Staring at God

by Simon Heffer

  In an apparent echo of the prime minister’s disdain for Haig, Geddes announced to the Commons in early January 1918: ‘The Government has gone most carefully into this question of casualties. While seeking not to hamper the action of our Commanders in the field by judging their actions by the casualty returns alone, it is determined that carelessness with regard to human life and thoughtlessness with regard to casualties shall be stamped out wherever it appears.’14 It showed the public, at least, what the government thought of the Somme and Passchendaele; and may have been a calculated move by Geddes to prove to a restless population that had endured such misery that the government understood their feelings.

  However, he had also to ensure he did not provoke resignations by senior commanders. ‘I do not wish to be misunderstood. We are accusing no admiral or general of recklessness or of disregard for human life. The Government is laying down a perfectly plain, general principle which I am abundantly clear ought at all times, and more especially at this time, while we await the coming of America, to guide the Government in its supervision over the action of the Commanders whom it has appointed.’ He reaffirmed that the government still believed it would do more harm than good to introduce conscription to Ireland. A million men had been granted exemptions; and Geddes did not rule out the possibility that some had been obtained corruptly.

  The debate on the proposed law to remove automatic exemptions by trade allowed one of the government’s most consistent critics, William Pringle, an Asquithian Liberal, to deride the coalition for having taken thirteen months to address the manpower problem. He taunted the Treasury Bench with the observation: ‘We know that the situation of this country and the Alliance has never been worse than it is to-day. The Minister of Munitions said only a day or two ago that the British Empire was now hanging in the balance. That is a very serious situation.’15 He claimed there was now such an oversupply of shells that piles were ‘rusting’ in France.16 A measure of desperation was shown when James Macpherson, under-secretary at the War Office, admitted on 17 January that ‘the question of the employment of coloured men in the fighting line has received, and is now receiving, the most careful consideration. Every possible use is being made of their services in the various theatres of war.’17 Elements in the Army and politics had long resisted the idea of black men serving with white ones. The next day Lloyd George spoke to another group of trades unionists, their cooperation essential for the success of Geddes’s scheme, with an even starker message than before. ‘My own conviction is this: the people must either go on, or go under.’18

  While politicians and soldiers squabbled about what to do next, British military intelligence was becoming aware that, with the war against Russia over, the Germans meant to use all their resources to drive Britain and France under. The German army (which put boys of eighteen in the line whereas the British Army, officially at least, waited until they were nineteen) was redeploying what the government estimated to be at least 950,000, and possibly as many as 1,600,000, men from the Eastern Front thanks to the Russian ‘secession’ from the Allies.19 Even The Times wrote about German troops now ‘swarming westwards’. For the first time since 1914 it seemed as though the German army might be in a position to go back on the offensive. That was precisely the plan. Exactly a year before the Armistice, on 11 November 1917, Erich Ludendorff, the German Quartermaster General, chaired a meeting of senior officers at Mons to discuss strategy. It decided that ‘we must strike the English’.20 The reasoning was straightforward. On the home front matters were, as the British public was constantly (and truthfully) being told, worse in Germany than in Britain. The blockade had created huge food and fuel shortages, and other necessities, such as clothing, were in short supply. Allied manufacturing of armaments now outstripped Germany’s, thanks to Lloyd George’s effective mobilisation of the munitions industry in 1915–16. The withdrawal of Russia from the conflict meant that resources on the Eastern Front could be transferred without disadvantage to the west. And above all, the Americans, after extensive training and superbly equipped, were coming. For the Germans it was, essentially, now or never. The target would be the BEF on the Western Front.

  Churchill wrote bluntly to Lloyd George on 19 January 1918: ‘I don’t think we are doing enough for our army. Really I must make that point to you. We are not raising its strength as we ought. We ought to fill it up at once to full strength.’21 He was right – perhaps more right than he knew – but Lloyd George had not taken him into his confidence about his fear of letting Haig loose with huge amounts of manpower. Indeed, the prime minister saw things rather differently. In early 1918, with the Russians out, the Italian army wrecked, the French hobbled by poor morale and the BEF lacking men, he had expected the war to last into 1919. Depressed by his military advisers and their repeated failure, Lloyd George sought to shake up the Army’s command and find new ideas and new means of victory. He had tried to clip Robertson’s wings by setting up the Supreme War Council, but then told Scott on 19 December 1917 that he intended to replace Robertson with Sir Henry Wilson.22 Wilson and Lloyd George understood each other, sharing the view that French generals were better than British ones. Wilson’s rampant ambition made him pliant where his master was concerned. His presence on the Supreme War Council meant there would be a higher chance it would offer advice that the prime minister felt happy to accept. Wilson’s addiction to political intrigue had handicapped him until he met an admirer in Lloyd George, who perhaps saw in him a kindred spirit. Esher wrote of him at this time: ‘Henry Wilson … is one of the cleverest fellows we have; unfortunately, he dabbled in politics and, like so many Irishmen, is fond of the shillelagh. This has done him harm, which, perhaps is irremediable, and, if so, the Army and the nation are both heavy losers.’23

  Over breakfast on 28 December 1917 Lloyd George told Scott: ‘The generals are absolutely callous as to the gigantic casualties and order men to certain death like cattle to the slaughter. Again and again splendid men have been ordered to do perfectly impossible things, such as to advance against uncut wire and enfilading machine-gun fire.’24 It outraged him that when everyone in the chain of command relayed upwards the impossibility of such tasks, GHQ decreed: ‘Tell them to obey orders.’ That was why Lloyd George wanted Robertson and Haig’s powers restricted. The CIGS was his first target, even though Derby had told Lloyd George that if Robertson went he would resign as Secretary of State for War. Haig learned of the plans for Robertson on New Year’s Day 1918, when seeing Derby in London.

