Staring at God

by Simon Heffer

  Other than Holst, the only British composer of note whose rate of output seemed unaffected by war was Frank Bridge. He had a post-war reputation as an aggressive pacifist – he inspired his pupil Benjamin Britten to be a conscientious objector in Hitler’s war – but for the duration wrote works inspired by the conflict, including one he dedicated to a little girl lost on the Lusitania; and another, magnificent setting of Brooke’s third war sonnet, ‘The Dead’. Bridge, like Holst, was not a rich man, and perceived the necessity of producing works that would be performed precisely because they caught the public mood. Cyril Rootham, the director of music at St John’s College, Cambridge, set Binyon’s ‘For the Fallen’ before Elgar did, and set it superbly. This resurgence of culture continued with five of Sir Hubert Parry’s Songs of Farewell having their first performance at the Royal College of Music on 22 May 1916, a work The Times’s critic accurately described as ‘one of the most impressive short choral works which have been written in recent years.’27 What linked all these works was a tone of sorrow and regret rather than of patriotic celebration.

  On 10 March 1916 Parry made the laconic entry in his diary: ‘Wet and very cold. Wrote a tune for some words of Blake Bridges sent me.’28 The words of Blake were his poem ‘And did those feet in ancient time’. Bridges was Robert Bridges, the poet laureate. Sequestered with his piano in his house in Kensington Square, Parry wrote, on that bleak morning between breakfast and a luncheon engagement at the Royal College of Music, where he had been director since 1895, what we now call ‘Jerusalem’. Of all the permanent cultural imprints left by the Great War, this work of a few hours, drawing on a lifetime of thought and skill as a composer, was through its combination of majesty, beauty and simplicity one of the most significant.

  Bridges wanted Parry to set the words as a song for the Fight for Right movement, one of many patriotic groups set up since August 1914. Indeed, so many had been spawned (by love of country, but also out of spasms of Hun-hating) that a Central Committee for National Patriotic Organisations had been formed to coordinate their activities: Asquith was its president and Balfour and Rosebery vice presidents. The Central Committee’s aims were to create ‘such an abiding foundation of reasoned knowledge among all classes by emphasising the righteousness, the necessity and the life and death character of the struggle, as shall sustain the wills and sacrifices of the British people through the blackest days of weariness and discouragement.’29

  Fight for Right was founded in August 1915 by Sir Francis Younghusband, an explorer and former army officer. Bryce, who had exposed the wickedness of the Hun in his report on the Belgian atrocities, became president. Among the vice presidents were Thomas Hardy, Elgar, Bridges and Parry himself. It drew heavily on cultural figures associated with Wellington House’s efforts to promote Britain’s cause. Another vice president was Gilbert Murray, a liberal intellectual who had agonised about supporting the war – his pamphlet How Can War Ever Be Right? had paraded his agonies in public. Other prominent supporters included Newbolt, for whom the distinction between poetry and propaganda had disappeared, and Mrs Fawcett, the suffragist leader.30 Parry, a liberal of Murray’s stamp and no rabid nationalist, became disenchanted with Fight for Right’s direction, as it descended into rabid jingoism. He withdrew his immortal tune from the group’s use, offering it instead to the women’s suffrage movement; and when they had no further need of it, the song passed to a group whose attitude to the war was far more to Sir Hubert’s taste, the Women’s Institute.

  If such men as Parry rejected what they felt to be the extremist tone of Fight for Right, they nevertheless remained determined to fight to the death to defeat Germany and her allies. So powerful a case had the government made to the public for Britain’s declaration of war on Germany that there was very little opposition to it. Few would contemplate a negotiated settlement unless it compelled Germany to surrender all territorial gains made since August 1914. As late as 23 February 1916, when the military situation seemed hopelessly deadlocked, the House of Commons rejected the assertion of Snowden, the ardent Labour pacifist, that ordinary Germans desired peace. Asquith said his own terms had not changed since August 1914: the evacuation of Belgium and northern France, the security of France and Serbia, and the destruction of Prussian militarism. That the war would go on until those terms were met had the general agreement of Parliament and the public, though the debate about how best to wage it had hardly begun.

