marmalade.

And another has addressed this touching vow to margarine:

  Whether the years prove fat or lean
    This vow I here rehearse:
  I take you, dearest Margarine,
    For butter or for worse.

It is reported that the Government's standard suits for men's wear will
soon be available. One is occasionally tempted to hope that women's
costumes might be similarly standardised.

[Illustration: THE COAT THAT DIDN'T COME OFF]

The German Press announces the death of the notorious "Captain of
Koepenick," and the _Cologne Gazette_ refers to him as "the only man
who ever succeeded in making the German Army look ridiculous." This is the
kind of subtle flattery that the Hohenzollerns really appreciate.



_April, 1918_.


We have reached the darkest hours of the War and the clouds have not yet
lifted, though the rate of the German advance has already begun to slow
down. On the 11th the enemy broke through at Armentières and pushed their
advantage till another wedge was driven into the British line. On the 12th
Sir Douglas Haig issued his historic order: "With our backs to the wall,
and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight to the
end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind depend alike upon
the conduct of each one of us at the critical moment." The Amiens line
being under fire, it was impossible to bring French reinforcements north in
time to save Kemmel Hill and stave off the menace to the Channel ports. The
tale of our losses is grievous, and for thousands and thousands of families
nothing can ever be the same again. The ordeal of Paris has been renewed by
shelling from the German long-distance gun, the last and most sensational
of German surprise-packets. These are indeed dark days, yet already lit by
hopeful omens--the closer union of the Allies, the appointment of the
greatest French military genius, General Foch, as Generalissimo of the
Allied Forces, and his calm assurance that we have as yet lost "nothing
vital." America is pouring men into France and, without waiting to complete
the independent organisation of her Army, has chivalrously sent her troops
forward to be brigaded with French and British units. Even now there are
optimists, who are not fools, who maintain that Germany has shot her last
bolt and knows that she is losing. It is at least remarkable that German
newspapers are daily excusing the failure of their offensive to secure all
its objectives. There is clearly something wrong with the time-table and,
in the race of Man Power, time is on the side of the Allies.

Truth, long gagged and disguised, is coming to light in Germany. This has
been the month of the Lichnowsky disclosures--the Memoir of their
Ambassador, vindicating British diplomacy and saddling Germany with the
responsibility for the War. The time of publication is indeed unfortunate
for the Kaiser, who has been telling us how bitterly he hates war.

[Illustration:

THE COMING ARMY

FATHER: "Here's to the fighter of lucky eighteen!" SON: "And here's to the
soldier of fifty!"]

  For now from German lips the world may know
    Facts that should want some skill for their confounding--
  How Potsdam forced alike on friend and foe
    A war of Potsdam's sole compounding.

  How you, who itched to see the bright sword lunged,
    Still bleating peace like innocent lambs in clover,
  In all that bloody business you were plunged
    Up to your neck and something over.

  And, having fed on little else but lies,
    Your people, with the hollow place grown larger
  Now that the truth has cut off these supplies,
    May want your head upon a charger.

[Illustration:

THE DEATH LORD

THE KAISER (on reading the appalling tale of German losses): "What matter,
so we Hohenzollerns survive?"]


And what has England's answer been, apart from the stubborn and heroic
resistance of her men on the Western Front? The answer is to be found in
the immediate resolve to raise the age limit for service to 50, still more
in the glorious exploit of Zeebrugge and Ostend, in the incredible valour
of the men who volunteered for and carried through what is perhaps the most
astonishing and audacious enterprise in the annals of the Navy.

The pageantry of war has gone, but here at least is a magnificence of
achievement and self-sacrifice on the epic scale which beggars description
and transcends praise. The hornet's nest that has pestered us so long, if
not rooted out, has been badly damaged; our sailors, dead and living, have
once more proved themselves masters of the impossible.

At home Parliament, resuming business after the Easter recess, began by
giving a second Reading to a Drainage Bill, and ended its first sitting in
an Irish bog. Ireland throughout the month has dominated the proceedings,
aloof and irreconcilable, brooding over past wrongs, blind to the issues of
the War and turning her back on its realities. Mr. Lloyd George's plan of
making Home Rule contingent on compulsory service has been described by Mr.
O'Brien as a declaration of war on Ireland. Another Nationalist Member, who
at Question time urged on the War Office the necessity of according to its
Irish employees exactly the same privileges and pay as were given to their
British confrères, protested loudly a little later on against a Bill which
_inter alia_ extends to Irishmen the privilege of joining in the fight
for freedom. Mr. Asquith questioned the policy of embracing Ireland in the
Bill unless you could get general consent. Mr. Bonar Law bluntly replied
that if Ireland was not to be called upon to help in this time of stress
there would be an end of Home Rule, and that if the House would not
sanction Irish conscription it would have to get another Government. It
remained for Lord Dunraven, before the passing of the Bill in the House of
Lords, to produce as "a very ardent Home Ruler" the most ingenious excuse
for his countrymen's unwillingness to fight that has yet been heard.
Ireland, he tells us, has been contaminated by the British refugees who had
fled to that country to escape military service.


[Illustration:

DRAKE'S WAY

Zeebrugge, St. George's Day, 1918

ADMIRAL DRAKE (to Admiral Keyes): "Bravo, sir. Tradition holds. My men
singed a King's beard, and yours have singed a Kaiser's moustache."]

The Prime Minister, in reviewing the military situation, has attributed the
success of the Germans to their possessing the initiative and to the
weather. Members have found it a little difficult to understand why, if
even at the beginning of March the Allies were equal in numbers to the
enemy on the West and if, thanks to the foresight of the Versailles
Council, they knew in advance the strength and direction of the impending
blow, they ever allowed the initiative to pass to the Germans. It is known
that hundreds of thousands of men have been rushed out of England since the
last week of March. Why, if Sir Douglas Haig asked for reserves, were they
not sent sooner? These mysteries will be resolved some day. Meanwhile
General Trenchard, late chief of the Air Staff, and by general consent an
exceptionally brilliant and energetic officer, has retired into the limbo
that temporarily contains Lord Jellicoe and Sir William Robertson. But Lord
Rothermere (Lord Northcliffe's brother), who still retains the confidence
of Mr. Pemberton Billing. remains, and all is well. The enemy possibly
thinks it even better. "At least we should keep our heads," declared Mr.
Pringle during the debate on the Man-Power Bill. We are not sure about
this. It depends upon the heads.

It is a pity that the "New Oxford Dictionary" should have so nearly reached
completion before the War and the emergence of hundreds of new words, now
inevitably left out. The Air service has a new language of its own, witness
the conversation faithfully reported by an expert:

SCENE: R.F.C. CLUB. TIME: EVERY TIME.

_First Pilot_. Why, it's Brown-Jones!

_Second Pilot_. Hullo, old thing! What are you doing now?

_First Pilot_. Oh, I'm down at Puddlemarsh teaching huns--monoavros,
pups and dolphins.

_Second Pilot_. I'm on the same game, down at Mudbank--sop-two-seaters
and camels. We've got an old tinside, too, for joy-riding.

_First Pilot_. You've given up the rumpety, then?

_Second Pilot_. Yes. I was getting ham-handed and mutton-fisted,
flapping the old things every day; felt I wanted to stunt about a bit.

_First Pilot_. Have you ever butted up against Robinson-Smith at
Mudbank? He was an ack-ee-o, but became a hun.

_Second Pilot_. Yes, he crashed a few days ago--on his first solo
flip, taking off--tried to zoom, engine konked, bus
stalled--sideslip--nose-dive. Not hurt, though. What's become of
Smith-Jones? Do you know?

_First Pilot_. Oh, yes. He's on quirks and ack-ws. He tried spads, but
got wind up. Have you seen the new-----?

_Second Pilot_. Yes, it's a dud bus--only does seventy-five on the
ceiling. Too much stagger, and prop stops on a spin. Besides, I never did
care for rotaries. Full of gadgets too.

_First Pilot_. Well, I must tootle off now. I'm flapping from
Northbolt at dawn if my old airship's ready--came down there with a konking
engine--plug trouble.

_Second Pilot_. Well, cheerio, old thing--weather looks dud--you're
going to have it bumpy in the morning, if you're on a pup.

_First Pilot_, Bye-bye, you cheery old bean.

_[Exeunt._

[Illustration: THE POLITICIAN WHO ADDRESSED THE TROOPS]

The Emperor Karl of Austria, by his recent indiscretions, is winning for
himself the new title of "His Epistolic Majesty." His suggestion that
France ought to have Alsace-Lorraine has grated on the susceptibilities of
his brother Wilhelm. But a new fastidiousness is to be noted in the Teuton
character. "Polygamy," says an article in a German review, "is essential to
the future of the German race, but a decent form must be found for it."



_May, 1918_.


With the coming of May the Vision of Victory which had nerved Germany to
her greatest effort seemed fading from her sight. With its last days we see
them making a second desperate effort to secure the prize, capturing
Soissons and the Chemin des Dames and pushing on to the Marne. This time
the French have borne the burden of the onslaught, but Rheims is still
held, the Americans are pouring in to France at the rate of 250,000 a
month, and have proved their mettle at Cantigny, a small fight of great
importance, as it "showed their fighting qualities under extreme battle
conditions," in General Pershing's words, and earned the praise of General
Debeney for the "offensive valour" of our Allies.

[Illustration: The Threatened Peace Offensive

GERMAN EAGLE (to British Lion): "I warn you--a little more of this
obstinacy and you'll rouse the dove in me!"]

The British troops have met Sir Douglas Haig's appeal as we knew they
would:

  Their _will_ to _win_ let Boches bawl
  As loudly as they choose,
  When once our back's against the wall
  'Tis not our _wont to lose_.

Those who have gone back at the seventh wave are waiting for the tide to
turn. To the fainthearted or shaken souls who contend that no victory is
worth gaining at the cost of such carnage and suffering, these lines
addressed "To Any Soldier" may serve as a solvent of their doubts and an
explanation of the mystery of sacrifice:

  If you have come through hell stricken or maimed,
  Vistas of pain confronting you on earth;
  If the long road of life holds naught of worth
  And from your hands the last toil has been claimed;
  If memories of horrors none has named
  Haunt with their shadows your courageous mirth
  And joys you hoped to harvest turn to dearth,
  And the high goal is lost at which you aimed;

  Think this--and may your heart's pain thus be healed--
  Because of me some flower to fruitage blew,
  Some harvest ripened on a death-dewed field,
  And in a shattered village some child grew
  To womanhood inviolate, safe and pure.
  For these great things know your reward is sure.

The Germans have reached Sevastopol, but the Kaiser's Junior Partner in the
South is only progressing in the wrong direction. While Wilhelm is
laboriously struggling to get nearer the sea, Mehmed is getting farther and
farther away from it. The attitude of Russia remains obscure. Mr. Balfour
tells us that it is not the intention of the Government to appoint an
Ambassador to Russia. But there is talk of sending out an exploration party
to find out just where Russia has got to. Russia, however, is not the only
country whose attitude is obscure. The Leader of the Irish Nationalist
Party is reported to have said to a New York interviewer: "We believe that
the cause of the Allies is the cause of Freedom throughout the world." At
the same time, while repudiating the policy of the Sinn Feiners, he
admitted that he had co-operated with them in their resistance to the
demand that Ireland should defend the cause of Freedom. The creed of Sinn
Fein--"Ourselves Alone"--is at least more logical than that of these
neutral Nationalists:

  And is not ours a noble creed
    With Self uplifted on the throne?
  Why should we bleed for others' need?
    Our motto is "Ourselves Alone."

  Why prate of ruined lands out there,
    Of churches shattered stone by stone?
  We need not care how others fare,
    We care but for "Ourselves Alone."

  Though mothers weep with anguished eyes
    And tortured children make their moan,
  Let others rise when Pity cries;
    We rise but for "Ourselves Alone."

  Let Justice be suppressed by Might,
    And Mercy's seat be overthrown;
  For Truth and Right the fools may fight,
    We fight but for "Ourselves Alone."

Meanwhile, the gentle Mr. Duke has retired from the Chief Secretaryship to
the Judicial Bench; Mr. Shortt, his successor, recently voted against
conscription for Ireland; Lord French, the new Viceroy, is believed to
favour it. The appointments seem to have been made on the cancelling-out
principle, and are as hard to reconcile as the ministerial utterances on
the recent German push. Thus Mr. Macpherson declared that the crisis came
upon us like a thief in the night, while on the same day Mr. Churchill
observed that the German offensive had opened a month later than we had
calculated, and consequently our reserves in munitions were correspondingly
larger than they would have been. Anyhow, it is a good hearing that the
lost guns, tanks, and aeroplanes have all been more than replaced, and the
stores of ammunition completely replenished, while at the same time
munition workers have been released for the Army at the rate of a thousand
_a_ day. These results have been largely due to the wonderful work of
the women, who turned out innumerable shells of almost incredible
quality--not like that depicted by our artist.

[Illustration: THE DUD]

Mr. Bonar Law has brought in his Budget and asked for a trifle of 842
millions. We are to pay more for our letters, our cheques, and our tobacco.
The Penny Postage has gone, and the Penny Pickwick with it. For the rest we
have had the Maurice Affair, which looked like a means of resurrecting the
Opposition but ended in giving the Government a new lease of life, and Sir
Eric Geddes has given unexpected support to the allegations that the German
pill-boxes were made of British cement. At least he admitted that the port
of Zeebrugge was positively congested with shiploads of the stuff.
Proportional Representation has been knocked out for the fifth time in this
Parliament; and we have to thank Sir Mark Sykes for telling us that the
Whip's definition of a crank is "a wealthy man who does not want a
Knighthood, or a nobleman who does not want to be an Under-Secretary."

War is a great leveller. The Carl Rosa Company are about to produce an
opera by an English composer. And war _is_ teaching us to revise our
histories. For example, "'Nelson,' the greatest naval pageant film ever
attempted, will," says the _Daily News_, "tell the love story of
Nelson's life and the outstanding incidents of his career, including the
destruction of the Spanish Armada." No scandal about Queen Elizabeth, we
trust. The _Daily News_, by the way, is much exercised by Mr. Punch's
language towards the enemy, which it describes as being in the Billingsgate
vein. In spite of which rebuke, and at the risk of offending the readers of
that patriotic organ, Mr. Punch proposes to go on saying just what he
thinks of the Kaiser and his friends.

