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Title: The Romance of the Red Triangle - The story of the coming of the red triangle and the service - rendered by the Y.M.C.A. to the sailors and soldiers of - the British Empire
Author: Yapp, Arthur Keysall
Language: English
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THE ROMANCE OF THE RED TRIANGLE
[Illustration: Y.M.C.A. AND GERMAN OBSERVATION STATION IN THE TREES AT
ACHIET-LE-PETIT]
THE ROMANCE OF THE RED TRIANGLE
THE STORY OF THE COMING OF THE
RED TRIANGLE AND THE SERVICE
RENDERED BY THE Y.M.C.A. TO THE
SAILORS AND SOLDIERS OF THE
BRITISH EMPIRE
BY
SIR ARTHUR K. YAPP, K.B.E.
Illustrations by
W. P. STARMER, EDGAR WRIGHT
AND OTHER ARTISTS
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
_DEDICATION_
_THIS book is affectionately dedicated to Y.M.C.A.
leaders and workers at home and abroad in grateful
appreciation of their faithful and loyal service.
Much of this work has been done out of sight, and
endless difficulties have had to be surmounted.
Names have not been mentioned in the book, but
the writer would like to express his personal
gratitude and appreciation to every one._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
THE COMING OF THE RED TRIANGLE 1
CHAPTER II
BLAZING THE TRAIL WITH THE RED TRIANGLE 19
CHAPTER III
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM 33
CHAPTER IV
THE ROMANCE OF FINANCE 39
CHAPTER V
THE LADIES OF THE RED TRIANGLE 63
CHAPTER VI
'GUNGA DIN' OF THE RED TRIANGLE 71
CHAPTER VII
IN THE TRAIL OF THE HUN 80
CHAPTER VIII
THE BARRAGE AND AFTER 108
CHAPTER IX
'LES PARENTS DES BLESSÉES' 118
CHAPTER X
CELLARS AND DUG-OUTS ON THE WESTERN FRONT 126
CHAPTER XI
CAMEOS FROM FRANCE 133
CHAPTER XII
STORIES OF 'LE TRIANGLE ROUGE' 146
CHAPTER XIII
THE RED TRIANGLE IN THE EAST 162
CHAPTER XIV
SIDE LINES OF THE RED TRIANGLE 175
CHAPTER XV
THE RED TRIANGLE AND THE WHITE ENSIGN 191
CHAPTER XVI
THE RELIGION OF THE RED TRIANGLE 195
CHAPTER XVII
STORIES OF THE INVERTED TRIANGLE 211
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RED TRIANGLE IN THE RECONSTRUCTION 236
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Y.M.C.A. and German observation station in the
trees at Achiet-le-Petit _Frontispiece_
PAGE
Hut in the grounds of the ruins of the
Hôtel-de-Ville at Arras 16
One of many Y.M.C.A. huts built under shell-fire 17
The first Y.M.C.A. over the German trenches on
the Somme battlefield 32
The Y.M.C.A. in the orchard at Albert 33
A refuge for the refugees 48
Y.M.C.A. marquee in the shell-swept Somme area 49
Y.M.C.A. in a ruined parish hall in Flanders, June,
1916 64
Bapaume-Cambrai road, with trees all cut down by
the Germans 65
The Red Triangle in the support trenches 80
'George Williams House' in the front trenches 81
A half-way house to the trenches 81
The Y.M.C.A. in a ruined warehouse. Shell-hole in
floor of canteen 96
A Y.M.C.A. cellar at Ypres 97
Hut in wilderness of destruction. Cutting the
ice in shell-holes for water for tea--winter,
1916-17 112
Ruined house used by Y.M.C.A., propped up by timber 113
Canadian Y.M.C.A. dug-out in a mine crater on Vimy
Ridge, 1917 128
A Canadian Y.M.C.A. dug-out near Vimy Ridge 129
A great boon to British Tommy--a Y.M.C.A. well under
shell-fire 144
The Cambridge dug-out 144
A refuge for the walking wounded 145
Y.M.C.A. motor kitchen behind the lines 160
Indian troops at the sign of the Red Triangle 161
A shakedown in a London hut 176
Relatives of the dangerously wounded are looked
after by the Y.M.C.A. in France 176
Y.M.C.A. night motor transport 177
Y.M.C.A. in the front-line dug-outs on the
Palestine Front 192
Y.M.C.A. dug-out and canteen on Palestine Front 193
The Y.M.C.A. at Basra, Mesopotamia 208
The Central Y.M.C.A., Baghdad 209
The Red Triangle in Jerusalem 224
The Hexham Abbey hut, Scheveningen, Holland 224
Salonica: winter on the Doiran Front, showing
Y.M.C.A. tent 225
A welcome Y.M.C.A. in the trenches 225
Y.M.C.A. for interned prisoners of war, Leysin,
Switzerland 232
CHAPTER I
THE COMING OF THE RED TRIANGLE
His Majesty congratulates the Association on the
successful results of its war work, which has done
everything conducive to the comfort and well-being
of the armies, supplying the special and peculiar
needs of men drawn from countries so different and
distant. It has worked in a practical, economical
and unostentatious manner, with consummate
knowledge of those with whom it has to deal. At
the same time the Association, by its spirit of
discipline, has earned the respect and approbation
of the military authorities.--HIS MAJESTY THE
KING.
IT was in the summer of 1901, in the old volunteer days, that the
Y.M.C.A. for the first time had its recreation tents at Conway in North
Wales. The Lancashire Fusiliers were in camp, and the men had thronged
the marquee all day, turning up in great force for the service that
Sunday evening. It seemed as if they would never tire of singing the old
familiar hymns, and when the time came for the address the attention of
every man was riveted from start to finish. At length the tent cleared,
and the men retired for the night. Now and then the chorus of a hymn
could be heard coming from a bell tent, but soon the 'Last Post'
sounded, and a few minutes later the plaintive notes of the bugle gave
the signal for 'Lights Out.' Thereupon two of the Y.M.C.A. leaders,
leaving the camp behind, walked up and down the sands of Morfa. It was a
perfect night; not a sound was to be heard except the gentle ripple of
the waves, three or four hundred yards away. The moon was near the full;
everything seemed almost as light as day, and the bold outline of the
Conway Mountain stood in clear relief against the sky. 'I wonder what
all this means,' said one of the two, referring to the impressive
service of the evening and to the crowds that had thronged the tents all
day. 'I have been wondering,' said he, 'if there is a great European
war looming in the distance, and if God is preparing the Y.M.C.A. for
some great work it is destined to perform then.' How often have those
words come back since the beginning of the war! God was indeed preparing
the Association for a work infinitely bigger than any of its leaders
knew or even dared to hope. In those days H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught
became Patron of our Military Camp Department, and he has ever since
been a warm friend.
* * * * *
How far distant now seem those early days of August 1914. For weeks
there had been rumours of war, but all arrangements had been completed
for the work of the Y.M.C.A. in the Territorial camps to proceed as
usual during the August holidays. Then came the order for mobilisation,
and on August the 4th a council of war was held at Headquarters,
attended by Association leaders from all parts of the country. Many of
the districts were in financial difficulties, owing to the sudden break
up of the summer camps, and the only possible policy was the one agreed
upon at the meeting--a common programme and a common purse. No one knew
where the men, or the money, were to come from, but it was decided to go
right ahead, and from that resolve there could be no turning back. It is
still true that 'He that saveth his life shall lose it, and he that
loseth his life shall find it.' In that great crisis, had the leaders of
the Y.M.C.A. stopped to consider first the immediate or future interests
of the Association, then the Association would have gone under, and
deservedly so. Britain was in danger, and her interests had to be
considered first.
What stirring days those were! We think of one tiny village to the
south-west of Salisbury Plain, with a normal population of two or three
hundred. Within a few days of the opening of hostilities, thirty-four
thousand men were dumped down in the immediate vicinity. They had no
tents, no uniforms, no rifles, nowhere to go, and nothing to do, for the
simple reason that England did not desire war and had not prepared for
it. The General in command had known the Y.M.C.A. in India, and came to
London to ask our help, which was gladly given. Huge recreation tents
were opened there, and all over the country. North, South, East, and
West, Britain was suddenly transformed into one armed camp, and the
Y.M.C.A. was never more needed than it was in those early days. Some of
the centres were very small, others very large. At the Y.M.C.A. in the
White City, for instance, it was no uncommon thing to see four or five
thousand men gathered together in the great hall. At the Crystal Palace,
too, and in many of the camps, the work was carried out on a very large
scale, whilst in other centres a farm building, a private house, or a
tiny tent met the need.
Thanks to the loyal co-operation and energy of Association leaders and
workers, two hundred and fifty of these centres were established within
ten days. They were dotted down all over the country, and every week
that passed by showed an increase in strength and in the number of
centres, until the sign of the Red Triangle was to be found in more than
two thousand centres in all parts of the United Kingdom, in every part
of the Empire, on every battle-front, and in some places where the
Allied flags do not yet fly. The hands of the Military in those days
were so full up with other things that they had little time to devote to
the recreation of the troops, and our help was warmly welcomed. We have
acted throughout in close co-operation with the Military, and we should
like to add our tribute of praise to the efficiency of the Military
machine, as we have come in touch with it. Much has been said during the
war as to the marvels of German organisation, and possibly not too much.
At the same time there is quite as much to be said in praise of British
organisation. Germany wanted a war whilst we did not. Germany prepared
for war, tirelessly, ceaselessly; with her eye on the goal--world-wide
dominion--she brought all her organising ability to bear on the
preparation for the war she was determined to force on humanity.
Britain, on the other hand, has had to improvise her war organisation
since war has been actually forced on her. A run round the great base
camps in France will show how wonderfully complete is that
organisation--transport, supply, commissariat. Of course there have been
mistakes, but singularly few under the circumstances. Many people are
very critical of the War Office, but those who know most of the
difficulties that have been overcome and the successes achieved, will be
the least inclined to join hands with the critics.
It is like a nightmare to think of that first winter of the war, with
its gales, rain and mud, and it was when the weather was at its worst
that the men of the first Canadian Contingent were encamped on Salisbury
Plain. It is difficult to conceive what they would have done, but for
the timely help of the Red Triangle. The roads were almost impassable,
and the mud in the vicinity of the camps appalling, but the Canadians
stuck it, and so did our leaders and workers. The tents were crowded to
their utmost capacity, but it was soon found that no tent could weather
the gales of Salisbury Plain in winter. That discovery led to the
evolution of the Y.M.C.A. hut. Wooden frames covered with canvas were
tried first of all, but they, too, were incapable of withstanding the
fury of the gales, and something much stronger had to be provided.
It meant a great deal to the country during that first winter of the war
that the men were happy and contented, because they had their leisure
hours pleasantly occupied, and because the most popular place in camp
was almost without exception the one that bore the sign of the Red
Triangle. And what did they find at the sign of the Red Triangle? They
found there an open house, a warm welcome, a place of recreation and
enjoyment, where they could meet their friends on terms thoroughly
cordial and unofficial. Coffee and buns were always a great attraction,
and as for music--the piano was hardly ever silent. Tommy Atkins loves a
good tune and loves a crowd; the quiet place does not so much appeal to
him. At the Y.M.C.A. he found diversion for his hours of leisure;
opportunity for study if he cared for it; libraries, classes, and
lectures. There, too, he found an expression of religious life that
appealed to him, the inspiration that comes from religion without the
controversy and sectarian bitterness which, alas! too often accompany
it, a religion to work by and a religion that can do things. Before the
war nobody had heard of our mystic sign, but within a few weeks letters
bearing it had found their way into hundreds of thousands of homes,
bringing joy and consolation wherever they went. That, in brief, is the
story of the coming of the Red Triangle. And what is its significance?
As the emblem of the war work of the Y.M.C.A. it has not been chosen by
chance, but because it exactly typifies the movement it represents. The
threefold needs of men are its concern, and its programme is adapted to
meet the needs of body, mind, and spirit, whilst its colour symbolises
sacrifice. In an old book of signs and wonders called _Mysterium
Magnum_ the inverted triangle appears as a symbol of the divine spirit,
and in the third year of the war a famous Belgian painter asked
'Qu'est-ce-que c'est--cet Y.M.C.A.?' and without waiting for an answer
went on to say that the Red Triangle meant emblematically--'Spirit
informing and penetrating matter,' which was, he supposed, the function
of the Y.M.C.A. 'The Y.M.C.A. is attempting the impossible,' said one of
its critics; 'it is building on the apex of the triangle.' Thank God it
is. Yes! and thank God it has achieved the impossible. If any one had
dared to foretell four years ago, a tithe of what has already been
accomplished, no one would have believed it. The secret of the inverted
triangle is that it is upheld by invisible hands, and it is the full
programme of the Red Triangle that appeals so irresistibly to the men.
If we were merely out to run a canteen, others could perhaps have done
the canteen work as well, or nearly as well, as the Y.M.C.A. Others
could run lectures for the troops, and others cater for their spiritual
needs, but it has been left to the Y.M.C.A. to formulate the appeal to
the whole man--Body, Mind, and Spirit--and the appeal to every man,
irrespective of creed or party. Every man is equally welcome in the
Y.M.C.A.--Protestant, Romanist, Anglican, Free-churchman, Jew,
Mohammedan, Buddhist, Hindoo, or Brahmin--the men of every religion and
no religion, and yet the religious note is ever dominant, though no
man's religion will ever be attacked from a Y.M.C.A. platform.
The story of the Red Triangle is, indeed, one of the great romances of
the war. Its work has never been regarded as an end in itself, but
rather as auxiliary to that of other organisations. It is auxiliary to
the Church, and its doors have been thrown wide open to the Padres of
all denominations. Protestants, Catholics, Jews--even Mohammedans--have
worshipped God in their own way within the hospitable walls of the
Association. It has been auxiliary to the official medical services of
the Army, the R.A.M.C., and the Red Cross--in hospitals and convalescent
camps, and with the walking wounded at the clearing stations at the
Front. It has arranged concerts and entertainments by the thousand for
patients and nurses; has looked after the friends of dangerously wounded
men, and has often handed over its huts to be used as emergency
hospitals; while in hosts of other ways which can never be recorded, it
has been able to render vitally important service. It has been auxiliary
to the Military machine at every turn of the war. In the midst of the
camp though not of it, its secretaries and workers conform to military
rules and are subject to discipline, although they are themselves
civilians. In this way the Association has provided the human touch, and
officers and men alike have appreciated the fact that there is one place
in camp where discipline through being temporarily relaxed, has been
permanently strengthened.
The Romance of the Red Triangle, like the story of the first crusade,
has been the romance of the pioneer. The Y.M.C.A. was first in the
field, though now there are many other organised societies and private
individuals doing similar work on the lines which it thought out and
proved to be practicable. Indeed, the whole story of the Y.M.C.A. has
been full of adventurous episodes of romance, not merely during the war,
but long before it, commencing seventy years ago, when George Williams
came as a boy from Somerset to London, and as one of a band of twelve
intrepid young men, founded the first branch of a movement destined to
spread to all corners of the world. It is only during these years of war
that the Society has fully come into its own, and received universal
recognition, but we do not forget that to those pioneers of the early
Victorian days and to the Y.M.C.A. leaders, who during the years before
the war hammered out a policy for work amongst soldiers in the Volunteer
and Territorial camps, the widespread movement of to-day is largely due.
To know what the Army thinks of the Y.M.C.A., one need only note, on the
one hand, the facilities given to the Association by officers in high
command; and on the other, how the N.C.O.'s and men--officers and
officer-cadets too--make use of the huts.
[Illustration: HUT IN THE GROUNDS OF THE RUINS OF THE HÔTEL-DE-VILLE AT
ARRAS]
Prior to one of our great advances in 1917, the district to be attacked
was reconstructed behind the line in a large map carefully worked out
on the ground, every road and path being clearly marked. Every trench,
redoubt, and dug-out; every hedge and ditch was recorded, and every gun
emplacement shown. 'Reserved for the Y.M.C.A.' was written over a vacant
plot near the centre of the map.
In France 'Le Triangle Rouge' is often called 'Les Ygrecs' (The Y's),
and the Red Triangle will pass the Association worker almost anywhere.
It sounds odd in the reserve trenches, amidst the roar of guns and the
scream of shells, to hear the sentry's challenge as we have heard it,
'Halt! who goes there?' 'Y.M.C.A.' 'Pass, Y.M., all's well!'
[Illustration: ONE OF MANY Y.M.C.A. HUTS BUILT UNDER SHELL-FIRE]
One of our workers in the valley of the Somme in 1917 was left behind,
as the troops advanced to follow up the line of the great German
retreat. For weeks he shared his Y.M.C.A. shanty with the rats, and
late one evening went for a two miles walk. A sentry challenged him, and
evidently regarded him with suspicion. After he had convinced the guard
of his identity, it was explained to him that three German prisoners
were at large, and one of them was known to be wearing a Y.M.C.A.
uniform. When he awoke that night in his rat-infested shanty it seemed
to him that if the three Huns chanced to know of his whereabouts, it
would not be a difficult thing for them to possess themselves of yet
another Y.M.C.A. uniform!
In the early days of the war it was agreed that no request for the help
of the Association, which on investigation proved a definite need to
exist, should be refused, and God honoured the faith of those who dared
to make the resolve. The way the movement has grown and is growing still
is nothing short of a romance, and the following pages tell the story of
service rendered under the sign of the Red Triangle to the men of His
Majesty's Forces, irrespective of class, creed, or party, in England and
north of the Border, in Wales and Ireland, on every battle-front and in
every base; amongst men of every colour and creed who are serving under
our great Flag--the Flag that stands for Freedom.
Possibly the greatest romance of all will be that dealing with the work
of the Red Triangle after the war. Who knows?
CHAPTER II
BLAZING THE TRAIL WITH THE RED TRIANGLE
Few organisations have done so much in caring for
the comfort and well-being of our soldiers as your
Associations. They have given invaluable help to
the Army, and have immeasurably lightened the
hardships which have to be endured by our troops.
In recognising the excellent work that has already
been done, I should like to wish you success in
that which you still propose to undertake. I
consider that your plans for after the war are not
the least important of your activities.--THE RIGHT
HON. DAVID LLOYD GEORGE, M.P.
THE Red Triangle is often to be found in unexpected places. 'A
wonderful, friendly old octopus, this Y.M.C.A.' was the way an
Australian put it, and it was not at all a bad description of the
ubiquitous Red Triangle. Tommy recognises it to-day as his club, his
meeting house, his home from home. It is his, and he knows it! It
touches him at every point and in almost every place. The recruit finds
it at his depôt, near his billet, and in the training camp where he
learns to be a soldier; indeed, it is part of the training, and an
important part, too. Passing through London or a great provincial city,
he can stay the night in one of the Y.M.C.A. hostels; he meets it again
at the English ports before he embarks for one of the fighting fronts;
it is there to greet him on the other side, not only at the ports of
entry and in the base camps, but on the lines of communication in
France, Italy, Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia, and right up the line, in
cellar or dug-out as well as in rest-camp and at railhead. If he should
have the misfortune to be wounded he may expect to find the Association
at the casualty clearing station or in the hospital, and later on in the
convalescent camp, or, if invalided out of the army, it will still stick
to him and befriend him at a time when he is likely to need a friend.
If he is numbered amongst the missing and finds himself in a prisoner of
war camp in Germany, even then he may not be beyond the outreach of the
Association. There is at least one redeeming feature to the prisoner of
war camp in Ruhleben in Germany, for right in the heart of it there is a
little brown hut with the Red Triangle and the letters 'Y.M.C.A.' on the
roof--one of several in Germany erected with American Y.M.C.A. money, at
a time when America was a neutral state, and run entirely by British
prisoners of war for the benefit of their fellow-Britishers, who also
have the misfortune to be prisoners of war.
It is little we can do for these brave lads who are wearing their hearts
out longing to hear the voices of those they love in the Homeland, but
the Y.M.C.A. does what it can.
This girdle of loving-kindness is completed in the Internment Camps of
Switzerland--at Mürren, Leysin, Interlaken, Meiringen, and Seeburg, and
in those of Holland at Scheveningen, Rotterdam, The Hague, and
Groningen. None need our help more than the officers and men of those
internment camps. It was one of the latter who said he would rather be
in Germany than in the internment camp in Switzerland, for in Germany,
said he, one has, at any rate, the excitement of trying to escape; but
now, working hand-in-hand with the British Red Cross, the Red Triangle
provides recreation and employment for the long hours of leisure, and
there can be no doubt as to the appreciation of those it seeks to serve.
A worker at Cambridge went to a neighbouring village to arrange a flag
day on behalf of our war fund. He was advised to get in touch with the
post-mistress, who was keenly interested in the movement. 'Of course, I
am interested,' she said when he saw her, 'and if you will come into my
sitting-room I will show you why.' There on the wall in a little room at
the back of the post-office was what she called her Roll of Honour--the
photographs of twelve lads from her Bible class, all serving with His
Majesty's Forces. 'Eleven out of the twelve,' said she, 'write me almost
every week, and tell me what a boon the Y.M.C.A. is to them. That is why
I am ready to do all I can to help you with your Flag Day.' The sequel
was interesting. Half an hour later No. 12 called to see her. 'How
strange,' she cried; 'I was just talking about you, and saying you were
the only one of the boys who never wrote expressing appreciation of the
Y.M.C.A.' 'That is easily explained,' was the reply. 'I have been at sea
since the early days of the war, and have had no opportunity of getting
ashore and using the Y.M.C.A. until three months ago, when I was sent to
Egypt and stationed at the Mena camp. There I used the Association hut
within sight of the great pyramid, and I appreciate the work as much as
anyone to-day.'
A young soldier who was formerly a Y.M.C.A. worker wrote from
France:--'We came upon the Prussian Guard about ten days ago, and for
five days and nights we fought hand to hand like demons, but in the end
we gained our objective. You talk of the work of the Y.M.C.A. at home as
splendid. I know it is, but here the Y.M.C.A.'s are more. In this place,
famous for its wonderful bell tower, the Y.M.C.A. is in full swing,
although only yesterday it was shelled heavily and shrapnel was falling
pretty thick along the road. Cheero!' Another young soldier wrote from
Malta, and gave his experience of the Y.M.C.A. 'The Association is the
finest thing that was ever instituted without doubt. The Army has
blessed the fact many a time. I have served in France and a few other
countries, and am in a position to know.'
