A BOOK EVERYONE SHOULD READ

Evening Star, Issue 16335, 30 January 1917, Page 6

A BOOK EVERYONE SHOULD READ

SOME INTERESTING REVELATIONS. Mr Harold Begbie’s recently-issued book, ‘A Vindication of Great Britain,’ shows in a very lucid and convincing' way the great part which Lord Haldane played in forging the mighty military instrument which has dealt so many stunning blows to Germany. This is how Lord Haldane, when he went to the War Office iu 1906, found the British Army: There was no unit larger than a brigade which could have gone to war without changing its composition. The utmost confusion prevailed. And there was depression in every department. No one had thought out a coherent plan. The Aidershot Army Corps would have had to be pulled about and changed in its composition before it could have taken the field. Above everything else the artillery was in a. deplorable condition. —Lord Haldane Altered All That.— “ Convinced that the British generals of tho older _ generation had failed to assimilate the new ideas which Moltke had introduced into military organisation, Lord Haldane had taken the greatest pains to surround himself with the most intelligent officers of the younger generation, who had learnt tho bitter lesson of our war in South Africa. No man was ever better coached for his task or in more deadly earnest.'’ The result of all these reforms, began in 1906 and completed in 1912, was that behind the Regular Force of six divisions ami (he Regular cavalry organisation, there was a second-lino army of 14 great divisions and 14 yeomanry brigades. At the beginning of the war this country was able to mobilise 20 divisions, with their artillery, cavalry, medical, and transport, complete—the equivalent of 10 Army Corps. And the mobilisation of this immense force took place without a hitch. —‘ The Times’s ’ Answer.— “When Lord Haldane went to tho AVoolsnek in 1912 ‘The Times’ stated with perfect truth that Bering the past six years the immediate readmes? of the Kxnedit.ionary Forco for overseas action had been the primary objective of the General Staff and of the War Office administration, and the ref:oto! feeling of self-confidence (hah prevails in the Army is the best evidence of the success of the efforts made in this direction. The words which T have emphasised arc the end of the whole matter. Lord Haldane no' oiny ‘inaugurated and made a military fighting' machine and a system of notional defence such as (his country never had before. bur he nave back to tho British Army that, which all the muddling and tinkering of other reformers, both military and political, had failed to restore—-'ts self-confidence. Ho restored tlm self-confidence of the Bniisii .Army. H is in this r Times’) phrase that yon have Ihp best answer to all the detractors of Lord Haldane and the explanation of loaf almost, laughing toy which has animated the whole of the British Army in its fight with the conscripts of Germany.” —Glowing Rages.— Those arc glowing pages in which Mr Begbio shows what, our Army did at the beginning of the war. People who have been depressed by tho pessimists during the long and trying period ot trench warfare will perhaps rub their eyes on reading that the unprepared end neglected Br.tish Army at, tho beginning of tlie war went about kicking the Kaiser s best army across rivers, making His Imperial Majesty's infantrymen run screaming for their lives, outshooting German gunners. outliving German airmen, scattering German cavalrymen, and lending its heavy batteries to the aid of the French, who were entirely without heavy gum. Such, however, was indeed the achievement of the British Expeditionary Force, the war machine inaugurated and made by Lord Haldane, of whom quite recently one of the London newspapers has spoken in tlie following elegant, fashion ; “The results of his policy are written in British blood on the battlefields of mice continents.” Let it be remembered that while I he battle of the Marne was a decisive battle, the glory of which belongs mainly to tho French, (hat decisive battle, would never have i aken place if the British Army during the retreat from Mens had railed' to hold back “ the great enveloping movement of the main German army.” On that famous retreat British arms saved the world. If Britain had tailed then nothing could have stopped the German army from reaching Raids and seizing the French coasts. But Britain did not fail. As Mr Winslon Churchill says; "The British Army went to France according to what might be called the Haldane plan. Everything in that Alimstor's eight-year tenure of the War Office had led up to tins, and had been sacrificed for ibis.'' —The Only Biol.— The only blot on England's escutcheon is that she allowed a few noisy jou -ua’ists to drive out of office the one man who, more than any other save. Lord Esher, had prepared her to fight with honor and with power. Some men, looking back to the years behind ns, will perhaps see a curious coincidence in the fact that two of King Edward's most trusted f nmds— Lord Fisher at the Admiralty and Lord Haldane at, the War Office—were diligently rescuing the British Navy and i'c.j Brush Army from chaos, weakness, and |r -s of confidence, while their Royal master cal what, he could for the peace of (he world. A cm ions coincidence, too, that both (hose men had succeeded beyond the bounds of expectation jnsr before Germany hit. out with all her force at, Russia, and at, Franco. —The Untold Talc.— bull a story as tlie world h.-,s rover beard before will be told to ;S.e rat ons when glorious Rn-sia (Avlvj is lung mg to Uhl now) ami most valiant, noble-hearted franco, and gallant, freedom-loving Iti.ly are tree 10 say what Britain nas done tor them. And what 1 know, ami wnaf will atnazo every man when it is told, is also known ilm (his bn remembered riterwaids) by those who still persist iu s l bug depression and blackening the good name tans country, there are. indeed, men in tilts nation whom France would long ago have brought to tho lamp-post. —“ Lest. We Forget.''— Some oj the great. London papers still labor under the delusion that, it was they that appointed Lord Kitchener to tlie War tHiice. and it was they that Strengthoned with one or the other, declares Mr Bvgbie, who affirms that K. of K. was sent, -o'the War Ofluv at. Lord Haldane's igg'siiuu, marie a t t ho very beginning of tlie war. Mr Asquith adopted; this suggestion before the newspapers knew that, 'war had been declared. _and only Foreign Office anxiety about Lord Kitchener's command in Egypt delayed the appointment for a day or two. Ami in til.' same way Mr M’Kcnna’s famous programing was a decision between himself and Lord Fisher long betoro the newm mer.s kimw what was doing at the Admiralty. Mr M’Koima said that he must, resign if it were not accepted, and Cabinet, accepted it. —The Greatest Lrs.vm of All.--“To our children's children ono thing above nil others will stand clear from the record of lids great war. To them it. will appear the most magnificent reason for pride and gratefulness that n little island with only 45 million people could hold, in a supremacy which its enemies, numbering four times its population, dared not. challenge, the oceans and seas of the whole world. . . . When they learn that, in addition to holding the seaf. of the world, the Admiralty of this little nation rendered services to their Allies such as, never before in the whole history of the world had been rendered by one Rower to another, surely their astonishment, will be boundless. Wherever they go among the nations of the world, even in Germany—Germany, cleansed, penitent, and born again free of Hohonzollcm tryanny—men and women will say of them; THEY BELONGTO THEM WHO RAVED THE WORLD. Do we, who live during the war. fully realise the part, which we have played from the, very first hour in this enormous conflict? To keep the immense British Fleet mobilised and cleared for action was an ertort. rival called for tremendous sacrifice. And wo kept it mobilised through the storms of the first winter to the (summer of the second year, and through the. winter of the second year to the third August, of war. This immense achievement by itself is something to make proud the meanest, Briton who ever hunted scapegoats in an hour of peril. ■—Astonished the. World.— “Bur, wo did something more. We landed > n France, an army the finest of its size upon which tho sun ever shone, of veteran soldiers so gallant, anil debonnair (hat French and British officers seeing it’ swing through the cobbled .streets of Boulogne, singing the confident song ot victory, had tears in their eyes—tears of sheer joy and swelling pride. • • . Men speak of that Army as they never speak of an}- other force on all tho battlefields of the world. Mon have thus spoken to me of that army in) Norway, in Sweden, in Finland, in Russia, in Prance, and in tho United States. Danes have told mo. that they see in that Army the force that saved the world. Japanese officers have