The price of tobacco, as we have seen, is becoming a serious matter, but
Ireland proposes to grapple with the problem in her own way. The
Ballinasloe Asylum Committee, according to an announcement in the
_Times_ of May 14, have decided, with the sanction of the authorities,
to grow tobacco leaf for the use of their inmates. "A doctor said that if
the patients were debarred from an adequate supply of tobacco there would
be no controlling them."

As a set-off to the anti-"Cuthbert" campaign in the Press the War Cabinet
has in its Report declared that "the whole Empire owes the Civil Service a
lasting debt of gratitude." It looks as if there was something in red tape
after all. We must not, however, fail to recognise the growth of the new
competitive spirit in the sphere of production, and Mr. Punch looks forward
to the establishment of Cup Competitions for Clydesdale Riveters and London
Allotment workers. Woman's work in munition factories has already been
applauded; her services on the land are now more in need than ever.

[Illustration: WOMAN POWER

CERES: "Speed the plough!"

PLOUGHMAN: "I don't know who you are, ma'am, but it's no good speeding the
plough unless we can get the women to do the harvesting."

(Fifty thousand more women are wanted on the land to take the place of men
called to the colours, if the harvest is to be got in.)]



_June, 1918_.


The danger is not past, but grounds for hope multiply. The new German
assault between Montdidier and Noyon has brought little substantial gain at
heavy cost. The attacks towards Paris have been held, and Paris, with
admirable fortitude, makes little of the attentions of "Fat Bertha." "The
struggle must be fought out," declared the Kaiser in the recent anniversary
of his accession to the throne. In the meanwhile no opportunities of
talking it out will be overlooked by the enemy. He is once more playing the
old game of striving to promote discord between the Allies. At the very
moment when the official communiqués announced the capture of 45,000
prisoners, the Chancellor began a new peace-offensive, aimed primarily at
France, and supported by mendacious reports that the French Government were
starting for Bordeaux, Clemenceau overthrown, and Foch disgraced. But the
campaign of falsehood has proved powerless to shake France or impose on the
German people. Commandeered enthusiasm is giving place to grave discontent.
The awakening of Germany has begun, and the promise of a speedy peace falls
on deaf ears. In the process of enlightenment the Americans have played a
conspicuous part, in spite of the persistent belittlement of the military
experts in the official German Press. The stars in their courses have
sometimes seemed to fight for Germany, but they are withdrawing their aid.

[Illustration: "COMPLETE ACCORD"; OR, ALL DONE BY KINDNESS

IMPERIAL TRAINER (to his dog Karl): "Now then,  no nonsense: through you
go!"]

[Illustration: THE CELESTIAL DUD.

KAISER: "Ha! A new and brilliant star added to my constellation of the
Eagle!"

GENERAL FOCH: "On the wane, I think."

(It is anticipated in astronomical circles that the new star, _Nova
Aquilae_, will shortly disappear.)]

The long struggle between von Kühlmann and the generals has ended in the
fall of the Minister; but not before he had indicated to the Reichstag the
possibility of another Thirty Years' War, and asserted that no intelligent
man ever entertained the wish that Germany should attain world-domination.
There was a time when this frank reflection on the Hohenzollern
intelligence would have constituted _lèse-majesté._ Coming from a
Minister it amounts to a portent. Now he has gone, but the growing belief
that military operations cannot end the war has not been scotched by his
fall, and Herr Erzberger vigorously carries on the campaign against
Chancellor Hertling and the generals. Austria has been at last goaded into
resuming the offensive on the Italian Front and met with a resounding
defeat. It remains to be seen how Turkey and Bulgaria will respond to the
urgent appeals of their exacting master.

The ordeal of our men on the Western Front is terrible, but they have at
least one grand and heartening stand-by in the knowledge that they have
plenty of guns and no lack of shells behind them. This is the burden of the
"Song of Plenty" from an old soldier to a young one:

  The shelling's cruel bad, my son,
    But don't you look too black,
  For every blessed German one
    He gets a dozen back--
  But I remember the days
    When shells were terrible few
  And never the guns could bark and blaze
    The same as they do for you.

  But they sat in the swamp behind, my boy, and prayed for a tiny shell,
  While Fritz, if he had the mind, my boy, could give us a first-class
                hell;
  And I know that a 5.9 looks bad to a bit of a London kid,
  But I tell you you were a lucky lad to come out when you did.

         *       *       *       *       *
  Up in the line again, my son,
    And dirty work, no doubt,
  But when the dirty work is done
    They'll take the Regiment out--
  But I remember a day
    When men were terrible few
  And we hadn't reserves a mile away
    The same as there are for you,

But fourteen days at a stretch, my boy, and nothing about relief; Fight and
carry and fetch, my boy, with rests exceeding brief; And rotten as all
things sometimes are, they're not as they used to be, And you ought to
thank your lucky star you didn't come out with me.

       *       *       *       *       *

Our mercurial Premier lays himself open to a good deal of legitimate
criticism, but for this immense relief, unstinted thanks are due to his
energy and the devoted labours of the munition workers, women as well as
men.

The Admiralty have decided not to publish the Zeebrugge dispatches for fear
of giving information to the enemy. All he knows at present is that a score
and more of his torpedo-boats, submarines, and other vessels have been
securely locked up in the Bruges Canal by British Keyes. The Minister of
Pensions has told the House the moving story of what has already been done
to restore, so far as money and care can do it, the broken heroes of the
War, and Lord Newton's alleged obstructiveness in regard to the treatment
and exchange of prisoners has been discussed in the Lords. Mr. Punch's own
impression is that Lord Newton owes his unmerited position as whipping boy
to the fact that he does not suffer fools gladly, even if they come in the
guise of newspaper reporters; and that, unlike his illustrious namesake, he
has no use for the theory of gravity. Meanwhile the Kaiser, with a sublime
disregard for sunk hospital-ships and bombed hospitals, continues to
exhibit his bleeding heart to an astonished world.

[Illustration: A PITIFUL POSE

TEUTON CROCODILE: "I do so feel for the poor British wounded. I only wish
we could do more for them."

"We Germans will preserve our conception of Christian duty towards the sick
and wounded"--_From recent remarks of the Kaiser reported by a German
correspondent_.]

Now that the Food Controller has got into his stride, the nation has begun
to realise the huge debt it owes to his firmness and organising ability,
and is proportionately concerned to hear of his breakdown from overwork.
The queues have disappeared, supplies are adequate, and there are no
complaints of class-favouritism.

[Illustration: BOBBY (at the conclusion of dinner): "Mother, I don't know
how it is, but I never seem to get that--that--nice sick feeling
nowadays."]

It is remarkable how the British soldier will pick up languages, or at
least learn to interpret them. Only last week an American corporal stopped
a British Sergeant and said: "Say, Steve, can you put me wise where I can
barge into a boiled-shirt biscuit-juggler who would get me some eats?" And
the Sergeant at once directed him to a café. The training of the new
armies, to judge by the example depicted by our artist, affords fresh proof
of the saying that love is a _liberal_ education.

The situation on the Parliamentary Front has been fairly quiet. The popular
pastime of asking when the promised Home Rule Bill is to be introduced is
no longer met by suitably varied but invariably evasive replies. The
Government has now frankly admitted that the policy of running Home Rule
and Conscription in double harness has been abandoned, and expects better
things from the new pair: Firm Government and Voluntary Recruiting. But
sceptics are unconvinced that the Government will abandon the leniency
prompted by "the insane view of creating an atmosphere in which something
incomprehensible is to occur."

[Illustration: MISTRESS (as the new troops go by): "Which of them is your
cousin?"

NURSEMAID (unguardedly): "I don't know yet, ma'am."]

The lavish and, in many cases, inexplicable distribution of the Order of
the British Empire bids fair to add a peculiar lustre to the undecorated.
The War has produced no stranger paradox than the case of the gentleman who
within the space of seven days was sentenced to six months' imprisonment
for a breach of the Defence of the Realm regulations and recommended for
the O.B.E. on account of good services to the country. The fact that the
recommendation was withdrawn hardly justified the assumption of a
Pacificist Member that a sentence under the Defence of the Realm Act was
regarded as the higher honour of the two.

There is one thing, however, that war at its worst cannot do. It cannot
make an Englishman forgo that peculiar and blessed birthright which enables
him to overthrow the Giant Despair with the weapon of whimsical humour--in
other words, to write, as a young officer has written for Mr. Punch, such a
set of verses as the following in June, 1918:

THE BEST SMELL OF ALL

  When noses first were carved for men
    Of varied width and height,
  Strange smells and sweet were fashioned then
    That all might know delight--
  Smells for the hooked, the snub, the fine,
    The pug, the gross, the small,
  A smell for each, and one divine
    Last smell to soothe them all.

  The baccy smell, the smell of peat,
    The rough gruff smell of tweed,
  The rain smell on a dusty street
    Are all good smells indeed;
  The sea smell smelt through resinous trees,
    The smell of burning wood,
  The saintly smell of dairies--these
    Are all rich smells and good.

  And good the smell the nose receives
    From new-baked loaves, from hops,
  From churches, from decaying leaves,
    From pinks, from grocers' shops;
  And smells of rare and fine bouquet
    Proceed, the world allows,
  From petrol, roses, cellars, hay,
    Scrubbed planks, hot gin and cows.

  But there's a smell that doth excel
    All other smells by far,
  Even the tawny stable smell
    Or the boisterous smell of tar;
  A smell stupendous, past compare,
    The king of smells, the prize,
  That smell which floods the startled air
    When home-cured bacon fries!

  All other smells, whate'er their worth,
    Though dear and richly prized,
  Are earthy smells and of the earth,
    Are smells disparadised;
  But when that smell of smells awakes
    From ham of perfect cure,
  It lifts the heart to heaven and makes
    The doom of Satan sure.

  How good to sit at twilight's close
    In a warm inn and feel
  That marvellous smell caress the nose
    With promise of a meal!
  How good when bell for breakfast rings
    To pause, while tripping down,
  And snuff and snuff till Fancy brings
    All Arcady to Town!

  But best, when day's first glimmerings break
    Through curtains half withdrawn,
  To lie and smell it, scarce awake,
    In some great farm at dawn;
  Cocks crow, the milkmaid clanks the pails,
    The housemaid bangs the stairs;
  And BACON suddenly assails
    The nostrils unawares.

  Noses of varied width and height
    Doth kindly Heaven bestow,
  And choice of smells for our delight,
    That all some joy may know;
  Noses and smells for all the race
    That on this earth do dwell,
  And for a final act of grace
    The astounding bacon smell.

But the War has its drawbacks, and owing to its unexpected prolongation
there is a rumour that Mr. H.G. Wells will readjust his ideas on the
subject quarterly instead of twice a week as before.



_July, 1918._


"France's Day" was held on July 14 under the auspices of the British Red
Cross Committee. But this has been France's month, the month in which the
miracle of the first battle of the Marne has been equalled by the second,
and the Germans have been hurled back across the fatal river by the
tremendous counterstroke of General Foch.

[Illustration: HUN TO HUN

ATTILA (to Little Willie): "Speaking as one barbarian to another, I don't
recommend the neighbourhood. I found it a bit unhealthy myself."

(Attila's victorious progress across Gaul was finally checked on the plains
of Châlons.)]

[Illustration: VERY MUCH UP

A Champagne Counter-Offensive]

On the 15th the Germans launched their great offensive. On the 20th they
recrossed the Marne, and are now entitled to complain that General Foch not
only took over the French and British armies, but has recently started
taking over a good part of the German army. The neighbourhood has never
been a healthy one for the Huns since the days of Attila.

Fritz has crossed the Marne and recrossed it--according to plan--and is
already on the way to the Aisne. The battle of the rivers has begun again,
but on new lines. Yet this amazing turn of the tide has been taken very
quietly in France and England. The Allies have rung no joy-bells; they are
content with doing their best to give Germany no occasion for further
indulgence in that form of jubilation. And Germany is meeting them more
than half way, their authorities having ordered a supplementary requisition
of those church-bells which were exempted when the first confiscation was
made. "At this heavy hour," said von Kühlmann to the Reichstag, "none of us
fully realise what we owe to the German Emperor." That was a month ago; the
realisation of their indebtedness has since advanced by leaps and bounds.
There are now 1,000,000 Americans in France. But the Kaiser and his
War-lords are still passing their victims through the fire to the
Pan-German Moloch, and threatening to send German generals to teach the
Austrian Army how to win offensives. It is even reported that the Germans
contemplate placing the ex-king of Greece on the throne of Finland.
Fantastic rumours are rife in these days; but there is only too good reason
to believe the report that the ex-Tsar, the Tsaritsa, and their daughters
have all been murdered by their brutal captors at Ekaterinburg. It seems
but yesterday when Nicholas was acclaimed as the Saviour and regenerator of
his people, and now Tsardom, irrevocably fallen from its high estate, has
gone down amid scenes of butchery and barbarity that eclipse the Reign of
Terror in France.

Little has happened at Westminster to indicate a consciousness on the part
of the members of the great and glorious events in France. The Irish
Expeditionary Force, after an absence of three months and a severe training
at home, has returned to the Parliamentary Front, and their war-cry is
"Devlin's the friend, not Shortt!" But the Chief Secretary was able to make
the gratifying announcement that the voluntary recruiting campaign is to be
assisted by several Nationalist M.P.'s, including Captain Stephen Gwynn,
who has been serving in the trenches, and Colonel Lynch, who, having raised
one Irish brigade to fight against us in the Boer War, and been sentenced
to death for doing it, has now, with an inconsistency we cannot too
gratefully recognise, undertaken to raise another to fight on our side. Mr.
Bonar Law has revealed the interesting fact that only 288 members of the
House of Commons have received titles, decorations, or offices of profit
since it was elected in December, 1910. The unnoticed residue are probably
wondering whether it is their own modesty or the shortsightedness of
Ministers that has caused them to be passed over. Mr. Billing, after
several pathetic but futile efforts to regain his place in the limelight,
has at last succeeded in getting himself named, suspended, and forcibly
assisted by four stalwart officials in his exit from the House--the most
salutary movement, in the opinion of most members, with which he has yet
been connected.

Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, in a recent speech, said that the association
between the two Services, the Royal Navy and the Mercantile Marine, had
been so close during the War, whatever that association might have been
before, that it seemed to him almost incredible that it could ever be
broken asunder. The First Sea Lord's statement is welcome and natural. But
there is nothing really new in this solidarity of the seas. The Secret of
the Ships is an old story:

  On their ventures in the service of a Tudor King or Queen
    All the ships were just as like as they could be,
  For the merchantman gave battle, while the Royal ship was seen
    As a not too simple trader over-sea:
  Being heirs to ancient customs, when their upper sails came down
    As a token of respect in passing by,
  They would add the salutation in a language of their own,
    "God speed you, we be sisters, thou and I."

  As the centuries receded came a parting of the ways
    Till in time the separation went so far
  That a family was founded who were traders all their days,
    And another who were always men-of-war;
  But whene'er they dipped their colours, one in faith, they understood--
    And the sea, who taught them both, could tell you why--
  That the custom never altered, so the greeting still held good,
    "God speed you, we be sisters, thou and I."

  Then in days of common sacrifice and peril was it strange
    That they ratified the union of the past?
  While their Masters, unsuspecting, greatly marvelled at the change,
    But they prayed with all their souls that it would last;
  And the ships, who know the secret, go rejoicing on their way,
    For whatever be the ensign that they fly,
  Such as keep the seas with honour are united when they pray,
    "God speed you, we be sisters, thou and I."

[Illustration:

"WAR PICTURES"

THE MOTHER: "Of course, I don't understand them, dear; but they give me a
dreadful feeling. I can't bear to look at them. Is it really like that at
the Front?"

THE WARRIOR (who has seen terrible things in battle): "Thank heaven, no,
mother."]

England deplores the death of Lord Rhondda, who achieved success in the
most irksome and invidious of offices. He undertook the duties of Food
Controller in broken health, never spared himself, and died in harness. It
is to be hoped that he realised what was the truth--that he had won not
only the confidence but the gratitude of the public.

Spain has rendered herself unpleasantly conspicuous by developing and
exporting a new form of influenza, and a Spanish astrologer predicts the
end of the world in a few months' time. But we are not going to allow those
petty distractions to take our minds off the War. Here we may note that
Baron Burian's recent message indicates that but for the War everything
would be all right in Austria. Our artists are certainly determined not to
let us forget it. But the most valuable pictures do not find their way into
galleries, though they do not lack appreciative spectators.

[Illustration:

CAMOUFLAGE OFFICER: "That's very clever. Who did it?"

SERGEANT. "Oh, that's by Perkins, sir--quite an expert. Used to paint
sparrows before the war and sell 'em for canaries."]

No record of the month would be complete without notice of the unique way
in which the Fourth of July has been celebrated by John Bull and Uncle Sam
in France. Truly such a meeting as this does make amends.



_August, 1918_.


July was a glorious month for the Allies, and August is even better. It
began with the recovery of Soissons; a week later it was the turn of the
British, and Sir Douglas Haig struck hard on the Amiens front; since then
the enemy have been steadily driven back by the unrelenting pressure of the
Allies, Bapaume and Noyon have been recaptured, and with their faces set
for home the Germans have learnt to recognise in a new and unpleasant sense
the truth of the Kaiser's saying, "The worst is behind us." The 8th of
August was a bad day for Germany, for it showed that the counter-offensive
was not to be confined to one section; that henceforth no respite would be
allowed from hammer-blows. The German High Command endeavours to
tranquillise the German people by _communiqués_, the gist of which may
thus be rendered in verse:

  In those very identical regions
    That sunder the Marne from the Aisne
  We advanced to the rear with our legions
    Long ago and have done it again;
  Fools murmur of errors committed,
    But every intelligent man
  Has accepted the view that we flitted
    According to plan.

The French rivers have found their voice again:

      'Twas the voice of the Marne
      That began it with "Garn!
      Full speed, Fritz, astarn!"
      Then the Ourcq and the Crise
      Sang "Move on, if you please."
      The Ardre and the Vesle
      Took up the glad tale,
      And cried to the Aisne
      "Wash out the Hun stain."
  So all the way back from the Marne the French rivers
  Have given the Boches in turn the cold shivers.

[Illustration: "ACCORDING TO PLAN"

LITTLE WILLIE: "Well, Father wanted a war of movement, and now he's got
it!"]

[Illustration: VON POT AND VON KETTLE

GERMAN GENERAL: "Why the devil don't you stop these Americans coming
across? That's your job."

GERMAN ADMIRAL: "And why the devil don't you stop 'em when they _are_
across? That's yours."]

[Illustration:

CHILD (who has been made much of by father home on leave for the first time
for two years): "Mummy dear, I like that man you call your husband."]

Hindenburg has confided to a newspaper correspondent that the German people
need to develop the virtue of patience. According to the _Berliner
Tageblatt_ he has declared that he was not in favour of the July
offensive. Ludendorff, on the other hand, may fairly point out that it
isn't his offensive any longer. Anyhow, Hindenburg is fairly entitled to
give Ludendorff the credit of it since Ludendorff's friends have always
said that he supplied the old Mud-Marshal with brains. The amenities of
the High Command are growing lively, since the Navy is also concerned,
and the failure of the U-boats to check the influx of American troops
needs a lot of explaining away. The good news from the Front has been
received at home with remarkable composure, when one considers the
acute anxiety of the last four months. But it is the way of England to
endure felicity with calmness and adversity with fortitude. In the House of
Lords Lord Inchcape and Lord Emmott have been propitiating Nemesis by their
warnings of the gloomy financial future that is in store for us, while in
the Commons the Bolshevist group below the gangway are apparently much
perturbed by the prospect that Russia may be helped on to her legs again by
the Allies. Mr. Dillon's indictment of the Government for their treatment
of Ireland has had, however, a welcome if unexpected result. Mr. Shortt,
the new Chief Secretary, an avowed and unrepentant Home Ruler, has been
telling Mr. Dillon's followers a few plain truths about themselves: that
they have made no effort to turn the Home Rule Act into a practical
measure; that instead of denouncing Sinn Fein they had followed its lead;
that they had attacked the Irish executive when they ought to have
supported it, and by their refusal to help recruiting had forfeited the
sympathy of the British working classes. Mr. Lloyd George, in his review
of the War, warned the peacemongers not to expect their efforts to
succeed until the enemy knew he was beaten, but vouchsafed no information
as to his alleged intention to go to the country in the political sense.
In spite of the Premier's warning the Pacificists made another futile
attempt on the very next day to convince the House that the Germans were
ready to make an honest peace if only our Government would listen to it.
They were well answered by Mr. Robertson, who was a Pacificist himself
until this War converted him, and by Mr. Balfour, who declared that we
were quite ready to talk to Germany as soon as she showed any sign of
a change of heart. Up to the present there has been no sign of it.

Food is still the universal topic. Small green apples, says a contemporary,
are proving popular. A boy correspondent, however, desires Mr. Punch to say
that he has a little inside information to the contrary. Nottingham
children, it is stated, are to be paid 3d. a pound for gathering
blackberries, but they are not to use their own receptacles. Captain
Amundsen is on his way to the Pole, but we fear that he will not find any
cheese there. The vocabulary of food control has even made its way to the
nursery. A small girl on being informed by her nurse that a new little baby
brother had come to live with her promptly replied: "Well, he can't stay
unless he's brought his coupons."

[Illustration:

LATEST ADDITION TO MINISTRY STAFF: "What's the tea-time here?"

CICERONE: "Usual--three to five-thirty."]

Yet one of Mr. Punch's poets, in prophetic and optimistic strain, has
actually dared to speculate on the delights of life without "Dora";
Dickens, with the foresight of genius, wrote in "David Copperfield" how his
hero "felt it would have been an act of perfidy to Dora to have a natural
relish for my dinner."

The enterprise of _The Times_ in securing the reminiscences of the
Kaiser's American dentist (or gum-architect, as he is called in his native
land) has aroused mingled feelings. But the Kaiser is reported to have
stated in no ambiguous terms that if, after the War, any Americans are to
be given access to him, from Ambassadors downwards, they must be able
neither to read nor write. _The Times_ is also responsible for the
headline: "The Archangel Landing." There was a rumour of something of this
kind after Mons, but this is apparently official.

One prominent effect of the War has been to make two Propagandist
Departments flourish where none grew before, and it is to be feared that
the reflection on the industry of our new officials implied in the picture
on the previous page is not without foundation.

War has not only stimulated the composition, but the perusal of poetry,
especially among women:

  When the Armageddon diet
  Makes Priscilla feel unquiet,
  She prescribes herself (from Pope)
  An acidulated trope.

  When the lard-hunt ruffles Rose
  Wordsworth lulls her to repose,
  While a snippet from the "Swan"
  Stops the jam-yearn of Yvonne.

  When the man-slump makes her fretty
  Susie takes to D. Rossetti,
  Though her sister Arabella
  Rather fancies Wilcox (Ella).

  When Evangelina swoons
  At the sound of the maroons,
  Mrs. Hemans comes in handy
  As a substitute for brandy.

  And when Auntie heard by chance
  That the Curate was in France,
  Browning's enigmatic lyrics
  Helped to save her from hysterics.



_September, 1918_.


Since July 15th, when the Kaiser mounted a high observation post to watch
the launching of the offensive which was to achieve his crowning victory,
but proved the prelude of the German collapse, the conflict has raged
continuously and with uninterrupted success for the Allied Armies. The
Kaiser Battle has become the Battle of Liberation. The French bore the
initial burden of the attack, but since August 8 "hundreds of thousands of
unbeaten Tommies," to quote the phrase of a French military expert, have
entered into action in a succession of attacks started one after the other
all the way up to Flanders. Rawlinson, Home, and Byng have carried on the
hammer work begun by Mangin, Gouraud, and Debeney. Péronne has been
recovered, the famous Drocourt-Quéant switch-line has been breached, the
Americans have flattened out the St. Mihiel salient. The perfect liaison of
British and French and Americans has been a wonderful example of combined
effort rendered possible by unity of command. "Marshal Foch strikes to-day
at a new front," is becoming a standing headline. And this highly desirable
"epidemic of strikes" is not confined to the Western Front. As
Generalissimo of all the Allied Forces the great French Marshal has planned
and carried out an _ensemble_ of operations designed to shatter and
demoralise the enemy at every point. The long inaction on the Salonika
Front has been ended by the rapid and triumphant advance of the British,
French, Serbians, and Greeks under General Franchet d'Esperey. Eight days
sufficed to smash the Bulgarians, and the armistice then granted was
followed four days later by the surrender of Bulgaria. In less than a
fortnight General Allenby pushed north from Jerusalem, annihilated the
Turkish armies in Palestine, and captured Damascus. And by the end of the
month the Hindenburg line had been breached and gone the way of the "Wotan"
line. Wotan was not a happy choice:

  But even super-Germans are wont at times to nod,
  And to borrow Wotan's aegis was indubitably odd;
  For dark decline o'erwhelmed his line: he saw his god-head wane,
  And his stately palace vanish in a red and ruinous vain.

[Illustration: STORM DRIVEN

THE KAISER: "I don't like this wind, my son. Which way is it?"

THE CROWN PRINCE: "Up!"]

[Illustration: IN RESERVE

GERMAN EAGLE (to German Dove): "Here, carry on for a bit, will you I'm
feeling rather run down."]

Well may the Berlin _Tageblatt_ say that "the war stares us in the
face and stares very hard." When a daily paper announces "Half Crown
Prince's army turned over to another General," we are curious to know how
much the Half Crown Prince thinks the German Sovereign worth. But the end
is not yet. Our pride in the achievements of our Armies and Generals, in
the heroism of our Allies and the strategy of Marshal Foch does not blind
us to the skill and tenacity with which the Germans are conducting their
retreat. Fritz is a tough fighter; if only he had fought a clean fight we
could look forward to a thorough reconciliation. But that is a far cry for
those who have been in the war, farthest of all for our sailormen, who can
never forget certain acts of frightfulness.

  Hans Dans an' me was shipmates once, an' if 'e'd fought us clean,
  Why shipmates still when war was done might Hans an' me 'ave been;
  The truest pals a man can have are them 'e's fought before,
  But--never no more, Hans Dans, my lad, so 'elp me, never no more!

Austria has issued a Peace Note, and the German Chancellor has declared
that Germany is opposed to annexation in any form. The German Eagle, making
a virtue of necessity, is ready to give the bird of Peace an innings.

[Illustration: ALARMING SPREAD OF BOBBING]

The two Emmas, Ack and Pip, are naturally furious at the adoption of the
twenty-four hours' system of reckoning time, which means that their
occupation will be gone, and that like other old soldiers they will fade
away. Amongst other innovations we have to note the spread of "bobbing,"
the further possibilities of which are alarming to contemplate.

Ferdinand, Tsar of Bulgaria, great grandson of Philippe Egalité, finding
Sofia unhealthy, has been recuperating at Vienna. His future plans are
vague, but it is thought he may join the ex-Kings' Club in Switzerland.
Lenin, the Bolshevist Dictator, has recently experienced an attempt on his
life, and retaliated in a fashion which would have done credit to a
mediaeval despot. England still refuses to indulge in joy bells or bunting,
but the London police have seized the occasion to strike on the home front.
Their operations have been promptly if inconsistently rewarded by the
removal of their chief and his elevation to the baronetcy.

Parliament is not sitting, and the voice of the Pro-Boche and the Pro-Bolsh
is temporarily hushed. We have to note, however, a most welcome
_rapprochement_ between Downing and Carmelite Streets--the _Daily
Mail_ has praised the Foreign Office for an "excellent piece of work,"
and the scapegoat, unexpectedly caressed, is sitting up and taking
nourishment.

The harvest has been a success, thanks to the energy of the new
land-workers, the armies behind the army:

  All the talent is here--all the great and the lesser,
    The proud and the humble, the stout and the slim,
  The second form boy and the aged professor,
    Grade three and the hero in want of a limb.

Four years of war have brought curious changes to "our village":

  Our baker's in the Flying Corps,
    Our butcher's in the Buffs,
  Our one policeman cares no more
    For running in the roughs,
  But carves a pathway to the stars
    As trooper in the Tenth Hussars.

