4th August 1914 - The End of a World.

On the 95th Anniversary of the outbreak of war between Great Britain and Germany, I thought I would post this amazing account by Esme Wingfield-Stratford from his excellent book “Before the lamps went out.”

In all the accounts of the beginning of the war, this account is one of the best. It captures that free pre-war spirit, everything right in England as the inhabitants of a Kent village, play a cricket match on the eve of war.

There is something naive yet unnerving about this account and the chapter is entitled “The end of a world.”

I love the last few lines as Wingfield-Stratford tells his father of the mobilization orders and the notices put up in shop windows:

"Those fellows," I said, "don't realize what's coming to them.
And in a few days they'll be thinking it's the end of the world."
My Father did not answer for a moment. Then he said in a voice quite different from his ordinary one:
"For many of them it will mean the end of the world;"
A burst of applause; a one-handed catch on the boundary.
Another wicket.
My Father glanced at the score board:
"Time for you," he said, “to put on your pads."

For many all over Great Britain it would time “to put on their pads.” To play the greatest game of their life.

“Appropriately for Kent, we are on the edge of a cricket ground, which was the open pasturage in the eighteen-eighties to which it will revert, alas, in the nineteen-forties. But where we are in 1914, though small, it has been pronounced, by competent judges, to offer as good a pitch as you might get on a county ground. That is the fruit of many seasons' co-operative labour, pushing the heavy farm roller every evening after practice, under the expert advice of Mr. Hickmott, formerly ground man at Mote Park, and, even now, though well past the allotted span, capable of opening the innings with his twin brother, and driving the first three balls, one after the other, smack against the garden. railings, in the forthright Victorian style of 'W. G'. or 'Hammond.'

For sheer, undiluted enjoyment, on which, looking back, one does not grudge a moment of time spent, give me those Saturday afternoons with the Fartherwell Hall cricket team; that band of brothers recruited, in those pre-war days, mainly from about the house and farm, and the neighbouring village of Offham though with the occasional reinforcement of outsiders of county and even of test match standing; for our distinguished neighbour, Ted Humphries of East Malling, was not too grand, on days when Kent had finished with its opponents before lunch, to take a hand in our more light-hearted contests. I can only say, for my own part, that however worried or anxious I might ever have been feeling about anything, I could always reckon with certainty on throwing it off my mind from the first ball bowled until fall of the last wicket. At least, up to this particular afternoon. For though this match was always the most keenly contested of the season, i found myself, for the first time, utterly unable to concentrate my thoughts on the business in hand. For there was one supreme question that kept turning itself over and over in my mind, though I was well aware that the answer would only too soon be forthcoming.

For this Saturday was the first day of the month of August, in the year 1914. The scene was so peaceful and carefree what with the limes and wych elms that cramped the dimensions of our little ground and' made such easy fours when you were lucky enough to hit a branch, the benches and seats, filled by spectators wholly absorbed in the game, and my oId home smiling as serenely in the background as it had for these past thirty years-that it was almost impossible to imagine the boom of guns reverberating far away over the Blue Danube that had lately been linked with such different associations; to think of grey clad armies mobilizing all over the vast spaces of Southern - but as yet, by the Grace of God, no more than Southern Russia; of the 'Grand Fleet that His Majesty had lately. been reviewing, stripped for action, and heading under sealed orders for its unknown battle station- not to speak of a certain other fleet of whose whereabouts and proceedings there was as yet no hint, but which might at any' moment now .... what was it one half expected to hear out there, beyond Chatham and the Nore? Whatever it was, 'was no excuse for letting one's •attention wander at second slip!

It had all come so suddenly! Only just over a week ago it had been that I had gone down to King's - my Fellowship having expired a year before and the vacant place been filled by Rupert Brooke - to play against the Trinity dons, and I had read in the Common Room the incredible ultimatum that Austria had presented to what was then called Servia. The whole thing had seemed too fantastic to be taken seriously! One could understand the feelings of the poor, bereaved old Emperor; but this was going to 'be very awkward, another of those crises of which one had hoped to have seen the last. No doubt it would be settled somehow like all the others. But would it? During the next few days things had seemed to be taking a more and more ominous turn. Russia had begun to loom up in arms on the Austrian flank, and that meant what, unless Europe had gone mad, was so plainly absurd that. . .
.
But it had only been on the evening of Thursday - the day before yesterday - that the report of the sudden, unprecedented decision, in Parliament, to sink all differences on the home and even the Irish front, had made it plain that this was no ordinary crisis, but that in all human probability, the European avalanche had acquired too great a momentum to be stopped short of - dared one even say the Channel?

And yet for the last two days life had gone on just as usual, to the accompaniment of wild rumours, started nobody knew how: the British and French Mediterranean fleets had met somewhere off Malta, dipped flags, and joined company, sounds of distant firing having been subsequently reported; one of those who did know such things, knew for a fact that three German Zeppelins had been discovered in the sky over Essex, and that our aviators had been under orders not to fire on them; somebody who had just come from Folkestone professed to have seen the whole French fleet steaming eastward through the Straits-for what purpose one could only guess.

One must keep one's head and try to see things in proportion. There were two anchors of hope; two things that had not happened - and so long as these did not, nothing could! Mobilizing the fleet was an obvious precaution - a firebrand like Churchill, with all his faults, could be trusted for that; but the real test was still to come. No Government, not even this Government, that believed war to be imminent, would neglect to mobilize the army. And there were no signs as yet of that happening. And what was even more important, Germany, without whom no quarrel in the Balkans could become European, had given no sign except - which did give one a certain qualm - to turn down Grey's suggestion of a Four Power Conference.

But Germany had so far given no positive sign. Even the Kaiser, for once in his life, was quiet. And the Kaiser might prefer to handle things in his own way. He was said to be in touch with the Tsar. And no doubt he felt that he could soothe down poor old Francis Joseph more easily without the aid of potential enemies.

No-so long as the army remained unmobilized, and Germany did not move, nothing could happen. The crisis was just a crisis; and the fact that nothing had happened might mean that the worst was already over: every hour now that the collapse was postponed increased the hope of recovery.

But another sort of crisis was beginning to develop. I hope it was not due to my slack handling of the team; but when it got to the stage of my putting myself on to bowl, it meant that the time had come for desperate remedies. Perhaps I may have been a little influenced by the fact that my Father, who had been standing umpire, and had a theory, that he seldom neglected to expound with some candour in case of an appeal, that I was physically incapable of getting anybody leg before, had been forced to go off on one of the many local activities that had absorbed his energies since the expiry, three years ago, of his last command.

The batsman was just taking his guard for left-hand round, and I was marking with my heel the start of my run, when:

"Please, sir, Major G-- says he wants to see you at once."
Major G--! Who on earth was Major G--? The name conveyed nothing to me. Nor was I much enlightened by the sight of a stocky gentleman, with a preoccupied expression, who was standing by the lawn gate. I tossed the ball to another bowler, and hurried in the direction indicated.
I started to say something by way of greeting, but he cut me short:
"Know where I can get into touch with the General?"
I said I didn't know where he had gone, but that I knew he would not stay away from this game longer than he could help.
"Well, can you give him this message from me the moment he arrives? We're mobilizing."
God! One anchor gone already!
"And we want to know if he'll undertake the remounts for Kent."

It may have been owing to the fact that my intended change of bowling had not materialized, that the innings came to an end before my Father had returned. I took care to put myself low enough in the batting order to enable me, with a clear conscience, to dash off on my bicycle into the neighbouring town of Malling.
When I returned I found my Father standing where the Major had been.
"Hullo," he said, "what's the latest?"
"The papers haven't arrived," I said, "but there's a notice just posted up in the window of Oliver's shop, that the Kaiser has declared Germany to be in a state of siege - whatever precisely that may mean."
"It means that the Germans have started to mobilize." "But that needn't imply .... "
"Mobilization means war. Not that, Lloyd George and Winston mayn't try to stop us yet from coming in with the French;"
I then delivered Major G---'s message.
"Not a bit of it!" he said, "once get Stellenbosched into that, and I shan't see a shot fired. I mean to stand out for a command in the field."
A well-dinted trench helmet, an honoured family relic, testifies to the measure of his success in that endeavour.

