Deeds of a great railway : $b A record of the enterprise and achievements of the London and North-Western Railway company during the Great WarDarroch, G. R. S. (George Richard Sutton)
History
Deeds of a great railway : $b A record of the enterprise and achievements of the London and North-Western Railway company during the Great War
Darroch, G. R. S. (George Richard Sutton)
London and North-Western Railway; World War, 1914-1918 -- Transportation
A further, and by no means inconsiderable, call to be made upon, as it
was gladly accepted by, the Company, was that of tending the wounded
on arrival in "Blighty." Special ambulance trains of the most approved
design were supplied, and run with unfailing precision and regularity.
Refugees were catered for; and in direct contrast to the treatment
meted out by the enemy to our own men, enemy prisoners and captives in
our own hands were shown such pity that special trains were actually
provided for their conveyance by rail. When all is said and done,
however,
"Be England what she will,
With all her faults she is my country still."
Fresh still in the minds of most of us must be Mr. Lloyd George's
memorable "for-God's-sake-hurry-up" message, calling upon the United
States of America, at the time when the hammer blow of the final and
despairing German offensive fell with full force upon the British Army
in France, "to send American reinforcements across the Atlantic in the
shortest possible space of time," and whatever may be the opinion held
"pace" Mr. Wilson and his famous "too-proud-to-fight" utterance, there
is no doubt but that at long last the great American people realised
to the full the nature of the menace which threatened from the German
aspiration to world-domination.
Speaking at Spartanburg (cp. the _Times_, March 26th, 1918), General
O'Ryan declared that "the only distressing feature of the news (of the
German offensive) was the fact that the British had been obliged to
make such enormous sacrifices because American assistance was not yet
fully at hand. We have been galvanised now," he said, "into realising
the immensity of our obligations."
Telegraphing to Sir Douglas Haig on the same date, President Wilson
deigned to express "to you my warm admiration for the splendid
steadfastness and valour with which your troops have withstood the
German onset." And in the meantime, the complicated problem of
transportation was occupying the keenest brains on the other side of
the Herring-pond, for as the _New York World_ (cp. the _Times_, March
30th, 1918) pointed out, "it (transportation) certainly cannot be
solved by the kind of people who for ever wring their hands crying,
'For God's sake do something.' Godsaking will not drive a single rivet
in a ship, or transport a solitary soldier across the Atlantic."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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