  The Mayor's a Dublin Fusilier,
    The clerk's a Royal Scot,
  The bellman is a brigadier
    And something of a pot;
  The barber, though at large, is spurned;
    The Blue Boar's waiter is interned.

  The postman, now in Egypt, wears
    A medal on his coat;
  The vet. is breeding Belgian hares,
    The vicar keeps a goat;
  The schoolma'am knits upon her stool;
    The village idiot gathers wool.

[Illustrations: FARMER AND THE FARM LABOURER

First week

Second week

Third week

Fourth week]

The husbandman and his new help have undergone mutual transformation. And
our cadet battalions are making themselves very much at home at Oxford and
Cambridge.

[Illustration: CADET: "Really, from the way these College Authorities make
themselves at home you'd think the place belonged to them."]

The Navy still remains the silent Service, but, as the need for reticence
is being relaxed by the triumph of our arms, we are beginning to learn
something, though unofficially as yet, of that "plaything of the Navy and
nightmare of the Huns"--the Q-boat:

  She can weave a web of magic for the unsuspecting foe,
    She can scent the breath of Kultur leagues away,
  She can hear a U-boat thinking in Atlantic depths below
    And disintegrate it with a Martian ray;
      She can feel her way by night
      Through the minefield of the Bight;
  She has all the tricks of science, grave and gay.

  In the twinkle of a searchlight she can suffer a sea-change
    From a collier to a _Shamrock_ under sail,
  From a Hyper-super-Dreadnought, old Leviathan at range,
  To a lightship or a whaler or a whale;
     With some canvas and a spar
     She can mock the morning star
  As a haystack or the flotsam of a gale.

  She's the derelict you chartered north of Flores outward-bound,
  She's the iceberg that you sighted coming back,
  She's the salt-rimed Biscay trawler heeling home to Plymouth Sound,
  She's the phantom-ship that crossed the moon-beams' track;
     She's the rock where none should be
     In the Adriatic Sea,
  She's the wisp of fog that haunts the Skagerrack.

Recognition of services faithfully done is an endless task; but Mr. Punch
is glad to print the valedictory tribute of one of the boys in blue to a
V.A.D.--a class that has come in for much undeserved criticism.

  While willy-nilly I must go
  A-hunting of the Hun,
  You'll carry on--which now I know
  (Although I've helped to rag you so)
  Means great work greatly done.

Among the minor events of the month has been the christening of a baby by
the names of Grierson Plumer Haig French Smith-Dorrien, as its father
served under these generals. The idea is, no doubt, to prevent the child
when older from asking: "What did you do in the Great War, Daddy?"

England, as we have already said, endures its triumphs with composure. But
our printers are not altogether immune from excitement. An evening paper
informs us that "the dwifficuplties of passing from rigid trench warfare to
field warfare are gigantic and perhaps unsurmountable." And only our innate
sense of comradeship deters us from naming the distinguished contemporary
which recently published an article entitled: "The Importance of Bray."



_October, 1918_.


THE growing _crescendo_ of success has reached its climax in this, the
most wonderful month of our _annus mirabilis._ Every day brings
tidings of a new victory. St. Quentin, Cambrai, and Laon had all been
recaptured in the first fortnight. On the 17th Ostend, Lille, and Douai
were regained, Bruges was reoccupied on the 19th, and by the 20th the
Belgian Army under King Albert, reinforced by the French and Americans, and
with the Second British Army under General Plumer on the right, had
compelled the Germans to evacuate the whole coast of Flanders. The Battle
of Liberation, which began on the Marne in July, is now waged
uninterruptedly from the Meuse to the sea. Only in Lorraine has the advance
of the American Army been held up by the difficulties of the _terrain_
and the exceptionally stubborn resistance of the Germans.

Elsewhere the "war of movement" has gone on with unrelenting energy
according to Foch's plan, which suggests a revision of Pope:

  Great Foch's law is by this rule exprest,
  Prevent the coming, speed the parting pest.

The German, true to his character of the world's worst loser and winner,
leaves behind him all manner of booby-traps, some puerile, many diabolical,
which give our sappers plenty of work, cause a good many casualties, and
only confirm the resolve of the victors.

According to a German paper--the _Rhenish Westphalian
Gazette_--ex-criminals are being drafted into the German Army. But the
Allies propose to treat them without invidious distinction. The Crown
Prince recently observed that he had "many friends in the Entente
countries"; as a matter of fact, we seem to be getting them at the rate of
about twenty-five thousand a week. The criminals in the German Navy have
again been busy, adding to their previous exploits the sinking of the
passenger steamer _Leinster_, in the Irish Channel, with heavy loss of
life, the worst disaster of the kind since the torpedoing of the
_Lusitania_. Yet it is Germany that is the sinking ship. Ferdinand of
Bulgaria has joined the League of Abdication, and according to a Sofia
telegram, will devote himself to scientific pursuits. His only regret is
that the Allies thought of it first. Prince Friedrich Karl of Hesse says
that his accession to the throne of Finland will not take place for two
years, and for the first time since his emergence into publicity we find
ourselves in agreement with this monarch-elect. Ludendorff has resigned.
Austria is suing for peace; Count Tisza asks: "Why not admit frankly that
we have lost the War?" The Italians have crossed the Piave, and the
Serbians have reached the Danube. Turkey has been granted an armistice, and
with the daily victories of the Allies comes the daily report that the
Kaiser has abdicated.

[Illustration: SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN

MARSHAL FOCH (to Messrs. Clemenceau, Wilson and Lloyd George): "If you're
going up that road, gentlemen, look out for booby-traps."]

Prince Max of Baden, the successor of Hertling in the Chancellorship, whose
appointment hardly bears out the promise of popular government, has issued
a pacific Manifesto which inspires an "Epitaph in anticipation":

  In memory of poor Prince Max,
  Who, posing as the friend of Pax,
  Yet was not noticeably lax
  In the true Teuton faith which hacks
  Its way along; forbidden tracks,
  Marks bloody dates on almanacs
  And holds all promises as wax;
  Breeding, where once we knew Hans Sachs,
  A race of monomaniacs....
  But now illusion's mirror cracks,
  The radiant vision fades, the axe
  Lies at the root. So farewell, Max!

Certain people have proclaimed their opinion that the German nation ought
not to be humiliated. When all is said, Mr. Punch saves his pity for our
murdered dead.

Parliament has met again, not that there is any very urgent need for their
labours just now. With a caution that seemed excessive Mr. Bonar Law has
thought it premature to discuss a military situation changing every
hour--though happily always for the better--or even to propose a formal
Vote of Thanks to men who are daily adding to their harvest of laurels. On
better grounds discussion of Mr. Wilson's famous "fourteen points" and of
demobilisation has been deprecated. The suggestion--made opportunely on
Trafalgar Day--for securing marks of distinction for our merchant seamen
gained a sympathetic hearing, and the proposal to make women eligible for
Parliament has been carried after a serious debate by an overwhelming
majority in which the _ci-devant_ anti-suffragists were as prominent
as the others. Five years ago such a motion would have furnished an orgy of
alleged humour, and been laughed out of the House. Mr. Dillon and his
colleagues have put a great many questions about the torpedoing of the
_Leinster_ and the lack of an escort. But it is unfortunate that their
tone suggested more indignation with the alleged laches of the Admiralty
than horror at the German crime. Irish indignation over the outrage,
according to a Nationalist M.P., is intense; but not to the point of
expressing itself in khaki.

[Illustration: Die Nacht am Rhein]

[Illustration: PROSPEROUS IRISH FARMER: "And what about the War, your
Riverence? Do ye think it will hould?"]

The woes of the Irish harvest labourers in England have not yet been fully
appreciated, and seem to demand a revised version of "Moira O'Neill's"
beautiful poem:

THE IRISH EXILE

  Over here in England I'm slavin' in the rain;
  Six-an'-six a day we get, an' beds that wanst were clane;
  Weary on the English work, 'tis killin' me that same--
  Och, Muckish Mountain, where I used to lie an' dhrame!

  At night the windows here are black as Father Murphy's hat;
  'Tis fivepence for a pint av beer, an' thin ye can't get that;
  Their beef has shtrings like anny harp, for dacent ham I hunt--
  Och, Muckish Mountain, an' my pig's sweet grunt!

  Sure there's not a taste av butthermilk that wan can buy or beg,
  Thin their sweet milk has no crame, an' is as blue as a duck-egg;
  Their whisky is as wake as wather-gruel in a bowl--Och,
  Muckish Mountain, where the _poteen_ warms yer sowl!

  'Tis mesilf that longs for Irish air an' gran' ould Donegal,
  Where there's lashins and there's lavins and no scarcity at all;
  Where no wan cares about the War, but just to ate an' play--
  Och, Muckish Mountain, wid yer feet beside the say!

  Sure these Englishmin don't spare thimselves in this thremenjus fight;
  They say 'tis life or death for thim, an', faith, they may be right;
  But Father Murphy tells me that it's no consarn av mine--
  Och, Muckish Mountain, where the white clouds shine!

  Over there in Ireland we're very fond av peace,
  Though we break the heads av Orangemin an' batther the police;
  For we're all agin the Governmint wheriver we may be--
  Och, Muckish Mountain, an' the wild wind blowin' free!

  If they tuk me out to Flandhers, bedad I'd have to fight,
  An' I'm tould thim Jarman vagabones won't let ye sleep at night;
  So I'm going home to Ireland wid English notes galore--
  Och, Muckish Mountain, I will niver lave ye more!

By way of contrast there is the mood of the Old Contemptibles, but it is
only fair to add that there are Irishmen among them:

THE OLD-TIMER

  'E aint't bin 'ung with medals, like a lot o' chaps abaht;
  'E's wore a little dingy but 'e isn't wearin' aht;
  'Is ole tin 'at is battered, but it isn't battered in,
  An' if 'e ain't fergot to grouse, 'e ain't fergot to grin.

  I fancy that 'e's aged a bit since fust the War begun;
  'E's 'ad 'is fill o' fightin' an' 'e's 'ad 'is share o' fun;
  'Is eyes is kind o' quiet an' 'is mouth is sort o' set,
  But if I didn't know 'im well I wouldn't know 'im yet.

  I recollec' the look of 'im the time o' the retreat,
  The blood was through 'is toonic an' the skin was orf 'is feet;
  But "Come aboard the bus," say 'e, "or you'll be lef be'ind!"
  An' takes me weight upon 'is back--it 'asn't slip me mind.

  It might 'ave 'appened yesterday, it comes to me so plain;
  'E's dahn an' up a dozen times, a-reeling through the rain;
  It might 'ave bin lars' Saturday I seem to 'ear 'im say:
  "There's plenty room a-top, me lad, an' nothin' more to pay."

  'E ain't bin 'ung with medals like a blackamore with beads;
  'E doesn't figure on the screen a-doin' darin' deeds;
  But reckon I'll be lucky if I gets to Kingdom Come
  Along o' that Contemptible wot wouldn't leave a chum.

[Illustration:

FIRST CONTEMPTIBLE: "D'you remember halting here on the retreat, George?"

SECOND DITTO: "Can't call it to mind, somehow. Was it that little village
in the wood there down by the river, or was it that place with the
cathedral and all them factories?"]

Amongst other items of news we have to chronicle the appointment of Mr.
Arnold Bennett as a Director of Propaganda, the steady growth of
goat-keeping, and the exactions of taxi-drivers. It is now suggested that
if one of these pirates should charge you largely in excess of his legal
fare, you should tell him that you have nothing less than a five-pound
note. If you have an honest face and speak kindly he will probably accept
the amount.

[Illustration: THE SANDS RUN OUT]

Mr. Bonar Law has been making trips to and from France by aeroplane. The
report that a number of members of the Opposition have been invited by the
Admiralty to make a descent in a depth-charge turns out to be unfounded.
The prospects of peace are being discussed on public platforms, but, as
yet, with commendable discretion. Mr. Roberts, our excellent Minister of
Labour, has made bold to say that "the happenings of the last six weeks
justify us in the belief that peace is much nearer than it was during the
earlier part of the year." And a weekly paper has offered a prize of £500
to the reader who predicts the date when the War will end. Meanwhile,
Hanover is said to have made Hindenburg a birthday present of a house in
the neighbourhood of the Zoological Gardens in that city, and we suggest
that before this gift is incorporated in the peace-terms the words "the
neighbourhood of" should be deleted.



_November, 1918_.


The end has come with a swiftness that has outdone the hopes of the most
sanguine optimists. In the first eleven days of November we have seen
history in the making on a larger scale and with larger possibilities than
at any time since the age of Napoleon, perhaps since the world began.

[Illustration: VICTORY!]

To take the chief events in order, the Versailles Conference opened on the
1st; on the 3rd Austria gave in and the resolve of the German Naval High
Command to challenge the Grand Fleet in the North Sea was paralysed by the
mutiny at Kiel; on the 5th the Versailles Conference gave full powers to
Marshal Foch to arrange the terms of an armistice, and President Wilson
addressed the last of his Notes to Germany; on the 6th the American Army
reached Sedan; on the 9th Marshal Foch received Erzberger and the other
German Envoys, the Berlin Revolution broke out, and the Kaiser abdicated;
on the 10th the Kaiser fled to Holland, and the British reached Mons. The
wheel had come full circle. The Belgian, British, French, and American
Armies now formed a semi-circle from Ghent to Sedan, and threatened to
surround the German Armies already in retreat and crowded into the narrow
valley of the Meuse. Everything was ready for Foch's final attack; indeed,
he was on the point of attacking when the Germans, recognising that they
were faced with the prospect of a Sedan ten times greater than that of
1870, signed on November 11 an armistice which was equivalent to a military
capitulation, and gave Marshal Foch all that he wanted without the heavy
losses which further fighting would have undoubtedly involved. He had shown
himself the greatest military genius of the War. Here, in the words of one
of his former colleagues at the Ecole de Guerre, he proved himself free
from the stains which have so often tarnished great leaders in war, the
lust of conquest and personal ambition. Not only the Allies, but the whole
world owes an incalculable debt to this soldier of justice, compact of
reason and faith, imperturbable in adversity, self-effacing in the hour of
victory. Glorious also is the record of the other French Generals: the
strong-souled Pétain, hero of Verdun; the heroic Maunoury; Castlenau and
Mangin, Gouraud. Debeney, and Franchet d'Esperey, Captains Courageous,
worthy of France, her cause, and her indomitable _poilus_. In the
record of acknowledgment France stands first since her sacrifices and
losses have been heaviest, and she gave us in Foch the chief organiser of
victory, in Clemenceau the most inspiring example of intrepid
statesmanship. But the War could not have been won without England and the
Empire; without the ceaseless vigil in the North Sea; without the heroes of
Jutland and Coronel, of the Falkland Isles and Zeebrugge, of the Fleets
behind the Fleet; without the services of Smith-Dorrien at Mons, French at
Ypres; without the dogged endurance, the inflexible will and the
self-sacrificing loyalty of Haig; the dash of Maude and Allenby; the
steadfast leadership in defence and offence of Plumer and Byng, Home and
Rawlinson and Birdwood.

