The Spectator

From The Spectator, 28 November 1914: After discipline and rifle shooting comes entrenching. We suggest, as a practical proposal, that every corps should practise its men at least once a week in trench digging. There ought to be no difficulty even in towns in inducing some patriotic man to lend them a piece of ground for the purpose. Further, in every district two or three model trenches should be prepared under expert direction. Trenches are not very difficult things to dig, but there are right ways and wrong ways of constructing them, and one practical example which can be inspected and copied is worth a hundred directions on paper.

From The Spectator, 28 November 1914: In the Commons on Monday Mr. Wedgwood, who has served with the Naval Division in Belgium, asked for instructions as to what civilians were to do in the event of invasion. Were they to hand over their weapons to an appointed authority, or keep them and use them? The Government ought to tell the country. Mr. Tennant said that it was undesirable at present to issue any instructions. But surely now is the time for the Government to take the nation into their confidence. If a raid comes it will be sudden. It will be too late then for civilians to hand over their weapons, or for the Government to prevent them from acting on instinct. We cannot understand the Government's peculiar reluctance to be frank and open with the nation on such vital matters. Mr.

From The Spectator, 21 November 1914: Both at home and abroad this war has already caused us to wonder whether we wake or dream, so different in many respects are the events from the anticipations. To begin with, there is a matter in which the Spectator has a particular reason for being sensible of the topsy-turviness of the war—the treatment of the voluntary and compulsory principles. We have written on this subject in another article, but may allow ourselves to dwell again on the paradox. For years we have been preaching the necessity of compulsory military training, and here we are to-day exhausting every expedient and ransacking our imagination in order to persuade the Government to save the voluntary principle! They have chosen the voluntary principle for the war.

From The Spectator, 21 November 1914: No English writer knows more of German ways than Mr. Dawson, and his large book upon public administration in towns is a mass of information. It is his misfortune to have produced it at a moment when Englishmen are not likely to be eagerly receptive of the German methods that he praises, or very patient of his unfavourable comparisons of British muni- cipal activities with those which Prussia has adopted and encouraged other States to accept. It is as unnecessary to emphasize the fact that German machines, military or municipal, are efficient for the purposes at which they aim as it is to impress upon any one that we dislike some of those purposes.

From The Spectator, 21 November 1914: The papers of Tuesday and Wednesday contained two exceptionally interesting despatches from an eyewitness at Sir John French's headquarters. These descriptive narratives have improved remarkably in value since the beginning of the war—a fact which does not seem to be in the least appreciated by some newspapers. The despatch of Wednesday described the operations from November 4th to 9th. During that period the Germans nowhere made an attack comparable with their attack on Ypres at the end of October. Their object seemed to be to wear out the British troops by incessant bombardment. Every attack or demonstration by German infantry resulted in great losses.