FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 264, 3 August 1929, Page 11

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

AUGUST 4, 1914 BRITAIN’S ENTRY INTO THE WORLD WAR To-morrow marks the fifteenth anniversary of the entry of the British Empire into the Great War. “Tiie world on tlie verge of its catastrophe was very brilliant. Nations and Empires crowned with princes and potentates rose majestically on every side, lapped in the accumulated treasures of the long peace. . . . The Old World in its sunset was fair to see. But there was a strange temper in the air. Unsatisfied by material prosperity the nations turned restlessly towards strife internal or external. National passions, unduly exalted in the decline of religion, burned beneath the surface in nearly every land with fierce, if shrouded, fires. Almost one might think the world wished to suffer. Certainly men were everywhere eager to dare. On all sides the military preparations, precautions and counter-precautions had reached their height., France had her three years’ military service; Russia her growing strategic railways. The ancient Empire of the Hapsburgs, newly smitten by the bombs of Serajevo, was a prey to intolerable racial stresses and profound processes of decay. Italy faced Turkey. Turkey confronted Greece. Greece, Serbia and Rumania stood against Bulgaria. Britain was rent by faction and seemed almost negligible. America was three thousand miles away. Germany, her fifty million capital Wix expended on munitions, her army increases completed, the Kiel Canal open for Dreadnought battleships that very month, looked fixedly upon the scene and her gaze became suddenly a glare.” It is this vivid picture which Mr. Winston Churchill has drawn in his “World Crisis” that will recall to those old enough to remember memories of those last weeks before the great disaster. The spring and summer of 1914 were marked in Europe by an exceptional tranquillity.. At the end of June British naval visits to Kronstadt and Kiel took place. For the first time for several years some of the finest ships of the British and German'navies lay at their moorings at Kiel. “There were races, there were banquets there were speeches. Officers and men fraternised and entertained one another afloat and ashore.” It was in the midst of these festivities, on June 28, 1914, that there came the fateful news of the murder of the Archduke Charles of Austria at Serajevo. Party Conflict in Britain. The strange calm of the European situation during that fateful summer contrasted with the rising fury of party conflict in Great Britain. “As it br ie certain that the Home Rule Bill would pass into law under the machinery of the Parliament Act,” says Mr. Churchill, “the Protestant counties of Ulster openly developed their preparations for armed resistance.” Not only in Ulster but in most other parts of Ireland volunteers were enrolled by thousands and “gun running” and other measures to procure arms were employed by the opposing elements. Civil war was imminent. The refusal of many British army officers in Ireland to discharge their constitutional duty and other “shocking events caused an explosion of unparalleled fury in Parliament and shook the State to its foundations.” The conference at Buckingham Palace summoned by the King to discuss a settlement of the Irish problem broke down, and on July 24 the disagreements and antagonisms seemed as fierce as ever. An all-sufficient shock to the contending factions was, however, at hand. The First Alarm Note. The Cabinet on July 24 sat long revolving the Irish problem, Mr. Churchill tells us. “The discussion had reached its inconclusive end, and the Cabinet was about to separate when the quiet, grave tones of Sir Edward Grey’s voice were heard reading a document which had just been brought to him from the Foreign Office. It was the Austrian Note to Serbia. . . This Note was clearly an ultimatum; but it was an ultimatum such as had never been penned in modern times. It seemed absolutely impossible that any State in the world could accept it, or that any acceptance, however abject. would satisfy the aggressor. The parishes of Fermanagh and Tyrone faded back into the mists and squalls of Ireland, and a strange light began immediately, but by perceptible gradations, to fall and grow upon the map of Europe.” There followed days and nights of feverish uegotiation between the Chancelleries of Europe and of still more feverish preparation for the inevitable catastrophe. The British Cabinet, overwhelmingly pacific, worked hard and unceasingly to preserve the peace of Europe and'the vjjrld. As the situation rapidly degene.rat “, the Irish question faded into the background, and it was a united people that faced the tremendous crisis in Eurotie, and finally entered the conflict.in defence of all that was implied by a “scrap of paper.” In the middle of July there was a test mobilisation of the Royal Navy. It constituted “incomparably the assemblage of naval power ever witnessed in the history of the world.” When this mis’htv fleet put to sea on July 19 for exercises it took (pore than six hours steamin'* at lit knots to pass the King who watched this armada from the Royal yacht. “One after another the ships melted out of sight beyond the Nab. They were going, on a longer voyage than any of us knew.” . A few days later the ships of the Third Fleet had dispersed their reservists crews, but the whole of the First and Second Fleets were still concentrated at Portland and ready for any eventuality. The situation in Europe rapidly grew more and more critical, and finally, in the evening of July 28, orders were given to the First Fleet to proceed to Scapa Flow. “We may now picture this great fleet, with its flotillas and cruisers, steaming slowly out of Portland harbour. squadron by squadron, scores of gigantic castles of steel winding their way across the misty, shining sea, like giants bowed in anxious thought. Ave mny picture them again as darkness fell, eighteen miles of warships running at high speed and in absolute blackness through the narrow Straits, bearing with them into the broad waters of the north the safeguard of considerable affairs. . . . The King’s ships were at sea. . . .' August 4. 1914. The prologue of the tremendous drama of August 4 is pictured by Mr. Churchill. “It was 11 o'clock at night—l2 by German time—-when the ultimatum to Germany expired. The windows of the Admiralty were thrown wide open in the warm night air. Under the roof from which Nelson had received his orders were gathered a small group of Admirals and captains and a eluster of clerks, pencil in hand, waiting. Along the Alall from the direction of the Palace the sound of an immense concourse singing ‘God Save the King’ floated in. On this deep wave there broke the chimes of Big Ben; and. us the first stroke of the hour, boomed out, a rustle of movement swept across the room. The War Telegram, which meant ‘Commence hostilities agaiy/t Germany,’ waa flashed to the

ships and establishments under the White Ensign all over the world.” Part of the Cost-. Thus did Great Britain enter the Great War. With the Mother Country marched the whole Empire, in defence of freedom. In the great struggle which lasted more than four years the Empire mobilised nearly 9.000.000 men. the total casualties among whom numbered 3,200.000. including one million dead. It was truly a World War. More than 65,000,000 men were mobilised by all the belligerents. The. total casualties have been computed officially at over 37,000,000. More than 8,500,000 men gave their lives. The wounded totalled over 21.000.000 and prisoners and missing 7,750.000.