4: Great Britain and the War
<< 3: Strength and Resources of the Warring Powers || 5: The World's Greatest War >>
The influence of the European War permeated everything from and
through the nation to the individual, from trade and commerce and
world-finance to the cost of food and the price of labor. The
whole world, civilized and uncivilized, was drawn into this
whirlpool of disaster - the majority of the population of the
earth was actually at war. Was it possible that such a vast
conflict - so far reaching in its racial and national elements,
so bitter in its old and new animosities, so great in its
territorial area, so tremendous in the numbers of men in arms -
could come, as some commentators say, like a thief in the night
or have fallen upon the world like a bolt from the blue! All
available information of an exact character, all the preparation
of the preceding few years, all the inner statecraft of the world
as revealed in policy and action, prove the fallacy of this
supposition.
THE GROWTH OF GERMAN IMPORTANCE
As a matter of fact one nation had been for nearly half a century
the pivot upon which European hopes and fears have turned in the
matter of peace and war, of military and naval preparation, of
diplomatic interchange. During this period Germany rose to a
foremost place amongst the nations of Europe, to the first place
in strength of military power and organized fighting force, to
the second place in naval strength and commercial progress. The
growth itself was a legitimate one in the main; and, given the
character of its people and their cultivated convictions as to
inherent greatness, was inevitable. For other nations the vital
question asked in diplomacy and answered in their military or
naval preparations was equally inevitable: How would Germany use
this power, against whom was it aimed, for what specific purpose
was it being organized with such capable precision, such splendid
skill?
GERMAN MILITARISM
Great Britain, meanwhile, had devoted her main attention to the
trade and diplomacy and little wars associated with the
maintenance of a world-empire and, in self-defense, had
cultivated friendships with Russia and France and the United
States and Japan as this German power began to come closer and
touch the most vital British interests. France naturally
strengthened itself as its historic enemy grew in power; Russia
improved her military position after the Japanese was as she was
bound to do; Germany appeared to set the pace upon sea and land
with an aggressive diplomacy in Morocco and in China, at Paris
and at St. Petersburg, which was bound to cause trouble and to
promote what is commonly called militarism. The vast ambitions
and persistent policy of the German ruler and his people, the
unsatisfied characteristics of German diplomacy, the militant
ideals and military preparations and naval expansion of Germany
between 1900 and 1914 became the dominant consideration in the
chancelleries of Europe. Armies and navies, wars in the Balkans
or struggles for colonial spheres of influence, financial
reserves and naval construction and volunteer forces - all came
to be measured against current developments in this center of
European gravity.
GREAT BRITAIN'S PEACE EFFORTS
Great Britain tried to hold aloof from this international
rivalry, this preparation for a war which her people and leaders
hoped against hope would be averted. Royal visits of a pacific
character were exchanged, parties of Great Britain's business men
visited Berlin, while leaders such as King Edward and Lord
Haldane exercised all their ability in striving for some mutual
ground of friendly action. Lovers of peace wrote many volumes and
filled many newspapers with articles on the beneficence of that
policy and the terrors of militarism - books and articles which
were never seen in Germany except by those who regarded them as
so many confessions of national weakness. Between 1904 and 1908
Grear Britain actually reduced her naval expenditures and limited
her construction of battleships in the hope that Germany would
follow the lead, pleaded at two Hague Conferences for
international reduction of armaments, kept away from all increase
in her own almost ridiculous military establishment, urged upon
two occasions (in 1912-1913) a naval holiday in construction. The
following figures from Brassey's authoritative NAVAL ANNUAL shows
that her naval expenditure upon new ships in 1913 was actually
less than in 1904, that Germany's was nearly three times greater,
that France and Russia and Italy had doubled theirs:
---------------------------------------------------------
Great Britain/Germany/France/Russia/Italy/Austro-Hungary
