5: The World's Greatest War
<< 4: Great Britain and the War || 6: The Earthquake of Napoleonism >>
The history of the leading events in the nations of Europe during
a hundred years of the past, so far as they related to the
decline of autocratic power in the monarchs and the development
of popular rights and liberty, has been given in the preceding
chapters, where it is brought down to the close of the Balkan War
and the opening of the great war that succeeded in 1914. As
regards this war, its story cannot be told or even summarized in
a chapter, but some indication of its general character may be
given.
WARS AS MILEPOSTS
Wars serve as convenient mileposts in the history of mankind.
They deal with the great struggles which break up the monotony of
peace and bring the nations into volcanic relations. They have
been many and their causes and effects various; strifes for spoil
or dominion; savage invasions of civilized lands; overflow of
vast areas by conquering tribes or nations. But among all the
world has so far known there has been none so stupendous in
character, so portentous in purpose, so vast in fighting
multitudes, so terrible in bloodshed, as the one with which we
are here concerned, the lurid meeting of the nations on the
blood-stained fields of battle which broke upon the quiet of the
world with startling suddenness in the summer of 1914. Launched
on the borders of little Servia, it soon had the continent for
its field of action, and all but one of the greater nations of
Europe for its participants. It may therefore fitly be designated
the Great War. Great it was, alike in the number and strength of
the Powers involved, in the enormous array of armed men engaged,
in the destructive power of the weapons employed, in the loss of
life and waste of wealth that attended its earthquaking
development.
In reading the history of the past we find it thickly strewn with
stories of fierce battles, a day, two days, rarely much longer in
extent, protracted intervals of marching and countermarching
succeeding before the armies again locked horns. Such was the
case in the American Civil War, in which the three days' battle
at Gettysburg was the greatest in length, if the six days'
fighting before Richmond be taken to constitute a succession of
battles.
In the Russo-Japanese war much longer struggles took place. The
armies at Liaoyung fought for eight days and those before Mukden
for twenty days. But a more obstinate struggle still was that of
September and October, 1914, when two armies, stretched out over
a line two hundred miles or more in length, fought with ceaseless
fury, by day and night alike, for more than a month. On the
moving picture screen of time this vast conflict stands out
without parallel in the world's annals, the most unyielding,
incessant battling ever known.
A CONTINENT IN ARMS
In the giant warfare here described we behold a continent, well
nigh a world, in arms. Along the rivers north of Paris three
powerful nations, Germany, France and Britain, wrestled like
mighty behemoths for supremacy. Far eastward, on the borders of
Russia, Austria and Germany, two other great Powers, Russia and
Austria, with German armies to aid the latter, strove with equal
fury for victory.
Thus raged the Great War. How many took part it is difficult to
estimate. Among the war tales of the past the most stupendous
army on record is that of Xerxes, said by Herodotus to number
2,317,600 men, who marched from Asia to face defeat in the
diminutive land of Greece. How large this fabulously great army
really was we shall never know, but even at the figures given it
was dwarfed by the hosts in arms in the Great European War, in
which between four and five million men fought with fierceness
unsurpassed.
The field of action of this mighty contest was not confined to
Europe. On the far-off border of Asia another Power, the warlike
empire of Japan, sent forth its soldiers to drive the Germans
from China. In Africa and on the South Pacific the colonists of
Britain set other forces in motion to invade the German colonial
regions. From British India sailed a strong array of dark-skinned
warriors to take part in the war in France. From Algeria and
Senegal came hordes of sable recruits for the French army, and
from the cities and provinces of the Dominion of Canada came
still another army of ardent patriots eager to aid the forces of
their fatherland. We may well speak of the contest as not one of
a continent but of the entire world.
HOW CANADA PREPARED FOR WAR
The story of the patriotic ardor of the Canadians is of interest,
as given by a correspondent of the London GRAPHIC, who passed
through the Dominion after the opening of the war.
