"I'm sorry to 'ave to say, Mum, 'e's bin a very bad dog whilst you was hout. 'E's bin an' eat up 'is patriotic ribbon."
(Thus the War Party designates the rank and file of the German army.)
They are coming like a tempest, in their endless ranks of grey,
While the world throws up a cloud of dust along their awful way;
They're the glorious cannon fodder of the mighty Fatherland,
Who shall make the kingdoms tremble and the nations understand.
Tramp! tramp! tramp! the cannon fodder comes.
God help the old; God help the young; God help the hearths and homes.
They'll do his will that taught them, on the earth and on the waves,
Then, like faithful cannon fodder, still salute him from their graves.
From the barrack and the fortress they are pouring in a flood;
They sweep, a herd of winter wolves, upon the scent of blood;
For all their deeds of horror they are told that death atones
And their master's harvest cannot spring till he has sowed their bones.
Into beasts of prey he's turned them; when they show their teeth and growl
The lash is buried in their cheeks; they're slaughtered if they howl;
To their bloody Lord of Battles must they only bend the knee,
For hard as steel and fierce as hell should cannon fodder be.
Scourge and curses are their portion, pain and hunger without end,
Till they hail the yell of shrapnel as the welcome of a friend;
They rape and burn and laugh to hear the frantic women cry
And do the devil's work to-day, but on the morrow die.
A million souls, a million hearts, a million hopes and fears,
A million million memories of partings and of tears
March along with cannon fodder to the agony of war.
Have they lost their human birthright? Are they fellow-men no more?
Tramp! tramp! tramp! the cannon fodder comes.
God help the old; God help the young; God help the bearths and homes.
They'll do his will that taught them, on the earth and on the waves,
Then, like faithful cannon fodder, still salute him from their graves.
The War and Phsical Development.
"Here some words have been exercised by the Censor."
Manchester Evening News.
"Kiel is very delightful in its own way, but it misses in toto the charm and originality of Cowes."
So said The Tatler in the very early days of the war, and yet the Germans still seem to prefer the waters of Kiel to the superior attractions of the Solent.
