The Last Million: How They Invaded France—and England. Ian Hay
lost terribly, but we are gaining much. We are rubbing shoulders in London, and Paris, and countless other places, and we are rubbing the knobs and the angles off one another, good and plenty. It is not always easy or comfortable to have knobs rubbed off you, and the process sometimes involves a little friction; but we must be prepared for that.
For instance, we all speak English, but we all pronounce it in different ways. Well, why not? Hitherto we have been inclined to assume that the other man was talking like that to annoy us. That is one of the knobs that has to be rubbed off—intolerance of trivial matters of taste and habit. To-day, under the most searching test in the world—the test of comradeship in the face of battle and sudden death—we are acquiring a profound respect for one another. When we have acquired just one other thing—tolerance for one another’s point of view—we shall have laid the foundation of an understanding which is going to hold us all up through some difficult times hereafter. Getting this old world back on to a peace basis, after the Kaiser has been put where he belongs, is going to call for all our courage, sincerity, and loyalty to our common ideals. When that period of Reconstruction comes—and it may come sooner than we think—the first plank in its platform must be a solid understanding between the two English-speaking races. They, at least, must speak with one voice, or the whole fabric will fall to the ground.
Our two nations can never hope entirely to understand one another. Neither can they expect always to see eye to eye. Their national personalities are too robust. But to-day their sons are learning to know the worst of one another and the best of one another and the invincible humanity of one another. With that knowledge will come—if we have the will—tolerance of one another’s point of view. We must get that. There are thousands of reasons why, but to you, soldiers and sailors, I am only going to mention one.
When the Victory comes, we shall enjoy its rewards. But all the while we shall be conscious that we have not won these entirely by ourselves. We shall in great measure have inherited them from men who have not lived to enjoy the fruits of their own sacrifice—men whom we have left behind, in France, Belgium, and Italy; in Asia and Africa; whose bones cover the ocean floor—men who gave everything that the Cause might live. To these we shall desire to raise a lasting memorial. We can best do that by building up a fabric of understanding on the foundation which they laid, so truly, with their own lives. If we do that—and only if we do that—our Dead can sleep in peace; for they will know that what they died for was worth while, and above all that we, their heritors, have kept faith with them—
“… Famous men
From whose bays we borrow—
They that put aside To-day,
All the joys of their To-day,
And with toil of their To-day
Bought for us To-morrow.”
Ian Hay
London, July, 1918
The Last Million
CHAPTER ONE
THE ARGONAUTS
A ship is sailing on the sea—a tall ship, with several masts and an imposing array of smokestacks. She is moving at a strictly processional pace, with a certain air of professional boredom. In fact, the disconsolate hissing of her steam escape-pipes intimates quite plainly that she is accustomed to a livelier life than this. But a convoy belongs to the straitest sect of Labour-Unionism: its pace is regulated to that of the slowest performer; so ocean greyhounds in such company must restrain themselves as best they may.
All around her steam other ships. They are striped, spotted, and ringstraked as to their hulls, smokestacks, and spars in a manner highly gratifying to that school of unappreciated geniuses, the Futurists—or Cubists, or Vorticists, or whatever the malady is called—but exasperating to the submerged Hun, endeavouring to calculate knottage and obtain ranging-points through a perplexed periscope. On the outer fringe of the flotilla fuss the sheep-dogs—the escorting warships.
If you seek to ascertain the nationality of our tall ship, by internal evidence, you will probably begin by observing certain notices painted up about the decks and cabins, requesting you to keep off the bridge, or to refrain from throwing cigar-ends on the deck, or not to leave this tap running. You will next observe that these notices are inscribed in English, French, and another language. What language, it is impossible to say, for some one has pasted a strip of blank paper over the inscription in every case. But it is easy to guess. In the depths, here and there, German is still spoken; but upon the face of the broad ocean it is a dead language.
Talking of nationalities, you will further observe that these ships all fly the Union Jack. But they are crowded with American soldiers. There must be thousands of these soldiers. They swarm everywhere—bunched on deck, peering through portholes, or plastering the rigging like an overflow of mustard sauce, which in truth they are. They are more than that. They are a portent. They are a symbol. They are a testimonial—to the Kaiser; for has not that indefatigable bungler by his own efforts brought about a long-overdue understanding between all the English-speaking people in the world?
Above all, they are a direct answer to a particular challenge.
A few weeks ago the Men at the Top in Germany got together and held what is known in military circles as a pow-wow. A condensed report of their deliberations would have read something like this:
“Yes, Majesty, the Good Old German God is undoubtedly on the side of our Army. Still, the fact remains that we have not yet achieved anything, after three-and-a-half years of war, really worth while. … Belgium, Serbia, Roumania, Russia? Yes, no doubt. Each of those countries has now received the true reward of her stupidity and presumption; but none of them ever offered any serious difficulty from a military point of view, except Russia; and the credit for her collapse was due far more to our internal agents than to our external military pressure. … No, Hindenburg, I haven’t forgotten Tannenberg; but you haven’t done very much since then (except get gold nails knocked into yourself), and what you have accomplished has been chiefly under—ahem!—my direction. … No, no, I am not really pinning orchids on myself—not yet, anyway. I am merely trying to be candid and frank: in short, I am reminding you that you are only a figurehead. You know what irreverent people call you—‘General What-do-you-Say!’
“… Yes, Your Imperial Highness, your consummate generalship at Verdun undoubtedly achieved an historic victory over the French; but you will forgive me for pointing out that your casualties were at least twice as numerous as theirs, and that the ground which you captured has since been regained. … Submarines? My good Von Capelle, your submarines are as obsolete as our late lamented friend Von Tirpitz. Justify my statement? In a moment. … Yes, Majesty, the British Army failed utterly to break our line at the Somme, but they and the French took seventy thousand of our best troops prisoner, and we had to execute a ‘strategic’ retirement which lost us about a thousand square miles of French soil. Not much of a performance for the German Army—the German Army—to put up against a mob of half-trained mercenaries! We managed to delude our people into the belief that we had scored a great military triumph in so doing, but the German nation, excellent though their discipline is, are not likely to go on swallowing that stuff forever. You know that, better than most, Hertling! Bethmann-Hollweg knew it too: he was no match for Liebknecht, although he did lock him up. …
“And what of the situation since the Somme? Haig is within ten miles of Ostend, and has captured practically the whole of the Paschendaele Ridge. … The Eastern Front? Nothing matters in this war except the Western Front. What are we going to do about that? … Your Majesty will assume supreme command? Splendid! … And break the Western Front? Colossal! That was just what I was about to