"The news of the great war came like a bolt from the blue. The
effect was startling. The ordinary flow of Canadian life was
suddenly arrested. The customary routine seemed to stop dead
still. The whole of Canadian thought and much of the people's
energy were switched on to the great staggering fact that Europe
was at war, and the old country fighting for its life. A most
wonderful and touching patriotism welled up in the heart of the
Canadians. The air became electric with excitement and
enthusiasm. The prairie was indeed on fire. Passing through
English towns on my journey to London the calm and peaceful
demeanor of the people and the even flow of life seemed in
strange contrast with the land I had just left, where the
population was throbbing with loyal passion, and the war
dominated the existence of the inhabitants, high and low, from
Victoria to Halifax. One Canadian scene that remains impressed
upon my mind was the sea of upturned faces in front of the
offices of the Calgary News Telegram - every ear straining to the
point where the war news was announced at intervals through a
megaphone.
"'We stand shoulder to shoulder.' Sir Robert Borden, the Premier,
had said, 'with Britain and the other British Dominions in this
quarrel, and that duty we shall not fail to fulfil as the honor
of Canada demands.' It is being fulfilled in a score of different
ways, but mainly in the practical spirit that is characteristic
of the country. The Dominion is the Empire's granary, and through
the granary doors, as the Motherland knows, are passing huge
gifts of food to the British population. At the same time the
stoppage of the export of all foodstuffs to other countries is
proposed.
"Soon the Dominion began to mobilize. Regiments seemed to spring
up, as if by magic, from the ground - not hordes of untrained
men, but stalwart horsemen, accustomed to the rifle and inured to
a hard outdoor life. The Germans will knock against another 'bit
of hard stuff' when they meet the Canadian contingents. One of
the regiments carries the name of the Princess Patricia, who, by
the way, holds quite a unique position in the hearts of the
people. The popular Princess was, shortly after I left, to have
presented her regiment with their colors - worked by her own
hands.
"Londoners were happy in the knowledge that more such men could
be sent, if necessary, up to 200,000 in number - such was the
earnestness of the people. One met this practical earnestness in
a dozen different directions - in such facts, for instance, as
the conversion of the great Winnipeg Industrial Hall into a
military training center - and not the least significant feature
in the situation is the manner in which the prevalent enthusiasm
had spread to the American inhabitants of the country. The trade
intimacy between the United States and the Dominion was, indeed,
constantly growing, and the many great American manufacturing
concerns which had planted themselves in Canada had attained
prosperity. It was pleasant and reassuring to think that this had
not weakened the ties of attachment to the old country. In the
days to succeed the war the Dominion can look back with pride
upon the part she bore in sustaining the arms of Mother England,
and can take her place with happy confidence and added strength
as the eldest daughter in the great family of British peoples."
The enthusiasm thus indicated among the Canadians, which had its
outcome in the despatch of 323,000 sons of the dominion in late
September to the seat of war, to be quickly followed by a second
contingent, was paralleled in India, which sent to France 70,000
of its dusky sons to join the struggling hosts. As for the
remaining countries of the British empire, Australia, South
Africa, East Africa, etc., a similar sentiment of loyalty
prevailed, manifested there by the sending of contingents or in
expeditions against the German colonies in the South Sea and in
Africa. The whole empire was ready to support the mother country.
Certainly the Kaiser of Germany, William the War Lord, had set
loose in the air a nest of hornets to sting his well-trained
warriors. By his side stood only Austria, a composite empire
which soon found all its strength too little to hold back the
mighty Russian tide that swept across its borders. Thus this one
stalwart nation, with its weak auxiliary, was forced to face now
east, now west, against a continent in arms. It is difficult to
imagine that the Kaiser could have hoped to succeed, despite the
training of his people and the strength of his artillery. "God
fights with the heaviest battalions," said one who knew, and the
weight of battalions, though at first on William's side, could
not remain so.