  Haig, as usual, harmed his own cause, by casting doubt on the likelihood of a German offensive when talking to Derby before his return to France; and therefore undermining his appeal for more manpower. He believed the Germans would in time move thirty-two divisions westwards, but felt a widespread attack would be too costly; he spoke from experience. Haig’s political stupidity in expressing his feelings so openly dismayed Robertson, who was arguing day and night for more troops to be sent; although Haig was right that if the Germans tried and failed they would be finished – hence his belief that they would not. Haig seems to have started to tone down his demands for more men in an attempt to conceal the full extent of the damage the disastrous 1917 offensive had done to the Army, which would have been clear at once had he told Derby what he really needed; he had earlier claimed 116,000 men were necessary to replace those losses.25 Derby – who shared Robertson’s goals – was also angry at Haig’s blunder, and told Robertson to advise him, in future, to think before opening his mouth. ‘You do not understand these people as well as I do,’ Robertson told him, referring to the politicians and their ability – especially Lloyd George’s – to twist anything to serve their purposes. Haig and Derby lunched with Lloyd George on 9 January, and Derby bet the prime minister 100 cigars to 100 cigarettes that the war would be over before 1919; Haig agreed, shrewdly, ‘because of the internal state of Germany’.26

  It was not only Robertson among senior military advisers whom Lloyd George and, by extension, the War Ca
binet sought to disregard. When General Maurice reported on 11 January that signs of a German offensive were increasing, he noted: ‘Cabinet don’t believe in this offensive and think Germans really mean to attack Italy and perhaps Salonika.’27 A shortage of men was causing the British Army to wind up 120 battalions, just as the Germans were moving troops from the Eastern Front. Amery reported that Lloyd George ‘cannot get it out of his head that Haig and Co are almost indifferent to casualties and are really clamouring about the danger of the situation in order to have men enough to try another bloody attack as soon as the Germans show signs of not attacking themselves.’28 The British were dancing to the tune played from Versailles, where the view was that the Western Front was so stable that troops would be better deployed in the Middle East. By 26 January Maurice was recording: ‘relations between LG and WR rapidly becoming impossible.’29 This might also have been because the prime minister started to sense that in some regards Robertson might have been right: intelligence that there were 600,000–700,000 more Germans on the Western Front than previously thought had, according to Amery, ‘upset LG’s basis on which his plans are built.’30 Indeed, on 7 February 1918, at a meeting of the War Cabinet, Major General Sir George MacDonogh, director of military intelligence, announced that ‘since October last thirty German divisions in all had been transferred to the Western front’ and the enemy could move ‘twenty-seven more’.31

  II

  By the late winter of 1918 the state’s control over civilian life was ever more absolute. Throwing away food still fit for human consumption was criminalised. Those with any land were encouraged to grow food and to keep pigs, but were warned not to feed them on anything that might be eaten by humans. A national debate broke out on how to feed them, which The Times earnestly termed ‘the pig question’: ‘No-one who has the slightest knowledge of the pig can deny that he possesses many admirable qualities’, the paper observed, one of which being that he would happily gorge himself on ‘refuse materials’.32 Inevitably, the government oversaw the manufacture and distribution of special ‘cake’ for pigs, comprised of the by-products of palm kernel and coconuts, instituting a government pig-feeding scheme. The next step was the urging of groups of rural householders to form pig clubs, and rear herds collectively.

  Prosecutions for breaking food regulations, notably for selling at the wrong price or wasting food, became ubiquitous, with middle-class householders particularly liable for prosecution for hoarding. Some astonishing war chests were found: a John Robertson, of Burstow in Surrey, was convicted on 9 March of having 95 pounds of sugar, 161 pounds of flour, 55 pounds of rice, 42 pounds of treacle, 45 pounds of biscuits, 9 pounds of margarine, 33 pounds of tea, 100 pounds of oatmeal, 41 pints of soup and 234 Oxo cubes.33 His household comprised his wife, an adult daughter, a ten-year-old son and two servants, with two other sons away at school, though he alleged that members of his extended family were staying at the time. He was fined £50 with 32 guineas costs, and all food beyond four weeks’ supply was confiscated. Companies and wholesalers, too, were frequently victims of the regulations, not because of their wilful disobedience of them but because they were sometimes so complicated to interpret. Offenders included Lipton’s the tea merchants, who operated by appointment to Their Majesties.

