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SIR DOUGLAS HAIG moved north-east from Ypres, taking up the line Zonnebeke via St. Julien to Bixschoote-names very familiar to us to-day-where he joined hands with the Gheluvelt French, but he found the Germans in immense strength and evidently determined to break through to the coast.

Here began the epic period of the First Battle of Ypres. The position was that from La Bassée to the Forest of Houthulst a slender British line, with French support at a few spots, and with French and Belgians extending the front to the coast, was holding up an immeasurably superior German force.

The attacks were incessant, the line swayed backwards and forwards, and upon our side "whole battalions virtually disappeared." The 7th Division, which had recently landed with 400 officers and 12,000 men, came out of this terrible battle with 44 officers and 2300 men. Daily were fresh miracles wrought.

The great fight waged by Allenby with his dismounted cavalry and the London Scottish at Messines Ridge on November 1 was almost as vital as anything in the whole conflict. The fierce struggle of Byng and the 3rd Cavalry Division at Kruiseik and Zanvoorde on October 29 and 30, the long stand of the 3rd Corps farther south, are imperishable features of the operation; in fact, Lord French in his dispatch insisted on giving to the battle the name of Ypres-Armentières.

But in every decisive battle there is a decisive moment when destiny hangs in the balance. This moment came in the afternoon of October 31 in the area held by Sir Douglas Haig and the 1st Corps. We quote the Times' account:

About Gheluvelt the line of the 1st Division was broken and the Division fell back. The commander, General Lomax, was wounded, several of the staff were killed, the whole Division had suffered heavy losses. The Germans got into Gheluvelt, and it seemed that the whole front must give. Then came one of those moments in war when a single clear-sighted man can sometimes avert disaster. It was the 2nd Worcesters who saved the day, and therefore the battle, and it was Brigadier-General Charles Fitzclarence, killed twelve days afterwards, who instantly saw the danger, and though they were not under his orders, bade the Worcesters retake Gheluvelt.

THE 1st Division rallied gallantly, and though for another fortnight there was constant peril, the line never again yielded. The Kaiser hastened to the battle-field in person, but the Six to One tide had turned that Saturday afternoon, and the Channel ports were saved, and it may be England and Europe. There have been various estimates of the German strength in this tremendous conflict, some say they had a million men that autumn between Lille and the sea, others put them as low as 600,000. This figure is anyhow certain, viz. that the British at

one time had less than 100,000 men and never above 150,000. As our leading journal, which has rendered conspicuous service in paying this moving tribute to the heroes of the First Battle of Ypres, observes :

British arms never won a more glorious victory. It is one in which our French Allies played an honourable part, as was seen when General Moussy threw in even the cooks and other servants to support the 9th French Corps at Klein Zillebeke. Though we are fighting on a bigger scale to-day, our brave new armies are advancing over ground hallowed for us by our splendid old Regular Army, whose deathless deeds in 1914 we should ever keep in remembrance.

THE public have watched the great achievements of our great Army in this titanic struggle with ever-growing admiration, not untinged with restiveness at the apparent churlishGovernment ness of the Government in withholding all official and Army recognition from Sir Douglas Haig and his officers and men. Our Talking Men habitually talked upon every topic except our Fighting Men, which was the most entrancing of all, and there was a rising of suspicion that the soldiers were deliberately cold-shouldered for ulterior purposes. Possibly prominent politicians (who were fully prepared to be seen "out on the balcony" winning the war if it could be won by eloquence) had contracted from their Continental friends that jealousy of military achievement which, if conceivable in countries where it is liable to menace the existing regime, is ludicrous in our country where the Army stands altogether apart from politics. It was likewise suspected that there had been civilian interference with strategy— the distribution of "little packets " could not be otherwise explained-nor was rumour allayed by an indignant semi-official denial that "tactics" had been interfered with. Those who confused strategy and tactics might equally mistake their own functions as politicians. Audible murmurs at last arose against the boycott of the Army, happily set at rest by the intervention of the War Cabinet, which on October 16, through the Prime Minister, sent this hearty congratulation to Sir Douglas Haig, giving equal satisfaction at the Back and Front, accompanied as it was by the announcement that at last there would be congratulatory votes of thanks to our Forces in both Houses of Parliament, which will be passed while these pages are in the press:

Oct. 16, 1917. The War Cabinet desire to congratulate you and the troops under your command upon the achievements of the British Armies in Flanders in the great battle which has been raging since July 31.

Starting from positions in which every advantage rested with the enemy, and hampered and delayed from time to time by most unfavourable weather, you and your men have nevertheless continuously driven the enemy back with such skill, courage, and pertinacity as have commanded the grateful admiration of the peoples of the British Empire and filled the enemy with alarm.

I am personally glad to be the means of transmitting this message to you and to your gallant troops, and desire to take this opportunity of renewing my assurance of confidence in your leadership and in the devotion of those whom you command.

Mutiny in the
German Navy

(Signed) D. LLOYD GEORGE.

