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diff --git a/1804-h/1804-h.htm b/1804-h/1804-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d17c12e --- /dev/null +++ b/1804-h/1804-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6908 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + War and the Future, by H. G. Wells + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of War and the Future, by H. G. Wells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: War and the Future + +Author: H. G. Wells + +Release Date: March 21, 2006 [EBook #1804] +Last Updated: March 2, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAR AND THE FUTURE *** + + + + +Produced by Morgan L. Owens and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + WAR AND THE FUTURE + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h3> + Italy, France and Britain at War + </h3> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + by H. G. Wells + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>THE PASSING OF THE EFFIGY</b> </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>THE WAR IN ITALY (AUGUST, 1916)</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> I. THE ISONZO FRONT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> II. THE MOUNTAIN WAR </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> III. BEHIND THE FRONT </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> <b>THE WESTERN WAR (SEPTEMBER, 1916)</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> I. RUINS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> II. THE GRADES OF WAR </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> III. THE WAR LANDSCAPE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> IV. NEW ARMS FOR OLD ONES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> V. TANKS </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> <b>HOW PEOPLE THINK ABOUT THE WAR</b> </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> I. DO THEY REALLY THINK AT ALL? </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> II. THE YIELDING PACIFIST AND THE + CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> III. THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> IV. THE RIDDLE OF THE BRITISH </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> V. THE SOCIAL CHANGES IN PROGRESS </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> VI. THE ENDING OF THE WAR </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + THE PASSING OF THE EFFIGY + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + One of the minor peculiarities of this unprecedented war is the Tour of + the Front. After some months of suppressed information—in which even + the war correspondent was discouraged to the point of elimination—it + was discovered on both sides that this was a struggle in which Opinion was + playing a larger and more important part than it had ever done before. + This wild spreading weed was perhaps of decisive importance; the Germans + at any rate were attempting to make it a cultivated flower. There was + Opinion flowering away at home, feeding rankly on rumour; Opinion in + neutral countries; Opinion getting into great tangles of misunderstanding + and incorrect valuation between the Allies. The confidence and courage of + the enemy; the amiability and assistance of the neutral; the zeal, + sacrifice, and serenity of the home population; all were affected. The + German cultivation of opinion began long before the war; it is still the + most systematic and, because of the psychological ineptitude of the + Germans, it is probably the clumsiest. The French <i>Maison de la Presse</i> + is certainly the best organisation in existence for making things clear, + counteracting hostile suggestion, the British official organisations are + comparatively ineffective; but what is lacking officially is very largely + made up for by the good will and generous efforts of the English and + American press. An interesting monograph might be written upon these + various attempts of the belligerents to get themselves and their + proceedings explained. + </p> + <p> + Because there is perceptible in these developments, quite over and above + the desire to influence opinion, a very real effort to get things + explained. It is the most interesting and curious—one might almost + write touching—feature of these organisations that they do not + constitute a positive and defined propaganda such as the Germans maintain. + The German propaganda is simple, because its ends are simple; assertions + of the moral elevation and loveliness of Germany; of the insuperable + excellences of German Kultur, the Kaiser, and Crown Prince, and so forth; + abuse of the “treacherous” English who allied themselves with the + “degenerate” French and the “barbaric” Russians; nonsense about “the + freedom of the seas”—the emptiest phrase in history—childish + attempts to sow suspicion between the Allies, and still more childish + attempts to induce neutrals and simple-minded pacifists of allied + nationality to save the face of Germany by initiating peace negotiations. + But apart from their steady record and reminder of German brutalities and + German aggression, the press organisations of the Allies have none of this + definiteness in their task. The aim of the national intelligence in each + of the allied countries is not to exalt one's own nation and confuse and + divide the enemy, but to get a real understanding with the peoples and + spirits of a number of different nations, an understanding that will + increase and become a fruitful and permanent understanding between the + allied peoples. Neither the English, the Russians, the Italians, nor the + French, to name only the bigger European allies, are concerned in setting + up a legend, as the Germans are concerned in setting up a legend of + themselves to impose upon mankind. They are reality dealers in this war, + and the Germans are effigy mongers. Practically the Allies are saying each + to one another, “Pray come to me and see for yourself that I am very much + the human stuff that you are. Come and see that I am doing my best—and + I think that is not so very bad a best....” And with that is something + else still more subtle, something rather in the form of, “And please tell + me what you think of me—and all this.” + </p> + <p> + So we have this curious byplay of the war, and one day I find Mr. + Nabokoff, the editor of the <i>Retch</i>, and Count Alexy Tolstoy, that + writer of delicate short stories, and Mr. Chukovsky, the subtle critic, + calling in upon me after braving the wintry seas to see the British fleet; + M. Joseph Reinach follows them presently upon the same errand; and then + appear photographs of Mr. Arnold Bennett wading in the trenches of + Flanders, Mr. Noyes becomes discreetly indiscreet about what he has seen + among the submarines, and Mr. Hugh Walpole catches things from Mr. Stephen + Graham in the Dark Forest of Russia. All this is quite over and above such + writing of facts at first hand as Mr. Patrick McGill and a dozen other + real experiencing soldiers—not to mention the soldiers' letters Mr. + James Milne has collected, or the unforgettable and immortal <i>Prisoner + of War</i> of Mr. Arthur Green—or such admirable war correspondents' + work as Mr. Philip Gibbs or Mr. Washburne has done. Some of us writers—I + can answer for one—have made our Tour of the Fronts with a very + understandable diffidence. For my own part I did not want to go. I evaded + a suggestion that I should go in 1915. I travel badly, I speak French and + Italian with incredible atrocity, and am an extreme Pacifist. I hate + soldiering. And also I did not want to write anything “under instruction”. + It is largely owing to a certain stiffness in the composition of General + Delme-Radcliffe is resolved that Italy shall not feel neglected by the + refusal of the invitation from the Comando Supremo by anyone who from the + perspective of Italy may seem to be a representative of British opinion. + If Herbert Spencer had been alive General Radcliffe would have certainly + made him come, travelling-hammock, ear clips and all—and I am not + above confessing that I wish that Herbert Spencer was alive—for this + purpose. I found Udine warm and gay with memories of Mr. Belloc, Lord + Northcliffe, Mr. Sidney Low, Colonel Repington and Dr. Conan Doyle, and + anticipating the arrival of Mr. Harold Cox. So we pass, mostly in + automobiles that bump tremendously over war roads, a cloud of witnesses + each testifying after his manner. Whatever else has happened, we have all + been photographed with invincible patience and resolution under the + direction of Colonel Barberich in a sunny little court in Udine. + </p> + <p> + My own manner of testifying must be to tell what I have seen and what I + have thought during this extraordinary experience. It has been my natural + disposition to see this war as something purposeful and epic, as it is + great, as an epoch, as “the War that will end War”—but of that last, + more anon. I do not think I am alone in this inclination to a dramatic and + logical interpretation. The caricatures in the French shops show + civilisation (and particularly Marianne) in conflict with a huge and + hugely wicked Hindenburg Ogre. Well, I come back from this tour with + something not so simple as that. If I were to be tied down to one word for + my impression of this war, I should say that this war is <i>Queer.</i> It + is not like anything in a really waking world, but like something in a + dream. It hasn't exactly that clearness of light against darkness or of + good against ill. But it has the quality of wholesome instinct struggling + under a nightmare. The world is not really awake. This vague appeal for + explanations to all sorts of people, this desire to exhibit the business, + to get something in the way of elucidation at present missing, is + extraordinarily suggestive of the efforts of the mind to wake up that will + sometimes occur at a deep crisis. My memory of this tour I have just made + is full of puzzled-looking men. I have seen thousands of <i>poilus</i> + sitting about in cafes, by the roadside, in tents, in trenches, + thoughtful. I have seen Alpini sitting restfully and staring with + speculative eyes across the mountain gulfs towards unseen and + unaccountable enemies. I have seen trainloads of wounded staring out of + the ambulance train windows as we passed. I have seen these dim + intimations of questioning reflection in the strangest juxtapositions; in + Malagasy soldiers resting for a spell among the big shells they were + hoisting into trucks for the front, in a couple of khaki-clad Maoris + sitting upon the step of a horse-van in Amiens station. It is always the + same expression one catches, rather weary, rather sullen, inturned. The + shoulders droop. The very outline is a note of interrogation. They look up + as the privileged tourist of the front, in the big automobile or the + reserved compartment, with his officer or so in charge, passes—importantly. + One meets a pair of eyes that seems to say: “Perhaps <i>you</i> + understand.... + </p> + <p> + “In which case—-...?” + </p> + <p> + It is a part, I think, of this disposition to investigate what makes + everyone collect “specimens” of the war. Everywhere the souvenir forces + itself upon the attention. The homecoming permissionaire brings with him + invariably a considerable weight of broken objects, bits of shell, + cartridge clips, helmets; it is a peripatetic museum. It is as if he hoped + for a clue. It is almost impossible, I have found, to escape these pieces + in evidence. I am the least collecting of men, but I have brought home + Italian cartridges, Austrian cartridges, the fuse of an Austrian shell, a + broken Italian bayonet, and a note that is worth half a franc within the + confines of Amiens. But a large heavy piece of exploded shell that had + been thrust very urgently upon my attention upon the Carso I contrived to + lose during the temporary confusion of our party by the arrival and + explosion of another prospective souvenir in our close proximity. And two + really very large and almost complete specimens of some species of <i>Ammonites</i> + unknown to me, from the hills to the east of the Adige, partially wrapped + in a back number of the <i>Corriere della Sera</i>, that were pressed upon + me by a friendly officer, were unfortunately lost on the line between + Verona and Milan through the gross negligence of a railway porter. But I + doubt if they would have thrown any very conclusive light upon the war. