WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1915. MISCHIEVOUS TACTICS

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 89, 13 October 1915, Page 6

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1915. MISCHIEVOUS TACTICS

♦ The sudden gravity which, after months of confused simmering, the position in the Balkans has assumed has deeply impressed the people of Great Britain, and, as often happens when their habitual complacency has received a severe shock, they are seeking for a scapegoat. " A determined and united people," says The Times, in its best style, " is not in a mood to tolerate indecision and mismanagement." One scapegoat alone will evidently not suffice for The Times. Nothing short of a whole hecatomb of victims will satisfy the fury of its indignation. " Never in the history of warfare," says the Thunderer — or, should we say, Lord Northcliffe's organ? — "was sheer incompetence fraught with such tragic results. Everything, unfortunately, points to the total want of cohesion and gnp in directing the great resources in men, money, prestige, and public spirit which the nation is determined to pour out to the uttermost till we are victorious. It is not a question merely of the Foreign Office or the War Office, but of the supreme direction of these and other offices." Are we to interpret this sweeping ferocity to mean that " sheer incompetence " has been the distinguishing feature both of the Foreign Office and the War Office individually in relation to the Balkans, and of the supreme executive authority which should have co-ordinated the efforts and rectified the blunders of these two woefully mismanaged departments? Mr. Asquith and Lord Kitchener have long since been on the bad books of The Times, the former for his lack of initiative and control, and the latter for his failure to make the manufacturers of high explosive keep pace with his wonderful feate in the raising of men, and both for their lack of zeal in the cause of conscription. There is, therefore, nothing new about this latest outburst of The Times, so far as these two Ministers are concerned, except that it is far more violent than before. In Lord Kitchener's case, at any rate, its attacks have hitherto been by way of faint praise and GmueriHo and understatement, but these indirect methods have now been entirely abandoned. The Thunderer has loaded its biggest g^n" to the muzzle with vituperation, and discharged at Lord Kitchener and his colleagues an accusation of such "sheer incompetence" as to have produced "tragic results" unexampled in the whole history of warfare. And one of the colleagues at whom the fire is particularly directed is Sir EdwaTd Grey. Surprise and indignation are the emotions with which the article will be received throughout the Empire. It is impossible to measure the mischief that it may cause among the Allies of Britain, without whose good will and close co-operation she cannot possibly win this war. In the Dominions, Sir Edward Grey's reputation stands upon too firm a foundation to be shaken in this way, but misunderstanding and mischief may easily be created among our Allies, and Germany has obviously been provided with a powerful instrument for the purposes of her propaganda in neutral countries. Before the tribunal of British opinion, the comments of the Observer had satisfactorily discounted the attack in advance. "The rabid newspapers which suggest the fall of Sir Edward Grey in connection with the position in the Balkans," says Mr. Garvin's weekly, "could not make a proposal that would be more acceptable to the enemy if they were paid by Berlin." The Observer's protest is made all the weightier by the absence of any attempt to disguise the failure of British diplomacy in the Balkans or the intense gravity of the military position, if it is not resolutely and promptly grappled with. The mastery of the Balkans must be fought for at all costs, the Observer insists, but "meanwhile there is no statesman more necessary to retain than Sir Edward Grey, who commands more respect than anyone else." Is there any one man to whom the British Empire is at the present time under a deeper debt of obligation than to Sir Edward Grey? Has any nation ever made a better showing in the diplomacy preceding a great war than Britain was enabled to make under the guidance of Sir Edward Grey? He did all that could be honourably done to avert war, and the result of his combination of transparent honesty, candour, and zeal for peace with firmness at the fatal moment was to put the mind of the Empire and of every neutral nation in the best possible key for the attainment of success in the war During the war, Sir Edward Grey's name alone has been of incalculable value at the Foreign Office. Of his diplomatic successes during that period, his solution of the many thorny problems presented by Britain's interference as a belligerent with American trade has been the most conspicuous to the public eye. If Sir Edward Grey has failed in the Balkans, so have the diplomatists of France and Eussia. His share of personal responsibility in the matter cannot possibly be measured now, but the Empire is satisfied that he has faced a task of insuper«able difficulty as ably as any conceivable substitute could have done. It is certainly not prepared to transfer its confidence from Sir Edward Grey to the nomiaeo ef Lord jS*t»th<:Hffs or Frlntittjjt ■Haute Squire.