THE BRITISH SENTIMENT
While the British people, with their lack of a system of
militarism, were not in condition to send large bodies of troops
at once to the aid of the mobilized French, they were soon ready
to despatch a useful contingent of trained men. Probably the
German emperor counted upon the disturbance in Ireland between
the Ulsterites and the people of the Catholic provinces to tie
the hands of the government, but these people at once suspended
their hostile sentiments in favor of the larger needs of their
country. In England itself the militant suffragettes showed equal
patriotism, at once agreeing to desist from all acts of violence
and offering to aid their country to the extent of their powers.
LORD KITCHENER'S CAREER
The British government appointed Lord Kitchener, the hero of many
successful expeditions, Secretary of State for War, putting the
whole management of military affairs into his competent hands.
His fitness for this was thoroughly attested by his long and
brilliant service, and as the presence of Napoleon was said to be
equal to an army, so was that of this able military leader.
For those who are not familiar with Kitchener's career a brief
statement concerning it may be useful. Born in 1850, Horatio
Herbert Kitchener entered the army in 1871, was in civil life
1874-82, then returned to army duty. He took part in the Nile
expedition of 1884 for the rescue of General Gordon and commanded
a brigade in the Suakim campaign of 1888. Governor of Suakim
1886-88, adjutant-general of the Egyptian army 1888-92, he was
appointed to the command of this army, with the Egyptian rank of
Sirdar, in 1890.
His service in Egypt was during the period of the Mahdi outbreak,
which began in 1883, defeated all the armies sent to quell it,
and for years held the Sudan region of Egypt. In 1896 Kitchener
set out for its suppression, recovering Dongola, and organizing
an expedition against the Khalifa, the successor of the Mahdi. He
defeated the Dervish army of the Khalifa in April, 1898, and on
September 2d of that year utterly crushed the Dervish hosts at
Omdurman, regaining the Sudan for Egypt and Britain.
This exploit brought him the thanks of parliament and the title
of baron, with a grant of 30,000 pounds and a sword of honor. In
1899 he went with Lord Roberts to South Africa as chief of staff,
and on Lord Roberts' return in 1900 he succeeded him as
commander-in-chief and brought the Boer War to a successful
conclusion. He was now made full general, with the rank of
viscount, and subsequently served as commander-in-chief in India.
A FORCEFUL CHARACTER
In an illuminating article in COLLIER'S WEEKLY, the well-known
Irish journalist, T. P. O'Connor, thus brought out the character
of the hero of Khartoum:
"I attribute something of the Lord Kitchener we know to the fact
that, though English by blood, he spent the first years of his
life in wandering over the hills and looking down on the
sea-tossed shores of County Kerry. That tact which enabled him to
settle the issue with Marchand, the French explorer, at Fashoda,
suggests some of the lessons in the soft answer which Ireland can
teach. You remember how, when it was possible that a collision
between him and Marchand might mean a war between England and
France, Lord Kitchener sent some fresh vegetables and champagne
to the daring French explorer, who had gone through the hunger,
thirst, and hardship of the desert for months. Marchand had to go
from Fashoda all the same, but he went with no personal
grievance.
"If I look for the roots of Lord Kitchener's greatness, I trace
them to intense ambition to succeed, to make the most of his
opportunities - above all, to the incessant desire to work and
fill every hour of his days with something done. He is sent as a
youngster to Palestine, through peril to life, through great
privation, through heart-breaking drudgery, he pursues his work
until he has completed a map of all western Palestine to the
amazement and delight of his employers. And he values this
experience so largely because he learns Arabic, and, above all,
he learns the Arabic character. One of the chroniclers of his
career makes the apt observation that, while the baton of the
marshal is in every French soldier's knapsack, Kitchener found
his coronet in the Arab grammar. But how many soldiers or men of
any class would have devoted the leisure hours of a fiercely
active task like Kitchener's in Palestine to the study of one of
the most difficult of languages?
