Lord Roberts's responsibility for the contents of this volume, as for its publication at the present time, is nil. And yet it would never have been undertaken in the first instance except at his wish, nor re-undertaken in September last without his encouragement. There are probably a good many besides myself who owe it to his inspiration, that they first made a serious attempt to study policy and defence as two aspects of a single problem. I also owe to him many things besides this.
The circumstances of Lord Roberts's death were befitting his character and career. The first great battle of Ypres was ended. The British line had held its own against tremendous odds of men and guns. He had no doubt of the ultimate result of the war, and during his visit to France and Flanders inspired all who saw him by the quiet confidence of his words and manner. After the funeral service at Headquarters a friend of his and mine wrote to me describing the scene. The religious ceremony had taken place in the entrance hall of the Maine at St. Omer. It was a day of storms; but as the coffin was borne out "the sun {xxiii} appeared, and made a magnificent rainbow on a great black block of cloud across the square; and an airman flew across from the rainbow into the sunlight."
If I were asked to name Lord Roberts's highest intellectual quality I should say unhesitatingly that it was his instinct. And if I were asked to name his highest moral quality I should say, also unhesitatingly, that it was the unshakeable confidence with which he trusted his instinct. But the firmness of his trust was not due in the least to self-conceit, or arrogance, or obstinacy. He obeyed his instinct as he obeyed his conscience—humbly and devoutly. The dictates of both proceeded from the same source. It was not his own cleverness which led him to his conclusions, but the hand of Providence which drew aside a veil, and enabled him to see the truth. What gave him his great strength in counsel, as in the field, was the simple modesty of his confidence.
He was a poor arguer; I think argument was painful to him; also that he regarded it as a sad waste of the short span of human life. It was not difficult to out-argue him. Plausible and perspicacious persons often left him, after an interview, under the firm impression that they had convinced him. But as a rule, he returned on the morrow to his old opinion, unless his would-be converters had brought to his notice new facts as well as new arguments.
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He arrived at an opinion neither hastily nor slowly, but at a moderate pace. He had the gift of stating his conclusion with admirable lucidity; and if he thought it desirable, he gave the reasons for his view of the matter with an equal clearness. But his reasons, like his conclusion, were in the nature of statements; they were not stages in an argument. There are as many unanswerable reasons to be given for as against most human decisions. Ingenuity and eloquence are a curse at councils of war, and state, and business. Indeed, wherever action of any kind has to be determined upon they are a curse. It was Lord Roberts's special gift that, out of the medley of unanswerable reasons, he had an instinct for selecting those which really mattered, and keeping his mind close shut against the rest.
It is superfluous to speak of his courtesy of manner and kindness of heart, or of his unflagging devotion—up till the very day of his death—to what he regarded as his duty. There is a passage in Urquhart's translation of Rabelais which always recalls him to my mind:—He was the best little great good man that ever girded a sword on his side; he took all things in good part, and interpreted every action in the best sense. In a leading German newspaper there appeared, a few days after his death, the following reference to that event:—"It was not given to Lord Roberts to see the realisation of his dreams of National Service; but the blows struck on the Aisne were hammer-strokes which might after a long {xxv} time and bitter need produce it. Lord Roberts was an honourable and, through his renown, a dangerous enemy ... personally an extraordinarily brave enemy. Before such a man we lower our swords, to raise them again for new blows dealt with the joy of conflict."
Nor was this the only allusion of the kind which figured in German newspapers 'to the journey of an old warrior to Walhalla,' with his final mission yet unaccomplished, but destined to be sooner or later accomplished, if his country was to survive. In none of these references, so far as I have been able to discover, was there the least trace of malice against the man who had warned his fellow-countrymen, more clearly than any other, against the premeditated aggression of Germany. This seems very strange when we recollect how, for nearly two years previously, a large section of the British nation had been engaged in denouncing Lord Roberts for the outrageous provocations which he was alleged to have offered to Germany—in apologising to Germany for his utterances—in suggesting the propriety of depriving him of his pension in the interests of Anglo-German amity. What this section has itself earned in the matter of German gratitude we know from many hymns and other effusions of hate.