============================================================ A. E. Housman "In valleys green and still" In valleys green and still Where lovers wander maying They hear from over hill A music playing. Behind the drum and fife, Past hawthornwood and hollow, Through earth and out of life The soldiers follow. The soldier's is the trade: In any wind or weather He steals the heart of maid And man together. The lover and his lass Beneath the hawthorn lying Have heard the soldiers pass, And both are sighing. And down the distance they With dying note and swelling Walk the resounding way To the still dwelling. ============================================================ Rupert Brooke ‘Peace’ Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour, And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping, With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power, To turn, as swimers into cleanness leaping, Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary, Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move, And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary, And all the little emptiness of love! Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there, Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending, Naught broken save this body, lost but breath; Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there But only agony, and that has ending; And the worst friend and enemy is but Death. ============================================================ RUDYARD KIPLING "For All We Have And Are" 1914 For all we have and are, For all our children's fate, Stand up and take the war. The Hun is at the gate! Our world has passed away, In wantonness o'erthrown. There is nothing left to-day But steel and fire and stone! Though all we knew depart, The old Commandments stand:— "In courage keep your heart, In strength lift up your hand." Once more we hear the word That sickened earth of old:— "No law except the Sword Unsheathed and uncontrolled." Once more it knits mankind, Once more the nations go To meet and break and bind A crazed and driven foe. Comfort, content, delight, The ages' slow-bought gain, They shrivelled in a night. Only ourselves remain To face the naked days In silent fortitude, Through perils and dismays Renewed and re-renewed. Though all we made depart, The old Commandments stand:— "In patience keep your heart, In strength lift up your hand." No easy hope or lies Shall bring us to our goal, But iron sacrifice Of body, will, and soul. There is but one task for all— One life for each to give. What stands if Freedom fall? Who dies if England live? A 'Jack Johnson' was the British nickname used to describe the impact of a heavy, black German 15-cm artillery shell. These German shells are 90lbs., and on account of their dense black smoke they have been christened “Coal Boxes.” Field Marshal John Denton Pinkstone French, 1st Earl of Ypres, KP, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCMG, ADC, PC Division general Joseph Jacques Césaire Joffre "Papa Joffre" Outlandish Cry The Mad Minute General der Infanterie Hermann Karl Bruno von François General of the Cavalry Paul Georg Edler von Rennenkampff Generalfeldmarshall Anton Ludwig Friedrich August Mackensen "The Last Hussar" (11th Army) General of the Cavalry Alexander Samsonov General Sir Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien Général de Division Charles Lanrezac Generaloberst Alexander Heinrich Rudolph von Kluck, 1st Army Generalfeldmarshall Karl Wilhelm Paul von Bülow, 2nd Army Division general Louis Félix Marie François Franchet d'Espèrey Division general Joseph Simon Gallieni Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, PC Division general Ferdinand Foch General der Infanterie Erich Georg Sebastian Anton von Falkenhayn K.u.k. Feldmarschall Count Franz Xaver Josef Conrad von Hötzendorf Henry the Vth O, do but think You stand upon the rivage and behold A city on th’ inconstant billows dancing, For so appears this fleet majestical, Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow! Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy, And leave your England, as dead midnight still, Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women, Either past or not arrived to pith and puissance, For who is he whose chin is but enriched With one appearing hair that will not follow These culled and choice-drawn cavaliers to France? Commanding Admiral Otto Ferdinand Maximilian Leopold Freiherr von der Goltz Admiral of the Fleet John Arbuthnot Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher, GCB, OM, GCVO Admiral of the Fleet John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, GCB, OM, GCVO, SGM, DL Vizeadmiral Maximilian Johannes Maria Hubert Reichsgraf von Spee Colonel Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck "Lion of Africa" Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO, PC Grand Admiral Alfred Peter Friedrich von Tirpitz Battle of Coronel (1 November 1914) Rear-Admiral Christopher "Kit" George Francis Maurice Cradock KCVO CB SGM Vice Admiral Sir Robert Clutterbuck Davenport CB Admiral of the Fleet Sir Frederick Charles Doveton Sturdee, 1st Baronet GCB, KCMG, CVO Battle of the Falkland Islands (8 December 1914) Lusitania sunk by Germans (7 May 1915) Turkey releases Ottoman Fleet to Black Sea (27 October 1915) 09: Gallipoli General Sir Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton, GCB, GCMG, DSO, TD General der Kavallerie Otto Viktor Karl Liman von Sanders General Sir Charles Carmichael Monro, 1st Baronet, GCB, GCSI, GCMG Marshal of Italy Luigi Cadorna, OSML, OMS, OCI Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, KT, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCIE General Noël Édouard Marie Joseph, Vicomte de Curières de Castelnau Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Pétain Division general Robert Georges Nivelle General Charles Emmanuel Marie Mangin Field Marshal Sir Henry Hughes Wilson, 1st Baronet, GCB, DSO Gilbert Frankau THE VOICE OF THE GUNS 1916 We are the guns, and your masters! Saw ye our flashes? Heard ye the scream of our shells in the night, and the shuddering crashes? Saw ye our work by the roadside, the shrouded things lying, Moaning to God that He made them - the maimed and the dying? Husbands or sons, Fathers or lovers, we break them. We are the guns! We are the guns and ye serve us. Dare ye grow weary, Steadfast at night-time, at noon-time; or waking, when dawn winds blow dreary Over the fields and the flats and the reeds of the barrier-water, To wait on the hour of our choosing, the minute decided for slaughter? Swift, the clock runs; Yea, to the ultimate second. Stand to your guns! We are the guns, and we need you; here, in the timbered Pits that are screened by the crest, and the copse where at dusk ye unlimbered; Pits that one found us - and, finding, gave life (Did he flinch from the giving?); Laboured by moonlight when wraith of the dead brooded yet o'er the living; Ere, with the sun's Rising, the sorrowful spirit abandoned its guns. Who but the guns shall avenge him? Battery - Action! Load us and lay to the centremost hair of the dial's refraction; Set your quick hands to our levers to compass the sped soul's assoiling; Brace your taut limbs to the shock when the thrust of the barrel recoiling Deafens and stuns! Vengeance is ours for our servants: trust ye the guns! Least of our bond-slaves or greatest, grudge ye the burden? Hard, is this service of ours which has only our service for guerdon: Grow the limbs lax, and unsteady the hands, which aforetime we trusted; Dominant ones, Are we not tried serfs and proven - true to our guns? Ye are the guns! Are we worthy? Shall not these speak for us, Out of the wood where the tree-trunks are slashed with the vain bolts that seek for us, Thunder of batteries firing in unison, swish of shell flighting, Hissing that rushes to silence and breaks to the thud of alighting; Death that outruns Horseman and foot? Are we justified? Answer, O guns! Yea! by your works are ye justified -- toil unrelievéd; Manifold labours, co-ordinate each to the sending achievéd; Discipline, not of the feet but the soul, unremitting, unfeignéd; Tortures unholy by flame and by maiming, known, faced, and distainéd; Courage that shuns Only foolhardiness; even by these, are ye worthy your guns. Wherefore, - and unto ye only - power hath been given; Yea! beyond man, over men, over desolate cities and riven; Yea! beyond space, over earth and the seas and the sky's high dominions; Yea! beyond time, over Hell and the fiends and the Death-Angel's pinions. Vigilant ones, Loose them, and shatter, and spare not. We are the guns! General Henry Seymour Rawlinson, 1st Baron Rawlinson, GCB, GCSI, GCVO, KCMG Field Marshal Sir William Robert Robertson, 1st Baronet, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, DSO General Sir John Eccles Nixon GCMG KCB Major General Sir Charles Vere Ferrers Townshend, KCB, DSO