  III

  ‘Jerusalem’s’ appeal rests not least in how it articulates the patriotism, and love of an ideal of Christian England, that so many people felt during the war. The importance of sacrifice for a higher ideal had become a common value. Such an attitude helps explain why, although there was a fierce debate about the need for conscription, most people came to accept that it would be necessary if Britain were to prevail. While the public had a brief diversion from the war in following the trial of George Joseph Smith, the ‘Brides in the Bath’ murderer – sentenced to death on 1 July after the jury retired for just eighteen minutes – the government was, with little resistance, taking ever more control of their lives, far at odds from the liberalism practised during peacetime. It launched a massive campaign for thrift, in the hope that the public – rich and not-so-rich alike – would subscribe to the new issue of War Bonds to help finance the conflict. For the well-to-do, bonds came in multiples of £5, and the less well-off had vouchers for 5s a time. Children collected pennies, contributed to funds providing care for repatriated wounded soldiers. Money also flowed in from men in the trenches.

  Democracy was a casualty of the war. The Elections and Registrations Act postponed local elections for a year, but was later renewed until 1919; and there would be many postponements of the general election due by December 1915. The government introduced geographically restricted areas where the state would for the duration control the supply and sale of alcohol: much of Bristol, Newhaven, north-west Kent and South Wales were affected, but also an area within a 6-mile radius of the centre of Southampton, a 10-mile radius of Barrow-in-Furness and Newcastle-upon-Tyne and much of the north-east. Liverpool and Merseyside were similarly restricted. Control of drink on the Clyde was delayed pending further consultations, because of the febrile atmosphere there. When the first restrictions were introduced – in Newhaven – drink could be sold for just four and a half hours a day on weekdays and four hours on Sundays.

  As so often since the birth of a popular press, the public’s mind was conditioned and influenced by the roar of newspaper editorials: the Northcliffe press in particular preached that sacrifice – whether of life, personal wealth or time – was essential for victory. Northcliffe’s new campaign was for conscription, and the Morning Post, owned by Lady Bathurst, also took up the call. Northcliffe remained pungent about Asquith and Kitchener, telling Riddell the war would last ‘for years’ and he despaired of its current direction. He had a shred of optimism: ‘Someone will turn up. The war will disclose a genius.’31 The act of genius, or leadership, that he now thought indispensable was to fill the Army with every possible man the country could find.

  Parts of the labour movement and a hard core of Liberals disagreed with Northcliffe’s view about a commitment to what would come to be known as ‘total war’. However, the tide was turning in favour of compulsion, and military conscription was not all that was being considered; Churchill used much of his first days out of the Admiralty to draw up a memorandum on national war service, by which workers could be requisitioned to do whatever the war effort required. Esher, who for a grandee of considerable grandeur was deeply conscious of public feeling, noted in his diary on 24 June: ‘Last month, we lost 74,000 men when only fighting on a mile or so of front. What are our losses going to be when we make a really big attack?’32 Clearly thinking along similar lines, the Independent Labour Party formally announced its opposition to conscription, indicating that an attempt to bring in compulsion would be actively resisted by organised labour. The ILP maintained that ‘patriotic�
�� men were serving their country in industry and should not be ‘press-ganged’ into the Army. It claimed some workers were being forced out of their jobs by their employers and made to join up, turning the process into one of ‘class oppression’.33 A group of Liberal intellectuals was already massing against conscription: ‘What right has the state to enslave men and ship them to unknown destinations to be slaughtered?’ Hirst asked Scott.34

