THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1951.
The Churchill Story: 12th Instalment
A DARING
of men marched and met and
MILLIONS
SCHEME
Frame
By Colin clashed and dug-in, so that How quickly the smell of from the North Sea to powder, the thrill of action had Switzerland the rival armies reasserted its old appeal for mouldered in trench-war-Churchill so that he thought fare..
for the moment of nothing but the battle in hand.
To Churchill, once a cavalry- aran and now a seaman, it must have appeared doubly clear
the deadlocks should be forhat by attacks on OF round the flanks of the German strength; the method, by sea power.
Needed At Home KITCHENER thought highly
a
of ex-Lieutenant Churchill's offered to put him in complete generalship at Antwerp. He
command and make him would accept the resignation. two Lieutenant-General if Asquith
-But→ Asquith wanted him
In the first he was personally in action and under fire again. In the second he did much of the original planning.
between old Fisher Meanwhile, the
friendship and the
breaking point. Fisher, never
young First Lord had reached
so ardent for the Dardanelles, wanted the ships nearer home. Walked Out
THE
HE brilliant but erratic old sea dog, whose resigna- tions were handed out like
broadsides, finally quitted.
He walked out of the Ad- it again. miralty and refused to enter
success in the land war, short- Fisher's resignation, lack of age of shells, losses at sea, the fateful words of Antwerp and the Dardanelles (taunts of opponents for the
It happened that the events which did most to tumble him from the Admiralty and send him for the first time into home. the political desert were battles designed to attack those flanksthe troops and their practically next decade) brought about a
Sir Jan Hamilton, describing political the defence of Antwerp, and the self-appointed Dardanelles venture.
commander, Coalition, and Churchill's poli- wrote: "Churchill handles them tical downfall. as though he were Napoleon He and his friend. F. E. and they the Old Guard."
Smith, had worked together On October 6 he handed over for some time with the object How the First Lord of the to Sir Henry Rawlinson and of forming a Coalition. Admiralty, wearing his favourite
left for London,
The city fell-but its de-Churchill his change
Tories had rig of two wars, the uniform of fence had held five German Liberals. Now, as they joined never forgiven Trinity House,
to the carne to be handling personally the equiva-
divisions for five days longer the Government, lent off an Army Corps against
than expected and the effect
with mili- the Germans at
tary affairs going badly for Antwerp is upon the war was, many his- almost an unbelievably strange torians have
him, they had their revenge. suggested, the story--but it is completely typi-saving of the Channel ports. cal of the Churchill of the South African failway train and the CHURCHILL returned to face Churchill of the siege of Sidney- street.
Under Attack
Criticism
barrage of a
criticism, What on earth was the First Lord doing leading a land battle? And look at the casual- BY
Y October 2, 1914, with Paris ties! Later in October Chur- safe from the German ava-chill had a long interview with lanche and the lines about as Asquith. Again he asked, to permanent as they were to be be relieved of office and given for the next four years, Antwerp, some military command. was still under attack.
That night Churchill set off to Dunkirk where his pet, the Royal Naval Air Service, ran a diversionary circus,
"He declared," wrote Asquith in his diary, "that a political career was nothing to him in comparison with military glory." He was recalled soon after his
But Churchill returned to train left Victoria. News had the Admiralty and shared come that the Belgians intended round-the-clock duties to surrender Antwerp.
with Lord Fisher, now back as First With Kitchener's agreement Sea Lord. Churchill, already bound for Dunkirk, decided
to go Antwerp to see what could be done to save it.
Mr Asquith contemplated giving him a change-But 1
him, "take any office will not Churchill wrote to except
á military department and it that is not convenient I hope
I may be found employment in the field."
المسجد
was Chancellor
By May 26, 1915, Churchill of Lancaster, but he had a seat of the Duchy
in the Cabinet and on the War political enemy, took his place Council. A J. Balfour, his old
at the Admiralty.
At that point Churchill described himself as 'finished- "finished in all, that I care for -the waging of war; the de- feat of the Germans."