In the early days of the war Y.M.C.A. secretaries learned to adapt all
kinds of premises, no matter how primitive, to meet the needs of the
troops. A cow-house amid the trenches of the East Coast; a pigsty in the
south-west of England, neither of them much to look at, but doing good
service and helping to blaze the trail; a dug-out at Anzac and three
tiny marquees at Cape Helles; a cellar at Meroc, just behind the British
lines in the neighbourhood of Loos; a château formerly the residence of
the lord of the manor at Mazingarbe, and a palatial but ruined Technical
Institute at Armentières. It was fixed up in a convent at Aire--the
first Y.M.C.A. to be opened in a forward position in France, and inside
a ruined hospice at Ypres; in a Trappist monastery on the Mont des Cats;
in the most southern city in the world at Invercargill; above the clouds
with the British troops in Italy; inside some of the German prisoner of
war camps in Germany; in the old German Consulate at Jaffa, in the heart
of the Holy City, and on the Palestine lines of communication at Gaza
and Beersheba. 'The Jolly Farmer' near Aldershot, and the more notorious
'Bolger's' public house in Sackville Street, Dublin, made their
appearance early in the war under the sign of the Red Triangle, whilst
Ciro's, the once famous night club in the heart of London, and the
mansions of Viscount Wimborne and Lord Brassey have also been thrown
open for the service of the Association.
The trail of the Red Triangle was first blazed in the United Kingdom,
and since then it has become familiar on every fighting front, and in
all sorts of queer and unexpected places: in the jungle of India; on the
banks of the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Nile; amid the swamps of
East Africa; along the valley of the Jordan; in the Egyptian desert; in
the great training camps of North America; in Australasia and South
Africa, as well as in the plains of Flanders and Picardy; in the valleys
of the Somme, the Marne, the Meuse, and the Aisne. It is to be found on
the Varda and the Struma, and we have seen for ourselves how that trail
has been welcomed by men of many nationalities--Britons from the
Homeland and from the outposts of Empire, from Canada, Newfoundland,
Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa; Indians, Chinese, Cape Boys
and Kaffirs, Frenchmen, Portuguese, and Belgians, and wherever the
trail of the Red Triangle goes it stands for reconstruction even amid
the horrors and desolation of war.
An officer cadet who had spent two years in France, said he had noticed
a great change in the attitude of the men. 'In the early days of the
war,' said he, 'men on arriving in new billets at the Front would say,
"Is there no Y.M.C.A. in the village?" Later on they took it for granted
that the Red Triangle was there and asked, "Where is the Y.M.C.A.?" Now
they always say, "Where is it?" and every one knows to what they refer.'
It brings comfort, hope, good cheer, and inspiration with it. An English
boy writing home from Egypt to his people in the Midlands, said that the
Y.M.C.A. was to him as 'a bit of Heaven in a world that was otherwise
all hell.' A visitor to the Association at Kantara expressed his
surprise at finding such a splendid Y.M.C.A. building in that Egyptian
centre, fitted up even with hot and cold baths!
A sum of £400 was taken in a single day over the refreshment counter in
one of the Y.M.C.A. marquees in the heart of the Sinai Peninsula, and it
will give an idea of the immense amount of work involved to the staff of
the Association, when it is remembered that all stores had to be
conveyed from the railhead to the Y.M.C.A. on the backs of camels.
A British soldier writing from the 'Adam and Eve' hut in Mesopotamia
said, 'I should like to comment upon the wonderful work the Y.M.C.A. is
doing here among the troops. In almost every large camp there is a
Y.M.C.A. hut, a veritable haven in the desert, not only for canteen, but
religious work also. I attended a service in the hut, and it made a good
impression on me. We sang the good old hymns, and I am sure we all felt
refreshed.'
As might be expected, the Dominions have done their full share of
pioneering, and have blazed the trail in many different directions. The
Canadians have done a great work at Shorncliffe, Sandling, Bramshott,
and Witley; in the Forestry camps at home and right up the line in
France. The Australians on Salisbury Plain, at Weymouth, and in many
other home centres have served their troops splendidly; whilst in
France, Egypt, the Dardanelles, and Palestine their pioneering work has
been great. The New Zealanders at Sling Plantation, Hornchurch, and
other centres at home, have done equally well, and their pioneering work
overseas has been most efficient. The South Africans have done valuable
work in the Military Expedition to Swakopmund and in East Africa. India
has made a great contribution to the Empire work of the Red Triangle,
first of all by catering for the needs of British troops quartered in
India itself, and also in Mesopotamia and East Africa, where the work
has been directed from India, as has that for the Indian troops in
France. Passing reference should also be made here to the great
programme of work undertaken and planned by the Y.M.C.A.'s of the United
States. In the United Kingdom, in France, Russia and Italy, as well as
in North America, they have projected work on an enormous scale, in
fact, all the Allied countries are closely co-operating in the work of
the Red Triangle. It has been the privilege of the British Associations
to provide huts for the exclusive use of Belgian, Serbian, and
Portuguese troops, and to cater for the needs of American and Colonial
soldiers in hundreds of centres. In London, for instance, special
facilities have been given to New Zealanders at the Shakespeare hut; we
were able to procure for the Canadian Y.M.C.A. the magnificent Tivoli
site on which their fine hostel now stands, and to hand over the group
of huts to the Americans which formed the nucleus of the Eagle Hut. The
Australians rented and furnished the Aldwych Theatre on their own
account. The New Zealand Y.M.C.A.'s made a handsome contribution towards
the cost of the Shakespeare Hut, and the whole of the cost of the Eagle
and Beaver Huts has been borne by the American and Canadian Y.M.C.A.'s,
respectively. The American and Colonial Associations have taken over a
number of British huts in camps, and in some cases have enlarged them.
[Illustration: THE FIRST Y.M.C.A. OVER THE GERMAN TRENCHES ON THE SOMME
BATTLEFIELD]
[Illustration: THE Y.M.C.A. IN THE ORCHARD AT ALBERT]
CHAPTER III
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM
In my opinion nothing can exceed the value of the
work which has been and is being done for H.M.
Forces by the Y.M.C.A. I offer my best wishes for
continued success.--THE RIGHT HON. H. H. ASQUITH,
K.C., M.P.
THE Romance of the Red Triangle is a twenty-four hours a day romance,
for many of its centres never close their doors. When we are comfortably
sleeping at night and in the early hours of the morning, Y.M.C.A.
workers are hard at work on motor patrol conveying leave men from
station to station or hut to hut, and others are on foot meeting the men
and guiding them to their destination. Alighting from the Edinburgh
train at Leeds very early one morning, it was raining and a young
Scottish trooper stepped down to the platform from the adjoining
compartment. We knew we were all right, a room having been retained for
us at the Station Hotel; but what of him? Had he anywhere to go? He
evidently had no plans, but at that moment a gentleman in civilian
attire stepped up to him, and without patronising, and in the most
natural way possible said to him, 'Have you long to wait? Have you
anywhere to go?' The lad replied that he had several hours to wait for
his connection and had nowhere to go. 'Well, come along with me, and I
will see you all right at the Y.M.C.A.' People who do this work or
devote themselves, night after night, to that of the motor patrols don't
often get their photos into the papers, but they are rendering national
service of a high order without fee or reward, and in almost every case,
at the end of a hard day's work.
The International Hospitality League of the Y.M.C.A. is doing similar
work on a very large scale, and in its kiosks and inquiry rooms, not
only in London, but in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and many of our large
provincial centres hundreds of thousands of inquiries are being received
and answered day by day, whilst the street patrol workers have been able
to help very many who have welcomed their assistance.
We know of no more moving sight than one of the great Triage huts in
France when leave is on. We think of our last visit to one such. Three
hundred men were sleeping there that night, and 'Uncle Joe,' the
Y.M.C.A. leader, went round the bunks last thing to see them safely
tucked in. As we stood in the main hall we thought we understood what
was said of our Lord that 'when He saw the multitude He was filled with
compassion.' Scores of men were gathered around the piano, singing
rowdy choruses of the kind loved by our Tommies. The coffee queue
extended the whole length of the room, and the men had to buy their
tickets from Uncle Joe, who had a few words with each in homely
Lancashire dialect, whilst further along the counter a titled lady was
serving coffee as fast as she could pour it out. There were crowds round
the tables, reading or feeding. We noticed at one table a group of men,
one of whom was cutting up a long French loaf, another had just opened a
tin of sardines which he was sharing round, whilst a third was helping
his comrades from a tin of pears. All were on their way home on leave,
or returning to the Front, and all were merry and happy as British
Tommies almost invariably are.
Sometimes in a London hut, or it may be in the Y.M.C.A. in Paris, you
will come across one of these Tommies who is down and out. He has been
on leave and has spent or lost all his money, and is down on his luck.
It is to the Y.M.C.A. he turns. A little act of kindness, under such
circumstances, has often changed a man's whole outlook on life. Nearly
the whole of the service in the Y.M.C.A. hostels is rendered
voluntarily, and many workers who have home or business ties welcome
this opportunity of doing war service that really counts. There is a
tendency in some quarters to speak disparagingly of the voluntary
worker, but those who know, realise the enormous value of such service.
No paid workers could have been more zealous or more efficient than
those who have served voluntarily under the Red Triangle. The old
brewery in Earl Street was the first building in London to be adapted
for sleeping purposes, but the 'Euston' was the first Y.M.C.A. hostel
to be built. One of the largest is the Shakespeare Hut which was built
on the site of the proposed National Shakespeare Memorial Theatre,
kindly loaned for the purpose. The huge building by London Bridge was
lent by the city of London. Many of the huts occupy central and
important sites, as for instance, the station huts at King's Cross,
Victoria, and Waterloo,--and the station hut often means the last touch
of home before men go overseas, and that makes the work and the
personality of the workers all the more important.
CHAPTER IV
THE ROMANCE OF FINANCE
This work has been admirably done both at home and
at the Front. Its spiritual and material value to
the men lies beyond all reckoning, and the
services of its personnel are deeply appreciated
by the men themselves.--THE RIGHT HON. A. J.
BALFOUR, O.M., M.P.
ON August 4, 1914, our plan for war work was ready, but the 'sinews of
war' were lacking. Little could be done without money. In our extremity
we laid the whole position before one of our most generous leaders and
supporters, and told him of the opportunity we saw facing the Y.M.C.A.
'If we are to seize the opportunity,' we said, 'it is absolutely
necessary we should secure immediately twenty-five thousand pounds!' He
looked up and smiled indulgently--'Twenty-five thousand pounds!' he
cried; 'you couldn't possibly raise three thousand pounds at a time like
this; the thing's impossible!' 'Impossible or not,' was the reply, 'it
must be done. We mustn't even stop to think of the future of the
Y.M.C.A. Everything is at stake, and even if we have to sell every
building and every stick of furniture we possess we must go forward
now!' That very day a large number of telegrams and letters were sent
out from Headquarters to friends all over the country--the first war
emergency appeal of the Red Triangle--and within a few days the whole of
the twenty-five thousand pounds had been raised, and we were appealing
for another fifty thousand pounds, until at the time of writing, in
August 1918, the war fund has reached the total of nearly two and a half
millions sterling. That is a small sum compared with the amounts raised
for Y.M.C.A. war work in the United States. Their first appeal brought
in five million pounds, the second more than twelve millions, and their
appeal a year later, in October 1918, is for twenty millions sterling.
Our American friends gave us a hundred thousand pounds from the amount
raised by their second war work appeal, a generous and much appreciated
gift. People who know little of the facts are sometimes inclined to
criticise what they regard as the huge war expenditure of the British
Y.M.C.A.'s, but a moment's reflection will make it clear that it has
been little short of a miracle of finance to carry out such an enormous
programme of work at a total cost of only about one-third of the cost to
Britain alone of a single day of war. We have always been short of
money, have always had a big overdraft at the bank, and that largely
because we have had to finance a huge business concern without capital.
Our war fund has been secured partly as a result of skilful
advertising, partly through personal solicitation and in response to
postal appeals. Flag Days and Hut Weeks also proved valuable agencies
for raising money. The full-page Y.M.C.A. advertisements in _The Times_
and other papers were something quite new in religious and social work
advertising, though the method has since been widely adopted by other
organisations.
Many touching stories are told concerning gifts to the war fund, gifts,
many of which have not been secured as a result of cleverly drawn
advertisements, but because the contributors have been touched directly
or indirectly by the work itself. A boy wrote home from Flanders, 'Tell
Dad if he has any money to spare to give it to the Y.M.C.A. as a
thankoffering for what they are doing for us chaps out here.' One of our
centres had been nearly destroyed by a Zeppelin bomb. It was rebuilt
and the day came for the reopening. A lady was present and expressed
herself thus: 'I wanted to be here to-day, if only to thank you for what
your Association has done for my boy. When the war broke out,' said she,
'he went to the Crystal Palace for his training, and found the Y.M.C.A.
there an inestimable boon. He was sent to Blandford to complete his
training, and the Y.M.C.A. was there. He was drafted out to Gallipoli,
and to his amazement he found the Y.M.C.A. on the Peninsula. He was
wounded and sent to Suez, where once more the Y.M.C.A. was a great help
to him, and yesterday,' she continued, 'I received a letter from him
from Alexandria saying he was convalescent, and spending the whole of
his spare time in the central building of the Association.' It is that
personal touch that has made the appeal of the Red Triangle one of the
most popular appeals of the war.
A lady called one day with a novel suggestion. She had been reading a
statement attributed to the Kaiser, in which the All Highest is alleged
to have said that if the worst came to the worst every dog and cat in
Germany would be armed in defence of the Fatherland. 'If the dogs and
cats of Germany are going to do that for their country,' she said, 'why
shouldn't the dogs and cats of England pay for one of your huts?' Quite
frankly there did not appear to be much money in the scheme, but it
could do no harm, so we encouraged it! Imagine our surprise when a few
days later the same lady walked in with a cheque for four hundred and
fifty pounds. There was one gift of five pounds, all the rest had been
given in smaller amounts, and altogether upwards of two thousand dogs
and cats--or their masters and mistresses--had contributed. A few weeks
later the fund was closed, at just over one thousand pounds, and there
has been no more useful centre of Y.M.C.A. war work than the 'Dogs and
Cats Hut' at Rouen, paid for entirely by this fund.
The Boys and Girls fund has reached upwards of twenty thousand pounds.
We had been speaking to the boys at Harrow School, and the suggestion
had been thrown out that it would be a good plan to have a 'Harrow' Hut
at the Front. At the close of the meeting the headmaster, supporting the
suggestion, said he would give the collection in chapel the following
Sunday to the fund. The head boy approached him afterwards and said, 'I
think, Sir, it would be a mistake to make a collection for the Y.M.C.A.
on Sunday. If you do the boys will think they have done their bit, and
won't bother any further. Won't you let us make a whip up round the
houses and see what we can do?' Thus it was agreed, and the five hundred
pounds, which in those days was the cost of a hut, was raised in less
than a week. We have seen that hut in France, and know how much it was
appreciated. During the German advance in Picardy it had to be
temporarily abandoned, but fortunately was speedily occupied again.
In the early days of the Euston hut, the vicar of a neighbouring parish
was keenly interested, and told the children in his day school what he
had seen in the hut. At the close of his address a deputation of the
older children waited on him and told him they were interested in what
he told them, and would much like to help the Y.M.C.A. in its work for
the soldiers. 'You help?' queried the vicar; 'how can you help?' He knew
how poor they were. To his surprise they had their scheme ready, and
their plans cut and dried. 'This time every year,' said the spokesman,
'we put by our pennies and our ha'pennies for our annual treat. We don't
feel like having a treat this year when all this terrible fighting is
taking place. We would rather give the money to the Y.M.C.A. to spend on
the soldiers and sailors.' A few days later, the leader of the Euston
hut was sitting at a table in the central hall when his attention was
attracted by a group of ragged children, standing round the entrance.
Curiously they would peer inside and then step back, until two or three
bolder than the others walked right in as if the whole place belonged to
them. That was too much for the leader. He went up to them and cried,
'You must run away; this place isn't for boys and girls, it's for
soldiers and sailors.' Looking up into his face a little ragged
youngster retorted, 'Please, sir, we've given our money towards this
show, and we want to see how it's run!' On inquiry, it was ascertained
that the children belonged to one of the poorest of the schools in the
north of London, and out of their poverty they had given no less than
thirty shillings, nearly the whole of it in pennies and farthings. Many
memorial gifts have been received, and a hut that will be an inspiration
and help to tens of thousands, is surely one of the most suitable of
memorials.
[Illustration: A REFUGE FOR THE REFUGEES]
Business firms and merchant princes have given their thousands; others,
with equal generosity, have contributed shillings. In the Channel
Islands, there was a fish-hawker, named Richards, who eked out a slender
livelihood by selling fish on the streets of Jersey. The coming of the
war hit him so hard that he was compelled to leave for France to seek
other employment. He got a job under the contractors who were building
the hutments in the Harfleur Valley. He did well, and eventually
returned home to Jersey. The Sunday after his return, his minister was
taking up special collections for the hut fund. Richards had found the
Red Triangle huts at Havre a great boon, and on entering the church at
the evening service, handed his minister a little paper packet
containing coins. The padre fingered the parcel and said to himself, 'He
has given six pennies, a generous gift, too, under the circumstances!'
Imagine his surprise on opening the packet to find there six
half-crowns. He said, 'You ought not to give so much; you can't possibly
afford it.' 'When I remember all the Y.M.C.A. did for me when a stranger
in France and homeless,' was his reply, 'I can't possibly do less, and
wish I could give more.'
[Illustration: Y.M.C.A. MARQUEE IN THE SHELL-SWEPT SOMME AREA]
A flower-seller at a popular seaside holiday resort for many months has
given to the local Y.M.C.A. hut a shillingsworth of flowers each week,
as a thankoffering for what the Association has done for her husband and
son.
At Taunton a farm labourer called at the back door of the house of the
president of the local Y.M.C.A., and said he wanted to help the war
fund. It was the only thing he could do to help the men at the Front. He
had tried to enlist several times, but they would not have him. He laid
on the table fifty one-pound notes, and went back to his work on the
farm. Inquiries elicited the fact that he had given practically the
whole of his savings, and had done it in spite of his employer's urgent
advice to the contrary.
At the close of a meeting held by one of our workers, an elderly lady
came to him and said if he would go to her house she would give him a
sovereign. He went, and she gave him the coin, and then closing the
door of her private room, said, 'And now I am going to give you the most
precious possession I have in the world.' Her voice choked with emotion
as she proceeded, 'Years, many years ago, I was to have been married.
The arrangements were made, the day fixed, and the ring bought,
and--_then he died_!' And she sobbed as she spoke. Going to a bureau she
took out a little box and, handing it to him, said, 'The wedding ring is
in there. I have kept it all these years, but I promised the Lord I
would only keep it until He showed me what He would have me do with it,
and He told me while you were speaking. I give it to you for the
Y.M.C.A. and for the boys,' and she turned away utterly broken up.
Thousands of incidents could be related of equal interest to the
foregoing, did space permit, and all these incidents combine to give a
personal interest to the fund. We can only add that the greatest
possible care has been taken to administer the fund wisely and so avoid
waste, or anything that savours of extravagance. Of course, Y.M.C.A.
finance has come in for criticism. Certain people who have visited the
huts, and have seen the enormous business there transacted have come to
the conclusion that either very large profits are being made, or that
the business methods of the Association leave much to be desired. The
question has frequently been asked, 'What is done with the profits?' and
the fiction has got abroad that the Y.M.C.A. publishes no accounts and
is amassing huge sums of money. The real position is easily stated:--
The Y.M.C.A. does not do trading for trading's
sake, but because through its trading department
it is the better enabled to meet the needs of the
troops, and also because profits on trading mean
further extension. So rapid has been the
development of the war work of the Y.M.C.A., that
not only has every penny of profit been spent on
the maintenance and development of this work for
soldiers and sailors, but it has been necessary to
raise large sums of money in subscriptions to meet
the ever-increasing demand for extension. Every
new centre means, or may mean, an additional
burden on the central fund or on the divisional
funds for which the National Council is ultimately
responsible. First, there is the cost of the hut,
which may mean £750 or may run into thousands--it
all depends upon size and site. The initial cost
may be defrayed by an individual gift to the
central war fund, but usually to make the hut
large enough for its purpose, additional money has
to be spent, whilst the furnishing will probably
cost from one to three hundred pounds, or more.
Also, it must carry stock to the value of a
hundred pounds or possibly much more if it is a
big camp. A very big turnover in a Triangle hut
may represent a very small profit, _e.g._ there
are enormous sales of stamps and postal orders,
and all these are sold for actual cost, and, what
is more, the Association has to bear the loss of
shortages. Then there are the things the Y.M.C.A.
does free of any charges whatever, _e.g._ there
are no club fees and no charges for admission to
concerts, lectures, or entertainments in the
ordinary hut. Free writing paper and envelopes are
at the present time costing more than £90,000 a
year. Thousands of pounds are spent on cricket and
football outfits, games generally, books,
pictures, and literature for free distribution.
Hot drinks and refreshments are given free to the
walking wounded on a very large scale, and
practically every one of the two thousand war
Y.M.C.A.'s keeps 'open house' at Christmas. The
work of the Y.M.C.A. for the relatives of wounded
is very costly, especially in France, many hostels
being maintained for that purpose. Motor transport
is an expensive item for which there is no return,
and very large sums of money are spent on lectures
and educational work. It is estimated that the
Y.M.C.A. educational programme in France alone may
ultimately cost the Association fifty thousand
pounds a year. When the request has come to open a
new centre, the determining factor has been, 'Is
it needed?' not 'Will it pay?' Indeed many huts in
isolated centres cannot possibly be made to pay,
and yet they mean everything to the men who use
them. The spending department of the Association
has been built up with the greatest care. A body
of well-known business men meets for hours every
week and watches expenditure as a cat watches a
mouse. The Acting Treasurer of the War Emergency
Fund is a partner in a big firm of Indian
Merchants, and devotes himself with untiring
energy and conspicuous ability to the supervision
of accounts and to the expenditure. The accounts
are audited by a leading firm of chartered
accountants, and the audited statement of receipts
and expenditure together with a balance sheet, is
published in _The Times_ and other papers every
six months. In the canteens it is a matter of
principle to give full value for money spent, but
towards the war services the profits made have
been equal to a sum of ten shillings for every
pound contributed by the public. Owing chiefly to
the enormous stores that have to be maintained in
France and Overseas generally, the Bank overdraft
of the war fund has often reached four and five
hundred thousand pounds. It is thus not difficult
to see what is done with the profits. The Y.M.C.A.
might, had it so chosen, have feathered its nest
during the war, but with a sublime, though by no
means a reckless disregard of the future it
stepped right into the breach, and went straight
forward to meet the national need.