said to me that in Japan they speak o( that Army as the army which destroyed the Germans’ hopes of victory. “This incomparable, matchless, and im mortal Army, inaugurated by a statesman since driven out of office, was the first con tnbution of Britain to the land struggle. B was shot like an arrow from a bow to iti appointed place on tho battlefield. It wni ready; it was prepared; it was equipped B the last detail of efficient organisation, am while it fought and held the enemy whosi prodigious preparations no ono in Franc or Russia had suspected, from its Sped a tinnf'b ♦V* frora the Territorial Assock ° t J h( ;, crcail,res of Lord Haldane—-vv:tlm.nen-'a 0r hj a co,lhnual stream of me) v.thout jolt or dislocation to Britain’! ne^er^ha 111 ti° f War ' And from lhat holt Wr, a h nL tbo | stloa T chcckcd or faltered -Newspapers clamored for men and evo rifles nor’cMh 11 ? C ' vhcn wo hnd "eithe In, f CS , to e ,vo them: but tit oncTchecLri \n hom we could neve once checked until an army of 5 041 000 hat voluntarily come to tho colors! ’ ha ' —lt Is Immorality.— Mr Bogbie’s vigorous defence of Lord HV Lord Haldane s preparations save u,er Bom ho lamp-post, and when Lord HV da no lumselt is being denounced by th most violent and dangerous people in th. community as a traitor to his oou n S keep their mouths shut? Nay what S’ comes °t the morality of lhe« Misters' io, leaving to the wolves the collca-me lb,? !- \ nd °PI >osed ' rush furiously into tha limelight or public attention, and ns-umi ” f * lp air *hich amused iCgencv Urn air of their own statues erected bv linhbV ion, demand the nationt SpXt! ot morality; it is immorality.