For some time we both remained silent, he, I think, genuinely absorbed in the game, I trying to convince myself that all this was really happening. Everybody present, except myself, seemed blissfully unconscious of anything taking place outside their own little world. Perhaps they were not quite so ignorant as I thought. Thirty years later, almost to the day, I was standing on - or perhaps I should say proceeding quite briskly across - this same field, with the whole sky bursting into bouquets of smoke to the accompaniment of the most infernal pandemonium from every point of the compass, with the ripping and coughing solo of two successive buzz-bombs in a bee-line overhead. To me it was an interesting speculation which side was going to bag me first, with the betting heavily on the defence. But just by, on a newly ploughed turnip patch, were a couple of Kentish farm hands, placidly plodding away with their hoes, without even condescending to look up.

However in. those days, I had never thought of anything worse than Zeppelins, and I was perhaps more prone to judge by appearances than I have become since.
"Those fellows," I said, "don't realize what's coming to them.
And in a few days they'll be thinking it's the end of the world."
My Father did not answer for a moment. Then he said in a voice quite different from his ordinary one:
"For many of them it will mean the end of the world;"
A burst of applause; a one-handed catch on the boundary.
Another wicket.
My Father glanced at the score board:
"Time for you," he said, “to put on your pads."

Australia to England by Archibald T. Strong.

This stirring poem was published in August 1914 by Archibald T. Strong.

It certainly captures the spirit of the moment, the last line ‘Thy sons may stand beside Thee strong and free.’ Echoing the bond felt my many in the Empire.

AUSTRALIA TO ENGLAND

By all the deeds to Thy dear glory done,
By all the life blood, spilt to serve Thy need,
By all the fettered lives Thy touch hath freed,
By all Thy dream in us anew begun;
By all the guerdon English sire to son
Hath given of highest vision, kingliest deed,
By all Thine agony, of God decreed
For trial and strength, our fate with Thine is one.

Still dwells Thy spirit in our hearts and lips,
Honour and life we hold from none but Thee,
And if we live Thy pensioners no more
But seek a nation's might of men and ships,
'T is but that when the world is black with war
Thy sons may stand beside Thee strong and free.

Archibald T. Strong


(Sir Archibald Strong was the son of Professor H.A. Strong (Professor of Latin 1884-1909), and studied Classics at University College, Liverpool, 1893-96.

Archibald T. Strong was a scholar, a writer whose most successful essay in verse is a translation of the ballades of de Banville.

Strong, who had the reputation as Australia’s most widely read and cultured person, had produced an acclaimed translation of Beowulf in 1925 and had published his own poetry on Australian themes. ..)

4th August 1914 - 1st Canadian Division

This article comes from The Great War as I Saw It by Canon Frederick George Scott, C.M.G., D.S.O.

Canon Scott was the Senior Chaplain, First Canadian Division, C.E.F. The start of his book is an excellent record of the first few days of the day and the organizing of the Division before it set sail from Canada.

How I Got Into The War.

July to September, 1914.

It happened on this wise. It was on the evening of the 31st of July, 1914, that I went down to a newspaper office in Quebec to stand amid the crowd and watch the bulletins which were posted up every now and then, and to hear the news of the war. One after another the reports were given, and at last there flashed upon the board the words, "General Hughes offers a force of twenty thousand men to England in case war is declared against Germany." I turned to a friend and said, "That means that I have got to go to the war." Cold shivers went up and down my spine as I thought of it, and my friend replied, "Of course it does not mean that you should go.

You have a parish and duties at home." I said, "No. I am a Chaplain of the 8th Royal Rifles. I must volunteer, and if I am accepted, I will go." It was a queer sensation, because I had never been to war before and I did not know how I should be able to stand the shell fire. I had read in books of people whose minds were keen and brave, but whose hind legs persisted in running away under the sound of guns. Now I knew that an ordinary officer on running away under fire would get the sympathy of a large number of people, who would say, "The poor fellow has got shell shock," and they would make allowance for him. But if a chaplain ran away, about six hundred men would say at once, "We have no more use for religion." So it was with very mingled feelings that I contemplated an expedition to the battle-fields of France, and I trusted that the difficulties of Europe would be settled without our intervention.

However, preparations for war went on. On Sunday, August 2nd, in the afternoon, I telephoned to Militia Headquarters and gave in my name as a volunteer for the Great War. When I went to church that evening and told the wardens that I was off to France, they were much surprised and disconcerted. When I was preaching at the service and looked down at the congregation, I had a queer feeling that some mysterious power was dragging me into a whirlpool, and the ordinary life around me and the things that were so dear to me had already begun to fade away.

On Tuesday, August the Fourth, war was declared, and the Expeditionary Force began to be mobilized in earnest. It is like recalling a horrible dream when I look back to those days of apprehension and dread. The world seemed suddenly to have gone mad. All civilization appeared to be tottering. The Japanese Prime Minister, on the night war was declared, said, "This is the end of Europe." In a sense his words were true. Already we see power shifted from nations in Europe to that great Empire which is in its youth, whose home is in Europe, but whose dominions are scattered over the wide world, and also to that new Empire of America, which came in to the war at the end with such determination and high resolve. The destinies of mankind are now in the hands of the English-speaking nations and France.

In those hot August days, a camp at Valcartier was prepared in a lovely valley surrounded by the old granite hills of the Laurentians, the oldest range of mountains in the world. The Canadian units began to collect, and the lines of white tents were laid out. On Saturday, August 22nd, at seven in the morning, the detachment of volunteers from Quebec marched off from the drill-shed to entrain for Valcartier. Our friends came to see us off and the band played "The Girl I Left Behind Me," in the traditional manner. On our arrival at Valcartier we marched over to the ground assigned to us, and the men set to work to put up the tents. I hope I am casting no slur upon the 8th Royal Rifles of Quebec, when I say that I think we were all pretty green in the matter of field experience. The South African veterans amongst us, both officers and men, saved the situation. But I know that the cooking arrangements rather "fell down", and I think a little bread and cheese, very late at night, was all we had to eat. We were lucky to get that. Little did we know then of the field kitchens, with their pipes smoking and dinners cooking, which later on used to follow up the battalions as they moved.

The camp at Valcartier was really a wonderful place. Rapidly the roads were laid out, the tents were run up, and from west and east and north and south men poured in. There was activity everywhere. Water was laid on, and the men got the privilege of taking shower-baths, beside the dusty roads. Bands played; pipers retired to the woods and practised unearthly music calculated to fire the breast of the Scotsman with a lust for blood. We had rifle practice on the marvellous ranges. We had sham battles in which the men engaged so intensely that on one occasion, when the enemy met, one over-eager soldier belaboured his opponent with the butt end of his rifle as though he were a real German, and the poor victim, who had not been taught to say "Kamarad", suffered grievous wounds and had to be taken away in an ambulance. Though many gales and tempests had blown round those ancient mountains, nothing had ever equalled the latent power in the hearts of the stalwart young Canadians who had come so swiftly and eagerly at the call of the Empire. It is astonishing how the war spirit grips one. In Valcartier began that splendid comradeship which spread out to all the divisions of the Canadian Corps, and which binds those who went to the great adventure in a brotherhood stronger than has ever been known before.

Valcartier was to me a weird experience. The tents were cold. The ground was very hard. I got it into my mind that a chaplain should live the same life as the private soldier, and should avoid all luxuries. So I tried to sleep at night under my blanket, making a little hole in the ground for my thigh bone to rest in. After lying awake for some nights under these conditions, I found that the privates, especially the old soldiers, had learnt the art of making themselves comfortable and were hunting for straw for beds. I saw the wisdom of this and got a Wolesley sleeping bag, which I afterwards lost when my billet was shelled at Ypres. Under this new arrangement I was able to get a little rest. A kind friend in Quebec provided fifty oil stoves for the use of the Quebec contingent and so we became quite comfortable.

