My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosley3 - Service in the First World WarTHE outbreak of war in August 1914 brought us all back to Sandhurst in a hurry,several weeks before we were due to return. The purpose was a brief, hard spell ofwar training before being sent to join our regiments. On the way through London Ihad a glimpse of the cheering crowds round Buckingham Palace, and sensed the air ofgeneral enthusiasm which since the Boer War had been called the Mafeking spirit.Everyone seemed to think it would be all over in a few weeks. The reason for thisbelief was not quite clear, but we were all gripped by it. Our one great fear was thatthe war would be over before we got there. A cartoon in Punch or some such journalshowed a cavalry subalterns' mess discussing the outbreak of war; there would just betime to beat them between the polo and the hunting—or was it between the polo andthe grouse? These brilliant troops had more reason for their optimism in theconditions of 1914 than some of the club experts of 1939, who were remarking thatthe Polish cavalry would have an easy ride to Berlin because the German tanks werereally made of cardboard. There is always much nonsense talked at the outbreak ofwar, even after experience..How much tragedy loomed if we could have looked into the future. We had to reportto Sandhurst the next day, so in London I went to the Palace Theatre where a youngactor called Basil Hallam, a friend of the previous summer, was having anunparalleled success in the company of a glittering actress called Elsie Janis, who wasone of the wittiest and most brilliant of the hostesses and entertainers we havewelcomed from America. He asked me how long I thought the war would last—amost hopeful question, because I was much less qualified to judge this than the man inthe moon. With a crashing lack of tact, a truly wooden-headed display of youthfulobtuseness, I indicated that what really mattered was that it should last long enoughfor us to get into it. His face saddened, and even then I had sensibility enough torealise what a tragedy it was for a young man just at the height of his first success, sorecently won, to give it all up and go to the war, as he would feel impelled to do if itwent on for long. It was quite soon afterwards that Basil Hallam's parachute failed toopen when his observation balloon was shot down by attacking aircraft and he had tojump out in a hurry. It was a rough job, you had to get out fast to avoid the burningballoon coming on top of you. They had parachutes—which we had not in my days inthe Royal Flying Corps—but the chivalrous rule of not shooting at a man going downin a parachute was not always observed in the case of someone jumping from anobservation balloon; perhaps the German airmen did not regard them as belonging tothe same fraternity. Another friend of mine in that corps was followed all the waydown by two German aircraft plastering him with machine-gun bullets; he always saidthat he never gave a thought to being hit himself but had his eyes anxiously glued onthe cord by which he was dangling for fear it would be severed.The Army legend was that Basil Hallam's body hit the ground not far from the Guardsband playing his smash-hit song of the 1914 summer, 'Good-bye girls, I'm through'; Ido not know if it was true; these rumours and legends always circulate in an army,often in highly romantic form. The British private soldier under his rough exterior ismuch given to sentiment and imaginative credulity. Some believed that Field-MarshalMackensen, one of the most distinguished German commanders of the First WorldWar, was in reality Hector Macdonald, a general of the Boer War who was reputed tohave committed suicide in time of peace after some dark event. There were no40 of 424