Pen Pictures of the War.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 41, 24 December 1920, Page 10

Pen Pictures of the War.

SERIES IV. We sliall conclude our comments o n Philip Gibbs by quoting a choide criticism of the riTilitary clique. To the reader who, like Oliver Twist, asks for more we heartily recommend the original work : "The Realities of War," which is obtainable at the Athenaeum. "FAWNING AND FLATTERY," There was oue Avlio.se conversation I remember (having taken notes of it before I turr.ed in that night). It vvas a remarkable conversation, summing up many things of the same kind which I had heard in stray sentences by other officers, and month by month, years afterwards, heard again, spoken with passion. This officer who had come out to France in 1914 and Irad been fighting ever since by a luck which had spared his life when so many of his comrades had fallen round him, did speak with passion. He spoke with a bit. ter mocking irony. He said that G.H.Q. was a close corporation in the hands of the military clique who had muddled through the South African W ar, and wer© now going to muddle, through a worse one. They were, he said, entrenched behind Jmpregnable barricades of old mo'ss-eaten traditions, red tape, and caste privilege. They were, of course) patriots who believed that the Empire depended npon their system. They had no doubt of their inherent right to conduct the war, which was "their war" without interference, or criticism, or publicity. They spent many hours of the days and nights in rvriting letters to each other, and those who wrota most letters received most clecorations and felt, with a patriotic fire, within their hreasts that they were getting on with the war. Within their close corporation there were rivalries, intrigues, perjuries, and treacheries like those of a medieval court. Each general and staff officer had his foltowers and his sycophants who jostlecl for «ach other's jobs, fawned on the great man, flattered his vanity, and made him Vlieve in his omniscience. Among the General Staff there were various grades — G.S.O. I., G.S.O. 11., G.S.O., 111., and those in the lower grades fought for a higher grade with every kind of artfulness, •ma* diplornacy, and backstair influence. Tirey worked late into the night. That Js 'l0 Ibcy wcnt baek to their ofiices after dining at mess— "so fright'fully busy. you know, old man!" — and kept their lights burning, and smoked cigarettes, and rang up each other on the telephone with futile questions, and invented new ways of preventing something from being done somewhere. The war to them was a faroff thing essential to their way of life, as miners in the.'- coal-nelds are essential to.statesmen in Downing street, especially incold weather. But it did not touch their souls or their bodies. They did not see its agony, or imagine it, or worry about it. They were always cheerfal, breezy, bright and optimistic. They made a litt-le work go a long way. They were haughty and arrogant with subordinate officersj er at the best affable and condescending ; and to superior officers they said, "Yes, sir, ' "No, sir," "Qaite so, sir," to any statement, however absurd in its ignorance and dogmatism. If the major- general said, "Wagner was a. mountehank in music,' G.S.O. 111., who had once studied at Munich, said, "Yes, sir," or, "You think so, sir? Of course, you're right." If a lieut.-colonel said, "Browning was not a poet, a staff captain, who had read Browning at Cambridge, with passionate admiration, said, "I quite agree with you, sir. And who do you think was a poet, sir?" It was the army system. The opinion of a superior officer was correct, always. It did not admit of contradiction. It was not to be criticised. Its ignorance was wisdom. G.H.Q. lived, said our guest, in a world I of its own, rose-coloured, remote from the ugly things of war. They had heard oi the trenches, yes, but as the West End h®ar.s of the East End — a nasty place where common people Iived. Occasionally they visited the trenches as society folk ,go slumming, and came back proud cf having se,en a shell burst, having braved the lice and the dirt. "The trenches are the slums," said our guest. "We are the Great Unwashed. \ve are the muddarks." There was a trench in the salient called J.3. It vvas away out in advance of our lines. It was not connected with our own trench system. It had been left derelict by both sides, and was a ditch in No Man's Land. But our men were ordered to hold it "to save sniping." A battalion commander protested to th® head-quarters staff. There was no object in holding J.3. It was a target for German