The dominating spirit of the camp was General Hughes, who rode about with his aides-de-camp in great splendour like Napoleon. To me it seemed that his personality and his despotic rule hung like a dark shadow over the camp. He was especially interesting and terrible to us chaplains, because rumour had it that he did not believe in chaplains, and no one could find out whether he was going to take us or not. The chaplains in consequence were very polite when inadvertently they found themselves in his august presence. I was clad in a private's uniform, which was handed to me out of a box in the drill-shed the night before the 8th Royal Rifles left Quebec, and I was most punctilious in the matter of saluting General Hughes whenever we chanced to meet.

The day after we arrived at the camp was a Sunday. The weather looked dark and showery, but we were to hold our first church parade, and, as I was the senior chaplain in rank, I was ordered to take it over. We assembled about three thousand strong, on a little rise in the ground, and here the men were formed in a hollow square. Rain was threatening, but perhaps might have held off had it not been for the action of one of the members of my congregation, who in the rear ranks was overheard by my son to utter the prayer—"O Lord, have mercy in this hour, and send us now a gentle shower." The prayer of the young saint was answered immediately, the rain came down in torrents, the church parade was called off, and I went back to my tent to get dry.

Day after day passed and more men poured in. They were a splendid lot, full of life, energy and keen delight in the great enterprise. Visitors from the city thronged the camp in the afternoons and evenings. A cinema was opened, but was brought to a fiery end by the men, who said that the old man in charge of it never changed his films.

One of the most gruesome experiences I had was taking the funeral of a young fellow who had committed suicide. I shall never forget the dismal service which was held, for some reason or other, at ten o'clock at night. Rain was falling, and we marched off into the woods by the light of two smoky lanterns to the place selected as a military cemetery. To add to the weirdness of the scene two pipers played a dirge. In the dim light of the lanterns, with the dropping rain over head and the dripping trees around us, we laid the poor boy to rest. The whole scene made a lasting impression on those who were present.

Meanwhile the camp extended and improvements were made, and many changes occurred in the disposition of the units. At one time the Quebec men were joined with a Montreal unit, then they were taken and joined with a New Brunswick detachment and formed into a battalion. Of course we grew more military, and I had assigned to me a batman whom I shall call Stephenson. I selected him because of his piety—he was a theological student from Ontario. I found afterwards that it is unwise to select batmen for their piety. Stephenson was a failure as a batman. When some duty had been neglected by him and I was on the point of giving vent to that spirit of turbulent anger, which I soon found was one of the natural and necessary equipments of an officer, he would say, "Would you like me to recite Browning's 'Prospice'?" What could the enraged Saul do on such occasions but forgive, throw down the javelin and listen to the music of the harping David? Stephenson was with me till I left Salisbury Plain for France. He nearly exterminated me once by setting a stone waterbottle to heat on my stove without unscrewing the stopper. I arrived in my tent quite late and seeing the thing on the stove quickly unscrewed it. The steam blew out with terrific force and filled the tent. A moment or two more and the bottle would have burst with disastrous consequences. When I told Stephenson of the enormity of his offence and that he might have been the cause of my death, and would have sent me to the grave covered with dishonour for having been killed by the bursting of a hot waterbottle—an unworthy end for one about to enter the greatest war the world has ever known—he only smiled faintly and asked me if I should like to hear him recite a poem.

News from overseas continued to be bad. Day after day brought us tidings of the German advance. The martial spirits amongst us were always afraid to hear that the war would be over before we got to England. I, but did not tell the people so, was afraid it wouldn't. I must confess I did not see in those days how a British force composed of men from farms, factories, offices and universities could get together in time to meet and overthrow the trained legions of Germany. It was certainly a period of anxious thought and deep foreboding, but I felt that I belonged to a race that has never been conquered. Above all, right and, therefore, God was on our side.
The scenery around Valcartier is very beautiful. It was a joy now and then to get a horse and ride away from the camp to where the Jacques Cartier river comes down from the mountains, and to dream of the old days when the world was at peace and we could enjoy the lovely prospects of nature, without the anxious care that now gnawed at our hearts. The place had been a favorite haunt of mine in the days gone by, when I used to take a book of poems and spend the whole day beside the river, reading and dozing and listening to the myriad small voices of the woods.

Still, the centre of interest now was the camp, with its turmoil and bustle and indefinite longing to be up and doing. The officer commanding my battalion had brought his own chaplain with him, and it was plainly evident that I was not wanted. This made it, I must confess, somewhat embarrassing. My tent, which was at the corner of the front line, was furnished only with my bed-roll and a box or two, and was not a particularly cheerful home. I used to feel rather lonely at times. Now and then I would go to Quebec for the day. On one occasion, when I had been feeling particularly seedy, I returned to camp at eleven o'clock at night. It was cold and rainy. I made my way from the station to my tent. In doing so I had to pass a Highland Battalion from Vancouver. When I came to their lines, to my dismay I was halted by a sentry with a fixed bayonet, who shouted in the darkness, "Who goes there?" I gave the answer, but instead of being satisfied with my reply, the wretched youth stood unmoved, with his bayonet about six inches from my body, causing me a most unpleasant sensation. He said I should have to come to the guardroom and be identified. In the meantime, another sentry appeared, also with a fixed bayonet, and said that I had to be identified. Little did I think that the whole thing was a game of the young rascals, and that they were beguiling the tedious moments of the sentry-go by pulling a chaplain's leg. They confessed it to me months afterwards in France. However, I was unsuspecting and had come submissive into the great war. I said that if they would remove their bayonets from propinquity to my person—because the sight of them was causing me a fresh attack of the pains that had racked me all day—I would go with them to the guardroom. At this they said, "Well, Sir, we'll let you pass. We'll take your word and say no more about it." So off I went to my dripping canvas home, hoping that the war would be brought to a speedy termination.

Every night I used to do what I called "parish visiting." I would go round among the tents, and sitting on the ground have a talk with the men. Very interesting and charming these talks were. I was much impressed with the miscellaneous interests and life histories of the men who had been so quickly drawn together. All were fast being shaken down into their places, and I think the great lessons of unselfishness and the duty of pulling together were being stamped upon the lives that had hitherto been more or less at loose ends. I used to sit in the tents talking long after lights were out, not wishing to break the discussion of some interesting life problem. This frequently entailed upon me great difficulty in finding my way back to my tent, for the evenings were closing in rapidly and it was hard to thread one's way among the various ropes and pegs which kept the tents in position. On one occasion when going down the lines, I tripped over a rope. Up to that moment the tent had been in perfect silence, but, as though I had fired a magazine of high explosives, a torrent of profanity burst forth from the inhabitants at my misadventure. Of course the men inside did not know to whom they were talking, but I stood there with my blood curdling, wondering how far I was personally responsible for the language poured forth, and terrified lest anyone should look and find out who had disturbed their slumbers. I stole off into the darkness as quickly as I could, more than ever longing for a speedy termination of the great war, and resolving to be more careful in future about tripping over tent ropes.

