The Spectator

From ‘War by Poison’, The Spectator, 8 May 1915: By the consent of all men who are not savages, the use of poison is ruled out in war, and has been prohibited by custom for centuries. And war by poison is being practised not only in Europe; in German South-West Africa the Union troops, as we are informed by a Colonial Office Paper, have come across many wells poisoned with arsenic… ‘Poisoned wells’! The very phrase calls up visions of warfare with the wildest and most fanatical tribesmen in the world, but not with the inhabitants of the most highly organised country in Europe.

From ‘National Concentration’, The Spectator, 8 May 1915: The two great needs of the hour are more men and more munitions of war. We have got so to organize our forces that while more men are spared for the fighting line, there shall also be more men engaged, and efficiently engaged, in the manufacture of shells and other munitions of war. We have always pleaded in these columns for scientific recruiting, but what we want now is scientific recruiting, not merely for horse, foot, and artillery, but also for the factory and the shipyard. Translated into the world of immediate action, this means that we have got to do two things.

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 8 May 1915: Last Saturday the American oil-tank vessel ‘Gulflight’ was torpedoed by a German submarine off Bishop’s Lighthouse. The captain died of shock and two seamen were drowned. Thus the critical event which the American Government foresaw has come to pass. On February 4th the American Government despatched a Note to the German Government on the German declaration that the British seas would in future be a war zone in which Allied merchantmen might be sunk without notice, and every neutral ship would run the gravest risk owing to the fact that she might be mistaken for a British vessel flying a foreign flag.

From ‘Rupert Brooke’, The Spectator, 1 May 1915: TO all men there is attractiveness in the combination of the soldier and the poet, and perhaps the combination gives a more satisfying pleasure to the countrymen of Sir Philip Sidney than to any other race. This is the reason why thousands of Englishmen mourn for Rupert Brooke who never knew him, and possibly, till a few days ago, never heard of him. They read the brief details of his life and accomplishment, and at once their sorrow was real and, in a sense, personal. Rupert Brooke was distinctly one of the most promising of our poets. He had fire, imagination, a joy in life, a classical taste, an Hellenic eye for beauty and grace.

From ‘The Khalifate’, The Spectator, 1 May 1915: It seems that the Ottoman Empire is likely to crumble away, and in that event, whether it happens soon or late, the question of the Khalifate will cause many searchings of heart to the Mohammedan world. In an intimate and most important sense Britain is concerned in this matter. The spiritual security and satisfaction of Moslems vitally concern the British Empire.

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 1 May 1915: The accounts from the Dardanelles are distinctly encouraging. On Tuesday the British portion of the Expeditionary Force landed on the point of the Gallipoli Peninsula—i.e., on the European side—while the French landed an the Asian side, and have fought a battle on the plain of Troy or its neighbourhood, in which they have taken nearly two thousand prisoners. Our landing on and around the tip of the Gallipoli Peninsula has been supplemented by a landing near Bulair, the narrowest part of the tongue of land which forms the European wall of the Dardanelles. If this landing at Bulair can he made good, we ought to be able to destroy the whole of the Turkish force which lies between it and the tip of the Peninsula.