100 Years Ago - Palestine

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/the-censure-division-bv9vkdbk2

may 10, 1918

The censure division

The Prime Minister defended himself so successfully against General Maurice’s charges today that the House of Commons rejected Mr Asquith’s motion for the appointment of a Select Committee to investigate the matter by 293 votes to 106 — a Government majority of 187. Extraordinary interest was taken in the debate. There was a big crowd outside the House, and the Chamber was crowded from end to end.
Mr Asquith’s speech was not one of his best efforts. He did not seem sure of his ground, and never recovered from a bad start. He devoted the greater part of his speech to a laboured argument directed to the need of an inquiry into General Maurice’s charges.
The Prime Minister quickly got into his stride. Facing the issues raised by General Maurice, he declared that he had been treated unfairly. While he was in daily contact with General Maurice, whom he regarded as a great friend, he had never challenged the statements in his letter. He now proposed to give the facts in public with a detailed examination of General Maurice’s charges. On the fighting strength of the British forces in France on January 1, 1918, he explained that the figures he gave were taken from the official records of the War Office. Next, he had been charged with misleading the public as to the comparative strength of the Allied and enemy forces when the offensive began. He pointed out that the figures on which he had based that statement came from General Maurice. He mentioned that General Maurice, although in the building at Versailles, was not in the Council Chamber when the question of extending the front of General Gough’s Army was discussed. Finally, speaking with great earnestness and carrying the House with him, he pointed the moral of the Maurice incident. He insisted that the letter was a flagrant breach of discipline, and respectfully suggested that Mr Asquith ought to have deprecated it.

He warned the House that the Germans were silently preparing perhaps the biggest blow of the war. With the fate of the country in the balance, he demanded an end of “this sniping”. It was a great Parliamentary effort, and a large section of the House clearly felt that there was nothing more to be said.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lords-debate-on-pacifism-5cjpgqbbj

May 9, 1918

Lords debate on pacifism

In the House of Lords today Lord Denbigh called attention to pacifist activities in the country, and Lord Beaverbrook explained the steps which the Government had taken to counteract them. In a vigorous speech, Lord Denbigh laid special emphasis on the ignorance displayed in the country about the Eastern aspect of German ambitions. He showed how this had been steadily exploited by pacifist agencies, and moved a resolution regretting that stronger measures had not been taken to combat the agencies in this country which were serving the interests of the enemy. Lord Beaverbrook set a fine example to both Houses by speaking so distinctly that the Press Gallery enjoyed the unusual experience of hearing every word of a Ministerial statement. He agreed that up to the time of the German offensive, pacifist activities had been assuming considerable proportions. There was now, according to the Ministries of Labour and Munitions, very little industrial unrest. That, he explained, was largely due to the offensive.

Dealing with the Press, Lord Beaverbrook pointed out that the supply of paper, which before the war amounted to 8,000 tons of newsprint a week, had fallen to 2,000 tons. He announced, however, that the Ministry of Information had invited the Government to increase the supply. It was hoped that, if anything could be done in that direction, the newspapers would use the additional supply to bring our war aims to the knowledge of the country. Turning to his propaganda work, Lord Beaverbrook stated that the Ministry of Information had made an agreement with the War Aims Committee relating to cinema and photographic exhibitions. The Ministry had made arrangements by which a semi-weekly cinema news service would be seen by 6,000,000 persons this week, and by 12,000,000 persons weekly in a short time.
Lord Curzon wound up the debate for the Government, and reminded the House that, although there were papers of the most contemptible kind, the vast majority were on the right side. In any case, he uttered a warning against a tendency to exaggerate the influence of pacifist agencies, and asked the peers to take heart from the fact that the spirit of the population was right. In the end, Lord Denbigh withdrew his motion.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/british-airmans-adventure-35w6kf3mq


may 8, 1918

British airman’s adventure

It is a soft, grey day, overhung with clouds, and the air is full of moisture. These last three days seem to have put an end to the Germans’ luck in the matter of weather, which has lasted since the offensive began. Enough rain has fallen materially to increase their difficulties in moving troops and transport in the shell-hole areas. In Flanders much of the country has become a quagmire. Even in Flanders, however, heavy rains now cannot have more than a temporary effect. When the storms interrupted our offensive of July 31 last, and went on through a large part of August, it was too late in the year for the ground to recover, as the inhabitants told us at the time. The moisture now can hardly have the same continuing effect, and, except in the waterlogged valley of the streams, the dust will doubtless soon be flying again. Meanwhile, we are quite content that the Germans should, for a while, have experience of the loathsome difficulties of the mud which we have known so often.

The thick weather is naturally bad for aeroplane work, but the Royal Air Force continues to do very well. One of our pilots had a thrilling experience a few days ago, when, falling in with an enemy patrol of 12 machines, he pluckily attacked the rearmost enemy, which was flying above and behind the others. The German dipped to avoid him, but he followed, and, firing into it at short range, sent it down, and saw it fall out of control. Meanwhile six enemy machines turned on our man, who put his aeroplane into a sprint, and went whirling down through the rest of the formation, chased and fired at as he went. His control was shot away, and his machine plunged to within 100ft of the earth, when it miraculously flattened out of its own accord so suddenly that it broke its own back, and snapped the fuselage in two under the pilot’s seat. Seeing that the crash was coming he had loosened his belt, and was jerked clear, to reach the ground unhurt. The enemy opened on him with machine-guns on the ground, and, as each came by, some within a distance of 30ft, he answered with his revolver. Happily the unequal duel was interrupted by some British infantry, who made it so hot for them with rifles and machine-guns that they drew off, and left our man unhurt, after as dizzying an experience as man could go through.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/truth-of-ministerial-statements-3kdb095gr


may 7, 1918

Truth of ministerial statements

To the Editor of The Times,
Sir, My attention has been called to answers given in the House of Commons on April 23 by Mr Bonar Law to questions put by Mr G Lambert, Colonel Burn, and Mr Pringle as to the extension of the British front in France (Hansard, Vol 105, No34, p815). These answers contain certain misstatements which in sum give a totally misleading impression of what occurred. This is not the place to enter a discussion as to all the facts, but Hansard’s report of the incident concludes: “Mr Pringle: ‘Was this matter entered into at the Versailles War Council at any time?’ Mr Bonar Law: ‘The particular matter was not dealt with at all by the Versailles War Council.’ ”
I was at Versailles when the question was decided by the Supreme War Council, to whom it had been referred.