We had church parades regularly now on Sundays and early celebrations of the Holy Communion for the various units. Several weeks had gone by and as yet we had no definite information from General Hughes as to which or how many chaplains would be accepted. It was very annoying. Some of us could not make satisfactory arrangements for our parishes, until there was a certainty in the matter. The question came to me as to whether I ought to go, now that the Quebec men had been merged into a battalion of which I was not to be the chaplain. One evening as I was going to town, I put the matter before my friend Colonel, now General, Turner. It was a lovely night. The moon was shining, and stretching far off into the valley were the rows of white tents with the dark mountains enclosing them around. We stood outside the farmhouse used as headquarters, which overlooked the camp. When I asked the Colonel whether, now that I was separated from my men, I ought to leave my parish and go, he said to me, "Look at those lines of tents and think of the men in them. How many of those men will ever come back? The best expert opinion reckons that this war will last at least two years. The wastage of human life in war is tremendous. The battalions have to be filled and refilled again and again. Don't decide in a hurry, but think over what I have told you." On the next evening when I returned from Quebec, I went to the Colonel and said, "I have thought the matter over and I am going."
The time was now drawing near for our departure and at last word was sent round that General Hughes wished to meet all the chaplains on the verandah of his bungalow. The time set was the cheerful hour of five a.m. I lay awake all night with a loud ticking alarm clock beside me, till about half an hour before the wretched thing was to go off. With great expedition I rose and shaved and making myself as smart as possible in the private's uniform, hurried off to the General's camp home. There the other chaplains were assembled, about twenty-five or thirty in all. We all felt very sleepy and very chilly as we waited with expectancy the utterance which was going to seal our fate. The General soon appeared in all the magnificence and power of his position. We rose and saluted. When he metaphorically told us to "stand easy", we all sat down. I do not know what the feelings of the others were, but I had an impression that we were rather an awkward squad, neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. The General gave us a heart to heart talk. He told us he was going to send us with "the boys." From his manner I inferred that he looked upon us a kind of auxiliary and quite dispensable sanitary section. I gathered that he did not want us to be very exacting as to the performance of religious duties by the men. Rather we were to go in and out amongst them, make friends of them and cheer them on their way. Above all we were to remember that because a man said "Damn", it did not mean necessarily that he was going to hell. At the conclusion of the address, we were allowed to ask questions, and one of our number unadvisedly asked if he would be allowed to carry a revolver. "No," said Sam with great firmness, "take a bottle of castor oil." We didn't dare to be amused at the incident in the presence of the Chief, but we had a good laugh over it when we got back to our tents.

Two Sundays before we left, the most remarkable church parade in the history of the division was held, at which fully fifteen thousand men were present. The Senior Chaplain asked me to preach. A large platform had been erected, on which the chaplains stood, and on the platform also were two signallers, whose duty it was to signal to the battalions and bands the numbers of the hymns. On the chairs in front of the platform were seated the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, the Princess Patricia, Sir Robert Borden, and other notables. Beyond them were gathered the men in battalions. At one side were the massed bands. It was a wonderful sight. The sun was shining. Autumn tints coloured the maple trees on the sides of the ancient mountains. Here was Canada quickening into national life and girding on the sword to take her place among the independent nations of the world. It had been my privilege, fifteen years before, to preach at the farewell service in Quebec Cathedral for the Canadian Contingent going to the South African war. It seemed to me then that never again should I have such an experience. Yet on that occasion there were only a thousand men present, and here were fifteen times that number. At that time the war was with a small and half-civilized nation in Africa, now the war was with the foremost nations of Europe. On that occasion I used the second personal pronoun "you", now I was privileged to use the first personal pronoun "we". Almost to the last I did not know what text to choose and trusted to the inspiration of the moment what to say. My mind was confused with the vastness of the outlook. At last the words came to me which are the very foundation stone of human endeavour and human progress, "He that loseth his life for My sake shall find it." I do not know exactly what I said, and I do not suppose it mattered much, for it was hard to make oneself heard. I was content if the words of the text alone were audible. We sang that great hymn, "O God our help in ages past," which came into such prominence as an imperial anthem during the war. As we sang the words—

"Before the hills in order stood,Or earth received her frame"—

I looked at the everlasting mountains around us, where the sound of our worship died away, and thought how they had watched and waited for this day to come, and how, in the ages that were to dawn upon Canadian life and expansion, they would stand as monuments of the consecration of Canada to the service of mankind.

Things began to move rapidly now. People from town told us that already a fleet of liners was waiting in the harbour, ready to carry overseas the thirty-three thousand men of the Canadian contingent.

At last the eventful day of our departure arrived. On September 28th, with several other units, the 14th Battalion, to which I had been attached, marched off to the entraining point. I took one last look at the great camp which had now become a place of such absorbing interest and I wondered if I should ever see again that huge amphitheatre with its encompassing mountain witnesses. The men were in high spirits and good humour prevailed.

We saw the three companies of Engineers moving off, each followed by those mysterious pontoons which followed them wherever they went and suggested the bridging of the Rhine and our advance to Berlin. Someone called out, "What are those boats?" and a voice replied, "That's the Canadian Navy." We had a pleasant trip in the train to Quebec, enlivened by jokes and songs. On our arrival at the docks, we were taken to the custom-house wharf (p. 024) and marched on board the fine Cunard liner "Andania", which now rests, her troubles over, at the bottom of the Irish Sea. On the vessel, besides half of the 14th Battalion, there was the 16th (Canadian Scottish) Battalion, chiefly from Vancouver, and the Signal Company. Thus we had a ship full to overflowing of some of the noblest young fellows to whom the world has given birth. So ended our war experience in Valcartier Camp.

Nearly five years passed before I saw that sacred spot again. It was in August 1919. The war was ended, peace had been signed, and the great force of brother knights had been dispersed. Little crosses by the highways and byways of France and Belgium now marked the resting-place of thousands of those whose eager hearts took flame among these autumn hills. As I motored past the deserted camp after sunset, my heart thrilled with strange memories and the sense of an abiding presence of something weird and ghostly. Here were the old roads, there were the vacant hutments. Here were the worn paths across the fields where the men had gone. The evening breeze whispered fitfully across the untrodden grass and one by one the strong mountains, as though fixing themselves more firmly in iron resolve, cast off the radiant hues of evening and stood out black and grim against the starlit sky.

4th August 1914 - Women's Emergency Corps

This article from WOMEN’S WAR WORK EDITED BY LADY RANDOLPH CHURCHILL, 1916, is about the Women’s Emergency Corps and the part they played at the start of the war.

"The Women’s Emergency Corps is perhaps the largest of all the Women’s Organizations for the relief of war distress. It was started within two days of the declaration of war by some members the Actresses’ Franchise League, and was at first worked from the offices of this Society. In one week, however, it became too big for the rooms of the A.F.L. and migrated to the Little Theatre lent by Miss Gertrude Kingston. Here, however, it soon outgrew its accommodation and has now; through the generosity of the Duchess of Marlborough found permanent head-quarters in Baker Street.

The work, the membership, and the ramifications of the Women’s Emergency Corps are so extensive that it cannot, in fact, be identified with Suffragist organization. Some of its most ardent workers are non-Suffragists, and it works in association with other great bodies, such as the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families’ Association, the National Union of Women Workers, the Charity Organization Society, the Young Women’s Christian Association War Clubs, the Children’s Care Committees, and the Women’s League of Service and Schools for Mothers.

The Kitchen Department, aided by supplies from the National Food Fund, distributed in four months 28,378 meals, and 1065 lbs. of plum puddings were made before Christmas. In co-operation with the National Guild of Housecraft, unemployed girls have been given training in domestic work; thousands of handy women have been sent as helpers to various benevolent agencies, and paid employment has been found for women in almost every professional trade and industry.

The Women’s Emergency Corps Toy-Making industry soon outgrew the accommodation at head-quarters, and Lord Postman came to the help, lending them a disused chapel on his estate where the girls are now at work. Ten branches of this big undertaking are establishing in different parts of the country, and some of the largest London firms, besides two in Natal and Cape Town, have given important orders for toys.

The interpreting department of the W. E. C. was the first organized body to assist those from Belgium. Hundreds of interpreters were enrolled; they met the continental trains at all the stations, and ships at the various docks; they provided carefully compiled lists of hotels, boarding houses, and lodgings of all kinds, and investigated and arranged accommodation. In those early days before the Belgian Relief centre in Kingsway was opened, many hundreds of refugees would have fared very badly without the help of this able band.

The Women’s Emergency Corps were the first to start teaching elementary French and German to the soldiers in training, and held classes in nearly fifty military centres. Their hospitality department has also done colossal work for Belgian and French refugees in supplying both homes and clothing to those who were homeless and destitute. Some hundreds of women motor-cyclists and motorists who run their own cars and are capable of doing running repairs, have registered in the Motor Department. These cars rendered invaluable service in the early days of the war, meeting trains of refugees, and they have also led the War Refugee Committee, private hospitals officers, and various societies.