"Hard work, patience, and the utilization of every second of
time, the eagerness always to learn - these are the chief secrets
of Lord Kitchener's enormous success in life. But the man who
works himself is ineffective in great things unless he has the
gift to choose the men who can work for him and with him. This
choice of subordinates is one or Lord Kitchener's greatest
powers. He nearly always has had the right man in the right
place. And his men return his confidence because he gives them
absolute confidence. He never thinks of asking a subordinate
whether he has done the job he has given him; he takes that for
granted, knowing his man; and he never worries his subordinates.
"This is one of the reasons why, though he works so terrifically,
he never is tired, never worried. He sits down at his desk at the
War Office for about ten hours a day; but he sits there calmly,
isn't ringing at bells and shouting down pipes; he does it all so
quietly that it seems mere pastime; and the effect of this
perfect tranquillity produces an extraordinary result on those
who work with him. They also do their work easily, tranquilly,
and without feeling it.
"A great soldier certainly; but perhaps a greater organizer than
anything else. This is his supreme quality, and for that quality
there is necessary, above all things, a clear, penetrating brain.
He doesn't form any visions - as Napoleon used to complain of
some of his marshals. At school he was celebrated for his
knowledge of mathematics, and especially for his phenomenal
rapidity in dealing with figures, and it was not accident that so
truly a scientific mind found its natural place in the engineers.
A mathematician, an engineer, a man of science, a great
accountant - these things he has been in all his enterprises. It
was these qualities that enabled him to make that astounding
railway which brought Cairo almost into touch with the Khalifa,
who, with his predecessor, the Mahdi, and with his tragically
potent ally, the hungry and all-devouring desert, had beaten back
so many other attempts to reach and to beat him.
"This man, who has fought such tremendous and historic battles
and confronted great odds, is yet a man who prefers a deal to a
struggle; and, though he can be so stern, has yet a diplomatic
tact that gets him and his country out of difficult hours. The
nature, doubtless, is complex, and stern determination and
tenacity are part of it; but there is also the other side, which
is much forgotten - especially by that class of writers who have
to describe human character as rigidly symmetrical and
unnaturally harmonious.
"That cold and penetrating eye of his makes it impossible to
imagine anybody taking any liberties with Lord Kitchener; yet one
of his greatest qualities, at once useful and charming, is his
accessibility. Anybody who has anything to say to him can
approach him; anybody who has anything to teach him will find a
ready and grateful learner. This is one of the secrets of his
extraordinary success and universal popularity in Egypt. Lord
Cromer was a great Egyptian ruler, and his services are
imperishable and gigantic; but Lord Cromer was the stern,
solitary, and inaccessible bureaucrat who worked innumerable
hours every day at his desk, never learned the Arabic language,
and possibly never quite grasped the Arab nature. Lord Kitchener
is the cadi under the tree. The mayor or the citizens of the
little Arab village can come to him, and the old soldier, and
even the fellah, alone; and they will find Lord Kitchener ready
to listen and to talk to them in their own tongue, to enter with
gusto into the pettiest details of their daily and squalid lives,
and ready also to apply the remedy to such grievances as commend
themselves to his judgment.
"As an illustration of his accessibility, let me repeat a
delicious story which delighted all Egypt. An old peasant came
out of the depths of the land all the way to Cairo to see the
great Kitchener, with the complaint that his white mule had been
stolen. The whole official machinery was interrupted for a while,
and the old fellah went back with his white mule. You can fancy
how that story was repeated in every fellah cabin in the land,
and how the devotion to Kitchener and trust in his justice and in
his sympathy went trumpet-tongued among this race, downtrodden
and neglected almost from the beginning of time."
Such is the man who, when chosen to head the British War
Department, had his bed sent to the office, that he might be on
duty day and night if needed; who insisted that no raw recruits
should be sent to the front, but put them through a rigid system
of drill and physical exercise to toughen their muscles and fit
them for the work of a soldier; who said that there would be
abundant time for fighting, as in his judgment there was a year
or more of war in prospect.
<< 4: Great Britain and the War || 6: The Earthquake of Napoleonism >>