As a Y.M.C.A. we pride ourselves on the business management of our work.
We insist on business methods being adopted, and we do not mix our
business with philanthropy--the Association hut is not a charity as far
as its business side is concerned. The average hut in a large camp is
expected to pay its way, so that subscriptions from the general public
can be applied to the extension of the work and to the maintenance of
centres that cannot be self-supporting.
The War Office, in the early stages of the war, asked us to pay a rebate
of 10 per cent. on the gross takings of the refreshment department.
After full consideration, we came to the conclusion that we could only
do this by extracting the money from the pockets of the men, who for the
most part are miserably paid, by paying it out of subscriptions given by
the public, or by limiting the extension of the work. Neither
alternative seemed desirable or in the interests of the men, and after
many conferences with the Quartermaster-General's department at the War
Office, it was agreed, by mutual consent and at the suggestion of the
War Office, to refer the matter for decision to the Secretary of State
for War. It was at the time Lord Kitchener was in Gallipoli, and Mr.
Asquith was personally in charge. At a conference at Downing Street the
representatives of the Board of Control Regimental Institutes stated
their case, and we had the opportunity of replying. Mr. Asquith took
several weeks to consider the question in all its bearings, and
ultimately gave the decision entirely in our favour, and decided for the
duration of the war we should not be asked to pay the rebate. Later on,
the matter was reopened by Lord Derby, and eventually it was found
necessary for the Y.M.C.A. to pay 6 per cent. on their gross takings in
huts on Military ground, to regimental funds, and this is a great tax on
its resources. Most of the huts are loaned free to the Military for
church parades and military lectures.
The figures of the Red Triangle are colossal, and yet figures by
themselves fail to give an adequate idea of the magnitude of the work,
and for obvious reasons it is impossible to make those statistics
complete. On a given date it was ascertained that upwards of forty-five
thousand workers were giving regular service to the war work of the
Y.M.C.A. By August 31, 1918, 929,590,430 pieces of stationery had been
sent out from Y.M.C.A. Headquarters in London for distribution amongst
the men of His Majesty's Forces. The stationery bill by the summer of
1918 had risen to the rate of upwards of £90,000 per annum.
In two months one hundred and five tents were sent out to replace the
huts and tents lost in Picardy and Flanders.
In eighteen months, Triangle House, London, the Headquarters of our
Trading Department, sent out to the Y.M.C.A. overseas:--
875 Gramophones and 8386 Records.
322 Pianos and Organs.
572 Billiard and Bagatelle Tables.
1,341 Sets of Boxing Gloves.
108 Optical Lanterns.
10,188 Sets of Draughts.
1,335 Sets of Chess.
3,140 Sets of Dominoes.
4,263 Footballs.
1,080 Sets of Quoits.
657 Sets of Cricket.
4,992 Extra Balls.
1,540 Extra Bats.
1,798 Hockey Sticks.
520 Balls.
426 Golf Balls.
100 Tennis Sets.
330 Tennis Racquets.
2,364 Tennis Balls.
61 Sets Bowls.
358 Badminton Sets.
50 Baseball Sets.
It will be noted that the items in this list are not trading goods to be
sold at a profit, but excepting in the case of some of the billiard
tables, are non-remunerative, and provided absolutely free for the use
of the men serving overseas.
CHAPTER V
THE LADIES OF THE RED TRIANGLE
I have received Her Majesty's commands to convey
to you an expression of the Queen's sincere thanks
for the interesting information you have given
regarding the work which is being done by the
Young Men's Christian Association among the men of
the Army and Navy.
Her Majesty is much pleased with the specimens of
writing-papers and envelopes, and publications,
which you have sent for her acceptance.
Her Majesty feels sure that the useful work which
is being carried on by the Young Men's Christian
Association in so many different centres is highly
appreciated not only by the soldiers, but also by
the community.--HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN.
[Illustration: Y.M.C.A. IN A RUINED PARISH HALL IN FLANDERS, JUNE, 1916]
BEFORE the war it was one of our stock sayings that the Y.M.C.A. was a
work 'for young men by young men,' and one must recognise the fact that
the man who is a _man_--virile, strong, athletic--is the one to whose
leadership men will most readily respond. But in the early days of the
war most of our young male workers joined up; whether we liked it or not
we had to get the help of ladies, and our more enterprising leaders felt
that after all there were some things in Y.M.C.A. hut work ladies could
do almost as well as men. Things have moved since then, and now we know
that much of the work can be done infinitely better by women. In many
cases women have been entrusted with the actual leadership of huts, and
have carried through the duties magnificently. The Red Triangle has
given the woman her niche in the Y.M.C.A., and for the great programme
that awaits us after the war her help will be indispensable. It has,
moreover, given the woman who had home claims an opportunity of doing
war work that really counts, in her spare time. The Queen and Queen
Alexandra have been graciously interested in the work of the ladies of
the Red Triangle, and many of the ladies of the Royal House have
rendered conspicuous personal service, amongst whom might be mentioned
H.R.H. Princess Christian, H.R.H. Princess Louise, H.R.H. Princess
Patricia of Connaught, and H.H. Princess Marie Louise, whilst H.H.
Princess Helena Victoria as Lady President has given time and strength
to the work without reserve, and we owe very much to her. In the camps,
ladies have given the home touch that means so much to the men--games,
music, decorations, and flowers have come within their domain; they have
managed the libraries, and have in most cases taken full responsibility
for the refreshment department. Their personal influence has been
invaluable. We remember visiting a camp somewhere in France. It seemed
to us the roughest camp we had ever seen. The leader told us of an
encounter he had with one of the worst of the men on the occasion of
his first visit to the place. He had just got his tent erected, and the
man chancing to see it asked what it was. When told that it was the
Y.M.C.A., he replied, 'You b---- men are just what we d---- men b----
well want,' and that was the language of the camp. Eighteen months later
we were there again and the camp was like another place, so great was
the change for the better. The C.O. told us he attributed that change
almost entirely to the ladies of the Red Triangle. It so happened that
one of the ladies committed an unpardonable military offence. She
returned to England two or three days before her permit expired. Later
on, application was made in the usual way for the renewal of her permit.
The General concerned, who is no longer in France, returned the
application with the words written across it over his initials--'Keep
this woman out.' The Base Commandant sent it in again having written on
it--'Talk about keeping this woman out, she is of more value to me than
truckloads of parsons and chaplains!' That was his way of putting it,
not ours. We have the greatest possible admiration for the work of the
chaplains at the Front. There is no finer body of men on active service
to-day, and it is a privilege we greatly esteem to be permitted to
co-operate with them and to be of some service to them in their great
work.
[Illustration: BAPAUME-CAMBRAI ROAD, WITH TREES ALL CUT DOWN BY THE
GERMANS]
The ladies have always been ready to share the risks with the men, and
there are quite a number who have made the supreme sacrifice, including
Miss Smallpage, killed by shrapnel in one of our munition huts in
England; Miss Betty Stevenson, killed in an air attack in France; Miss
Edith Howe, who died of cerebro-spinal meningitis; and Miss Lee, who
lost her life in a fire in one of the huts on Salisbury Plain.
In one of the great bases in France there is a small camp in which at
one time there were boys only. They were too young to fight, their job
day by day was the prosaic one of filling up petrol cans. One of these
little chaps had badly hurt his hand, and it seemed to him the natural
thing to go for sympathy and help to the lady of the Red Triangle. A
brief examination convinced her that the damage was serious, and she
bade him go to the doctor, whose tent was just across the way. Very
grudgingly he trudged across to the doctor, but a few minutes later
returned with the request that she would look at the damaged hand and
see if the doctor had attended to it properly. She replied that it would
never do to interfere with the doctor's work and, moreover, the doctor
had no doubt done it far better than she could have done. Five times the
lad came back with the request, 'O Missis! do look at my hand and see
if he's done it right.' The fifth time he brought with him as an ally
the Y.M.C.A. secretary in charge, who said, 'If I were you, Miss, I
would look at his hand. The little chap will never be happy until you
do.' Then she undid the bandages, looked at the dressing, and bandaging
it up again said, 'There, it's just as I told you; the doctor has done
it far better than I could; run away and be quite happy about it!' He
went away, but returned again a few minutes later, and that time his
eyes were full of tears as he cried, 'O Missis! I did think you'd have
kissed me when you saw how bad it was,' and, like the good woman she
was, she kissed him as his mother would have done. Let no one think
that's what the ladies of the Red Triangle usually do, for it's not, and
yet in that simple story you have the whole secret of the success of the
war work of the Y.M.C.A. Time, and time again, one has been through
every base camp in France, and has traversed the whole British line in
France and Flanders, and wherever one has gone one has found the men
yearning for sympathy and longing for home. Not that they want to return
home until this fight ends in victory, for out there they have learned
what war means; they see it robbed of its romance, and they are
determined to see it through; they fight that this war may end war.
With unfailing loyalty to the high aims of the Red Triangle and with
conspicuous ability ladies have served the Y.M.C.A., and through the
Association the men of His Majesty's Forces and the munition workers, in
all parts of the United Kingdom, in France, and in every part of the
Empire, and have won for themselves a permanent place in the movement,
whatever its future may be.
CHAPTER VI
'GUNGA DIN' OF THE RED TRIANGLE
'You and your Association seem to me to be truly
hitting the nail on the head, and working for the
good of our soldier-lads, one and all. I have
watched the Y.M.C.A. procedure at many camps, and
have found it exactly adapted to the wants of
large numbers of young men taken temporarily away
from their homes and normal
associations.'--GENERAL SIR IAN HAMILTON.
ONE of the most striking of Kipling's characters was Gunga Din, the
Indian water-carrier. He was not a fighting man, but when fighting was
taking place he was in the thick of it, risking his life that he might
carry water to slake the thirst of the fighting man. 'Gunga Din' was the
appropriate name given to one of our leaders in France by a British
Tommy. Those who do not know are sometimes inclined to sneer at the
Y.M.C.A. man for having a 'cushy' job, but it is hard work from start
to finish. His job is never done and very often is attended with
considerable risk. His work may carry him right into the front line
trenches and though it does not take him 'over the top,' yet, unlike the
soldier, he has not the privilege of hitting back. His day's work will
vary according to the camp. In all probability he will have to be up
early in the morning, to get the coffee ready. The hut must be cleaned,
and there will be a lot of canteen work to be done. The buying will
occupy some time, and then there will be the evening programme to
arrange and carry through. He must maintain personal touch with the men
using the hut, so that the ideal leader must be half a dozen men rolled
into one.
Our greatest difficulty during the war has been that of getting a
sufficiency of workers of the right type. Every male worker is
registered with the Director of Recruiting, and we are unable to recruit
new men classified A between the ages of 18 and 52, or 18 and 45 for
service overseas.
Twelve members of the Y.M.C.A. have won the Victoria Cross, 3 the
D.S.O., 33 the M.C., 25 the D.C.M., and 53 the M.M., whilst registered
at Headquarters are the names of 1223 who have made the supreme
sacrifice. We think of many whose war work for the Y.M.C.A. has earned
the title of 'Gunga Din,' as, for example, the young leader of the New
Zealand work in France. He looks a boy, but is a genius for organising,
and the pioneer of the work of the Red Triangle in advanced positions.
Another man who has the instincts of the pioneer is the leader of the
Australian workers in Egypt and Palestine, and yet another, a well-known
Y.M.C.A. worker who, after doing good service in England in the early
days of the war, went to represent Headquarters in Egypt. Torpedoed _en
route_ he took up his new work with characteristic enthusiasm and made
good. Hundreds have rendered equally valuable service, so that it would
be invidious to mention names.
In the great retreat, it was the D.A.Q.M.G. of the ---- Corps who asked
us to open up a Stragglers' Post at Westoutre. 'You are the people who
can cheer up the men,' said he; 'I want you to get hold of the
stragglers before they become deserters.' It was 'Gunga Din' he needed,
but this time with cocoa-urn instead of water-bottle, and it was only an
old bank to which our workers fixed their Red Triangle, but it was just
what was needed. A bursting shell forced them to quit, but half an hour
later they had opened up again in the village shop, opposite the church,
and the mayor thanked them later on for their successful efforts.
Our officers' hut at Romerin was set on fire by a shell; shells were
falling fast, and the larger hut soon became untenable, but the Y.M.C.A.
man was running his show in the open under a tree, and was as busy as
ever. The ubiquitous 'Ford' did its bit, and its load would sometimes
consist of the Divisional Secretary himself, one or two other workers or
Belgian refugees, a big caterer's boiler, a tea-urn, together with cases
of biscuits and cigarettes. Thus equipped, it would proceed to some
advanced dressing-station. Sometimes there would only be a sergeant and
orderlies in charge, heroically doing their best to help the wounded,
and the mere presence of a man like one of our secretaries gave them
confidence, whilst the steaming hot drinks he soon had ready gave new
courage to the wounded men who thronged the C.C.S. A great work of the
'Gunga Din' type was done on the Nieppe-Bailleul road during the
retreat. What an amazing scene it must have been; an endless stream of
refugees and wounded; units lost; batteries firing; men who had been for
days without food, moving about like ghosts and digging themselves in at
the side of the road. The Huns were only about eight hundred yards
further along the road, and our soldiers fired as they walked. For three
nights none of our workers even thought of going to bed; they stood by
with cars ready to help where and how they were most needed, and gave
help to soldiers and refugees alike. At dressing and casualty clearing
stations they gave emergency help. At Remy, for instance, one of our men
was told off to undress the wounded and rig them out in new pyjamas,
whilst another made himself useful in cleaning the floors. Hot drinks
were given out freely in all these centres just behind the line.
Following the British victory at Messines on June 7, 1917, a Leeds
minister serving on the staff of the Y.M.C.A. wrote home describing the
work for the walking wounded as he had seen it:--
'It was about three o'clock in the morning when
the signal to advance was given, and the boys went
over the parapet. About two hours later the
wounded began to arrive at our hospital in
ambulance vans. It had been previously arranged
that only as far as possible walking cases--men
slightly wounded--should be dealt with at our
station, and the expeditious and efficient way in
which their wounds were attended to reflected
great credit on the medical staff. As soon as they
left the dressing-room they were passed on to our
Y.M.C.A., where we supplied them with various
kinds of refreshments free. It was my great
privilege to serve the first patient, who had a
broken arm, with a freshly-made cup of tea and a
sandwich, and never shall I forget his look and
words of appreciation. Some were too ill to eat
anything for a time, especially those who had been
gassed or were suffering from shell-shock, but
they were very glad of a seat on the grass in the
shade of our tent. Some were so badly wounded that
they were unable to speak, while others were half
deaf and dumb as the result of shock. It was
pathetic to see such men scribbling their request
for a drink on a piece of paper. All were loud in
their praise of the Y.M.C.A. and many were quite
overcome when they realised that the tea,
lemonade, cigarettes, and various kinds of
eatables were provided free. One Scottish New
Zealander, whose father is a well-known seed
merchant in Edinburgh, declared that the Y.M.C.A.
was the greatest thing in the war. In addition to
attending to the needs of the "inner man"--and
some of them we had to feed like babies, as both
hands were wounded--we wrote letters and field
cards for them, and tried in every possible way to
add to their comfort. The spirit manifested by the
majority of them was simply splendid, and scarcely
ever did they refer to their own suffering and
hardships.'
CHAPTER VII
IN THE TRAIL OF THE HUN
It has given me great pleasure to learn of the
development of the Y.M.C.A. work in France and
England during the last six months. In particular
I am very glad to hear of the successful growth of
the experiment begun at Aire.
No one can be long in this country without
realising the immense value of your organisation,
and the constant extension of your activities
itself testifies to the high regard in which it is
held by our soldiers.--FIELD-MARSHAL SIR DOUGLAS
HAIG.
[Illustration: THE RED TRIANGLE IN THE SUPPORT TRENCHES]
THE history of the British Empire has been written over again, and
written in blood, in the valleys of the Somme, the Ancre, and the
Scarpe. Tens of thousands of our noblest and best lie buried in these
valleys or on the tableland of Peronne, situated between the
insignificant rivers that have within the past few months earned a
world-wide notoriety. No one can visit a modern battlefield without
realising something of the appalling waste of war. Towns and villages
have been blotted out of existence, or are marked to-day by a few
unrecognisable ruins. Thanks to the efficiency of British organisation,
excellent roads were quickly established right through the stricken
district, and it was impossible to traverse any of them without
marvelling at the obstacles overcome and the successes gained. The road,
for instance, from Albert to Bapaume, through Pozieres, Le Sars, and
Warlincourt, passing close by Contalmaison and Martincourt, was
contested almost yard by yard, and the same thing may be said of the
road that leads along the bank of the Ancre from Albert past the Leipzig
Redoubt, near Thiepval and Beaumont Hamel, through Achiet-le-Grand to
Bapaume, or the one from Peronne through Le Transloy.
[Illustration: 'GEORGE WILLIAMS HOUSE' IN THE FRONT TRENCHES]
[Illustration: A HALF-WAY HOUSE TO THE TRENCHES]
It was in December 1916 that I paid my first visit to the valley of the
Somme. The scene was dreary beyond description. Many villages known to
us by name as the scenes of desperate fighting were a name only. Hardly
a vestige of a house or cottage remained where many had been before the
war. Here and there one could see the entrance to a cellar; the charred
stump of a strafed tree; the remains of a garden; or a bit of a
cemetery. Everything else was churned up into the most appalling mud.
One day I had tea with an Army commander who has done great things since
then, and he showed me a series of photographs--the most interesting I
have ever seen, which were taken the day before my visit, by our airmen,
over the German lines. For seventeen and a half miles back, the enemy,
with infinite care and patience, had constructed trenches, 'and,' said
the Commander, 'every time we destroy his front line trench he
constructs another one in the rear.' 'But,' I cried, 'if this kind of
thing goes on, and unless the unexpected happens, the war must surely
continue indefinitely.' His only reply was, 'Is it not always the
unexpected that happens in war?' I was back again in Picardy in the
summer of 1917, and the unexpected had happened. The whole of the
seventeen and a half miles of trenches were in the hands of the British!
The enemy had retired to the much advertised 'Hindenburg Line,' and
leaving nothing to chance, was tirelessly, ceaselessly massing and
training his men, getting together huge reserves of munitions,
husbanding his resources in every possible way, and preparing, always
preparing day and night for his next great move. Meanwhile, Italy's
defences had to be strengthened by troops we could ill-afford to spare
from our Western front, and Russia, in loyalty to whom we first entered
the war, failed us altogether, German intrigue being the underlying
cause in each case. In his great advance in March and April 1918 he did
not achieve all he set out to do by any means, but his gains were
enormous. It makes one sad to think of the territory we had temporarily
to relinquish to the Hun in Picardy, even though the country itself was
not of any intrinsic value. The land is desolate, and the enemy ruined
every village and hamlet, every farm and cottage, before his retreat.
Ninety-three Red Triangle centres--huts, marquees, cellars, dug-outs,
and 'strafed' houses had to be abandoned in Picardy alone--most of them
destroyed before they fell into the hands of the Germans.
During the first visit to the battlefields of the Somme in the winter of
1916, the outstanding feature of the landscape was the mud and the
general desolation. In the summer of 1917 the scenes of desolation were
as great as ever, but there was a difference--the roads were in
excellent condition and bridges had been replaced. There were
shell-holes everywhere and the countryside was strewn with dud shells;
barbed wire entanglements; with here and there a stranded tank that had
had to be abandoned in the mud; the remains of trenches and dug-outs or
the cages in which the Huns had collected their British prisoners. There
were no domestic animals to be seen, and no civilians. The whole
district from Albert to Peronne, to Bapaume or to Arras, was one huge
cemetery, and one saw side by side the elaborate cross that marked the
burying place of German dead, the smaller cross with the tricolour on
it, that marked the last resting-place of the soldier of France, and
everywhere for miles and miles could be seen the little plain brown
crosses of wood, that marked the spot where lay our own loved dead. We
climbed to the top of the famous Butte of Warlincourt that so often
changed hands in the course of desperate fighting, and there on the top
were those little brown crosses. We stood at the edge of the vast crater
of La Boiselle that inaugurated the first battle of the Somme and saw in
its depths several of those little symbols of our Christian faith, but
looking away across the desolation of the battlefield one marvelled at
the efforts of nature to hide up the ravages of war. There were the most
glorious masses of colour everywhere--the colour given by the wild
flowers of the battlefields. One felt one had never seen more vivid blue
than that of the acres of cornflowers which rivalled the hues of the
gentian of the Alps. It may have been imagination, but looking out from
the Butte of Warlincourt over miles of poppies, one felt one had never
seen such vivid red, and instinctively those words came into one's mind:
'O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not seek to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life's glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red,
Life that shall endless be.'
The wild flowers of Picardy have bloomed over British graves again in
the summer of 1918, though German, not British, eyes saw them during the
early months, but those flowers speak of eternal hope, and tell us that
if we but do our part, the sacrifice of our bravest and best will not
have been made in vain.
Amid the ruins of Picardy the Y.M.C.A. did some of its best work. Lord
Derby spoke of the Association as 'essential in peace time,
indispensable in war time,' and never was the Association more
indispensable than during those terrible days of the German advance in
1918. Amid the ever-changing scenes of war it has been one of the
forces working for reconstruction. We mourn the loss of huts and Red
Triangle centres that have cost money, and on which labour has been
lavished. Not much to look at many of these places, and yet to those who
knew them they possessed an indescribable charm and fascination. It was
only a little marquee, for instance, that formed the Headquarters of the
Red Triangle at Henin in 1917, only a couple of padres, one Church of
England and one a Free Churchman there to represent the Y.M.C.A., but
the whole story is a romance. Whilst we were sharing their lunch of
bully beef and potatoes, bread, biscuits, and coffee, a 'strafe' began.