He still wrote memoranda for his colleagues. But pined at his inactivity.
he
"I do not
feel
Fisher, then 74, liked early to rising. Churchill did not-nor By November, 1915, he had
does be now. Fisher wrote had enough. notes in green pencil, Churchill able in times like these to re- (Hugh Martin recalls in biography "Battle"; published he
his main in well-paid inactivity," by Samson Low Marston Ltd.) regiment
wrote to Asquith. His was in France. He placed himself at the disposal of the Army. He prepared his last speech to the House.
His arrival on the afternoon of October 3 was described by an American journalist like this:
"A
Hotel Arrival
BIG drab-coloured touring
car filled with British naval officers drove down the Place de Mer, its horn sounding a hoarse warning, took the turn into the March-aux-Souliers
on two wheels, and drew up in front of the hotel.
wrote in red ink.
'Port' And 'Starboard' THEY called themselves Port
and Starboard, and they changed the morning watch at four, when Fisher awoke and Churchill went to bed.
one of
is
14:RS PRESS-
∙101 Raytelle
“Ah-yes-now I see the resemblance."
FOR THE BUSINESSMAN
Cost Of Utility
Wool Cloths Are
To Be Increased
There are to be further increases in clothing prices this year. The Board of Trade announced that from Feb. 1 manufacturers' maximum prices for utility wool cloths will be advanced as follows:
Wool cloths-30 per cent;
Worsted cloths and worsted-rayon blend cloths-40 per cent;
Wool canvas interlinings-25
per cent. (ex- cept for one cloth which goes up 50 per cent).
There are some of the biggest increases in cloth prices since the utility scheme was intro- duced. The Board of Trade said: "They take the very considerable rise in the account of price of raw wool, particularly since August."
in
RETAIL PRICE CHANGES It will be some months before the higher prices are reflected the charges for made-up That speech the scene goods such as coats, suits, cos- graphically described by 'an tumes, jackets and skirts. Trade early Churchill biographer, leaders estimate that "Ephesian"-was
retail the prices will rise between 10 and On many things they were
best а packed House ever 15 per cent. The actual prices agreed, But Fisher's
heard him make.. With gentle will not be pet
known until they "Before the car had fairly lock in the field
scheme to overcome the dead-
irony he announced he was have been fixed by the Board
"an alternative come to a stop the door of the the Baltic and lanki
was to force taking
form of Trade. of service to which no excep- tonneau was thrown violently the German coast.
troops on
tion can be taken and
Many tailoring firms have open and out jumped a smooth-
with
good stocks of cloths and there faced, sandy-haired,
Churchill, however, favoured which I am perfectly content." will be stoop-forcing
considerable quantities shouldered, youthful-looking man taking Constantinople a means
the Dardanelles and No one who listened, no one of goods available at the old in undress Trinity House uni- of obliterating Turkey, neutra- gestures
watched his familiar prices. The Board of Trade form... As he charged into the
as he spoke, could points out that lising crowded lobby he flung his arms Russia and attacking what, in see him again. He was bound reaching the shops after Feb. 1.
the Balkans, helping say whether they would ever prices apply only to new cloths higher out in a nervous characteristic the last war, he called "the for the trenches. gesture, as though pushing his way through a crowd.
soft under-belly" of the Ger- Some of the words he spoke man power.
were to echo comfortingly ed in November,
If this plan had been adopt- many years later in a yet more 1914, when terrible war.
the
"It was most spectacular entrance, and reminded me for all the world of a scene in a he first put it forward, there is melodrama where the hero dashes up bare-headed
no doubt, on the evidence now on a foam-flecked horse and
available, that it would have saves the heroine, or the old home-
succeeded. stead, or the family fortune as the case may be."
To Britons this picture of Churchill about to the King of the Belgians to persuade fight will remind them
seriously of anothér- the plane trip he rade 20
more
on
years later to persuade France
to carry on the battle,
who
it
"We are passing through a bad time now," he said, "and will probably bé worse before it is better, but that it will be better if we only endure and persevere I have no doubt whatever.