THE Germans make such a business of bamboozling the world and are so boastful of their tricks and traps that it is only natural that everything they do should be regarded with suspicion. Probably for this reason a considerable section of the British Press refused to take the Mutiny in the German navy at anything like its face value, and seemed almost nervous lest emphasis be laid upon it. In so far as this was due to a wise desire to discourage exaggerated estimates of the enemy's difficulties, which has been one of our besetting sins during the last three years, we entirely sympathize. But it would seem as though there might be another element with which we have less sympathy. Some among us have allowed themselves to become hypnotized through prolonged contemplation of the extraordinary efficiency of the German Superman, with whom it is deemed impossible for anything to go wrong. These professional pessimists are ever ready with some glib explanation of everything that seems to go amiss in Germany, and warn us that the enemy is more formidable than ever. This school, which bears no small measure of responsibility for "cold feet " in high places, is equally penetrated by a sense of British inefficiency and amateurishness. Au fond, even were they unconscious of the fact, they regard it as contra natura for unready, disorganized, individualistic England to defeat the ever-ready, highly organized, scientific, calculating, far-sighted Fatherland. They are quite as heavy a burden to carry as professional optimists who won the war on its outbreak and have declined ever since to look one day ahead, or make further preparation. Our pessimists would take all the heart out of us and make us feel that we were engaged on a forlorn hope, whereas as a matter of fact if we resolutely discard

all extremes and doggedly do our duty by ourselves and our Allies (exercising a reasonable amount of common sense, foresight, and courage), we can make a dead certainty of bringing down the Boche, who has the defects of all his qualities to such a degree that, nation for nation, Germany has no advantage over Great Britain. What our pessimists forget is that in the long run it is character that tells, and if this war has shown one thing more than another, it is that whatever may be the case with British Politicians, the British people are true to type and are as great, if not greater, than they ever were.

We have no wish to exaggerate the mutiny in the German navy, still less to draw perilous conclusions from it, but we are impressed

Capelle's
Indiscretion

by the fact that every one we know with any working knowledge of Germany regards it as a portent, and one from which decidedly encouraging inferences may be drawn. A mutiny in any navy is sufficiently serious, but a mutiny in the German navy is more significant and more unexpected than elsewhere, because the discipline is so terrible that an actual outbreak indicates deep and determined discontent. Scarcely less serious than the mutiny itself was its public admission by the Minister of Marine in the Reichstag (October 9), one of the worst blunders ever perpetrated even by a German Minister. Admiral von Capelle declared that alarming rumours were in circulation. Grave as was his statement, we may be sure that the facts were much worse, and that as a result of their demoralizing existence of the last three years, cooped up in the High Canal Fleet with occasional spells in submarines, of which a large number never return, the German fleet, though still formidable, is not what it was. Indeed, since this startling incident we have had further proof of its condition, as the natural thing would have been to restore its moral by an attack on the British Navy. Instead of which the authorities only dare send it against a detachment of the Russian navy, which had itself been lately a prey to mutiny in which very many of the best Russian officers were killed. No serious student of Germany could read Admiral von Capelle's statement without realizing that something very advantageous to the Allies had happened-though it would be gloomy news to our Grand Fleet if it lessened the prospect

of a decisive encounter with the enemy. Admiral von Capelle said:

It is unfortunately a sad fact that the Russian Revolution has also turned the heads of a few people in our fleet and introduced revolutionary ideas among them. According to the crazy plans of these few people, some leaders were to be selected on board all vessels to incite all the crews in the fleet to disobedience, in order, if necessary by force, to paralyse the fleet and to enforce peace.

For the Imperial mouthpiece in the Reichstag to admit that there were Pacifists in the service which Wilhelm II regarded as peculiarly his own is a nasty knock for the All-Highest. We need say nothing of the inevitable effort to hold the Independent Social Democratic Party responsible for this mutiny, which provoked cries from the tame Reichstag of " transparent swindle." Admiral von Capelle made matters no better by adding:

As regards subsequent occurrences in the fleet, I can make no statement here. A few unprincipled and disloyal persons who committed a grave offence have met the fate they deserved, but nevertheless I want to state from a public platform that the rumours which are current, and naturally also come to my knowledge, are immensely exaggerated. The preparedness of the fleet was not in doubt a single moment, and thus it shall continue to be.

FROM Amsterdam came the story by Reuter, which is a responsible agency careful in collecting its facts-more than can be said of all other agencies, some of which seem to think Details any silly gossip good enough for the British public. The outbreak took place on four German battleships at Wilhelmshaven, of which one was the Westfalen, whose captain was thrown overboard and drowned by the mutineers, who then with their comrades from other ships went ashore, where the marines refused to attack them. But an Oldenburg regiment appeared on the scene and they surrendered. We are also told that besides the mutiny on the battleships, a light cruiser, the Nürnberg, mutinied, the crew seizing their officers and sailing in the direction of Norway, where they sought internment, but unfortunately on the way the Nürnberg fell in with a torpedo-boat flotilla, whose commander was wirelessed from Wilhelmshaven to stop or sink her, upon which, her crew being surrounded, surrendered, and she was brought back to Wilhelmshaven. The Kaiser, it is said, accompanied by the Imperial Chancellor, subsequently appeared on the scene and ordered one out of every seven mutineers to be shot, but Herr Michaelis objected (though naturally all this is

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