----------------------------------------------------------
1904 (in British pounds)
----------------------------------------------------------
13,508,176/4,275,489/4,370,102/4,480,188/1,121,753/1,329,590
----------------------------------------------------------
1908
----------------------------------------------------------
8,660,202/7,795,499/4,193,544/2,703,721/1,866,158/716,662
----------------------------------------------------------
1911
----------------------------------------------------------
17,566,877/11,710,859/5,876,659/3,240,394/2,677,302/3,125,000
----------------------------------------------------------
1912
----------------------------------------------------------
17,271,527/11,491,157/6,997,552/7,904,094/2,500,000/3,620,881
----------------------------------------------------------
1913
----------------------------------------------------------
13,276,400/11,176,407/7,595,010/10,953,616/2,800,000/3,280,473
-------------------------------------------------------------
GERMANY'S NAVAL PROBLEM
Between 1909 and 1914 British leaders became convinced, as France
and Russia and other countries had long been certain, that
Germany meant war as soon as she was ready; that her policy was
to take the two border enemies, or rivals, first with a great
war-machine which would give them no chance for preparation or
success, to dictate a peace which would give her control of the
sea-coasts and channel touching Britain, to make that country the
seat of war preparations, naval uncertainty, perhaps financial
difficulty and commercial injury, to prepare at leisure for the
war which would conquer England and acquire her colonies. In the
first-named year British statesmen of both parties told an amazed
Parliament and country that German naval construction of big
ships was approaching the British standard, that the cherished
policy of a British navy equal to those of any two other nations
was absolutely gone, that England would be lucky if, in a few
years, she held a 60 per cent superiority over that of Germany
alone, that the latter country's naval construction was clearly
aimed at Britain and could be for no other than a hostile
purpose. British ships had already been recalled from the Seven
Seas to hold the North Sea against the growing naval power of a
nation which had 5,000,000 soldiers behind its ships as compared
with England's 250,000 men scattered over the world. From that
date in 1909 all who shared in the statecraft of the British
Empire understood the issue to be a real one - with France and
Russia as allies or without them.
What was back of this situation? Germany was already dominant in
Continental Europe. It had compelled Russia to submit when
Austria in 1908 annexed the Slav states of Bosnia and Herzegovina
and defied Servia to interfere or its proud patron at St.
Petersburg to prevent the humiliation; it had brought France to
her knees over the Morocco incident and the Delcasse resignation,
and would have done so again in 1911 if Great Britain had not
ranged herself behind the French republic; it held the issues of
peace and war between the great Powers during the Balkan
struggles of 1912 and 1913 and prevented Servia from winning its
legitimate fruits of victory or Montenegro from holding what it
had won; it had watched with delight the defeat of unorganized
Russia at the hands of Japan and saw what its writers described
as a decadent British Empire holding in feeble hands a quarter of
the earth in fee, with revolt coming in Ireland, rebellion
seething in India, dissatisfaction in South Africa, separation
upon the horizon in Canada and Australia. Here lay the secret of
German naval policy, of German hopes that Britain would remain
out of the inevitable struggle with France and Russia, of German
ambitions for a world-empire.
GERMAN AMBITIONS
The German nation had not up to the passing of Bismarck been the
enemy of the British people and until its belated entrance upon
the field of world politics and expansion the people had not even
been rivals. In the long series of European wars between 1688 and
1815, the German states were allies and friends of England. After
that, Prussia, and then the German Empire, became gradually a
great national force in the world and its spirit of unity, pride
of power, energy in trade, skill and success in industry, vigor
of development in tariffs, progress in military power and naval
construction were, from the standpoint of its own people,
altogether admirable. Following the Franco-Prussian War it had
steadily attained a position of European supremacy. Then came the
increase of population and trade, the desire for colonies, the
restriction of emigration to foreign countries.