  Fear of compulsion began to underpin industrial unrest, or the threat of it, even in jobs so essential to the nation’s future that the chances of men being conscripted were minuscule – such as in the South Wales coalfield, which supplied coal to the Navy and to the munitions industry. The Miners’ Federation of Great Britain insisted its members would not be brought under the industrial regulations the munitions minister had thrashed out with other trades, as central control would lessen the federation’s power. Some of the most radical union officials – not usually found in the higher reaches of the MFGB, hence their relative conservatism – were influenced by the type of syndicalism that had predominated in France before the war, and which the most extreme socialists saw as a means of mobilising the unions for revolution. By early July it was believed a stoppage in the coalfields was imminent. Runciman, as president of the Board of Trade charged with preventing this, had been told by Asquith not to go to Cardiff to referee a fight between masters and men, because ministers were wasting too much time dealing with disputes. However, so nervous were coal-owners of falling foul of the government that they had placed the negotiations entirely in its hands. The South Wales dispute was settled by a narrow vote on 30 June, but nationally miners wanted an agreement for higher wages if they were to increase output; some South Wales miners did not return to work.

  Riddell arranged for Runciman to meet the miners’ leaders privately in London on 6 July, and a meeting of 2,000 miners’ delegates from all over Britain was scheduled for the following day, before the agreement to hold it broke down. On 12 July South Wales rejected Runciman’s latest proposals and threatened to strike from the 15th: they demanded a minimum wage of 5s 6d a day, whereas Runciman would promise only that all surfacemen earning less than 3s 4d a day would be raised to that rate. The government declared the strike illegal under the Munitions of War Act, and warned strikers they could be fined £5 a day. The MFGB recommended the men stay at work and persist in negotiations. Undeterred, Scottish miners demanded a 25 per cent increase.

  Labour politicians were reluctant to support the miners; Snowden described the idea of striking with a war on as ‘unthinkable’.35 The great meeting of MFGB delegates was rescheduled for 21 July. Robert Smillie, the MFGB president, feared the government would use the Scottish unrest as an excuse to take an even heavier hand. In the event nearly 200,000 South Wales miners went out on strike, claiming the owners would stockpile coal and use it when the war ended to bring down its price and, therefore, miners’ wages. A general munitions tribunal was established to consider offences under the Act, but stayed its hand while discussions continued behind the scenes: the miners, using Riddell as a conduit, asked him to convey their terms to Runciman. Many miners became agitated by how the action of the most militant was harming the reputation of all colliery workers: one South Wales agent said that ‘we shall have the whole world against us, excepting Germany, Austria and Turkey.’36

  The militants were listening to no one, least of all their supposed leaders, and this recklessness caused grave concern to the government. It was bad enough that this one important region had walked out; but ministers realised they could not give in, or there was a serious risk that the problem would become national. On 19 July Lloyd George, Runciman and Henderson went to Cardiff to meet the strikers. The newspapers highlighted reports of French disgust and German amusement at the miners’ action. The ministers talked into the night with the miners’ leaders: and then put out a statement confirming that ‘no government responsible for a colossal war of this nature could possibly allow a continuance of a conflict between capital and labour to imperil the chances of victory.’37

  A day of talks on 20 July resolved the strike, with a compromise offered by Lloyd George. He played the miners like the proverbial violin, congratulating ‘my fellow countrymen’ on their good sense when he spoke at Cardiff to mark the settlement.38 He assiduously briefed the press to ensure the credit went entirely to him: it was reported that his tough talking to the miners about the catastrophe they could unleash made them see reason. He was said to have been hard-line with the owners too. In fact, the terms the miners accepted were those Runciman had offered three weeks earlier: the two variations were a promise of immunity for strikers, and an additional 10 per cent was found for the miners. The agreement would remain in force for six months after the war.

