https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/court-circular-9tdqztvrn
MAY 8, 1917
Aircraft and submarines
To the Editor of The TimesSir, It would be foolish to assert that there is any single remedy against submarines; but has the value of aircraft, including seaplanes, been sufficiently realized by the Admiralty? What is the problem? It is to “spot” the submarine. Now what does nature teach us here? The common spectacle of gulls hovering over a shoal of fish, the rarer instance of the mullet hawk or osprey and the kingfishers spying out their prey beneath the surface and descending from a height like an arrow upon it in shallow waters are examples of what nature has evolved in the immemorial warfare of the bird against the fish. Again, no one who has looked over a bridge at a river can fail to have noticed that while it is difficult to see from the level of the bank it is easy to see fish from above. The same law holds good with aircraft and submarines. No patrol boat, however vigilant, can see submarines, submerged or on the surface, as well as aircraft. Aircraft, like patrol boats, can warn with wireless telegraphy vessels on their course, besides possessing greater rapidity, and better facilities for dropping “depth charges” or bombs.
Renewed attention has been paid to the use of aircraft for “spotting” and attacking submarines since Sir E Carson came to the Admiralty. But, without wishing to embarrass the Admiralty, may we ask is their general attitude sympathetic? Not long ago, I am told, seaplanes were described by a senior official as “those toys”. Toys, Sir, in the nursery and in real life have a knack of affecting the destinies of the world. The first motor-car and the Wrights’ first glider were “toys” in that sense. We who believe in the future of aircraft smile to ourselves when we think what our toys will do in a few years, both on sea and land. Warfare today, for the first time in history, is conducted in three dimensions: (1) length; (2) breadth; and (3) depth and height. Are our statesmen as well as our war staffs, aided by science and imagination, thinking what new situations this change has created? In the undersea and the air, directly or indirectly, will this great war and future wars be decided. And the terms of peace — when it comes — will be greatly influenced by air and undersea facts and possibilities. Yours, &c, montagu, 62 Pall Mall, S.W.1, May 4.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-05-06/register/the-attacks-at-bullecourt-xwjgc7btw
may 6, 1917
The attacks at Bullecourt
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may 6, 1917
The attacks at Bullecourt
The long spell of fine weather was broken yesterday afternoon by a gale, accompanied over part of the battle area with thunder and rain. Today is bright and clear again, but colder, and the wind is very high. Another day has passed without any important movement, though there has been some sharp fighting in the north just below Lens, where we gained some ground, and in the south about Bullecourt, where the situation remains very interesting. Here we have broken through the Hindenburg line and hold positions well to the east of the village and on the Riencourt road. In the village itself we are also in the Hindenburg line, and have apparently got some foothold, but the whole place is very obstinately defended. In the original attack the Australians carried all their ground at great speed, getting through and beyond the second line trenches of the Hindenburg system in less than an hour’s fighting. English troops broke into the village, and at one point on the north side well beyond it. The village, however, was full of machine-guns, and these troops were unable to hold all the ground gained. The Australians on the right thus held a salient into the German lines, with both flanks practically unprotected, and in this position they were subjected to a rapid quadruple counter-attack. They beat off the attacks with the help of the artillery, in praise of whose work they are enthusiastic, and the ground won they still hold. In their attack the Australians got two minenwerfer, which they have been using against the enemy. The officers among the prisoners speak of Bullecourt as untakeable, saying that we shall get it only when the Germans choose to give it up, but the Germans have said the same many times of positions which soon became ours without any visible willingness on the enemy’s part.
A curious companion picture to the German Corpse Utilization Factory is the experiment which the Germans are now making with a new artificial fodder for horses, made from animal offal, bones, and undigested food extracted from the stomachs of dead animals. This appetizing forage is known as Fleischfuttermehl, and certain regiments are now experimenting with it, but whether they are also experimenting in eating the flesh of horses fed on it is unknown.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-royal-academy-a-high-average-ljmcvcbmq
Whether or not the Academy be better than usual this year, it seems better because there are fewer pictures. Perhaps for this reason the hanging is better, and everything conspires to put the critic in a good temper. Being thus in a good temper, it seems to us that the average is high, and we are inclined to overlook the fact that some of the chief positions are occupied by very bad pictures. If for some not artistic reason very bad pictures must be hung, they should not be proclaimed the best that the Academy has to offer. The fruiterer knows better than that; he does not put rotten or unripe strawberries on the top of the basket.