It was a natural though difficult ambition. The marriage of Queen
Wilhelmina, and later the birth of a heir, averted any immediate
probability of acquiring Holland and, with it, the Dutch colonial
possessions, except by means of force. The assertion of the
United States' Monroe Doctrine checked German efforts which had
been directed to South America and concentrated in Brazil, where
100,000 Germans had settled and where trade relations had become
very close. British diplomacy of a trade, as well as political
character, in Persia, prevented certain railway schemes from
being carried out, which would have given Germany a dominating
influence in Asia Minor and on the Persian Gulf. Although the
partition of Africa gave the German Empire nearly one million
square miles and an obvious opening for colonization and power,
the inexperience and ineptitude of German officials in Colonial
government, the dislike, also, of Germans for emigration and the
fact that the movement of settlers abroad steadily decreased in
late years, tended to prevent, on the Continent, an expansion
which would have been assured under British colonization and
business effort.
At the same time the acquisition of these and other regions such
as Samoa was significant. Prior to 1870 Germany was a
geographical expression which meant a loose combination of States
with sometimes clashing interests, and incoherent expression, and
varied patriotism. German trade was then small, the industries
too poor to compete with those of Britain, while its people
possessed not an acre of soil beyond their European boundaries.
Since then it had become a closely-united people with an army of
over five million men - admittedly the best-trained troops in the
world; with a trade totalling $4,400,000,000 and competing in
Britain's home market, taking away her contracts in India and
some of the colonies, beating her in many foreign fields; with an
industrial production which included great steel works such as
Krupps, ship-building yards said to be of greater productive
power than those of Britain, factories of well-kept character
operating at high pressure with workmen trained in the best
technical system of the world today; with other productive
conditions aided by high protective duties and with exports
totalling (1910) $2,020,000,000 and imports of $2,380,000,000;
with Savings Bank deposits in 1911 totalling $4,500,000.0000 as
against a British total of $1,135,000,000.
Couple these conditions with Colonial ambitions dwarfed, or
unsuccessful in comparison with British success; continental
power as supreme, by virtue of military strength, as Napoleon's
was one hundred years before by the force of genius, but
hampered, as was his, by the power of Britain on the seas; a
productive force of industry increasing out of all proportion to
home requirements, competing with British commerce in every
corner of the world and threatened by a possible but finally
postponed combination of British countries in a system of
inter-Empire tariffs; a population of 64,000,000, increasing at
the rate of one million a year and having no suitable opening for
emigration or settlement within its own territories; and we have
conditions which explained and emphasized German naval
construction. Both German ambition and German naval construction
were therefore easily comprehensible.
Nor was the ambition for sea-power concealed. The first large
naval program was passed by the Reichstag in 1898 and fixed the
naval estimate up to 1903, when the total expenditure was to be
$45,000,000 - in 1906 the naval expenditure was over $60,000,000.
The second Naval Bill was passed in 1900 during the Boer War, and
the preamble to this Act stated that its object was to give
Germany "a fleet of such strength that even for the mightiest
Naval Power, a war with her would involve such risks as to
endanger its own supremacy." Other Acts were passed in 1906 and
1908, and for the years 1908 to 1917 arrangements were made for a
total expenditure of $1,035,000,000 - this including a portion of
the "accelerated program" and the Special Dreadnought
construction which caused the memorable debate in the British
Commons in 1909.
The Law of 1912 - passing the Reichstag on May 21st of that year
- provided for an addition to the program of three battleships,
three large cruisers and three small ones. During the years 1898
-1904 Grear Britain launched 26 battleships to Germany's 14, with
27 armored cruisers, 17 protected cruisers and 55 destroyers to
Germany's 5, 16 and 35 respectively, or a total of 125 to 70. In
1905-11 Great Britain launched 20 battleships to Germany's 15,
with 13 armored cruisers, 10 protected cruisers and 80 destroyers
to Germany's 6, 16 and 70 respectively, or a total of 123 to 107.
Excluding destroyers Great Britain launched 70 sea-going warships
in the first period to Germany's 25 and in the second period 43
to 37.