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + I avow myself an extreme Pacifist. I am against the man who first takes up + the weapon. I carry my pacifism far beyond the ambiguous little group of + British and foreign sentimentalists who pretend so amusingly to be + socialists in the <i>Labour Leader</i>, whose conception of foreign policy + is to give Germany now a peace that would be no more than a breathing time + for a fresh outrage upon civilisation, and who would even make heroes of + the crazy young assassins of the Dublin crime. I do not understand those + people. I do not merely want to stop this war. I want to nail down war in + its coffin. Modern war is an intolerable thing. It is not a thing to + trifle with in this Urban District Council way, it is a thing to end + forever. I have always hated it, so far that is as my imagination enabled + me to realise it; and now that I have been seeing it, sometimes quite + closely for a full month, I hate it more than ever. I never imagined a + quarter of its waste, its boredom, its futility, its desolation. It is + merely a destructive and dispersive instead of a constructive and + accumulative industrialism. It is a gigantic, dusty, muddy, weedy, + bloodstained silliness. It is the plain duty of every man to give his life + and all that he has if by so doing he may help to end it. I hate Germany, + which has thrust this experience upon mankind, as I hate some horrible + infectious disease. The new war, the war on the modern level, is her + invention and her crime. I perceive that on our side and in its broad + outlines, this war is nothing more than a gigantic and heroic effort in + sanitary engineering; an effort to remove German militarism from the life + and regions it has invaded, and to bank it in and discredit and enfeeble + it so that never more will it repeat its present preposterous and horrible + efforts. All human affairs and all great affairs have their reservations + and their complications, but that is the broad outline of the business as + it has impressed itself on my mind and as I find it conceived in the mind + of the average man of the reading class among the allied peoples, and as I + find it understood in the judgement of honest and intelligent neutral + observers. + </p> + <p> + It is my unshakeable belief that essentially the Allies fight for a + permanent world peace, that primarily they do not make war but resist war, + that has reconciled me to this not very congenial experience of touring as + a spectator all agog to see, through the war zones. At any rate there was + never any risk of my playing Balaam and blessing the enemy. This war is + tragedy and sacrifice for most of the world, for the Germans it is simply + the catastrophic outcome of fifty years of elaborate intellectual foolery. + Militarism, Welt Politik, and here we are! What else <i>could</i> have + happened, with Michael and his infernal War Machine in the very centre of + Europe, but this tremendous disaster? + </p> + <p> + It is a disaster. It may be a necessary disaster; it may teach a lesson + that could be learnt in no other way; but for all that, I insist, it + remains waste, disorder, disaster. + </p> + <p> + There is a disposition, I know, in myself as well as in others, to wriggle + away from this verity, to find so much good in the collapse that has come + to the mad direction of Europe for the past half-century as to make it on + the whole almost a beneficial thing. But at most I can find it in no + greater good than the good of a nightmare that awakens the sleeper in a + dangerous place to a realisation of the extreme danger of his sleep. + Better had he been awake—or never there. In Venetia Captain Pirelli, + whose task it was to keep me out of mischief in the war zone, was + insistent upon the way in which all Venetia was being opened up by the new + military roads; there has been scarcely a new road made in Venetia since + Napoleon drove his straight, poplar-bordered highways through the land. M. + Joseph Reinach, who was my companion upon the French front, was equally + impressed by the stirring up and exchange of ideas in the villages due to + the movement of the war. Charles Lamb's story of the discovery of roast + pork comes into one's head with an effect of repartee. More than ideas are + exchanged in the war zone, and it is doubtful how far the sanitary + precautions of the military authorities avails against a considerable + propaganda of disease. A more serious argument for the good of war is that + it evokes heroic qualities that it has brought out almost incredible + quantities of courage, devotion, and individual romance that did not show + in the suffocating peace time that preceded the war. The reckless and + beautiful zeal of the women in the British and French munition factories, + for example, the gaiety and fearlessness of the common soldiers + everywhere; these things have always been there—like champagne + sleeping in bottles in a cellar. But was there any need to throw a bomb + into the cellar? + </p> + <p> + I am reminded of a story, or rather of the idea for a story that I think I + must have read in that curious collection of fantasies and observations, + Hawthorne's <i>Note Book.</i> It was to be the story of a man who found + life dull and his circumstances altogether mediocre. He had loved his + wife, but now after all she seemed to be a very ordinary human being. He + had begun life with high hopes—and life was commonplace. He was to + grow fretful and restless. His discontent was to lead to some action, some + irrevocable action; but upon the nature of that action I do not think the + <i>Note Book</i> was very clear. It was to carry him in such a manner that + he was to forget his wife. Then, when it was too late, he was to see her + at an upper window, stripped and firelit, a glorious thing of light and + loveliness and tragic intensity.... + </p> + <p> + The elementary tales of the world are very few, and Hawthorne's story and + Lamb's story are, after all, only variations upon the same theme. But can + we poor human beings never realise our quality without destruction? + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + One of the larger singularities of the great war is its failure to produce + great and imposing personalities, mighty leaders, Napoleons, Caesars. I + would indeed make that the essential thing in my reckoning of the war. It + is a drama without a hero; without countless incidental heroes no doubt, + but no star part. Even the Germans, with a national predisposition for + hero-cults and living still in an atmosphere of Victorian humbug, can + produce nothing better than that timber image, Hindenburg. + </p> + <p> + It is not that the war has failed to produce heroes so much as that it has + produced heroism in a torrent. The great man of this war is the common + man. It becomes ridiculous to pick out particular names. There are too + many true stories of splendid acts in the past two years ever to be + properly set down. The V.C.'s and the palms do but indicate samples. One + would need an encyclopaedia, a row of volumes, of the gloriousness of + human impulses. The acts of the small men in this war dwarf all the + pretensions of the Great Man. Imperatively these multitudinous heroes + forbid the setting up of effigies. When I was a young man I imitated Swift + and posed for cynicism; I will confess that now at fifty and greatly + helped by this war, I have fallen in love with mankind. + </p> + <p> + But if I had to pick out a single figure to stand for the finest quality + of the Allies' war, I should I think choose the figure of General Joffre. + He is something new in history. He is leadership without vulgar ambition. + He is the extreme antithesis to the Imperial boomster of Berlin. He is as + it were the ordinary common sense of men, incarnate. He is the antithesis + of the effigy. + </p> + <p> + By great good luck I was able to see him. I was delayed in Paris on my way + to Italy, and my friend Captain Millet arranged for a visit to the French + front at Soissons and put me in charge of Lieutenant de Tessin, whom I had + met in England studying British social questions long before this war. + Afterwards Lieutenant de Tessin took me to the great hotel—it still + proclaims “<i>Restaurant</i>” in big black letters on the garden wall—which + shelters the General Headquarters of France, and here I was able to see + and talk to Generals Pelle and Castelnau as well as to General Joffre. + They are three very remarkable and very different men. They have at least + one thing in common; it is clear that not one of them has spent ten + minutes in all his life in thinking of himself as a Personage or Great + Man. They all have the effect of being active and able men doing an + extremely complicated and difficult but extremely interesting job to the + very best of their ability. With me they had all one quality in common. + They thought I was interested in what they were doing, and they were quite + prepared to treat me as an intelligent man of a different sort, and to + show me as much as I could understand.... + </p> + <p> + Let me confess that de Tessin had had to persuade me to go to + Headquarters. Partly that was because I didn't want to use up even ten + minutes of the time of the French commanders, but much more was it because + I have a dread of Personages. + </p> + <p> + There is something about these encounters with personages—as if one + was dealing with an effigy, with something tremendous put up to be seen. + As one approaches they become remoter; great unsuspected crevasses are + discovered. Across these gulfs one makes ineffective gestures. They do not + meet you, they pose at you enormously. Sometimes there is something more + terrible than dignity; there is condescension. They are affable. I had but + recently had an encounter with an imported Colonial statesman, who was + being advertised like a soap as the coming saviour of England. I was + curious to meet him. I wanted to talk to him about all sorts of things + that would have been profoundly interesting, as for example his + impressions of the Anglican bishops. But I met a hoarding. I met a thing + like a mask, something surrounded by touts, that was dully trying—as + we say in London—to “come it” over me. He said he had heard of me. + He had read <i>Kipps.</i> I intimated that though I had written <i>Kipps</i> + I had continued to exist—but he did not see the point of that. I + said certain things to him about the difference in complexity between + political life in Great Britain and the colonies, that he was manifestly + totally capable of understanding. But one could as soon have talked with + one of the statesmen at Madame Tussaud's. An antiquated figure. + </p> + <p> + The effect of these French commanders upon me was quite different from my + encounter with that last belated adventurer in the effigy line. I felt + indeed that I was a rather idle and flimsy person coming into the presence + of a tremendously compact and busy person, but I had none of that + unpleasant sensation of a conventional role, of being expected to play the + minute worshipper in the presence of the Great Image. I was so moved by + the common humanity of them all that in each case I broke away from the + discreet interpretations of de Tessin and talked to them directly in the + strange dialect which I have inadvertently made for myself out of French, + a disemvowelled speech of epicene substantives and verbs of incalculable + moods and temperaments, “<i>Entente Cordiale.</i>” The talked back as if + we had met in a club. General Pelle pulled my leg very gaily with some + quotations from an article I had written upon the conclusion of the war. I + think he found my accent and my idioms very refreshing. I had committed + myself to a statement that Bloch has been justified in his theory that + under modern conditions the defensive wins. There were excellent reasons, + and General Pelle pointed them out, for doubting the applicability of this + to the present war. + </p> + <p> + Both he and General Castelnau were anxious that I should see a French + offensive sector as well as Soissons. Then I should understand. And since + then I have returned from Italy and I have seen and I do understand. The + Allied offensive was winning; that is to say, it was inflicting far + greater losses than it experienced; it was steadily beating the spirit out + of the German army and shoving it back towards Germany. Only peace can, I + believe, prevent the western war ending in Germany. And it is the + Frenchmen mainly who have worked out how to do it. + </p> + <p> + But of that I will write later. My present concern is with General Joffre + as the antithesis of the Effigy. The effigy, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Thou Prince of Peace, + Thou God of War,” + </pre> + <p> + as Mr. Sylvester Viereck called him, prances on a great horse, wears a + Wagnerian cloak, sits on thrones and talks of shining armour and “unser + Gott.” All Germany gloats over his Jovian domesticities; when I was last + in Berlin the postcard shops were full of photographs of a sort of + procession of himself and his sons, all with long straight noses and + sidelong eyes. It is all dreadfully old-fashioned. General Joffre sits in + a pleasant little sitting-room in a very ordinary little villa + conveniently close to Headquarters. He sits among furniture that has no + quality of pose at all, that is neither magnificent nor ostentatiously + simple and hardy. He has dark, rather sleepy eyes under light eyelashes, + eyes that glance shyly and a little askance at his interlocutor and then, + as he talks, away—as if he did not want to be preoccupied by your + attention. He has a broad, rather broadly modelled face, a soft voice, the + sort of persuasive reasoning voice that many Scotchmen have. I had a + feeling that if he were to talk English he would do so with a Scotch + accent. Perhaps somewhere I have met a Scotchman of his type. He sat + sideways to his table as a man might sit for a gossip in a cafe. + </p> + <p> + He is physically a big man, and in my memory he grows bigger and bigger. + He sits now in my memory in a room like the rooms that any decent people + might occupy, like that vague room that is the background of so many good + portraits, a great blue-coated figure with a soft voice and rather tired + eyes, explaining very simply and clearly the difficulties that this vulgar + imperialism of Germany, seizing upon modern science and modern appliances, + has created for France and the spirit of mankind. + </p> + <p> + He talked chiefly of the strangeness of this confounded war. It was + exactly like a sanitary engineer speaking of the unexpected difficulties + of some particularly nasty inundation. He made little stiff horizontal + gestures with his hands. First one had to build a dam and stop the rush of + it, so; then one had to organise the push that would send it back. He + explained the organisation of the push. They had got an organisation now + that was working out most satisfactorily. Had I seen a sector? I had seen + the sector of Soissons. Yes, but that was not now an offensive sector. I + must see an offensive sector; see the whole method. Lieutenant de Tessin + must see that that was arranged.... + </p> + <p> + Neither he nor his two colleagues spoke of the Germans with either + hostility or humanity. Germany for them is manifestly merely an + objectionable Thing. It is not a nation, not a people, but a nuisance. One + has to build up this great counter-thrust bigger and stronger until they + go back. The war must end in Germany. The French generals have no such + delusions