Ponsonby's Report

Once upon a time Queen Victoria thought she had made quite a good Page of Honor out of little Arthur Augustus William Harry Ponsonby. The child seldom sniveled--a great point in his favor with Her Majesty--and presently he showed more smartness than most in fetching her Bible and carrying her "salts." Moreover Page Ponsonby had good blood, the blue of his maternal great grandsire Earl Grey (Prime Minister 1830-34); .and so the Great Queen kept "that dear Ponsonby child" in her service for five whole years, placing him less than a decade later in the Diplomatic Service. Unfortunate Victoria! She could not know that in 1929--in fact this month--onetime Page Ponsonby would publish a most scathing and compactly venomous report exposing lies and shady tricks used by Allied and British statesmen to win the War.

No longer page or puppet, Arthur Ponsonby M. P. is today one of the old progressive guard of Campbell-Bannerman Liberals who have followed their principles into the Labor ranks. Through 1906-08 young Mr. Ponsonby served as Principal Private Secretary to Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman; but 1924 saw him Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs and right-hand-man to the only Laborite who has ever been British Prime Minister, James Ramsay MacDonald. Thus, when onetime Page Ponsonby released his report in 192 closely packed and reasoned pages, he revealed the insight of one who has been behind the British scenes, both before and after the War, and the weighted judgment of a Parliamentarian 16 years in the House. Briefly, Laborite Ponsonby seeks to destroy at least a portion of "the weapon of falsehood" forged by Allied propagandists during the War, and more especially to unmask the more notorious lies spread by "the British official propaganda department at Crewe House under Lord Northcliffe." For good measure and impartiality certain German War lies are also exposed. Most significant, amid present hue and cry against Soviet Russian propaganda, is evidence here cited that 10,500 paid British propagandists were operating throughout the U. S. in 1917.

Lies, Lies, Lies. In smashing contradiction of many a still prevalent belief, Laborite Ponsonby sets out to demonstrate: 1) That, generally speaking, "German atrocities" were extremely rare; and, specifically, German soldiers in Belgium and France never cut off the hand or hands of a single child; 2) That Allied propagandists created and attributed to Wilhelm II the reference to "England's contemptible little army" which became the most effective British recruiting slogan of the entire War; 3) That the sinking of the Lusitania was justified by the fact that she carried arms; 4) That German submarine commanders did not in any instance aggravate their torpedoing of merchant ships by an "atrocity" or act of cruelty; and 5) That the portion of the ... Treaty of Versailles which fixes sole War guilt upon Germany is simply tosh.

The method of demonstration and of proof adopted by Queen-Empress Victoria's onetime Page of Honor is to range widely and exhaustively over the material of post-War documents and disclosures, culling testimony from the very statesmen under whom the War lies were forged and used as deadly weapons. Citing chapter and verse, page and line, Laborite Ponsonby produces the following five "proofs" of his above five assertions:

Babies' Hands. In his memoirs Signor Francisco Nitti, the Italian Prime Minister (1918-20) now declares: "During the War France, in common with other Allies, including our own Government in Italy, circulated the most absurd inventions to arouse the fighting spirit of our people. The cruelties attributed to the Germans were such as to curdle our blood. We heard the story of poor little Belgian children whose hands were cut off by the Huns. After the War a rich American, who was deeply touched by the French propaganda, sent an emissary to Belgium with the intention of providing a livelihood for the children whose poor little hands had been cut off. He was unable to dis cover one. Mr. Lloyd George and myself, when at the head of the Italian Government, carried on extensive investigations as to the truth of these horrible accusations, some of which, at least, were told specifically as to names and places. Every case investigated proved to be a myth."

"Old Contemptibles." To this day Britons who fought in France during 1914 proudly refer to themselves collectively, as "The Old Contemptibles." This they do because on Sept. 24, 1914 they read in the British Expeditionary Force Routine Orders of the day that on Aug. 19, 1914 the Kaiser declared, in a General Order issued from German Headquarters, Aix-la-Chapelle:

"It is my Royal and Imperial command that you [German soldiers] ... exterminate first the treacherous English, walk over General French's contemptible little army!"

To completely blast this British fabrication Laborite Ponsonby had adduced two proofs: 1) The indisputable fact that German headquarters were never at Aix-la-Chapelle; and 2) The statement of British General Sir Frederick Maurice who, after the War, had German files and archives thoroughly ransacked without finding a single German newspaper or document indicating that Wilhelm never used the phrase "contemptible little army."

Lusitania Armed. Britain's present Chancellor of the Exchequer, rubicund and Right Honorable Winston ("Winnie") Churchill, is quoted as stating over his signature:

"Included in her [the Lusitania's] cargo was a small consignment of rifle ammunition and shrapnel shells weighing about 173 tons."

Sims on Atrocities. Conveniently for Mr. Ponsonby the U. S. Navy's Rear Admiral William Sowden Sims has now declared: "There exists no authentic report of cruelties ever having been committed by the commander or crew of a German submarine. The Press reports about cruelties were only meant for propaganda purposes."

Cited by Laborite Ponsonby as an instance of "unofficial propaganda" is the deed of Miss Kate Hume of Dumfries, Scotland. In 1914 she forged and gave to the British press a purported letter from her sister, Miss Grace Hume, in which the latter was supposed to write that her right breast had been hacked off by Germans in Belgium. Since Miss Grace Hume had never been out of England and was sensitive about her breast, she denounced her sister, but not until the story had grown to national prominence.

Germany's Sole (?) Guilt. As an indication of the official and unofficial change in Allied opinion concerning Germany's sole War guilt, Mr. Ponsonby cites two treaties:

The Treaty of Versailles (1918) declares that "the Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility ... of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies"; but the Locarno Pact (1925), refers to "the peoples upon whom fell the scourge of the war 1914-1918." Thus Germany has progressed officially, from the status of a culprit self-confessed and solely guilty, to that of membership in a community of pious sufferers. Needless to recall, the hypothesis of sole guilt is bindingly included in an article (No. 231) of the Versailles Treaty, while the quotation from the Locarno Pact is taken from its mere preamble and is therefore not binding--though enormously significant.

Priests as Clappers. Perhaps the only humorous page of Laborite Ponsonby's whole appalling report is that on which he shows how the European press gradually and spontaneously built up an atrocity story out of absolutely nothing, after the fall of Antwerp in November, 1914. Without comment he presents the following press cuttings:

When the fall of Antwerp got known the church bells were rung.

--Koelnische Zeitung (Cologne).

According to the Koelnische Zeitung, the clergy of Antwerp were compelled to ring the church bells when the fortress was taken.

-- Le Matin (Paris).

According to what Le Matin has heard from Cologne, the Belgian priests who refused to ring the church bells when Antwerp was taken have been driven away from their places.

The Times (London).

According to what The Times has heard from Cologne via Paris, the unfortunate Belgian priests who refused to ring the church bells when Antwerp was taken have been sentenced to hard labour.

--Corriere della Sera (Milan).

According to information to the Corriere della Sera from Cologne via London, it is confirmed that the barbaric conquerors of Antwerp punished the unfortunate Belgian priests for their heroic refusal to ring the church bells by hanging them as living clappers to the bells with their heads down.

--Le Matin (Paris).

Citizens of the U. S. who wanted to peer at each page of the Ponsonby Report were glad, last week, that E. P. Button presses were whirring, producing copies entitled Falsehood in War-Time by Arthur Ponsonby, M. P., to be sold at $2.00.