The Spectator at war: A damp squib

From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 20 February 1915: The great event of the week ought to have been the beginning of the blockade by Germany of the whole of the shores of the British Islands. Strangely enough, however, Der Tag passed in complete calm, and we are now informed by German wireless that it was a mistake to suppose that anything particular would happen till some days after the 18th. One of the German papers, indeed, speaks of ten or fifteen days having to elapse before the hour strikes. In fact, the day when Britain is to become a wretched, starring, isolated island, cut off from all human intercourse and devoted as sacrifice to the German war Gods of the Empyrean and the Deep Sea, has been put off—just as the capture, first of Paris, then of Calais, and then of Warsaw, has been constantly postponed. Here we may remark that there is really something very touching in the way in which the German people show no signs of disappointment or disillusionment in these repeated examples of unfulfilled prophecy.