about German science or foresight or capacity as dominates the + smart dinner chatter of England. One knows so well that detestable type of + English folly, and its voice of despair: “They <i>plan</i> everything. + They foresee everything.” This paralysing Germanophobia is not common + among the French. The war, the French generals said, might take—well, + it certainly looked like taking longer than the winter. Next summer + perhaps. Probably, if nothing unforeseen occurred, before a full year has + passed the job might be done. Were any surprises in store? They didn't + seem to think it was probable that the Germans had any surprises in + store.... The Germans are not an inventive people; they are merely a + thorough people. One never knew for certain. + </p> + <p> + Is any greater contrast possible than between so implacable, patient, + reasonable—and above all things <i>capable</i>—a being as + General Joffre and the rhetorician of Potsdam, with his talk of German + Might, of Hammer Blows and Hacking Through? Can there be any doubt of the + ultimate issue between them? + </p> + <p> + There are stories that sound pleasantly true to me about General Joffre's + ambitions after the war. He is tired; then he will be very tired. He will, + he declares, spend his first free summer in making a tour of the waterways + of France in a barge. So I hope it may be. One imagines him as sitting + quietly on the crumpled remains of the last and tawdriest of Imperial + traditions, with a fishing line in the placid water and a large buff + umbrella overhead, the good ordinary man who does whatever is given to him + to do—as well as he can. The power that has taken the great effigy + of German imperialism by the throat is something very composite and + complex, but if we personify it at all it is something more like General + Joffre than any other single human figure I can think of or imagine. + </p> + <p> + If I were to set a frontispiece to a book about this War I would make + General Joffre the frontispiece. + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + As we swung back along the dusty road to Paris at a pace of fifty miles an + hour and upwards, driven by a helmeted driver with an aquiline profile fit + to go upon a coin, whose merits were a little flawed by a childish and + dangerous ambition to run over every cat he saw upon the road, I talked to + de Tessin about this big blue-coated figure of Joffre, which is not so + much a figure as a great generalisation of certain hitherto rather + obscured French qualities, and of the impression he had made upon me. And + from that I went on to talk about the Super Man, for this encounter had + suddenly crystallised out a set of realisations that had been for some + time latent in my mind. + </p> + <p> + How much of what follows I said to de Tessin at the time I do not clearly + remember, but this is what I had in mind. + </p> + <p> + The idea of the superman is an idea that has been developed by various + people ignorant of biology and unaccustomed to biological ways of + thinking. It is an obvious idea that follows in the course of half an hour + or so upon one's realisation of the significance of Darwinism. If man has + evolved from something different, he must now be evolving onward into + something sur-human. The species in the future will be different from the + species of the past. So far at least our Nietzsches and Shaws and so on + went right. + </p> + <p> + But being ignorant of the elementary biological proposition that + modification of a species means really a secular change in its average, + they jumped to a conclusion—to which the late Lord Salisbury also + jumped years ago at a very memorable British Association meeting—that + a species is modified by the sudden appearance of eccentric individuals + here and there in the general mass who interbreed—preferentially. + Helped by a streak of antic egotism in themselves, they conceived of the + superman as a posturing personage, misunderstood by the vulgar, fantastic, + wonderful. But the antic Personage, the thing I have called the Effigy, is + not new but old, the oldest thing in history, the departing thing. It + depends not upon the advance of the species but upon the uncritical + hero-worship of the crowd. You may see the monster drawn twenty times the + size of common men upon the oldest monuments of Egypt and Assyria. The + true superman comes not as the tremendous personal entry of a star, but in + the less dramatic form of a general increase of goodwill and skill and + common sense. A species rises not by thrusting up peaks but by the + brimming up as a flood does. The coming of the superman means not an + epidemic of personages but the disappearance of the Personage in the + universal ascent. That is the point overlooked by the megalomaniac school + of Nietzsche and Shaw. + </p> + <p> + And it is the peculiarity of this war, it is the most reassuring evidence + that a great increase in general ability and critical ability has been + going on throughout the last century, that no isolated great personages + have emerged. Never has there been so much ability, invention, + inspiration, leadership; but the very abundance of good qualities has + prevented our focusing upon those of any one individual. We all play our + part in the realisation of God's sanity in the world, but, as the strange, + dramatic end of Lord Kitchener has served to remind us, there is no single + individual of all the allied nations whose death can materially affect the + great destinies of this war. + </p> + <p> + In the last few years I have developed a religious belief that has become + now to me as real as any commonplace fact. I think that mankind is still + as it were collectively dreaming and hardly more awakened to reality than + a very young child. It has these dreams that we express by the flags of + nationalities and by strange loyalties and by irrational creeds and + ceremonies, and its dreams at times become such nightmares as this war. + But the time draws near when mankind will awake and the dreams will fade + away, and then there will be no nationality in all the world but humanity, + and no kind, no emperor, nor leader but the one God of mankind. This is my + faith. I am as certain of this as I was in 1900 that men would presently + fly. To me it is as if it must be so. + </p> + <p> + So that to me this extraordinary refusal of the allied nations under + conditions that have always hitherto produced a Great Man to produce + anything of the sort, anything that can be used as an effigy and carried + about for the crowd to follow, is a fact of extreme significance and + encouragement. It seems to me that the twilight of the half gods must have + come, that we have reached the end of the age when men needed a Personal + Figure about which they could rally. The Kaiser is perhaps the last of + that long series of crowned and cloaked and semi-divine personages which + has included Caesar and Alexander and Napoleon the First—and Third. + In the light of the new time we see the emperor-god for the guy he is. In + the August of 1914 he set himself up to be the paramount Lord of the + World, and it will seem to the historian to come, who will know our dates + so well and our feelings, our fatigues and efforts so little, it will seem + a short period from that day to this, when the great figure already sways + and staggers towards the bonfire. + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + I had the experience of meeting a contemporary king upon this journey. He + was the first king I had ever met. The Potsdam figure—with perhaps + some local exceptions behind the Gold Coast—is, with its collection + of uniforms and its pomps and splendours, the purest survival of the old + tradition of divine monarchy now that the Emperor at Pekin has followed + the Shogun into the shadows. The modern type of king shows a disposition + to intimate at the outset that he cannot help it, and to justify or at any + rate utilise his exceptional position by sound hard work. It is an age of + working kings, with the manners of private gentlemen. The King of Italy + for example is far more accessible than was the late Pierpont Morgan or + the late Cecil Rhodes, and he seems to keep a smaller court. + </p> + <p> + I went to see him from Udine. He occupied a moderate-sized country villa + about half an hour by automobile from headquarters. I went over with + General Radcliffe; we drove through the gates of the villa past a single + sentinel in an ordinary infantry uniform, up to the door of the house, and + the number of guards, servants, attendants, officials, secretaries, + ministers and the like that I saw in that house were—I counted very + carefully—four. Downstairs were three people, a tall soldier of the + bodyguard in grey; an A.D.C., Captain Moreno, and Col. Matteoli, the + minister of the household. I went upstairs to a drawing-room of much the + same easy and generalised character as the one in which I had met General + Joffre a few days before. I gave my hat to a second bodyguard, and as I + did so a pleasantly smiling man appeared at the door of the study whom I + thought at first must be some minister in attendance. I did not recognise + him instantly because on the stamps and coins he is always in profile. He + began to talk in excellent English about my journey, and I replied, and so + talking we went into the study from which he had emerged. Then I realised + I was talking to the king. + </p> + <p> + Addicted as I am to the cinematograph, in which the standard of study + furniture is particularly rich and high, I found something very cooling + and simple and refreshing in the sight of the king's study furniture. He + sat down with me at a little useful writing table, and after asking me + what I had seen in Italy and hearing what I had seen and what I was to + see, he went on talking, very good talk indeed. + </p> + <p> + I suppose I did a little exceed the established tradition of courts by + asking several questions and trying to get him to talk upon certain points + as to which I was curious, but I perceived that he had had to carry on at + least so much of the regal tradition as to control the conversation. He + was, however, entirely un-posed. His talk reminded me somehow of Maurice + Baring's books; it had just the same quick, positive understanding. And he + had just the same detachment from the war as the French generals. He spoke + of it—as one might speak of an inundation. And of its difficulties + and perplexities. + </p> + <p> + Here on the Adriatic side there were political entanglements that by + comparison made our western after-the-war problems plain sailing. He + talked of the game of spellicans among the Balkan nationalities. How was + that difficulty to be met? In Macedonia there were Turkish villages that + were Christian and Bulgarians that were Moslem. There were families that + changed the termination of their names from <i>ski</i> to <i>off</i> as + Serbian or Bulgarian prevailed. I remarked that that showed a certain + passion for peace, and that much of the mischief might be due to the + propaganda of the great Powers. I have a prejudice against that blessed + Whig “principle of nationality,” but the King of Italy was not to be drawn + into any statement about that. He left the question with his admission of + its extreme complexity. + </p> + <p> + He went on to talk of the strange contrasts of war, of such things as the + indifference of the birds to gunfire and desolation. One day on the Carso + he had been near the newly captured Austrian trenches, and suddenly from + amidst a scattered mass of Austrian bodies a quail had risen that had + struck him as odd, and so too had the sight of a pack of cards and a wine + flask on some newly-made graves. The ordinary life was a very <i>obstinate</i> + thing.... + </p> + <p> + He talked of the courage of modern men. He was astonished at the quickness + with which they came to disregard shrapnel. And they were so quietly + enduring when they were wounded. He had seen a lot of the wounded, and he + had expected much groaning and crying out. But unless a man is hit in the + head and goes mad he does not groan or scream! They are just brave. If you + ask them how they feel it is always one of two things: either they say + quietly that they are very bad or else they say there is nothing the + matter.... + </p> + <p> + He spoke as if these were mere chance observations, but everyone tells me + that nearly every day the king is at the front and often under fire. He + has taken more risks in a week than the Potsdam War Lord has taken since + the war began. He keeps himself acutely informed upon every aspect of the + war. He was a little inclined to fatalism, he confessed. There were two + stories current of two families of four sons, in each three had been + killed and in each there was an attempt to put the fourth in a place of + comparative safety. In one case a general took the fourth son in as an + attendant and embarked upon a ship that was immediately torpedoed; in the + other the fourth son was killed by accident while he was helping to carry + dinner in a rest camp. From those stories we came to the question whether + the uneducated Italians were more superstitious than the uneducated + English; the king thought they were much less so. That struck me as a + novel idea. But then he thought that English rural people believe in + witches and fairies. + </p> + <p> + I have given enough of this talk to show the quality of this king of the + new dispensation. It was, you see, the sort of easy talk one might hear + from fine-minded people anywhere. When we had done talking he came to the + door of the study with me and shook hands and went back to his desk—with + that gesture of return to work which is very familiar and sympathetic to a + writer, and with no gesture of regality at all. + </p> + <p> + Just to complete this impression let me repeat a pleasant story about this + king and our Prince of Wales, who recently visited the Italian front. The + Prince is a source of anxiety on these visits; he has a very strong and + very creditable desire to share the ordinary risks of war. He is keenly + interested, and unobtrusively bent upon getting as near the fighting as + line as possible. But the King of Italy was firm upon keeping him out of + anything more than the most incidental danger. “We don't want any + historical incidents here,” he said. I think that might well become an + historical phrase. For the life of the Effigy is a series of historical + incidents. + </p> + <p> + 6 + </p> + <p> + Manifestly one might continue to multiply portraits of fine people working + upon this great task of breaking and ending the German aggression, the + German legend, the German effigy, and the effigy business generally; the + thesis being that the Allies have no effigy. One might fill a thick volume + with pictures of men up the scale and down working loyally and devotedly + upon the war, to make this point clear that the essential king and the + essential loyalty of our side is the commonsense of mankind. + </p> + <p> + There comes into my head as a picture at the other extreme of this series, + a memory of certain trenches I visited on my last day in France. They were + trenches on an offensive front; they were not those architectural + triumphs, those homes from home, that grow to perfection upon the less + active sections of the great line. They had been first made by men who had + run rapidly forward with spade and rifle, stooping as they ran, who had + dropped into the craters of big shells, who had organised these chiefly at + night and dug the steep ditches sideways to join up into continuous + trenches. Now they were pushing forward saps into No Man's Land, linking + them across, and so continually creeping nearer to the enemy and a + practicable jumping-off place for an attack. (It has been made since; the + village at which I peeped was in our hands a week later.) These trenches + were dug into a sort of yellowish sandy clay; the dug-outs were mere holes + in the earth that fell in upon the clumsy; hardly any timber had been got + up the line; a storm might flood them at any time a couple of feet deep + and begin to wash the sides. Overnight they had been “strafed” and there + had been a number of casualties; there were smashed rifles about and a + smashed-up machine gun emplacement, and the men were dog-tired and many of + them sleeping like logs, half buried in clay. Some slept on the firing + steps. As one went along one became aware ever and again of two or three + pairs of clay-yellow feet sticking out of a clay hole, and peering down + one saw the shapes of men like rudely modelled earthen images of soldiers, + motionless in the cave. + </p> + <p> + I came round the corner upon a youngster with an intelligent face and + steady eyes sitting up on the firing step, awake and thinking. We looked + at one another. There are moments when mind leaps to mind. It is natural + for the man in the trenches suddenly confronted by so rare a beast as a + middle-aged civilian with an enquiring expression, to feel oneself + something of a spectacle and something generalised. It is natural for the + civilian to look rather in the vein of saying, “Well, how do you take it?” + As I pushed past him we nodded slightly with an effect of mutual + understanding. And we said with our nods just exactly what General Joffre + had said with his horizontal gestures of the hand and what the King of + Italy conveyed by his friendly manner; we said to each other that here was + the trouble those Germans had brought upon us and here was the task that + had to be done. + </p> + <p> + Our guide to these trenches was a short, stocky young man, a cob; with a + rifle and a tight belt and projecting skirts and a helmet, a queer little + figure that, had you seen it in a picture a year or so before the war, you + would most certainly have pronounced Chinese. He belonged to a + Northumbrian battalion; it does not matter exactly which. As we returned + from this front line, trudging along the winding path through the barbed + wire tangles before the smashed and captured German trench that had been + taken a fortnight before, I fell behind my guardian captain and had a + brief conversation wit this individual. He was a lad in the early + twenties, weather-bit and with bloodshot eyes. He was, he told me, a + miner. I asked my stock question in such cases, whether he would go back + to the old work after the war. He said he would, and then added—with + the events of overnight on his mind: “If A'hm looky.” + </p> + <p> + Followed a little silence. Then I tried my second stock remark for such + cases. One does not talk to soldiers at the front in this war of Glory or + the “Empire on which the sun never sets” or “the meteor flag of England” + or of King and Country or any of those fine old headline things. On the + desolate path that winds about amidst the shell craters and the fragments + and the red-rusted wire, with the silken shiver of passing shells in the + air and the blue of the lower sky continually breaking out into eddying + white puffs, it is wonderful how tawdry such panoplies of the effigy + appear. We knew that we and our allies are upon a greater, graver, more + fundamental business than that sort of thing now. We are very near the + waking point. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” I said, “it's got to be done.” + </p> + <p> + “Aye,” he said, easing the strap of his rifle a little; “it's got to be + done.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE WAR IN ITALY (AUGUST, 1916) + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. THE ISONZO FRONT + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + My first impressions of the Italian war centre upon Udine. So far I had + had only a visit to Soissons on an exceptionally quiet day and the sound + of a Zeppelin one night in Essex for all my experience of actual warfare. + But my bedroom at the British mission in Udine roused perhaps extravagant + expectations. There were holes in the plaster ceiling and wall, betraying + splintered laths, holes, that had been caused by a bomb that had burst and + killed several people in the little square outside. Such excitements seem + to be things of the past now in Udine. Udine keeps itself dark nowadays, + and the Austrian sea-planes, which come raiding the Italian coast country + at night very much in the same aimless, casually malignant way in which + the Zeppelins raid England, apparently because there is nothing else for + them to do, find it easier to locate Venice. + </p> + <p> + My earlier rides in Venetia began always with the level roads of the + plain, roads frequently edged by watercourses, with plentiful willows + beside the road, vines and fields of Indian corn and suchlike lush crops. + Always quite soon one came to some old Austrian boundary posts; almost + everywhere the Italians are fighting upon what is technically enemy + territory, but nowhere does it seem a whit less Italian than the plain of + Lombardy. When at last I motored away from Udine to the northern mountain + front I passed through Campo-Formio and saw the white-faced inn at which + Napoleon dismembered the ancient republic of Venice and bartered away this + essential part of Italy into foreign control. It just gravitates back now—as + though there had been no Napoleon. + </p> + <p> + And upon the roads and beside them was the enormous equipment of a modern + army advancing. Everywhere I saw new roads being made, railways pushed up, + vast store dumps, hospitals; everywhere the villages swarmed with grey + soldiers; everywhere our automobile was threading its way and taking + astonishing risks among interminable processions of motor lorries, strings + of ambulances or of mule carts, waggons with timber, waggons with wire, + waggons with men's gear, waggons with casks, waggons discreetly veiled, + columns of infantry, cavalry, batteries <i>en route.</i> Every waggon that + goes up full comes back empty, and many wounded were coming down and + prisoners and troops returning to rest. Goritzia had been taken a week or + so before my arrival; the Isonzo had been crossed and the Austrians driven + back across the Carso for several miles; all the resources of Italy seemed + to be crowding up to make good these gains and gather strength for the + next thrust. The roads under all this traffic remained wonderful; gangs of + men were everywhere repairing the first onset of wear, and Italy is the + most fortunate land in the world for road metal; her mountains are solid + road metal, and in this Venetian plain you need but to scrape through a + yard of soil to find gravel. + </p> + <p> + One travelled through a choking dust under the blue sky, and above the + steady incessant dusty succession of lorry, lorry, lorry, lorry that + passed one by, one saw, looking up, the tree tops, house roofs, or the + solid Venetian campanile of this or that wayside village. Once as we were + coming out of the great grey portals of that beautiful old relic of a + former school of fortification, Palmanova, the traffic became suddenly + bright yellow, and for a kilometre or so we were passing nothing but + Sicilian mule carts loaded with hay. These carts seem as strange among the + grey shapes of modern war transport as a Chinese mandarin in painted silk + would be. They are the most individual of things, all two-wheeled, all + bright yellow and the same size it is true, but upon each there are they + gayest of little paintings, such paintings as one sees in England at times + upon an ice-cream barrow. Sometimes the picture will present a scriptural + subject, sometimes a scene of opera, sometimes a dream landscape or a + trophy of fruits or flowers, and the harness—now much out of repair—is + studded with brass. Again and again I have passed strings of these gay + carts; all Sicily must be swept of them. + </p> + <p> + Through the dust I came to Aquileia, which is now an old cathedral, built + upon the remains of a very early basilica, standing in a space in a + scattered village. But across this dusty space there was carried the head + of the upstart Maximinus who murdered Alexander Severus, and later + Aquileia brought Attila near to despair. Our party alighted; we inspected + a very old mosaic floor which has been uncovered since the Austrian + retreat. The Austrian priests have gone too, and their Italian successors + are already tracing out a score of Roman traces that it was the Austrian + custom to minimise. Captain Pirelli refreshed my historical memories; it + was rather like leaving a card on Gibbon <i>en route</i> for contemporary + history. + </p> + <p> + By devious routes I went on to certain batteries of big guns which had + played their part in hammering the Austrian left above Monfalcone across + an arm of the Adriatic, and which were now under orders to shift and move + up closer. The battery was the most unobtrusive of batteries; its one + desire seemed to be to appear a simple piece of woodland in the eye of God + and the aeroplane. I went about the network of railways and paths under + the trees that a modern battery requires, and came presently upon a great + gun that even at the first glance seemed a little less carefully hidden + than its fellows. Then I saw that it was a most ingenious dummy made of a + tree and logs and so forth. It was in the emplacement of a real gun that + had been located; it had its painted sandbags about it just the same, and + it felt itself so entirely a part of the battery that whenever its + companions fired t burnt a flash and kicked up a dust. It was an excellent + example of the great art of camouflage which this war has developed. + </p> + <p> + I went on through the wood to a shady observation post high in a tree, + into which I clambered with my guide. I was able from this position to get + a very good idea of the lie of the Italian eastern front. I was in the + delta of the Isonzo. Directly in front of me were some marshes and the + extreme tip of the Adriatic Sea, at the head of which was Monfalcone, now + in Italian hands. Behind Monfalcone ran the red ridge of the Carso, of + which the Italians had just captured the eastern half. Behind this again + rose the mountains to the east of the Isonzo which the Austrians still + held. The Isonzo came towards me from out of the mountains, in a great + westward curve. Fifteen or sixteen miles away where it emerged from the + mountains lay the pleasant and prosperous town of Goritzia, and at the + westward point of the great curve was Sagrado with its broken bridge. The + battle of Goritzia was really not fought at Goritzia at all. What happened + was the brilliant and bloody storming of Mounts Podgora and Sabotino on + the western side of the river above Goritzia, and simultaneously a + crossing at Sagrado below Goritzia and a magnificent rush up the plateau + and across the plateau of the Carso. Goritzia itself was not organised for + defence, and the Austrians were so surprised by the rapid storm of the + mountains to the north-west of it and of the Carso to the south-east, that + they made no fight in the town itself. + </p> + <p> + As a consequence when I visited it I found it very little injured—compared, + that is, with such other towns as have been fought through. Here and there + the front of a house has been knocked in by an Austrian shell, or a + lamp-post prostrated. But the road bridge had suffered a good deal; its + iron parapet was twisted about by shell bursts and interwoven with young + trees and big boughs designed to screen the passer-by from the observation + of the Austrian gunners upon Monte Santo. Here and there were huge holes + through which one could look down upon the blue trickles of water in the + stony river bed far below. The driver of our automobile displayed what + seemed to me an extreme confidence in the margins of these gaps, but his + confidence was justified. At Sagrado the bridge had been much more + completely demolished; no effort had been made to restore the horizontal + roadway, but one crossed by a sort of timber switchback that followed the + ups and downs of the ruins. + </p> + <p> + It is not in these