https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-08-09/register/m-kerenskys-heavy-task-2325bls5q
The first question before the Provisional Government, now armed with practically dictatorial powers, is the reintroduction of discipline and order into the Army. M Kerensky will give this all his attention. With the exception of the Maximalist rump, which is still vocal in the Soviet, the whole country knows this is the primary necessity. General Korniloff has large powers to this end, and if they are insufficient he will, if necessary, obtain further authority.
The state of the Army warrants great anxiety, but not despair. If the new Government will exchange party for patriotism and give M Kerensky the support he deserves, it is yet possible to pull the situation out of the fire. The Cadet (Constitutional Democrat) Party has blessed its four members who have entered the Government as private individuals, not as representatives of the party. The Revolutionary Socialists carried their point in regard to M Tchernoff’s inclusion as Minister of Agriculture, after an inquiry into his activities abroad during the period of the war had proved him innocent.
Two points stand out in the formation of the Cabinet. One is the inclusion of M Avksentieff, the leader of the Peasants’ Delegates, as Minister of the Interior. The second is M Tseretelli’s decision to remain outside, with M Kerensky’s approval. He will remain a link between the Provisional Government and the Soviet. Perhaps this is the best solution, as his authority with the masses was immense.
If M Kerensky has the support of all parties with a real desire to save Russia from her accumulating ills, his efforts should meet with success. If he fails, democracy in Russia will receive a blow from which it will be difficult to recover.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-08-10/register/china-and-the-war-jnwgjwxsx
One of the first acts of the new Administration was to range itself on the side of the Allies. China broke off diplomatic relations with Germany as long ago as March because no satisfactory reply was made to her strong protests against unrestricted submarine warfare. At the beginning of this month Tuan Chi-Jui and his colleagues unanimously decided to proclaim war against Germany. On August 2 President Feng Kuo-Chang approved the Cabinet’s decision. There is every reason to believe that all political parties will unite in support. The Chinese have ample reason to regard Germany and German methods with detestation. The seizure of Kiaochau as the price of murdered missionaries is not forgotten. The barbarities wrought by German troops during the Boxer rebellion revealed to the horrified Chinese and to the rest of the world those tendencies in war which have more recently been demonstrated by the Huns wherever they have fought. The Germans have crowned an infamous record in China by stirring up the recent revolt and by financing the attempt to restore the discredited Manchu dynasty. China’s resolve is strongly approved in Japan. When Viscount Motono said at Tokyo in June that should China enter the war she would “win for herself the esteem and sympathy of all the Powers striving for the triumph of the great common cause”, he expressed a sentiment which will be shared by all the Allies.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-08-11/register/songs-on-a-long-trail-lrd9cxjgb
By a broad lake theatrically lit by the setting sun, the inhabitants of the lakeside town came out to cheer for les Anglais when we pulled up for our Halte-repas. It was just the place for music, and when the tea had been properly dealt with it was just the moment. A row of demoiselles began by singing the “Marseillaise”, but it was jolly to hear our fellows take up the tune, apparently with fair knowledge of the words. Somebody started “Take me back to dear old Blighty”, and we jigged through its inanities with vigour, but without conviction. Then someone led off with “The Farmer’s Boy”, chorus every two lines, followed by a similar effort about a soldier’s life from dawn to death, a song in which each line of the chanter was followed by a rousing response from all. Ragtime songs of the “Dixieland” and “Home in Tennessee” school did not go really well. The cult of Americanism cannot last much longer, one feels, because the ragged rhythms always balk the British chorus. The “Long, long trail a-winding” would have raised the roof if there had been one; after all it is a straight tune, and we know something about the long, long trail, while no one really cares about Dixie and Tennessee.
So song after song was raised till even poor threadbare “Tipperary” had been revived for one night only, and the “Marseillaise” was given a second time, with the Russian National Anthem in sonorous harmony to follow. Of course, the British soldier never starts his own National Anthem for two reasons: it means the end and it means standing at attention. So the songs, good, bad, and indifferent went on cheerfully until the whistle blew, the cry “All aboard” was raised, and we huddled back into our murky compartments. When we woke again to daylight the mountains touched with snow on the peaks towered over us, the rolling stock on the sidings told us that we were now “Fumatori” instead of “Fumeurs,” and we had passed on another stage of our “long, long trail”.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-08-12/register/23-killed-in-air-raid-at-southend-72vxq0c7c
The first intimation of the approach of the enemy aircraft was received by the police at 5.22. No warning was given, except that the police requested by word of mouth a number of inhabitants to take cover. About half an hour later the enemy aeroplanes were seen coming, in rather leisurely fashion, at a height of about 10,000ft, from the north-east. Our own machines went up in pursuit in two parties, but the bombs continued to fall on the town. The German machines then rose considerably above our machines and went out towards the sea.
