The Annual Register 1914: A Review of Public Events at Home and Abroad for the Year 1914Anonymous
History
The Annual Register 1914: A Review of Public Events at Home and Abroad for the Year 1914
Anonymous
History, Modern; History, Modern -- Periodicals; World War, 1914-1918
On the previous day, September 28, Belfast had celebrated the second
anniversary of Ulster Day, which had not been dropped owing to the
alleged breach by the Government of the "truce" (p. 204). But the
proceedings were very largely a demonstration of a broader patriotism.
Sir Edward Carson, indeed, announced that after the war he proposed to
summon the Provisional Government, which would repeal the Home Rule
Act as affecting Ulster and enact simultaneously that the Volunteers
should carry out this decision; meanwhile, let them throw themselves
whole-heartedly into the patriotic action demanded by the time. And
Mr. Bonar Law, at a great demonstration that evening, after giving
a formal pledge that the whole Unionist party would support Ulster
unconditionally; repeated that Ulstermen had no ill-will to their
Catholic fellow-countrymen, and went on to deal with the war. The
meeting was called to stimulate Ulstermen to join the Army; such
hesitation as there had been at first was due to the suddenness of the
war, and it had not lasted long. The pressure put on individuals to
join seemed to him detestable, and was utterly unnecessary. The Germans
had been shown that we were not a decadent nation. We had reason to
be proud of the Army, the Volunteers, and the spirit shown throughout
the Empire. After urging the need of better allowances for dependants
of soldiers, Mr. Bonar Law described the war as one of the greatest
of crimes, due to one nation and largely to one man. The Germans had
pulled down their spiritual altars and erected a temple to naked Force.
It was Napoleonism without Napoleon. Apart from their Army they had
made every possible mistake--with Italy, with Belgium, in neutral
countries, as regarded the Dominions and India. The British people had
no desire to humiliate the German people, but they were determined that
the dread spectre that had haunted them should not do so again, and
that the law of right, not of might, should govern the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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