There are branches of the Women’s Emergency Corps all over Great Britain; Edinburgh and Glasgow now have done yeoman service in every direction, and each branch throughout the country is managed independently by its own committee raises its own funds.

Space prevents a recital in this chapter of the manifold activities of all women’s societies, but as with many others which are engaged in benevolent work of various kinds, may be mentioned the National Political League, which has initiated an agricultural movement for women, the Women Writer’s Suffrage League, the Forward [illegible] Union, the National Industrial and Pro[illegible]tonal Women’s Suffrage Society, the Catholic Men’s Suffrage Society, the Liberal Women’s Suffrage Union, the Church League fur Women’s Suffrage, the Free Church League, the Dublin Suffragists’ Emergency Council, and the Jewish League for Woman Suffrage."

4th August 1914 - London

This report of the start of the war comes from Walter Hines Page an American journalist, publisher, and diplomat. He was the United States ambassador to the United Kingdom during World War I.

It can be found here at The Great War in a Different Light

“Then came the declaration of war, most dramatically. Tuesday night, five minutes after the ultimatum had expired, the Admiralty telegraphed to the fleet "Go." In a few minutes the answer came back "Off." Soldiers began to march through the city going to the railway stations. An indescribable crowd so blocked the streets about the Admiralty, the War Office, and the Foreign Office, that at one o'clock in the morning I had to drive in my car by other streets to get home.

The next day the German Embassy was turned over to me. I went to see the German Ambassador at three o'clock in the after-noon. He came down in his pyjamas, a crazy man. I feared he might literally go mad. He is of the anti-war party and he had done his best and utterly failed. This interview was one of the most pathetic experiences of my life. The poor man had not slept for several nights. Then came the crowds of frightened Germans, afraid that they would be arrested. They besieged the German Embassy and our Embassy. I put one of our naval officers in the German Embassy, put the United States seal on the door to protect it, and we began business there, too. Our naval officer has moved in—sleeps there. He has an assistant, a stenographer, a messenger: and I gave him the German automobile and chauffeur and two English servants that were left there. . . . All London has been awake for a week. Soldiers are marching day and night; immense throngs block the streets about the government offices. But they are all very orderly. Every day Germans are arrested on suspicion; and several of them have committed suicide. Yesterday one poor American woman yielded to the excitement and cut her throat. I find it hard to get about much. People stop me on the street, follow me to luncheon, grab me as I come out of any committee meeting— to know my opinion of this or that—how can they get home? Will such-and-such a boat fly the American flag? Why did I take the German Embassy? I have to fight my way about and rush to an automobile. I have had to buy me a second one to keep up the racket. Buy?—no— only bargain for it, for I have not any money. But everybody is considerate, and that makes no matter for the moment.

I shall never forget Sir Edward Grey's telling me of the ultimatum —while he wept; nor the poor German Ambassador who has lost in his high game—almost a demented man; nor the King as he declaimed at me for half an hour and threw up his hands and said, "My God, Mr. Page, what else could we do?" Nor the Austrian Ambassador's wringing his hands and weeping and crying out, "My dear Colleague, my dear Colleague."

For more about Wlater Hines Page : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Hines_Page

4th August 1914 - A British Reporter in the Enemy Capital.

This article comes from is entitled 'Berlin a-Tiptoe for War in August 1914' by Mr. H. W. Nevinson, who was in Berlin as correspondent for the London 'Daily News' during the first days of August 1914.

It’s headline is ‘A British Reporter in the Enemy Capital’ and gives an excellent description of the way the war was embraced in Germany’s capital.

The full article can be found at ‘The Great War in a Different Light’.

“On the evening of July 31 I started for Berlin. Down the midnight Channel the searchlights were turning and streaming in long, white wedges. Passing into Germany, we at once met trains full of working men in horse-trucks decked with flowers, and scribbled over with chalk inscriptions: "Nach Paris," "Nach Petersburg," but none so far "Nach London." They were cheering and singing, as people always cheer and sing when war is coming.

We were only six hours late in Berlin, but my luggage was lost in the chaos of crowds rushing home from their summer holidays, and I never recovered it, though in the middle of the war I received a postcard that had somehow arrived through Holland, telling me that the porter, with whom I had left the "Schein," or registration ticket, had found the luggage, and what should I like done with it? A fine example of international honesty.

For two days I waited and watched. Up and down the wide road of "Unter den Linden" crowds paced incessantly by day and night, singing the German war songs : "Was blasen die Trompeten?" which is the finest; "Deutschland, Deutschland ueber Alles," which comes next, and "Die Wacht am Rhein," which was the most popular. As I walked to and fro among the patriot crowd, I came to know many of the circling and returning faces by sight, and I still have clearly in mind the face of one young working woman who, with mouth that opened like a cavern, and with the rapt devotion of an ecstatic saint, was continuously chanting:

"Lieb Vaterland kann ruhig sein! (bis)
Fest steht und treu die Wacht,
Die Wacht am Rhein!"

So she passed me by.

So the interminable crowds went past, a-tiptoe for war, because they had never known it. Sometimes a company of infantry, sometimes a squadron of horse went down the road westward, wearing the new grey uniforms in place of the familiar "Prussian blue" They passed to probable death amid cheering, handshaking, gifts of flowers and of food. Sometimes the Kaiser in full uniform swept along in his fine motor, the chauffeur clearing the way by perpetually sounding the four notes which wicked Socialists interpreted as saying "Das Volk bezahlt!" ("The People pays!"). Cheered he was certainly, but everyone believed or knew that the Kaiser himself had never wished for war. He claimed the title of "Friedens-Kaiser," just as many have chosen to call our Edward VII "The Peace-Maker." The most mighty storm of cheering was reserved for the Crown Prince, known to be at variance with his father in longing to test his imagined genius on the field. Him the people cheered, for they had never known war.

Held by the Enemy

Every moment a new rumour whirled through the maddened city. Every hour a new edition of the papers appeared. All day long, and far through the night into the next day, I went backward and forward to the telegraph office, trying to send home all the descriptive news I could. How much of it went I never knew, but when at last I succeeded in reaching the head censor himself, he received me politely and said that in future I might telegraph in English instead of my German, if I came direct to him. I think he was too serious and too courteous to be mocking me, but telegrams had already ceased to run, and no more went.

On the morning of the fatal 4th, I drove to the Schloss, where the Deputies of the Reichstag were gathered to hear the Kaiser's address. Refused permission to enter, I waited outside, and gathered only rumours of the speech that declared the unity of all Germany and all German parties in face of the common peril. A few hours later, in the Reichstag, the Chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg, announced that under the plea of necessity the neutrality of Belgium had almost certainly already been violated. Then I knew that the long- dreaded moment had come.

In the afternoon I heard that our Ambassador, Sir Edward Goschen, had demanded his papers, and war was declared. I was at the Adlon, having been turned out of the Bristol the day before as a dangerous foreigner.

While I was dining Iheard the yells of a crowd shouting outside our Embassy in the neighbouring street, and breaking the windows with loud crashes. Soon the noise came nearer, and in front of the hotel entrance I could distinguish shouts for the English correspondents to be brought out. The wild outcries were chiefly directed against a prominent American correspondent who, in support of his London paper's policy, had been sending messages far from conciliatory. He and my colleague, who was acting with me for the Daily News, were given up to the police by the hotel director, and as I was passing into the front hall to see what was happening, he pointed me out as well. Two of the armed police seized me at once and dragged me out, holding an enormous revolver at each ear. "If you try to run away," they kept shouting, "we will shoot you like a dog!" To which I kept repeating in answer that, under such circumstances, I was not such a pure fool ("keiner Narr," a rapid reminiscence of Parsifal) as to try to run away. During this conversation they flung me out into the mob, who savagely set upon me with sticks, fists, and umbrellas. But I did not pay much attention to their onslaughts, for I had often suffered worse at Suffrage demonstrations.

