To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918

  "Take and shoot two": Haig to Lady Haig, 10 April 1915, quoted in De Groot 1, p. 184.

  [>] "break thro' this": French to Winifred Bennett, 24 May 1915, quoted in Holmes, p. 294.

  "shipwrecked souls": 18 February 1915, quoted in Holmes, p. 278.

  "you can't trust them": 28 April 1915, quoted in Cassar, p. 225.

  "I devoutly wish," "While they are": 21 May 1915, quoted in Holmes, p. 279.

  [>] "They've been married": 15 September 1915, quoted in Holmes, p. 281.

  "He is so hot tempered": Haig to Rothschild, 9 December 1915, Haig 1, p. 172.

  "French seems to have": Haig to Rothschild, 20 May 1915, quoted in De Groot 1, pp. 193–194.

  "had lost confidence": Haig 1, 14 July 1915, p. 130.

  146 "The enemy ... can't go on": Haig to Lady Haig, 10 August 1915, quoted in De Groot i, p. 202.

  11. IN THE THICK OF IT

  [>] "all the English-speaking race": Times, 18 September 1914.

  "is the sovereign disinfectant": Edmund Gosse, Inter Arma: Being Essays Written in Time of War (New York: Scribner's, 1916), p. 3.

  [>] "this war may rank": John Buchan, The Future of the War (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1916), pp. 13–14, quoted in Buitenhuis, p. 93.

  "it is a war": Rudyard Kipling, The New Army (New York: Doubleday and Page, 1914), "Indian Troops," p. 7, quoted in Buitenhuis, p. 25.

  [>] "What will be": Kipling, The New Army, "A Territorial Battalion and a Conclusion," p. 9, quoted in Buitenhuis, p. 26.

  "very straight and smart": Gilmour, p. 257.

  "This is the life": John Kipling to his family, 17 August 1915, Kipling 2, p. 195.

  "Bread, sardines, jam": John Kipling to his family, 18 August 1915, Kipling 2, p. 197.

  "Neither of them look": Morton Cohen, ed., Rudyard Kipling to Rider Haggard (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1965), p. 81, quoted in Kipling 2, p. 14.

  "in a splendid little": John Kipling to his family, 20 August 1915, Kipling 2, pp. 198–199.

  "The cigarettes, tobacco": John Kipling to his family, 22 August 1915, Kipling 2, p. 201.

  "What he doesn't know": John Kipling to his family, 29 August 1915, Kipling 2, p. 213.

  [>] "I tried to stop": Robb, p. 125.

  "Kill Germans!": Eksteins, p. 236.

  "The little hall was crowded": Brockway, p. 64.

  [>] "Ten million Socialist": Robb, p. 69.

  "They are well worth": Hardie to Sylvia Pankhurst, 27 May 1915, E. Sylvia Pankhurst Papers, Reel 1.

  "You have been very brave": E. Sylvia Pankhurst 1, p. 227.

  "His Majesty feels": Buckingham Palace to Lloyd George, 28 June 1915, quoted in Purvis i, p. 276.

  [>] "The Ablest Woman": New York Journal, 12 November 1915, quoted in Purvis 1, p. 278.

  [>] "It's no business": Dorothy Peel, How We Lived Then: 1914–1918: A Sketch of Social and Domestic Life in England During the War (London: John Lane, 1929), p. 152, quoted in Trevor Wilson, p. 511.

  "shout of bestial triumph": Russell 1, p. 19.

  "The air was filled": E. Sylvia Pankhurst 1, p. 196.

  [>] "with no more mind": E. Sylvia Pankhurst Papers, Reel 1.

  "He is dying": E. Sylvia Pankhurst 1, p. 228.

  "un-English," "the weapon of cowards," "an underhanded method": Massie, p. 123.

  157 "Whole families with all": Alfred Knox, With the Russian Army, 1914–1917, vol. 1

  (London: Hutchinson, 1921), p. 305.

  well over three million: Gatrell, pp. 3, 212.

  "diversionary themes not": Lincoln, p. 48.

