Dimming of the Day

77 August 1914 Railway companies were cancelling their excursion trains, and the boat train had left Victoria full of émigrés returning to the Continent and no English holiday-makers. The Cowes Regatta had been cancelled, but other sport was at this time untouched and the bank-holiday cricket programme would continue. The Canterbury Week would go on, but the traditional accompanying theatrical performance by the Old Stagers was in doubt as several of the actors were soldiers who might now have other duties. Robert Graves wrote in Goodbye To All That (published in 1929), ‘the papers predicted a very short war – over by Christmas at the outside’, but any source for that famous phrase is hard to pin down. Kent and Surrey had drawn at Blackheath on the Saturday when rain had ended play at about five o’clock with Kent 100 ahead with three wickets left. Hampshire had held out for a draw against Essex with B.G.von B. Melle taking five for 73 and then making 42* as part of a match-saving partnership with Alec Bowell. Basil George von Brandis Melle was a South African in his second year at Oxford and who was to play the odd game for the county until 1921. Sussex, one wicket left and 77 runs away from an innings defeat, were saved by the rain against Northamptonshire. Warwickshire beat Lancashire and Somerset beat Derbyshire. Surrey, Middlesex and Kent filled the first three places in the Championship with Hampshire still clinging to fourth place. It must have been very strange watching – or indeed playing – cricket on that Bank Holiday Monday. As well as the scorecard sellers there would have been the newspaper vendors. Everyone knew that Parliament was going to take a crucial decision that day, and while war was still not inevitable it was exceedingly probable. At this time, remarkably, there had still been no mention of Belgium. You might have gone to Derby or Bristol, Southampton or Canterbury, Old Trafford or Northampton, the Oval or Edgbaston: all sixteen counties were in action simultaneously. It might have been the treat you were looking forward to for weeks. Or you could be going out to open the batting wondering whether war would have been declared by the time you were out. Everyone must have known that it was overwhelmingly probable that Europe was headed down the slippery slope and pulling Britain along as well. A couple of extra days had been added to the bank holiday (for the benefit of the banks, not the workers). Britain was mobilising. On 4 August, The Times was a slim ten pages (but because of the bank holiday rather than the war). It reported the movement of French troops to the frontier and skirmishes to the East. But at 7.00 pm the previous evening Germany had delivered an ultimatum to Belgium offering to respect Belgian neutrality if Belgium allowed the passage of German troops through the country. Belgium was understood to have refused the offer. The Times pointed out that by a treaty of 1839 we were obliged to act if Belgian neutrality was violated.