Read Ebook: Mr. Punch's History of the Great War by Graves Charles L Charles Larcom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

though unfortunately never nodding in the way that Homer did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. PUNCH'S HISTORY of the GREAT WAR

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE TWO GERMANIES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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