HOW THE BRITISH ARMY SAVED THE WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 January 1917, Page 6

HOW THE BRITISH ARMY SAVED THE WORLD.

AN ASTONISHING RECORD. Tlie mosti brilliant chapter in Mr. Hsu'old. Bcgbio's "Vindication of Great ->ntain is that in which lie draws a most dramatic and authentic picture of tile part which Groat Britain ha« plaved m (he Great War. And historic necessity makes it incumbent on the historian to devote much attention to the man whose brain first conceived the plan which made Britain's great part possible.

First as to what Britain lias done. ''When oui children's children come to read of this great war tliev will not hang their brads,' 7 says .\ir Begbie. 'They will lift up their hearts, md (hose hearts wiil hef nil of noble prid-i and generous gratitude."

SOME FAMOUS NAMES. "The names of Asquith and (trey will have for them no smirch from the dust of political controversy; Sir -John Jellicoe and Sir David Bcatty, Locd French and Sir Douglas Ifaig will be for them as the names of Drake and Nelson, Wellington and Marlborough for us: and if some historian remarks that what von Roon was to the German rmics of IS7O a great Lord Clmim-llor of England was to the glorious Briti-h Army of 1314, which died to give civilisation an hour in which to draw her breath and save the world, they will =niile and be glad to know of this romance, knowing naught of her shame and our humiliation.

ONE THING ABOVE ALL OTHERS. "To these our children's children one thing above all others will stand clear from the record cJf the great war. To them it will appear the most magnilievent reason for pride and gratefulness that a little island of only forty-five million people could hold, in a supremacy which its enemies numbering four times iH population uared ivot challenge, the oceans and seas of the whole world. . . .

When they learn that, in addition to holding the seas of the world, the Admiralty of this little nation rendered services to tlioir Allies such as never before in the whole history of the world had been rendered by one Power to snothiv.', surely their astonishment will be boundless

Wherever they go among the nations of the world, even tin Germany—Germany cleansed, penitent and born again free of Hohenzoilcirn tyranny—men and women will say of them: 'They belong to those who saved the .vorld.'

"Do we, who live during the war, fully realise the part which we have played from the very first hour in this enormous conflict! ....

"To keep the immense British Fleet, mobilised and cleared for action was on effort that called for treinemlaus sacrifice. And we kept it mobilised through the storms of the first winter to the summer of the second year, and through the winter of the second year to the third August of war. This immense achievement, by itself, is something to make proud the meanest Briton that eve' hunted scapegoats in an hour of peril

WE DID SOMETHING MORE "But we did something more. We landed in France an army the finest for its size upon which the .sun ever »hone, of. veteran soldiers, so gallant and debonair that French and British officers seeing it swing through the cobbled streets of Boulogne, Ringing its confident song of victory, h.'.d tears in their eyes—tears o) sheer joy and swelling pride. . . . ".Men speak of that Army as they never speak of any other force on all the battlefields of the world. Men 'have thus spoken to me of that army in Norway, in Sweden, in Finland, in Russia, in France, and in the United States.

'•'Danes have told me that they see in that army the force that saved the world;' Japanese officers/Jmve said to me that in Japan they speak of that army as the army which destroyed the Germans' hope of victory.

"All men who have studied the history of this war acknowledge, that the tide turned when the British Army of 1014 hurled the Germans from the coast? of France. Read what Mr. felloe says of it, what Mr. Buehan says of it, what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Professor Pollard say of it—this glorious army which saved the world and which all nations except the foe have taken to their hearts. . . .

THIS IMMORTAL ARMY. "This incomparable, niatehlesi and immortal army, inaugurated and made by a statesman since driven out of office, was the first contribution of Britain to the land struggle. It was shot like an arrow from a bow to its appointed place 011 the battlefield. It wis ready. It was prepared. It was equipped to the last detail of efficient organisation, and while it fought and held" the enemy whose prodigious preparations no one in France or 'Russia had suspected, from its Special Reserve and from the Territorial Associations, both the creation of Lord Hnldane, there went forth a continual stream of men without jolt or dislocation to Britain's mechanism of war. • And from . that hour never has the stream checked or faltercr. Newspapers clamored for men, and even more men, at a time when wo had neither rilles nor clothes to give them; but the stream of men whom we could use never once checked until an army of 6,041,000 had voluntarily come to the colors.

