Your Country Needs You
Now and again as we trace the war years month by month I may go out of time to suggest an event that had impact not only on the war but reverberates to this day.
For example we all know that Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in June 1914. Only 15 days earlier another event, the annexation by Greece of two large islands of the Turkish coast, is the root of the conflict that still divides Cyprus. Think also of Gallipoli, it is in September that the failed attempt to destroy the Ottoman Empire begins its descent into disaster.
On the home front the feeling still persists that it would all be over by Christmas, it is only after that dawn proved false that the jingoism we associate with the war years reaches full flower.
What was happening? On the 1st Lord Kitchener arrived in Paris. On the 4th France Russia and Great Britain signed a pact that none will agree a separate peace. The USA, still neutral and grappling with the moral dilemmas that presented, made its naval wireless stations available to all comers. German diplomats sending coded messages included. In a bizarre way this decision was instrumental in bringing the USA into the war in 1917. Unless you research it you’ll have to wait until the January 1917 diary page to find out why.
The battle of the Marne was fought from 5th to the 12th September. Success for the British and French forces prevented the German advance on Paris. It was achieved at terrible immediate and long term consequences.This battle marked the beginning of the static (trench) warfare that saw so many men dying as small pieces of land changed hands. Leaving us with those appalling images of mass slaughter.
On the 18th The Irish Home Rule bill received royal assent. Fears that recruits from the Republic would dry up were assuaged when John Redmond urged the Irish volunteers to enlist in the British army.
Talking of images on 08 September the front cover of the magazine “London Opinion” was the image used in the iconic posters of Lord Kitchener with the words “your country needs you”.
Two other events that horrify us today are worth noting. On the 8th Thomas Highgate became the first soldier to be executed for desertion. At the very end of August Admiral Charles Cooper Penrose-Fitzgerald (retired) founded the Order of the White Feather. You can only guess at the pompous xenophobia that lay behind that attack on his fellow citizens.
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