With- victories out winning any Sensational this we may win war."
his eloquence, his personality, and by means now dubbed "too for
his broken-voiced appeal made
a lasting impression on his hearers.
little, too late."
The naval attack
"A Tragedy"
The Turks had no ammuni- tion, no
modern guns and a few old mines protecting the Dardanelles. in the next year it failed.
But when the attack did go Churchill maintained as he left the Admiralty that the strategy was sound, the plan reasonably sound, when
but that it passed from the
Parlia- was carried out faint-heartedly Il mentary
scene, to which fifteen years he had brought such colour
and life, of March with compliments from party 18, for which Churchill was leaders ringing in his ears. primarily responsible, was
"He has the defects of his broken off just as. (the Turks qualities," said THE Belgians agreed,
Bonar Law, faced later admitted) it was on the "and a9 his qualities with
are this dynamic bolt point of success. Lord Fisher large the shadow they throw in blue uniform, to fight on a refused to back Churchill's is little longer. Kitchener
fairly large also
in sent order that it should be pressed mental marines-and the
power and vital next day home, Churchill went up the line with
force he is one of the fore- The Navy awaited the Army most men in our country," them and watched German while Churchill fumed for a soldiers creeping
T. P. O'Connor, first Editor forward month. The Turks, who could of "The Star" through the streets under hardly believe their luck, had Father
and Tater machine-gun fire.
of the House, called reanwhile meinforced, re- Churchill's departure a national
THE
Fought On
Infantry from Britain and equipped and wired the Galli- tragedy, France and two naval brigades poli peninsula, arrived to, stiffen the Belgians, When the
troops
But he mind
of Marl- landed borough's scion was made
In the month of his wist him day be put om klanted
I fell it my duty to see the there was a massadre follow
wrote Cour by the sort of
Lund he telegraphed his | deadlook which the
as First Lord to gowestion was
STANDARD
BRIDGE
By M. Harrison-Gray Dealer: South Game all
W.
N.
K Q.10 10 9 7 5 & 743 K6
Q 8 4 AKO J2 J 10 2
E。 8-642 3
10 9 6 A
♣ A 543 S. AJ 973 AKJ62
Q.97
South's downfall was due to misguided cunning. West bid Two Diamonds over his One Spade opening, North Two Spades, East Three Dia- monds and South, anxious to conceal his distribution, jumped to Four Spades which was passed out. South could anticipate being forced. with no certainty that North had four Spades. A bid of Four Hearts would have given North a choice of two game contracts,
The play went as follows: trick 1K ruffed with AS
refusing to trump
led
due to the rise in raw
This is the second advance prices. In June manufacturer. prices for utility wool cloth went up by 15 to 25 per cent and in
October the maximum prices for retail clothing made from this cloth were advanced
The new order introduces to the utility range a new washable wool-cotton mixture cloth.
Dearer Tyres
Likely
A further increase in prices in the United Kingdom of tyres and tubes, for motor-cars and commercial and agricultural vehicles is expected within the next few weeks.
A representative of the tyre manufacturers stated that be had not heard of any decision. to raise prices.
It is anticipated, however, that the advance in prices may be as much as 17% per cent,
The last increase, which took. place at the beginning of Octo- ber, was one of 171⁄2 per cent. Since that time there has been a further substantial rise, in the price of rubber.
Dearer Linoleum
an-
The Board of Trade nounces that maximum retail prices for plain coloured linoleum will be increased by amounts up to 7d.
a-square yard and that a new "B" qua- lity, Jaspe linoleum, will have a maximum detail price of lis.. 1d. a square yard, exclusive of purchase tax.
As foreshadowed by the Pre- sident of the Board of Trade in Parliament on Dec. 12, aft Order has now been made re- imposing price control on hand- knitting wool from Jan. 2. T Order fixes maximum IATE for impo