guns and a temptation to German miners. "J.3," came the staff command, "must be held until further orclers." We lost 500 men in holding it. The trench and all in it Avere thrown up by mines. Among those killed was the Kon. Lyndhurst Bruce, the husband of Camille Clifford, with other husbands of women unknown. Our guest told the story of the massacre in Neuve Chapelle. "This is a death sentence," said the officers Avho were ordered to attack. But they attacked, and died, with great gallantry as usual. "In the slums," said our guest, "we are expected to die if G.H.Q. tells us so, or if the Corps arranges our funeral. And generally Ave do." That night. when the snow lay on the ground I listened to the rumbling of the gunning away in the salient, and seemed to hear the groans of men at Hooge, at St. Eloi, in awful places. The irony of that guest of ours was frightful. It was bitter beyond justice, though with truth in the mockery, the truth of a soui shocked by the waste of life and heroism. .... When I met him later in the war he vvas on the staff. We now leave Gibbs and turn to a writer of distinction on the works of the Navy. SUBMARINE v. SUBMARINE. Rear-Admiral Sims of the American Navy has written a series of articies on "The Victories at Sea," Avith special reference to the American Navy. To any Digger who had a high opinion of the actual fighting contributed fcy the Americans to the cause of the Alli.es we would recommend the original articies which are being published in "The Worlds Work," and may be obtained from the Municipal Library. He praises the AHied submarines as !>eing the most effective agency in the destruction of German underwater craft. The Allied destroyers, about- 500 in number, sank 34 German submarines with gunfire and depth charges ; Auxiliary patrol craft, such as trawlers, yachts and the like, about 3000 in number, sank 31 ; while the Allied submarines which were about 100 in number sank 20. TheJGerman submarine, in. search of "harmless merchantmen, spent most of its time on the surface with its conning tower and deck exposcd, thereby keeping its bat. teries fully charged against the event »t being attacked. The Allied submarine when once on its hunting ground spent u.i. LiiC Ot. j Iiours warei.'- vvit.ii only the periscope visible from time to time for a few seeonds. Just as the U-boat could spot an Allied destroyer at a great distance without being itself seen, so could the lurking periscope invariably see the U-boat on the surface long before this tiny object came within the \dew of the enemy's conning tower. Our submarine commander could remain submerged, sweep the ocean with his periscope until he had picked up the enemy; then, still unseen beneath the water, he could steal up to a position within range and discffiarge a torpedo into the U-boat's fragile side. The German submarine received the same treatment that it was itself a-dmin-istciing to harmless merchantmen, being torpedoed without warning. The combat was usually on,e-sided and the issue was determined in a few minutes. More often than not our torpedos missed for the U-boat is a small target. Ihe missile would usually pass a few feet ahead or astern or would glide a few inches over or under the. submarine bulk. Once an American torpedo hit its enemy squarely on the side but failed to explcde. if once the torpedo struck and function,ed, nowei'er, it was all over in a few seeonds. A huge geyscr of water wohld leap into the air ; the submarine rvould fiy into parts in a dozen directiqns, t-heii the water would gradually subside leaving a mammoth oil patcli in which two or three mem. bers of the crew might be struggling in the Avaves. One of the most interesting exploits is that of the E.35, a British submarine, in May 1918, patrolling in the Atlantic about 200 miles west of Gibraltar. Two or tliree miles away appeared a low lying object which to the practised eye at the periscope soon revealed itself as a huge U-boat proceeding north at a leisureiy pace and never suspecting that one of its own kind was on its trail. Several time3 the British commander dived to forty feet and made at full speed towards the German, coming up to periscope depth from time to time to make sure of his distance. When the range had been decreased to 250 yards the missle was launched in the direction of the foe. But this was only one of the numerous occasions when the shot missed. A surface ship, from its elevation ivould have seen the tell-tale wake of the torpedo and probably escaped by flight; but the Uboat awash with the wa\-es sailed non.chalantly on its way never suspecting for

a moment that torpedo had missed its vitals by a few feet. The E.35 crept still closer and fired two torpedoes simultaneously, both hit at the same moment. A terrific explosion vvas heard, a mountain of water rose in the air, then in a few seeonds every thing was still. A small patch of oil appeared on the surface this gradually expanded ; and then a few German survivors came up and swam towards the British Aressel. Admiral Sims claims that the inventor of the modern submarine was an American, an undergraduate of Yale University, namcd David Burt-well, who in 1777 invented an under water craft .which contained all the principLes of construction embodied in the submarine of to-day. His chief inspiration was his hostility to Great Britain which was at that time at war with America, but his invention failed to account for any of the British war \Tessels which were then anchored off the coast. His successor, Robert Fulton, was inspired by a similar ambition. In 1801 Fulton took liis "Nautilus" into the harbour of Brest and blew a merchant ship into a thousand piec-es. This dramatic experiment was intended to convincc Napoleon that there was one way in which he could destroy the English fleet. The demonstration failed to convince Napoleon of the value of the submarine and Fulton eventu. ally returned to America to become famous in d&veloping the steam-boat.