The British artillery, half a mile away, were pouring lead into the Hun
lines. Fritz soon replied, and things became lively. A shell burst near
us, but our padres took no notice of it, and seemed to regard a little
incident of that kind as a matter of course. Another shell burst on the
cross-roads we had just traversed. It was here we had our first glimpse
of the Hindenburg Line with Crucifix Corner in the foreground. Whilst we
were still at lunch the Germans began to throw over some of their heavy
stuff in the direction of Monchy, which was not far away. The British
camp at Henin had been heavily bombarded a few days before our visit,
and the troops quite properly had to run like rabbits to their burrows.
The last to take refuge in the dug-outs were our two padres, who with a
keen and commendable sense of duty had waited to gather up the cash
before taking refuge from the shells. One of the leaders gives the
following graphic story of his experiences in the Retreat:--
'On the first day of the offensive we were wakened by terrific drum fire
to the north, but on our own immediate stretch of front, the firing was
not so severe. There was therefore no immediate need for evacuation.
During that day the hut work went on as usual, but few men appeared, as
everybody was "standing to." Liquid nourishment of the Y.M.C.A. type was
rather at a discount. We finished serving at a somewhat late hour, and
deemed it advisable to sleep in the dug-out, as a few shells had begun
to sing overhead. Early the next morning we were awakened by the sound
of many men on the move. More and still more French troops were
arriving, and that day we had to speak more French than English. Towards
evening uncomfortable reports began to arrive that the Germans had
several places behind us, some in the immediate rear. "Les avions
Boche," about which the Frenchmen were using "polite" phrases all day,
were continually overhead, and having reported the movement of troops
on the roads, shell-fire began to increase in intensity. Decidedly, it
was "getting warm." Lieutenant-Colonel ---- of the R.A.M.C. and the
Medical Staff with whom I had had the privilege of messing for some time
were very forcible in their advice to me to evacuate with the orderlies.
They were living in a shell-proof dug-out, whereas we had no possible
defence against a direct hit from any kind of shell.
'Several batteries of artillery having been withdrawn from forward
positions, and posted near us, were making sleep impossible and drawing
the enemy's fire. It was quite impossible to obtain transport of any
kind for my stores, so I gave what remained to the R.A.M.C. for walking
wounded cases, of which I had supplied several during the day.
'Then we made a "night-flitting," the orderlies and myself, and slept a
few miles to the S.W. But with every step away from the hut I became
more and more uncomfortable. By daybreak I had decided to return and see
how things were going. The orderlies decided to accompany me.
'On the way back we had to take cover once for a while, but finally
reached the hut and carried on for the remainder of the day.
'We were called several kinds of lunatics for returning by the Medical
Staff, who were then preparing to leave, and be it confessed we felt the
truth of their remarks. It was quite out of the question to hold on any
longer without cover save a "tin-hat" a-piece, so again we evacuated,
this time finally.'
It was only when the grey-clad Germans were actually in sight that the
workers at St. Leger left their loved Y.M.C.A. I only visited St. Leger
once, but that little shanty strangely fascinated me. It was not much
to look at, just a group of ruined farm buildings, and in it 'the
swallows had found a house' and regardless of our presence, yes,
regardless of the shells, for St. Leger was bombarded every day even
then, they flew backwards and forwards, feeding their young and
twittering merrily and unconcernedly as if it had been a farm building
in one of our English counties. It must have been with a heavy heart
that those Y.M.C.A. men turned their backs on St. Leger and trudged to
Boisleaux-au-Mont, where the five splendid huts that formed our
equipment shortly afterwards shared the fate of St. Leger, and were all
destroyed before the advance of the Huns.
At Boyelles the tent was amid the ruins by the roadside, and the
enamelled Triangle sign was attached to the bottom of the trunk of a
tree that had been cut down by the enemy and was lying in the hedge
just as it fell. Achiet-le-Petit Y.M.C.A. was in an orchard, the
equipment consisting of a big marquee and several little shanties
ingeniously constructed by the workers from empty petrol cans and
biscuit boxes. High up in an elm tree was a sort of crow's nest, used by
the Germans as an observation post during the time of their occupation.
At Haplincourt the Y.M.C.A. was anything but imposing--an insignificant
house fitted up as a club room, but in the paddock behind it the
secretaries had erected a platform, and arranged an open-air auditorium
on a grand scale. A hundred yards or so away was a large plunge bath,
deep enough for a good high dive. It had been constructed by the Germans
when they were in occupation, but when we saw it a score of our own
Tommies were disporting themselves in the water and having a high old
time. Albert was a scene of desolation, with its ruined church as the
most conspicuous feature. High up on the top of the spire, dislodged by
German shells, and jutting out at right angles to the spire, was the
famous figure of the Virgin holding in her hands the infant Christ. For
many months the figure had remained in this position, and was only
finally brought down during the enemy's advance in 1918. The Y.M.C.A. in
Albert was established in one big hut and two badly ruined houses. It
was on the Saturday that St. Leger fell, and the Sunday at Albert was a
memorable day. The town was crowded with an endless stream of men,
horses, guns, and service wagons passing through. Little was sold in our
canteens, but free refreshments were handed out by tired but willing
workers all day long. Nearly all those workers had thrilling stories to
tell of narrow escapes from death. Albert was evacuated on the Sunday
night, and the place must have presented somewhat the appearance of a
shambles. The Boche aeroplanes were dropping bombs or firing their
machine-guns all the time, but still our men kept on serving the hot tea
and cocoa, biscuits, and cigarettes that were so much appreciated by
officers and men alike, only leaving their posts and abandoning their
hut when ordered to do so by the Military. The retreat from Albert must
have been like an awful nightmare. Some of our men in the darkness
became entangled in the fallen wires, and whilst trying to extricate
themselves heard the hum of an aeroplane just overhead, and a bomb was
dropped only a few yards in front of them.
[Illustration: THE Y.M.C.A. IN A RUINED WAREHOUSE. SHELL-HOLE IN FLOOR
OF CANTEEN]
At Bapaume we had several centres in and closely adjacent to the town.
Bapaume, like Peronne, was not destroyed by enemy shell-fire, but
deliberately wrecked by the Hun before he was forced to evacuate, and
the foe we face to-day is a past master in the art of destruction.
Hardly a building of any description remained intact in either of these
towns when the British entered into occupation. That very fact made us
marvel when, standing for the first time in front of the big building
occupied by the Y.M.C.A. in Peronne we noticed that it was practically
intact. On entering the building we marvelled still more, for the first
object we saw was a fine German piano. Surely it was an act of kindness
on the part of the wily Hun to leave it for our men. Was it? When the
British occupied Peronne a company of troops from the west of England
were the first to enter that house. A Tommy who was musical made a
bee-line for the piano, but his officer restrained him, bidding him
first look inside. It was well he did so, for three powerful bombs were
attached to the strings of the piano, and had he touched one of the
keys concerned, he himself, the piano, and the building would have been
utterly destroyed. In the hut attached to the house a boxing match was
taking place on the evening of our arrival, and men had come from
outposts miles away to take part. Underneath the house was a German
dug-out of almost incredible depth. The original staircase was
missing--the Germans having commandeered the wood for the construction
of the dug-out--but it had been replaced by an ingenious Y.M.C.A.
secretary, who had searched amid the ruins of Peronne until at last he
had found another staircase, which, with infinite pains and labour and
not a little ingenuity, he had built in to replace the original one. The
day before our visit the old lady who had lived in the house before the
war paid a visit to her old home. She was a refugee, and had trudged
miles to get back to Peronne. She requested permission to dig in the
garden and soon unearthed the uniform of her husband who fought against
the Germans in 1870. She had buried it there before the fall of the
town. Digging again she came across his sword and accoutrements, and
deeper still, her silver spoons and other trinkets that she valued.
Could anything bring home more clearly the horrors of war? If, instead
of Peronne in Northern France, it had been that sweet little town in
England or Scotland, or that village in Wales or Ireland in which you
live! If you had heard the cry one evening, 'The Huns are coming,' and
had just half an hour in which to rush round your home and gather
together any things you specially treasured, and take them out into your
garden and bury them, knowing that anything you left behind would be
either looted and sent to Germany, or deliberately destroyed for sheer
hate! How easily this might have been, but for the mercy of God, the
mistakes and miscalculations of the enemy, and the bravery and
self-sacrifice of our heroes in blue and khaki, yes, and our workers in
fustian and print--for England must never forget the debt she owes to
her munition workers as well as to her sailors, soldiers, and airmen.
They see nothing of the romance of war; they know nothing of its
excitement, and yet apart from their patriotic service the best efforts
of our fighting men would have been in vain.
[Illustration: A Y.M.C.A. CELLAR AT YPRES]
Never was the Y.M.C.A. more appreciated than during the months that
preceded the great retreat in the spring of 1918. New Red Triangle huts
were springing up like mushrooms, especially in the Fifth Army area,
that part of the line that had recently been taken over from the French.
Supported by the generous gifts of friends at home, ably directed by
our divisional secretaries and those associated with them in the work,
and supported and encouraged in every way by the Military Authorities,
the progress made was remarkable. Then came the unexpected advance of
the German hordes and the laborious work of months was destroyed in a
few hours. At Noyon the secretary had to quit in a hurry, but returned
to the hut later to bring away the money belonging to the Y.M.C.A.
Thrice he returned, and the third time found it impossible to get away.
After remaining in hiding for twenty-four hours he at length managed to
escape with ten thousand francs in his pocket, saved for the Association
which lost so heavily during those terrible days. At Amiens the Y.M.C.A.
workers hung on for ten days after the official canteens had been
removed because the town had become too hot for them. Day and night the
'Joy' hut close to the railway station was kept open, and thronged with
officers and men, and the service rendered to the troops may be gauged
from the amount of the takings, which ranged between fifteen and
twenty-thousand francs a day.
Our total loss in the retreat was exceedingly heavy--more than one
hundred and thirty huts and other centres in Picardy and Flanders, and
in cash, upwards of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Serious as
was that loss it might have been very much worse. Eight trucks of stores
and equipment were stopped in the nick of time. The axle of one of our
big lorries broke within a hundred yards of the most heavily shelled
area in one of the towns bombarded by the enemy, but it was got away
and, excepting in two cases, all the money and notes from tills and
cash-boxes were removed safely before the huts were abandoned--striking
testimony to the devotion of those in charge. 'What I think impressed
me most,' wrote the organising secretary for France, 'has been the
undaunted spirit of our workers, who, when shelled out of huts,
persisted in the attempt to return to them under very great personal
danger.' 'Although we have lost everything that we had,' wrote one, 'we
still have hope within us, and are trusting to get back right into the
thick of things in the very near future.' Yet another, writing in the
spirit of Eastertide, said, 'We believe that our work will rise in new
freshness and power out of its apparent extinction!' 'There was a
singular unanimity of effort on the part of the workers who were
isolated one from the other, and had no opportunity of arranging a
common policy. The sale of such articles as the soldiers needed
continued in the huts up to the last moment possible, and then, when the
danger of the hut and stores falling into the hands of the enemy became
imminent, biscuits and cigarettes were handed out as largely as possible
to men in the neighbourhood taking part in the fighting. One would have
thought that having done this the workers would have considered their
own personal safety and retired, but in several cases I found them
running stunts for walking wounded in the open, outside the hut or in
its immediate neighbourhood, in close touch with the medical
authorities.
'The confusion of the retreat opened up to our workers opportunities of
service which they gladly utilised. Last night was a night of
uncertainty. We could not go to bed owing to the uncertainty of the
military position where our headquarters were, and so stood on a high
hill beside an old Trappist monastery, watching the village at the foot
in flames, and trying to ascertain the progress of the fighting through
the darkness. Our workers even under these circumstances seized an
opportunity of doing a very fine bit of service. A stream of poor
refugees were passing, people of all conditions and ages, fleeing for
safety and shelter, and so at 11.30 at night at the cross-roads, a table
was set up with a hot urn of cocoa and supplies of biscuits, which were
handed out to French and Flemish people as they passed....
'I have never seen anything that has touched me more than these streams
of all sorts and conditions of people straggling along with their little
belongings, infants in arms, to old people who had not walked a mile for
years. It was a great opportunity for rendering a truly Christian
service. The other day we lent one of our large lorries for a whole day
for the purpose of carrying these people in some degree of comfort to a
place of safety.'
Thus by every device that resourcefulness and experience could suggest
the workers of the Y.M.C.A. in France ministered to the comfort of the
men who were so bravely sustaining that terrible onslaught. The
organisation of the Red Triangle is the embodied goodwill of the British
people towards its beloved army. An emergency like the one in the spring
of 1918 was just the time when the services of the Red Triangle were
most sorely needed by our soldiers.
Fortunately, all the Y.M.C.A. workers got away safely. Sixty from the
Fifth Army took refuge at Amiens, whilst more than eighty from the area
of the Third Army found sanctuary at Doullens.
A few months later, thanks to the arrival of the Americans in France,
and the brilliant strategy of Foch and Haig; thanks above all to the
mercy of God, the tide turned, and the Huns were once more in full
retreat. A distinguished war correspondent wrote his impressions of
Bapaume a day or two after it had again been captured by the British.
Said he, 'I prowled about the streets of Bapaume through gaping walls of
houses, over piled wreckage, and found it the same old Bapaume as when I
had left it, except that some of our huts and an officers' club, and
some Y.M.C.A. tents and shelters have been blown to bits like everything
else.' A ruined town without a Y.M.C.A.! Could anything be more
desolate?
CHAPTER VIII
THE BARRAGE AND AFTER
The problem of dealing with conditions, at such a
time, and under existing circumstances, at the
rest camps has always been a most difficult one;
but the erection of huts by the Young Men's
Christian Association has made this far easier.
The extra comfort thereby afforded to the men, and
the opportunities for reading and writing, have
been of incalculable service, and I wish to tender
to your Association, and all those who have
assisted, my most grateful thanks.--FIELD-MARSHAL
VISCOUNT FRENCH.
IT was on the afternoon of July 30, 1917, that we reached Bailleul in
Flanders. Proceeding directly to the Headquarters of the Y.M.C.A. we had
tea, and then set out to visit the huts in the vicinity. It was a novel
experience, for every hut was empty. The reason was not far to find. The
troops were in their camps formed up in marching order, and later in the
evening we watched them march out to take part in the great offensive.
We were told that the barrage was timed for 3.50 in the morning, and
were asked to have our work for the walking wounded ready at 5 A.M., so
we determined to spend the night on the top of Kemmel Hill, the highest
hill in Flanders. It was just after midnight when we reached the summit
of the hill; and we wondered if the barrage had not already commenced,
so heavy was the firing. From our point of vantage we could see the
whole of the sector, from Armentières in the south, across the
battlefields of Messines and Wytschaete and away beyond Ypres in the
north. Silently, close to us, an observation balloon stole up in the
darkness, and a few minutes later as silently descended. Involuntarily
we ducked as a monster shell shrieked overhead, and some one cried,
'There goes the Bailleul Express!' About 3 A.M. things began to quiet
down. Our guns might have been knocked out; they were hardly replying at
all to the enemy's fire. Later on we saw a series of signal flashes high
up across the battlefield, and then at 3.50 promptly to the moment, the
barrage began, and there was no possibility of mistaking it--two
thousand guns, as we learned afterwards, all firing at the same time. As
one looked at that hell of flame and bursting shell, one felt it was
impossible for any life to continue to exist beneath it, and one thought
of the boys, as steady as if they had been on parade, creeping up behind
that barrage of fire. We had seen them as they left their camp the night
before, and we saw them when they returned--some of them--during the two
days following the barrage; not in regiments a thousand strong, with
colours flying and bands playing, but dribbling back one or two at a
time--the walking wounded--and each one came in to our little Y.M.C.A.
tents attached to the clearing stations--one was at an island in a sea
of mud, near Dickebusch huts in Flanders. There was a queue inside of
two or three hundred men. Every man in that queue was wounded, and
waiting to have his wounds attended to; every man was hungry until he
entered that tent; every man plastered from head to foot with the most
appalling mud, and unless one has seen the mud of Flanders or of the
Somme, it is impossible to imagine what it is really like. As I mingled
with the men in that queue and assisted our workers to hand out hot tea,
coffee, and cocoa, biscuits, bread and butter, chocolate, cigarettes or
oranges, I thanked God for the opportunity He had given to the Y.M.C.A.,
and the thing that impressed me more than anything else was the fact
that one did not hear a single complaint, not one word of grousing. And
why not? Was it because they liked that kind of thing? Don't make any
mistake about it--no one could possibly like it, but out there the men
know they are fighting not for truth and freedom in the abstract, but
for their own liberty, and, what is infinitely more important to them,
for their homes and loved ones. They know that what the Hun has done for
Northern France and Flanders is as nothing compared with what he would
do for the places and the people we love if he once got the opportunity
of wreaking his vengeance on us. There is no finer bit of work that the
Y.M.C.A. is doing to-day than this work for the walking wounded, which
before any great push takes place, is carefully organised down to the
last detail. Before one of the great battles, our men took up their
positions at thirty-four different centres where they were able to
minister to the needs of the wounded, and thus to co-operate with the
magnificent work that is being done under the sign of the Red Cross. As
in France, so in Italy and in the East, at Beersheba and other centres
on the lines of communication in Palestine, records show how efficiently
the same type of service is being rendered to our brave troops.
[Illustration: HUT IN WILDERNESS OF DESTRUCTION. CUTTING THE ICE IN
SHELL-HOLES FOR WATER FOR TEA--WINTER, 1916-17]
[Illustration: RUINED HOUSE USED BY Y.M.C.A., PROPPED UP BY TIMBER]
To return to the barrage. It is always interesting to note the effect a
scene of that kind has on people of different temperaments. We had been
sitting round a huge shell-hole near the top of Kemmel Hill feeling, it
must be confessed, a trifle 'fed-up' with things. We were all tired, and
had had a very heavy day's work. It was an uncomfortable night, to say
the least of it, with drizzling rain, and very cold for the time of
year. At the first sound of the drum-fire of the barrage set up by the
British guns, we sprang to our feet, wild with excitement. A
distinguished padre from the Midlands was lost in admiration for the
work of the munitioners whose labours made possible this great strafing
of the Hun. The leader of the party, a colonial from far-off Australia,
simply danced with excitement which he made no attempt to suppress,
contenting himself with ejaculating from time to time expressions to the
effect that that was the most dramatic moment of his life. An
unemotional Professor from one of our great universities stood with
clenched fists, and was overheard to say, 'Give 'em hell, boys!' Another
padre in the company began to quote Browning, the quotation referring to
the signal flashes to which reference has already been made:
'From sky to sky. Sudden there went,
Like horror and astonishment,
A fierce vindictive scribble of red,
Which came across, as if one said,
. . . "There--
"Burn it!"'
How often it happens that in the greatest moments of one's life, it is
the trivial thing that appeals most strongly to one's imagination. So in
this case. The thing never to be forgotten was connected with the early
dawn. I can see even now that long grey streak on the horizon across the
battlefield, as the daylight came. A thrush from a bush close to where
we were standing began to pour out its song of praise and thanksgiving,
heedless of falling shells and the roar of guns. There was something
unspeakably pathetic in that song on the battlefield, yes, and prophetic
of the great day that is coming in spite of all reverses; the day of
victory and peace, peace purchased at the price of struggle, and of
blood.
As one watched the barrage from Kemmel the onslaught seemed to be
irresistible. It seemed impossible for the German hordes to hold our men
back. Neither could they have held them, but what the Hun could not do,
the rain did for him. It just teemed down, and in a few hours Flanders
was churned up into a swamp of mud. It was impossible to bring the big
guns up and the whole advance was stayed. One thought how often the same
thing had happened before, and wondered, only wondered, if we at home
were supporting the boys at the Front as they had a right to expect us
to support them? It is so easy at a time like this to put one's trust
merely in 'reeking tube and iron shard,' and to leave God out of our
calculations. After all in this great struggle we are not fighting
merely against 'flesh and blood,' but against 'principalities and
powers, against spiritual wickedness in high places,' and even to-day
'More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.' It was
that great soldier, Sir William Robertson, who said, 'Let us never
forget in all that we do that the measure of our ultimate success will
be governed largely, if not mainly, by the extent to which we put our
religious convictions into our actions, and hold fast, firmly and
fearlessly, to the faith of our forefathers.' Had the Germans beaten us
two years ago every one would have known the reason why--they had more
men, bigger guns, and more of them, more aeroplanes, and an infinitely
better supply of munitions of war, but by the summer of 1917 we were
superior to them in every particular, and yet victory tarried. Why? Can
it be that God was waiting for His people to seek His aid?
With Russia out of the war, we were once again to stand with our backs
to the wall--the position in which the British are always seen at their
best--and the National crisis came as one more challenge to the Nation
to turn to the God of our fathers.
CHAPTER IX
'LES PARENTS BLESSÉES'
The Y.M.C.A.? Why, they could no more do without
the Y.M.C.A. than they could do without munitions
at the Front? I have seen it in operation.--THE
RIGHT HON. WILL CROOKS, M.P.
