Fields of Victory | Page 5

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 Douglas Haig, "the enemy's resistance was definitely broken;" and thus "in three months of epic fighting the British Armies in France had brought to a sudden and dramatic end the great wearing-out battle of the past four years."
[Illustration: British Battles During 1918 (8th Aug. to 11th Nov., 1918).]
Do these sentences--the utterances of a man