A FAMOUS SAVAL PROGRAMME. "Tho -iaiiie newspapers which still labor under the delusion tlvat they appointed Lord Kitchener to the War Uf fice like to think it was they who strengthened the British Navy. They had nothing whatever to do with the one thing or the other. That Lord Kitchener should go to the War Office was Lord Haldsine's suggestion, a suggestion made at tins very beginning of the crisis: Mir. Asqilith adopted this suggestion before the newspapers knew that war was declared, and only Foreign Office anxiety about Lord Kitchener's command in Egypt delayed the appointment fov a day or two. These things are perfectly well known to everybody who has any acquaintance with the history of those days. And in the same way Mr. MeKomia's famous programme was a decision between himself and Lord Fisher long 'before newspapere knew what was doing at the Admiralty. Certain members of the Cabinet withstood that programme; Mr. MeKcmta said he must resign if it was not accepted; and the ttibinet accepted it." '" ''When, the Liberal Government took office at the extreme end of 1505 our sea. power was slipping from us and our iArrny was in a conditio;: of olwos aid ■weakness.

''Between that date and the autumn of li) 14 the same Government was able to hold the second greatest navv in the world to its harbors, and to strike such a hlow at Germany on land as shattered her hopes of anything but a, drawn battle." WHAT LORD lIAT.DAXE DID. Mr. Begbie's book shows in a very lucid and convincing way the greatest part which Lord iluldana played in lorging the mighty military instrument which dealt that stunning blow at <iermany. Think of the condition of tilings when Lord llaldane first went to tiie War Office.

"There was no unit larger than a brigade which could have gone to war without changing Its composition. The utmost confusion prevailed. And there was depression in every department. No one had thought out a coherent plan. Tlie Aldershot Army Corns would have had to be pulled about and changed in its composition before it could have taken the field. Above everything else the artillery was in a deplorable condition. LORD HALDANE ALTERED ALL THAT.

''Convinced that the "British generals of the older generation had failed to assimilate the new ideas which Moltke had introduced into military organisation, Lord llaldane hild taken the'a-rcat-est pains to surround himself with the most intelligent ollicers of the younger generation who had learnt die bitter lesson of our war in South Africa. No man was cvw better coached for his task or in more deadly earnest. "The results of these reforms, begun in l'JUli and completed in 1912, was that behind the Regular Force of six divisions and the Regular cavalry organisation, there was a -second-line army of 14 great divisions and 14 yeomanry briga At tiie beginning of the war this country was about to mobilise 20 dinMons, with their airtillery, cavalry, ini'.ii.al anil transport service complete, the equivalent of 10 armv corps. And the mobilisation of thi., irinicnsc furoe took' place without a hitch.'' ]T SAVED THE WORLD. '■Let. it be remembered,"' adds' Mr. Begbie, "that while the battle of the Manic was a decisive battle, the glory of which belongs mainly to the French, that decisive battle would never have taken place if the British Army during the retreat from lions had failed to hold back 'the great enveloping movement cf the main German army.' On that famous retreat British amis saved the world. If Britain had failed tlicn nothing could have stopped the German nrmy from rcaoliing Paris and seizing the "French coasts." But Britain did not fail. As Mr. Winston Churchill savs: "The British Army went to France according to what might be called _the Haldane plan. Everything in that Minister's eight-year tenure of the War Office had led up to this, and hud been sacrificed for this."

TIIE ONLY BLOT. "The only blob on England's, escutcheon." adds Mr. Begbie, "is that she allowed a few noisy journalists to drive cut of oflic-e the one man who more than any other, save Lord Fisher, had prepared her to light with honor and with power "Some men, looking back to the years behind us, will perhaps see a curious coincidence in tho fact that two of King Edward's most trusted friends, Lord Fisher at the Admiralty and Lord Ilaldane at the War Oilice, were diligently lescuing the British Navy and the British Army from chaos, weakness and loss of confidence, while their Roval master did what he could for' the peace o: tho world. A curious coincidence, too, ilut both these men had succeeded beyond the bounds of expectation just before Germany hit out with all her ioree at Russia and at France."