'A GREAT Mother Hen,' so wrote one who for the first time saw the work
of the Y.M.C.A. for the relatives of dangerously wounded men. This work
is carried on in London and a number of provincial centres, but it is
seen at its best in France, for there it is on a much larger scale. If a
man is dangerously wounded and lying in one of the hospitals on the
other side of the Channel, a message is sent to his people at home
containing the requisite permission to visit him, and telling them,
moreover, that from the moment they reach France the Y.M.C.A. will take
care of them. Red Triangle motors meet every boat as it reaches a French
port; automatically the relatives of wounded, or 'Les Parents Blessées'
as the French call them, are handed over to our care, and we motor them
to their destination--assisted sometimes by the Red Cross. As this may
mean a run of eighty or a hundred miles, and in war time may mean a
whole day, or possibly two days on the French railways, the motor run is
in itself a great boon. During the whole of the time they are in France,
the relatives are entertained as the guests of the Red Triangle in the
special hostels that have been established for the purpose in the
principal bases. Many of them have never been away from their own homes
before; they know no language but their own, and a journey of the kind
would have its terrors at any time, but to all the ordinary
difficulties has now to be added the fact that they are consumed with
anxiety on account of those who are dearer than life itself. It means
everything to them that the Y.M.C.A. as a 'Great Mother Hen' takes them
under its protection, soothes and protects them, so that in the darkest
moments of their lives they are not dealt with by any officials who have
to get through so many cases in a given time, but by sympathetic
friends, actuated only by the love of God, and of country. One of the
most beautiful of these hostels is 'Les Iris.' It is hidden away in the
depths of a wood near the sea, and in the springtime the nights are full
of the melody of the nightingales. This hostel is reserved largely for
the use of the relatives of dangerously wounded officers. The lady who
presides over another of the hostels has been called the Florence
Nightingale of the Red Triangle, and indeed that would be a suitable
name for any of these ladies who take the relatives to their hearts, and
do everything possible to comfort and cheer them and make them feel at
home. As we write, a letter from one of our guests lies before us. We
quote from it because it is typical of thousands of letters received
from grateful friends:--
'Many thanks for the photo of my son's grave
received this morning. How very kind you Y.M.C.A.
people are. I little thought last November when I
was begging (Hut Week in Brighton) that I should
reap personal benefit from the Y.M.C.A. The
kindness and hospitality extended to my husband
and I when we came to France nearly three months
ago, we shall never forget. It is not in our power
to help with money except in a small way, but we
tell all we can, and help in every way in our
power.'
During a recent visit to France we had the privilege of being shown over
one of the British hospitals, which, like all our hospitals, was
wonderfully efficient. Everything that could be done to alleviate
suffering was done. In one ward every man was seriously wounded, and
side by side were two beds, one occupied by a young Canadian and the
other by a young Britisher. The latter had his mother with him, who was
one of our guests. The Canadian watched them together for some time in
silence, but followed them with his eyes as a cat might a mouse.
Suddenly, without any warning, he flung himself over on to his side and
burst out crying. Questioned as to what was the matter, he replied,
'Nothing.' 'Then what makes you cry? Is the pain worse?' 'No, thanks,
the pain is better.' 'Then what makes you cry like that?' Drying his
eyes, the boy replied, 'It's all very well for him, he's got his mother
with him. My mother is more than six thousand miles away!' Is it not
worth any effort and any cost to help the loved ones of these men who
have made such great sacrifices for us? The whole of this work for 'Les
Parents Blessées' is full of pathos. On one occasion we reached a big
hospital centre just as another Association car arrived from a big base
port, bringing three English women to see their husbands. The Y.M.C.A.
leader took them to the wards they were seeking. At the first, the
sister in charge came to speak to one of our guests and said, 'I am very
sorry, but am afraid your husband won't know you. He has been terribly
ill, and all sorts of complications have set in, but you had better come
in and see him.' Twenty minutes later we saw her again, and she told us
that for ten minutes she sat by her husband's bedside, but he did not
know her. Then stooping over him, she whispered, 'You remember little
Lizzie and little Willie at home, don't you?' For one second he gave her
that look of love and recognition that made the long journey from home
worth while.
Passing on to another ward we sent in a message, and the sister came to
greet our guest, and said, 'I am glad to say your husband is much
better. I'll tell him you are here.' When she came back she said she had
asked the invalid, 'What would you like best in all the world?' Without
a moment's hesitation, he replied, 'To go back to Blighty, Sister.'
'Blighty'--how many of those who use it realise the meaning of the word?
It comes from the Indian 'Vilayhti' and means 'The home across the sea.'
'Blighty!' said the Sister; 'you know that's impossible. What would you
like next best?' 'To see my wife,' was the prompt reply. 'And what
would you say if I told you your wife was waiting outside to see you?'
queried the Sister, as she moved from his bedside and opened the door.
Yes, to these people many thousands of them, the Red Triangle has indeed
been as a Great Mother Hen at a time when they most needed its care. We
are all very much like big children, and to all of us there are times
when we need some one to take us by the hand and speak words of
consolation and good cheer.
CHAPTER X
CELLARS AND DUG-OUTS ON THE WESTERN FRONT
My son, who is somewhere in France, tells me what
a great comfort your Y.M.C.A. has been to him from
the time he started his training at ---- and all
through his stopping-places almost up to the
trenches.
UNLESS one has seen for oneself the ravages of war, it is impossible to
conceive the horror and desolation of a place like Ypres. Before the war
it was one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, to-day it is nothing
more than a heap of ruins. It is enough to make even the most
unemotional of men cry, to stand in that once beautiful Cloth Hall
Square and see how complete is the destruction--not one house, not a
single room left intact--everything destroyed beyond recognition. And
what of the Y.M.C.A. in Ypres? There we found the Red Triangle standing
erect amid the ruins, and following the hand that pointed down we came
to a little cellar Y.M.C.A.--only a cellar and yet it had been a source
of helpfulness and inspiration to tens of thousands of our brave men. It
was wonderfully fitted up, contained a small circulating library, piano,
and everything needed for the canteen side of things. Not only that, it
was a centre to work from. Between the cellar and the enemy were nine
dug-outs at advanced stations. As these were all evacuated by order of
the Military during the German offensive in April 1918, there can be no
objection to their location being indicated. The first consisted of a
ruined house and a Nissen hut at the Asylum; the second was at
'Salvation Corner,' and the third at Dead End, on the Canal bank. There
was a Y.M.C.A. at Wells Cross Roads, another at St. Jean and Wiel, and
a sixth at Potyze Château. The seventh had a homely ring about it, for
it was situated at 'Oxford Circus,' the eighth was at St. Julien, the
ninth at Lille Gate (Ypres), and the tenth was the cellar Y.M.C.A. at
the corner of Lille Road referred to above. For many months it was the
centre of the social life of the stricken town, but in August 1917 it
received a direct hit from an enemy shell, and was knocked in. This
dug-out work is intensely interesting, though naturally it has its
limitations. Large meetings are, of course, impossible; sometimes even
the singing of a hymn would be sufficient to attract the attention of
Fritz, but the man who is resourceful and courageous, and who can see an
opportunity for Christian service in meeting the common everyday needs
of men, will find endless opportunities of putting in a word for the
Master--and the sordid dug-out under shell-fire, can easily be
transformed into a temple to His praise, an inquiry-room where
resolutions are made that change the lives of men, and help the soldier
to realise that he is called to be a crusader.
[Illustration: CANADIAN Y.M.C.A. DUG-OUT IN A MINE CRATER ON VIMY RIDGE,
1917]
[Illustration: A CANADIAN Y.M.C.A. DUG-OUT NEAR VIMY RIDGE]
In the Red Triangle dug-outs of the Ypres salient, from three to four
thousand bloaters were supplied to the troops week by week; 1500 kilos
of apples, and more than 100,000 eggs! It was a miracle how these latter
were collected in the villages behind the line. Corps provided a lorry
and two drivers for five months to bring them into Ypres, and also
assisted us with thirty orderlies. It was that timely help that made our
work possible. It would be difficult to overestimate the boon to the
troops of this variety to their diet. Iron rations will keep body and
soul together, but it is the little extra that helps so much in keeping
up the health and spirits of the men. They would follow the egg lorry
for a mile and gladly pay the threepence each that the eggs cost. In
February 1918, the turnover from the Red Triangle centres round Ypres
amounted to 245,000 francs, whilst in March it had risen to 260,000. For
many weeks in this salient we gave away from five to six thousand
gallons of hot drinks each week. All honour to the band of Y.M.C.A.
leaders who kept the Red Triangle flag flying under these difficult
conditions. For six weeks one of our leaders was unable to leave his
cellar home, owing to the incessant shelling and bombing of the
immediate vicinity. These were men who 'counted not their own lives dear
unto them,' but were ready to take any risk and to put up with any
personal inconvenience that they might serve the country they
loved--yes, and they too endured 'as seeing Him Who is invisible.'
The King, who is the patron of the Y.M.C.A., and very keenly interested
in the work, visited our tiny centre at Messines. The dug-out at
Wytschaete was knocked out, and the Red Triangle cellar at Meroc, just
behind Loos, destroyed by a direct hit. The latter was approached by a
long communication trench, and was fitted up in the ordinary way--a few
tables and chairs, reading and writing materials, games, pictures on the
walls, and, of course, the inevitable and always appreciated piano. A
few days before we were there a dud shell from one of the German
'heavies' fell only two or three yards in front of the divisional
secretary's car. The cellar was immediately under a ruined _brasserie_,
and in the grounds of the latter was a solitary German grave. The story
goes that in the early days of the war enemy patrols passed through
Meroc, and a shot alleged to have been fired from a window of the
_brasserie_ found its billet in one of the Huns. In revenge, the
Germans killed every man, woman, and child in the _brasserie_. In
striking contrast was the story told us by the matron of one of our
British hospitals: 'Every one in this ward is desperately wounded, and
too ill to travel. All in that row,' said she, pointing, 'are Germans.
Yesterday a man occupying one of those beds lay dying, and could not
make his head comfortable. I went into the next ward, and said to the
Tommies "There's a German dying, will one of you lend him your pillow?"
Without a moment's hesitation,' said she, 'every one of those
dangerously wounded Britishers whipped out his pillow to help his dying
enemy.' That is the spirit of our men, and that accounts, quite as much
as their valour, for the fact that they have won the respect even of an
enemy trained from infancy to regard the British soldier as an object of
scorn and derision.
CHAPTER XI
CAMEOS FROM FRANCE
The work of this Young Men's Christian Association
has sunk so deep into the minds and into the lives
of our fellow countrymen that its work in the
future can never be diminished, and must be
extended. And it is going to do more to my mind,
than simply minister to the wants of the men in
camp; it is going to be a bond between this
country and the Great Englands beyond the
sea.--THE RT. HON. THE EARL OF DERBY, K.G.,
G.C.V.O.
A STRIKING feature of the war work of the Y.M.C.A. has been the
promptness with which a new situation has been seized and a new opening
entered. There has been an utter absence of red tape, and freedom of
action has been given to all accredited representatives of the
Association. The Red Triangle has always been first in the field, and
has been likened to a tank in its knack of overcoming apparently
insuperable obstacles. The day after the British troops first entered
Bapaume a Y.M.C.A. man appeared leading a packhorse loaded up with
cigarettes, biscuits, and dolly cakes, which he distributed amongst the
troops. He had got a foothold for the Association, and that foothold was
retained until Bapaume was evacuated.
* * * * *
In the British offensive in the early days of August 1918 a noted war
correspondent at the Front wrote:--
'In one part of the line three hours after the
troops reached their final objective they were
eating a hot breakfast as part of the programme of
the day. The familiar, ever-welcome sign of the
"Y.M.C.A." blossomed on a roofless French café six
miles within the crumpled German line, before the
tanks had finished chasing the 11th Corps staff
out of Framerville and down the Peronne road.
Food, and even books and papers, were set out
under the Red Triangle for tired and hungry
fighting men as they trooped into the rickety
building to eat and be refreshed in a room
carpeted with German papers.'
* * * * *
What thrilling memories the name of Arras will always conjure up in the
minds of Y.M.C.A. workers who served in that city of ruins! One wrote
home the day after a strong attack by the British on the enemy lines. He
wrote the letter from a dug-out which only the day before was occupied
by the Huns, in which he was carrying on for the Y.M.C.A. So precipitate
was their flight that he partook of the repast served up by German cooks
for German officers. At one time the rival trenches were, in places,
less than ten yards apart! It was here that Sir Douglas Haig personally
complimented the Association on the work its representatives were doing
on the field of battle.
The most memorable motor run we ever had was from Souastre to Arras in
1916. The hut was closed when we reached Souastre in the morning, the
leader having received a letter from the Town Major politely requesting
him to close it from 7.30 A.M. as it was expected that the Huns would
strafe the village at 8 A.M., and again at 4.30, and so it happened.
This seemed strange, as the village had not been strafed of late. How
could the British have known when Fritz would fire again? It seemed
uncanny, until a strange unwritten reciprocal working arrangement
between friend and foe was explained, which means in effect that Fritz
refrains from bombing or bombarding 'A----' three or four miles behind
the British lines if Tommy leaves village 'B----' behind his lines
alone, and _vice versa_. As both villages are used as billets for the
rival armies, both have been glad at times to honour this understanding.
The run from Souastre to the railhead at Saulty was uneventful. Night
was closing in as we left for Arras and there was no moon. For twenty
kilos or more we had to travel with lights extinguished. We were less
than a mile from the enemy trenches, which ran parallel to the road we
were traversing. 'Verey' lights or star-shells sent up by the enemy
continually made everything as light as day for the few seconds they
were in the air. There were mysterious noises from the gun emplacements
that run along the roadside, and mysterious shapes loomed up ahead of us
from time to time as we overhauled and passed transport wagons and the
like. At last we reached our destination, and it was the writer's first
visit to a town of considerable size that had been wrecked by
bombardment. There were barricades in the streets, shell-holes and
ruins everywhere. We motored through the famous Grande Place and passed
through street after street in that city of the dead, until, turning a
corner, we entered a narrow street near the ruined cathedral, and
hearing a piano playing rag-time, it was obvious that we were near the
Y.M.C.A. The memory of that old château in the narrow street will always
remain with us as we saw it then--the entrance hall, where free hot
drinks were being dispensed; the canteen crammed with British soldiers,
including many 'Bantams,' who were then stationed at Arras; the little
concert-room, with possibly a hundred men gathered round a piano singing
choruses and snatches of songs or listening to the rag-time,
accompanying it at times by whistling the refrain or stamping on the
floor. Another crowd upstairs had been entertained to a lantern lecture,
and the day's programme was being concluded with family prayers. As we
lay awake that night we heard many familiar noises that sounded strange
there--a cat call, the cry of a baby, whilst ever and anon a shell would
go shrieking over the town. In the morning we visited the ruined
cathedral, which was a sight to make men or angels weep, but even there
one saw erect amid the ruins, at the highest point, the Cross, the
emblem of our Christian faith, and one knew that though it might be by
way of the Cross, yet truth and freedom would triumph in the end.
* * * * *
A well-known war correspondent writing from British Headquarters in
France to the _Daily Mail_, on August 13, 1918, told the story of a
village under shell-fire and still within reach of machine-gun bullets,
in which was a German notice-board pointing to an incinerator, and
wrote:--'I hear from an officer who visited the spot again a day later
that another notice, "This way to the Y.M.C.A." was added. A dashing
cavalry officer, very much of the old school, possessing a voice that
would carry two miles, begged me with great earnestness to do him one
service, "Would I mention the Y.M.C.A.? It had provided his men with hot
coffee before riding out."' That is the kind of service the Red Triangle
has the privilege of rendering to our fighting men in the course of
practically every battle.
* * * * *
The Bois Carré in 1916 was a very unhealthy spot. At the edge of a wood
in a tiny natural amphitheatre the Y.M.C.A. had one of its outposts. An
orderly was usually in charge, and day and night he kept up a good
supply of hot drinks for free distribution to the troops. There they
could buy biscuits, cigarettes, soap, and other necessaries, or receive
free of charge the ever-welcome writing-paper and materials. The
supervising secretary visiting the dug-out one day in the course of his
rounds found it had been blown in by a big shell. The orderly was
terribly wounded, part of his side having been blown away, but smiling
amid his agony, he said, 'The money's safe here, sir!' Careless of
himself, the brave fellow's first consideration was to safeguard the
money in the Y.M.C.A. till.
We have vivid recollections of our visit to the Bois Carré in 1916. Late
in the evening we reached Dickebusch. The Y.M.C.A. was there in the main
street of the little Belgian village, and immediately behind it was the
ruined church. It was only a small strafed building in a ruined street
when the Red Triangle first made its appearance in Dickebusch, but the
secretary held that to be the most convenient type of Y.M.C.A. building,
'for,' said he, 'if it becomes too small, all you have to do is to
knock a hole through the wall on either side, and take in additional
houses.' This was exactly what we had done and, unattractive as it was,
the place drew crowds of men. At the Dickebusch Y.M.C.A. we were
provided with shrapnel and gas helmets and instructed in the use of the
latter. A two-mile trudge across a duck-walk over 'b----y meadow'
brought us to the famous Ridgewood Dug-outs. It was here that the
Canadians lost their guns in the early days of the war, and afterwards
so gloriously regained them. We entered the wood at midnight. A huge rat
crossed our path, and as we entered the first of the Y.M.C.A. dug-outs
where free cocoa was being dispensed in empty jam tins, we remembered a
yarn told us the day before by one of our workers. He had come to
Ridgewood as a special speaker, and after the evening meeting lay down
on the floor of the dug-out to sleep, but as he was beginning to feel
drowsy, a huge rat ran over his legs, and later one passed across his
face. With an electric flash-lamp he scared them away, but soon getting
used to it they came on 'in close formation.' He lit a candle, and a few
minutes later the rat ran away with the candle--so he said! From the
Ridgewood we went on to the Bois Carré. Shells were screaming overhead
all the time, but it was not a long walk though it provided many
thrills. For a couple of hundred yards we were on open ground, and
within easy reach of the Hun snipers. Only two of us were allowed to
pass at a time, and my guide and I had to keep fifty yards apart, and
when a 'Verey' light went up, had to stand absolutely still until it
fell to earth, and its light was extinguished. Weird things those star
shells! They shoot up to a good height like rockets, burst into
brilliant light, poise in mid-air and gradually shimmer down and out. A
few minutes brought us to the shelter of a ruined _brasserie_, and from
its further side we entered the communication trenches, and thus passed
to the Bois Carré. Standing back to visualise the scene, the orderly
caught my arm and pulled me into the shelter of the dug-out--a second
later came the patter of machine bullets on the sand-bags where we had
stood not ten seconds before. There was something fascinating about that
little dug-out Y.M.C.A., with its caterer's boiler, urns and stores, and
it is sad to think that since then it has been destroyed by shell-fire,
even though other dug-outs have been opened to take its place.
[Illustration: A GREAT BOON TO BRITISH TOMMY--A Y.M.C.A. WELL UNDER
SHELL-FIRE]
[Illustration: THE CAMBRIDGE DUG-OUT]
A year later we revisited that old _brasserie_. There was little of it
left. The central hall remained, and the Red Triangle was on it,
marking it out as a centre for walking wounded. A dressing station had
been rigged up in the cellar underneath. A distinguished preacher
serving with the Y.M.C.A. conducted a memorable Watch-night service in
the Ridgewood. Two or three hundred men gathered round and listened with
marked attention. A shell burst quite close during the prayer, and every
man instinctively glanced up to see the effect on the padre. He carried
on exactly as if nothing had happened, and won his way to every heart.
[Illustration: A REFUGE FOR THE WALKING WOUNDED]
CHAPTER XII
STORIES OF 'LE TRIANGLE ROUGE'
It is with very great pleasure I send a small
contribution (3s.) to the Y.M.C.A. funds, and only
wish it could match my inclination. Few things
have brought so much comfort to the parents at
home as the knowledge of the splendid work done by
your organisation. As one boy puts it, 'When we
get inside the Y.M.C.A. hut, we feel as if we are
home again.'
AT the close of a Y.M.C.A. Conference held in the Hôtel McMahon in
Paris, a French lady came timidly forward with a lovely bouquet of red
roses, and in a pretty little speech presented them as a thankoffering
for the war work of the Y.M.C.A. It was the gift of a mother who had
four sons serving with the Army. Those flowers have long since faded,
but the kind thought that prompted them will always remain a gracious
memory.
* * * * *
A soldier home on leave brought an interesting souvenir of the first
'Threapwood' hut, which did such good work in the Ploegsteert Woods, but
was ultimately destroyed by shell-fire--a 2 franc and a 50 centimes
piece which had become welded together in the heat of the conflagration.
Another Tommy saw a fierce fight take place between British and Germans,
actually inside the hut at Neuve Église. The incident that seemed to
have appealed most strongly to his imagination was the fact that the
pictures were still hanging on the walls. It is interesting to notice
the curious freaks of dud shells. Outside the hut at Tilloy we saw one
which had pierced its way through the trunk of a tree without
exploding--the nose of the shell protruded at the other side of the
trunk, the shell itself remaining firmly embedded in the tree.
* * * * *
An Australian officer one day sauntered into the 'Crystal Palace,' an
important Y.M.C.A. centre in Havre. He was interested, and well he might
be. It is a huge building, and swarms of men assemble there in the
evenings. The Australian's interest took a practical form. Before
leaving he handed two one-pound notes to the leader, expressing regret
that he could not make it more, and adding, 'I think you Y.M.C.A. people
will make a religious man of me before the war is over.' 'What do you
mean?' said the secretary. 'Well,' said he, 'I have never had any use
for religion, but at the battle of ---- I felt down and out. I didn't
care much if the Boche killed me. I had had nothing to eat for
days--when suddenly a Y.M.C.A. man appeared, heaven knows where he came
from, but he was there right enough, and he handed me a good hot drink,
a packet of biscuits, and some cigarettes. Yes,' said he, 'I believe
you Y.M.C.A. men will make a religious man of me before you have
finished.'
* * * * *
In war-time people often forget their differences, and in Paris one of
our splendid British soldiers, who was a Roman Catholic, lay badly
wounded and terribly ill. He wanted to confess, but there was no English
priest near. Ultimately a French priest confessed and absolved him
through an American Y.M.C.A. lady--a Protestant--who acted as
interpreter.
* * * * *
In the early days of the war a valued worker on Salisbury Plain was the
grandson of a famous Cornish revivalist. He was an ordained man and a
very strong Protestant. He went out to France later on as a chaplain of
the United Board. Returning home on furlough, he called at Headquarters
and told his experiences on the battlefield. 'You will be surprised,'
said he, 'when I tell you that my greatest friend in Flanders was a
Roman Catholic padre. He was one of the best men I ever knew, and we had
an excellent working arrangement. On the battlefield if I came across
any of his men, I would hand them on to him, and he would pass my men on
to me. If he were not at hand, I would try my best to help the dying
Roman Catholic soldier as I thought my friend would have helped him had
he been there, and _vice versa_. I shall never forget,' said he, 'my
last night in Flanders and our affectionate farewell. You know how
strong a Protestant I have always been, and my convictions have never
been stronger than they are to-day, but see this,'--and he unbuttoned
his tunic and brought out a Crucifix which was hanging from his
neck--'this was the parting gift of my Roman Catholic friend, and as
long as I live I shall keep it as one of my most treasured
possessions.'