  "afflicted with the misfortune": George Buchanan, My Mission to Russia and Other Diplomatic Memories, vol. 2 (London: Cassell, 1923), p. 77, quoted in Clay, p. 172.

  "My brain is resting": Lincoln, p. 152.

  [>] "were never in better": Haig 1, 12 September 1915, p. 146.

  "It is against wild": Rudyard Kipling, France at War: On the Frontier of Civilization (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1916), pp. 48, 86–87, 90.

  "wouldn't like to have": Rudyard Kipling to Carrie Kipling, 21 August 1915, Kipling 2, p. 13.

  [>] "I don't think I have": John Kipling to his family, 26 August 1915, Kipling 2, p. 208.

  "my visage is the colour": John Kipling to his family, 29 August 1915, Kipling 2, p. 212.

  "older and fatter": Haig 1, 22 September 1915, p. 151.

  "Whatever may happen": 18 September 1915, quoted in Cassar, p. 261.

  "a really good pair": John Kipling to his family, 23 September 1915, Kipling 2, p. 221.

  "Just a hurried line": John Kipling to his family, 25 September 1915, Kipling 2, p. 222.

  12. NOT THIS TIDE

  [>] "For the future": Ministry of Munitions, History of the Ministry of Munitions, vol. 11 (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1918–1922), sec. 3, p. 42. The wording of an earlier draft of the history, in BT 66/6/46, is almost identical and adds no more information. See also MacLeod and MacLeod, pp. 171–175.

  some 32,000 pairs: Hartcup, p. 182. The official History of the Ministry of Munitions implies—apparently falsely—that the British-German trade was not consummated, because alternative sources of optical glass were found in Britain and the United States. Hartcup's source for the number of binoculars actually delivered in 1915 is a memorandum he found in BT 66/6/46, "Negotiations with Germany and America for optical instruments, Aug. 1915." Sometime after he did the research for his well-documented 1988 book, the memo was removed from this file in the National Archives, and I was unable to find it in a number of other files. My thanks to Guy Hartcup for taking the time to correspond with me about this.

  [>] "each about a thousand": F. Forstner, Das Reserve Infanterie Regiment 15 (Berlin, 1929), pp. 226–232, quoted in Keegan 1, pp. 201–202.

  "My machine gunners": Cherry, pp. 198–199.

  163 "The communication trench": Philip Warner, The Battle of Loos (Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth, 2000), p. 54.

  [>] "The C.O. wishes": Macdonald 2, p. 536.

  "The whole slope in front": Cherry, pp. 198–199.

  [>] "They advanced as if": Vansittart to Secretary for War, 7 October 1917, CAB 45/121.

  "bring out more": Vansittart to Brigadier-General Sir James Edmonds, 30 January 1926, CAB 45/121.

  "Dead, dying and badly": 27 September and 2 October 1915, quoted in Holmes, p. 305.

  "It was impossible to bury": Macdonald 2, p. 572.

  [>] "The introduction of": "The Question of Training Men for Employment with the Machine Guns now under Supply," General Staff, GHQ, 23 November 1915, quoted in Travers, p. 85.

  only one machine gun: Paul Clark to Pershing, 15 May 1918, quoted in Denis Winter, p. 148.

  "My attack, as has been": Haig to Kitchener, 29 September 1915, Haig 1, p. 160.

  "Douglas Haig came": n.d., Cherry, p. 329.

  [>] "I was not faint": E. Sylvia Pankhurst 1, p. 230.

  [>] "He was built for": Woman's Dreadnought, 2 October 1915.

  "How can you expect": E. Sylvia Pankhurst 1, p. 239.

  "corrupted ... by Germanism": 8 December 1916, quoted in Millman, p. 120.

  "I absolutely agree": 7 December 1915, Milner Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford, dep. 351.

  "through little old": Buchan 1, p. 31.

  [>] "DH never shines": Charteris, regarding a New Year's Eve party at headquarters, Cherry, p. 336.

  [>] "How deep is it": Gibbs, pp. 207–208.