PREPARATION FOR WAR
Meanwhile German preparations for war went on apace in every
direction. Following up the war teachings of Nietzsche and
Treitschke and others, General Von Bernhardi issued book after
book defining in clear language the alleged national beneficence,
biological desirability and inevitability of war, which, when it
came, would be "fought to conquer for Germany the rank of a
world-power;" the universities and schools and press teemed with
militarist ideals and practices; the army charges rose to
$250,000,000 and the trained soldiers available at the beginning
of 1910 were alleged to have 6,000 field-guns; Colonel Gaedke,
the German naval expert, stated on February 24th of that year
that the German government was building a fleet of 58 battleships
and that "the time is gradually approaching when the German fleet
will be superior to all the fleets of the world, with the single
exception of the English fleet," and that in the past twelve
years Germany had spent on new ships alone 63,200,000 pounds, or
$316,000,000, while between then and 1914 she would spend
57,500,000 pounds more, or $287,500,000.
The annual report of the German Navy League in 1910 showed a
total of 1,031,339 members as against an estimated membership in
Britain's League of 20,000. Professor T. Schieman of the
University of Berlin, in the New York MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE for May
of that year, clearly stated that Germany would not submit in
future to British naval supremacy or to any limitation of
armaments. During this period, also, Heligoland, the island
handed over by Britain in 1890 in exchange for certain East
African rights, became the key and center of the whole German
coast defense system against England. Cuxhaven, Borkum, Emden,
Wilhelmshaven - with twice as many Dreadnought docks as
Portsmouth - Wangeroog, Bremerhaven, Geestemunde, etc., were
magnificently fortified and guarded. Whether dictated by
diplomatic considerations and affected latterly by the
British-French alliance or influenced by Colonial and naval and
commercial ambitions, there could be no doubt as to the danger of
the situation at the beginning of 1914. In a book entitled
"England and Germany," published during 1912, Mr. A. J. Balfour,
the British conservative leader, replied to various German
contributors and gave the British view of the situation:
It must be remembered in the first place that we are a commercial
nation, and war, whatever its issue, is ruinous to commerce and
to the credit on which commerce depends. It must be remembered in
the second place that we are a political nation, and unprovoked
war (by us) would shatter in a day the most powerful Government
and the most united party. It must be remembered in the third
place that we are an insular nation, wholly dependent upon
sea-borne supplies, possessing no considerable army, either for
home defense or foreign service, and compelled therefore to play
for very unequal stakes should Germany be our opponent in the
hazardous game of war. It is this last consideration which I
should earnestly ask enlightened Germans to weigh well if they
would understand the British point of view. It can be made clear
in a very few sentences. There are two ways in which a hostile
country can be crushed. It can be conquered or it can be starved.
If Germany were supreme in our home waters she could apply both
methods to Britain. Were Britain ten times Mistress in the North
Sea she could apply neither method to Germany. Without a superior
fleet Britain would no longer count as a Power. Without any fleet
at all Germany would remain the greatest power in Europe.
The Balkan wars proved and strengthened the power of Germany in
diplomacy and in the Eastern Question, while it showed that a
deadly struggle between nations might spring to an issue in a few
days and a million armed men leap into war at a word. The
enormous German special taxation of $250,000,000 authorized in
the first part of 1913 for an additional military establishment
of 4,000 officers, 15,000 non-commissioned officers and 117,000
men indicated the basic strength of the people's military
feeling, and ensured the still greater predominance of its army.
