Freepedia
is a series of free encyclopaedias. We currently specialize in history
but we intend to branch out into other areas. This section is about
the Daily Chronicle.
The
Daily Chronicle
was founded in 1872. Purchased by Edward
Lloyd
for £30,000 in 1876, it achieved a high reputation under the editorship
of H. W. Massingham (1895-99) and Robert
Donald who took charge in 1904.
Circulation was increased when Robert Donald
transformed it into a halfpenny daily. Donald recruited a group talented
journalists and artists including Henry
Hamilton Fyfe, Philip Gibbs, Phil
May, F. H. Townsend
and Frank Brangwyn.
By 1914 Donald claimed that the net sale of the Daily
Chronicle
exceeded the combined sales of the The Times,
Daily Telegraph, Morning
Post, Evening Standard and
the Daily Graphic. The following year
the company that owned the Daily
Chronicle,
United Newspapers Limited, was able to
announce that it had made a healthy profit of £43,650.
The Daily
Chronicle
supported the left-wing of the Liberal Party.
At the end of July, 1914, it became clear to the
British government that the country was on the verge of war with Germany.
The left-wing members of the government were opposed
to the country becoming involved in a European war. Although
Charles Trevelyan, John
Burns, and John Morley resigned from the
government, the leader of this group, David Lloyd
George changed his mind and stayed. Lloyd George also persuaded
Robert Donald and the Daily
Chronicle
to give its full support to the war effort.
Philip Gibbs and Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle reported the war for the Daily
Chronicle. Donald also made several
visits to the Western Front and in 1915
wrote a detailed account of the trench
system.
On 9th April, 1918, the prime minister, David
Lloyd George, told the House of Commons
that despite heavy casualties in 1917, the British
Army in France was considerably stronger than it had been on January
1917. He also gave details of the numbers of British troops in Mesopotamia,
Egypt and Palestine.
Sir Frederick Maurice, whose job it was
to keep accurate statistics of British military strength, knew that
David Lloyd George
had been guilty of misleading Parliament about the number of men in
the British Army. Maurice wrote to Sir
Henry Wilson, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, pointing
out these inaccuracies. He did not receive a reply and after consulting
with friends and relatives, he took the decision to write a letter to
the newspapers giving the true figures.
On 7th May, 1918, the principal newspapers published Maurice's letter
accusing David Lloyd George of giving the
House of Commons inaccurate information.
Maurice, by writing the letter, had committed a grave breach of discipline.
He was retired from the British Army and
was refused a court martial or inquiry where he would have been able
to show that David Lloyd George had mislead
the House of Commons on both the 9th April
and 7th May, 1918.
Donald took the decision to appoint Sir
Frederick Maurice as the military correspondent of the Daily
Chronicle. Lloyd George was furious with Donald's decision to
employ Maurice and on 5th October it was announced that a group of his
friends led by Sir Henry Dalziel, had purchased
the Daily Chronicle. Donald resigned
in protest and complained that Lloyd George was trying to "corner
public opinion".
Daily
Chronicle: Wikipedia
Daily
Chronicle
Forum
Debates
War
Propaganda Bureau
Daily
Chronicle
(1)
The Daily Chronicle (7th August, 1914)
A
newspaper's duty is to give news, but at times of war it has a patriotic
duty as well. It must give no news which would convey information of
advantage to the adversary.
Throughout this war, The Daily Chronicle will refrain from indicating
the location and movements of warships and units of the army. At the
same time The Daily Chronicle has taken complete and energetic
measures to supply its readers with full intelligence from every part
of the war areas.
The censorship that we exercise over our news will not affect its value
to the ordinary reader of the paper. The special correspondents of The
Daily Chronicle are men of world-wide repute, experienced in war,
vivid descriptive writers and brilliant news-getters.
(2)
Philip Gibbs described the retreat from Mons
in the Daily Chronicle (29th August, 1914)
I
have been into this war zone and have seen during the last five days
the men who are holding the lines of defence. I have been among their
dead and wounded, and have talked with soldiers marching fresh to the
front. I have seen the horrid mess which is cleared up after battle
and the grim picture of retreat. But nothing that I have seen or heard
from either the British or the French leads me to believe that our allies
have been demoralized.
