THE LAST FOUR MONTHS. WHAT, WE HAVE GAINED.
[BY LOVAT PHASER.]
Sir William Robertson said the other day that he did not want to be asked when the end of the war would come. My own experience is that nowadays in this coun try one very rarely bears the question "How long do you think the war will The scales have fallen from the nation's eyes. The public recognise that the war will probably continue for a very long time, and on the whole the prospect is philosophically accepted. The usual question ons now hears is: "How do you think the war is going?"
to those who mourn.
Such an inquiry cannot be answered upon the basis of the events of a single week. The best way to estimate the pre sent position of the Allies is to look back and consider where they stood four months ago, and then to examine what has happened since. Perhaps we do not look back often enough. years seem to have gone like a fash, gave The last two Four months ago the British Army' in the west had fought ne considerable battle since Loos. The bulk of our New Armies had not been proved in great encounters with the Germans. that masses of fresh troops were being Our generals knew constantly trained at the back of the front for the great day, and that thou sands of gune and iramense stores of am- munition were being poured into France. The public did not and could not know They could only guess. We were still in the stage of doubt about the efficiency of our air serivces, and were also wondering whether Zeppelins were again to wander We had never heard of the tantum fall of Kut was a recent memory, and the thought of the Dardanelles still rankled It was so long since victory had crowned oar banners on land that we had forgot ten what it felt like to triumph, and naval experts were still engaged in techn cal squabbles about the precise signi ficance of the sea battle of Jutland.
Four months ago the whisper was pass
tanks. Tho
THE HONGKONG DAILY PRESS, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15TH, 1916.
LORD MAYOR'S PROCESSION.
KHAKI AND TROPHIES,
BELGIUM'S NEW ARMY.
THE KING AND HIS MEN, [BY A. MCKENZIE, THE WELL-KNOWN WAE CORRESPONDENT,
ATLANTIC SUBMARINE
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Lord Mayor's Show, for a keen wind It was good marching wasther for the made it more comfortable to walk than to stand still,
What are the Belgians doing? Why The
Procession, the third
The Providence Journal publishes thu since the war began, had more new fea do we hear little or nothing of thext of a letter to. a member of the turen, and the alternation of combre Army What has happened to it? khaki and the gorgeous uniforms of the
These questiona have been freely asked German Embassy, which, it says, was guns and limbers, and the greet gilt auswer to them I have visited the Belgian the dismissed Naval Attaché, who is now Guarda bands, the futuristically painted for some little time past. To find an written in Washington by Capt, Boy-Ed, coaches made an unusual contrast. The lines and travelled from Boesinghe, north at Lübeck, directing the details of the route was lined with spectators, but there of Ypres, where the Belgians join up submarine campaign off the American were far fewer civilians in the windows with the British, to the sea. I have found coast. The letter says:-- than hitherto, for most of the vantage a new Belgian Army in existence, & points were given over to wounded powerful reserve force for the Allies, establish soon a proper working basis "It is vitally necessary for us to Boldiers..
waiting eagerly for the hour to come when which will be satisfactory to President • TJITAROEM there was not all the panoply that has remnant that survived the retreat from create conditions which will necessitate a
The pageant was impressive, although
it may advance. Out of the stricken Wilson, and in order to do that we must i been associated with it. There were, Antwerp and the battle of the Yser there ruling Any thought of our being per- TJILIWONG... JAVA & however, some of the features that have a grown a fighting force of young men, mitted to use our submarines to bring. always been famous. There was the Lord led by officers seasoned in war newly captured vessels into American ports as Layor's coachman, and the couch itself. equipped, with an ample supply of gune prizes must, of course, be abandoned when There was a crescendo of lumbering of every kind. They constitute & strik we think of the Appam case, hailed with expressions of wonder. The an ever growing reserve ready to fill up, vehicles, and as each appeared it was ing force of infantry and cavalry with gilded coach, swaying about on its big losses in the ranks. ed from some fairy tale and had picked leather springs, looked as if it had arriv up a freight of scarlet and fur-clad Passengers on its way.
The band
I met him among his men, a soldier At the head is King Albert himself, among soldiers, dressed in the simple medieval in the procession.