One bomb fell in Victoria Avenue, killing seven people. Five of them were holidaymakers who were going to the railway station, and two were in a restaurant close by. Another bomb fell in Lovelace Gardens, killing a mother and daughter and injuring the husband, a cripple. A man in Milton Street, who was in the roadway watching the aeroplanes, was blown to pieces, and close by, in Guildford Road, a bomb demolished two houses. Five people were buried; four of them were got out alive and the other, when recovered, was dead.
Another bomb fell in the roadway close to the Glen Hospital. From this one a great quantity of yellow powder came away. Another fell near All Saints’ Church, destroying the water and gas mains. Several aerial torpedoes were discharged, one of which fell on a house at Leigh, but did not explode. The inhabitants had a narrow escape.
Seventeen houses at Leigh, the majority in Cliff Sea Grove, were destroyed. Credit is due to our airmen for the way they attacked the invaders. They had a warm reception and the sound of machine-guns was distinctly heard. Later they were observed making for the sea, with British airmen in hot pursuit. The streets were soon alive with ambulances conveying the wounded to hospital. The number of bombs dropped was about 40, and 30 of these went through houses.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-08-14/register/nature-and-the-battlefield-zrmcfx3bv
What will the future of this ground be? In many places the soil has been buried and the sterile chalk spread thickly on top of it. To fill in the shell-holes will be possible, though laborious, but to replace the soil impossible. A crop sown on land of this sort — filled-in shell-holes with good soil intervening — would be so ragged and uneven as not to repay the expense of cultivation. It is doubtful if the stretches of country where the shell-holes and trenches are practically contiguous can again be cultivated for generations.
They might be made into a sheep grazing ranch or be planted with timber. A belt of trees from the sea to Switzerland, with broader tracts to mark the great battlefields, would be a remunerative monument to the victims of the great war.
One variety of life flourishes here. Partridges swarm, and in the rank growth get ideal cover for their young from the small sparrowhawks, their only enemy except shrapnel. The young birds have not yet begun to fly, but from the number of pairs seen mating, and the absence of depredatory vermin, the head of game by September 1 should be one to cheer our sporting instincts, though practical means of dealing with it will be denied us.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-08-15/register/southend-raid-demand-for-warnings-blhh7b8kp
One witness, Timothy Sullivan, a waterman and lighterman of Abbey Wood, who gave his evidence sobbing, said with reference to his little son, aged 10, who was one of the victims, “That little chap had more brains than all the people in Southend. He went and told them that they were German aeroplanes. The scoundrels down here! They are murderers down here. They are answerable for that lad’s death.”
Other witnesses also asked why warning was not given. Inspector Baker said the police had notice to take air raid action at 5.22pm, and that was done by informing the sub-police stations, hospitals, fire station, and railway stations, and the information was conveyed to as many of the public as possible through officials in the borough urging the people to take cover. Chief Constable Kerslake stated that the question of warning the public was now under consideration. Formerly sirens were used, but it was found in the case of the Midland towns that hostile craft were actually directed by the sirens, but for which they would not have known there was a town there at all.
The jury found that the victims met their death through bombs dropped by hostile aircraft. They said they thought the police carried out the system of warning consistently with the existing arrangements, but recommended emphatically that the warning should be made adequate in future.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-08-16/register/old-glory-in-london-qtp9sk3d8
From 8.30am the troops marched from Waterloo to the Wellington Barracks. At the station there were hundreds of British soldiers going on leave and a few score coming back from France. The Tommies cheered in British fashion, and the Americans responded with the sort of cheer that one hears from the Big League crowds when the White Sox have “put it over” the Giants.
All the men are volunteers, and most have been working in the West, and are as fit as an open-air rigorous life can make them. Hardly a man or woman in the crowd realized that nearly all of them were civilians six weeks ago. The slope of their rifles was uniform, and they never seemed to tire or grow slack.
There was at least one man from the New York police in the non-commissioned ranks, and perhaps a patrolman or two from Chicago. Many of the men have come fresh from the West. It is about now that the annual migration of the “hoboe” takes place. He leaves New York for the winter, often travelling on the undercarriage of a freight wagon until he reaches a town far enough west and warm enough to attract him. Here he stops off, and works intermittently until the city calls again. This year the “hoboe” will have an easier time. One of the biggest men in the first contingent, when asked what he was doing two months ago looked a little homesick. “I was chasin’ hoboes off the freight cars on the Dallas-Sweetwater stretch in Colorado.” For the uninitiated, a hoboe is a tramp.
