War Chips
Horatio Tillett and Ben Bottomley have been at it again, cutting new sticks to beat the old enemy dog with. Invariably, however, the sticks beat both ways, and the beaters often got beaten hardest.
The other day I found in a train a copy of that shining example of capitalist journalism, “John Ball.” In it that illustrious “labour” champion, Tillett, argues that it is the ruthless German war machine which still holds Europe in a hell of blood and flame. Only the German war machine, of course, is murderous and designed to make fillets of Tilletts ! Naturally ! At the same time other capitalist worthies sneer in glaring posters at the infamous “peace intrigues” treacherously engineered by the “Huns.” It’s such a terrible Hunnish business to engineer “peace intrigues” and try to stop unspeakable slaughter and untold misery !
Those same worthies also keep emphasising the Allies’ superiority in men, munitions, money and warships ! There they are, waiting, those superior warships with superior guns and superior names ! Of course, they are not murderous war machines ! Have they been built for catching rattle-snakes ?
In December 1910, that is over four and a half years before the war, there appeared in the “New York Truthseeker” the following poem-prayer, which Tillett might advantageously learn by heart, he being so given to offering up prayers :
“At Portsmouth Dockyard, this morning, after a brief service of prayer, the Marchioness of Winchester successfully released from the slips H.M.S. Orion—the greatest warship in the world.”—London Daily Paper.
O Thou who reignest King in Zion,
Look on us as we launch the Orion,
Designed Thine images to kill,
Obedient to the Heavenly will.
The captain from his conning tower
Directs with ease the deadly shower ;
We use the very latest means
To blow our foes to smithereens.
With confidence we ask Thine aid
To make our enemies afraid ;
Help us, oh God of love, right well
To blow the Germans into Hell.
This Orion on whose deck we stand
Is built to guard our Fatherland,
Look down, we pray, pronounce it good,
For thou, we know, art British blood.
The coal and iron in the earth
Were placed there at this planet’s birth
To build and move these ships of ours,
To terrorise the other powers.
When on the sea this Orion roars,
Strike terror to the foemen’s shores ;
May all the shots it fires be hits,
And blow our brother men to bits.
Oh God of battles, by Thine aid
This mighty Empire has been made.
Inspire our tars with holy zeal
To murder for the common weal.
Some day we know that war shall cease,
And all mankind will be at peace,
‘Twill dawn when every foe is dead,
And all the maps are painted red.
Bless Thou our ships and guns till then.
The glory shall be Thine. Amen.
Our prayer is ended, yo heave ho !
Knock out the stays and let her go.
I give “John Bull” permission to reprint this timely poem in its illuminate pages, which enlighten those top-hatted and empty-headed City hooligans who snatch up that delicate catch-penny value.
Lately the ornament to British journalism in question has been celebrating its tenth birthday amid hymns of self-praise and self-glorification, in true keeping with its nauseous contents. It modestly claims to have made the world a better place ; and all its prophecies have come so true, yea, much truer than truth itself ! Take this, for instance : On July 11th, 1914, three weeks before the war broke out, “John Bull” had an article entitled “The Murdered Archduke,” in which it tried to prove the complicity of the Servian Government in that sordid business. Two columns of first-class blackguardism launched against “our gallant little ally,” Servia, calling her a gang of blood-stained regicides, etc., finished up as follows :
“Need we say more? The next step is with Sir Edward Grey. Will he have the courage to deal with the matter as the facts demand ? In any case we must have no diplomatic parleying and platitudinising. SERVIA MUST BE WIPED OUT !”
Thus the great Horatio was right again ! Servia, alas, has been wiped out !
Need I say more ?
Another publication, not far removed from the same stamp, seems the official blue-book on “German Outrages.” Having read many stories of enemy treachery in our worthy patriotics which had a decided tendency to shrink from the light of reasonable examination (for which they obviously were not written), I was full of hope to get at last some hard, solid, cast-iron official outrages arid treacheries. Had again ! So I am afraid I have to go back again to “John Bull,” if someone will kindly leave another copy in the train.