* * * * *
As a rule there is not much romance in the story of a department that
concerns itself with nothing but trading. But the story of the growth
and development of the trading department of the Red Triangle is a
romance. All along we have discouraged trading for trading's sake in our
huts, but in a crisis like the one brought about by the war, it is not
for each individual or organisation to pick and choose, but to do what
is needed by the State, and on that principle we have had to develop the
trading side of our work enormously. Home and overseas, the department
has been brilliantly led by men animated with the highest ideals of
Christian service, who have been ready to take any risks, and whenever
necessary to work day and night. Their task has been colossal and they
have done magnificently. During the six months ending 31st May 1915, our
turnover in France amounted to £32,594, whilst three years later the six
months turnover had risen to £680,000. It was thrilling work during the
German advance in March 1918, chasing our ever-moving centres in the
Somme area, and keeping up their supplies or maintaining touch with
Amiens during these terrible days, when for a whole week more than £600
daily was taken in the little 'Joy' hut outside the Central Station.
That meant day and night work at our Base Stores in France, and thanks
to the cordial co-operation of the A.M.F.O. and the H.Q.L. of C. we were
able to send forward 200 trucks from one port alone, containing 45,000
cases, or 1,500 tons of food-stuffs, smokes, and ingredients for hot
drinks--tea, coffee, and cocoa. From December 1914 to the middle of May
1918--1,350,000 cases were handled by our stores in France,
representing the double handling of 50,500 tons of goods. During the
retreat the Y.M.C.A. motor lorries became mobile centres of operation.
They were filled up at the nearest stores available, and often travelled
from eighty to ninety miles to a cross roads or convenient point where
men going in and coming out of the line were provided with the necessary
supplies. For the six months ending November 30, 1917, our free gifts to
the troops in France amounted to £157,000. This figure does not include
the cost of huts and equipment, nor yet the general expenditure on the
work--but it embraces the cost of the hostels for the relatives of
wounded, and free food and drink for the walking wounded and for the men
serving in advanced positions.
* * * * *
A distinguished officer of the Danish Army called at the headquarters of
the British Y.M.C.A. after a visit to France, to acquaint himself with
the history of our war work:--'One day I stood on Messines Ridge,' said
he, 'and all around me was devastation caused by war, shells were to be
seen bursting all around, accompanied by the deafening roar of the big
guns. Overhead amidst the din could be heard the whirr of the engines of
the German and Allied fighting machines. I felt thrilled to think I was
in the midst of the greatest battle of history. Stepping aside a few
yards I was surprised to find a dug-out with the Red Triangle sign. I
could only exclaim, "What, these people here!"'
* * * * *
One of the funniest sights we saw in France was that of a tiny British
corporal marching behind ten stalwart German prisoners, escorting them
back to their quarters after they had finished orderly duty in one of
our tents. The humour of the situation evidently appealed to him, for he
winked as he passed us--quite an unsoldierly thing to do!
* * * * *
Tommy has a knack of making himself comfortable, though his surroundings
very often do not naturally suggest comfort. It is surprising what a
snug bed and living room combined can be made out of a discarded
hen-house! A barn occupied by men of the Horse Guards Blue was
ingeniously rigged up by its temporary tenants. One wall was missing and
was made up with sacking--on the other side of this flimsy partition
were the horses. The harness was hung round the walls, and four stakes
driven into the ground for each bed. The wire that had bound hay bales
had been ingeniously woven into wire mattresses stretched from stake to
stake; over it was, stretched the sacking--also from hay bales--and
over that again was a good thick layer of straw. There is never anything
to be gained by grumbling, but everything by taking things cheerfully as
they come and making the best of one's circumstances.
* * * * *
A Y.M.C.A. hut is a poor substitute for home, but our aim is to make
every Y.M.C.A. as much like home as it is possible for it to be. It is
surprising how much can be done by pictures, decorations and flowers, to
give the home touch. A canary singing over the counter; a cat on the
hearth; a bunch of primroses or forget-me-nots; a smile or a word of
welcome; a woman's voice; a piano--family prayers at the close of the
day--these are some of the things that count, and are numbered amongst
the greatest assets of the Red Triangle.
* * * * *
It is strange how often scenes and sounds of war and peace are
intermingled. It is a common sight to see men and women going
unconcernedly about their work, and children playing in towns that are
habitually shelled or bombed. Stranger still is it to note the habits of
the wild birds, constructing their nest amid scenes of war and in
localities subject to constant bombardment. The Y.M.C.A. hut in
Ploegsteert Wood was destroyed during a three hours' bombardment in May
1916, but whenever there came a few seconds' pause in the booming of the
guns, the nightingales sang as unconcernedly as in the piping times of
peace. We once heard, near Hersin, a sort of duet between a cuckoo and a
big gun; the bird punctuating with its call the thunder of the guns,
and, as stated elsewhere, whilst the barrage was in full swing the
thrushes on Kemmel, only a few hundred yards behind the guns, sang as
sweetly and merrily as in the lanes and gardens of England. In the
course of a brief visit to the American front in France we called at a
little Y.M.C.A. shanty, badly strafed, within a mile or so of the enemy.
Through the open window from which all glass had long since vanished, a
swallow entered, and, perching on a wire stretched across the room,
carolled joyously its simple little song--a message truly of peace and
eternal hope!
* * * * *
The 'Walthamstow' hut at Remy had to be temporarily abandoned during the
German offensive. The leader in charge transferred operations to a
dug-out across the way, which adjoined a clearing station. The
inevitable caterer's boiler enabled him to keep up a constant supply of
hot tea and coffee for the wounded. An Australian terribly mutilated was
brought in. A happy smile, a few cheery words, and a cup of steaming
hot cocoa made the Australian feel he had met a friend--and speaking
slowly, in a voice that was scarcely louder than a whisper, he said, 'I
wonder why I am allowed to suffer like this,' 'I know why,' replied the
Y.M.C.A. man; 'you are suffering like this so that two women I love--my
mother and my sister--may live in peace and safety in the north of
London. If it were not for the sacrifices you and thousands of other
boys are making out here, that would be impossible.' The soldier lad was
quiet for some time, and then whispered to his new-found friend--'I'm
glad to go on suffering!'
* * * * *
The same secretary tells an interesting story of one of the bitter
fights round Passchendaele. The wounded were being brought in on
stretchers, and he was on the spot with hot drinks for the boys. The
guns were quiet for a moment and a voice was heard singing clearly and
distinctly:
'Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on.
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.'
[Illustration: Y.M.C.A. MOTOR KITCHEN BEHIND THE LINES]
The singer was a private, badly wounded and being carried in on a
stretcher. The subsequent verses were drowned in the roar of battle, but
those standing round could see from the movement of the wounded man's
lips that he was still singing. Thus it is possible for a man to find
his Saviour near him even amid the horror and noise of war.
* * * * *
One day in 1917 we stood outside a little Y.M.C.A. at Erquinghem, lost
during the German advance in the following spring, and standing there we
heard 'Grandmother' speak. 'Grandmother,' it should be explained, was
a mighty howitzer. It was concealed under an improvised shed carefully
camouflaged, and was brought out on rails, in a horizontal position. As
we watched, it was brought to the vertical and out shot a tongue of
flame. The projectile was so huge we could watch its flight for miles
until it disappeared from view in the distance. Listening intently we
heard the explosion in the enemy's lines. Many a Y.M.C.A. on the Western
Front is situated right amid the guns, and when they are fired one knows
it--'Grandmother' speaking, seems to shake the very foundations of the
earth.
[Illustration: INDIAN TROOPS AT THE SIGN OF THE RED TRIANGLE]
CHAPTER XIII
THE RED TRIANGLE IN THE EAST
The Y.M.C.A. is doing excellent work--its efforts
are appreciated immensely by all ranks in this
force. Experience of Y.M.C.A. work in the Army has
long since convinced me how invaluable its
services are to us, both in peace and war.--THE
LATE LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR STANLEY MAUDE.
THE Macedonian call 'Come over and help us' has been repeated in our own
days, and has come from near and far East. The Red Triangle has been
quick to respond to the call, and a few incidents of its work are
recorded here, though the story itself must be told after the war. The
Chief Executive officer of the Indian National Council is himself an
Indian, and not only has he, with the assistance of his Council, been
responsible for the great work of the Red Triangle in India, but also
for the extensive programme of work the Association has undertaken for
Indian troops in East Africa, Mesopotamia, and Europe. In addition to
work for British troops in India, the Y.M.C.A. has established work for
Indian troops in a number of cantonments, where service parallel to that
undertaken for British troops is carried on, with the exception that no
religious work is done, unless in the case of Christian Sepoys.
The number of branches with British troops on August 1, 1917, was 43,
worked by 40 European and American and 9 Indian secretaries, and 1
honorary lady secretary. With Indian troops there were 8 branches,
worked by 1 European and 8 Indian secretaries. These figures do not
include the temporary work undertaken by the Army Y.M.C.A. with the
Waziristan Field Force, which terminated during August 1917, and which
included 4 British and 4 Indian branches, with 3 European and 2 Indian
secretaries. There was also 1 European secretary at Headquarters on
August 1, 1917, for Army work in India; and in addition secretaries
engaged in civilian Y.M.C.A. work in several stations gave part of their
time to Army work, as well as many voluntary workers.
In Burma a large barrack-room, made of wood and bamboo with a
grass-thatched roof, houses the Association, which works amongst the men
of the newly formed Burmese regiments. The whole building is on piles,
and stands about six feet off the ground, thus preventing snakes and
other unwelcome guests from coming inside. The regiments comprise not
only Burmans but Karens, Chinese, and Arakanese. Most of the men are
from the deep jungle, and very few of them can read or write. The
gramophone interests them enormously, and they look inside it to see
who is producing the sound, and will sit round in a circle listening to
it for hours. Picture papers interest them, but usually they prefer
holding the pictures upside down. The better educated men write a good
deal on the free notepaper provided by the Y.M.C.A. Quartettes are sung
by Karen and Chinese Christians. At the far end of the building is a
huge image of the Buddha which was there before we came, and is used by
some of the boys as a sort of chapel for private devotions. The boys
have to take their choice between Christianity and Buddhism, and as we
have three exceptionally good lamps there is much more light at the
Y.M.C.A. end of the hall, and we have the better attendance in numbers
at all events.
Egypt, handicapped at first through lack of money, has also done
magnificently. There is no more important centre of Association activity
in the world than the Esbekia Gardens in Cairo. Ever since the early
days of the war, night after night, thousands of khaki-clad warriors
have congregated in these lovely gardens, which under other auspices
might easily have been one of the danger spots of Cairo, instead of a
kind of modern 'City of Refuge' from the temptations of the city. The
Anzac hostel is another striking feature of the work in Cairo. In June
1917 no fewer than 6893 soldiers slept in it, and that was not by any
means a record month. The money for the purchase of this hostel as the
permanent property of the Y.M.C.A. has been subscribed by members of the
Baltic, but the discovery of the existence of a third mortgage has
delayed the completion of the purchase. At Alexandria, Khartoum, Port
Soudan, on both sides of the canal and far into the Sinai Peninsula, the
Association outposts have been busy. A Red Triangle hut in the desert
was destroyed by a bomb dropped from a hostile aeroplane, but when the
smoke subsided, the centre pole was still standing and the Association
flag flying. The huts at Kantara are amongst the finest in the world,
and neither here nor anywhere else has it been necessary to put up a
notice intimating that the Y.M.C.A. is 'open to all,' Tommy knows it,
and regards the Red Triangle as his own peculiar possession. One cannot
conceive of any place on earth where it is more needed than in one of
these desert camps, where there is nothing to do, nowhere to go, and
nothing to see but endless stretches of monotonous and dreary sand.
Under such circumstances the Red Triangle is Tommy's tuck shop; his
church--with the chaplain as the parson; his post-office, concert hall,
social room, school, and home. This is true of every fighting front, and
that is why the Association has won for itself a lasting place in the
affections of the manhood of the Empire.
A young soldier writing home the day after his arrival in Mesopotamia,
said the first thing he struck on landing was the welcome sign of the
Red Triangle. 'And,' said he, 'if we are ordered next to the North Pole,
I am sure we shall find it there!' The Y.M.C.A. secretary for
Mesopotamia tells of a visit he paid to a centre on the way to Bagdad.
It was a big bare marquee, crammed with men, with very little furniture
in it--the difficulties of transport being so great in those days--just
half a dozen tables and a few chairs, a heap of books, and a number of
games. There were six inches of dust all over the floor, and the
temperature was 120 degrees in the shade, yet one thing that attracted
the men to the Y.M.C.A. marquee was that it enabled them to escape the
heat of their own bell tents. Through the kindness of Sir Alfred Yarrow
a Red Triangle motor launch has since then been provided for use on the
Tigris, and has greatly simplified transport. The central Y.M.C.A. at
Bagdad is one of the best of our war buildings, and is situated on the
banks of the Tigris. An Association centre has been established on the
reputed site of the Garden of Eden.
* * * * *
The story of the Red Triangle in Palestine is an epic in itself. For
months the Association occupied dug-outs along the Palestine front, and
in those days one secretary devoted the whole of his time to making
personal purchases for officers and men, who could not themselves get
away to any centre of civilisation to make purchases on their own
account. Gaza was the first centre occupied in the Holy Land; Beersheba,
Jaffa, and Jerusalem being occupied later. At Jaffa the former German
Consulate was fitted up as a Y.M.C.A., and the Red Triangle as a matter
of course has made its appearance on a big building in Jerusalem.
Malta was a very important centre in the early days of the war, and the
Y.M.C.A. flourished in its numerous hospital camps. In Macedonia the
work has been difficult, but greatly appreciated in Salonica itself, as
well as on the Varda and the Struma. The need has been urgent, and every
effort has been made to meet that need. Transport difficulties have led
to inevitable delays in the delivery of stores and equipment, but there
are more than forty centres now, including five for Serbian soldiers.
The Y.M.C.A. had its part in the ill-fated expedition to the
Dardanelles. Mudros, Imbros, and Tenedos were centres of importance in
those days, and the Red Triangle was at work in each island. The urgent
need of the troops was for soft drinks, and those ordinary canteen
supplies that give variety to the soldiers' menu, and make the official
rations palatable. The official canteens were powerless to meet the
demand. We were anxious to help, but transport was the difficulty. At
last, through the kindness of Lord Nunburnholme, we were enabled to
charter the s.s. _Nero_ of the Wilson Line, and despatch it with a cargo
of canteen supplies to the value of eleven thousand pounds to Mudros. A
few days later the Peninsula was evacuated, but whilst they were there
the men availed themselves to the full of the opportunity of buying
supplementary food at British prices. When the _Nero_ reached Mudros,
Greek venders were selling our Tommies tinned fruit at twelve shillings
a tin, and other prices were correspondingly high.
In the centre of an official photograph of Anzac showing the Bay, the
camp, and the surrounding sandhills, are to be seen the letters
'Y.M.C.A.' They appear on a tiny marquee and close to it a big dug-out,
measuring 30 by 19 feet, in which the Red Triangle carried through its
programme of friendliness and good cheer, always under shell-fire. One
night a fragment of a Turkish shell, weighing twelve and a half pounds,
found its way through the roof of that dug-out. At Cape Helles there
were three tiny tents fastened end on end. Had they been larger they
could scarcely have escaped the attention of 'Asiatic Annie,' the big
Turkish gun that dominated the position. As it was, the Officer
Commanding the advanced base at Lancashire Landing wrote to Headquarters
to say how much the men appreciated those tents, and explained that the
previous day an eight-inch high explosive shell from a Turkish gun had
burst in the centre of the middle tent and completely destroyed it.
'Fortunately,' said he, 'it didn't damage the piano, and still more
fortunately,' he added, 'it didn't harm the gramophone.' That was
curious, and we thought of some of the gramophones we had known, and
felt it would have been no disaster if a shell had destroyed the lot!
This gramophone was different, however, for it had only just been wound
up when the shell burst, but regardless of the bustle and confusion
caused by the explosion, it kept on playing until it had finished the
last note of the tune! What a splendid object lesson for the Allies, to
stick to the job they have on hand to the finish, or in other words,
till victory crowns their efforts. Many months after the incident here
recorded the Irish Y.M.C.A. was invited to open up at Rathdrum. The
secretary responsible interviewed the O.C., and learning that he was a
Catholic, asked politely if he knew the work of the Y.M.C.A. 'Indeed I
do,' was the reply. 'I was at Cape Helles when a shell burst in your
tent. I was the officer in charge, and it was my duty to remove
casualties. I went up to the tents fearing the worst, and shall never
forget the smiling face of the Y.M.C.A. man behind the counter. It won
me over completely.'
A distinguished officer wrote:--
'Your work has been of inestimable value to the
troops, filling a gap which it is impossible for
the Military Authorities to provide for. "Always
first up, always working hard, and always
welcome--the Red Triangle will always be
gratefully remembered by the soldiers in the Great
War."'
CHAPTER XIV
SIDE LINES OF THE RED TRIANGLE
The Y.M.C.A. has fashioned a girdle of mercy and
loving-kindness round the world which will stand
to their credit as long as the memory of this war
exists.--LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTON.
[Illustration: A SHAKEDOWN IN A LONDON HUT]
[Illustration: RELATIVES OF THE DANGEROUSLY WOUNDED ARE LOOKED AFTER BY
THE Y.M.C.A. IN FRANCE]
THERE are numerous side-lines to this work, that are important enough in
themselves, the significance of which is scarcely realised by the
general public, or even by those who are supporting the movement. Take,
for example, the 'Snapshots from Home' movement, which represented the
combined voluntary work of the photographers of the United Kingdom,
organised under the Red Triangle. Upwards of 650,000 snapshots were sent
out to soldiers and sailors on active service, each one bearing a
message of love and a reminder of home. Sir Evelyn Wood, V.C., was one
of the first to recognise the significance of the letter-writing that is
done on such a large scale in the Y.M.C.A. tents. The veteran
Field-Marshal pointed out that the benefit was two-fold: first, it
occupied the time of the men; and, secondly, it kept them in touch with
their homes, both matters of first importance. 'That's what my Dad
always puts on his letters to Mummy,' said a little girl, pointing to
the Red Triangle on the notepaper, when on a visit to the Crystal
Palace. Fifteen to twenty million pieces of stationery are distributed
free of charge to the troops monthly by the Y.M.C.A., and in four years
the total issued amounted to upwards of nine hundred million pieces.
Workers are often called upon to write letters for the men, and the
latter make all sorts of mistakes with their correspondence. Sometimes
they stamp their letters but forget to address them, often they
address them but forget the stamps. One lad was greatly excited and
wanted the secretary in charge of the post-office to rescue two letters
he had posted earlier in the afternoon. When asked why he wanted them
back he blushed like a schoolgirl and stammered out, 'I've written two
letters--one to my mother and the other to my sweetheart--and I've put
them in the wrong envelopes!' The letters were not rescued, for more
than five thousand had been posted before he discovered his mistake, and
one wonders what happened!
[Illustration: Y.M.C.A. NIGHT MOTOR TRANSPORT]
* * * * *
In Paris the Association has established a central inquiry bureau under
the Hôtel Édouard VII. off the Grand Boulevard. Two daily excursions are
arranged around Paris, and two each week to Versailles. Representatives
of the Red Triangle meet all the principal trains, day and night. The
Hôtel Florida is now run under the Association for British troops,
whilst the American Y.M.C.A. has its Headquarters for France in the
city, and has taken over several large hotels and other buildings.
There is not the romance about the work of the Red Triangle in the
munition areas, that there is in what it is doing for our fighting men,
but there can be no doubt as to its importance. The munition workers as
a class are as patriotic as any other class, but their work is drab,
monotonous, and strenuous. Little has been done officially to bring home
to the man who makes the shell the relationship of his work to the man
who fires it; or of the woman who works on the aeroplane to the man who
is to fly in it, and yet the one can do nothing without the other.
Things have changed for the better, but earlier in the war the output of
munitions was positively hindered by the inadequacy of the canteen
facilities available to the munition workers. The Y.M.C.A. was the first
organisation to attempt to meet this need on anything like a large
scale, and eventually the work grew to considerable dimensions. Our work
in the munition areas has been essentially a ladies' movement, and has
largely consisted of canteen work. Other features are being increasingly
added, music and singing have been organised successfully, lectures have
been greatly appreciated, and several big athletic features introduced.
Sporting events, also cricket and football leagues for munition workers,
have been well supported. It is intensely interesting to see these
people at work, and no other proof of British organising power and
ability are necessary than a visit to some of the great works, many of
which were not built for the purpose of manufacturing munitions of war,
and others improvised since the commencement of hostilities. At one
place in which a canteen was formally opened by Princess Helena
Victoria--who has taken the keenest interest in the development of our
munitions department--from ordinary shipbuilding before the war great
changes had taken place: a Super-Dreadnought was approaching completion;
several T.B.D.'s were on the stocks, and some of the latest type of
submarines were being built; aeroplanes were being turned out at an
incredible rate; shells made by the thousand; rigid air-ships were under
construction; and, perhaps as wonderful as anything, artificial feet
were being made in the same workshops.
* * * * *
Incidentally might be mentioned here, the work the Association is doing
for officers. There are four large hostels in London for the
accommodation of officers, and one for officer-cadets. The young
officer is often not blessed with too much of this world's goods, and
hotel life is expensive, and not always too comfortable. The success of
these hostels has demonstrated the need. At Havre, Calais, St. Omer,
Étaples, and many centres up the line, as well as in home camps, such as
Ripon, we have the pleasure of doing something to serve the officer, and
in many English camps we have opened huts for the exclusive use of
officer-cadets. Gidea Park, Berkhampstead, and Denham were amongst the
first and most successful of these centres. The interned officers in
Switzerland and Holland are largely catered for by the Y.M.C.A.
