performed in Glastonbury Assembly Rooms at the inaugural Glastonbury Festival co-founded by the socialist composer and opening on 5 August. 28 August – World War I: the Battle of Heligoland – British cruisers under Admiral Beatty sink three German cruisers. 30 August – World War I: "Amiens Dispatch" – in a special Sunday edition The Times newspaper publishes the first news of the Great Retreat (from its war correspondent Arthur Moore). August – World War I: the Order of the White Feather is established by Admiral Charles Cooper Penrose-Fitzgerald, RN (retd), in Folkestone, aiming to persuade women to offer white feathers to men not in uniform to shame them into enlisting. September J. R. R. Tolkien writes a poem about Eärendil, the first appearance of his mythopoeic Middle-earth legendarium. Eärendil will much later appear in The Silmarillion. At this time Tolkien is an Oxford undergraduate staying at Phoenix Farm, Gedling near Nottingham. Rumours spread that Russian troops, landed on the east coast of Scotland, have passed on trains through England en route to the Western Front. The Neptune Film Company opens the Neptune Studios (the first "dark stage" in England) at Borehamwood in Hertfordshire. 5 September London Agreement: no member of Triple Entente (Britain, France, or Russia) may seek a separate peace with Central Powers. Scout cruiser is sunk by German submarine U-21 in the Firth of Forth, the first ship ever to be sunk by a locomotive torpedo fired from a submarine. Cover of magazine London Opinion first carries the iconic drawing by Alfred Leete of Lord Kitchener with the recruiting slogan Your Country Needs You. 5–12 September – World War I: First Battle of the Marne begins: Northeast of Paris, the British Expeditionary Force and the French 6th Army under General Maunoury attack German forces nearing Paris. Over 2 million fight (500,000 killed/wounded) in the Allied victory. 8 September – World War I: Private Thomas Highgate becomes the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during the War, suffering execution by firing squad in France. 13–28 September – World War I: the First Battle of the Aisne involving British, French forces against those of the German Empire, ending indecisively. 18 September – the Government of Ireland Act, granting home rule to the whole of Ireland, and the Welsh Church Act, disestablishing the Church in Wales, receive Royal Assent (although George V has contemplated refusing the Irish act)