  The other, and perhaps more important, factor in the settlement was how unpopular the syndicalist agitation was with rank-and-file miners, who had disliked being accused of treason. However, there would be many more disputes in vital industries, usually triggered by the belief that proprietors were reaping unfair profits because of the emergency, and their employees wanted a share. Increases in excess-profits taxes would answer that complaint, though never entirely. As soon as the strike was settled, the King left Windsor for a national tour of munitions factories: but by the end of August unrest had broken out again in the Rhondda; and matters became so tense between coal-owners in the north-east and miners over an 11 per cent war bonus that Asquith had to convene a meeting in Downing Street between the two parties to find common ground. Meanwhile Lloyd George, the lustre taken off his reputation as a miracle-worker, was sent back to Cardiff with Runciman to try again. Unrest remained widespread in South Wales until September. Although Lloyd George had oversold the ‘deal’ earlier in the summer, he and Runciman continued to try to soothe the miners. A meeting on 31 August had suggested paying a bonus to a wider group of workers, something the owners found unacceptable; after a few more hours of negotiations they gave in and paid what was asked.

  Amid the industrial discontent, the pressure on Asquith over conscription had been mounting since the spring: as long ago as 21 May The Times had published a letter from a Major Richardson in which he complained of the sight that met him when he had returned from active service after having seen ‘the mangled mass of humanity after Ypres’: ‘I came across scores of lusty, able-bodied young men walking about in smug complacency, utterly callous and indifferent to the anguish of their brothers, so long as they got their war bonus.’39

  Asquith was pressed in the Commons on 7 June about the need for a programme of ‘compulsory military training for all healthy young men in Great Britain who are not required for other Government work’. Conscious of having to keep his party behind him, he denied there was such a requirement; which put him at odds with what Lloyd George had said in Manchester about the importance of everyone manning the pumps when a house was burning down. Asquith’s questioner, Major Rowland Hunt, then asked: ‘Is the Rt Hon gentleman aware that the people are tired of waiting for action to be taken to make those who will not volunteer do their share?’40 Yet it was not just ‘shirkers’ who were at fault; bad central organisation, and tales of volunteers hanging around waiting to be properly trained, continued to deter men in some districts from enlisting. The MP for Mansfield, Sir Arthur Markham, told Asquith that when Britain needed all the coal it could get, ‘there are many miners withdrawn from their work in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, and Derbyshire nine months ago who have not yet got rifles’.41

  The same day, The Times had noted that the casualty list that morning – 80 officers and 5,500 men, bringing the total for the week to nearly 900 officers and 20,000 men killed, wounded or missing – was ‘surely sufficient to take away the scales from the sleepiest eyes.’42 Worse, ‘these losses, it should be borne in mind, have not been suffered in a great action which would bring us appreciably nearer to the termination of the struggle. They represent the ordinary wastage of war as it is now being prosecuted’. The pape
r feared the toll had been so high because of inadequate supplies of munitions; another reason to ensure the ‘mobilisation’ of the whole community, as Lloyd George had suggested. It was as well the public was becoming used to such appalling losses, because the logic of the argument was false: tactical mistakes by generals, rather than a lack of munitions, were exacting an ever greater toll. However, The Times did identify the inextricable link between compulsion and industrial conscription. The more men who were put under arms from vital industries, the more women or underage boys were needed to take their places.

  On 5 July Asquith, Balfour, Kitchener and Crewe went to Calais to meet Joffre. Kitchener, in a private meeting with Joffre beforehand, had again committed Britain to put seventy divisions in the field. With the war at stalemate, much of the pre-war professional Army killed or wounded, and the first of Kitchener’s army in the trenches and being killed, it was unlikely these divisions could be raised without conscription. Lloyd George, increasingly allied with the Tories, was breaking from his party’s traditional position, irritating colleagues as a consequence. A Commons speech on 1 July in which he attacked von Donop annoyed Asquith, who sensed a conspiracy. He told Crewe, one of his most trusted colleagues, that ‘Lloyd George’s attitude … was quite inexcusable. Some of our colleagues go so far as to think that the whole thing was a put-up job, to which he was party. He assured me yesterday morning that this was not the case. Even so, his conduct was very bad.’43 The relationship between prime minister and munitions minister was breaking down. Asquith’s task would be made even harder by his wife, who became a figurehead of the anti-conscription campaign, to the annoyance of the Unionists.