War Work of King George

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 631, 6 April 1929, Page 18

War Work of King George

SIR PHILIP GIBBS, NOVELIST AND WAR CORRESPONDENT, WRITES PERSONAL SKETCH OF HIS MAJESTY’S UNCEASING ACTIVITIES IN AN INTENSELY DIFFICULT PERIOD.

World-wide anxiety over King George V/s illness has aroused interest in many phases of his reign and, in none more than that period covering the World War. The following article was written by one of the most brilliant of the war correspondents, Sir Philip Gibbs, who follo-uied closely the King's part in the great struggle. YOUR King and Country need you.” .... No one, perhaps, will ever know, or faintly guess, the strain to the mind and heart of the man who thought the years of desperate conflict followed the fate of all those millions of young soldiers who had answered that call. England was in deadly peril, not lessening as the years passed. Thrones were falling. Revolution was beginning to threaten old dynasties. British youth was dying on all fronts. We were hard pressed—over there in France, especially. The fighting men—-the fellows in the trenches- —did not think often perhaps of the King. Even England seemed a world away as they stared across No Man’s Land, waiting for the next attack, or cursing the barrage Are. Behind the lines, now and then, in battalion messes an officer arose and said: "Gentlemen, the King!” and glasses were raised. In the trenches and the shell craters there was no remembrance or consciousness of things like that. Death was very close. . . . But the King was thinking of them. Kept Promise to Men That was his promise at the beginning. When the first Expeditionary Force —the old “B.E.F.”—went out to France the King sent a message to his troops expressing his confidence in them and praying God to guard them. “Your welfare will never be absent from my thoughts,” he wrote. There is no man in the Empire now who doubts that those words were utterly fulfilled. All through those four and a-half years the King thought only of the welfare of his troops and the safety of the nation. His job was a hard one at home, and he never shirked its incessant fatigues, reviewing all the work which went to drive that terrific machine of war in which the whole nation’s activity, spirit and purpose were poured. Among the leaders of the nation, as we now know, there were intrigues, political feuds, moments of despair, divided counsels; and all that was known to the King, and must have borne down heavily upon him; but he went about on his own duty with a direct simplicity and courage which never faltered or weakened. We can only guess at the strain. Would Have Led Troops Out in France I saw his visits to the front, and had the honour of talking to him. There is no doubt that he would have liked to stay with his troops and to raise his standard among them. He wanted to share their dangers, and their way of life; but a King is not master of his own life, and he had to be content with those brief visits. The first visit was on November 30, 1914, and lasted a week, when he inspected masses of troops paraded behind the lines, including the Indian contingent which had lately arrived. He visited a number of army corps headquarters and made acquaintance with their staffs; and at casualty clearing stations and convalescent camps chatted with wounded men and spoke words of good cheer. On one day he stood on a hill in Flanders and saw for the first time the ghost city of Ypres away through the mist—not yet roofless or destroyed, as afterward it stood in shapeless ruin—and away before him the ridges for which afterward there was desperate and murderous fighting. Almost a year passed before the King paid his second visit to the front. That was from October 22 to November 7, 1915, in dismal weather, and still at a time before the British armies in

France had reached their full strength and power. The Battle of Loos had been fought with frightful casualties, and we were heavily out-gunned in the Ypres * salient and in the country round Lens. The King drove down the old roads of war, which had - been —and were still to be —the way of sacrifice for all his battalions. They stood there in the rain and cheered him with hoarse enthusiasm. Stirred to Cheers Seeing him pass, something stirred in them—the old romantic loyalty with which they had answered the first call for King and country. Since then they had been in the mud and the ruins and the fields of death. They knew now that war was no romantic adventure, but a desperate and dirty business with ,the odds against them at that time. But they cheered the King so that the enemy might have heard. Eight months later the King visited the front again, and this time against the advice, and certainly against the wish, of the commander-in-chief and other generals, he insisted upon going closer into the danger zones and taking considerable risks in order to see the actual conditions of war and the battlefields which were still under fire. His most interesting and, indeed, thrilling visit was in July of 1917, when the Queen accompanied him to France, but not, of course, to the places within the zone of fire. He took risks that time which were certainly beyond prudence, but had an excellent effect upon the spirit of the troops, who admired his “pluck.” We had only just captured the Messiues ridge after the most astounding and triumphant attack ever launched in

France before final victory, and the King insisted upon climbing to its summit and looking down upon the German lines. In the spring of 1918, after the fearful events in March, the King slipped over to France, and sent a heartening message to Field Marshal Haig at a time when many of us were inclined to despair. It was the message of a brave and great-hearted man: “Though for the moment our troops have been obliged by sheer weight of numbers to give some ground, the impression left on my mind is that no army could be in better heart, or more confident, than that which you have the honour to command. Anyone privileged Jo share these experiences would feel with me proud of the British race and of that unconquerable spirit which will, please God, bring us through our present trials.” That hope and that prayer were fulfilled, and the next time I saw the King was when he stood under a pavilion outside his palace watching the victory march of all those men of his armies and navies who/ had done their grim job at last by land and sea, and afterward, on the balcony, listening to the cheers of the surging crowds. Many thrones had been overturned in Europe. In some countries there was revolution. But the British nation came out to do homage to a man whose heart had been pitiful for the sufferings of his men, and who had done his own duty with simple devotion and unselfishness, not standing for any tradition of despotic power, but for those qualities which were in the spirit of his people. So it seems to me.