Exodus –– I

In Paris, or the Future of War (1925), Basil Liddell Hart asked: Who that saw it will ever forget the nightly sight of the population of a great industrial and shipping town, such as Hull, streaming out into the fields on the first sound of the alarm signals? Women, children, babies in arms, spending night after night huddled in sodden fields, shivering under a bitter wintry sky — the exposure must have caused far more harm than the few bombs dropped from two or three Zeppelins.1 Liddell Hart did see this, and he never did forget. Here’s his account from his memoirs, written several decades later: After convalescent leave, I was posted to the 3rd K.O.Y.L.I. — the draft-finding unit for the Regular battalions — which was then stationed at Hull. An early experience there was a Zeppelin raid which did a lot of damage by the standards of that time. As there was no defence, the two airships hovered low over the city, and one could see the gleam of light each time a trapdoor opened to drop…