On the same evening the Chancellor of the Exchequer addressed a great Nonconformist recruiting meeting at the City Temple. The principle that drew him to resist his own country in the Boer War, he said--defence of small nationalities--had brought him there. One of the greatest French generals, describing his own experience, had said to him that "the man responsible for this war had the soul of a devil." Great Britain was not responsible. We were organised for defence--against all the Powers of the world. We had raised the greatest Volunteer Army on record, and in a few months we should double it. For an aggressive war we could not have raised a tenth of it. At the outbreak of war we were on better terms with Germany than we had been for fifteen years. The vulture had been hanging over Belgium, but it pounced, not on a rabbit, but on a hedgehog, and had been bleeding and sore ever since. We now knew that the counsellors of Germany had planned and organised the murder of peaceful neighbours, and even fixed the date to suit themselves. Peace at any price was not a Christian principle. The surest way of establishing peace on earth was to make the way of the peacebreaker too hard for rulers to tread. After denouncing German action in Belgium and coupling the Turks of the East with their fitting comrades the Turks of the West, he referred to the cost of the war--which would not be grudged--and condemned those who approved of the war and left the necessary sacrifices to others. Could Britain, fighting one of the most chivalrous wars the world had ever seen, not rely on her children to rally to her honour? The encouragement given by these speeches had already been begun by the news that the _Königsberg_ had been shut up in East Africa by H.M.S. _Chatham_ and the _Emden_ destroyed by H.M.A.S. _Sydney_ at the Cocos or Keeling Islands (Chron., Nov. 10); and the sinking of H.M.S. _Niger_ by a submarine next day in the Downs, two miles off Deal, served merely as a salutary reminder that the war was near at hand. And the unity of the nation was further emphasised during the short session of Parliament which now began. Parliament was opened by the King in person on November 11, with much the usual ceremony, save that the State coach with the famous cream-coloured horses was replaced by a glass coach with black horses. Many of the King's servants trained in Court ceremonial had gone to the front; the dresses of the Queen and most of the Peeresses in the House of Lords were black; and several members of the Commons wore khaki. (The members serving in the Navy, Army, and Auxiliary Forces numbered 126.) The King read his speech, of which only portions can be here given. The salient passage referring to the entry of Turkey into the war was as follows:--