* * * * *
It has been a pleasure to co-operate from time to time with the work of
the R.A.M.C. and the Red Cross. In huts, in hospitals, and convalescent
camps, in caring for the relatives of wounded, in work for the walking
wounded, and in many other ways the Red Cross and the Red Triangle have
worked closely together. An officer of the R.A.M.C. (T.), has written
the following interesting description of the work of the Y.M.C.A. for
the walking wounded:--'The O.C. the Divisional Walking Wounded
Collecting Post was frankly worried as he sat in his tiny sandbagged hut
with the D.A.D.M.S., and talked over all the problems which faced him in
view of the "stunt" due to come off at dawn a few days later. "I've got
plenty of dressings, and everything of that sort," he said, "and, of
course, I can get plenty more brought up by returning ambulance cars.
But there is the question of food--there's the rub. The numbers of
wounded vary so greatly, and it's not so easy to lay in a huge reserve
of grub as it is of dressings. Of course, I've done my best, but I'm
rather worried." "If that is all your worry we'll soon put that right,"
answered the optimist of the staff. "We'll get the Y.M.C.A. chap on the
job." "What can he do?" "What can he not do rather? You wait and see.
Come along and we'll call on him now."
'In a little shed of corrugated iron by the side of a shell-swept road
they found him. With his coat off and his sleeves rolled up, he was
pushing across the counter steaming mugs of cocoa and piles of buns to
the crowd of hungry and clamouring Tommies who besieged his premises. He
was not a young man. Not the strongest-hearted of Medical Boards would
have passed him for service. To put it briefly, he had no right in the
world to be where he was, in one of the nastiest corners of that
particularly nasty place, Flanders. But there he was, roughing it with
the rest of them, and to judge from his smiling countenance, thoroughly
enjoying every particle of his experience. "Hello, Major!" he called
out cheerfully on seeing his two officer visitors. "Anything I can do
for you to-day?" "Rather! A whole lot. Can we have a talk in your own
place--away from the crowd?" The Y.M.C.A. man led the way to the six
feet square hole in the ground which he called his billet, and there the
medical staff officer explained his needs. "There's a stunt on in a few
days," he said. "You may have guessed that. What can you do to help us?
You know the pressure under which the R.A.M.C. will be working. It'll be
a big job dressing all the casualties there are likely to be; but we'll
manage that bit. What we want is a hand in the feeding of them. You
understand?" The face of the secretary glowed with excitement. "I'll do
any mortal thing I can," he answered eagerly. "There'll be nothing doing
here once the show starts, so I'll shut down, and bring my whole stock
over to your dressing station, and my staff too. We can feed several
hundred if you'll let us." "What about the cost of the grub?" "Not a
word about cost, sir! You're welcome to it free, gratis, and for
nothing, with all the pleasure in the world." "Thanks awfully," said the
D.A.D.M.S. "That's just what I wanted you to offer, and I thought you
would; your folks have helped us so often before." "Jolly good job,"
mused the Y.M.C.A. man, "that I have kept hidden those extra cases of
chocolates and sweet biscuits. I thought there might be something of
this sort coming off."
'Ere the grey dawn of a certain morning brought the nerve-racking
inferno of barrage and counter-barrage, the entire stock of the canteen
was installed in the larger of the two huts which formed the collecting
post. Boxes of biscuits, chocolates, and cigarettes with the lids
knocked off, stood ranged along the wall, ready for the tired and hungry
guests who would soon appear. Outside, in two huge cauldrons, gallons of
strong cocoa were brewing merrily. Little was spoken by the men standing
around, as they waited, nerves a trifle on edge, for the breaking of the
storm. Suddenly from somewhere in the rear came the hollow boom of a
"heavy," the artillery signal, and in an instant every battery in the
area had hurled its first salvo of the barrage. The air was full of
noise, the rolling roar of the guns at "drum fire," the hissing and
screaming of flying shells, the echoes of far-away explosions. The
ground trembled as if an earthquake had come. The battle had begun.
'The O.C. looked in at the door of the hut. "Everything ready?" he
asked. "Ready and waiting," answered the Y.M.C.A. man, and very soon in
twos and threes the wounded began to dribble in, and shortly a steady
stream of battered humanity was straggling down the road, to halt at the
welcome sight of the hut with the Red Cross flag by its door. How some
of them limped over every weary step of the way was beyond
understanding. With shattered limbs and mangled flesh they came, worn,
hungry, thirsty, in agony, some stumbling alone, some helped along by
less grievously injured comrades. In a pitiful throng they gathered
around the dressing station.
'The quick eyes of the R.A.M.C. sergeant picked out the worst cases, and
these were hurried into the hut where the medical officers plied their
sorrowful trade. The others sat down and waited their turn with the
stolid patience of the British soldier when he is wounded, and among
them worked an Angel of Mercy, an elderly angel clad in a flannel
shirt, and a pair of mud-stained khaki trousers. Amid the poor jetsam of
the fight went the Y.M.C.A. man with his mugs of cocoa and his biscuits,
his chocolate and his cigarettes, as much a minister of healing as was
the surgeon with his dressings and anodynes. All the men were bitterly
cold after their long night of waiting in the old front trench, or were
dead beat with the nervous strain of the action and the pain of their
wounds. All were hungry. A few no longer cared greatly what more might
happen to them, for they had reached the limit of endurance, as surely
as they had reached the limit of suffering. But even to those last the
warm drink and the food and, perhaps more than anything else, the
soothing nicotine, brought back life and hope in place of apathy and
despair. 'God bless you, sir,' murmured a man here and there. But the
greater part could find no words to speak the gratitude which their
eyes told forth so clearly.'
This little story is not the tale of one actual incident. It is only the
stereotype of scenes that have been acted and reacted often and often at
the Front. Time and time again has the Red Triangle come to the aid of
the Red Cross, placing its workers and its stores unreservedly at the
disposal of the Royal Army Medical Corps. When the wounded have been
pouring into the dressing stations in hundreds, the Y.M.C.A. workers
have taken over the responsibility of feeding them, and have halved the
cares of the overwrought R.A.M.C. This they have done not once but
unnumbered times, and what gratitude they have earned from their guests!
The wounded man can scarcely realise what he owes to the surgeon who
tends his injuries; but he does appreciate his debt to the man who feeds
him and gives him the 'fag' for which he has been craving. The cocoa
and cigarettes of the Y.M.C.A. do not figure among the medicaments of
the Pharmacopoeia, yet many a 'walking wounded' will swear to you that
they have saved his life--as perhaps they have.
CHAPTER XV
THE RED TRIANGLE AND THE WHITE ENSIGN
Surely the Almighty God does not intend this war
to be just a hideous fracas, a bloody, drunken
orgy. There must be purpose in it all; improvement
must be born out of it. In what direction? France
has already shown us the way, and has risen out of
her ruined cities with a revival of religion that
is most wonderful. England still remains to be dug
out of the stupor of self-satisfaction and
complacency which the great and flourishing
condition has steeped her in. And until she can be
stirred out of this condition, until a religious
revival takes place at home, just so long will the
war continue. When she can look on the future with
humbler eyes and a prayer on her lips, then we can
begin to count the days towards the end.--ADMIRAL
SIR DAVID BEATTY, K.C.B., M.V.O., D.S.O., K.C.V.O.
[Illustration: Y.M.C.A. IN THE FRONT-LINE DUG-OUTS ON THE PALESTINE
FRONT]
THIS chapter is written in a 'sleeper' at the close of a busy day in the
North. The day has been made a memorable one by a visit to the _Queen
Elizabeth_, as she lay at her moorings in one of our great naval bases.
She is one of the greatest instruments of war in the world, and it was a
revelation to enter one of the gun turrets of the super-dreadnought, to
look through the periscope, or see the ingenious mechanism that moved
those mighty guns, and lifts into position the huge projectile that is
capable of delivering death and destruction to an enemy many miles away.
It was more than interesting to visit the wireless rooms, where
ceaseless watch is kept by day and night, and to see the wonderful
orderliness of everything, and to note that every one on board was
ready, and their only fear that the German Fleet might never be tempted
out again. The visit to the _Queen Elizabeth_ left one thinking of the
service the Red Triangle has been able to render to the White Ensign.
During the war there are not as many opportunities for work amongst
naval men as in peace time, but there is all the more need that when
the men are ashore everything that is possible should be done for them.
The Scottish National Council have up-to-date well-equipped hostels and
recreation-rooms in several naval centres, and those at Edinburgh and
Glasgow are thronged with bluejackets. South of the Border there are
many fine hostels and recreation-rooms for sailors, and in scores of
centres in England, Wales, and Ireland the Red Triangle is catering
successfully for the needs of our bluejackets. The biggest crowd of all
is to be found in the quarters occupied by the Y.M.C.A. at the Crystal
Palace, where thousands of men every day use the Y.M.C.A. as their club,
and find in it their home. We shall never know all we owe to our
splendid Navy, and that debt can never be fully paid. At the close of
the war we are planning to erect permanent hostels and institutes for
sailors in several naval bases at home and in some of the great foreign
stations. Much appreciated war work for sailors is being carried on now
at Brindisi and Taranto, for the men of the drifters employed on
minesweeping in the Mediterranean, also at Malta, Mudros, and other
centres overseas.
[Illustration: Y.M.C.A. DUG-OUT AND CANTEEN ON PALESTINE FRONT]
A demand for a Y.M.C.A. on a battleship came from the men of H.M.S.
_Conqueror_, and it has been found most helpful.
Many isolated naval stations round the British coast are supplied with
cabinets, each one containing a gramophone, library, a supply of writing
materials, and games. For obvious reasons it would be imprudent whilst
the war is on to indicate the centres by name in which the Red Triangle
is serving the men of the Navy, but there will be a great story to tell
when the war is over.
CHAPTER XVI
THE RELIGION OF THE RED TRIANGLE
The work of the Y.M.C.A. is, to my mind, one of
the outstanding features of this war. Their
efforts, along with other agencies working for the
highest welfare of the Army, have shown a true
catholic spirit, and made it easier for our
soldiers to live a noble, true and clean life. May
God's blessing follow their increasing
influence.--THE CHAPLAIN-GENERAL TO THE FORCES.
The Y.M.C.A. has been one of the really great
things which have come into their own in this
world crisis. It has been a Hindenburg Line of the
Christian faith.--DR. MICHAEL SADLER,
VICE-CHANCELLOR OF LEEDS UNIVERSITY.
THE Y.M.C.A. is not in camp as a rival to the ordinary Church
organisations, nor yet to supplant or in any conceivable way to
undermine the influence of the chaplains. Its large and commodious huts
and tents have been used in thousands of camps for the official Church
Parade services, and in many cases there has been no other suitable
room available. We have counted it a privilege on Sunday mornings to
place our equipment unreservedly at the disposal of all the official
chaplains who desired to use it. We have welcomed the opportunity of
assisting the great and important work the chaplains are doing for the
men of His Majesty's Forces, for the Y.M.C.A. is itself a wing of the
great Christian army, and has sometimes been described as the Church in
action. Apart from the support in men and money it has received from
members of the Churches, the war work of the Red Triangle would have
been impossible. The Y.M.C.A. is not a church, and will never become
one. It administers no sacraments, its membership is confined to one
sex; it discourages in all its branches the holding of meetings that
clash with those of the Churches, and in every possible way each member
unattached is encouraged to join the Church of his choice.
In the course of a striking letter to _The Challenge_ of July 12, 1918,
a correspondent said:--'We turn, for an example, to the Y.M.C.A. Conceal
the unpleasant truth how we may, the outstanding religious performance
of this war in the eyes of the public at large has not been the daily
services in Church--not even the Holy Communion--but the work done in
the Y.M.C.A. huts. It is along those lines that we must travel if we are
to win the world. For the mediævally-minded, for the intellectually
timid, there is always Rome. But it is not by those that the new England
will be built, and it is the new England we must save for Christ.'
Another writer to the same Anglican journal said it had been stated that
'after the war there would be a holy Roman Church and a holy Y.M.C.A.,
but no more Church of England.' The fact of the matter is the Y.M.C.A.
is not making the work of the Churches unnecessary, but rather it is
giving the ordinary man a new conception of what Christianity really is,
and is thus helping to interpret the churches to the masses, and is
acting as a bridge or a communication trench between the organised
forces of Christianity in the front line, so to speak, and the great
masses away back in reserve, on which they desire to draw. Some people
have spoken sneeringly of 'canteen religion'; the soldier never
does--and why should he? There is nothing new about it, for it is as old
as the early days of Christianity, only the gospel of the 'cup of cold
water' has been adapted to the needs of modern warfare, so that the man
in the firing-line knows it from experience as the gospel of the 'cup of
hot coffee.' Straggling back to a clearing station, wounded, plastered
with mud, and racked with pain, the most eloquent of sermons would not
help him, but a hot drink, a few biscuits or even a cigarette, if given
in the name of the Master may put new heart and life into him, and give
him fresh courage for the way. The Churches realise this, and have given
us of their best as far as helpers are concerned.
We have a vivid recollection of visiting the big Y.M.C.A. hut in the
Cavalry Camp at Rouen in 1915. It was the ordinary week-night service,
and more than six hundred men were present. A famous Scottish preacher
had conducted the service, and at the close we chatted with him for a
few minutes in the quiet room. 'Before I came out to France,' said he,
'I knew you had a great opportunity. Now I know that the greatest
spiritual opportunity in history rests on your shoulders--is with the
Y.M.C.A.' And yet there is a way of doing spiritual work that would make
all spiritual work in camp absolutely impossible. We remember visiting a
big hut one day--it did not sport the Red Triangle, but was beautifully
furnished. Over the door was a bold device 'A Home from Home! All
Welcome!' On entering, the first thing one saw was the text 'Behold your
sins will find you out!' And a few yards further on 'The wages of sin is
death.' 'No smoking!' was another notice, and yet another, 'This hut
will be closed every evening from seven to eight for a gospel service.'
Religion to appeal to the soldier must be natural and not forced, and
must be free from controversy and unreality. The British soldier hates a
sham, and instinctively classes the hypocrite with the Hun. He may not
understand our Shibboleths; he has no use for our controversies, but he
can and does understand the Life of the Master, when he sees the beauty
of that Life reflected in some humble follower of His, who day by day is
risking his life at the Front, that he may supply a cup of cocoa to a
wounded soldier, or who is slaving behind a Y.M.C.A. refreshment counter
at home, and doing uncongenial work for the love of Christ.
* * * * *
When it was decided to send the Indian troops to France, the Y.M.C.A.
offered its services to the Indian Government. The offer was refused. At
last, however, permission was given to supply recreation marquees for
the use of the Indian Army in France, but only on condition that there
should be no proselytising, no preaching, no prayers, no hymn singing,
no Testaments or Bibles given, and no tracts. The Y.M.C.A. accepted the
conditions, and though some of its friends felt it meant lowering the
flag, it has loyally kept its promise, and most people realise to-day
that this was one of the greatest pieces of Christian strategy of our
times. A visit to one of the Red Triangle huts or tents in an Indian
camp is a revelation. You hear the Mohammedan call to prayer, see the
tiny mosque, and realise in how many and varied ways it is possible for
the Y.M.C.A. to be of service to these brave men of another faith. A
professor reported at one of the big base camps as a worker. He had come
to lecture to the troops, and when asked by the leader as to his
subjects replied, 'Sanscrit and Arabic.' The leader wondered how on
earth he could make use of a man as a lecturer to British Tommies, who
only lectured on those two obscure and difficult topics. The professor
found his niche, however, teaching the Mohammedan priest to read his
Koran--the leader commenting--'The more he knows it, the less he will
trust it.'
It is interesting to note how well these Indian heroes get on with our
own Tommies. They play their games and sometimes sing their songs. When
'Tipperary' was all the rage, the Indians had their own version of the
chorus, which they sang with great enthusiasm. It ran thus:
'Bura dur hai Tipperary,
Bura dur hai kouch ho,
Bura dur hai Tipperary,
Sukipas powncheniko,
Ram, ram, Piccadilly,
Salam Leicester Square.
Bura, bura dur hai Tipperary,
Likem dil hoa pus ghai.'
On one occasion the secretary of an important base said he had arranged
a new stunt for us that evening--the formal opening of a hut in the
Indian Cavalry Hospital Camp. We arrived to find the hut crowded, and a
great banquet arranged in our honour. Nothing need be said as to the
banquet or its disastrous results as far as we are concerned! The
Indians enjoyed it, and that was the important thing. Before the
banquet we had the privilege of greeting the men and welcoming them to
the Y.M.C.A., and after we had finished, the leading Mohammedan in the
camp mounted the platform and gave a great oration in honour of the
Christian Association. He was followed by the leading Brahmin, and he in
turn by the senior Sheik, all speaking in most cordial terms of the
Y.M.C.A. In the midst of the orations, a stately Indian advanced
solemnly and placed a garland of flowers round my neck. Thrice this
garlanding process was repeated on different occasions--lovely roses and
sweet peas--and it was a great and much appreciated honour, though it
made one feel a trifle foolish at the time. After the banquet we
proceeded to the adjoining recreation tent, and it was an inspiration to
see it crammed from end to end with men of many religions and different
races, all happy and contented and all usefully employed. On the
platform a 'budginee' or Indian concert was proceeding; a crowd of men
at the tables were learning to write; another crowd receiving a lesson
in English; a large group looking at pictures and illustrated magazines,
whilst others were playing games or listening enraptured to the strains
of the Indian records on the gramophone. The C.O. who took us round,
said that when the men came to France not one of them could even sign
his name to his pay book, they all had to do it by means of
thumb-prints. 'To-day,' said he, 'every man can sign his name, and many
can write an intelligent letter, and they have learned everything in the
Y.M.C.A.' A few days previously an Indian of some rank stood with folded
arms, his back against the wall, in that very tent. He said nothing, but
took in everything, and when the marquee closed for the night and the
dusky hero warriors retired to their tents, he spoke to the Indian
secretary in charge. 'I have watched you men,' said he; 'you are not
paid by the Government, you come when you like and you go when you like.
There is only one religion in the world that would send its servants to
do what you are doing--to serve and not to proselytise. When this war is
over and we return to India, I want you to send one of your men to my
village. My people are all Hindus, but they will do what I tell them. I
have been watching you carefully, and I have come to the conclusion that
Christianity will fit the East as it can never fit the West.' One of the
lessons of the Red Triangle is that you can never win men by
antagonising them, or by speaking disrespectfully of the things they
hold dear. Love must ever be the conqueror, and the love of all loves is
the love of God revealed in His Son, Jesus Christ.
* * * * *
Our Jewish friends were surprised and delighted in the dark days at the
close of 1914, to find that the doors of the Y.M.C.A. were thrown widely
open to their padres, who could gather in soldiers of their community to
worship God in their own way in the huts of the Red Triangle. They have
not been slow to show their appreciation--several Y.M.C.A. huts have
been given officially by Jews; one well-known and much used hostel bears
the name 'Jewish Y.M.C.A.,' and Jewish padres will go to any trouble or
inconvenience to help our work at home or overseas. No Red Triangle hut
can be used for proselytising by Catholic, Protestant, Moslem, or
Jew--that goes without saying--but any official chaplain is welcome to
the use of our huts for instructing his own people in their own faith.
[Illustration: THE Y.M.C.A. AT BASRA, MESOPOTAMIA]
A striking article recently appeared in a Catholic journal, from which
we cull the following paragraphs, expressing as they do another point
of view:--
'"R.C.," "C. of E.," "Y.M.C.A."--these three are
the religions of the Front. The drum-head service,
whilst nominally "C. of E.," is, of course, more a
military parade than a religious function. It is
not without a certain amount of picturesque Army
ceremonial, but to the Catholic soldier, as a
Catholic, the spectacle is an uninteresting one.
The Y.M.C.A., too, I think, would not claim to be
a religion. It is perhaps a religious institution;
a kind of spiritual ration-dump. Its huts, even
during a cinema show, and at the counters where
they sell Woodbines and chocolates, have a
Christianised atmosphere. No soldier fears to be
thought "too good" through attending a Y.M.C.A.
service. That is, perhaps, where its undoubtedly
great influence comes in. It gives the impression,
one supposes, to these soldiers that here they
have what the P.S.A. fraternity call "a man's
religion for man." It caters for the frequent
English soul which (perhaps in the Charity of God)
finds a path to Heaven in the singing of
second-rate hymns on Sunday evening; in the
constant repetition of "Abide with me," and "O
God, our help in ages past." It is difficult to
say if the influence of the Y.M.C.A. is much
responsible for the remarkably even, and
considering all things, somewhat high moral code
of the Army out here. Rather, perhaps (Deo
gratias), it is an English heritage from the past.
Most emphatically one cannot help being struck by
the excellent moral lives that many of these men
live, when all things are considered. Of course,
to a large extent, there is the lack of occasions
of sin. Drunkenness, most possibly, is rare
because the authorities have greatly restricted,
and wisely, the hours of drinking, and the beer,
etc., available, even if taken in large
quantities, is rarely intoxicating. Frankly, it
appears that the good influence of the Y.M.C.A. is
derived from the temporal comforts and
conveniences it offers to the much-tried B.E.F.
men. I stood outside a Y.M.C.A. building one
night, in the worst of weather, weather as foul as
it can be in France in war time. Three rain-sodden
Canadian infantrymen trudged along towards the
place, and their ears caught the sound of some
execrable piano-strumming. "Holy Hell," said one,
"there's some music there; come on!" That is the
story, in epitome, of the Y.M.C.A. In the mercy of
God, it is a good one."
[Illustration: THE CENTRAL Y.M.C.A., BAGHDAD]
* * * * *
A young soldier sent to an English paper the following interesting
account of a Communion Service held in one of our huts at the Front:--
'The following Tuesday, just as our company was
going "up the line" to the trenches, a Communion
service was held in the rest-room of the Y.M.C.A.
hut. I attended it along with nine other men, and
the service was conducted by a well-known Scottish
Y.M.C.A. worker, who at the time was acting as the
leader of the hut. In that little room we ten men
in khaki were verily in the presence of the
Unseen. I never realised Christ to be so near as
when we handled the elements. For myself I can
truly say that, in the grey dawn of the following
morning, I went up to meet the enemy with a
strange peace, and a deep assurance in my soul
that, come what might, I need fear no evil,
knowing that He was with me--and so it proved to
be. Our time in the trenches was the most exciting
I have yet experienced, but He kept near, and so
"all's well."'