Seated beside me, and holding the revolvers still in uncomfortable proximity to my skull, the police then took me, with a Dutch correspondent, by taxi to the Praesidium, or central police court (a kind of Scotland Yard). There our treatment became more courteous, and after we had made our statements and shown our passports we were dismissed, with a note insuring protection. But as a scrap of paper seemed insufficient insurance against the fury of a mob inflamed, as German, British, French, and all mobs then were, by the raging patriotism of war, I demanded to be sent back protected as I had come. So back in a taxi I was sent, though protected by only one policeman, who kept his revolver in a more respectful position, and convoyed me to the backdoor of the hotel, uttering mystic words at intervals when we had to pass through the cordons of cavalry drawn up for defence of our Embassy.

Last Friendly Words

On my return the director of the hotel was much moved, and wrung my hand with protestations of sorrow and regard, declaring that only by allowing his patriotism to supersede his reason had he charged me with instigating the war, which was absurd. The chambermaid was also much moved, refusing to be comforted because her three brothers and her lover were already on the march. So, imitating to myself the saying of the herald who proclaimed the beginning of the long war between Athens and Sparta — "This day sees the beginning of many sorrows for the most civilised peoples of the world" — I slept as best I could, and next morning I went about the city purchasing a few necessary things. All was quiet, and life seemed going on much as usual but for the excited crowds gathered round the newspaper offices, and the removal of all English and French names from the shops and banks. Even the sacred name of Cook was gone. In the evening, however, I received a kindly invitation from Sir Edward Goschen to come into the Embassy, which had been barricaded. As the Adlon was getting cleared for German officers, I gladly went, and was welcomed with amazing courtesy.

My Way Of Escape

Before dawn on August 6 a string of motors was waiting outside the Embassy, sent by the Kaiser's orders to convey the Ambassador and his staff to a local station, a few miles away from Berlin. Again by the courtesy of Sir Edward Goschen, a few of us correspondents were invited to join the staff, and I hardly realized at the time from what a hideous destiny that invitation preserved me. I suppose I should have been kept shut up in Ruhleben or some similar camp for four and a half years ; I should have seen nothing of the war in Belgium and France at its beginning ; I should not have shared the splendour and the tragedy of the Dardanelles campaign ; I should not have known the intrigues in Athens, or the disastrous uselessness of the early attempt at Salonika, or the meaning of the advance from Egypt upon Palestine ; nor should I have been present at the final advance of the Allied Armies on the Western Front in August, 1918, or have heard the trumpet sound for the armistice in the market-square of Mons, or have accompanied our vanguard in the march up to the Rhine at Cologne. Of all those historic scenes I should have remained ignorant.

But from such loss our Ambassador saved me, and for twenty-four hours his train carried us all slowly lumbering through North Germany to the Dutch frontier.

On our way we passed or were impeded by uncounted vans decorated with boughs of trees and crammed with reservists going to the Belgian front. The men had now chalked "Nach Bruxelles" or "Nach London" as well as " Nach Paris " on the vans, and at every station they were met by bands of Red Cross girls bringing coffee, wine, and food.

At all the larger stations, too, the news of our train's approach had been signalled, and to cheer us on our way all the old men, boys and women of the place had flocked down with any musical instruments they could collect, and, standing thick on the platform, they played for us the German national tunes, "Deutschland, Deutschland" predominating. They played with the persistence of the " German bands" known to me in childhood. Sometimes, to impress their patriotism more distinctly upon us, they brought their instruments close up to the carriage windows, and the shitting tubes of the trombones came right into the carriage. Silent and unmoved, as an Englishman should, sat Sir Edward Goschen, looking steadily in front of him, with hands on his knees, making as though no sight or sound had reached his senses.”


(Henry Nevinson, the son of George Nevinson, a solicitor, was born in Leicester in 1856. He attended Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he came under the influence of the Christian Socialists. After university Nevinson moved to London where he worked at Toynbee Hall and lectured on history at Bedford College.

In 1897 Nevinson was appointed to the staff of the Daily Chronicle. Nevinson obtained a reputation as an outstanding journalist for his reports of the Boer War. He was also a crusading journalist and his work exposing slavery in Portuguese Angola, was eventually published as a book, A Modern Slavery (1906). Nevinson worked in Russia (1905-06) and India (1907-08) for the Manchester Guardian. He also reported on the Balkan War for the Daily Chronicle and contributed articles to The Nation.

He was also a suffragist, being one of the founders in 1907 of the Men's League for Women's Suffrage, and a war correspondent of World War I, being wounded at Gallipoli.

The father of the artist, Christopher Nevinson, Nevinson wrote over 30 books including Women's Vote and Men (1913), Essays in Freedom and Rebellion (1921) and three volumes of autobiography, Changes and Chances (1925-28). Margaret Nevinson died in 1932 and the following year Henry married the family friend, Evelyn Sharp. Henry Nevinson, who in 1939 became President of the Council for the Defence of Civil Liberties, died in 1941.)

4th August 1914 - From 'Tell England'

I love this short passage from Tell England by Ernest Raymond. Starting on the 3rd August 1914, he really captures the prevailing feeling of the time with the ‘Officer Class’ material.

The opening passage where one girl declares the ultimatum to Germany ‘thrilling’ and the other girl ‘awful’ seems to epitomize the mood of the moment. Looking from the 21st Century the author’s response of ‘How ripping!’ seems to come from an alien generation.

It is a wonderful piece of writing.


“On August 3, 1914, eleven months before my solemn admission into Devonport Dockyard, I was a young schoolboy on my holidays, playing tennis in a set of mixed doubles. About five o'clock a paper-boy entered the tennis-club grounds with the Evening News. My male
opponent, although he was serving, stopped his game for a minute and bought a paper.

"Hang the paper!" called I, indifferent to the fact that the Old World was falling about our ears and England's last day of peace was going down with the afternoon sun. "Your service. Love--fifteen."

"By Jove," he cried, after scanning the paper, "we're in!"

"What do you mean," cried the girls, "have the Germans declared war on us?"

"No. But we've sent an ultimatum to Germany which expires at twelve to-night. That means Britain will be in a state of war with Germany as from midnight." The hand that held the paper trembled with excitement.

"How frightfully thrilling!" said one girl.

"How awful!" whispered the other.

"How ripping!" corrected I. "Crash on with the game. Your service. Love--fifteen."

Five days later it was decided that I should not return to school, but should go at once into the army. So it was that I never finished up in the correct style at Kensingtowe with an emotional last chapel, endless good wishes and a lump in my throat. I just didn't go back.

Instead, an influential friend, who knew the old Colonel of the 2nd Tenth East Cheshires, a territorial battalion of my grandfather's regiment, secured for me and, at my request, for Doe commissions in that unit. His Majesty the King (whom, and whose dominions, might God preserve in this grand moment of peril) had, it seemed, great faith in the loyalty and gallantry of "Our trusty and well-beloved Rupert Ray," as also of "Our trusty and well-beloved Edgar Gray
Doe," and was pleased to accept our swords in the defence of his realm.

So one day we two trusty and well-beloved subjects, flushed, very nervous, and clad in the most expensive khaki uniforms that London could provide, took train for the North to interview the Colonel of the 2nd Tenth. He was sitting at a littered writing-table, when we were shown in by a smart orderly. We saw a plump old territorial Colonel, grey-haired, grey-moustached, and kindly in face. His khaki jacket was brightened by the two South African medal ribbons; and we
were so sadly fresh to things military as to wonder whether either was the V.C. We saluted with great smartness, and hoped we had made the movement correctly: for really, we knew very little about it. I wasn't sure whether we ought to salute indoors; and Doe, having politely bared his fair head on entering the office, saluted without a cap. I blushed at my bad manners and surreptitiously removed mine. Not knowing what to do with my hands, I put them in my pockets. I knew that, if something didn't happen quickly, I should start giggling. Here in the presence of our new commanding officer I felt as I used to when I stood before the head master.

"Sit down," beamed the C.O.

We sat down, crossed our legs, and tried to appear at our ease, and languid; as became officers.