It is astounding to see the cheerfulness of our wounded British soldiers
at Rouen, where the Red Cross nurses tell admiring stories of their
pluck and patience. Yet out of the firing line as well as in the trenches
they have had a dreadful time. It is almost true to say that they only
rest when they get into the ambulance cart and the field hospital. One
of them told me that incessant marching, marching forwards and backwards
to new positions, is more awful to bear than the actual fighting under
the hideous fire of the German guns.
(3)
Robert Donald, Daily Chronicle (August,
1915)
The
soil is soft clay, admirably suited for entrenching, tunnelling, and
mine warfare - when it is dry. As an outside observer, I do not see
why the war in this area should not go on for a hundred years, without
any decisive result. What is happening now is precisely what happened
last year. The only difference is that the trenches are deeper, dug-outs
better made, tunnels are longer, and the charges of explosives heavier.
Everywhere there are trenches, barbed wire, machine guns where they
are least expected, and all the complicated arrangements for defence.
The trenches are very deep, very narrow, and very wet. Streams of water
run at the bottom.
The nearer one gets to the front the more mysterious and wonderful become
the methods of defence. You are allowed to peer through an observation
post towards the German trenches a few hundred yards away. You see absolutely
nothing but a mass of brushwood, broken trunks of trees, hanging branches
and barbed wire.
The guns were always at work. On my day of my visit to this area there
was an almost continuous bombardment going on. The shells were hurtling
over our heads. You heard the sharp discharge, and then the exploding
of the shell. You saw nothing. The sound re-echoes through the woods
and valleys like rolling thunder. The French fire six rounds to the
enemy's one. The object of the cannonading is to disturb any work going
on behind the enemy lines.
(4)
Frederick Maurice, The
Daily Chronicle (7th September, 1918)
Why has our Government expressed no recognition of Sir Douglas Haig's
leadership and the valour of our men? We are often accused of concealing
the performances of our own troops, and of giving the credit to others.
This time there has been no concealment, which makes it more remarkable
that so conspicuous a success should have been allowed by the War Cabinet
to pass unnoticed.
(5)
Frederick Maurice,
The Daily Chronicle (13th September,
1918)
He (David Lloyd George) did right in doing homage to Marshal Foch, but
his omission to make any reference to the prominent part played by Sir
Douglas Haig in the achievement of the recent victories was very marked.
It is a small mind that petulantly refuses to acknowledge the services
of a great soldier.
(6)
Frederick
Maurice, The Daily Chronicle
(3rd October, 1918)
The British successes on the Western Front since 8th August are much
the greatest in scale ever won by the British Army or a British General.
Within the period under review General Pershing and General Allenby
have received the official congratulations of the British Government,
and Mr. Lloyd George has congratulated Marshal Foch. Various private
organizations have sent congratulations to Sir Douglas Haig, including
the Labour Party and the National Liberal Federation; but the War Cabinet
has remained silent.
(7)
The Morning Post (17th October, 1918)
It is at least a coincidence that the Daily Chronicle should
have thus changed hands at a moment when that journal was developing
into an outspoken critic of Lloyd-Georgian policies. Just as there are
other ways of killing a cat than choking it with cream, so there are
other ways of silencing newspaper critics than by conferring on them
the Order of the British Empire.
(8)
The Star (17th October, 1918)
One
thing we may be certain of there will be no repetition of the leading
article which complained that Sir Douglas Haig had never received the
congratulations of the Prime Minister and the War Cabinet on his brilliant
series of victories. The article appeared in the Daily Chronicle
on Thursday morning. On Friday night the Prime Minister's representative
had taken charge of the offices of the newspaper and Mr. Donald had
resigned. Fleet Street knows the Prime Minister does not spare those
who cross his path. General Maurice, who ceased to be a Director of
Military Operations when he exposed the Prime Minister's speeches, is
now the Military Correspondent of the Daily Chronicle, and it
will be interesting to see how long he holds that post.
