The Telegraph Book of Readers' Letters from the Great War

by Gavin Fuller

  NO HONOURS FOR S.W. AFRICA

  SIR – The lists of honours awarded for valiant exploits in sundry theatres of the war have been read with satisfaction by the public; they have brought much gratification to the friends of officers and men who have been decorated.

  Is it not passing strange that not a single honour has been given in respect of the one complete and successful campaign as yet accomplished?

  The danger and the stress of the South-West Africa campaign were appalling. Many officers and men who fought and won are now on the eve of starting to share fresh perils. Is there to be no recognition of what they have already done?

  Yours faithfully,

  A Friend

  15 December 1915

  THE CLERGY AND MILITARY SERVICE

  Value as Officers

  SIR – Could not clergy be enlisted as officers, and so give service to their country? The duty of officers is mainly to instruct the men, and to lead them on, and to inspire them in the battle. Sometimes they are not armed themselves, or only have some weapon for defence, but they are examples of pluck and courage, and if they are, as they should be, men respected for example, and trusted for sound judgment, they are readily followed by their men, who will dare, and if need be die, under their leadership.

  Besides this, a clergyman should have a healthy influence amongst other officers, and need not lose any part of his sacred calling by serving in the equally sacred cause of resisting wrong and contending for the right. The clergy, more than most men, are accustomed to command and instruct, so that the duties they would have, as officers in the Army, would be quite congenial to them.

  Yours faithfully,

  Canon

  OBEDIENCE OR CONSCIENCE

  SIR – The letter of ‘Emeritus’ in your issue of 11 December puts very forcibly the arguments in favour of military service for the clergy, but inasmuch as it leaves out of sight the main argument on the other side, it is liable to give a wrong impression. The younger clergy do not need any encouragement to serve their country at such a time as this. All they need is permission, and so long as that is withheld they are not free to go, however willing and anxious they may be to do so.

  The real fact is – and it is not as well known as it should be – that the clergy are bound by their ordination vows to obey their bishop, and so long as the bishops refuse to give permission to serve, the clergy are hopeless in the matter. Every clergyman at his ordination, whether as priest or deacon, has to answer this question: ‘Will you reverently obey your ordinary and other chief minister, unto whom is committed the charge and government over you: following with a glad mind and will their godly admonitions, and submitting yourself to their godly judgments?’ And the answer to the question is given in these words: ‘I will so do, the Lord being my helper.’

  Now – whether this is technically equivalent to an oath or not – it is certain that any man who diverted from this requirement would be refused ordination; it is one of the express conditions on which he receives his commission, and if so, he is certainly not at liberty to disregard it on any ground of private judgment. For if he is, then there is clearly an end of all order and discipline in the Church.

  Whether the bishops are right or not in the attitude they have taken up is open to question. There are probably many besides myself who gravely doubt the wisdom of their decision. But that does not in the least alter the fact that, so long as the bishops are of their present mind in the matter, so long will it be impossible for the clergy to offer themselves for the service of their King and country, as many of them are longing to do.

  The letter of ‘Emeritus’ seems to assume that the decision is left to the conscience of the individual, but in this he is mistaken. All that is left to the conscience of the individual is the question whether it is right for a clergyman to bear arms – and on this there may well be differences of opinion – but so long as the clergy are not free to bear arms, under the terms of their commission, argument on this point must be purely academic. It is rumoured that the bishops themselves are not of one mind on the subject, but this does not appear officially, and until they give official permission to the clergy to offer themselves for service, it is only fair to the latter to remember that they are absolutely prohibited from doing so.

  Clericus

  ‘ONCE A PRIEST, ALWAYS A PRIEST’

  SIR – The fact that a man has in common with many another lost one of two sons in the war cannot excuse him exploiting his animus against the Church of England by making a cowardly anonymous attack upon her clergy. He, and such as he, may be reminded of the Divine injunction to ‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s’, and in this light to read the Ordinal, for which purpose a prayer book can easily be borrowed.

  The Church of England, being a part of the Catholic Church, naturally accepts the principle laid down by the Church from the first, that men in holy orders shall not bear arms – a principle which must surely recommend itself to all thinking people who have any regard for the fitness of things. Against this seemly principle the opinions of individual bishops are absolutely valueless. Cases that can be quoted of militant prelates only provide instances of flagrant violation of the rule.

  While it is, of course, common knowledge that military service was forced on French priests by an anti-Christian State, one has to learn on better authority than that of your fatherly correspondent that the Roman clergy of any other nation are serving as combatants. And our younger clergy will doubtless be quite content to be classed as ‘the meanest of shirkers’ in such noble company as that of the Eastern, and notably the Russian, clergy, whose ministrations to the troops are recognised as such an energising asset.

