It was further confirmed the next day by the orders which we received to fall back as rapidly as was consistent with the safety of the division. Four batteries of artillery and 1,500 Cossacks came to cover our retreat; but the Germans pressed us so hard that we turned and fought a desperate rear-guard battle. The foe had to meet "angry fellows" with a vengeance; and they got such a lesson that towards evening they permitted us to march off in parade order without daring to follow us one yard. They had more than doubled us in numbers and guns; and it must seem incredible to people who did not actually witness the operations that such tremendous and frequent losses could be sustained by any army which continued to exist in the field. I can only give my assurance that I fully believe all I state; and think I understate, rather than exaggerate, the given numbers of killed, wounded and prisoners. That such terrible losses should not incapacitate the armies engaged shows the enormous resources they had in men and material: and, so far as concerns Germany, I am convinced, in money too.
From the first I considered it a pity that Russia could not put more men in the field. She might have placed 12,000,000 young and vigorous men on the Russian-Austrian frontiers; but she was quite incapable of finding transport, food and material, or the proper proportion of artillery, for such a vast host: and this is where she failed. More money, and a better system of railways, and the end of Germany would have come within six months of the outbreak of the war.
Nor is much to be said in favour of my own country. The wealth, and the best blood of England, are being frittered away in partial operations. We can effect no real progress with 250,000 or 300,000 men. At least 2,000,000 should be in the field--3,000,000 would be better. How are the men to be got without conscription? Restore the old militia, which ought never to have been abolished; and ballot for it. Press-gangs, if necessary. Better do this than perish as a nation, which is what we are in imminent danger of doing. The people who cannot see this will not see it until, perhaps, they are forced to see it--a trifle too late.
England is not a military nation in the usual sense of the words. Nowadays a first-class Power _must be a military nation_, or go to the wall. What makes a military nation? Having millions of men, _fully armed and equipped_, ready for action at _one hour's notice_. England will not have this! Then some bad day she will go to the wall, and go there pretty quickly. This is how nations will cease to be nations in future. Ten billion shells, a hundred billion cartridges. "All dead stock," says the financier. "What dreadful wickedness to waste so much money on munitions!" says the economist. But when war comes on a large scale the shells and cartridges have to be found at double and treble cost. It is a sad way of spending huge sums of money; but it is the only real "National Insurance": the only way of securing real peace and liberty. And whatever happens, and whatever is the consequence, I, for one, will not live under the régime of such a scoundrel as the Hell-Hound of Berlin--a wretch who, while posing as a God-fearing man, has brought heart-torment on millions of better men than himself. And these are not the words of passion. I am not a fiery boy. I am an old man, a grey-haired veteran. Read it with shame you young and able-bodied who have failed your country in her hour of peril. Your best excuse is that you do not realize how real and how near the danger is. Isolated acts of heroism are not victories. Our little army is a splendid little army, but it is a little army. One serious disaster to it, and in a week this country might be in the hands of the enemy from Land's End to John o' Groats. In such a case our only hope would be the Navy. Sole hopes, like last shillings, are things to be deprecated.