  "we suddenly confronted": Herbert Read, Annals of Innocence and Experience (London: Faber & Faber, 1946), pp. 142–143, quoted in Ashworth, p. 104.

  [>] "They tell me John": Rupert Grayson to the Kiplings, quoted in Holt, p. 106.

  "We can but trust": Edward to Rupert Grayson, 15 October 1915, quoted in Holt, p. 106.

  "He is dark with": Kipling to Page, 5 October 1915, Pinney, vol. 4, p. 337.

  [>] "We fear he is killed": 4 October 1915, quoted in Thompson, p. 321.

  "No news": Holt, p. 105.

  13. WE R
EGRET NOTHING

  [>] "the greatest expression": Roland N. Stromberg, quoted in William Pfaff, The Bullet's Song: Romantic Violence and Utopia (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), p. 29.

  volunteering for the army: Robb, p. 72; Winter 1, p. 118.

  "national control of": Clarion, 17 March 1916, quoted in Stubbs, p. 729.

  "All-British from the core": C. B. Stanton, MP, in the Times, 18 March 1918.

  178 "beyond all question": Times, 28 May 1917.

  "I am trying, very hard": Marlowe, p. 245.

  "It would be difficult": Marlowe, p. 245.

  "Shall we call": Astor to Milner and Milner to Astor, 12 January 1916, quoted in Lockwood, p. 124.

  [>] "all seem to expect": Haig to Lady Haig, 27 December 1915, quoted in De Groot 1, p. 217.

  [>] "preach ... about the objects": Haig Diary, 4 June 1916, quoted in De Groot 1, p. 241.

  "We lament too much": Haig Diary, 23 April 1916, quoted in De Groot 1, p. 241.

  "The nation must be": Haig, "Memorandum on Policy for the Press," 26 May 1916, quoted in De Groot 1, p. 242.

  "The Germans might bargain": Haig Diary, 7 June 1916, quoted in De Groot 1, p. 245.

  "some officers who think": Haig Diary, 9 April 1916, quoted in De Groot 1, p. 234.

  "lately a certain number": Gilbert, p. 212.

  "take the same sort": John Jolliffe, ed. Raymond Asquith: Life and Letters (London: Collins, 1980), p. 217, quoted in "Asquith, Raymond," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online), accessed 15 March 2010.

  [>] "It was a storied antique": Montague, p. 32.

  "slackness ... in the matter": Haig 1, 4 September 1916, p. 226.

  [>] "All the troops here": Haig to Rothschild, 14 May 1916, quoted in De Groot 1, p. 235.

  "The briefing lasted": Morton to Liddell Hart, 17 July 1961, quoted in Denis Winter, p. 13.

  "If by any chance": Cuthbert Headlam to Georgina Headlam, 21 July 1916, quoted in Denis Winter, p. 137.

  "The so called sharp": Haig to Henrietta Jameson, 1 September 1904, quoted in De Groot 1, pp. 105–106.

  [>] "The hopeless bravery": E. Sylvia Pankhurst 1, p. 321.

  "I shall never be": Wilson to Milner, 25 August 1915, quoted in Gollin, p. 281.

  [>] "This place is polluted": Cecil, p. 275.

  "I knew the dear London": E. Sylvia Pankhurst 1, p. 304.

  [>] "Strongly repudiate and condemn": Purvis 1, p. 285.

  "Freedom's battle has not": Rowbotham, p. 34.

  A burly man of: Morel is a principal figure in my King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (Boston: Hought on Mifflin, 1998).

  [>] "a war which enables": E. D. Morel, Truth and the War (London: National Labour Press, 1916), p. 302.

  more than 20,000 men: Pearce, p. 169.

  "we women ... will tolerate": Trevor Wilson, p. 402.

  [>] "The conscientious objector": Martin, pp. 53–54.

  "I did not think": W. S. Adams, Edwardian Portraits (London: Secker & Warburg, 1957), p. 212.

  "did not wish to incite": Brockway, p. 70.

  "Six men have been condemned": Times, 17 May 1916.

  190 "in various secret places": Chamberlain, p. 68.