  Protestant preachers, whether of the Scottish establishment or of the legion English sects, are in an altogether different category, since where amongst them there is any ‘ordination’, no claim is made to indelibility of character, as in the Church. ‘Once a priest, always a priest’. The suggestion that the place of the clergy should be taken by women argues either an ignorance or a contemptuous ignoring of an Apostolic injunction governing the universal practice of the Church, and in consequence will not carry the slightest weight with any reverent-minded person.

  As for your correspondent’s characterisation of the ‘arguments of the Archbishop as to comfort, consolation, &c.’ as ‘nonsense’, I submit that the whole tone of his letter shows that in this, as in other points, he is obviously talking of matters wholly outside the sphere of his experience, and that this fact also vitiates his concluding aspersions on the Church of England and her clergy.

  Yours, &c.,

  M.E.M. Donaldson

  Croydon

  THE PRIMARY DUTY

  SIR – I am quite sure that many of your clerical readers agree rather with ‘Emeritus’ in today’s issue of your paper than with some of the bishops. It is very questionable whether the latter fully understand the whole position, as they are scarcely in any degree whatever in touch with the people.

  A parochial clergyman knows fully what are his pastoral duties, just as well as the bishops do; and if it is clear that that is our primary duty we shall most of us stick to it, whoever disagrees with it, unless, of course, the State calls us up, and then we shall follow out Article 38, to which even every bishop has subscribed, ‘It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the magistrates to wear weapons, and serve in the war.’ ‘Christian men’ of course includes bishops, priests and deacons.

  The Speaker said a few months ago that if a German force landed on our shore we needed every man to be ready. What could the clergy do in such an emergency if their sons and others were abroad? There is not sufficient defence in walking about with a pastoral staff.

  I am, personally, very disappointed at the attitude of the bishops. Let them point out manfully that a clergyman is not doing wrong in shouldering a rifle, and being ready to defend his home, his country, his King, the honour of his
wife and daughters and other men’s wives and daughters, but also state plainly that whilst getting ready by learning to shoot, learning ambulance work, &c., they should comfort their flocks, visit the dying, preach the Word. ‘Put your trust in God, and keep your powder dry.’

  I venture to say most of us are far more helped in this matter by my Lord of Carlisle than all the other statements by archbishops and bishops put together.

  Yours truly,

  A Vicar

  Lancashire

  A MATTER FOR THE BISHOPS

  SIR – Your correspondents who are in favour of the clergy entering the Army as combatants appear to omit the following considerations:

  1. That an ever-increasing number of chaplains are urgently needed for the Army and Navy.

  2. That the work of the Church at home must be carried on and extended, and that the more strenuous part of it requires young and strong men.

  3. That if there is grave danger (by depleting the ranks of young medical men) of injuring the future physical health of the nation, how infinitely more important is it to provide for its spiritual needs.

  4. It is a question for the ecclesiastical authorities alone to decide. The clergy owe the same allegiance to their superiors as do the officers of the Army to theirs. Could one imagine our archbishops attempting to incite men to defy Lord Kitchener or Sir John French?

  Yours obediently,

  Churchyard

  JOURNEY TO DEATH

  Terrible Stories of Armenian Sufferings A Million Lives

  SIR – Herewith I send you some further details of the cruelties practised in the massacres and wholesale deportations of Christians by the Turkish Government in Asia Minor. These come via the United States, from sources on which the fullest reliance may be placed – foreigners engaged in hospital work in a town where several streams of deported Armenians converged at a stage, in their journey to death.

  Names and other indications that might lead to identification are necessarily suppressed, to avoid danger to persons referred to, including a high Turkish official who tried to alleviate the cruelties, but was not permitted to do so.

  Lest I should trespass too far upon your space I omit a careful estimate by a competent authority of the total destruction of life. Taking the total numbers of Armenians in Turkey at about two million, he thinks nearly a million have perished.

  Faithfully yours,

  Bryce

  I

  After a time large numbers of the exiles at X were allowed to find shelter in the town, where they rented houses, and for a time were better off. But they were not allowed to rest in quiet. Suddenly the order would come from the police that all were to leave for Y, and the whole number who were in the town, perhaps five thousand, would be driven (and I mean literally driven under the lash) into the streets with all their goods, and be rushed to the encampment. There, perhaps, a hundred wagons would be ready, and five hundred people find places and be sent off. The rest were then left to stay in the encampment or bribe their way back to the town again and re-rent their houses until another alarm and driving forth. Every such onslaught meant several mejids of expense for every family for transporting their goods and bedding to and fro, and this in addition to the bribes paid to the police for the privilege of going back to the town. Such bakshishes had to be paid to the police for every favour asked, from mejids (about 3s 2d) to liras (slightly less than £1 sterling). No one could go to present a petition to the Governor without bribing the police first.

