Fields of Victory | Page 5

if the President made a mistake in not going at once to the
wrecked districts before the Peace Conference opened--and no one has
insisted on this more strongly than American correspondents--it is clear
that it was an idealist's mistake. Ruins, the President seems to have said
to himself, can wait; what is essential is that the League of Nations idea,
on which not Governments only, but peoples are hanging, should be
rapidly "clothed upon" by some practical shape; otherwise the war is
morally and spiritually lost.
Certainly the whole grandiose conception of the League, so vague and
nebulous when the President arrived in Europe, has been marvellously
brought out of the mists into some sort of solidity, during these January
weeks. Not, I imagine, for some of the reasons that have been given.
An able American journalist, for instance, writing to the Times,
ascribes the advance of the League of Nations project entirely to the

close support given to the President by Mr. Lloyd George and the
British Government; and he explains this support as due to the British
conviction "that the war has changed the whole position of Great
Britain in the world. The costs of the struggle in men, in money, in
prestige (the italics are mine), have cut very deeply; the moral effect of
the submarine warfare in its later phase, and of last year's desperate
campaign, have left their marks upon the Englishman, and find
expression in his conduct.... British comment frankly recognises that it
will never again be within the power of Great Britain, even if there
were the desire, to challenge America in war or in peace."
In other words, the support given by Great Britain to President Wilson's
ideas means that British statesmen are conscious of a loss of national
power and prestige, and of a weakened Empire behind them.
Hasty words, I think!--and, in my belief, very wide of the mark. At any
rate I may plead that during my own month in France I have been in
contact with many leading men in many camps, English, French, and
American, and both military and diplomatic, especially with the British
Army and its chiefs; and so far from perceiving in the frankest and
most critical talk of our own people--and how critical we are of our
own doings those know who know us best--any sense of lost prestige or
weakened power, my personal impression is overwhelmingly the other
way. We are indeed anxious and willing to share responsibilities, say in
Africa, and the Middle East, with America as with France. Why not?
The mighty elder power is eager to see America realise her own world
position, and come forward to take her share in a world-ordering, which
has lain too heavy until now on England's sole shoulders. She is glad
and thankful--the "weary Titan"--to hand over some of her
responsibilities to America, and to share many of the rest. She wants
nothing more for herself--the Great Mother of Nations--why should she?
She has so much. But loss of prestige? The feeling in those with whom
I have talked, is rather the feeling of Kipling's Recessional--a profound
and wondering recognition that the Imperial bond has indeed stood so
magnificently the test of these four years, just as Joseph Chamberlain,
the Empire-builder, believed and hoped it would stand, when the day of
testing came; a pride in what the Empire has done too deep for many

words; coupled with the stubborn resolution, which says little and
means everything--that the future shall be worthy of the past.
And as to the feeling of the Army--it is expressed, and, as far as I have
been able to judge from much talk with those under his command, most
truly expressed, in Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig's December
despatch--which came out, as it happens, the very day I had the honour
of standing at his side in the Commander-in-Chief's room, at G.H.Q.,
and looking with him at the last maps of the final campaign. "The effect
of the great assaults," says the Field-Marshal, "in which, during nine
days of battle (September 26th--October 5th), the First, Third, and
Fourth Armies stormed the line of the Canal du Nord, and broke
through the Hindenburg line, upon the subsequent course of the
campaign, was decisive.... Great as were the material losses the enemy
had suffered, the effect of so overwhelming a defeat upon a morale
already deteriorated, was of even larger importance." Again: "By the
end of October, the rapid succession of heavy blows dealt by the
British forces had had a cumulative effect, both moral and material,
upon the German Armies. The British Armies were now in a position to
force an immediate conclusion." That conclusion was forced in the
battle of the Sambre (1st to 11th November). By that "great victory,"
says Sir