  "The singers can have": Tribunal, 4 January 1917.

  [>] "Are you doing work": Socialist, October 1916.

  "war will become impossible": Tribunal, 1 June 1916.

  "Once you are across": Boulton, p. 165.

  [>] "if they disobey orders": Boulton, p. 166.

  "As we were leaving": Russell 1, p. 17.

  "In France a court-martial": Herald, 6 May 1916, Russell 3, p. 357.

  [>] "We have been warned": Boulton, p. 171.

  "We regret nothing": Tribunal, 8 June 1916.

  "Tell me, when was": Ernest Shackleton, South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914–1917 (New York: Macmillan, 1920), p. 208.

  [>] "Had we used the Navy's": Rudyard Kipling, The Fringes of the Fleet (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1916), p. 118.

  [>] "the lash and the chain": Kruse, p. 102.

  [>] "When a German holds": John G. Gray, Prophet in Plimsoles: An Account of the Life of Colonel Ronald Campbell (Edinburgh: Edina, 1977), p. 27.

  "fighting the Enemy": Haig 1, 5 April 1916, p. 184.

  [>] "Nothing could exist": Sir John Edmonds, Military Operations: France and Belgium, 1916 (London: Macmillan, 1932), p. 288, quoted in Trevor Wilson, p. 318.

  "Carmen Etonense": Eton College Chronicle, 15 June 1916. My thanks to Mark Goodman for referring me to this source.

  [>] "The situation is becoming": Haig to Lady Haig, 20 June 1916, quoted in De Groot 1, p. 251.

  "I feel that every": Haig to Lady Haig, 22 June 1916, quoted in De Groot 1, p. 2.51.

  "The men are in splendid": Haig 1, 30 June 1916, p. 195.

  14. GOD, GOD, WHERE'S THE REST OF THE BOYS?

  [>] "We were placed": Boulton, p. 168.

  [>] "Rats were not infrequent": Boulton, p. 171.

  [>] "I cast many a glance": Anonymous CO, quoted in Boulton, pp. 172–173.

  Bertrand Russell and others: Without which, concludes Ellsworth-Jones, p. 203,

  "at least some of the conscientious objectors shipped to France would almost certainly have been executed."

  "As I stood listening": Anonymous CO, quoted in Boulton, p. 173.

  [>] "The hospital received": Brittain, p. 274.

  "one could see ripples": Lieutenant G. Chetwynd-Staplyton, quoted in Keegan 2, p. 238.

  [>] "I did not come across": G. M. Sturgess, in John Hammerton, ed., The Great War—"I Was There!": Undying Memories of 1914–1918, vol. 2 (London: Amalgamated Press, 1938), quoted in Trevor Wilson, p. 323.

  205 "It was an amazing": M. Gerster, Die Schwaben an der Ancre (Heilbronn, Germany: Eugen Salzer, [1918]), quoted in Churchill 1, pp. 658–659.

  "When we got to": Private Tomlinson of the Sherwood Foresters, quoted in Keegan 2, p. 258.

  [>] "Only three out of": Middlebrook, p. 132.

  [>] "I have never had": Middlebrook, p. 261.

  "This cannot be": Haig 1, 2 July 1916, p. 197.

  "In another fortnight": Haig to Lady Haig, 8 July 1916, Haig 1, p. 201.

  "If we don't succeed": Haig to Lady Haig, 13 July 1916, quoted in De Groot 1, p. 253.

  [>] "a squadron of Indian": Hutchison, pp. 126–132. Men from two cavalry regiments charged the Germans that day; the Indians were from the 20th Royal Deccan Horse, with the higher-ranking officers all British. The Deccan Horse regimental history records 9 dead and 41 wounded for this engagement, with, surprisingly, half a dozen German prisoners taken. Much of the time, however, the cavalrymen fought dismounted.

  [>] "The tide of wounded": Philip Gibbs, Ten Years After: A Reminder (London: Hutchinson, 1925), pp. 32–33.

  "cannot have been less": Haig to Robertson, 23 August 1916, quoted in De Groot I, p. 262.