[Illustration: OUR MAN

With Mr. Punch's Grateful Compliments to Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.]

[Illustration: THE FINAL TOMMY;(ex-footballer): "We was just wipin' them
off the face of the earth when Foch blows his whistle and shouts 'Temps!'"]

These are only some of the heroes who have added to the glories of our
blood and State, but the roll is endless--wonderful gunners and sappers and
airmen and dispatch riders, devoted surgeons and heroic nurses,
stretcher-bearers and ambulance drivers. But Mr. Punch's special heroes are
the Second Lieutenants and the Tommy who went on winning the War all the
time and never said that he was winning it until it was won.

As for the young officers, dead and living, their record is the best answer
to the critics, mostly of the arm-chair type, who have chosen this time to
assail our public school system. In the papers of one of them killed on
August 28 there was found an article written in reply to "The Loom of
Youth," ending with these words: "Perhaps the greatest consolation of these
attacks on our greatest heritage in England (for we are the unique
possessors of the Public Schools) is the conviction that they will have but
little effect. Every public school boy is serving, and one in every six
gives up his life. They cannot be such bad places after all."

Of the great mistakes made by Germany perhaps the greatest was in reckoning
on the detachment of the Dominions. The Canadians have made answer on a
hundred stricken fields before and after Vimy Ridge. Australia gave her
goodliest at Gallipoli, crowning the imperishable glory of those who died
there by her refusal to make a grievance of the apparent failure of the
expedition, and by the amazing achievement of her troops in the last six
months of the War.

The immortal dead, British, Australians, New Zealanders, who fell in the
great adventure of the narrow straits are not forgotten in the hour of
triumph.

  GALLIPOLI
  _Qui procul hinc ante diem perierunt_.

  Ye unforgotten, that for a great dream died,
    Whose failing sense darkened on peaks unwon,
  Whose souls went forth upon the wine-dark tide
        To seas beyond the sun,
  Far off, far off, but ours and England's yet,
  Know she has conquered! Live again, and let
    The clamouring trumpets break oblivion!

  Not as we dreamed, nor as you strove to do,
    The strait is cloven, the crag is made our own;
  The salt grey herbs have withered over you,
     The stars of Spring gone down,
  And your long loneliness has lain unstirred
  By touch of home, unless some migrant bird
     Flashed eastward from the white cliffs to the brown.

  Hard by the nameless dust of Argive men,
     Remembered and remote, like theirs of Troy,
  Your sleep has been, nor can ye wake again
     To any cry of joy;
  Summers and snows have melted on the waves.
  And past the noble silence of your graves
     The merging waters narrow and deploy.

  But not in vain, not all in vain, thank God;
     All that you were and all you might have been
  Was given to the cold effacing sod,
     Unstrewn with garlands green;
  The valour and the vision that were yours
  Lie not with broken spears and fallen towers,
     With glories perishable of all things seen.

  Children of one dear land and every sea,
     At last fulfilment comes--the night is o'er;
  Now, as at Samothrace, swift Victory
     Walks winged on the shore;
  And England, deathless Mother of the dead,
  Gathers, with lifted eyes and unbowed head,
     Her silent sons into her arms once more.

Crowns and thrones have rocked and toppled of late, but our King and Queen,
by their unsparing and unfaltering devotion to duty, by their simplicity of
life and unerring instinct for saying and doing the right thing, have not
only set a fine example, but strengthened their hold on the loyalty of all
classes. And King Albert, who defied Germany at the outset, shared the
dangers of his soldiers in retreat and disaster, and throughout the war
proved an inspiration to his people, has been spared to lead them to
victory and has gloriously come into his own again. His decision to resist
Germany was perhaps the most heroic act of the War, and he has emerged from
his tremendous ordeal with world-wide prestige and unabated distaste for
the limelight. The liberation and resurrection of Belgium and Serbia have
been two of the most splendid outcomes of the World War, as the
_débâcle_ in Russia and the martyrdom of Armenia have been its
greatest tragedies.

Parliament has been seen at its best and worst. When the Prime Minister
rose in the House on the afternoon of the 11th to announce the terms of the
Armistice signed at 5 A.M. that morning, members from nearly all parts of
the House rose to acclaim him. Even "the ranks of Tuscany" on the front
Opposition bench joined in the general cheering. Only Mr. Dillon and his
half-dozen supporters remained moody and silent, and when Mr. Speaker, in
his gold-embroidered joy-robes, headed a great procession to St. Margaret's
Church, and the ex-Premier and his successor--the man who drew the sword of
Britain in the war for freedom and the man whose good fortune it has been
to replace it in the sheath--fell in side by side, behind them walked the
representatives of every party save one. Mr. Dillon and his associates had
more urgent business in one of the side lobbies--to consider, perhaps, why
Lord Grey of Falloden, in his eve-of-war speech, had referred to Ireland as
"the one bright spot." This Irish aloofness is wondrously illustrated by
the _Sunday Independent_ of Dublin, which, in its issue of November
10, spoke of a racing event as the only redeeming feature of "an
unutterably dull week." We have to thank Mr. Dillon, however, for
unintentionally enlivening the dulness of the discussion on the relations
of Lord Northcliffe to the Ministry of Information and his forecast of the
peace terms. Mr. Baldwin, for the Government, while endeavouring to allay
the curiosity of members, said that "Napoleons will be Napoleons." Mr.
Dillon seemed to desire the appointment of a "Northcliffe Controller," but
that is impracticable. All our bravest men are too busy to take on the job.
Better still was the pointed query of Lord Henry Bentinck, "Is it not
possible to take Lord Northcliffe a little too seriously?" But there are
other problems to which the House has been addressing itself with a
justifiable seriousness--and demobilisation, the shortage of food and coal,
and the question how at the same time we are to provide for the outlay of
coals of fire and feed the Huns and not the guns.

And how has England taken the news? In the main soberly and in a spirit of
infinite thankfulness, though in too many thousands of homes the loss of
our splendid, noble and gallant sons--alas! so often only sons--who made
victory possible by the gift of their lives, has made rejoicing impossible
for those who are left to mourn them. Yet there is consolation in the
knowledge that if they had lived to extreme old age they could never have
made a nobler thing of their lives. Shakespeare, who "has always been there
before," wrote the epitaph of those who fell in France when he spoke of one
who gave

  His body to that pleasant country's earth,
  And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,
  Under whose colours he had fought so long.

[Illustration: ARMISTICE DAY

SMALL CHILD (excitedly): "Oh, Mother, what _do_ you think? They've
given us a whole holiday to-day in aid of the war."]

And it is a source of unspeakable joy that our children are safe. For
though to most of them their ignorance has been bliss, they have not
escaped the horrors of a war in which non-combatants have suffered worse
than ever before. Only the healing hand of time can allay the grief of
those for whom there can be no reunion on earth with their nearest and
dearest:

  At last the dawn creeps in with golden fingers
    Seeking my eyes, to bid them open wide
  Upon a world at peace, where Sweetness lingers,
    Where Terror is at rest and Hate has died.

  Loud soon shall sound a paean of thanksgiving
    From happy women, welcoming their men,
  Life born anew of joy to see them living.
    Mother of Pity, what shall I do then?

Of the people at large Mr. Punch cannot better the praise of one, the late
Mr. Henry James, who was nothing if not critical, and who proved his love
of England by adopting her citizenship in the darkest hour of her need:
"They were about as good, above all, when it came to the stress, as could
well be expected of people. They didn't know how good they were," and if
they lacked imagination they stimulated it immensely in others.

Apart from some effervescence in the great cities, Armistice Day was
celebrated without exultation or extravagance. In one village that we know
of the church bells were rung by women. In London our deliverance was to
many people marked in the most dramatic way by the breaking of his long
silence by Big Ben:

  Gone are the days when sleep alone could break
    War's grim and tyrannous spells;
  Now it is rest and joy to lie awake
    And listen to the bells.

So the Great War ended. But there yet remained the most dramatic episode of
all--the surrender of the German Fleet to Admiral Beatty at Scapa Flow--a
surrender unprecedented in naval history, a great victory won without
striking a blow, which yet brought no joy to our Grand Fleet. For our
admirals and captains and bluejackets felt that the Germans had smirched
the glory of the fighting men of the sea, hitherto maintained in
untarnished splendour by all vanquished captains from the days of Carthage
to those of Cervera and Cradock.

[Illustration: IN HONOUR OF THE BRITISH NAVY

To commemorate the surrender of the German Fleet]

EPILOGUE

It remains to trace in brief retrospect the record of "the months
between"--a period of test and trial almost as severe as that of the War.

Having steadfastly declined the solution of a Peace without Victory, the
Allies entered last November on the transitional period of Victory without
Peace. The fighting was ended in the main theatres of war, the Kaiser and
Crown Prince, discrowned and discredited, had sought refuge in exile, the
great German War machine had been smashed, and demobilisation began at a
rate which led to inevitable congestion and disappointment. The prosaic
village blacksmith was not far out when, in reply to the vicar's pious hope
that the time had come to beat our sword into a ploughshare, he observed,
"Well, I don't know, sir. Speaking as a blacksmith of forty-five years'
experience, I may tell you it can't be done." "The whole position is
provisional," said the _Times_ at the end of November. If Germany,
Austria, and Russia were to be fed, how was it to be done without
disregarding the prior claims of Serbia and Roumania? Even at home the food
question still continued to agitate the public mind.

The General Election of December, 1918, which followed the dissolution of
the longest Parliament since the days of Charles II., was a striking, if
temporary proof, of the persistence of the rationing principle. It proved a
triumph for the Coalition "Coupon" and for Mr. Lloyd George; the extremists
and Pacificists were snowed under; Mr. Asquith was rejected and his
followers reduced to a mere handful; Labour came back with an increased
representation, though not as great as it desired or deserved. The triumph
of the irreconcilables in Ireland was a foregone but sinister conclusion to
their activities in the War, and an ominous prelude to their subsequent
efforts to wreck the Pence. The pledges in regard to indemnities, the
treatment of the Kaiser, and conscription so lavishly given by the
Coalition Leaders caused no little misgiving at the time, and pledges, like
curses, have an awkward way of coming home to roost. Mr. Punch's views on
the Kaiser, expressed in his Christmas Epilogue, are worth recalling. Mr.
Punch did not clamour for the death penalty, or wish to hand him over to
the tender mercies of German Kultur. "The only fault he committed in German
eyes is that he lost the War, and I wouldn't have him punished for the
wrong offence--for something, indeed, which was our doing as much as his.
No, I think I would just put him out of the way of doing further harm, in
some distant penitentiary like the Devil's Island, and leave him to himself
to think it all over; as _Caponsacchi_ said of _Guido_ in 'The
Ring and the Book':

  Not to die so much as slide out of life,
  Pushed by the general horror and common hate
  Low, lower--left o' the very edge of things."

[Illustration:

"Don't you think we ought to hang the Kaiser, Mrs. 'Arris?"

"It ain't the Kaiser I'm worrying about--it's the bloke what interjuiced
his war-bacon."]

[Illustration: REUNITED

Strasbourg, December 8th, 1918.]

Christmas, 1918, was more than "the Children's Truce." Our bugles had "sung
truce," the war cloud had lifted, the invaded sky was once more free of
"the grim geometry of Mars," and though very few households could celebrate
the greatest of anniversaries with unbroken ranks, the mercy of reunion was
granted to many homes. Yet Mr. Punch, in his Christmas musings on the
solemn memory of the dead who gave us this hour, could not but realise the
greatness of the task that lay before us if we were to make our country
worthy of the men who fought and died for her. The War was over, but
another had yet to be waged against poverty and sordid environment; against
the disabilities of birth; against the abuse of wealth; against the mutual
suspicions of Capital and Labour; against sloth, indifference,
self-complacency, and short memories.

So the Old Year passed, the last of a terrible _quinquennium,_
bringing grounds for thankfulness and hope along with the promise of unrest
and upheaval: with Alsace-Lorraine reunited to France, with the British
army holding its Watch on the Rhine, and with all eyes fixed on Paris, the
scene of the Peace Conference, already invaded by an international army of
delegates, experts, advisers, secretaries, typists, 500 American
journalists, and President Wilson.

Great Expectations and their Tardy Fulfilment, thus in headline fashion
might one summarise the story of 1919, with Peace, the world's desire,
waiting for months outside the door of the Conference Chamber, with civil
war in Germany, Berlin bombed by German airmen, and anarchy in Russia, and
here at home impatience and discomfort, aggravated in the earlier months by
strikes and influenza, the largely increased numbers of unemployed
politicians, the weariest and dreariest of winter weather.