This is the latest of a series of misstatements made recently in the House of Commons by the present Government. On April 9 the Prime Minister said: “What was the position at the beginning of the battle? Notwithstanding the heavy casualties in 1917 the Army in France was considerably stronger on the 1st January, 1918, than on the 1st January, 1917. (Hansard, Vol 104, No24, p1,328.)”
That statement implies that Sir Douglas Haig’s fighting strength on the eve of the great battle which began on March 21 had not been diminished. That is not correct.
Now, Sir, this letter is not the result of a military conspiracy. It has been seen by no soldier. I am by descent and conviction as sincere a democrat as the Prime Minister and the last thing I want is to see the Government of our country in the hands of soldiers. My reason for taking the very grave step of writing this letter are that the statements quoted above are known to a large number of soldiers to be incorrect, and this knowledge is breeding such distrust of the Government as can only end in impairing the splendid moral of our troops. I have decided, fully realizing the consequences to myself, that my duty as a citizen must override my duty as a soldier, and I ask you to publish this letter in the hope that Parliament may see fit to order an investigation.
I am yours faithfully,
F. MAURICE, Major-General, Kensington Park Gardens.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-05-05/register/the-coming-peace-offensive-rnk0mr9fp


may 5, 1918

The coming “peace offensive”

Lord Robert Cecil’s warning to the Allies that they must be on their guard against a renewal of the German “peace offensive” is timely. There are all sorts of signs that an attack of this kind is impending, and we must not allow it to take us by surprise. To judge from some of the criticisms made upon Lord Robert’s remarks, it might almost be supposed that the Foreign Office were nervous lest Germany, at the very height of her great offensive in the field, was about to come forward and tender the Allies a genuine capitulation. Of course she contemplates no step of the sort. Were there the slightest reason to suppose that she is ready to submit to our conditions, the Foreign Office would be the first to rejoice. It is not an honest admission of defeat and an honest acceptance of its consequences against which we have to guard. It is a sham peace movement, like the many sham peace movements she has already attempted, that Lord Robert foresees. They are a well-known instrument of the old diplomacy, never employed with more cynical astuteness or with more conspicuous success than when Metternich used it to detach the support of French opinion from Napoleon by the pretence of offering generous terms after Leipzig. Negotiations of the sort are not preludes to peace; they are weapons of war. They are designed for both the home and foreign markets. In the present case it is doubtless hoped that “peace talk” will have a heartening effect upon German sentiment, which is suffering from a renewed fit of depression. The uses of a “peace offensive” abroad are manifest. It is intended to divide the Allies, and “to break the home front of our enemies”. Germany’s object is to gain time in which to settle her people under the fresh disappointments and privations which are throwing a new shadow over them, and any indication of weakness in an Allied country would tend to accomplish it.

The lull continues on the Western front, but all soldiers know that it is ominous of fresh attacks. Still, the information we receive about the plight of our enemies at home encourages the belief that the strain is telling more and more severely upon them, and should determine us to turn a deaf ear to any insidious overtures they may make.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-05-04/register/sleeping-in-gas-masks-r0wq39gtg

may 4, 1918

Sleeping in gas masks

You have already been told the heroic story of the defence of Kemmel, and if in the later stages we had intelligence of the surrounded garrison only from aeroplanes, it was because the French runners were nearly all killed, and, with the enemy all round, it was impossible to send messages. French officers speak in the highest terms of their runners, some of whom got through with messages after hiding up to their necks in water while the German infantry went by. Equally heroic were the stretcher-bearers, who had to bring the wounded over two kilometres of exposed road. Many were killed, and it is recorded of one French ambulance crew that they worked for six days and nights without rest, only finally to be killed.

The Germans, attacking behind a barrage, got through on both sides of Kemmel, and fighting of the fiercest description went on between Dranoutre and Locre. The French, after the enemy got round them into Dranoutre, re-formed in a wood just behind the village, re-attacked, and drove the Germans out.
For two days it was a constant struggle against the rising tide; French units or small parties were again and again surrounded, and fighting breathlessly, facing in all directions, then somehow filled up the gaps, and held on again. The attack of the 29th was once again preceded with very heavy gas shelling, so that the French soldiers once more slept and passed the night in masks. Fortunately, a brisk wind was blowing, which dissipated the fumes quickly, so the casualties from gas were negligible, but the men say that they had to put on and take off their masks 50 times in the course of the day. The German attack was assisted by a great fleet of aeroplanes, which flew low and bombed and fired their machine-guns at the French positions.
The whole French performance was very gallant. One platoon fought for two days, surrounded on all sides and quite isolated, and never gave a yard of ground till assistance came and relieved them. It is characteristic of the fatherly care which the French commanding officers take of their men in the main positions, that through it all the French troops got their rations of wine and beefsteak, though these had to be brought up under conditions of incredible difficulty.