There is still a happy touch of the panied only by an A.D.C., supervising, uniform of a Belgian general, accom and trumpeters of the 1st Life Guards organising, sharing their life in the tren supplied this with their bannered trumpossible to set without some emotion this ches and in e reat camps. It is im- Their playing, too, was splendid, and as monarch moving from trench to trench pets and stiff gold-brocaded tunica, they passed St. Paul's a fanfare from the in the little strip of his own territory yet nal and took one back to times long ago cheerful despite all. The people who say silver trumpets echoed round the Cathed left to him, looking strangely young and when the old timbered houses leant affce that he has aged much in the last two tionately towards each other from oppo-years are misinformed. Active, confident, site sides of the narrow streets and the practical, and simple, he holds the hearts citizens knew the meaning of all this of his Belgian soldiers more surely to-day of the befurred office bearers of the old civic rite. It was not hard to see in some than ever he did. City Guilds the reincarnation of the men and the Army during my last visit two of times past.
Contrast the Belgian Army of to-day was the outcome of war-when one of that had escaped from Antwerp, was
One incongruity there years ago. these occupants of the coaches passed. fghting with the fierceness of despair to
Then a little remnant, a He was dressed in all the dignity of sable save the last line of Belgian defence. To and velvet wreathed with a gold chain, the rear, towards Dunkirk and Calais and preceded by a mace that made him
were uncounted companies. of wounded
end, we are also forced to the conclusion "Confronted by such an obstacle at one
domestic events are pending in America, that we cannot at this mornent, while sink such vessels without taking account where we stand we must therefore foren of human life. In order to ascertain an issue and see to what extent America itarian ideals by helping us to save the is willing to carry out her alleged human- lives of those whose ships we destroy in the coming campaign in the Western Atlantic.
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tions covering their actions on this trial "Our commandera bave fuli instruc trip, and I hope that all good will result from it. In any case we will after NETH. INDIA, MANILA, HONGKONG & SAN FRANCISCO. be working in the light of certainty, in
Journal, after it had been seen that Capt. On October 9th, according to the
of the crews and passengers of the sunken Roy-Ed's plans had been successful, as
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storfi attendcu a conference of German following statement;
stead of in the dark."
ing round that Verdun was in deadly at least seem of great weight in the City.and invalids, masses of rags and dirt, interests, and made approximately the.. peril. The French were said to be anxi-But above all the furs and his gorgeous tragic spectacle. The towns were choked ous though calm, By their method of robes was perched a khaki cap Joval attacks the Germans had got into Fleury and were very near the last line of defences. We know that the fall of Verdun could not alter in any essentials the position in the west, owing to the huge development of defensive works on this side of the Meuse, but we were troubled about the possible moral effect,
Four months ago we had just passed through a period of great perturbation about the menacing Austrian offensive in the Trentine, and had feared that wo might see the enemy debouching into the Venetian plain. The news that the Aus trians were in full retirement only came during the last week in June. The Bal garians and some German troops had crossed the Greek frontier, and the pur pose of the Allied Armies at Salonica was anything but clear. The only really bright spot was on the southern Russian front, where Brusiloff's hammer blows had yielded great captures of Austrians and find brought him near to Kolomews
changed between dawn and sunset on that unforgettable day, the First of July Ever since then we have gone on from strength to strength. When Sir Douglan Haig and Concral Foch struck home on the Somme they did far more than pile up the Cernan casualty lists and smash line after line of the German defences. They inflicted a mortal wound upon the German claims to military invincibility, They produced in the Allied Armies an increased confidence and a moral exalta tion which can never again abate. They convinced doubting neutrals that the German cause was doomed to defeat.
bands,
Crystal Palace, stepping it out to
The Naval detachments from the with wounded and with refugees. There "We have at last established a working was a lack of everything. Invalids scarce basis which clears the way for our real maritims airs played by their own able to crawl were burying the dead to submarine activities on this side of the team that followed dragging & feld worn-out soldiers were clinging on to Wilson's dictum exactly. He has shown, were loudly cheered, and the save an epidemic. Forty odd' thousand ocean, We have observed President an had the same reception as the twenty miles of canal banks and wrecked us the way to operate, and we thank him. others. There were boys from the Marine towns, holding back the advance of for it. from the Watts Naval Training School Society's training ship Warepite and 150,000 triumphant Germans.
We now have a precedent which makes it certain that American vessels in Norfolk, younger, but obviously of the their guns were outranged and outclassed; of the passengers and crows of ships that right stuff, and all of them keeping their their munitions were scanty,
Their very dress was mid-Victorian; of war will not hesitate to save the lives
ture drun-major performed prodigies their aid, but even before the French are what they are we are very glad, not eyes well to the front, where their minia-
French are destroyed by submarines, and as long with a staff taller than himself.
gunners and French cavalry flew to as the physical conditions of submarines There were a bandred of these boys, and they been broken. I was there and speak of to hand the humanitarian work of came the force of the German attack had desiring to destroy non-combatant life, also had a gun team
what I know. Englaad, absorbed in the saving men and women fighting then going on at Ypres, did not United States Navy. yet what Belgium did at the battle of realise then I doubt if she baa realised the Yr Had she failed, all the splendid bravery of French's men would have been wasted, for our position would have Belgium emerged from that battle with
CAPTURED GUNS.
and two field guns, were drawn by black The captured German-guns, a howitzer gun teama from the Royal Artillery, and one at least bore a legend that it was captured in the big push" The Bogel Marine detachment, in blue uniform with been turned. white helmets, made a break in the khaki
the
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SING A SONG OF ZEPPELINS.
