ENGLAND'S WAR MOOD.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 252, 19 July 1915, Page 3

ENGLAND'S WAR MOOD.

GAY SCENES IN LONDON.

"AND TO-MORBOW WE DlE^'"

(By Ashmead Bartlett.)

. It is a surprising fact that only a, very small number have any real comprehension of the magnitude of the war, especially the further one gets from London. In the country the ignorance of the war is surprising. Golf courses look much the same, although somewhat deserted. You see more men in khaki in the small towns and villages, but for the rest the church bells ring, there is marriage and giving in marriage, and the old sleepy life continues. The train carries you to London with its accustomed speed. You enter clubland. What a change! Hero you do see the difference. Most of your old friends are still there, but where are their spotless silk hats, their beautiful clothes, and their patent leather boots? All are dressed alike in colourless khaki. All have joined something, and those who can't get in the new army, or who can't go back to the old, become "special constables." No one knows exactly what a special constable is. They do all sorts of odd jobs—guard waterworks, gasworks, and museums, patrol the streets at night and early dawn, watching the old haunts they formerly frequented at those hours. They are "some" warriors, these soldiers of clubland. London at night, except for the fact that the lights are turned down, is quite gay. There are hundreds of wounded officers now recovering who wish to forget their sufferings with a few hours of well-deserved pleasure. The restaurants are full, especially the Carlton and the Savoy. Some of the night clubs have re-opened their doors. Here you may dance all night and have supper. At the famous 400 Club you see gatherings which are unique to England. All the beauty of the theatrical and Bohemian world assembles there, and even society ladies sometimes look in. The men are nearly all in khaki. There are many slightly wounded, who have just returned; others, not wounded, on leave, others who are waiting their summons to the front; newly joined officers, who are appearing in uniform for the first time. Here the sorrows and horrors of the war are forgotten. The motto of all is "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we stand a good chance of dying." Summons to the Pront. You never know when the summons will come. The departure of units and reinforcements is kept absolutely secret. You say to a friend, "When are you off?" He replies, "I don't know, but I may go at any minute; I have been told to hold myself in readiness." You see him at dinner that night, and very likely dancing at the 400 afterwards you forget about his existence. Two or three days afterwards you pick up the paper and glance at the list of casualties. You see his name among the dead. The summons has come like the thief in the night. The orgy of death is just six hours by rail and steamer away from the darkened lights of London. Many officers

have been killed in the recent fighting within 20 hours of leaving for the front. That is the uncanny part about this war—the closeness of it.

Now I will try and take you nearer to the front. We leave England by the old time-honoured route Dover to Boulogne. The, journey to Paris now takes anything from twelve to fourteen hours, owing to the slowness of the railway service in France. You crawl around on side lines, so as to keep the main lines clear for the passage of troops and material. So many spies are continually passing in and out of England on false passports that the regulations are now very severe. Your passport and baggage are both carefully examined. Crossing the Channel contains a pronounced element of risk from mines and submarines. The whole of the North Sea has been studded with these horrible engines of naval wa*far. A very sharp look-out has to be kept. When a mine is sighted the Channel steamer slows down, and it is exploded from a distance with rifle fire.

"Joffre's Wall."

The allied line stretches for 300 miles from the coast to Alsace in one great unbroken wall. Only it is not a wall, it is a trench, covered by barbed wire entanglements, and .every known obstacle which can be placed in the way of attack. Man is always quick to adapt himself to changed conditions. The law of self-preservation prescribed that a method must be found whereby it would be possible to live under the tire of modern guns and rifles. To remain in the open is to court certain death. Towns and villages which in bygone wars offered excellent cover are now merely hell traps avoided by every general. In the old days the Eomans used to build great walls to keep back periodic invasions of barbarians from the north. There is Hadrian's wall still in existence in Scotland, which was constructed to hold in check the Tiets and the Scots. The old wall of China was made to keep back the Tartar. We have now returned to the primitive methods of 2,000 years ago. Joffre's wall —as we may call it — extends from the Channel to Belfort, in Alsace. It is over 300 miles long, without a break. It holds back.the Huns from the north just as Hadrian's wall held back the Picts and the Scots. The Huns, seeing they cannot break through it, have constructed a wall of their own, parallel to it, and the two sides now sit and glare and shoot at one another over the top. The friend whom you saw the night before dancing gaily at the 400 Club receives his summons to go to the front. In four hours he is in Calais or Boulogne. Within a few more he arrives at the headquarters of hi's regiment, --situated in some village behind the living wall or what is left of some hamlet,

' He has time to look around. EvcryI where his eye rests on an appalling ! and lamentable scene of desolation. It looks as if some great fire had swept the country bare of towns, villages, '' farms and trees. All day long the ! guns thunder away at one another. As fe.T ps the eye can reach the snails are [bursting and smoke envelops''the horl- ! zon. That night, the vcrv one a£teV J -he he left London, he is*told it is his turn

for the trenches. His battalion assembles after dark and moves to the front. On the way, stumbling along in the darkness, they meet the stretcher-bear-ers bringing away the harvest of the previous night and day.

Cautiously the trenches arc approached and entered, and the relieved battalion goes off duty. It has been snowing; the trench 13 deep in slush and mud. The little dug-outs at the bottom are untenable owing to the wet. Through the gloom, only a few hundred yards away, the enemy are lying also in their trenches. The sentries are alert and nervous; continued sniping takes place. Sometimes there is an alarm, and the whole line opens up a terrific fusilade, which will die down again just as mysteriously as it commenced. The enemy's searchlights sweep the trenches with a horrid glare. The enemy's guns never cease to bombard; the shells burst in great red blotches overhead. The cold is intense, and the night seems as if it would never pass".

At dawn the Germans attack. A trench is taken; there is bloody work re-taking it. Your friend who has come straight from the 400 Club, still thinking of the lovelty women, the flowers, the scent, the music, and the wines, is killed —that is all he sees of the European war. If he survives he remains amid the slush and snow and bullets and shells for 24 hours, and is then relieved by someone else, who probably never meant to be a soldier either. Some men have extraordinary luck in war. They will survive action after action, while others are killed or wounded in their first engagement.

What has made the obtainment of decisive results impossible is the difficulty either side has in concentrating an overwhelming force against any section of the enemy's line without the enemy knowing all about it. Surprises have been eliminated from warfare by the aeroplane and the vast network c." spies, who know within a few hour? every move which is contemplated. The telephone and wireless telegraphy have dene the rest. Directly a Generrl Staff tries to shift an army corps fronone point to another, either by road or rail, the opposing General Staff make; a similar move to defeat the ne- 1 ' scheme. Over and over again during the months of September and October, when the German and French armies were trying to outflank one another, the movements of each were checkmated by the reports of the aviators. It would appear at first sight as if this war could have no end, and tha? neither side will be able to gain the day, and therefore hundreds of thousands are giving their lives for no practical purpose. This would, undoubtedly, bo true if other important factor* did not enter in which it cannot fail to turn the scale in favour of the Allies in the long run. The three main factors are —the economic, the advance of the Russians on Berlin from the easr and the gradual preparation of an immense reserve army in England. Tim.' is on the side of tlin Allies.