DUST OF THE PAST

Taranaki Daily News, 12 May 1934, Page 13 (Supplement)

DUST OF THE PAST

PHASES OF WAR

(By

“Historicus”).

Sir Robert Baden-Powell is leader and founder of the Boy Scouts, and if ever there was a fight conducted on lines to | gratify Boy Scouts it was the defence of Mafeking, which was ended on May 17, 1900, the day on which London went mad at the news that the little town in the arid plains of Bechuanaland had been relieved, and its Boer assailants driven off. Yet the demonstrators, though their ardour was reprobated by staid Radical newspapers, were not very badly behaved, nor blood-thirsty, seeing that the Boer besieging forces had merely withdrawn. And as for the siege and defence, it really was a very creditable, jolly little affair with none of the grim horrors of Kut or Anzac or Przemysl. Mafeking was a tiny open town of galvanised iron houses on a one line railway. Its besiegers numbered some 4,000, with a few cannon; its defenders 700 police and settlers with rifles, who bluffed ’that they were holding a

perimeter of ten miles. For 200 days the Boers watched- the town, firing at intervals while the garrison and its commander invented schemes for annoying and checking them, or published a siege newspaper and made jokes about "chevril”—beef tea concocted with horseflesh. At last two relieving columns from north and south joined hands, and the Boers, who were needed by the commandoes who were resisting Lord Roberts in the Orange Free States, faded away, with the garrison and relief forces in pursuit. One other name beside “B.P.’s” stands out in the story—that of the leader of the relief force from Rhodesia, Colonel, later Lord Plumer.

On November 16, 1869, the Suez Canal was opened, and the Franco-Prussian War broke out within nine months. On May 18, 1914, the Panama Canal was declared open to regular mercantile traffic, and the Great War began within three months. Happily no nation pro-

poses to open another great interoceanic ship canal at the present. Even on July 12, 1914, when President Wilson formally declared the Canal open, he and the world at large—the chancellories of Europe excepted—thought he was inaugurating a new era of peace and friendly intercourse, whereas now even the entrances of the canal are heavily protected by fortress guns, its defence has been the subject of grand manoeuvres for the American Fleet, and the people of the United States possibly value it almost more because it gives them the means of rushing battleships to the Pacific than because it reduces the ocean freight rates from New York to San Francisco, China and Australia. Happily the Panama Canal has not been a direct cause of war. But just as British anxiety about control of the Suez Canal forces us to keep troops in Cairo and involves us endlessly with Egyptian nationalism, so the presence of American marines in Nicaragua is largely explicable from the fact that Nicaragua is not only near- the Panama Canal, but offers an alternative route for a future canal as well as harbours from which the present canal could be menaced or defended.

All through the reign of King Edward VII there stood—how many Londoners recall it?—a green hoarding before Buckingham Palace, which enclosed the place where a national memorial was being erected to Queen Victoria. King Edward grew annoyed at the slow progress of the work, but the amount subscribed by grateful subjects of the great Queen had been large, a committee had approved a grandiose plan, and her son never lived to see those green hoardings removed —to reveal the gigantic bridal cake in white marble, with bronze lions and gigantic figures as adjuncts, which now stands in front of the Palace and requires frequent washing to keep it clean under the rain of London soot. The public saw the memorial at last on May 16, 1911, only a few weeks before the coronation of King George.

The unveiling, on a bright, sunny spring day, was the occasion of the last public visit to London of the then. German Emperor, who came with his Empress, and took in the opening ceremony a place almost more prominent than that of King George. He and the King walked to the monument together from the Palace, and, in replying to an address before unveiling the memorial, the King emphasised the importance of the Kaiser’s presence as showing what strong and living ties of friendship existed between the two nations and Royal Houses. William Hohenzollern meanwhile posed and eyed the guards of honour as though comparing them unfavourably with his own troops; not long before he had roundly upbraided on parade an English cavalry regiment of which he was colonel-in-chief. A touch of irony was provided by the fact that the address to the King was read by Lord Esher—that Lord Esher whose prescient opinion about the German Navy and its objects had led the Kaiser to write: “Why cannot Lord Esher attend to his drains?”

“May 15, 1915. First Lord.—After further anxious reflection I have come to the regretted conclusion I am unable to remain any longer as your colleague. It is undesirable in the public interest to go into details. . . I am off to Scotland at once so as to avoid all questionings. Yours truly, Fisher.” This note, handed to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr Winston Churchill, as he crossed the Horse Guards Parade, told him that Lord Fisher, the inventor of dreadnoughts and battle-cruisers and the most original mind in the Navy, had resigned his post as First Sea Lord. His dogmatic temper could not brook the conflicts which so often arose with his brilliant and impulsive political superior, and his seaman’s soul revolted at the idea of sending ships and still more ships against the batteries and torpedoes of the Dardanelles. Mr Churchill told the Prime Minister, Mr Asquith. The Prime Minister ordered Lord Fisher, in the name of the King, to return to his duty. Lord Fisher flatly disregarded the order.

The shock to public confidence was such that in a few days the Prime Min-ister-knowing that the dreadful shortage of shells for the Army was also about to become public knowledge—had to reform his Government as a Coalition, bringing in Unionist Ministers and dropping Mr Churchill. Sir Arthur Wilson, the Navy's foremost strategist, refused to become First Sea Lord under anyone save Mr Churchill. Lord Kitchener’s removal from the War Office came under consideration, but was prevented by an outburst of popular feeling. In the face of the enemy the country had to change and rearrange its leaders, naval and civilian. In the face of the enemy Lord Fisher had left his post. Was he right? Perhaps the answer was that he erred in occupying his post so long instead of first making clear his objections to the Dardanelles venture and then asking to be relieved if they were disregarded.