EFFECT ON THE EMPIRE
When war broke out on August 1, 1914, between the five greater
Powers of Europe - Great Britain, Russia and France, on the one
side and Germany and Austria on the other - the issue was at once
brought home to about 450 millions of people in America, Asia and
Africa who were connected with these nations by ties of
allegiance or government, by racial association, or historic
conquest. Of these peoples and lands by far the greater
proportion were in the British Empire and included India, Burmah,
South Africa, Australia, Canada and a multitude of smaller states
and countries. Not the least remarkable of the events which
ensued in the succeeding early weeks of the great War was the
extraordinary way in which this vast and complex Empire found
itself as a unit in fighting force, a unit in sentiment, a unit
in co-operative action. Irish sedition, whether "loyal or
disloyal," Protestant or Catholic, largely vanished like the
shadow of an evil dream; Indian talk of civil war and trouble
disappeared; South African threats of rebellion took form in a
feeble effort which melted away under the pressure of a Boer
statesman and leader - General Botha; the idea that Colonial
Dominions were seeking separation and would now find it proved as
evanescent as a light mist before the sun. The following table
indicates the nature of the resources of opposing nations and the
character of their Colonial sources of support:
Wealth/Population/Total Army/Navy/Population of Colonies
---------------------------------------------------------
Great Britain
$80,000,000,000/45,000,000/800,000/681/368,000,000
----------------------------------------------------
France
65,000,000,000/39,000,000/2,100,000/382/41,000,000
----------------------------------------------------
Russia
40,000,000,000/171,000,000/8,000,000/249/5,000,000
----------------------------------------------------
Germany
60,000,000,000/65,000,000/5,000,000/354/12,000,000
----------------------------------------------------
Austria
25,000,000,000/49,000,000/2,200,000/155/15,000,000
----------------------------------------------------
It was a curious characteristic of the press comments and
magazine articles and book studies of the War during these months
that while varied fighting was going on in the various Colonies
of these Powers and in the case of Great Britain, notably,
countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India were
pouring out men and gifts to aid the Empire, statistical
calculations usually rated Great Britain as not an Empire but
simply a nation with the wealth and population of its two little
islands in the North Sea.
Properly the $80,000,000,000 of estimated British wealth should
have e included the thousands of millions of treasure in India
and Egypt, the gold mines and diamond resources of South Africa,
the wheat fields and mines of Canada, the sheep farms and gold of
Australia and many other sources; the estimate of population
should have included the countless millions from which Britain
could draw and did draw in the day of emergency. In this vast
Empire British capital had been invested to an enormous amount -
the estimated total in 1914 being $2,570,0000,000 for Canada and
Newfoundland, $1,893,000,000 in India and Ceylon,$1,850,000,000
in South Africa, $1,660,000,000 in Australia, or a total in all
British countries of $8,900,000,000. When the War broke out these
Dominions endeavored to help the Mother Country in every possible
way and the following table shows what was done in Canada alone
during the first few months of the conflict:
THE DOMINION
Expeditionary force of over 32,000 men, fully equipped; 50,000
others under training for the front.
Over 200 field and machine guns.
Two submarines, for general service ($1,050,000); H.M.C.S. Niobe
and Rainbow for general service.
1,000,000 bags of flour.
$100,000 for "Hospice Canadien" in France.
$50,000 for the relief of Belgian sufferers.
THE PROVINCES
ALBERTA: 500,000 bushels of oats; 5,000 bags of flour for
Belgians. Civil service, 5 per cent of salaries up to $1500 per
annum, and 10 per cent in excess of that amount to Canadian
Patriotic Fund.
BRITISH COLUMBIA: 25,000 cases of canned salmon; $5,000 to
Belgian Relief Fund.
MANITOBA: 10,000 men; 50,000 bags of flour; $5,000 to Belgian
Relief Fund.
NEW BRUNSWICK: 1,000 men; 100,000 bushels of potatoes, 15,000
barrels of potatoes for Belgium.
NOVA SCOTIA: $100,000 to the Prince of Wales Fund; apples for the
troops; food and clothing for Belgium.
ONTARIO: $500,000; 250,000 bags of flour; 100,000 lbs of
evaporated apples for the Navy; $15,000 to the Belgian Relief
Fund.
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND: 100,000 bushels of oats; cheese and hay.
QUEBEC: 4,000,000 lbs of cheese; $25,000 to Belgian Relief Fund.
SASKATCHEWAN: 1,500 horses ($250,000); $5,000 to Belgian Relief
Fund
THE YUKON: $6,000 to the Canadian Patriotic fund
THE CITIES
OTTAWA: $300,000 (for machine gun sections - 4 guns on armored
motors and a detachment of 30 men); $50,000 to the Canadian
Patriotic Fund.
QUEBEC: $20,000 Canadian Patriotic fund; insuring lives of Quebec
volunteers.
MONTREAL: $150,000 (Canadian Patriotic Fund); battery of
quick-firing guns; $10,000 to Belgian Relief fund.