  "the total losses": Haig I, 4 September 1916, p. 226.

  "Lawford dined": Travers, p. xix.

  "The expectation of mankind": Anonymous to Haig, 30 July 1916, quoted in De Groot I, p. 255.

  [>] "felt that it was": Alistair Horne, The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 (London: Penguin, 1993), p. 22.

  "Stretchers blocked the cellar": Lawrence Gameson Papers, pp. 52–53, Imperial War Museum, quoted in Peter Barham, Forgotten Lunatics of the Great War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 148.

  "the spirit of the wounded": Haig Diary, 25 July 1916, quoted in De Groot 1, p. 255.

  "a hale and hearty": J.F.C. Fuller, in Wolff, p. x.

  [>] "'The powers that be'": Haig 1, 1 August 1916, p. 213.

  "the maintenance of a steady": Haig to Robertson, 1 August 1916, Haig 1, p. 214.

  "Have another glass": Lord Birkenhead, Life of F. E. Smith (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1960), p. 287.

  [>] "For God's sake": Gilbert, p. 285.

  "esprit de corps": Arthur Surfleet, "Blue Chevrons: An Infantry Private's Great War Diary," Im
perial War Museum, quoted in Trevor Wilson, pp. 355–361.

  "There is something": Bickersteth, p. 178.

  "Once you have lain": Guy Chapman, A Passionate Prodigality: Fragments of Autobiography (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1965), p. 226.

  [>] in 2005 alone: Mark Bostridge, "'We Go Tomorrow,'" Guardian, 1 July 2006.

  "a very large number": Haig to Robertson, 7 October 1916, quoted in De Groot 1, p. 269.

  almost 500,000 casualties: Both lower and higher figures are sometimes used; this one comes from a generally pro-Haig book, John Hussey, Portrait of a Commander in Chief, quoted in Bond and Cave, p. 35n35.

  "advanced toward our men": Gibbs, p. 422.

  15. CASTING AWAY ARMS

  [>] "Women rushed towards": The Danish actress Asta Nielsen, in Dieter Glatzer and Ruth Glatzer, Berliner Leben, vol. 1 (Berlin: Rütten & Loening, 1986), pp. 265–266, quoted in Thomas Levenson, Einstein in Berlin (New York: Bantam Books, 2003), pp. 143–144.

  Germans lined the border: Kramer, pp. 42–43.

  [>] "It makes my blood boil": Russell to Ottoline Morrell, 1 September 1916, quoted in Vellacott, p. 93.

  [>] "a woman known": Cecil to Simon, 8 November 1915, quoted in Kaminski, p. 300.

  was the sole Briton: Nation, p. 273n10. This meeting was a follow-up to the better-known one at Zimmerwald the previous year, at which no Britons were present.

  [>] "Arrive London about midday": 29 June 1916, FO 372/894/125014.

  "A bridge is needed": Hobhouse to Smuts, 25 March 1917, quoted in Balme, p. 558.

  "After a good deal": 2 November 1916, CAB 41/37/38.

  [>] "the sort of conclusions": Thomson to Dormer, 1 July 1916, FO 372/894/128477.

  "patriotic ardor for": Hobhouse 1, p. 53.

  [>] "I cannot make up": Hobhouse to Courtney, Wills, p. 15.

  "the look of eager": Hobhouse 1, p. 148.

  [>] "Few things moved me": Wills, pp. 46–47.

  "A danger which the country": Douglas Haig, "Memorandum on Policy for the

  Press," 26 May 1916, quoted in De Groot 1, p. 242.

  "So far as Britain is": Ferguson 1, p. 213.

  "which should not be": INF 4/1B, quoted in Millman, p. 182.

  [>] "Even as he lies": Gilbert, p. 298.

  "I was thoroughly and": William Beach Thomas, A Traveller in News (London:

  Chapman and Hall, 1925), p. 109.

  "Gentlemen, you have played": Gibbs, p. 30.

  "in a certain jauntiness": Montague, pp. 97–98, 94.