[Illustration: RECONSTRUCTION: A NEW YEAR'S TASK]

Yet even January had its alleviations in the return of the banana, the
prospect of unlimited lard, a distinct improvement in the manners of the
retail tradesman, the typographical fireworks of the _Times_ in honour
of President Wilson, and the retreat of Lord Northcliffe to the sunny
south. Lovers of sensation were conciliated by the appointment of "F.E." to
the Lord Chancellorship, the outbreak of Jazz, and the discovery of a
French author that the plays usually attributed to Shakespeare were written
by Lord Derby, though not apparently the present holder of the title. The
loss, through rejection or withdrawal, of so many of his old Parliamentary
puppets was a serious blow to Mr. Punch, but the old Liberals, buried like
the Babes in the Wood beneath a shower of Coalition coupons, already showed
a sanguine spirit, and the departure of the freaks could be contemplated
with resignation. The great Exodus to Paris began in December, but it
reached its height in January. The mystery of the Foreign Office official
who had _not_ gone was cleared up by the discovery that he was the
caretaker, a pivotal man who could not be demobilised. Another exodus of a
less desirable sort was that of the Sinn Fein prisoners, which gave rise to
the rumour that the Lord Lieutenant had threatened that if they destroyed
any more jails they would be rigorously released. Sinn Fein, which refused
to fight Germany, had already begun to play at a new sort of war. Australia
was preparing to welcome the homing transports sped with messages of
Godspeed from the Motherland:

  Rich reward your hearts shall hold,
    None less dear if long delayed,
  For with gifts of wattle-gold
    Shall your country's debt be paid;
  From her sunlight's golden store
  She shall heal your hurts of war.

  Ere the mantling Channel's mist
    Dim your distant decks and spars,
  And your flag that victory kissed
    And Valhalla hung with stars--
  Crowd and watch our signal fly:
  "Gallant hearts, good-bye! _Good-bye!"_

[Illustration:

THE 1919 MODEL

MR. PUNCH: "They've given you a fine new machine, Mr. Premier, and you've
got plenty of spirit, but look out for bumps."]

February, a month of comparative anti-climax, witnessed the reassembling of
Parliament, fuller than ever of members if not of wisdom. As none of the
Sinn Feiners were present, nor indeed any representative of Irish
Nationalism, the proceedings were as orderly as a Quaker's funeral, save
for the arrival of one member on a motor-scooter. Perhaps the most
interesting information elicited during the debates was this--that every
question put down costs the tax-payer a guinea. On February 20th there were
282 on the Order Paper, and Mr. Punch was moved to wonder whether this
cascade of curiosity might be abated if every questionist were obliged to
contribute half the cost, the amount to be deducted from his official
salary. The Speaker, the greatest of living Parliamentarians, was
re-elected by acclamation. Though human and humorous, he has grown into
something almost more like an institution than a man, like Big Ben, that
great patriot and public servant who never struck during the war. The best
news in February was that of M. Clemenceau's escape, though wounded, from
the Anarchist assassin who had attempted to translate Trotsky's threat into
action. But it did not help on the proposed Conference with the Russians at
Prinkipo or encourage the prospect of any tangible results from the
deliberation of the Prinkipotentiaries. The plain man could see no third
choice beyond supporting Bolshevism or anti-Bolshevism. But according to
our Prime Minister, we were committed to a compromise. The Allies were not
prepared to intervene in force, and they could not leave Russia to stew in
her own hell-broth. Meanwhile the chief criminal, Germany, had begun to
utter _ad misericordiam_ appeals for the relaxation of the Armistice
terms on the score of their cruelty; and Count Brockdorff-Rantzau gave us a
foretaste of his quality by declaring that "Germany cannot be treated as a
second-rate nation."

[Illustration: "How was it you never let your mother know you'd won the
V.C.?"

"It wasna ma turrn tae write."]

[Illustration: ENGLAND EXPECTS

(With Mr. Punch's best hopes for the success of the National Industrial
Conference.)

BOTH LIONS (together): "Unaccustomed as I am to lie down with anything but
a lamb, still, for the sake of the public good ... "]

At home, though the rays of "sweet unrationed revelry" were still to come,
and _Dulce Domum_ could not yet be sung in every sense, February
brought us some relief in the demobilisation of the pivotal pig. And the
decision to hold a National Industrial Conference was of encouraging augury
for the settlement of industrial strife on the basis of a full inquiry and
frank statement of facts. In other walks of life reticence still has its
charms, and even in February people had begun to ask who the General was
who had threatened not to write a book about the War.

March, the mad month, remained true to type. Even Mr. Punch found it hard
to preserve his equanimity:

  O Month, before your final moon is set
    Much may have happened--anything, in fact;
  More than in any March that I have met,
    (Last year excepted) fearful nerves are racked;
  Anarchy does with Russia what it likes;
    Paris is put conundrums very knotty;
  And here in England, with its talk of strikes,
    Men, like your own March hares, seem going dotty.

Abroad the ex-Kaiser was very busy sawing trees, possibly owing to an
hallucination that they were German Generals.

[Illustration:

THE EASTER OFFERING

MR. LLOYD GEORGE (fresh from Paris): "I don't say it's a perfect egg, but
parts of it, as the saying is, are excellent."]

At home the Government decided to release such of the Sinn Fein prisoners
as had not already saved them the trouble, and a Coal Industry Commission
was appointed on which no representative of the general public was invited
to sit--that is to say, the patient, much enduring consumer, not the public
which has all along sought to discount peace by premature whooping,
jubilating, and Jazzing. For the Dove of Peace, though in strict training,
seemed in danger of collapsing under the weight of the League of Nations'
olive bough, to say nothing of other perils, notably the Bolshy-bird, a
most obscene brand of vulture.

Mr. Wilson was once more on the Atlantic, and Mr. Lloyd George, distracted
between his duties in Paris and the demands of Labour, recalled Sir Boyle
Roche's bird, or the circus performer riding two horses at once. In
Parliament the interpretation of election pledges occupied a good deal of
time, and Mr. Bonar Law twice declared the policy of the Government in
regard to indemnities as being to demand the largest amount that Germany
could pay, but not to demand what we knew she couldn't pay. It would have
saved him a great deal of trouble if at the General Election the Government
spokesmen had insisted as much upon the second half of the policy as they
did on the first. Earnest appeals for economy were made from the Treasury
Bench on the occasion of the debate on the Civil Service Estimates, now
swollen to five times their pre-war magnitude, and were heartily applauded
by the House. To show how thoroughly they had gone home, Mr. Adamson, the
Labour Leader, immediately pressed for an increase in the salaries of
Members of Parliament.

[Illustration:

OVERWEIGHTED

PRESIDENT WILSON: "Here's your olive branch. Now get busy."

DOVE OF PEACE: "Of course, I want to please everybody, but isn't this a bit
thick?"]

[Illustration: HOW TO BRIGHTEN THE PERIOD OF REACTION

MOTHER (to son who has fought on most of the Fronts): "Don't you know what
to do with yourself, George? Why don't you 'ave a walk down the road,
dear?"

FATHER: "Ah, 'e ain't seen the corner where they pulled down Simmondses'
fish-shop, 'as 'e. Ma?"]

On the Rhine the efforts of our army of occupation to present the stern and
forbidding air supposed to mark our dealings with the inhabitants were
proving a lamentable failure. You can't produce a really good imitation of
a Hun without lots of practice. Gloating is entirely foreign to the nature
of Thomas Atkins, and he could not pass a child yelling in the gutter
without stooping to comfort it. At home his education was proceeding on
different lines. The period of reaction had set in, and unwonted exertions
were necessary to stimulate his interest. Such artless devices were,
however, preferable to the pastime, already fashionable in more exalted
circles, of kicking a total stranger round the room to the accompaniment of
cymbals, a motor siren, and a frying pan.

After a month of madness it was not to be wondered at that we should have a
month of muzzling, though the enforcement of the order might have been
profitably extended from dogs to journalists. The secrecy maintained by the
Big Four--a phrase invented by America--the conflict of the idealists with
the realists, and the temporary break-away of the Italian wrestler,
Orlando, were bound to excite comment. But a shattered world could not be
rebuilt in a day, with Bolshevist wolves prowling about the Temple of
Peace, and the Dove at sea between the Ark and Archangel. The Covenant of
the League of Nations, though in a diluted form, had at last taken shape,
the Peace Machine had got a move on, and the Premier's spirited, if not
very dignified, retaliation on the newspaper snipers led to an abatement of
unnecessary hostilities, though the pastime of shooting policemen with
comparative impunity still flourished in Ireland, and the numbers and cost
of our "army of inoccupation" still continued to increase. Innumerable
queries were made in Parliament on the subject of the unemployment dole,
but the announcement that the Admiralty did not propose to perpetuate the
title "Grand Fleet" for the principal squadron of His Majesty's Navy passed
without comment. The Grand Fleet is now a part of the History that it did
so much to make.

May and June were "hectic" months, in which the reaction from the fatigues
and restraints of War found vent in an increased disinclination for work,
encouraged by a tropical sun. These were the months of the resumption of
cricket, the Victory Derby, the flood of honours, and the flying of the
Atlantic, with a greater display of popular enthusiasm over the gallant
airmen who failed in that feat than over the generals who had won the War.
They were also the months of the duel between Mr. Smillie and the Dukes,
the discovery of oil in Derbyshire, the privileged excursion into War
polemics of Lord French, unrest in Egypt, renewed trouble with the police,
and a shortage of beer, boots and clothes.

[Illustration: "END OF A PERFECT 'TAG'"]

But though the Big Four had been temporarily reduced to a Big Three by
Italy's withdrawal, and though M. Clemenceau, Mr. Lloyd George, and
President Wilson had all suffered in prestige by the slow progress of the
negotiations, Versailles, with the advent of the German delegates, more
than ever riveted the gaze of an expectant world. To sign or not to sign,
or, in the words of Wilhelm Shakespeare, _Sein oder nicht sein: hier ist
die Frage_--that was the problem which from the moment of his famous
opening speech Count Brockdorff-Rantzau was up against. But, as the days
wore on, in spite of official impenitence and the double breach of the
Armistice terms by the scuttling of the German war-ships at Scapa and the
burning of the French flags at Berlin, the force of "fierce reluctant
truculent delay" was spent against the steadily growing volume of national
acquiescence, culminating in the decision of the Weimar Assembly, the tardy
choice of new delegates, and the final scene in the Hall of Mirrors,
haunted by the ghosts of 1871.

Writing at the moment of the Signature of Peace and in deep thankfulness
for the relief it brings to a stricken world, Mr. Punch is too old to jazz
for joy, but he is young enough to face the future with a reasoned
optimism, born of a belief in his race and their heroic achievements in
these great and terrible years. Victory took us by surprise; and we were
less prepared for Peace at that moment than we had ever been for War. And
just as in the first days of the fighting we went astray, running after the
cry "Business as usual," so to-day we are making as bad a mistake when we
run after "Pleasure as usual"--or rather more than usual. But we soon
revised that early error, and we shall not waste much time about revising
this. For though we lacked imagination then, and still lack it, we have the
gift, perhaps even more useful if less showy, of commonsense. And when
commonsense is found in natures that are honest and hearts that are clean,
it may make mistakes, but not for long. No, the spirit which won the War is
not going to fail us at this second call. Perhaps we have only been waiting
for the actual coming of Peace to settle down to our new and greater task.

But let us never forget the debt, unpaid and unpayable, to our immortal
dead and to the valiant survivors of the great conflict, to whom we owe
freedom and security and the possibility of a better and cleaner world.

[Illustration: GHOSTS AT VERSAILLES]



INDEX


  "According to plan,"
  Admirals, retired, accept commissions in R.N.R.
  Admiralty and Zeebrugge despatches
  Africa, German South-West, Botha makes clean sweep in
  After one Year
  Airmen, Allied
    Bombard Karlsruhe
    German, increased activity of
  Air Raids
    Daylight, extend to London
    Public to be warned
  Aisne, Battle of
  Alarming spread of bobbing
  Albert, King of Belgium
    Tribute to
    Victorious on Flanders coast
  Allenby, General
    Advances steadily
    Captures Damascus
    Enters Jerusalem
  Allied Council, new, formed
  Allotment workers
  Alsace-Lorraine reunited to France
  Also Ran
  America
    Enters War
    War of Notes
  American, an, interviews German Crown Prince
  American Troops
    Enter firing line
    First land in France
  Ammunition expended round Neuve Chapelle
  Amundsen, Roald, prepares for trip to North Pole
  Ancre, British push extends to
  Anglia, East, air-raids in
  Antwerp, Fall of
  Anzac, British heroism at
  Armenia, martyrdom of
  Armentières, Germans break through at
  Armistice
    Big Ben breaks silence
    How England took news of
    Signed
    Women ring church bells
  Armistice Day
  Army Signalling Alphabet
  Asquith, Mr.
    Ceases to be Prime Minister
    Discusses new Votes of Credit
    Goes to Ireland
    Promises to purge Peerage of Enemy Dukes
    Recants hostility to Women's suffrage
    Rejected at General Election
  Athens, riot in
  "Au Revoir!"
  Australians, valour of
  Austria
    Defeated by Serbia
    Defeated on Italian front
    Gives in
    Issues Peace Note
    Sues for Peace
    Threatens Roumania
  Austrians driven from  Belgrade

  Bad Dream, A
  Baghdad, taken by British
  Balfour, Mr.
    Appointed First Lord
    Returns from U.S.A.
  Balkans, irrelevant news from
  Banana, return of the
  Bapaume
    Germans take
    Recaptured by Allies
  Beatty, Admiral, German Fleet surrenders to
  Belgium
    Opposes German invasion
    Resurrection of
  Belgrade occupied by enemy
  Bennett, Mr. Arnold, appointed Director of Propaganda
  Berlin
    Bombed
    French flags burnt at
    Revolution breaks out
    Strikes in, suppressed
  Bernstorff, Count
    Mendacity of
    Promotes strikes in U.S.A.
  Best Smell of All, the
  Bethmann-Hollweg dismissed,
  Betrayed,
  Big Four's secrecy,
  Big Push, The,
  Billing, Mr. Pemberton
    Elected for Mid-Herts,
    Offers to raid enemy aircraft bases.
    Suspended from House of Commons,
  Birdwood, General,
  Birrell, Mr., apologia of,
  Bismarck, Prince,
  Bissing, Baron von,
    Reported dead,
    Retires from Belgium,
  Bloaters, unprecedented price of,
  _Blücher_, the, sunk by British,
  Blume, General von, depreciates American intervention,
  Boat-race, Oxford and Cambridge, suspended,
  Bobbing, Alarming spread of,
  Bordeaux, Paris Government removed to,
  Botha, General
    Enters War,
    Makes clean sweep in S.W. Africa,
  Bottomley, Mr. Horatio, visits France,
  Bravo, Belgium,
  Brazil enters War,
  Bread, curtailment of,
  Brest-Litovsk
    Conference,
    Taken by enemy,
    Treaty signed,
  British Expeditionary Force Lands in France,
  Brockdorff-Rantzau, Count,
  Bruges reoccupied by Allies,
  Brusiloff, General
    Opens new Russian offensive,
    Successful against Austrians,
  Brussels
    Fall of,
    Murder of Edith Cavell at,
  Buckmaster, Lord, appointed Lord Chancellor,
  Bukarest, fall of,
  Bulgaria surrenders,
  Bulgarians smashed by Allies,
  Bull-dog Breed, the,
  Bungalows, Government, increase of,
  Burns, Mr. John, re-emerges,
  Byng, General,
    Victory at Cambrai,
  Byron, Lord, and Greece,
  By special request,

