The War Illustrated, Volume 1, No. 1, Page ii, September 16, 1939.

When the Great War of 1914 came upon us it was my privilege to originate a weekly chronicle of the activities in every field of action, and to conduct that record for four and a half years. It was entitled The War Illustrated. I print here a miniature of its front cover, which speedily became familiar to millions of British St. Georges who did their bit in fighting the Beast of Prussian Imperialism.

In a sense The War Illustrated of today is a continuation of the famous war periodical of 1914-1919. For in similar sense the Great War of 1939 is a continuation of that of 1914, since Nazi Imperialism is an uglier beast from the same breeding ground as the one we thought we had slaughtered in 1918.

"Business as Usual" was the slogan in 1914. Today "Nothing as Usual" might be its substitute. For the magical change which has come over London since the state of war was declared must be seen to be believed. The menace of the air raid is conditioning lives of everyone who must remain in the London area, and the extensive A.R.P. preparations give the central areas an appearance they never presented at any time between August, 1914 and October, 1918. The thinning of the traffic almost makes one wish it could be permanent!

When Dr. Kordt and the staff of the Nazi Embassy took their departure, their sadness and dejection appealed to the few onlookers who saw them go. One or two of the bystanders, with the Englishman’s usual sympathy for distress, gave them a little wave and a smile. The change that come over most of their faces when they saw this and smiled back was pathetic. An astonishing number of children in the Embassy group suggested that Hitler’s command to be fruitful had not been neglected.

Although this centre of Nazi intrigue, where the hateful Ribbentrop swanked and swaggered while laying the foundations of a new Anti-British "hate," has sheltered some of our bitterest enemies, my feeling as that dejected group with their tons of luggage went away was that they, too, were victims of an insensate tyranny, from which they would have been happy to escape.

Ribbentrop’s chow, one of the most familiar objects of Carlton House Terrace, has been a general favourite for year with all who, like myself, live within a short distance of his palatial home. Twice in passing I had missed him at his usual spot, and wondered if he, too, had gone, but he remains, and I have since seen him in his familiar place on the Embassy steps-the loneliest dog in London. He still answered to "Baerchen," if you cared to whisper his name when passing. Poor old fellow, who no doubt was faithful to his faithless master Ribbentrop, has been abandoned by those who are as indifferent to his fate as they are to that of children atrociously slaughtered by the airmen in the Warsaw evacuation train almost at the hour that Hitler was assuring Roosevelt that he would not bomb women and children. What liars these Nazis are!

I lunched today at one of my most familiar haunts, where ordinarily the elite of the theatrical profession may be seen, and many patrons queue up for tables. What a change! The automatic closing of the theatres had robbed it of most of its famous clientele. But the few of us gathered there were not without hope that soon, when a new rhythm of life has been established for London, the old familiar hum and happiness of its luncheons will be restored.

"How long will that be?" That is the question, in varying forms, that one hears everywhere. "How long"? And yet this is in the category of the foolish question that is best answered by another: "How long is a piece of string?"

One topic on which I find the most general agreement is admiration for the manner in which Mr. Arthur Greenwood, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, has discharged his office in these testing days. "The understudy has stolen the show." The dignity of his utterances, the absence of nagging criticism, and the genuine patriotism that has breathed in every word of his will surely go far to make even persons of opposite political views admit that the Labour Party, in common with the Trades Unions, have shown themselves worthy of the democratic institutions under which they live, and for which so many of their fellow citizens may have to die.

Quite without political bias myself, other than having declared whole-heartedly for every action of Mr. Chamberlain in his foreign policy, I confess to the tiniest little devil of doubt once when listening at a private gathering to Mr. Duff Cooper stoutly maintaining that all he need have done to humiliate the Dictatorships last year was to show a fighting front and forget about "appeasement." Well he has done so eleven months later when better able to take the risk, and most of us must realise that Hitler’s answer in September last year would have started the war which is now upon us.

And why?...Hitler has wanted war or submission.

One of my happiest memories of the Armistice of 1918 was the return of the bright lights after four years of gloom. Little did I think I should live to see a new era of darkness brought about by the same devilish aggressors. My flat in the West End, built in early Victorian days, has the old-fashioned interior shutters which enable me to have the brightest lights inside without a tiny ray escaping into the night. But, where I write by the sea, what incredible yards of black cloth have been needed to occlude the interior light from the sixty odd windows of my home!

The dismal darkness of my seaside study, where for 13 years my favourite dog has insisted on staying up with me even until "the wee sma’ ‘oors," has driven him, with his toy dog, to bed tonight at the silly hour of eleven! Our pets are bewildered by the sudden change in our domesticity.

Amongst the most cheering spectacles of the last few hours has been the sudden appearance above our heads of a vast array of balloons. We had become accustomed to the sight of glittering bent sausage shapes in the sky, but few of us who were not in the know ever thought it possible that so many balloons were ready to be launched above the smoke to play their part in the capital’s defensive system. They soared up into the sky-not by the dozen or by the score, but actually by the hundred. Last night the balloon barrage made a significant spectacle-a multitude of silvery shapes silhouetted against the sombre gold of the western sky!

Looking at the first number of my old War Illustrated tonight, I find that H.G. Wells wrote in his famous contribution to that publication, "This Prussian Imperialism has been for forty years an intolerable nuisance in the earth." And we thought we had ended it in 1918! But like the professor who was recently attacked and pursued by the head and upper part of a venomous snake, after three-fourths of its body had been severed, the bestial thing assails us again in the form of Nazi Imperialism. Germany, Prussianized or Nazified, is indeed an intolerable nuisance in the earth, and I hope to live to see the whole foul brood of Nazi warmongers in their graves or each that Doorn whence there is no return.

This reminds me that all of us whose duty it is to chronicle the course of the war so long as we are spared to do so rejoice in the splendid start which the British Ministry of Information has made, with their admirable appeal to the German people broadcast over Germany to the tune of six million copies by our aeroplanes as a first warning that while peace is our ideal we have the power to reply to the worst forms of Nazi frightfulness.

Unlike the spirit which was abroad in 1914, and which I can recall as vividly as though it were but a few short years ago, I do not hear today the same expressions of antipathy to the German people as a whole. We can recognise that a great nation, capable of great things, but lacking in that individualism which only Democracy can create, is being led to its doom by an unscrupulous minority that has secured the means of power and is deaf to all pleas of humanity.

Americans are supposed to be the star organizers, but I have always felt they take more care in talking about their methods than in achieving the organization. I conceived a new admiration for my own people when I saw how they handled scores of thousands of children and mothers evacuated to a reception area near my seaside home. And when I arrived in a childless London, passing through continuous scenes of evacuation on its fourth day, I felt that I had witnessed an absolute triumph in which care, solicitude, courage and human effort were all compact.