The Diary of Dorothy Priest, September 9th 1914

The rumours of Monday night that we were beginning to win were confirmed yesterday.

We started on Sunday to make the German right retreat and this morning’s paper say they are still retreating.  I see now that I said some of this last night but my writing is so awful that I did not see it at first.  I was tired and not well when I wrote last night which accounts for my writing being even worse than usual.  Do we all realise, I wonder, that we are really involved in the biggest war the world has ever known?  I don’t think I do.  I read the headings in the papers and glance at the pictures in “The Mirror” and sometimes read them more thoroughly, but I don’t believe I realise it properly at all.  Even when I read the casualty lists and see the numbers of those killed I don’t grasp the fact that they are dead, Englishmen who have died fighting for the Empire, fighting for peace, the peace of the World.  If the Kaiser considered that England consisted of two little islands off the west coast of Europe he made a very big mistake.  It seems to me that instead of talking about England nowadays it would be much more correct to talk about the British Empire.  All the parts of the Empire are so united, all agree that England’s quarrel is their quarrel and they intend to help the Mother Country.  This is one of the good things of the war.  Another, perhaps really a smaller one, but one that strikes us here in England more, is the cessation of all party politics.  Lloyd George and Austen Chamberlain work side-by-side and Lord Kitchener, who has never before been mentioned in connection with politics, is a Cabinet Minister; and above all Ireland is united.  Ulstermen and Nationalists stand side-by-side to defend their country or go to France to fight the Germans.  Truly this is a wonderful country! It is really not surprising that the Kaiser was astonished at our behaviour.

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