Ww1

From The Spectator, 24 October 1914: In the western theatre of the war great movements have been going on which have won for themselves the name of the coast battle. Strange as it may sound, it appears that as soon as Antwerp was taken, and the inevitable State parade was finished, General von Kluck determined, or was ordered, to make an advance along the coast in order at least to take Dunkerque, Calais, and Boulogne. The notion that the German General Staff seriously wanted Calais in order that they might fix their giant howitzers and “bombard England” is, of course, a military joke, though apparently believed in by a large

From The Spectator, 24 October 1914: On Thursday the police authorities throughout the country arrested a large number of enemy aliens. Most of them were persons of military age. We have dealt with this problem and also that of spies elsewhere, and will only repeat here that the country will support the Government in any measures, however severe, which are considered necessary for the safety of the realm. What the Government must not do is to yield to newspaper clamour, and to take steps they think injurious because of excitable leading articles.

From The Spectator, 24 October 1914: The Germans, as we write, have got as far as Nieuport, which is, roughly, south-west of Ostend. There they have come into the “sphere of influence” of eleven British vessels, including three river monitors bought by the Admiralty at the beginning of the war from Brazil, for whom they were being completed. These vessels, which are armoured, are powerfully armed with 6-in. and 4.7-in. guns, but, best of all, only draw some six feet of water, and therefore can be taken quite near inshore. Their guns are howitzers, or, at any rate, some of them, and therefore, though they lie under the dunes, they

From The Spectator, 24 October 1914: EVIL practices, when they concern the relation of the sexes, are often allowed to fester into scandals, and even to bring moral and bodily ruin, before ordinary English men and women can induce themselves to speak of them. The newspapers lately have contained many allusions to the presence of undesirable women about the training camps, or to the presence of women whose intentions might not be expected to be but actually are undesirable; but these allusions have been so discreet, so guarded, so fatally free of offence, that the reader most nearly concerned in them might almost be forgiven if he concluded that delicacy

From The Spectator, 17 October 1914: The siege of Antwerp has been a minor tragedy in a quarter to which few probably gave a thought. The authorities of the Antwerp Zoological Gardens, before the bombardment began, felt compelled to destroy all the dangerous animals in their cages. They could not contemplate the possibility of beasts of prey loose in the streets; a stray shell would break the bars of the strongest enclosure, and the Zoological Gardens are situated near one of the important railway stations, which would naturally attract the fire of cannon. The idea of protecting the cages with sheets of steel seems to have been considered and discarded;

From The Spectator, 17 October 1914: NEVER did a people and their Sovereign and his Consort deserve greater honour than the Belgians and their King and Queen. They have drunk the cup of misery and horror to the very dregs. “Their heads are bloody though unbowed.” The invaders have used against them the strength of a giant and the baseness of a giant, but all attempts to terrorize them into submission have been in vain. They have disputed every inch of ground that they could dispute with heroism, yet not with the madness of despair or with mere blind courage, though there has been plenty of that. They have been

From The Spectator, 17 October 1914: In view of the possibilities, naval and aerial, we cannot help thinking that it would be a good thing if our newspapers suppressed the weather forecasts and all information as to barometrical pressure, which are very probably communicated by wireless to our enemies. These forecasts are now exceedingly accurate, and we can well understand how useful it might be to the enemy to know what kind of weather they might expect when they reached British air. If the authorities think there is anything in the point, they will no doubt take it up. We feel perfectly sure that there will be no annoyance expressed

From The Spectator, 17 September 1914: THE long periods of darkness and absence of all direct news which add to the gloom of this war are illuminated by the flashlights of soldiers’ letters. Letters of the deepest interest have, as we all know, enthralled public attention; but these are of course picked letters. The letters and postcards which come from the mass of soldiers tell nothing of general interest, nothing which could enable any one to picture any corner of the great war, or to share any of the emotions which must possess the souls of those firing and under fire. No hint of patriotic purpose finds expression in them;

From The Spectator, 17 October 1914: Last Sunday another aeroplane attack was made upon Paris. It appears that no fewer than five aeroplanes were concerned in the raid, and that twenty bombs were dropped, killing four persons and injuring twenty-two. One of the bombs fell upon the roof of the church of Notre Dame, and was at first supposed not to have exploded. Later reperts, however, showed that it burst and set a beam on fire, though fortunately no serious damage resulted. On the following day a further attack was made by a single aeroplane, which dropped six bombs, without, however, doing any appreciable mischief. It is extremely difficult to understand

From The Spectator, 10 October 1914: [TO THE EDITOR OF THE “SPECTATOR.”] SIR,—It is a self-evident proposition that an army recruited by voluntary enlistment is, caeteris paribus, more efficient than one compulsorily obtained. It is also true, though not so self-evident, that voluntaryism must in the end deleteriously affect national character far more than compulsory service does. Under a voluntary system it is only the men with the most grit in them who usually offer themselves for service. Those of less sterling quality, potential or actual, refrain. Thus, in time of war, the nation which fights with a voluntary army suffers from a higher rate of mortality amongst the best

From The Spectator, 10 October 1914: AN old explanation of the phrase “at loggerheads”—whether true or not we do not attempt to say—runs as follows: When two armies met in what we should now call entrenched positions, those positions were spoken of as leaguers. The leaguers were pushed on, from both sides just as the trenches are now pushed on, till at last the ” leaguer-heads” were almost in contact, and were separated only by a hundred yards or so. The contending armies were then said to be at “leaguer-heads,” or “logger-heads.” They had reached the ultimate point, and could make faces or shout defiance at each other across the

From The Spectator, 10 October 1914: As we go on in life we do, as a rule, learn our place more or less truly, and we find it is not the one we should have chosen. It may not be lower, but it is almost certainly different from what we expected. As we look over the lists of life’s examinations we may find that in some subjects we have done better than we expected. In such-and-such a bad situation we came out fairly well perhaps. We showed judgment, or initiative, or endurance, or even self-sacrifice. But, good heavens, what an effort it was! and how nearly we failed! What a

From The Spectator, 10 October 1914: American visitors have been surprised at the apparent absence of emotion in England at such a crisis as the present. They can see, they say, no signs that we realize the tremendous nature of the points at issue. The English people, they think, are not taking things seriously. Yet all the time there are signs, if they knew where to look for them, that we are moved as we have never been moved before. “If we let anybody, even our nearest and dearest, know what we feel, we may be unmanned. We must keep a tight hold, and especially on ourselves, or we may lose control.”

From The Spectator, 10 October 1914: The Germans must really be in very desperate straits if, as is alleged, they are straining every nerve to prepare a hundred Zeppelins and other aircraft to hover over London and bombard our capital from the clouds. No doubt the first appearance of the visitors will have an alarming effect on London, but it will soon be found that their efforts can only be local, and that even if St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey are damaged, and a small number of people are killed in the streets—say, one per ten thousand of the population— terror will soon turn to indignation and contempt. The notion that

From The Spectator, 3 October 1914: ALREADY we are engaged in the exacting task of creating an army during time of war ; and it is possible that to that task we may add the process of creating an industry. Mr. J. W. Robertson-Scott, who has written much on agricultural matters over the signature “Home Counties,” contributes to the current number of the Nineteenth Century a striking examination of the conditions under which he considers it would be possible at the present moment to organize a sugar supply from home-grown beet. The opportunity for invention, and for intervention, is plain, and the chances are more favourable than the most enthusiastic