In the watching crowd one was struck with the appearance of the American troops. They went along with shoulders squared and eyes to the front. When the column paused they marked time with a precision that would have pleased even a Guards sergeant-major. There was one noticeable thing about them. Very few had moustaches, and fewer still had beards.
AUGUST 9, 1917
M Kerensky’s heavy task
M Kerensky’s new Cabinet is perhaps as strong as could be expected in the circumstances, when differences of opinion on questions of principle had to be sacrificed to obtain an outward semblance of unity. The Prime Minister’s task is one of immense difficulty in face of the indiscipline in the Army, the agrarian question, and the crisis in financial, economic, transport, and food matters. The work requires a Colossus, for not only has the work to be done, but the implements wherewith to do it have to be forged.The first question before the Provisional Government, now armed with practically dictatorial powers, is the reintroduction of discipline and order into the Army. M Kerensky will give this all his attention. With the exception of the Maximalist rump, which is still vocal in the Soviet, the whole country knows this is the primary necessity. General Korniloff has large powers to this end, and if they are insufficient he will, if necessary, obtain further authority.
The state of the Army warrants great anxiety, but not despair. If the new Government will exchange party for patriotism and give M Kerensky the support he deserves, it is yet possible to pull the situation out of the fire. The Cadet (Constitutional Democrat) Party has blessed its four members who have entered the Government as private individuals, not as representatives of the party. The Revolutionary Socialists carried their point in regard to M Tchernoff’s inclusion as Minister of Agriculture, after an inquiry into his activities abroad during the period of the war had proved him innocent.
Two points stand out in the formation of the Cabinet. One is the inclusion of M Avksentieff, the leader of the Peasants’ Delegates, as Minister of the Interior. The second is M Tseretelli’s decision to remain outside, with M Kerensky’s approval. He will remain a link between the Provisional Government and the Soviet. Perhaps this is the best solution, as his authority with the masses was immense.
If M Kerensky has the support of all parties with a real desire to save Russia from her accumulating ills, his efforts should meet with success. If he fails, democracy in Russia will receive a blow from which it will be difficult to recover.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-08-10/register/china-and-the-war-jnwgjwxsx
august 10, 1917
China and the war
China is not yet officially at war with Germany and Austria-Hungary, but her decision has been announced and the technical declaration will soon follow. Had it not been for the recent internal troubles, China would probably have entered the war more than three months ago. The crisis at Peking is apparently now at an end. Tuan Chi-Jui has had his Cabinet at work for nearly a month, and opposition to his reappearance as Premier is subsiding. The real issue is whether China is to have full Parliamentary government or some less complete form of popular control. The one interest of the Western Powers is that China should have a stable and continuous government. If President Feng Kuo-Chang and Tuan Chi-Jui can overcome dissensions and restore strength to the Administration, their assumption of office will be approved by the Allies.One of the first acts of the new Administration was to range itself on the side of the Allies. China broke off diplomatic relations with Germany as long ago as March because no satisfactory reply was made to her strong protests against unrestricted submarine warfare. At the beginning of this month Tuan Chi-Jui and his colleagues unanimously decided to proclaim war against Germany. On August 2 President Feng Kuo-Chang approved the Cabinet’s decision. There is every reason to believe that all political parties will unite in support. The Chinese have ample reason to regard Germany and German methods with detestation. The seizure of Kiaochau as the price of murdered missionaries is not forgotten. The barbarities wrought by German troops during the Boxer rebellion revealed to the horrified Chinese and to the rest of the world those tendencies in war which have more recently been demonstrated by the Huns wherever they have fought. The Germans have crowned an infamous record in China by stirring up the recent revolt and by financing the attempt to restore the discredited Manchu dynasty. China’s resolve is strongly approved in Japan. When Viscount Motono said at Tokyo in June that should China enter the war she would “win for herself the esteem and sympathy of all the Powers striving for the triumph of the great common cause”, he expressed a sentiment which will be shared by all the Allies.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-08-11/register/songs-on-a-long-trail-lrd9cxjgb
August 11, 1917
Songs on a long trail
At the end of a week of slow railway travelling through France, the British soldier’s second home, the ladies at the railway stations still understood our “Tray bong” and similar signs of appreciation but France was slipping away from us. We were awed by hills so tall and rugged as to justify the question, “Are those them Alps, Sir?”.By a broad lake theatrically lit by the setting sun, the inhabitants of the lakeside town came out to cheer for les Anglais when we pulled up for our Halte-repas. It was just the place for music, and when the tea had been properly dealt with it was just the moment. A row of demoiselles began by singing the “Marseillaise”, but it was jolly to hear our fellows take up the tune, apparently with fair knowledge of the words. Somebody started “Take me back to dear old Blighty”, and we jigged through its inanities with vigour, but without conviction. Then someone led off with “The Farmer’s Boy”, chorus every two lines, followed by a similar effort about a soldier’s life from dawn to death, a song in which each line of the chanter was followed by a rousing response from all. Ragtime songs of the “Dixieland” and “Home in Tennessee” school did not go really well. The cult of Americanism cannot last much longer, one feels, because the ragged rhythms always balk the British chorus. The “Long, long trail a-winding” would have raised the roof if there had been one; after all it is a straight tune, and we know something about the long, long trail, while no one really cares about Dixie and Tennessee.