  Cabinet pool salaries,
  Cadet battalions housed in colleges,
  Caligny, Americans at,
  Callousness of smart people,
  Cambrai
    Byng's victory at,
    Recaptured by Allies,
  Cambridge, Cadet battalions at,
  Camouflage, new art of,
  Caporetto, enemy break through at,
  "Captain of Koepenick" reported dead,
  Carson, Sir Edward
    Pays tribute to Major Redmond,
    Resigns Office,
  Casement, Sir Roger, and German Kaiser,
  Castlenau, General,
  Casualties, British,
  Cavell, Edith
    Murder of,
    Names of her principal assassins,
  Cecil, Lord Robert, appointed Minister of Blockade,
  Celestial Dud, the,
  Censorship and War Correspondents,
  Challenge, the,
  Chamberlain, Mr. Austen, resigns office,
  Champagne, French offensive at,
  Chemin des Dames, Germans capture,
  Children of Consolation,
  Children's Peace,
  China, food prices in,
  Christmas
    Musings, Punch's,
    Truce and fraternisation,
  Church bells requisitioned,
  Churchill, Mr. Winston
    Appointed Minister of Munitions,
    Dardanelles expedition,
    Paints landscapes,
    Rejoins his regiment,
    Resigns Duchy of Lancaster,
    Retires to Duchy of Lancaster,
  Civilian, the, and the War Office,
  Civil Service Estimates,
  Clemenceau, M.
    Attempted assassination of,
    Tribute to,
  Clyde, labour troubles on the,
  Coal Commission appointed,
  Coalition Government
    Formed,
    Leaders' pledges,
  Coalitionists triumph at General Election,
  Coat that didn't come off, the,
  Cologne, Archbishop of, and the Kaiser,
  Combles taken by Allies,
  Coming Army, the,
  Commission
    To inquire into Dardanelles expedition,
    To inquire into Mesopotamian expedition,
  "Complete accord,"
  Compulsory rationing a fact,
  Comrades in Victory,
  Conscientious Objectors in Non-combatant Corps,
  Constables, special, guard King's highway,
  Constantine, King of Greece
    Abdicates,
    Contemplates abdication,
    Forms Cabinet of Professors,
    Mr. Asquith's appeal to,
    To receive £20,000 a year,
    Treated tenderly,
  Contemptibles, the old,
  Corn Production Bill,
  Coronel avenged,
  Correspondents, Mr. Punch's,
  Cradock, Admiral,
  Crank, Whip's definition of a,
  Craonne taken by French,
  "Credibility index,"
  Crown Prince, German
    American interviews,
    Common brigand, a,
    Has misgivings,
    In exile,
  Cuba declares war on Austria,
  Cuffley, Zeppelin brought down at,

  _Daily Mail_, candour of,
  _Daily News_ and _Punch_,
  _Daily Telegraph_, Lord Lansdowne's letter to,
  Damascus captured by Allies,
  Dance of Death, the,
  Danube, Serbians reach the,
  Dardanelles Commission,
  Dawn of Doubt, the,
  Daylight Saving,
    Bill passed,
  Death Lord, the,
  Debeney, General,
    Praises Americans,
  Defence of the Realm Act,
  (De)merit, the reward of,
  Demobilisation commences,
  Derby, Lord
    Director of Recruiting,
    Minister of War,
  Dernburg, Dr., his picture of German innocents,
  _Deutschland_, German submarine, exploits of,
  Devonport, Lord
    Appointed Food Controller,
    Approves new dietary for prisoners,
    Retires as Food Controller,
  Diary--
    1914, August,
          September,
          October,
          November,
          December,
    1915, January,
          February,
          March,
          April,
          May,
          June,
          July,
          August,
          September,
          October,
          November,
          December,
    1916, January,
          February,
          March,
          April,
          May,
          June,
          July,
          August,
          September,
          October,
          November,
          December,
    1917, January,
          February,
          March,
          April,
          May,
          June,
          July,
          August,
          September,
          October,
          November,
          December,
    1918, January,
          February,
          March,
          April,
          May,
          June,
          July,
          August,
          September,
          October,
          November,
  Die Nacht am Rhein,
  Dogger Bank,
    German reverse off,
  Domestic servant's philosophy,
  Dominions, loyalty of,
  Douai regained by Allies,
  Drake's Way,
  Drocourt-Quéant switchline breached by Allies,
  Dud, the,
  Duke, Mr., retires from Irish Chief Secretaryship,
  Dumba, Dr., promotes strikes in U.S.A.,
  Dunraven, Lord, excuses Irishmen,
  Dynastic Amenities,

  Easter offering, the,
  Economy, appeals for,
  Editor of the _Vorwärts_ arrested,
  Education Bill
    Second reading of,
    Lord Haldane lectures on,
  Ekaterinburg, Ex-Tsar and family murdered at,
  _Emden_ sunk by the _Sydney_,
  Emmas, the two,
  Empire, indispensable in winning War,
  End of a perfect "Tag,"
  England
    Tribute to, by _New York Life_,
    War could not have been won without,
  Enver Pasha goes to Medina,
  Epilogue,
  Erzerum falls to Russians,
  Euphemists,
  Excursionist, the,
  Exile, the Irish,

  "F.E." appointed Lord Chancellor,
  _Falaba_, the, sunk by German submarine,
  Falkland Islands,
    Battle of,
  Farmer and Farm Labourer,
  Far-reaching effect of the Russian Push, the,
  Ferdinand, King of Bulgaria
    Abdicates,
    Declares war on Serbia,
    Goes to Vienna,
    Inscrutability of,
  Fidgety Wilhelm, the story of,
  Fifth British Army, Germans break through,
  Final, the,
  Fisher, Lord, will not give explanations,
  Fisher, Mr., eulogised,
  Flag days,
  Flanders coast evacuated by Germans,
  Fleet, German, surrenders,
  Flight that failed,
  Flying of the Atlantic,
  Foch, General
    Appointed Generalissimo of Allied Forces,
    Arranges Armistice,
    Made a G.C.B.,
    Receives German envoys,
    Tribute to,
  Food at the Front,
    Control, public for,
    Production, urgency for increased,
    Question discussed in Parliament,
    Question in Germany,
    Restriction,
    Stocks increasing,
  Ford, Mr. Henry
    Offers his works to American authorities,
    Visits Europe,
  For Neutrals--For Natives,
  Fort Douaumont falls,
  Fourth of July celebrated in France,
  France, destruction and desolation of,
  France's Day,
  Franchet d'Esperey, General,
  Francis Joseph, Emperor, dies,
  French, General
    Appointed Viceroy of Ireland,
    His "contemptible little army,"
    Relinquishes his command,
    Responsible for Home Defence against enemy aircraft,
  Fryatt, Captain, murder of,
  Funchal, U-boats busy at,

  Gaiety at military hospitals,
  Gallipoli,
    Allies land in,
    Casualties in,
    Complete evacuation of,
    Discomforts of,
  Garibaldi still an animating force in Italy,
  Gaul to the New Caesar,
  Gaza taken by British,
  Geddes, Sir Eric
    Defends Admiralty,
    First Lord,
  General Election,
  General Janvier,
  Geography taught by War,
  George V. of England
    Abolishes German titles held by family,
    His House to be known as Windsor,
    Sets a fine example,
    Visits Front,
  George, Mr. Lloyd
    Appointed Minister of Munitions,
    Defines British policy,
    Deputed to confer with Irish leaders,
    Expounds plan for Irish Convention,
    Prime Minister,
    Secretary for War,
    Suffers in prestige,
    Triumph of,
    Warns peacemongers,
  Gerard, Mr., Reminiscences of,
  German
    "Frightfulness,"
    General Staff and set-backs,
    Substitutes,
  Germany
    Campaign of Falsehood in,
    Civil War in,
    Fleet surrenders,
    "German Truth Society" founded,
    Great mistake of,
    Hints to Italy,
    Ill-treats prisoners,
    Indulges in reprisals,
    Jealous of _Lusitania_ records,
    Laments over Allied blockade,
    Lunatics called up for service,
    Mutiny at Kiel,
    New Peace offensive,
    Old, contrasted,
    Peace overtures,
    Signs armistice,
    Signs peace,
    Sinks two hospital ships,
    Sprays British soldiers with flaming petrol,
    Squirts boiling pitch over Russians,
    Torpedoes Neutral merchant ships,
    Warns _Punch_,
  Ghosts at Versailles,
  God (and the Women) our shield,
  _Goeben_, disaster to the,
  _Good Hope_, H.M.S., sunk,
  Gothas, activities of,
  Gouraud, General,
  Governesses, English, revelations of,
  Grandcourt, taken by British,
  Grand Fleet, ceaseless vigil of,
    Title, passes.
  Grapes of Verdun, the,
  Great incentive, a,
  Greece
    Dominated by pro-German Court,
    Hampers Allies,
    Territory violated by Bulgarian troops,
    Ultimatum presented to,
  Greenwich time applied to Ireland,
  Grey, Sir Edward
    Dissatisfied with Neutrals,
    Statements _re_ France and Belgium,
  Grimsby fishermen's fight,
  Guy Fawkes Day, no fireworks on,
  Gwynn, Capt., undertakes to raise Irish brigade,

  Haig, Sir Douglas
    Commander-in-Chief of British Armies in France,
    Issues a Dispatch,
    Issues historic order,
  Haldane, Lord
    Debt to, for Territorials,
    Lectures on Education,
    Retires from Chancellorship,
  Hamlet, U.S.A.,
  _Hampshire_, the, mined,
  Handyman, A,
  Hardinge Report, Lords discuss the,
  Harvest, a successful,
  Haunted ship,
  Havre, Belgian Government removed to,
  Hay, Ian, book by,
  Healy, Mr. Tim, champions Government,
  Held!
  Heligoland Bight,
    Naval engagement in,
  Hertling, Erzberger's campaign against Chancellor,
  Hidden Hand, the,
  Hindenburg, Marshal von
    Assumes command of Austrian troops,
    Presented with house,
    Retreats on Western Front
  Hindenburgitis
  Hindenburg line breached
  His latest
  Home Front, the
    Derby, Lord, most prominent man on
    Drink, a dangerous enemy
    Education of those on
    Flower-beds sacrificed
    Khaki weddings
    London Police strike
    Pessimists, cure for
    Railway Travelling, discomforts of
    Trials of mistresses on
  Hooge, British success at
  Horne, General
  Hotels commandeered
  House of Commons
    Attends church
    Characteristics of
  How to brighten the period of reaction
  Hunding line
  Hun to Hun
  Hyde Park used for training troops

  India, "lonely soldiers" in
  Indian troops
  Infectious hornpipe, the
  Influenza, Spanish
  In honour of the British Navy
  In reserve
  Inseparable, the
  Invasion by sea, English Press fears
  Ireland
    Debate on, in Parliament
    Dominates proceedings in Parliament
    Exempted from Military Service Bill
    Greenwich time applied to
    Insurrection in West of
    Insurrectionist leaders executed
    Irreconcilables triumph at General Election
    Maxwell, Sir John, appointed to supreme command
    Nationalists attack Sir John Maxwell
    Placed under martial law
  Irish Convention
    Exile, the
    Harvest labourers
  Italy
    Bainsizza plateau saved
    Declares war on Austria
    Push on the Isonzo

  Jaffa, British in
  James, Mr. Henry
    Adopts British nationality
    Tribute to England by
  Jazz, outbreak of
  Jellicoe, Lord, retires from post of First Sea Lord
  Jericho captured by Allies
  Jerusalem captured by British
  Joffre, General, announces rolling back of enemy
  John, Mr. Augustus, paints Mr. Lloyd George's portrait
  Jones, Mr. Kennedy
    Declares beer a food
    Resignation of
  Journalists visit the Fleet
  Jutland, Battle of

  Kaiser, German
    Abdicates
    Absent from Francis Joseph's funeral
    Attila's understudy
    Blasphemer and Hypocrite
    Denies responsibility for War
    Disappointed with Allah
    Encourages war on non-combatants
    First War birthday
    Flees to Holland
    Foiled before Nancy
    Has another grandson
    Murderer of innocents
    Orders blockade of England
    Poses as friend of the people
    Pro-Socialist
    _Punch's_ views on
    Refrains from active participation in military operations
    Reprimands Prince Frederick Leopold of Prussia
    Sorry for France
    Speech to Eton College Volunteers
    Talks of his conscience
  Kaiser, Ex-, saws trees
  Karl, Emperor of Austria's suggestion _re_ Alsace-Lorraine
  Karlsruhe bombarded by Allied airmen
  Kerensky, appointed head of Russian Provisional Government
    Overthrown
  Keyes, Admiral, locks up German submarines
  Kiel, mutiny at
  Kipling, Mr.
  Kitchener, Lord
    Asks for more men
    Death of
    Eulogies of
    Gives frugal information to Lords
    Meets critics in Parliament
    Obtains 1,000,000 men
    Starts on the _Hampshire_ for Russia
    War Minister
  Kluck, General von, failure of
  _Kölnische Zeitung_ and _Punch_
  Kühlmann, von, fall of
  Kultur, the reward of
  Kut captured by British