places that one must look for the real destruction of + modern war. The real fight on the left of Goritzia went through the + village of Lucinico up the hill of Podgora. Lucinico is nothing more than + a heap of grey stones; except for a bit of the church wall and the gable + end of a house one cannot even speak of it as ruins. But in one place + among the rubble I saw the splintered top and a leg of a grand piano. + Podgora hill, which was no doubt once neatly terraced and cultivated, is + like a scrap of landscape from some airless, treeless planet. Still more + desolate was the scene upon the Carso to the right (south) of Goritzia. + Both San Martino and Doberdo are destroyed beyond the limits of ruination. + The Carso itself is a waterless upland with but a few bushy trees; it must + always have been a desolate region, but now it is an indescribable + wilderness of shell craters, smashed-up Austrian trenches, splintered + timber, old iron, rags, and that rusty thorny vileness of man's invention, + worse than all the thorns and thickets of nature, barbed wire. There are + no dead visible; the wounded have been cleared away; but about the + trenches and particularly near some of the dug-outs there was a faint + repulsive smell.... + </p> + <p> + Yet into this wilderness the Italians are now thrusting a sort of order. + The German is a wonderful worker, they say on the Anglo-French front that + he makes his trenches by way of resting, but I doubt if he can touch the + Italian at certain forms of toil. All the way up to San Martino and + beyond, swarms of workmen were making one of those carefully graded roads + that the Italians make better than any other people. Other swarms were + laying water-pipes. For upon the Carso there are neither roads nor water, + and before the Italians can thrust farther both must be brought up to the + front. + </p> + <p> + As we approached San Martino an Austrian aeroplane made its presence felt + overhead by dropping a bomb among the tents of some workmen, in a little + scrubby wood on the hillside near at hand. One heard the report and turned + to see the fragments flying and the dust. Probably they got someone. And + then, after a little pause, the encampment began to spew out men; here, + there and everywhere they appeared among the tents, running like rabbits + at evening-time, down the hill. Soon after and probably in connection with + this signal, Austrian shells began to come over. They do not use shrapnel + because the rocky soil of Italy makes that unnecessary. They fire a sort + of shell that goes bang and releases a cloud of smoke overhead, and then + drops a parcel of high explosive that bursts on the ground. The ground + leaps into red dust and smoke. But these things are now to be seen on the + cinema. Forthwith the men working on the road about us begin to down tools + and make for the shelter trenches, a long procession going at a steady but + resolute walk. Then like a blow in the chest came the bang of a big + Italian gun somewhere close at hand.... + </p> + <p> + Along about four thousand miles of the various fronts this sort of thing + was going on that morning.... + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + This Carso front is the practicable offensive front of Italy. From the + left wing on the Isonzo along the Alpine boundary round to the Swiss + boundary there is mountain warfare like nothing else in the world; it is + warfare that pushes the boundary backward, but it is mountain warfare that + will not, for so long a period that the war will be over first, hold out + any hopeful prospects of offensive movements on a large scale against + Austria or Germany. It is a short distance as the crow flies from Rovereto + to Munich, but not as the big gun travels. The Italians, therefore, as + their contribution to the common effort, are thrusting rather eastwardly + towards the line of the Julian Alps through Carinthia and Carniola. From + my observation post in the tree near Monfalcone I saw Trieste away along + the coast to my right. It looked scarcely as distant as Folkestone from + Dungeness. The Italian advanced line is indeed scarcely ten miles from + Trieste. But the Italians are not, I think, going to Trieste just yet. + That is not the real game now. They are playing loyally with the Allies + for the complete defeat of the Central Powers, and that is to be achieved + striking home into Austria. Meanwhile there is no sense in knocking + Trieste to pieces, or using Italians instead of Austrian soldiers to + garrison it. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. THE MOUNTAIN WAR + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + The mountain warfare of Italy is extraordinarily unlike that upon any + other front. From the Isonzo to the Swiss frontier we are dealing with + high mountains, cut by deep valleys between which there is usually no + practicable lateral communication. Each advance must have the nature of an + unsupported shove along a narrow channel, until the whole mountain system, + that is, is won, and the attack can begin to deploy in front of the + passes. Geographically Austria has the advantage. She had the gentler + slope of the mountain chains while Italy has the steep side, and the + foresight of old treaties has given her deep bites into what is naturally + Italian territory; she is far nearer the Italian plain than Italy is near + any practicable fighting ground for large forces; particularly is this the + case in the region of the Adige valley and Lake Garda. + </p> + <p> + The legitimate war, so to speak, in this region is a mountaineering war. + The typical position is roughly as follows. The Austrians occupy valley A + which opens northward; the Italians occupy valley B which opens southward. + The fight is for the crest between A and B. The side that wins that crest + gains the power of looking down into, firing into and outflanking the + positions of the enemy valley. In most cases it is the Italians now who + are pressing, and if the reader will examine a map of the front and + compare it with the official reports he will soon realise that almost + everywhere the Italians are up to the head of the southward valleys and + working over the crests so as to press down upon the Austrian valleys. But + in the Trentino the Austrians are still well over the crest on the + southward slopes. When I was in Italy they still held Rovereto. + </p> + <p> + Now it cannot be said that under modern conditions mountains favour either + the offensive or the defensive. But they certainly make operations far + more deliberate than upon a level. An engineered road or railway in an + Alpine valley is the most vulnerable of things; its curves and viaducts + may be practically demolished by shell fire or swept by shrapnel, although + you hold the entire valley except for one vantage point. All the mountains + round about a valley must be won before that valley is safe for the + transport of an advance. But on the other hand a surprise capture of some + single mountain crest and the hoisting of one gun into position there may + block the retreat of guns and material from a great series of positions. + Mountain surfaces are extraordinarily various and subtle. You may + understand Picardy on a map, but mountain warfare is three-dimensional. A + struggle may go on for weeks or months consisting of apparently separate + and incidental skirmishes, and then suddenly a whole valley organisation + may crumble away in retreat or disaster. Italy is gnawing into the + Trentino day by day, and particularly around by her right wing. At no time + I shall be surprised to see a sudden lunge forward on that front, and hear + a tale of guns and prisoners. This will not mean that she has made a + sudden attack, but that some system of Austrian positions has collapsed + under her continual pressure. + </p> + <p> + Such briefly is the <i>idea</i> of mountain struggle. Its realities, I + should imagine, are among the strangest and most picturesque in all this + tremendous world conflict. I know nothing of the war in the east, of + course, but there are things here that must be hard to beat. Happily they + will soon get justice done to them by an abler pen than mine. I hear that + Kipling is to follow me upon this ground; nothing can be imagined more + congenial to his extraordinary power of vivid rendering than this struggle + against cliffs, avalanches, frost and the Austrian. + </p> + <p> + To go the Italian round needs, among other things, a good head. Everywhere + it has been necessary to make roads where hitherto there have been only + mule tracks or no tracks at all; the roads are often still in the making, + and the automobile of the war tourist skirts precipices and takes hairpin + bends upon tracks of loose metal not an inch too broad for the operation, + or it floats for a moment over the dizzy edge while a train of mule + transport blunders by. The unruly imagination of man's heart (which is + “only evil continually”) speculates upon what would be the consequences of + one good bump from the wheel of a mule cart. Down below, the trees that + one sees through a wisp of cloud look far too small and spiky and + scattered to hold out much hope for a fallen man of letters. And at the + high positions they are too used to the vertical life to understand the + secret feelings of the visitor from the horizontal. General Bompiani, + whose writings are well known to all English students of military matters, + showed me the Gibraltar he is making of a great mountain system east of + the Adige. + </p> + <p> + “Let me show you,” he said, and flung himself on to the edge of the + precipice into exactly the position of a lady riding side-saddle. “You + will find it more comfortable to sit down.” + </p> + <p> + But anxious as I am abroad not to discredit my country by unseemly + exhibitions I felt unequal to such gymnastics without a proper rehearsal + at a lower level. I seated myself carefully at a yard (perhaps it was a + couple of yards) from the edge, advanced on my trousers without dignity to + the verge, and so with an effort thrust my legs over to dangle in the + crystalline air. + </p> + <p> + “That,” proceeded General Bompiani, pointing with a giddy flourish of his + riding whip, “is Monte Tomba.” + </p> + <p> + I swayed and half-extended my hand towards him. But he was still there—sitting, + so to speak, on the half of himself.... I was astonished that he did not + disappear abruptly during his exposition.... + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + The fighting man in the Dolomites has been perhaps the most wonderful of + all these separate campaigns. I went up by automobile as far as the + clambering new road goes up the flanks of Tofana No. 2; thence for a time + by mule along the flank of Tofana No. 1, and thence on foot to the + vestiges of the famous Castelletto. + </p> + <p> + The aspect of these mountains is particularly grim and wicked; they are + worn old mountains, they tower overhead in enormous vertical cliffs of + sallow grey, with the square jointings and occasional clefts and gullies, + their summits are toothed and jagged; the path ascends and passes round + the side of the mountain upon loose screes, which descend steeply to a + lower wall of precipices. In the distance rise other harsh and + desolate-looking mountain masses, with shining occasional scars of old + snow. Far below is a bleak valley of stunted pine trees through which + passes the road of the Dolomites. + </p> + <p> + As I ascended the upper track two bandages men were coming down on led + mules. It was mid-August, and they were suffering from frostbite. Across + the great gap between the summits a minute traveller with some provisions + was going up by wire to some post upon the crest. For everywhere upon the + icy pinnacles are observation posts directing the fire of the big guns on + the slopes below, or machine-gun stations, or little garrisons that sit + and wait through the bleak days. Often they have no link with the world + below but a precipitous climb or a “teleferic” wire. Snow and frost may + cut them off absolutely for weeks from the rest of mankind. The sick and + wounded must begin their journey down to help and comfort in a giddy + basket that swings down to the head of the mule track below. + </p> + <p> + Originally all these crests were in Austrian hands; they were stormed by + the Alpini under almost incredible conditions. For fifteen days, for + example, they fought their way up these screes on the flanks of Tofana No. + 2 to the ultimate crags, making perhaps a hundred metres of ascent each + day, hiding under rocks and in holes in the daylight and receiving fresh + provisions and ammunition and advancing by night. They were subjected to + rifle fire, machine-gun fire and bombs of a peculiar sort, big iron balls + of the size of a football filled with explosive that were just flung down + the steep. They dodged flares and star shells. At one place they went up a + chimney that would be far beyond the climbing powers of any but a very + active man. It must have been like storming the skies. The dead and + wounded rolled away often into inaccessible ravines. Stray skeletons, rags + of uniform, fragments of weapons, will add to the climbing interest of + these gaunt masses for many years to come. In this manner it was that + Tofana No. 2 was taken. + </p> + <p> + Now the Italians are organising this prize, and I saw winding up far above + me on the steep grey slope a multitudinous string of little things that + looked like black ants, each carrying a small bright yellow egg. They were + mules bringing back balks of timber.... + </p> + <p> + But one position held out invincibly; this was the Castelletto, a great + natural fortress of rock standing out at an angle of the mountain in such + a position that it commanded the Italian communications (the Dolomite + road) in the valley below, and rendered all their positions uncomfortable + and insecure. This obnoxious post was practically inaccessible either from + above or below, and it barred the Italians even from looking into the Val + Travenanzes