Gazette aaye he was trying to remember A Correspondent of the Festminster
an old nursery rhyme, but it would go something like this
Sing a song of Zeppelins, A little bit aWIY: Ons and twenty Germans
Dropped from the sky.
When the Zepp desconded,
The Huns hegan to sing, But "Deutschland über Alles Didn't seem the thing.
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The Zepp was in the farmyard.
Sitting on its tail,
An Essex Special met the crow And popped them into gaol.
The whole outlook for the Allies was line. Two carriages in which were eight her infantry reduced to 32,000, and with Navy is willing to do. This is a good Chelsea Pensioners, auch be-medailed, half the remnant of her guns, saved from were heralded by cheers which preceded other fields, put out of action. Her little them all along the route. chosen. The men of the Australian Light machine had been snushed by it,
The Oversea Contingents were well Army in holding up the great German Horse looked magnificent. added air of bravado lent to their uni- form by the upturned felt hat and the Today the situation is transformed. A That was yesterday. What of to-day? buncli of emu feathers stuck jauntily in process of reconstruction was at once the leaf. There it a businesslike sir, too, begung and during the past two years about the rifle stuck in the leather bucket the Army has been rebuilt from the strapped to each saddle. men of whom oue of our greatest Gen disappeared and have given place to the These are the foundation. The quaint uniforms have erals said, They would be the finest universal khaki-khaki with certain The revelations of the battle of the broken country against European infan- Belgian loves. The uniforms are good; fighting force in the world for use in minor picturesque decorations which the Somme are manifold. In these four try or even cavalry. mouths we have learned something of the came the New Zealand Contingent, a of the cavalry are covered with khaki.
Following these the boots are good; the very steel helmets. stuff of which our New Armies are made. small but well-turned out company, with The gas helmets are, to my mind, far We recognise that we have become for the the New Zealand band to play them past. better than those used by our own men first time in our history reluctantly, and In the ranks were several of the inen from when I was last with them. through pressure of circumstances the Maori Battalion. great military Power. We have seen our contributed a contingent for the first Newfoundland
Simplicity of life, and cheerfulness of artillery dominato and overcome the time, and their physique was remarkably spirit are the note of this new Army. enny's guns. We have men ar airmen good and uniform. Perhaps one of the To-day I lunched with the staff of one drive the German airereft off the battle most impressive units of the procession division. All sat together around one field. We have demonstrated that no fallowed" Beld fortifications can withstand inde massed bands of the Canadian troops, sitting like a father in the centre. The Newfoundlanders the long plain table, the general-in-chief finitely our concentrated gunfire and the more than a hundred strong. They play mess-room attacks of our indomitable infantryed particularly well, and marched most soldiers fare, and there was a note of was plain, the food was Our Armies have learned how to best of the way to the tune of "The Maple cheerfulness from top to bottom of the the Germans, and are beating them. The Leaf." situation in the west has been wry largely |
room. Later in the afternoon, while sive They were not in a position to do transformed since July began.
The Boy Scouts have long since ceased walking behind the trenches, I heard times. This does not mean that they have solely for the training of the youth of rank and file gathered together when work parts of the front, more particularly in to be looked upon as a body which exists after time sounds of singing. It was the had no fighting. Along the different the country. been given a share in the actual defence are between twenty and thirty.
Since the war they have was over. Nearly all the private soldiers the Bocsinghe and Dixmude districts, the of the kingdom, and they have earned
Germans have attacked time after time as A PICTURES, TOTS and SWEETS, ETISTIC CARDE with CHINESE high praise from all who have had any
Belgium had to obtain men. Numbers they have done lower down at Ypres aitable for Xmas Present. thing to do with them. Thus the detach broken in the fighting. The new recruits defensive experiences of the British and of those who had fought on the Yser were The Belgian Arwy has had the common ment, with its trek wagon, its pipe band If the western front has undergone a tion.
and its bulldog, was given a great recep-
were raised by compulsory service among the French. Very little had been said the Belgians living in England and about this fighting in England because permanent transformation, so has the One of the most pleasing innovations France and by the pressure of public the Balglans have not yet organised their southern front. The Italians have swept was the Volunteer detachments, with opinion. The man whose sons were living publicity side. across the Lower Isonzo, taken Gorizia, Lewis guns and Maxims, and bitten deep into the Carso. It is said amart and workmanlike, and their pipe little better than a traitor.