TORONTO: $50,000 (Canadian Patriotic Fund); insuring lives of all
Toronto volunteers; 100 horses for training purposes; carload for
Belgians of canned provisions.
WINNIPEG: $5,000 monthly to Patriotic Fund
REGINA: $1,000 for comfort of the city's soldiers; $62,500 To
Belgian Relief Fund.
CALGARY: 1,000 MEN (Legion of Frontiersmen).
HAMILTON: $20,000 Patriotic Fund; $5,000 for local relief.
BERLIN: $10,000 Patriotic Fund.
ST. JOHNS, N.B. $10,000 Patriotic Fund; $2,000 Belgian Fund
THE WOMEN OF CANADA:
Building, equipping and maintenance of "Canadian Women's
Hospital" of 100 beds to supplement Naval Hospital at Haslar
($182,857); $100,000 To War Office (40 motor ambulance cars
purchased). Women of Nova Scotia $15,170 ($7,000 to Hospital,
$5,000 Canadian Patriotic fund and rest to Red Cross).
THE BANKS AND THE PATRIOTIC FUNDS
BANK OF MONTREAL $110,000
CANADIAN BANK OF COMMERCE 50,000
ROYAL BANK OF CANADA 50,000
MERCHANTS BANK 30,000
DOMINION BANK 25,000
UNION BANK OF CANADA 25,000
BANK OF TORONTO 25,000
BANK OF OTTAWA 25,000
BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA 25,000
BANK OF HAMILTON 25,000
BANK OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 25,000
Little Newfoundland sent a contingent of 510; placed a Naval
Reserve force of 1,000 men in training and prepared a second
contingent of 500 men, while contributing $120,000 to a local
Patriotic Fund. Australia handed over its fleet of battleships
and cruisers to the Admiralty and one of these, The Sydney,
captured the Emden of German fame, while the New Zealand, a
dreadnought from the Island Dominion of that name, held a place
in the North Sea fighting line. Australia also sent 20,000 men
who saw service before the end of the year in Egypt, provided
reserves and prepared two more contingents, while sending
donations of all kinds of food supplies for the poor in Britain
or for the Belgian refugees. From India at once went a portion of
the British Army which was replaced by native troops and then a
large contingent of the latter, which took part in the protection
of Egypt and in the fighting in France.
The great Princes of India - notably the Maharajahs of Nepaul,
Gwalior, Patiala, Baratppur, Sikkim and Dholpur - placed the
entire military resources of tens of millions of people at the
disposal of the King-Emperor. The Maharajah of Rewa cabled this
splendid message: "What orders from His Majesty for me and my
troops?" The Nizam of Hyderabad and the Maharajah of Bikanir
offered not only their troops, but the entire resources of their
great states and their own personal services at the front. Bengal
gave a million bags of jute for the army and the Maharajah of
Mysore proffered 3,500 men and 50 lakhs of rupees (about
$350,000). Practically all the 700 native rulers of states in
India offered personal services, men and money. For active
personal service the Viceroy selected the Chiefs of Jodhpur,
Bikanir, Kishangarh, Rutlam, Sachin, Patiala, Sir Pertab Singh,
Regent of Jodhpur, and others. Contingents of cavalry and
infantry, supplies and transports were forwarded besides a camel
corps from Bikanir, horses from many states, machine guns,
hospital-bed contributions, motor cars and large gifts to the
Patriotic and Belgian Relief Funds. New Zealand sent a first
contingent of 8,000 troops and relief forces, prepared to send
more and promised, like Canada and Australia, to continue
training and sending troops as long as they should be required.
On the other hand Great Britain undertook to finance the actual
military operations of these countries by lending the four
Dominions $210,000,000 and undertaking to provide more when
needed.
It was with this unity, and in this spirit, that the British
Empire entered the great War for the redemption of its pledges to
Belgium and adherence to its French obligations - Russia only
coming indirectly into the first stage of the question and Japan,
through the force of its Treaty, undertaking to guard British
interests in the East.
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