It is, we think, also a symptom of the serious mood of the nation that there are not many attempts to make artistic, or inartistic, capital out of the war. There are a few tawdry and vulgar war pictures, and a few allegories which are almost worse; but for the most part painters have forborne to remind us inadequately of all we are going through.
The most prominent subject picture in the exhibition is Mr Lavery’s “Madonna of the Lakes” (84). One may describe it as a ritual picture; but the figures, being realistically painted, look as if they were performing in a tableau vivant. In fact, the mixture of ritual and realism is utterly unreal, and the artist seems to have felt this, for his main effort is spent upon the shimmering robe of the Madonna. That catches your eye first of all — it is painted just as Mr Lavery paints the dresses of his fashionable ladies; and then you ask what they are all doing and cannot find an answer.
Of the works of the late JW Waterhouse, the best, perhaps is the unfinished “Enchanted Garden” (131). Mr Edgar Bundy’s “Dispatches — Is He Mentioned?” (172), makes but a distant allusion to the war, since the breakfast service is so much more interesting than the people who are reading the dispatches. It is really a very clever piece of still life with two irrelevant figures. Mr Strang has not made his “Youth and Age” (271) quite credible. You may call it allegory, but even in allegory the figures must seem all to belong to the same world, and here they do not. We wish that Mr Strang would abandon his great talents to fierce realism.
A curious companion picture to the German Corpse Utilization Factory is the experiment which the Germans are now making with a new artificial fodder for horses, made from animal offal, bones, and undigested food extracted from the stomachs of dead animals. This appetizing forage is known as Fleischfuttermehl, and certain regiments are now experimenting with it, but whether they are also experimenting in eating the flesh of horses fed on it is unknown.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-royal-academy-a-high-average-ljmcvcbmq
MAY 5, 1917
The Royal Academy. A high average
From The Times, May 5, 1917Whether or not the Academy be better than usual this year, it seems better because there are fewer pictures. Perhaps for this reason the hanging is better, and everything conspires to put the critic in a good temper. Being thus in a good temper, it seems to us that the average is high, and we are inclined to overlook the fact that some of the chief positions are occupied by very bad pictures. If for some not artistic reason very bad pictures must be hung, they should not be proclaimed the best that the Academy has to offer. The fruiterer knows better than that; he does not put rotten or unripe strawberries on the top of the basket.
It is, we think, also a symptom of the serious mood of the nation that there are not many attempts to make artistic, or inartistic, capital out of the war. There are a few tawdry and vulgar war pictures, and a few allegories which are almost worse; but for the most part painters have forborne to remind us inadequately of all we are going through.
The most prominent subject picture in the exhibition is Mr Lavery’s “Madonna of the Lakes” (84). One may describe it as a ritual picture; but the figures, being realistically painted, look as if they were performing in a tableau vivant. In fact, the mixture of ritual and realism is utterly unreal, and the artist seems to have felt this, for his main effort is spent upon the shimmering robe of the Madonna. That catches your eye first of all — it is painted just as Mr Lavery paints the dresses of his fashionable ladies; and then you ask what they are all doing and cannot find an answer.
Of the works of the late JW Waterhouse, the best, perhaps is the unfinished “Enchanted Garden” (131). Mr Edgar Bundy’s “Dispatches — Is He Mentioned?” (172), makes but a distant allusion to the war, since the breakfast service is so much more interesting than the people who are reading the dispatches. It is really a very clever piece of still life with two irrelevant figures. Mr Strang has not made his “Youth and Age” (271) quite credible. You may call it allegory, but even in allegory the figures must seem all to belong to the same world, and here they do not. We wish that Mr Strang would abandon his great talents to fierce realism.
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