which it defended. It was, in fact, an impregnable position, + and against it was pitted the invincible 5th Group of the Alpini. It was + the old problem of the irresistible force in conflict with the immovable + object. And the outcome has been the biggest military mine in all history. + </p> + <p> + The business began in January, 1916, with surveys of the rock in question. + The work of surveying for excavations, never a very simple one, becomes + much more difficult when the site is occupied by hostile persons with + machine guns. In March, as the winter's snows abated, the boring machinery + began to arrive, by mule as far as possible and then by hand. Altogether + about half a kilometre of gallery had to be made to the mine chamber, and + meanwhile the explosive was coming up load by load and resting first here, + then there, in discreetly chosen positions. There were at the last + thirty-five tons of it in the inner chamber. And while the boring machines + bored and the work went on, Lieutenant Malvezzi was carefully working out + the problem of “il massimo effetto dirompimento” and deciding exactly how + to pack and explode his little hoard. On the eleventh of July, at 3.30, as + he rejoices to state in his official report, “the mine responded perfectly + both in respect of the calculations made and of the practical effects,” + that is to say, the Austrians were largely missing and the Italians were + in possession of the crater of the Castelletto and looking down the Val + Travenanzes from which they had been barred for so long. Within a month + things had been so tidied up, and secured by further excavations and + sandbags against hostile fire, that even a middle-aged English writer, + extremely fagged and hot and breathless, could enjoy the same privilege. + All this, you must understand, had gone on at a level to which the + ordinary tourist rarely climbs, in a rarefied, chest-tightening + atmosphere, with wisps of clouds floating in the clear air below and + club-huts close at hand.... + </p> + <p> + Among these mountains avalanches are frequent; and they come down + regardless of human strategy. In many cases the trenches cross avalanche + tracks; they and the men in them are periodically swept away and + periodically replaced. They are positions that must be held; if the + Italians will not face such sacrifices, the Austrians will. Avalanches and + frostbite have slain and disabled their thousands; they have accounted + perhaps for as many Italians in this austere and giddy campaign as the + Austrians.... + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + It seems to be part of the stern resolve of Fate that this, the greatest + of wars, shall be the least glorious; it is manifestly being decided not + by victories but by blunders. It is indeed a history of colossal + stupidities. Among the most decisive of these blunders, second only + perhaps of the blunder of the Verdun attack and far outshining the wild + raid of the British towards Bagdad, was the blunder of the Trentino + offensive. It does not need the equipment of a military expert, it demands + only quite ordinary knowledge and average intelligence, to realise the + folly of that Austrian adventure. There is some justification for a claim + that the decisive battle of the war was fought upon the soil of Italy. + There is still more justification for saying that it might have been. + </p> + <p> + There was only one good point about the Austrian thrust. No one could have + foretold it. And it did so completely surprise the Italians as to catch + them without any prepared line of positions in the rear. On the very eve + of the big Russian offensive, the Austrians thrust eighteen divisions hard + at the Trentino frontier. The Italian posts were then in Austrian + territory; they held on the left wing and the right, but they were driven + by the sheer weight of men and guns in the centre; they lost guns and + prisoners because of the difficulty of mountain retreats to which I have + alluded, and the Austrians pouring through reached not indeed the plain of + Venetia, but to the upland valleys immediately above it, to Asiago and + Arsiero. They probably saw the Venetian plain through gaps in the hills, + but they were still separated from it even at Arsiero by what are + mountains to an English eye, mountains as high as Snowdon. But the + Italians of such beautiful old places and Vicenza, Marostica, and Bassano + could watch the Austrian shells bursting on the last line of hills above + the plain, and I have no doubt they felt extremely uneasy. + </p> + <p> + As one motors through these ripe and beautiful towns and through the rich + valleys that link them—it is a smiling land abounding in old castles + and villas, Vicenza is a rich museum of Palladio's architecture and + Bassano is full of irreplaceable painted buildings—one feels that + the things was a narrow escape, but from the military point of view it was + merely an insane escapade. The Austrians had behind them—and some + way behind them—one little strangulated railway and no good pass + road; their right was held at Pasubio, their left was similarly bent back. + In front of them was between twice and three times their number of first + class troops, with an unlimited equipment. If they had surmounted that + last mountain crest they would have come down to almost certain + destruction in the plain. They could never have got back. For a time it + was said that General Cadorna considered that possibility. From the point + of view of purely military considerations, the Trentino offensive should + perhaps have ended in the capitulation of Vicenza. + </p> + <p> + I will confess I am glad it did not do so. This tour of the fronts has + made me very sad and weary with a succession of ruins. I can bear no more + ruins unless they are the ruins of Dusseldorf, Cologne, Berlin, or + suchlike modern German city. Anxious as I am to be a systematic + Philistine, to express my preference for Marinetti over the Florentine + British and generally to antagonise aesthetic prigs, I rejoiced over that + sunlit land as one might rejoice over a child saved from beasts. + </p> + <p> + On the hills beyond Schio I walked out through the embrasure of a big gun + in a rock gallery, and saw the highest points upon the hillside to which + the Austrian infantry clambered in their futile last attacks. Below me + were the ruins of Arsiero and Velo d'Astico recovered, and across the + broad valley rose Monte Cimone with the Italian trenches upon its crest + and the Austrians a little below to the north. A very considerable + bombardment was going on and it reverberated finely. (It is only among + mountains that one hears anything that one can call the thunder of guns. + The heaviest bombardments I heard in France sounded merely like Brock's + benefit on a much large scale, and disappointed me extremely.) As I sat + and listened to the uproar and watched the shells burst on Cimone and far + away up the valley over Castelletto above Pedescala, Captain Pirelli + pointed out the position of the Austrian frontier. I doubt if the English + people realise that the utmost depth to which this great Trentino + offensive, which exhausted Austria, wasted the flower of the Hungarian + army and led directly to the Galician disasters and the intervention of + Rumania, penetrated into Italian territory was about six miles. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. BEHIND THE FRONT + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + I have a peculiar affection for Verona and certain things in Verona. + Italians must forgive us English this little streak of impertinent + proprietorship in the beautiful things of their abundant land. It is quite + open to them to revenge themselves by professing a tenderness for + Liverpool or Leeds. It was, for instance, with a peculiar and personal + indignation that I saw where an Austrian air bomb had killed + five-and-thirty people in the Piazza Erbe. Somehow in that jolly old + place, a place that have very much of the quality of a very pretty and + cheerful old woman, it seemed exceptionally an outrage. And I made a + special pilgrimage to see how it was with that monument of Can Grande, the + equestrian Scaliger with the sidelong grin, for whom I confess a + ridiculous admiration. Can Grande, I rejoice to say, has retired into a + case of brickwork, surmounted by a steep roof of thick iron plates; no + aeroplane exists to carry bombs enough to smash that covering; there he + will smile securely in the darkness until peace comes again. + </p> + <p> + All over Venetia the Austrian seaplanes are making the same sort of idiot + raid on lighted places that the Zeppelins have been making over England. + These raids do no effective military work. What conceivable military + advantage can there be in dropping bombs into a marketing crowd? It is a + sort of anti-Teutonic propaganda by the Central Powers to which they seem + to have been incited by their own evil genius. It is as if they could + convince us that there is an essential malignity in Germans, that until + the German powers are stamped down into the mud they will continue to do + evil things. All of the Allies have borne the thrusting and boasting of + Germany with exemplary patience for half a century; England gave her + Heligoland and stood out of the way of her colonial expansion, Italy was a + happy hunting ground for her business enterprise, France had come near + resignation on the score of Alsace-Lorraine. And then over and above the + great outrage of the war come these incessant mean-spirited atrocities. A + great and simple wickedness it is possible to forgive; the war itself, had + it been fought greatly by Austria and Germany, would have made no such + deep and enduring breach as these silly, futile assassinations have down + between the Austro-Germans and the rest of the civilised world. One great + misdeed is a thing understandable and forgivable; what grows upon the + consciousness of the world is the persuasion that here we fight not a + national sin but a national insanity; that we dare not leave the German + the power to attack other nations any more for ever.... + </p> + <p> + Venice has suffered particularly from this ape-like impulse to hurt and + terrorise enemy non-combatants. Venice has indeed suffered from this war + far more than any other town in Italy. Her trade has largely ceased; she + has no visitors. I woke up on my way to Udine and found my train at Venice + with an hour to spare; after much examining and stamping of my passport I + was allowed outside the station wicket to get coffee in the refreshment + room and a glimpse of a very sad and silent Grand Canal. There was nothing + doing; a black despondent remnant of the old crowd of gondolas browsed + dreamily among against the quay to stare at me the better. The empty + palaces seemed to be sleeping in the morning sunshine because it was not + worth while to wake up.... + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + Except in the case of Venice, the war does not seem as yet to have made + nearly such a mark upon life in Italy as it has in England or provincial + France. People speak of Italy as a poor country, but that is from a + banker's point of view. In some respects she is the richest country on + earth, and in the matter of staying power I should think she is better off + than any other belligerent. She produces food in abundance everywhere; her + women are agricultural workers, so that the interruption of food + production by the war has been less serious in Italy than in any other + part of Europe. In peace time, she has constantly exported labour; the + Italian worker has been a seasonal emigrant to America, north and south, + to Switzerland, Germany and the south of France. The cessation of this + emigration has given her great reserves of man power, so that she has + carried on her admirable campaign with less interference with her normal + economic life than any other power. The first person I spoke to upon the + platform at Modane was a British officer engaged in forwarding Italian + potatoes to the British front in France. Afterwards, on my return, when a + little passport irregularity kept me for half a day in Modane, I went for + a walk with him along the winding pass road that goes down into France. + “You see hundreds and hundreds of new Fiat cars,” he remarked, “along here—going + up to the French front.” + </p> + <p> + But there is a return trade. Near Paris I saw scores of thousands of + shells piled high to go to Italy.... + </p> + <p> + I doubt if English people fully realise either the economic sturdiness or + the political courage of their Italian ally. Italy is not merely fighting + a first-class war in first-class fashion but she is doing a big, + dangerous, generous and far-sighted thing in fighting at all. France and + England were obliged to fight; the necessity was as plain as daylight. The + participation of Italy demanded a remoter wisdom. In the long run she + would have been swallowed up economically and politically by Germany if + she had not fought; but that was not a thing staring her plainly in the + face as the danger, insult and challenge stared France and England in the + face. What did stare her in the face was not merely a considerable + military and political risk, but the rupture of very close financial and + commercial ties. I found thoughtful men talking everywhere I have been in + Italy of two things, of the Jugo-Slav riddle and of the question of post + war finance. So far as the former matter goes, I think the Italians are + set upon the righteous solution of all such riddles, they are possessed by + an intelligent generosity. They are clearly set upon deserving Jugo-Slav + friendship; they understand the plain necessity of open and friendly + routes towards Roumania. It was an Italian who set out to explain to me + that Fiume must be at least a free port; it would be wrong and foolish to + cut the trade of Hungary off from the Mediterranean. But the banking + puzzle is a more intricate and puzzling matter altogether than the + possibility of trouble between Italian and Jugo-Slav. + </p> + <p> + I write of these things with the simplicity of an angel, but without an + angelic detachment. Here are questions into which one does not so much + rush as get reluctantly pushed. Currency and banking are dry distasteful + questions, but it is clear that they are too much in the hands of + mystery-mongers; it is as much the duty of anyone who talks and writes of + affairs, it is as much the duty of every sane adult, to bring his possibly + poor and unsuitable wits to bear upon these things, as it is for him to + vote or enlist or pay his taxes. Behind the simple ostensible spectacle of + Italy recovering the unredeemed Italy of the Trentino and East Venetia, + goes on another drama. Has Italy been sinking into something rather hard + to define called “economic slavery”? Is she or is she not escaping from + that magical servitude? Before this question has been under discussion for + a minute comes a name—for a time I was really quite unable to decide + whether it is the name of the villain in the piece or of the maligned + heroine, or a secret society or a gold mine, or a pestilence or a delusion—the + name of the <i>Banca Commerciale Italiana.