  In the encampment the police would come along in the morning and order all tents in a certain section taken down, saying they were to start for Y, and this order would be enforced instantly with scourge and club. The terror of the people from the reports they had of that journey ‘beyond’, of pillage, murder, outrage, stealing of girls, and starvation, was such that they were always ready to purchase a few days’ respite if they had any money to do it with. No train or wagon is ready, so when enough money is brought out the people are graciously allowed to put up their tents again twenty feet away from their former site. The sick, the aged, none were respected. The people have described to me the terror of that constantly recurring order, ‘Down with the tents’, with the whip behind it.

  Robbery, Outrage, Murder

  The Armenians of Z sent here were forced to come by wagon. The Circassians of the region knew of it, and followed after and robbed them and shot one girl. Gendarmes were sent out after the Circassians, and only took their turn in the stripping of the party. Another party sent in the same way was attacked at night by Circassians, and one of the men shot through the thigh, a horrible wound. He died here in the hospital a few days later.

  Hardly anything makes me so hot as the thought of the soldiers’ families. The men, the fathers, brothers, sons, husband, are serving in the Turkish army as loyally as any, and their families, their children, with wives and sisters, are driven off in this inhuman manner. Soldiers’ families are also said to be exempt from deportation, but in countless cases they are swept away with the rest. The wife must put in a special petition claiming her relationship. This petition has to be paid for, for she cannot write Osmanli. Oh, I wish you could see the abominable cruelty of the treatment and the diabolical ingenuity of the ways to strip them of all their money before having them die. For that is where it will surely end for all of those people unless some means of stopping it is soon found.

  I must add a report from K, from which I have tonight received what I have every reason to believe to be an accurate account. Some two or three weeks ago about two hundred of the chief Armenians were imprisoned, then taken at night in wagons, thirty or forty at a time, to the river bank and there killed. Eighteen of the employees of the railway and the director of the bank were among these. I had this on good authority then, and it is confirmed now. Within this past week all the Armenian men, whether Gregorian, Protestant or Catholic, have been taken, stripped to shirt and drawers, tied together and taken away and heard of no more.

  The women and girls have been distributed to the Turkish villages, and Turks coming and looking over the girls and choosing what they wanted. I could give you the name of one of the wealthiest men in K whose wife and three daughters were taken away before his eyes and who went crazy. Three hundred boys were circumcised. The name of the railway official was told me who saw a hundred of these done and reported it.

  II

  It is terrible to refuse asylum to girls whom we know to be in danger. Yesterday an unusually pretty and refined young girl of fifteen was brought to us by her parents; she had been pursued all the way from W by an Army officer, but they had been able to elude him, and the police as well. Our hospital is too public to shelter her, and we are still looking for a place for her. Most of the people in town are scared to do anything at all, foreigners included, but we don’t propose to show the white feather, and are only waiting for certain official persons to return from X, where they went a few days ago in order to get larger liberties for Red Cross activities. At present our hospital has taken in all the soldiers and refugees that it can, and we are seeing sick refugees in the clinic all day long.

  Today I counted twenty-one women and children in one of our waiting rooms mostly lying on the floor from sheer exhaustion, one child moribund, two others nearly so, and half the rest of the group quite likely to die in a few days if they are allowed to remain where they are in the camp. Many of the villagers are mountaineers, and lying out in the hot dusty plain by day and exposed to the cold of night they quickly succumb. Today I took a little girl into the hospital who had been perfectly well until four days ago, when everything was stolen from the mother and she had no place to lay her except on the ground, so that she quickly got up a dysentery and died a few hours after admission to the ward. The family were respectable Protestant people from V. Hardly had the little girl died and the sheets been changed than another child, this time a boy, was put into the same bed; his leg had been cut off by a railroad car, apparently there was nobody to take
care of him. We found that the mother had been forcibly separated from her children further back on the road.

  Their Only Crime

  In that same ward lies a young girl who has recently had her leg amputated for the same accident, and who today was crying and screaming because some friends had told her that her parents had suddenly been deported to X without having been given a chance to see her. It is all horrible, horrible – no mere description can adequately portray the awful suffering of these unfortunate people whose only crime is that they are Armenian.

  These people are being deliberately done to death at a sufficiently slow pace to allow their oppressors the opportunity of choosing out such of their women and their goods as they care for and getting all their money away from them before they die. Dr and Mrs A. went through the massacres of 1894 and 1896, and they and Miss B and I have been through two revolutions, one massacre and two wars since then: but we all agree that we have never seen anything like this. Another outrageous side of it is that many of the fathers and brothers of these women and children are in the army fighting the country’s battles: such was the case of the dying child that was brought to the clinic this afternoon, and another who will probably be in the same condition soon.

  16 December 1915

  FOUND ON THE BATTLEFIELD

  SIR – Two pencil and wash drawings have come into my possession, as follows:

  1. A Lady; the drawing having the following written on it: ‘A Sketch for Arthur’s dug-out. – L.H.’