"How old are you?" the Colonel asked Doe.

Doe hesitated, wondering whether to perjure himself and say "Twenty."

"Eighteen, sir," he admitted, obviously ashamed.

"And you, Ray?"

"Eighteen, sir," said I, feeling Doe's companion in guilt.

"Splendid, perfectly splendid!" replied the Colonel. "Eighteen, by Jove! You've timed your lives wonderfully, my boys. To be eighteen in 1914 is to be the best thing in England. England's wealth used to consist in other things. Nowadays you boys are the richest thing she's got. She's solvent with you, and bankrupt without you. Eighteen, confound it! It's a virtue to be your age, just as it's a crime to be mine. Now, look here"--the Colonel drew up his chair, as if he were going to get to business--"look here. Eighteen years ago you were born for this day. Through the last eighteen years you've been educated for it. Your birth and breeding were given you that you might officer England's youth in this hour. And now you enter upon your inheritance. Just as this is the day in the history of the world so yours is the generation. No other generation has been
called to such grand things, and to such crowded, glorious living. Any other generation at your age would be footling around, living a shallow existence in the valleys, or just beginning to climb a slope to higher things. But you"--here the Colonel tapped the writing-table with his forefinger--"you, just because you've timed your lives aright, are going to be transferred straight to the
mountain-tops. Well, I'm damned. Eighteen!"

I remember how his enthusiasm radiated from him and kindled a responsive excitement in me. I had entered his room a silly boy with no nobler thought than a thrill in the new adventure on which I had so suddenly embarked. But, as this fatherly old poet, touched by England's need and by the sight of two boys entering his room, so fresh and strong and ready for anything, broke into eloquence, I saw dimly the great ideas he was striving to express. I felt the brilliance of being alive in this big moment; the pride of youth and strength. I felt Aspiration surging in me and speeding up the action of my heart. I think I half hoped it would be my high lot to die on the battlefield. It was just the same glowing sensation that pervaded me one strange evening when, standing outside the baths at Kensingtowe, I first awoke to the joy of conscious life.

"D'you see what I'm driving at?" asked the old Colonel.

"Rather!" answered Doe, with eagerness. Turning towards him as he spoke, I saw by the shining in his brown eyes that the poet in him had answered to the call of the old officer's words. His aspiration as well as mine was inflamed. Doe was feeling great. He was picturing himself, no doubt, leading a forlorn hope into triumph, or fighting a rearguard action and saving the British line. The heroic creature was going to be equal to the great moment and save England dramatically.

Pleased with Doe's ready understanding--my friend always captivated people in the first few minutes--our C.O. warmed still more to his subject. Having put his hands in his pockets and leant back in his chair to survey us the better, he continued:

"What I mean is--had you been eighteen a generation earlier, the British Empire could have treated you as very insignificant fry, whereas to-day she is obliged to come to you boys and say 'You take top place in my aristocracy. You're on top because I must place the whole weight of everything I have upon your shoulders. You're on top because you are the Capitalists, possessing an enormous capital of youth and strength and boldness and endurance. You must give it all to me--to gamble with--for my life. I've nothing to give you in return, except suffering and--'"

The Colonel paused, feeling he had said enough--or too much. We made no murmur of agreement. It would have seemed like applauding in church. Then he proceeded:

"Well, you're coming to my battalion, aren't you?"

"Yes, rather, sir," said Doe.

"Right. You're just the sort of boys that I want. If you're young and bold, your men will follow you anywhere. In this fight it's going to be better to be a young officer, followed and loved because of his youth, than to be an old one, followed and trusted because of his knowledge. Dammit! I wish I could make you see it. But, for God's sake, be enthusiastic. Be enthusiastic over the great crisis, over the responsibility, over your amazingly high calling."

He stopped, and began playing with a pencil; and it was some while before he added, speaking uncomfortably and keeping his eyes upon the pencil:

"Take a pride in your bodies, and hold them in condition. You'll want 'em. There are more ways than one of getting them tainted in the life of temptations you're going to face. I expect you--you grasp my meaning.... But, if only you'll light up your enthusiasm, everything else will be all right."

He raised his eyes and looked at us again, saying:

"Well, good-bye for the present."

We shook hands, saluted, and went out. And, as I shut the door, I heard the old enthusiast call out to someone who must have been in an inner room: "I've two gems of boys there--straight from school. Bless my soul, England'll win through."”


(Ernest Raymond (1888 - 1974) was a British novelist, best known for his 1922 book, Tell England, set in World War I. His next biggest success was We, The Accused which was made into a BBC drama starring Ian Holm in 1980.

Raymond's post-war autobiography, Please You, Draw Near, was published in 1969. He was awarded an OBE in 1972, and died in 1974).

4th August 1914 - On the road to a Great Adventure

This next article on August 1914 comes from Canada and is from the book ON THE FRINGE OF THE GREAT FIGHT By COLONEL GEORGE G. NASMITH, C.M.G.


"ON THE ROAD TO A GREAT ADVENTURE.

It began with a wish. That takes me back to a pleasant day in early August, 1914, and a verandah at Ravenscrag, Muskoka—a broad, cool, verandah overlooking dancing dark waters. A light breeze stirred the leaves and gently wafted to us the smell of the pines and the woods, mingled with the sweet odours of the scented geranium, verbena, and nicotine in the rock-girt garden. But my mind was far removed from the peacefulness of my immediate surroundings: the newspaper I held in my hand was filled with kaleidoscopic descriptions of the great European tumult. Unconsciously I voiced aloud the thought that was uppermost in my mind: "I would gladly give ten years of my life if I could serve my country in this war." "Do not say that," warned my hostess, looking up from her magazine, "for everything comes to you on a wish," and nothing more was said of the matter at the time.

That day was a very quiet one with our little house-party. We made our usual launch trip through the lakes but nobody talked much. Each was busy with his own thoughts, wondering what England could do in the great emergency. Could she, or could she not, save France from the invading hosts of Germany? And deeper in each mind was the unspoken fear, "Perhaps it is already too late to save France—perhaps, even now, the question is 'Can England save herself?'" The great depression in men's minds during those early days of the war when the bottom seemed to have dropped out of life and men strove to grasp at something upon which to reconstruct a new system of thought and life and work, had enveloped us like a chill evening mist.

Those were ghastly days. While France, Russia and England were feverishly mobilizing, the brave little force of Belgians was being steadily rolled up by the perfectly equipped German war machine and the road to France hourly becoming easier. England had commissioned K. of K. to gather together a civilian army of three million men, and Canada had called for one division to be mobilized at Valcartier Camp, a place somewhere in the Laurentian Hills near the city of Quebec. Little did any of us dream how prophetic was to be that apparently chance remark of our hostess. But the first greeting from the maid when we reached home that evening was, "There is a long distance call for you, sir." The Minister of Militia had asked me to report in Ottawa immediately. Next morning I waved my friends, "Au revoir." That return was far from being as speedy as we expected, for my wish very shortly came true.

The greeting of the Minister of Militia, Sir Sam Hughes, as he turned from the desk where he sat in shirt-sleeves, with typewriters on all sides of him, was a cordial handshake and a slap on the back. Would I go down to the new camp at Valcartier and look after the purification of the water supply? I was delighted to get the chance.

A short wait at the office gave me a splendid opportunity of seeing a military headquarters office in operation. Officers of all ranks, from Generals to Majors, hurried in one after another to obtain permission to do this or that; prominent men anxious to do anything they might to assist in the great crisis, crowded the office. Telephone conversations, telegrams, cables, interviews, dictation of letters, reading of letters aloud—to watch or listen to the incessant commingling of all these, with the Minister of Militia as the centre of energy, was a unique experience for me. Sir Sam cracked jokes, dictated letters, swore at the telephone operator, and carried on conversation with a number of persons—all at the same time. It was a marvellous demonstration of what a man could do in an emergency, if he happened to be the right man—the man who not only knew what needed to be done but had sufficient force of character and driving power to convert his decisions into practical achievements.