  Labour
    Demands of
    Real voice of
    Representation of
    Troubles
  Lansdowne, Lord, writes to _Daily Telegraph_
  Laon, recaptured by Allies
  Last Throw, the
  Law, Mr. Bonar
    Announces air-raid reprisals
    Appointed Leader of the House
    Declares policy _re_ indemnities
    Introduces Budget
    Made Chancellor of the Exchequer
    Travels to France by aeroplane
    Will not discuss military situation,
  League of Nations takes shape
  _Leinster_, the, sunk by Germans
  Lenin
    Appearance of
    Attempted assassination of
    Installed as dictator
  Liberators, the
  Lichnowsky's disclosures
  Liége, Fall of
  Lies, German campaign of
  Lighting Orders, enforcement of
  Lille regained by Allies
  Lissauer, Herr, decorated by Kaiser
  London, daylight air-raids extend to
  Lonely soldiers
  Long, Mr. Walter, his remedy for carping criticism
  Loos, fighting at
  Lord Mayor's banquet simplified
  Lost chief, the
  Lost land, a
  Louvain, sack of
  Lovelace, the modern
  Ludendorff resigns
  _Lusitania_, the
    American victims
    Sinking of
  Luxuries, imports of, curtailed
  Lynch, Colonel, undertakes to raise Irish brigade

  MacCabean Boy Scouts
  MacNeill, Mr. Swift
    Endeavours to purge peerage of enemy dukes
    Resents setting up of War Cabinet
  Made in Germany
  Mangin, General
  Manifesto of German artists and professors
  Marine, Mercantile, tribute paid to by Parliament
  Marne
    German push to
    Germans again hurled back across
  Mary, Queen of England, tribute to
  Massacres by Bolshevists
  Maude, General
    Captures Kut
    Death of
  Maunoury, General
  Maurice affair, the
  Max, Burgomaster of Brussels
  Max, Prince
    German Chancellor
    Issues pacific manifesto
  McKenna, Mr.
    Chancellor of Exchequer
    Introduces Bill for raising War Loan
  Meatless days
  Men of forty-one wanted
  Merchant ships
    Dutch, sunk by German submarine
    Neutral, torpedoed by German submarines
  Mesopotamia, tide turning in
  Messines Ridge captured
  Michaelis, Dr.
    Appointed German Chancellor
    Dismissed
  Military Service Bill
    Becomes law
    Ireland exempted from
  Milner, Lord
    on misleading war news
  Minesweepers
    honour due to
  Ministry of Munitions created
  Missing
  Mistresses
    trials of
  Monastir
    Fall of
    Recaptured by Serbians and French
  _Monmouth_, H.M.S.
    sunk
  Mons
    British reach
    Retreat from
  Monte Sabotino captured by Italians
  Moon our enemy
  Morning Hate
    Prussian household having its
  Mort Homme
    carnage at
  Mottoes and proverbs
  Mule humour
  Müller, Captain
    a chivalrous antagonist
  Munitions
    smart people work at
  Museum, British
    war spirit at
  Museums, London
    closed
  Mutiny of sailors at Kiel
  Muzzling Order

  Namur
    Fall of
  Narrows, the,
    failure to get through
  National Industrial Conference
  National Party, the new
  National Registration Bill
    second Reading of
  National Thrift Campaign
  Navy
    its efficient work
  Need of men, the
  Neuve Chapelle captured by British
  New Armies
    Composition of
    Education of
    Training of
  New Conductor, the
  New Guinea taken by Allies
  New language, the
  Newmarket
    racing stopped at
  Newspaper readers
    "credibility index" for
  Nicholas, Emperor of Russia
    Abdicates
    Generalissimo of his armies
  Nineteen-nineteen Model, the
  Northcliffe, Lord
    and his correspondence
    visits U.S.A.
  North Sea
    U-boats active in
  Novo-Georgievsk taken by enemy
  Noyon recaptured by Allies

  Officer, wounded
    experiences of
  Officers, young
    splendid record of
  Oil discovered in Derbyshire
  Old Man of the Sea
  Old-timer, the
  Omen of 1908
  On Earth--Peace
  One up!
  On the Black List
  Opera by English composer produced
  Optimist, the
  Order of British Empire
  Orlando, Italian Statesman
  Ostend
    Naval exploit at
    Regained by Allies
  O.T.C. and the Universities
  Our Man
  Our persevering officials
  "Ourselves Alone"
    motto of Sinn Fein
  Overweighted
  Oxford
    cadet battalions at

  Pacifists
    Dilemma of
    Impressed by Germany's lamentations
  Paris
    Exodus to
    Peace Conference at
    Shelled by long-distance gun
  Parliament
    Assembles
    Dissolution of
    Extension of life of
    Houses of, Stars and Stripes and Union Jack fly over
  Passchendaele Ridge stormed by British
  Peace
    Signed
    The children's
  Penny Postage gone
  Perfect Innocence
  Péronne
    British enter
    Fall of
    Recovered by Allies
  Persuading of Tino, the
  Pétain
    hero of Verdun
  Piave
    Italians cross the
  Picture galleries, London, closed
  Pill-boxes, German, made of British cement,
  Pitiful pose, a,
  Place in the moon, a,
  Place of Arms, a,
  Plain duty, a,
  Plumer, General
    Stands firm on the Piave,
    Victorious in Flanders,
  Poison gas, Germans use,
  Police, London, strike,
  Political truce,
  Politician who addressed the troops, the,
  _Pommern_, the, sunk by British,
  Portugal enters War,
  Posters
    And Publicity,
    And War Loans,
    Newspaper, absence of,
  Press
    Bureau,
    Campaign against Mr. Asquith,
    German, humours of,
  Prince of Wales
    Relief Fund,
    Takes his seat,
  Prinkipo, proposed conference at,
  Prisoner, British, sentenced for calling Germans "Huns,"
  Prisoners
    German, arrive in Ireland,
    German offer _re_,
  Propaganda, German, in United States,
  Prophecy
    An old Arab,
    _Punch's, re_ Kaiser,
  Proportional Representation rejected,
  _Punch's_
    Cartoons and the _Kölnische Zeitung,_
    Correspondents,

  _Queen Elizabeth_, H.M.S., attacks in Dardanelles,
  Queries, futile, to wounded soldiers,
  Queues
    Disappear,
    For various commodities,
    "Queue War,"

  Rabbit, the elusive,
  Raids by sea,
  Rasputin, sinister figure of.
  Rationing, compulsory,
  Rawlinson, General,
  Realisation,
  Reconstruction,
  Recruit who took to it kindly,
  Recruiting, posters to aid,
  Redmond, Major William
    Falls in Flanders,
    Makes thrilling speech,
    Tribute to, in Commons,
  Redmond, Mr. John, death of,
  Reichstag not blind to facts,
  Rejuvenating effect of Zeppelins,
  Reprisals on German cities advocated,
  Repudiation, the,
  Return of the Mock Turtle-Dove,
  Reunited,
  Reventlow, Count, and the Kaiser,
  Reward of Kultur, the,
  Rheims Cathedral bombarded,
  Rhine, British Army's watch on the,
  Rhondda, Lord
    Appointed Food Controller,
    Death of,
  Richter, Dr. Hans, clamours for British extinction,
  Riga, Gulf of, German defeat in,
  Riga occupied by Germans,
  Rivers, French, find their voices,
  Roberts, Mr., Minister of Labour,
  Roberts, Lord
    Death of,
    Germans pay tribute to,
    His reticence,
  Robertson, Sir William
    Accepts Eastern Command at home,
    Appointed Chief of Staff,
    Displaced,
  Robinson, Lieutenant, brings down Zeppelin,
  Roosevelt, Mr., invents new invective,
  Roumania joins Allies,
  Royal Family, British, fine example of,
  Royal Flying Corps,
    Great losses of,
  Running amok,
  Rupprecht, Crown Prince, entertains journalists,
  Russia
    Army retreats,
    Bolshevist _coup d'état._
    Bolshevist  régime  stained  with massacres,
    Collapses,
    Dark hour of,
    Débacle in,
    End of Tsardom
    Ex-Tsar and family shot,
  Russia (_contd_.)
    Provisional Government dissolved
    Recovering herself
    Republic proclaimed
  Russian Army said to have passed through England

  Saint-Quentin recaptured by Allies
  St. James's Park, lake in, drained
  St. Mihiel salient flattened out by Americans
  Salonika
    Allies land at
    Front
    Triumphant advance by Allies on
  Saluting abolished in Russian Army
  Sands run out, the
  San Gabriele, Italian success at
  Santa Klaus, _Punch_ welcomes
  Scapa Flow, German Fleet surrenders at
    Germans scuttle their warships at
  Scarborough bombarded
  Scott, Admiral Percy
    Expert adviser to Lord French
  Scrapper scrapped, the
  Secret
    Diplomacy
    Session
  Sedan, American Army reaches
  Serbia
    Austrians and Germans invade
    Liberation of
    Overrun
  Servant
    Domestic, problem
    Officer's description of
  Sevastopol, Germans reach
  Shaw, Mr. Bernard
    Colossal arch-super-egotist
    Visits Front
  Shirkers' War News
  Shortt, Mr., appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland
  Siegfried line
  Sinn Fein
    Creed of
    Excesses
    Plays at war
  Smart people, callousness of
  Smith-Dorrien, General, at Le Cateau
  Smuts, General, commands in East Africa
  Soissons, Germans capture
  Soldier and civilian
  Soldiers, British
    Cannot imitate Hun
    Ordeal on Western Front
    Tribute to
  Solid, xiv
  Some bird
  Somme
    Battle of the, commences
    Guns heard in England
    Results of Battle of the
  "Song of Plenty"
  South-West Africa
    German, gives in to Allies
    Germans poison wells in
  Spanish influenza
  Speaker of House of Commons re-elected
  Spee, Admiral von, goes down with his squadron
  Spies, German
  _Spurlos versenkt_
  Spy-hunting in East Anglia
  Spy play, emergence of
  Storm driven
  Strain on the affections
  Strasbourg
  Strauss, Herr, does not sign German artists' manifesto
  Study of Prussian household having its Morning Hate
  Sturdee, Admiral
  Submarine frightfulness, the new, commences
  Submarines, British, in the Baltic
  Submarines, German
    Cornered
    Grimsby's fight against
    Locked up
    Torpedo British battleships
  Suffragists' cause triumphs
  Suits, standard
  Sumner, Lord, on Houses of Parliament
  Sunlight-loser, the
  Suvla Bay, British heroism at
  Sweden assists German Secret Service
  Sweepers of the sea
  Swooping from the West

  Tanks, coming of the
  Tannenberg, Russian repulse at
  Tares, the Sower of
  T.B.D.
  Territorials
    Doing great work in India
    Efficiency and keenness of
    Mobilised
  Teutons, panegyric of, in _Die Welt_
  Thiepval taken by Allies
  Threatened Peace Offensive,
  Thrift campaign,
  Tirpitz, Grand Admiral, dismissed,
  Tisza, Count, admits defeat,
  To all at home,
  Tommy, British
    Needs no vocabulary,
    Philosophy of,
  To the Glory of France,
  Townshend, General
    Besieged in Kut,
    Heroism of his force,
  Tramcar humour,
  Tramps disappear from England,
  Transitional period,
  Trawlers, honour due to,
  Trenchard, General, retires from Air Staff,
  Trenches, sportsmanship of,
  Trench warfare commences,
  Trials of a camouflage officer,
  Trotsky released from internment,
  Tsing-tau, Japanese take,
  Tuber's repartee, the,
  Turkey
    Appeals to Berlin for funds,
    Defeated in Caucasus,
    Defeated on Suez Canal,
    Enters war,
    Granted armistice,
  Two Germanies, the,
  "Two heads with but a single thought,"

  U-boat interned at Cadiz,
  U-boats
    Appear off U.S.A.,
    Sir E. Geddes's diagram _re_,
  Ulstermen and Conscription,
  Unauthorised flirtation, an,
  Unconquerable,
  Unemployment dole,
  United States
    Accused of stealing cypher key,
    German propaganda in,
    Issues warning Note on neutral trading,
    No peace with Hohenzollerns,
  Unsinkable Tirp., the,

  V.A.D., tributes to,
  Venizelos, M., resumes power,
  Verdun
    Germans closing in on,
    Struggle around, begins,
    Triumph of French at,
  Versailles
    Conference,
    Council, foresight of,
    Peace signed at,
  Very much up,
  Victory!
  Vienna, peace kite-flying at,
  Villager, English, and prospects of invasion,
  Vimy Ridge, Canadians capture,
  Volunteers, training of,
  Von Pot and von Kettle,

  Wales, South
    Miners' strike,
    Provides recruits,
  Wanted--a St. Patrick,
  War
    Anniversaries of,
    Cabinet, Mr. Henderson resigns from,
    Changes wrought by,
    Conference of the Empire called,
    Daily cost of,
    Loans,
    News, the shirkers',
    Pictures,
    Propaganda, need for a, at home,
    Teaching geography,
    Vocabulary,
  Ward, Colonel, defends Compulsory Service Bill,
  Warsaw, Russians lose,
  Waterloo Campaign and Great War,
  Wayside Calvary, the,
  Weddings, khaki,
  Well done, the New Army,
  Wemyss, Sir Rosslyn, on R.N. and mercantile marine,
  Whigs and Tories, strife between, revived,
  Whitby bombarded,
  Wilhelm I.'s message to wife,
  Wilhelmshaven indefinitely closed,
  William o' the Wisp,
  Wilson, General, appointed Chief of Imperial Staff,
  Wilson, President
    And the _Lusitania_,
    Declines to be rushed,
    Forbearance of,
    His Fourteen Points,
    Last Note to Germany,
    Launches a new phrase,
  Wittenberg, ill-treatment of prisoners at,
  Wolff, mendacity of,
  Woman Power
  Women
     Belgian, used as a screen
     Driving vans
     Gardeners
     Licensed as taxi-drivers
     Obtain the Vote
     Opportunities taken by
     _Punch_ delighted at their varied work
     Undertake men's work,
     War and poetry,
  Word of ill-omen, a,
  Wotan line,
     Breached,
  Wounded, return of, to England,

  YPRES
     Germans repulsed at,
     Germans stopped at,
     Second battle of,
     Third battle of, commences,

  ZEEBRUGGE, naval exploit at,
  Zeppelin, Count, swears to destroy London,
  Zeppelins
     French bag several,
     One brought down at Cuffley,
     Plague of, stayed,
     Raid encourages emulation,





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