So song after song was raised till even poor threadbare “Tipperary” had been revived for one night only, and the “Marseillaise” was given a second time, with the Russian National Anthem in sonorous harmony to follow. Of course, the British soldier never starts his own National Anthem for two reasons: it means the end and it means standing at attention. So the songs, good, bad, and indifferent went on cheerfully until the whistle blew, the cry “All aboard” was raised, and we huddled back into our murky compartments. When we woke again to daylight the mountains touched with snow on the peaks towered over us, the rolling stock on the sidings told us that we were now “Fumatori” instead of “Fumeurs,” and we had passed on another stage of our “long, long trail”.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-08-12/register/23-killed-in-air-raid-at-southend-72vxq0c7c
August 12, 1917
23 killed in air raid at Southend
Southend was bombed by about a dozen German aeroplanes this evening while the place was full of holidaymakers. The attack lasted a quarter of an hour and resulted in the death of 23 people, the majority of whom were women and children. About 40 people were injured. One of the victims was a little girl, who was terribly mangled, and another was a woman, also badly mutilated.The first intimation of the approach of the enemy aircraft was received by the police at 5.22. No warning was given, except that the police requested by word of mouth a number of inhabitants to take cover. About half an hour later the enemy aeroplanes were seen coming, in rather leisurely fashion, at a height of about 10,000ft, from the north-east. Our own machines went up in pursuit in two parties, but the bombs continued to fall on the town. The German machines then rose considerably above our machines and went out towards the sea.
One bomb fell in Victoria Avenue, killing seven people. Five of them were holidaymakers who were going to the railway station, and two were in a restaurant close by. Another bomb fell in Lovelace Gardens, killing a mother and daughter and injuring the husband, a cripple. A man in Milton Street, who was in the roadway watching the aeroplanes, was blown to pieces, and close by, in Guildford Road, a bomb demolished two houses. Five people were buried; four of them were got out alive and the other, when recovered, was dead.
Another bomb fell in the roadway close to the Glen Hospital. From this one a great quantity of yellow powder came away. Another fell near All Saints’ Church, destroying the water and gas mains. Several aerial torpedoes were discharged, one of which fell on a house at Leigh, but did not explode. The inhabitants had a narrow escape.
Seventeen houses at Leigh, the majority in Cliff Sea Grove, were destroyed. Credit is due to our airmen for the way they attacked the invaders. They had a warm reception and the sound of machine-guns was distinctly heard. Later they were observed making for the sea, with British airmen in hot pursuit. The streets were soon alive with ambulances conveying the wounded to hospital. The number of bombs dropped was about 40, and 30 of these went through houses.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-08-14/register/nature-and-the-battlefield-zrmcfx3bv
August 14, 1917
Nature and the battlefield
Weeds are now the principal vegetation on the battlefield of Arras. About the middle of July their mosaic of colouring was wonderful, but now they are seeding the effect is drab and dingy. The common thistle swarms in masses so high that horses will not face making a path through them. When in full flower they gave great stretches of ground an appearance of heather in bloom, but that effect did not last long. The emblem of Scotland grows more beautifully than at home, perhaps in honour of the waving tartans which led the way over these hills in April. Like the Somme we have our poppies, not in distinct patches of colour, but like the red spots in a Scotch tweed. Great clusters of cornflowers of a blue as deep as the best garden-grown delphiniums stand out as the aristocrats of their plebeian and vigorous world. Yellow ragwort raises its vulgar head, and the mauve scabious thrives on our dry hill, though I had supposed it cared only for marshland. These are the principal weeds that show, but the botanist would find a wealth of others.What will the future of this ground be? In many places the soil has been buried and the sterile chalk spread thickly on top of it. To fill in the shell-holes will be possible, though laborious, but to replace the soil impossible. A crop sown on land of this sort — filled-in shell-holes with good soil intervening — would be so ragged and uneven as not to repay the expense of cultivation. It is doubtful if the stretches of country where the shell-holes and trenches are practically contiguous can again be cultivated for generations.