The following night on our return from an inspection of the new camp at Valcartier I stood near the citadel in Quebec watching the moving lights on the St. Lawrence far below. As I looked the flashes of a powerful searchlight swept the river, lighting up the opposite shores and playing upon the craft in the river. This was the first concrete evidence I had that our country was at war; it was also a reminder that there was even a possibility that Quebec might be attacked from the sea.

Of the growth of that wonderful camp, of our experiences there, of the training and equipping of 33,000 men, of the struggles for position, and of the numerous disappointments and bitternesses because all could not go, I will not here attempt to speak. There was a great deal to do and to learn and the time passed quickly. It had been decided that I was to accompany the contingent as adviser in sanitation and in charge of the water supply, and, despite all delays and disappointments; the day did finally come when we drove in to Quebec to board our steamer for England.

At midnight, the Franconia slipped slowly and silently away from the dock. Only three were there to bid us farewell—a man and two women,—and though they sang with great enthusiasm, "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary," the effect was melancholy. Imperceptibly the pier and the lights of the city receded and we steamed on down the mighty St. Lawrence to our trysting place on the sea. The second morning afterwards we woke to find ourselves riding quietly at anchor in the sunny harbour of Gaspé, with all the other transports anchored about us, together with four long grey gunboats,—our escort upon the road to our great adventure."

4th August 1914 - Joining Up

On the 4th August 1914 the British Empire declared war, there are many articles and papers written about the reasons why it all happened.

I thought I would post an article from the ebook ‘Kitchener's Mob, The Adventures of an American in the British Army by James Norman Hall’. This is written from the viewpoint of an American enlisting into the British Army at the out break of war.

One can argue over justness the war until the cows come home, but for the man in the street it was the chance to do something for the Empire and stand up and be counted. It was all something of a great adventure.

JOINING UP

"Kitchener's Mob" they were called in the early days of August, 1914, when London hoardings were clamorous with the first calls for volunteers. The seasoned regulars of the first British expeditionary force said it patronizingly, the great British public hopefully, the world at large doubtfully. "Kitchener's Mob," when there was but a scant sixty thousand under arms with millions yet to come. "Kitchener's Mob" it remains to-day, fighting in hundreds of thousands in France, Belgium, Africa, the Balkans. And to-morrow, when the war is ended, who will come marching home again, old campaigners, war-worn remnants of once mighty armies? "Kitchener's Mob."

It is not a pleasing name for the greatest volunteer army in the history of the world; for more than three millions of toughened, disciplined fighting men, united under one flag, all parts of one magnificent military organization. And yet Kitchener's own Tommies are responsible for it, the rank and file, with their inherent love of ridicule even at their own expense, and their intense dislike of "swank." They fastened the name upon themselves, lest the world at large should think they regarded themselves too highly. There it hangs. There it will hang for all time.

It was on the 18th of August, 1914, that the mob spirit gained its mastery over me. After three weeks of solitary tramping in the mountains of North Wales, I walked suddenly into news of the great war, and went at once to London, with a longing for home which seemed strong enough to carry me through the week of idleness until my boat should sail. But, in a spirit of adventure, I suppose, I tempted myself with the possibility of assuming the increasingly popular alias, Atkins. On two successive mornings I joined the long line of prospective recruits before the offices at Great Scotland Yard, withdrawing each time, after moving a convenient distance toward the desk of the recruiting sergeant. Disregarding the proven fatality of third times, I joined it on another morning, dangerously near to the head of the procession.

"Now, then, you! Step along!"

There is something compelling about a military command, given by a military officer accustomed to being obeyed. While the doctors were thumping me, measuring me, and making an inventory of "physical peculiarities, if any," I tried to analyze my unhesitating, almost instinctive reaction to that stern, confident "Step along!" Was it an act of weakness, a want of character, evidenced by my inability to say no? Or was it the blood of military forebears asserting itself after many years of inanition? The latter conclusion being the more pleasing, I decided that I was the grandson of my Civil War grandfather, and the worthy descendant of stalwart warriors of a yet earlier period.

I was frank with the recruiting officers. I admitted, rather boasted, of my American citizenship, but expressed my entire willingness to serve in the British army in case this should not expatriate me. I had, in fact, delayed, hoping that an American legion would be formed in London as had been done in Paris. The announcement was received with some surprise. A brief conference was held, during which there was much vigorous shaking of heads. While I awaited the decision I thought of the steamship ticket in my pocket. I remembered that my boat was to sail on Friday. I thought of my plans for the future and anticipated the joy of an early home-coming. Set against this was the prospect of an indefinite period of soldiering among strangers.

"Three years or the duration of the war" were the terms of the enlistment contract. I had visions of bloody engagements, of feverish nights in hospital, of endless years in a home for disabled soldiers. The conference was over, and the recruiting officer returned to his desk, smiling broadly.

"We'll take you, my lad, if you want to join. You'll just say you are an Englishman, won't you, as a matter of formality?" Here was an avenue of escape, beckoning me like an alluring country road winding over the hills of home. I refused it with the same instinctive swiftness of decision that had brought me to the medical inspection room. And a few moments later, I took "the King's shilling," and promised, upon my oath as a loyal British subject, to bear true allegiance to the Union Jack.

During the completion of other, less important formalities, I was taken in charge by a sergeant who might have stepped out of any of the "Barrack-Room Ballads." He was true to type to the last twist in the s of Atkins. He told me of service in India, Egypt, South Africa. He showed me both scars and medals with that air of "Now-I-would-n't-do-this-for-any-one-but-you" which is so flattering to the novice. He gave me advice as to my best method of procedure when I should go to Hounslow Barracks to join my unit.

"'An 'ere! Wotever you do an' wotever you s'y, don't forget to myke the lads think you're an out-an'-outer, if you understand my meaning,—a Britisher, you know. They'll tyke to you. Strike me blind! Be free an' easy with 'em,—no swank, mind you!—an' they'll be downright pals with you. You're different, you know. But don't put on no airs. Wot I mean is, don't let 'em think that you think you're different. See wot I mean?"

I said that I did.

"An' another thing; talk like 'em."

I confessed that this might prove to be rather a large contract.

"'Ard? S'y! 'Ere! If I 'ad you fer a d'y, I'd 'ave you talkin' like a born Lunnoner! All you got to do is forget all them aitches. An' you don't want to s'y 'can't,' like that. S'y 'cawrn't.'"

I said it.

"Now s'y, 'Gor blimy, 'Arry, 'ow's the missus?'"

I did.

"That's right! Oh, you'll soon get the swing of it."

There was much more instruction of the same nature. By the time I was ready to leave the recruiting offices I felt that I had made great progress in the vernacular. I said good-bye to the sergeant warmly. As I was about to leave he made the most peculiar and amusing gesture of a man drinking.

"A pint o' mild an' bitter," he said confidentially. "The boys always gives me the price of a pint."

"Right you are, sergeant!" I used the expression like a born Englishman. And with the liberality of a true soldier, I gave him my shilling, my first day's wage as a British fighting man.

The remainder of the week I spent mingling with the crowds of enlisted men at the Horse Guards Parade, watching the bulletin boards for the appearance of my name which would mean that I was to report at the regimental depot at Hounslow. My first impression of the men with whom I was to live for three years, or the duration of the war, was anything but favorable. The newspapers had been asserting that the new army was being recruited from the flower of England's young manhood. The throng at the Horse Guards Parade resembled an army of the unemployed, and I thought it likely that most of them were misfits, out-of-works, the kind of men who join the army because they can do nothing else. There were, in fact, a good many of these. I soon learned, however, that the general out-at-elbows appearance was due to another cause. A genial Cockney gave me the hint.

"'Ave you joined up, matey?" he asked.

I told him that I had.

"Well, 'ere's a friendly tip for you. Don't wear them good clo'es w'en you goes to the depot. You won't see 'em again likely, an' if you gets through the war you might be a-wantin' of 'em. Wear the worst rags you got."
I profited by the advice, and when I fell in, with the other recruits for the Royal Fusiliers, I felt much more at my ease.