They looked in safety abroad was looked upon as
To-day, however, even this fighting has that shells from their biggest guns are band and Scottish detachment also looked fresh troops the machinery for supplying parative peace all along the northern now actually falling upan Sesana, the well.
Simultaneously with the raising of very largely died down and there is com- The South African outer bastion of Trieste, The Allied although not specially selected, were all the Army with necessary equipment and front. This is due to the fact that the Armies at Salonica have moved outwards big men, and their Highland unit made munitions was re-crested. The French Germans have drawn away all possible and joined battle, with the Bulgarians up for smallness of numbers by its in-provided Pelgium not only with freshmen and munitions to the Bomme and they are very near to Monastir and dividual physique and bearing.-Times. Beres. The Russians in Galicia and before Kovel are fighting fierce and costly battles, but they continue to weaken the enemy.
+
One point is better understood in Ger- many than in this country. There are mare German soldier prinnere in Great Britain to day than there are British soldier prisoners in Germany. We do not parade them. In common with the majority of my countrymen, I have never yet set eyes on a German prisoner.
+
troops,
I
From
Government headquarters at Havre but had a striking example of this myself a also with considerable land in the north.
few hours ago. In company, with a Large parts of Calais wharves were loan Belgian Staff ofheer I visited one section been reconstituted, are full of renewed peace This was to be expected.
Our Mesopotamian forces have beginning to talk a great deal more about ed to them, and the little port of of the trenches. My companion leaned confidence, and are at last organising an armistice in the near future would anit
Gravelines became in effect Belgian leisurely over the parapet and pointed An
Munition factories arose in France.
out in detail the German positions just efficient transport service. Above all, the the Germans very well indeed. They Fresh officers, schools for young across the banks of the Year Canal. He Allies have received the splendid rein would begin negotiations still holding in subalterns were opened. The medical showed me their first line, and then some forcement of the Roumanian Army, which their possession nearly all Belgium, all service was extended and improved in a way behind, a bit of rising ground where is bolding up a substantial number of Poland, all Serbia, a valuable alice of very remarkable way. To-day there is a their second line could be seen.
nemy divisions in the Transylvanian France, a greater slice of Russia proper; splendid service of hospitzis behind the whore we stood the ruined countryside Alps and the Dobrudja,
a part of Ronmania, a piece of Persia, Belgian lines ready for the coming days around us might have bean deserted save In the last four months, then, the posi-peninsula of Sinai. With such cards in
the Aden hinterland, and most of the when fighting in earnest is renewed. There for our sentries and the men in our own tion of the Allies has incomparably im-their hand they would seat themselves at from England, staffed in nearly all cases and not a sound of activity. The officer are ambulances, many of them presents dug-outs. There was not a sound of life. proved. There is a reverse side to the the council table as conquerors. shield, of course, but shall not enlarge
by Belgians. The Allies have to go on fighting marked on the outside Presented by the once did we hear the sound of a rife, and I noticed one at work stood up in full view of the lines. Only upon it here. Every one of the new ad because henceforth every fresh victory will Wakefield Girls' High School. There that was some distance away. The shells vantages accruing to the Allies has its weaker Germany's position at the peace. flaws, some of them serious enough, but She has long passed the height of her medical service. The hospitals right at
are about five hundred doctors in the that we heard were being fired at Ypres, we shall not win this war by thinking the achievements in this war. She is slipping the front contain 1,800 beds for the seri- guide... worst instead of the best of the situation downhill, and every hard blow now struck ously wounded, and behind them as we find it. On & balance of gain and at her hastens her ultimate defeat. We others ready for the cases when they can loss of new advantages and new diffi. can never count her defeated until we culties, the Allies are immeasurably bet-have cut her road to the East, hut Gen- ter off than they were four months ago, eral Marchand disclosed the secret of
One most noticeable result of the battle victory when he said last week: of the Somme is that the Germans are larmy that wins on the Somme will win "The (Continued at foot of next Column.)
the war
be moved.
are
the Belgians did not attempt an offen During the process of reconstruction
(Continued at foot of next Column.)
"What does this mean?" I asked my
Rus are afraid," he said. "They have The commandant smiled. “The Ger
been sent here, broken, to rest, and their chief fear is leat we should open out on bomb or a ballet over our lines we would them. They know that if they send a
hit back and hit back bard."
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