Starting rather toward the back of the Blue-book so as to experience advanced thrillers at the very beginning, I read on page 278 as follows :
“Near Armentieres, some time in November, one morning about 6.30, the Durhams got surprised and retired ; we reinforced to take the trenches. Our major led us up and we retook the trenches; Major C . . . put a field-dressing on the arm of a wounded German, and when he turned away the German shot him. We bayoneted him.”
It seems quite good, at first sight—for Bill Higgins ! Of course, some thinking person might impudently turn again that awkward light of closer examination on that short and sweet tale, and put a few ticklish questions. But ah, who told you to do this ? This is not what the book was written for, is it ? Look at the depicted situation. There lies the wounded Hun, apparently helpless, left behind in the trench captured by the British. The major himself, mark you, kind soul that he is, dresses his wound, leaving him, with the rifle all the while ! Majors are so kind—and they have such a lot of spare time on hand when they have just captured a trench ! Further, is it such an easy thing to shoot with an injured arm ? And so you may keep asking questions—if you don’t insist upon a reply ! “We bayoneted him” is the laconic finish. What did they do while the German shot the kind major ?
On page 281 we read :
“At Troyon, on the Aisne, on 30th September (our first day there) about 12 noon, a number of Germans were seen coming over the crest of the hill in front of the West Yorks, holding up their hands and also holding up white flags. The officer in command of one company of the West Yorks ordered his men to lay down their arms and then advance to receive the Germans, who were to surrender. On getting within speaking distance he was informed in English that if they did not all surrender they would all be shot down. At the same moment the front (German) rank dropped on their faces and disclosed a machine gun behind. Moreover, the Germans in front had rifles on the ground beside them, which they took up and began firiug. The company officer of the West Yorks was killed ; the rest surrendered. This was about a mile from where I was. I was looking through my field-glasses.”
On a section of the slaughter front length the men are ordered to lay down their arms and advance ! Is it to have their arms free to give the “Hun” a hug that they lay down their weapons, or what ? The officer was killed, the rest surrendered—no one is left to tell the tale. The captain witness was looking through his field glasses a mile away, yet—he heard the Germans talk in English ! Marvellous !
There are the usual Red Cross and White Flag tricks in stately numbers, various shades, and different settings ! Picture yourself a great Christian slaughter-field, just hundreds of miles of it. Up goes the German white flag ; out jump the Tommies from their dug-outs like Jacks from a box, unprotected and unarmed, merely to be shot down by the treacherous “Hun” ! Poor, simple Tommies ! Kiddies playing “war” around our slum hovels know better than that ! And it is generally a private or a N.C.O. who relates the tale. Frequently they mention many hundreds of men and numbers of officers killed, wounded, or captured by such methods. Are such occurrences not of sufficient importance to be referred to specifically in despatches of the top Army bosses ?
And then, of course, the girls. No Germhun (and the enemy are all Germhuns) can, according to our worthy patriotics, pass a woman without committing some outrage or other. Here are two extracts from one of the leading London newspapers :
“Some of the ladies, when seen by a Press representative, expressed their admiration of Germany, and one of them said she had no home in England and expressed regret that she had left Germany.
“I wish I was back there now,” she said. “I have been, extremely well treated in Berlin, and when we were coming away therewere huge cheering crowds on the station. You may be quite sure I shall go back again as soon as ever the war is over.”—”Daily News,” 8.3.16.
“Frederick Brooks, alias Jones (38), a private in the Worcester Regiment, was remanded for a week at Plymouth on a charge of murdering Clara Gregory, aged 12, by strangling her in a field at Lower Compton.—”Daily News,” 31.6.16.
War, of course, and for that matter the capitalist order (or disorder) in general, in peace and in war, is a fruitful breeding-bed for outrage and treachery, at, any time and everywhere. And war itself, pure and simple, is but an outrage and a treachery at its best.
Higgins, Bill, when will you start thinking ?
H.