They might be made into a sheep grazing ranch or be planted with timber. A belt of trees from the sea to Switzerland, with broader tracts to mark the great battlefields, would be a remunerative monument to the victims of the great war.
One variety of life flourishes here. Partridges swarm, and in the rank growth get ideal cover for their young from the small sparrowhawks, their only enemy except shrapnel. The young birds have not yet begun to fly, but from the number of pairs seen mating, and the absence of depredatory vermin, the head of game by September 1 should be one to cheer our sporting instincts, though practical means of dealing with it will be denied us.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-08-15/register/southend-raid-demand-for-warnings-blhh7b8kp
August 15, 1917
Southend raid: demand for warnings
All but one of the 32 persons who perished in the air raid on Southend on Sunday have been identified, the body not identified being that of a woman. At the inquest yesterday the Coroner (Mr C E Lewis) expressed sympathy with all concerned in this latest addition to crimes committed by a ruthless and savage enemy, and also with the mayor, corporation, and burgesses, on the foul outrage perpetrated on the town. He read a resolution from the Westcliff Tradesmen’s Association stating that the loss could to a large extent have been avoided if there were a proper system of warning the public. The Mayor, Alderman Joseph Francis, said it was now about two years since Southend had a visit from the enemy. In those days the visits were made in darkness; there was not a shadow of excuse for this attack, for it was open day, and everything must have been plain to those above.One witness, Timothy Sullivan, a waterman and lighterman of Abbey Wood, who gave his evidence sobbing, said with reference to his little son, aged 10, who was one of the victims, “That little chap had more brains than all the people in Southend. He went and told them that they were German aeroplanes. The scoundrels down here! They are murderers down here. They are answerable for that lad’s death.”
Other witnesses also asked why warning was not given. Inspector Baker said the police had notice to take air raid action at 5.22pm, and that was done by informing the sub-police stations, hospitals, fire station, and railway stations, and the information was conveyed to as many of the public as possible through officials in the borough urging the people to take cover. Chief Constable Kerslake stated that the question of warning the public was now under consideration. Formerly sirens were used, but it was found in the case of the Midland towns that hostile craft were actually directed by the sirens, but for which they would not have known there was a town there at all.
The jury found that the victims met their death through bombs dropped by hostile aircraft. They said they thought the police carried out the system of warning consistently with the existing arrangements, but recommended emphatically that the warning should be made adequate in future.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2017-08-16/register/old-glory-in-london-qtp9sk3d8
AUGUST 16, 1917
‘Old glory’ in London
Yesterday morning Londoners had one of their few chances to cheer since the war began. American troops marched through the streets behind the flag of the great Republic. For weeks past — indeed, since the United States came into the war — English people have been hearing rumours of the number of troops being sent from the States to the French front. Yesterday they had ocular demonstration.From 8.30am the troops marched from Waterloo to the Wellington Barracks. At the station there were hundreds of British soldiers going on leave and a few score coming back from France. The Tommies cheered in British fashion, and the Americans responded with the sort of cheer that one hears from the Big League crowds when the White Sox have “put it over” the Giants.
All the men are volunteers, and most have been working in the West, and are as fit as an open-air rigorous life can make them. Hardly a man or woman in the crowd realized that nearly all of them were civilians six weeks ago. The slope of their rifles was uniform, and they never seemed to tire or grow slack.
There was at least one man from the New York police in the non-commissioned ranks, and perhaps a patrolman or two from Chicago. Many of the men have come fresh from the West. It is about now that the annual migration of the “hoboe” takes place. He leaves New York for the winter, often travelling on the undercarriage of a freight wagon until he reaches a town far enough west and warm enough to attract him. Here he stops off, and works intermittently until the city calls again. This year the “hoboe” will have an easier time. One of the biggest men in the first contingent, when asked what he was doing two months ago looked a little homesick. “I was chasin’ hoboes off the freight cars on the Dallas-Sweetwater stretch in Colorado.” For the uninitiated, a hoboe is a tramp.
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