  The meat rationing scheme imposed on the Home Counties on 25 February – photographs of Their Majesties’ ration cards appeared in the press to illustrate the equality of sacrifice underpinning the war effort – was made national on 7 April: it should have happened on 25 March, but the bureaucracy was not ready, not least in computing the extent of supplementary rations for men on heavy manual work. Offal, too, was rationed, and it was urged that people eat more game – snipe, plover, rabbit, hare and the ubiquitous wood pigeon. It took butchers ages with each customer to check the ration card; but by mid-March the worst was over. The hope of making Britain self-sufficient in bread was abandoned too: and J. R. Clynes, who succeeded Rhondda as food controller on his death on 3 July, warned the War Cabinet that a lack of feed threatened livestock production, and the availability of working horses. And although on 30 April the exemption for agricultural workers aged eighteen to twenty-three, granted during the food crisis of 1917, was felt able to be lifted, and a recruitment target of 30,000 set, this move proved unrealistically optimistic. A plan to plough up yet more disused arable land was abandoned because of manpower shortages, despite the best efforts of the Women’s Land Army. Partly as a result, widespread food rationing was introduced in July.

  It was not only scarcity of food that affected the public. In late March, because of a shortage of coal and electricity, shopkeepers were banned from illuminating their windows, and restaurants and theatres were ordered to close earlier. The London Underground also closed early and ran few Sunday trains; and railway services, already heavily curtailed, were pared down even further, with many branch lines closing on Sundays. Tobacco wholesalers were warned that if they did not improve distribution the state would do it for them, and tobacconists were reminded that selling their products other than at the regulated price was a summary offence. Manpower shortages had widespread effects. So few men were available that trial by jury was restricted in civil cases; and the upper age for jury service was raised from sixty to sixty-five. Most buildings, public or private, had not been maintained since before the war. Paint was peeling and drabness ubiquitous. By the late winter of 1918 Britain and the British were down-at-heel and subdued. Clothing and fabrics were scarce, with mills devoted to producing miles of khaki instead of materials for suits and dresses. And it was not just life that was being compromised; the British Undertakers’ Association warned the public of a scarcity of coffins, because of the lack of elm timber. Elm was in fact plentiful: but the government’s distribution system was useless. Rather than mend it, the government suggested papier-mâché coffins.

  Fuel shortages led to the rationing of gas and electricity supplies; restaurants had to stop serving food at 9.30 p.m. and all places of entertainment had to close by 10.30 p.m. to save fuel. The government opened National Kitchens to help provide takeaway meals of soup, stews and puddings for those without fuel with which to cook. Bank holidays were still suspended and going on holiday was deemed unpatriotic. Train services were often disrupted because of the difficulty in maintaining the lines, and fares had increased substantially.

  Despite all the privations, stresses and fears of the last phase of the war – or perhaps because of them – creativity continued, as did some sort of life of the mind and a search for recreational and intellectual refreshment. War had not suffocated art, but as it became more intense produced lasting artistic works. A cultural life, of a sort, continued, and provided new inspiration: though much of what the war inspired would not come to fruition until the years after it. H. G. Wells, prolific during the war as before it, published The Soul of a Bishop, describing a spiritual crisis allegorical of a nation questioning its faith after severe loss and privation; less profound, but more controversial, was Alec Waugh’s The Loom of Youth. Poetry made more of a lasting impact. T. S. Eliot published Prufrock and Other Observations, a slim volume including ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, first published in a magazine in 1915. The pamphlet was an early modernist statement, the main poem using a stream of consciousness and extensive allusion. The Times Literary Supplement was contemptuous; of its contents it wrote: ‘They have no relation to poetry.’34 Robert Graves’s first volume of verse, Fairies and Fusiliers, celebrated his friendship with Siegfried Sassoon, whose own poems, The Old Huntsman, with a dedication to Thomas Hardy, also appeared in 1917. Ivor Gurney, who had trained as a composer at the Royal College of Music, published his volume of poetry Severn and Somme in November 1917: Gurney had shown signs of manic depression before the war, and being wounded and gassed while the poems were being written and published intensified his mental problems. He had written songs in the trenches, and resumed studies under Vaughan Williams after the war, writing several minor works: but his
mental illness became so intense that he spent much of his life – he died in 1937 – in asylums. Edward Thomas’s Poems was published shortly after his death at Arras: Gurney set nineteen to music.

  There was a social side to music, in terms of its public performances and presentation of new works, that suggested a continuing sense of civilisation in a time of profound bleakness. At a concert in the Queen’s Hall on 22 October 1917 Lady Audley’s Suite, a work for string quartet, had its premiere and a rapturous critical reception: ‘The most promising new work we have heard from an Englishman for some time.’35 It was remarkable in more ways than one. Its composer, Herbert Howells, had been rejected for military service for medical reasons: he had been diagnosed with Graves’ disease – an illness of the thyroid – and given six months to live. There was one possible cure – radium treatment, discovered the previous decade by the Curies. Howells, whose father was a bankrupt Gloucestershire shopkeeper, could not afford it. His teacher at the Royal College of Music, Sir Hubert Parry, could, and told Howells he would pay for it. Howells lived into his ninety-first year, and became perhaps the greatest composer of English church music in modern times, dying in 1983.