</i> + </p> + <p> + Banking in a country undergoing so rapid and vigorous an economic + development as Italy is very different from the banking we simple English + know of at home. Banking in England, like land-owning, has hitherto been a + sort of hold up. There were always borrowers, there were always tenants, + and all that had to be done was to refuse, obstruct, delay and worry the + helpless borrower or would-be tenant until the maximum of security and + profit was obtained. I have never borrowed but I have built, and I know + something of the extreme hauteur of property of England towards a man who + wants to do anything with land, and with money I gather the case is just + the same. But in Italy, which already possessed a sunny prosperity of its + own upon mediaeval lines, the banker has had to be suggestive and + persuasive, sympathetic and helpful. These are unaccustomed attitudes for + British capital. The field has been far more attractive to the German + banker, who is less of a proudly impassive usurer and more of a partner, + who demands less than absolute security because he investigates more + industriously and intelligently. This great bank, the Banca Commerciale + Italiana, is a bank of the German type: to begin with, it was certainly + dominated by German directors; it was a bank of stimulation, and its + activities interweave now into the whole fabric of Italian commercial + life. But it has already liberated itself from German influence, and the + bulk of its capital is Italian. Nevertheless I found discussion ranging + about firstly what the Banca Commerciale essentially <i>was</i>, secondly + what it might <i>become</i>, thirdly what it might <i>do</i>, and fourthly + what, if anything, had to be done to it. + </p> + <p> + It is a novelty to an English mind to find banking thus mixed up with + politics, but it is not a novelty in Italy. All over Venetia there are + agricultural banks which are said to be “clerical.” I grappled with this + mystery. “How are they clerical?” I asked Captain Pirelli. “Do they lend + money on bad security to clerical voters, and on no terms whatever to + anti-clericals?” He was quite of my way of thinking. “<i>Pecunia non olet</i>,” + he said; “I have never yet smelt a clerical fifty lira note.”... But on + the other hand Italy is very close to Germany; she wants easy money for + development, cheap coal, a market for various products. The case against + the Germans—this case in which the Banca Commerciale Italiana + appears, I am convinced unjustly, as a suspect—is that they have + turned this natural and proper interchange with Italy into the acquisition + of German power. That they have not been merely easy traders, but + patriotic agents. It is alleged that they used their early “pull” in + Italian banking to favour German enterprises and German political + influence against the development of native Italian business; that their + merchants are not bona-fide individuals, but members of a nationalist + conspiracy to gain economic controls. The German is a patriotic + monomaniac. He is not a man but a limb, the worshipper of a national + effigy, the digit of an insanely proud and greedy Germania, and here are + the natural consequences. + </p> + <p> + The case of the individual Italian compactly is this: “We do not like the + Austrians and Germans. These Imperialisms look always over the Alps. + Whatever increases German influence here threatens Italian life. The + German is a German first and a human being afterwards.... But on the other + hand England seems commercially indifferent to us and France has been + economically hostile...” + </p> + <p> + “After all,” I said presently, after reflection, “in that matter of <i>Pecunia + non olet</i>; there used to be fusses about European loans in China. And + one of the favourite themes of British fiction and drama before the war + was the unfortunate position of the girl who accepted a loan from the + wicked man to pay her debts at bridge.” + </p> + <p> + “Italy,” said Captain Pirelli, “isn't a girl. And she hasn't been playing + bridge.” + </p> + <p> + I incline on the whole to his point of view. Money is facile cosmopolitan + stuff. I think that any bank that settles down in Italy is going to be + slowly and steadily naturalised Italian, it will become more and more + Italian until it is wholly Italian. I would trust Italy to make and keep + the Banca Commerciale Italiana Italian. I believe the Italian brain is a + better brain than the German article. But still I heard people talking of + the implicated organisation as if it were engaged in the most insidious + duplicities. “Wait for only a year or so after the war,” said one English + authority to me, “and the mask will be off and it will be frankly a + 'Deutsche Bank' once more.” They assure me that then German enterprises + will be favoured again, Italian and Allied enterprises blockaded and + embarrassed, the good understanding of Italians and English poisoned, + entirely through this organisation.... + </p> + <p> + The reasonable uncommercial man would like to reject all this last sort of + talk as “suspicion mania.” So far as the Banca Commerciale Italiana goes, + I at least find that easy enough; I quote that instance simply because it + is a case where suspicion has been dispelled, but in regard to a score of + other business veins it is not so easy to dispel suspicion. This war has + been a shock to reasonable men the whole world over. They have been forced + to realise that after all a great number of Germans have been engaged in a + crack-brained conspiracy against the non-German world; that in a great + number of cases when one does business with a German the business does not + end with the individual German. We hated to believe that a business could + be tainted by German partners or German associations. If now we err on the + side of over-suspicion, it is the German's little weakness for patriotic + disingenuousness that is most to blame.... + </p> + <p> + But anyhow I do not think there is much good in a kind of witch-smelling + among Italian enterprises to find the hidden German. Certain things are + necessary for Italian prosperity and Italy must get them. The Italians + want intelligent and helpful capital. They want a helpful France. They + want bituminous coal for metallurgical purposes. They want cheap shipping. + The French too want metallurgical coal. It is more important for + civilisation, for the general goodwill of the Allies and for Great Britain + that these needs should be supplied than that individual British + money-owners or ship-owners should remain sluggishly rich by insisting + upon high security or high freights. The control of British coal-mining + and shipping is in the national interests—for international + interests—rather than for the creation of that particularly passive, + obstructive, and wasteful type of wealth, the wealth of the mere + profiteer, is as urgent a necessity for the commercial welfare of France + and Italy and the endurance of the Great Alliance as it is for the + well-being of the common man in Britain. + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + I left my military guide at Verona on Saturday afternoon and reached Milan + in time to dine outside Salvini's in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, with + an Italian fellow story-writer. The place was as full as ever; we had to + wait for a table. It is notable that there were still great numbers of + young men not in uniform in Milan and Turin and Vicenza and Verona; there + was no effect anywhere of a depletion of men. The whole crowded place was + smouldering with excitement. The diners looked about them as they talked, + some talked loudly and seemed to be expressing sentiments. Newspaper + vendors appeared at the intersection of the arcades, uttering ambiguous + cries, and did a brisk business of flitting white sheets among the little + tables. + </p> + <p> + “To-night,” said my companion, “I think we shall declare war upon Germany. + The decision is being made.” + </p> + <p> + I asked intelligently why this had not been done before. I forget the + precise explanation he gave. A young soldier in uniform, who had been + dining at an adjacent table and whom I had not recognised before as a + writer I had met some years previously in London, suddenly joined in our + conversation, with a slightly different explanation. I had been carrying + on a conversation in slightly ungainly French, but now I relapsed into + English. + </p> + <p> + But indeed the matter of that declaration of war is as plain as daylight; + the Italian national consciousness has not at first that direct sense of + the German danger that exists in the minds of the three northern Allies. + To the Italian the traditional enemy is Austria, and this war is not + primarily a war for any other end than the emancipation of Italy. Moreover + we have to remember that for years there has been serious commercial + friction between France and Italy, and considerable mutual elbowing in + North Africa. Both Frenchmen and Italians are resolute to remedy this now, + but the restoration of really friendly and trustful relations is not to be + done in a day. It has been an extraordinary misfortune for Great Britain + that instead of boldly taking over her shipping from its private owners + and using it all, regardless of their profit, in the interests of herself + and her allies, her government has permitted so much of it as military and + naval needs have not requisitioned to continue to ply for gain, which the + government itself has shared by a tax on war profits. The Anglophobe + elements in Italian public life have made the utmost of this folly or + laxity in relation more particularly to the consequent dearness of coal in + Italy. They have carried on an amazingly effective campaign in which this + British slackness with the individual profiteer, is represented as if it + were the deliberate greed of the British state. This certainly contributed + very much to fortify Italy's disinclination to slam the door on the German + connection. + </p> + <p> + I did my best to make it clear to my two friends that so far from England + exploiting Italy, I myself suffered in exactly the same way as any + Italian, through the extraordinary liberties of our shipping interest. “I + pay as well as you do,” I said; “the shippers' blockade of Great Britain + is more effective than the submarines'. My food, my coal, my petrol are + all restricted in the sacred name of private property. You see, capital in + England has hitherto been not an exploitation but a hold-up. We are + learning differently now.... And anyhow, Mr. Runciman has been here and + given Italy assurances....” + </p> + <p> + In the train to Modane this old story recurred again. It is imperative + that English readers should understand clearly how thoroughly these little + matters have been <i>worked</i> by the enemy. + </p> + <p> + Some slight civilities led to a conversation that revealed the Italian + lady in the corner as an Irishwoman married to an Italian, and also + brought out the latent English of a very charming elderly lady opposite to + her. She had heard a speech, a wonderful speech from a railway train, by + “the Lord Runciman.” He had said the most beautiful things about Italy. + </p> + <p> + I did my best to echo these beautiful things. + </p> + <p> + Then the Irishwoman remarked that Mr. Runciman had not satisfied + everybody. She and her husband had met a minister—I found afterwards + he was one of the members of the late Giolotti government—who had + been talking very loudly and scornfully of the bargain Italy was making + with England. I assured her that the desire of England was simply to give + Italy all that she needed. + </p> + <p> + “But,” said the husband casually, “Mr. Runciman is a shipowner.” + </p> + <p> + I explained that he was nothing of the sort. It was true that he came of a + shipowning family—and perhaps inherited a slight tendency to see + things from a shipowning point of view—but in England we did not + suspect a man on such a score as that. + </p> + <p> + “In Italy I think we should,” said the husband of the Irish lady. + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + This incidental discussion is a necessary part of my impression of Italy + at war. The two western allies and Great Britain in particular have to + remember Italy's economic needs, and to prepare to rescue them from the + blind exploitation of private profit. They have to remember these needs + too, because, if they are left out of the picture, then it becomes + impossible to understand the full measure of the risk Italy has faced in + undertaking this war for an idea. With a Latin lucidity she has counted + every risk, and with a Latin idealism she has taken her place by the side + of those who fight for a liberal civilisation against a Byzantine + imperialism. + </p> + <p> + As I came out of the brightly lit Galleria Vittorio Emanuele into the + darkened Piazza del Duomo I stopped under the arcade and stood looking up + at the shadowy darkness of that great pinnacled barn, that marble + bride-cake, which is, I suppose, the last southward fortress of the + Franco-English Gothic. + </p> + <p> + “It was here,” said my host, “that we burnt the German stuff.” + </p> + <p> + “What German stuff?” + </p> + <p> + “Pianos and all sorts of things. From the shops. It is possible, you know, + to buy things too cheaply—and to give too much for the cheapness.