CHAPTER XVII
STORIES OF THE INVERTED TRIANGLE
I am sending you a pound note, the first I ever
received, as I am a poor old woman not able to
work. To maintain my home I used to take in
washing, but now I cannot even do my own, but the
other Sunday, when I shook hands with one that I
used to wash for, he put that bit of paper in my
hand, but said nothing, so I received it as part
payment for work done over seven years ago, and
when I looked at it, I thanked God, and said I
would give it to some good cause, and I think I
cannot do better than help you to get shelter for
the soldiers. God bless 'em.
MORE than five hundred thousand men have signed the War Roll pledge of
allegiance to our Lord Jesus Christ, which has now been formally adopted
by the Churches, and which reads as follows:
'I hereby pledge my allegiance to the Lord Jesus
Christ, as my Saviour and King, and by God's help
will fight His battles for the Victory of His
Kingdom.'
Many have no doubt forgotten their promise, but for many it has meant
the beginning of a new life, and to thousands of parents the knowledge
that the boy, who was their all, signed this declaration before making
the supreme sacrifice, has brought untold comfort.
Wherever practicable a Quiet Room for prayer and Bible study is included
in our camp outfit, also a book-stall for Testaments, pledge cards, and
religious literature. Millions of Testaments and gospel portions have
been distributed free of charge, and realising the difficulty of
obtaining gospel booklets or tracts that appeal to men, a new one from
the pen of the General Secretary was issued each of the first thirty
weeks of the war. The approved plan has been to have family prayers, no
matter how brief, as far as practicable in every hut, every night, and
if this feature of the programme is not popular, the fault is usually to
be found in the one who leads.
A casual observer, after visiting a Y.M.C.A. hut, sometimes comes to the
conclusion that the Association is doing a great social work, but is not
much as a religious force. It is not difficult to understand that point
of view. He has seen two or three hundred men clamouring at the
refreshment counter for coffee, buns or cigarettes; the billiard tables
have been fully occupied; hundreds of soldiers were writing letters at
the tables provided for the purpose, and hundreds joining in some rowdy
chorus, or heartily laughing at a humorous song or funny sketch. Where
then does the spiritual work of the Red Triangle come in? The best
answer is to quote what has actually happened.
To the south-west of Salisbury Plain there was before the war a tiny
village. To-day it is the centre of a big camp, which, incidentally,
contains several Y.M.C.A. huts. The leader of No. 4 was talking to the
Church of England padre one morning. They were warm friends and the
chaplain was frank in his remarks: 'I think you are overdoing it,' said
he, 'by having prayers in the hut every night. Surely it would be
better,' he added, 'if you concentrated on one evening of the week
instead.' 'I have thought and prayed about it,' replied the leader, 'and
it is a matter of principle with me. These dear boys are all going to
the Front next week, and no matter what the programme of the day, I feel
we ought to finish at night with a public acknowledgment of God.' 'Very
good,' replied the padre, 'if that is your conviction, carry on! Take
prayers yourself this evening.' And he did. He was no orator; he was not
a college man, neither was he ordained. It was a simple little service,
and did not take more than ten or fifteen minutes from start to finish.
There was an opening hymn, one of the old familiar ones, that took the
lads away back to the homes of their childhood. A short passage of
scripture was read, followed by a few straight but sympathetic words of
exhortation and a brief closing prayer. That was all, and the same
thing, no doubt, took place in hundreds of centres the same night.
Prayers over and the 'King' sung, the leader came down from the
platform, where a young private greeted him and shook his hand till it
hurt saying, 'I want to thank you for giving me a new vision of a God I
once knew.' Walking towards the centre of the hall, a young subaltern
greeted him saying, 'I want to thank you for that little service; it has
been no end of a help to me, and I should like to give you this for your
work,' so saying he handed him an envelope, and looking inside he found
a letter from the lieutenant's mother, containing thirty shillings in
postal orders to be spent by him in camp. The service had helped him,
and that was his thankoffering. The hut cleared, the men retired for the
night to their sleeping quarters. A solitary soldier lingered by the
doorway as if he wanted some one to speak to him. 'Good-night, my lad,'
said the leader, 'can I do anything for you?' Instead of replying the
soldier burst out crying, and later said, 'If you will you can save me
from a great crime!' 'Save you from a crime--whatever do you mean?' And
then the trooper told his story. There was nothing uncommon about it. He
and his brother had made love to the same girl, their mother had
intervened, 'and,' he said, 'I have written to my mother this evening a
letter that no boy should write to his mother, and after attending your
service to-night, I feel I would give all I've got to take back that
letter!' The letter was found and destroyed, and the soldier rejoiced in
what he regarded as a great deliverance. This is no story of an orthodox
revival, but of the kind of thing that may be taking place hundreds of
times any week.
* * * * *
In the early days the famous ---- Division assembled in one of the great
camps near Winchester. Regiments and units were there from India, South
Africa--from all parts of the world. Rain came down in torrents and the
mud was appalling. The huge Red Triangle tents were crowded from morning
till night and the devoted workers, all too few in number, had neither
time nor strength for religious work in the ordinary acceptance of the
term. They could have limited their canteen work, and closed the
refreshment counter excepting for a few hours daily. That would have
been the easier plan, and would have given them the opportunity of
devoting themselves to concerts and meetings in the evenings. The
alternative would have been to spend and be spent in serving the
material needs of the men, trusting that God would use the atmosphere of
the place and the personal contact of the workers to influence the men,
and thus make up for their inability to do much in the meeting line.
They chose the latter plan, and the leader retiring for the night would
throw himself on his bed and sometimes fall asleep without undressing.
At times suffering from the reaction, he would ask himself the question,
'Is it worth while? Am I doing the right thing?' The answer came the
night before the men left for the Front. It had been a record day, every
moment had been crowded, and they had sold out. The majority had
retired for the night, a few remained to tidy up the tents. This task
accomplished, a group of soldiers gathered round the leader, and the
talk soon turned quite naturally to some of the deepest problems of
life. Presently a stalwart young Gordon Highlander told of his home in
far away Scotland, of his farewell to his dear old mother before he went
out to India, and of the promise he made her--the promise he had not
kept--to read his Bible every day, to lead a pure clean life, and to
keep clear of drink. The atmosphere of that crowded Y.M.C.A. tent had
brought it all back to him and, unknown to the staff, he had renewed his
vows to God and his mother. In making this confession he was overcome by
emotion, and throwing his arms round the leader's neck he sobbed out the
story of his repentance. There is no more moving sight than the anguish
of a strong man, probably no sight that gives more joy in Heaven than
the tears that tell of the return of the one that had been lost.
* * * * *
A young Canadian officer who had lost a leg and an arm wrote to me
before sailing to Montreal from Bristol in May 1918, and this is what he
said:--'I would like to tell you how much we have appreciated the
Y.M.C.A. I came over with the first batch of Canadians; we were drafted
to Larkhill, Salisbury Plain. After leaving my home--a godly home--I
fell into the hands of very ungodly people and sank very, very deep in.
I was lying on the roadside much the worse for drink. I was down and
couldn't get up; comrades and every one seemed to have left me. I saw
one of your cars rush by. When it had passed about a hundred yards, out
jumped a Y.M.C.A. man. He came back to me and said, "Come along my
friend, I will take you to your hut." I looked at him and said, "I've
sunk too low for a man like you to touch me." He helped me up, took me
to my hut, and said, "This is my work in the Y.M.C.A., to help the
helpless. Come in and have a cup of tea with me to-morrow." Shamefaced,
I went the next day. He was there to greet me; he talked and prayed with
me, but I saw no light until one night in the trenches, I thought I
heard this man praying, and I heard it again and again, and had no rest
till I laid my sins at the foot of the Cross. Although I am going home
with a leg and an arm off, I have a clean heart washed in the Blood of
the Lamb. I have visited many huts, but that was the only man who spoke
to me personally about my sinful condition. Your leaders can do much if
they will. God bless the work and the workers. I will enclose this
leader's card so that you can let him know his prayers followed me up to
the trenches. God bless him!'
Cecil Thompson, the leader referred to, never saw this letter. Long
before it was written he had 'gone west,' had passed to his reward, one
of the Red Triangle martyrs of Salisbury Plain. But he 'shall in no wise
lose his reward,' for it is work like this that pays, and the spirit of
Cecil Thompson lives on in the lives of those who have been won, not by
his eloquence, but by the personal contact of a man who had yielded
himself to become a channel for the Divine blessing.
* * * * *
The greatest romance of the Red Triangle is the romance of its religious
work. War always seems to have one of two effects upon the lives of
those who participate in it--either it hardens a man and makes him
callous, or else it purifies and ennobles him. The Chaplains, the
Churches, the Y.M.C.A., the Church Army, the C.E.T.S., the Salvation
Army, and countless other organisations and individuals are always at
work, trying to counteract the power of the downward pull. It was our
youngest General, the late Brig.-Gen. R. B. Bradford, V.C., M.C., who
addressed to his men in France, shortly before his death, the following
stirring words:--'I am going to ask you to put your implicit trust and
confidence in me, to look upon me not only as your Brigadier, but as
your friend. By the help of God I will try and lead you to the best of
my ability, and remember your interests are my interests. As you all
know, a few days from now we are going to attack; your powers of
endurance are going to be tested. They must not fail you. Above all,
pray; more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. It is
God alone who can give us the victory, and bring us through this battle
safely.'
* * * * *
It is said that General Smuts' attention was drawn to Herbert Schmalz's
picture, 'The Silent Witness,' in the Royal Academy. It showed the
interior of a French church, and many wearied and wounded French
soldiers huddled together on the floor. A soldier with a wounded arm was
awakened by the pain, and raising himself on his unwounded arm saw the
figure of the Christ, the silent witness of his suffering and agony.
Looking long and earnestly at the picture, it is said the famous Boer
General quietly remarked, 'Many a man has seen that vision in this war.'
[Illustration: THE RED TRIANGLE IN JERUSALEM]
[Illustration: THE HEXHAM ABBEY HUT, SCHEVENINGEN, HOLLAND]
* * * * *
When visiting Bailleul in 1917 the following story was told me by a
distinguished padre serving with the Y.M.C.A. It concerned a casualty
clearing station on the outskirts of the town. A gentleman ranker was
brought in terribly wounded. His shoulder had been shattered by shrapnel
and gas gangrene had set in A constant and welcome visitor was the
senior chaplain. One day he called, and said cheerily, 'Well, old
fellow, how goes it to-day?' 'Thanks, padre,' was the reply, 'the pain
is not quite so bad to-day, but, padre,' he added earnestly, stroking
his wounded arm, 'I wish you would persuade them to take this away.'
'Don't talk like that,' said the chaplain; 'you'll want to use that old
arm for many a year to come!' 'No, padre,' he replied with conviction,
'I shall never use it again; I'm going west!' A moment later he was
seized with a frightful paroxysm of pain, and with a torrent of oaths
shrieked out, 'Why the b---- h---- can't they take this arm away!' He
fell back exhausted, but an instant later sat bolt upright and with arms
held out looked intently towards the roof of the hut. His face became
radiant, and there was no trace of pain. In an ecstatic voice he cried
out, 'Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!' and fell back dead. Thank God that's
possible, and even in the hour of death, the blasphemer may receive
forgiveness and the knowledge of salvation, for
'The ways of men are narrow,
But the gates of Heaven are wide.'
[Illustration: SALONICA: WINTER ON THE DOIRAN FRONT, SHOWING Y.M.C.A.
TENT]
[Illustration: A WELCOME Y.M.C.A. IN THE TRENCHES]
* * * * *
A lady worker in the Isle of Wight felt unaccountably drawn to a young
soldier who had vowed he would never enter the Y.M.C.A. again, because
he objected to evening prayers. Little by little she won his confidence,
until the night before he left for France with a draft, he came in to
say good-bye, and told her she was the first person to speak to him
about sacred things, adding--'I may do some day, but at present I cannot
see things as you do.' He went to France, followed by her prayers, and
in due course took part in the famous attack on Cambrai. Nothing was
heard of him for weeks, and his friends were forced to the conclusion
that he was numbered amongst the dead. Time passed by, until one morning
the lady of the Red Triangle received a letter from him, written from a
German prisoner of war camp. It was a commonplace letter and told of the
great fight, of his capture and internment, and so forth, but the
concluding words were the ones she wanted--'You will be glad to know I
can see things as you do now.'
* * * * *
We were speaking at the opening of a hut near Portsmouth. At the close
of the ceremony a dear little old widow lady, sitting in the front row,
told us of her own boy. He was a young officer serving in France, and
was called out late one night to help repel a sudden attack by the
enemy. Shot down by machine-gun fire, a brother officer stooped to help
him, but he cried, 'Lead on, lead forward, I go to my God!'
* * * * *
A day later another Y.M.C.A. lady in one of the hospital huts told us
the story of her nephew. He, too, was a young officer, and was called
out to assist in repelling a sudden attack by the Huns. Our men had
scarcely reached No Man's Land when the enemy turned on their dreadful
gas. One of the first to be overcome by its fumes was the sergeant of
his platoon. Regardless of the risk he ran, that young officer stuck to
his disabled sergeant until help arrived. Not realising that he had
himself become affected by the noxious fumes, he tried to stagger to his
feet, but fell backwards into a shell-hole, and in falling broke his
neck. The sad news was conveyed to his people in the North of England,
and the night they received it his father and mother sat alone in the
quiet of their home. Presently the mother spoke--'I feel,' said she,
'that the only thing that would console me in my loss would be to know
that the man for whom my boy died was a good man.' It was only a week
later that the sergeant for whom the young officer died, came to that
home, and when he came he was hopelessly intoxicated. The parents
quickly ascertained that it was not the case of a man having been
overcome by sudden temptation; they could have forgiven that, but he was
an utter waster, about as bad as a man could be. When he had left the
house those two sat once again in the silence of their home, and it was
the mother who spoke, slowly and quietly, 'It almost breaks my heart to
know my boy gave his precious life for a worthless life like that.' And
yet, what of the young officer himself? Did he know the type of man it
was for whom he was about to make the supreme sacrifice? Of course, he
knew; he was in his own platoon, and yet, knowing, he willingly gave his
life in an attempt to save him. One cannot recall this story without
thinking of those wonderful words: 'For scarcely for a righteous man
will one die: yet per-adventure for a good man some would even dare to
die, but God commendeth His Love towards us, in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us.'
* * * * *
In a far away corner of the Harfleur Valley the Y.M.C.A. has one of its
finest equipments. The leader was a great man in every sense of the
word, and every night he organised a sing-song for the troops, which
invariably went with a swing. He seemed to know by instinct when to
strike right in, and what to say. A night came, however, when he seemed
to have struck a bad patch, for no one would play, sing, or recite. The
story is told here almost word for word, as it was first told me by a
leading worker home from France, who drew a graphic word picture of the
hut leader pleading from the platform for help which never came. The
huge hut was crammed with men, and looking at the crowd standing at the
back he noticed a movement amongst them. A trooper detaching himself
from the crowd slowly elbowed his way to the front. It was easy to tell
by his unsteady steps that he was under the influence of drink. Mounting
the platform, he turned first to the audience and then to the Y.M.C.A.
leader, and cried in a voice that every one could hear: 'What's the
matter, Boss? Won't any one oblige you? Never mind, padre, if nobody
will help you, I will! What would you like me to do? I can play, or I
can sing, or I can recite--or I can pray!' For a moment the secretary
did not know what to reply. He was a man of experience, but had never
been placed in a predicament like that before. To his horror he saw the
poor drunken trooper stumble to the edge of the platform and with hands
outstretched called for prayer, and there followed one of the strangest
prayers ever heard in public as the drunkard cried out, 'Everlasting
God! Everlasting God! Everlasting God----!' He could get no further, but
broke down and sobbed like a child, and in his agony cried out, 'I had a
good mother once; I've been a damned fool. May God forgive me!' Could
God possibly hear and answer a prayer like that? Of course He could, and
He did! Possibly He would rather have even a prayer like that, than the
meaningless prayers with which we sometimes mock Him, and if any man
ever gave evidence of his conversion to God it was that trooper. He
stayed only four days longer in that reinforcement camp in the
Harfleur Valley, but if he could help it, never for a moment would he
let our leader out of his sight, and in a hundred ways he helped him
with his work. He would go methodically and frequently round the hut,
gather up the dirty mugs, bring them back to the counter and help to
wash them. He would go down on his hands and knees under the tables,
pick up scraps of paper and cigarette ends and help clean up the floor.
Four days later he was sent with a detachment up the line; three days
later still, with his company, he was ordered 'over the top,' and
literally he went into the 'Valley of the Shadow of Death,' but he did
not go alone, for 'there went with him One the form of Whom was like
unto the form of the Son of God!'
[Illustration: Y.M.C.A. FOR INTERNED PRISONERS OF WAR, LEYSIN,
SWITZERLAND]
The Y.M.C.A. is a Christian Association, the Red Triangle a Christian
emblem, and for that very reason the freedom of the Association is
given to every enlisted man. Protestant and Catholic, Anglican,
Free-Churchman, Jew, Hindoo, Mohammedan--men of any religion, every
religion, and no religion at all, are equally welcomed beneath its roof,
and no man will ever hear unkind or disrespectful things said from a
Y.M.C.A. platform concerning the faith he holds dear. At the same time
we can never forget that the greatest need of every man, amongst the
millions we serve in our huts, is that he should have a Friend who will
never fail him nor forsake him, who will stand shoulder to shoulder with
him in his fierce fight with temptation in camp or city, will be with
him in the trenches, in the firing line, as he goes over the parapet, or
even into the dread 'Valley of the Shadow,' and there is only One Who
can thus meet every need of every man, and that One is the strong Son of
God, the Lord Jesus Christ, the best Friend, the truest Comrade we can
have.
We often fall far short of our aim, alas! but the primary aim of the
Y.M.C.A. always has been, and is, to lead men to a saving knowledge of
that Friend.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RED TRIANGLE IN THE RECONSTRUCTION
The Y.M.C.A. has a very thorough understanding of
men, and with that sympathy which has
characterised its work throughout has brought to
the National Employment Exchange system an element
which has humanised the movement.
The state of the Labour Market and the condition
of trade after the lapse of the period of
reconstruction following the war will be so
favourable that the physically fit man will
experience little difficulty in securing
employment, but even if that is so we shall, for a
long time, have with us the disabled man, who,
without assistance and guidance, cannot be
suitably placed in industry. We must see an
extension of the good-will and sympathy evinced by
the Y.M.C.A. movement amongst every class in the
community.
The Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Labour
are getting up a special department to deal with
the discharged soldier. What the Y.M.C.A.
contributes to this problem is character.--MR. G.
H. ROBERTS, M.P., MINISTER OF LABOUR.
THE question is often asked 'What is going to be done with the Y.M.C.A.
huts after the war?' It is never easy to prophesy with any degree of
certainty, but there can be little doubt that, properly handled, these
huts will be at least as useful after the war as they are now. Their
furniture, which comprises hundreds of billiard tables, thousands of
chairs, tables, stoves, ranges, and so forth, is well fitted for doing
good service after the war. One of these huts planted down in the centre
of some rural community and staffed by voluntary workers, who have
purchased their experience by downright hard service during the war,
should be an inestimable boon. It would break the monotony of country
life; or, being set down in an industrial district of a big town or
city, would help in congenial ways to relieve the tedium of the drab
life of the workers.
The immediate problem is that of the discharged man. Incidentally his
presence in our midst is even now helping us to gain that practical
acquaintance with his needs that will be invaluable in dealing with the
greater problem of demobilisation. Thousands of men are discharged from
the Navy and Army every week. Many of these for months, it may be for
years to come, will not be able to do a good day's work, no matter how
willing they may be, and it is up to us to help them. No one who has
seen the conditions under which they have been living in Picardy or in
Flanders can wonder at this, and they will need sympathy and
encouragement on the part of their employers. The Y.M.C.A. can supply
the human touch that may be of the greatest possible service to the
Ministries of Labour, Pensions, and Reconstruction, and although the
State itself must take responsibility for the future of those who return
broken from the war and for their dependents, there will still be ample
room for voluntary effort without any taint of charity.
A number of experiments are being tried, all designed to point the way
to future efforts if such experiments prove successful. The Red Triangle
Farm Colony at Kinson in Dorset has been fitted up as a sanatorium for
the benefit of men discharged from the Navy and Army who need sanatorium
treatment because they are suffering from, or threatened with,
consumption, and whilst the men are undergoing treatment they are
trained in poultry-farming, horticulture, and other outdoor pursuits on
plans cordially approved by the authorities.
A Red Triangle Poultry Farm in Surrey is also run entirely for the
benefit of discharged men, and a somewhat larger venture is under way in
Suffolk with a two hundred acre farm and extensive fruit gardens. At
Portsmouth and other centres hostel accommodation is provided for men
who, on leaving the Navy or Army, go through a course of training for
civil life. Experimental workshops in London are proving a great
success, discharged soldiers being trained in carpentry, joinery,
picture-framing, and the repairing of pianos.
A series of exhibitions dealing with the work of ex-soldiers has been
successfully inaugurated, and Red Triangle employment bureaux have
already secured situations for more than twenty thousand discharged men.
The biggest opportunity for the Red Triangle will come with the
declaration of peace. 'After the war' for tens of thousands of men has
commenced already, and not only during the war, but in the
reconstruction we shall need the help of every worker who is prepared
heart and soul to work out the full programme of the Red Triangle for
Britain's sake and for the sake of the Kingdom of God.
Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. CONSTABLE,
Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh
University Press
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
So that paragraphs could flow uninterrupted, illustrations were
relocated to positions between paragraphs.
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page viii, "BLESSÉS" changed to "BLESSÉES" ('LES PARENTS DES BLESSÉES')
Page xiii, "Schevingen" changed to "Scheveningen" (Abbey hut,
Scheveningen, Holland) This was changed also on the illustration caption
itself.
Page 39, "necesary" changed to "necessary" (it is absolutely necessary)
Page 124, "same" changed to "came" (she came back she)
Page 158, "simpl" changed to "simple" (its simple little song)
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Romance of the Red Triangle - The story of the coming of the red triangle and the service - rendered by the Y.M.C.A. to the sailors and soldiers of - the British Empire" ***
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