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE WESTERN WAR (SEPTEMBER, 1916) + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. RUINS + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + If I had to present some particular scene as typical of the peculiar + vileness and mischief wrought by this modern warfare that Germany has + elaborated and thrust upon the world, I do not think I should choose as my + instance any of those great architectural wrecks that seem most to impress + contemporary writers. I have seen the injuries and ruins of the cathedrals + at Arras and Soissons and the wreckage of the great church at Saint Eloi, + I have visited the Hotel de Ville at Arras and seen photographs of the + present state of the Cloth Hall at Ypres—a building I knew very well + indeed in its days of pride—and I have not been very deeply moved. I + suppose that one is a little accustomed to Gothic ruins, and that there is + always something monumental about old buildings; it is only a question of + degree whether they are more or less tumble-down. I was far more desolated + by the obliteration of such villages as Fricourt and Dompierre, and by the + horrible state of the fields and gardens round about them, and my visit to + Arras railway station gave me all the sensations of coming suddenly on a + newly murdered body. + </p> + <p> + Before I visited the recaptured villages in the zone of the actual + fighting, I had an idea that their evacuation was only temporary, that as + soon as the war line moved towards Germany the people of the devastated + villages would return to build their houses and till their fields again. + But I see now that not only are homes and villages destroyed almost beyond + recognition, but the very fields are destroyed. They are wildernesses of + shell craters; the old worked soil is buried and great slabs of crude + earth have been flung up over it. No ordinary plough will travel over this + frozen sea, let along that everywhere chunks of timber, horrible tangles + of rusting wire, jagged fragments of big shells, and a great number of + unexploded shells are entangled in the mess. Often this chaos is stained + bright yellow by high explosives, and across it run the twisting trenches + and communication trenches eight, ten, or twelve feet deep. These will + become water pits and mud pits into which beasts will fall. It is + incredible that there should be crops from any of this region of the push + for many years to come. There is no shade left; the roadside trees are + splintered stumps with scarcely the spirit to put forth a leaf; a few + stunted thistles and weeds are the sole proofs that life may still go on. + </p> + <p> + The villages of this wide battle region are not ruined; they are + obliterated. It is just possible to trace the roads in them, because the + roads have been cleared and repaired for the passing of the guns and + ammunition. Fricourt is a tangle of German dug-outs. One dug-out in + particular there promises to become a show place. It must be the + masterpiece of some genius for dug-outs; it is made as if its makers + enjoyed the job; it is like the work of some horrible badger among the + vestiges of what were pleasant human homes. You are taken down a timbered + staircase into its warren of rooms and passages; you are shown the places + under the craters of the great British shells, where the wood splintered + but did not come in. (But the arrival of those shells must have been a + stunning moment.) There are a series of ingenious bolting shafts set with + iron climbing bars. In this place German officers and soldiers have lived + continually for nearly two years. This war is, indeed, a troglodytic + propaganda. You come up at last at the far end into what was once a cellar + of a decent Frenchman's home. + </p> + <p> + But there are stranger subterranean refuges than that at Fricourt. At + Dompierre the German trenches skirted the cemetery, and they turned the + dead out of their vaults and made lurking places of the tombs. I walked + with M. Joseph Reinach about this place, picking our way carefully amidst + the mud holes and the wire, and watched the shells bursting away over the + receding battle line to the west. The wreckage of the graves was + Durereqsue. And here would be a fragment of marble angle and here a split + stone with an inscription. Splinters of coffins, rusty iron crosses and + the petals of tin flowers were trampled into the mud, amidst the universal + barbed wire. A little distance down the slope is a brand new cemetery, + with new metal wreaths and even a few flowers; it is a disciplined array + of uniform wooden crosses, each with its list of soldiers' names. Unless I + am wholly mistaken in France no Germans will ever get a chance for ever + more to desecrate that second cemetery as they have done its predecessor. + </p> + <p> + We walked over the mud heaps and litter that had once been houses towards + the centre of Dompierre village, and tried to picture to ourselves what + the place had been. Many things are recognisable in Dompierre that have + altogether vanished at Fricourt; for instance, there are quire large + triangular pieces of the church wall upstanding at Dompierre. And a mile + away perhaps down the hill on the road towards Amiens, the ruins of the + sugar refinery are very distinct. A sugar refinery is an affair of big + iron receptacles and great flues and pipes and so forth, and iron does not + go down under gun fire as stone or brick does. The whole fabric wars rust, + bent and twisted, gaping with shell holes, that raggedest display of old + iron, but it still kept its general shape, as a smashed, battered, and + sunken ironclad might do at the bottom of the sea. + </p> + <p> + There wasn't a dog left of the former life of Dompierre. There was not + even much war traffic that morning on the worn and muddy road. The guns + muttered some miles away to the west, and a lark sang. But a little way + farther on up the road was an intermediate dressing station, rigged up + with wood and tarpaulins, and orderlies were packing two wounded men into + an ambulance. The men on the stretchers were grey faced, as though they + had been trodden on by some gigantic dirty boot. + </p> + <p> + As we came back towards where our car waited by the cemetery I heard the + jingle of a horseman coming across the space behind us. I turned and + beheld one of the odd contrasts that seem always to be happening in this + incredible war. This man was, I suppose, a native officer of some cavalry + force from French north Africa. He was a handsome dark brown Arab, wearing + a long yellow-white robe and a tall cap about which ran a band of + sheepskin. He was riding one of those little fine lean horses with long + tails that I think are Barbary horses, his archaic saddle rose fore and + aft of him, and the turned-up toes of his soft leather boots were stuck + into great silver stirrups. He might have ridden straight out of the + Arabian nights. He passed thoughtfully, picking his way delicately among + the wire and the shell craters, and coming into the road, broke into a + canter and vanished in the direction of the smashed-up refinery. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + About such towns as Rheims or Arras or Soissons there is an effect of + waiting stillness like nothing else I have ever experienced. At Arras the + situation is almost incredible to the civilian mind. The British hold the + town, the Germans hold a northern suburb; at one point near the river the + trenches are just four metres apart. This state of tension has lasted for + long months. + </p> + <p> + Unless a very big attack is contemplated, I suppose there is no advantage + in an assault; across that narrow interval we should only get into + trenches that might be costly or impossible to hold, and so it would be + for the Germans on our side. But there is a kind of etiquette observed; + loud vulgar talking on either side of the four-metre gap leads at once to + bomb throwing. And meanwhile on both sides guns of various calibre keep up + an intermittent fire, the German guns register—I think that is the + right term—on the cross of Arras cathedral, the British guns search + lovingly for the German batteries. As one walks about the silent streets + one hears, “<i>Bang</i>—-Pheeee—-woooo” and then far away “<i>dump.</i>” + One of ours. Then presently back comes “Pheeee—-woooo—-<i>Bang!</i>” + One of theirs. + </p> + <p> + Amidst these pleasantries, the life of the town goes on. <i>Le Lion + d'Arras</i>, an excellent illustrated paper, produces its valiant sheets, + and has done so since the siege began. + </p> + <p> + The current number of <i>Le Lion d'Arras</i> had to report a local German + success. Overnight they had killed a gendarme. There is to be a public + funeral and much ceremony. It is rare for anyone now to get killed; + everything is so systematised. + </p> + <p> + You may buy postcards with views of the destruction at various angles, and + send them off with the Arras postmark. The town is not without a certain + business activity. There is, I am told, a considerable influx of visitors + of a special sort; they wear khaki and lead the troglodytic life. They + play cards and gossip and sleep in the shadows, and may not walk the + streets. I had one glimpse of a dark crowded cellar. Now and then one sees + a British soldier on some special errand; he keeps to the pavement, + mindful of the spying German sausage balloon in the air. The streets are + strangely quite and grass grows between the stones. + </p> + <p> + The Hotel de Ville and the cathedral are now mostly heaps of litter, but + many streets of the town have suffered very little. Here and there a house + has been crushed and one or two have been bisected, the front reduced to a + heap of splinters and the back halves of the rooms left so that one sees + the bed, the hanging end of the carpet, the clothes cupboard yawning open, + the pictures still on the wall. In one place a lamp stands on a chest of + drawers, on a shelf of floor cut off completely from the world below.... + Pheeee—-woooo—-<i>Bang!</i> One would be irresistibly reminded + of a Sunday afternoon in the city of London, if it were not for those + unmeaning explosions. + </p> + <p> + I went to the station, a dead railway station. A notice-board requested us + to walk around the silent square on the outside pavement and not across + it. The German sausage balloon had not been up for days; it had probably + gone off to the Somme; the Somme was a terrible vortex just then which was + sucking away the resources of the whole German line; but still discipline + is discipline. The sausage might come peeping up at any moment over the + station roof, and so we skirted the square. Arras was fought for in the + early stages of the war; two lines of sand-bagged breastworks still run + obliquely through the station; one is where the porters used to put + luggage upon cabs and one runs the length of the platform. The station was + a fine one of the modern type, with a glass roof whose framework still + remains, though the glass powders the floor and is like a fine angular + gravel underfoot. The rails are rails of rust, and cornflowers and mustard + and tall grasses grow amidst the ballast. The waiting-rooms have suffered + from a shell or so, but there are still the sofas of green plush, askew, a + little advertisement hung from the wall, the glass smashed. The ticket + bureau is as if a giant had scattered a great number of tickets, mostly + still done up in bundles, to Douai, to Valenciennes, to Lens and so on. + These tickets are souvenirs too portable to resist. I gave way to that + common weakness. + </p> + <p> + I went out and looked up and down the line; two deserted goods trucks + stood as if they sheltered under a footbridge. The grass poked out through + their wheels. The railway signals seemed uncertain in their intimations; + some were up and some were down. And it was as still and empty as a summer + afternoon in Pompeii. No train has come into Arras for two long years now. + </p> + <p> + We lunched in a sunny garden with various men who love Arras but are weary + of it, and we disputed about Irish politics. We discussed the political + future of Sir F. E. Smith. We also disputed whether there was an + equivalent in English for <i>embusque.</i> Every now and then a shell came + over—an aimless shell. + </p> + <p> + A certain liveliness marked our departure from the town. Possibly the + Germans also listen for the rare infrequent automobile. At any rate, as we + were just starting our way back—it is improper to mention the exact + point from which we started—came “Pheeee—-woooo.” Quite close. + But there was no <i>Bang!</i> One's mind hung expectant and disappointed. + It was a dud shell. + </p> + <p> + And then suddenly I became acutely aware of the personality of our + chauffeur. It was not his business to talk to us, but he turned his head, + showed a sharp profile, wry lips and a bright excited eye, and remarked, “<i>That</i> + was a near one—anyhow.” He then cut a corner over the pavement and + very nearly cut it through a house. He bumped us over a shell hole and + began to toot his horn. At every gateway, alley, and cross road on this + silent and empty streets of Arras and frequently in between, he tooted + punctiliously. (It is not proper to sound motor horns in Arras.) I cannot + imagine what the listening Germans made of it. We passed the old gates of + that city of fear, still tooting vehemently, and then with shoulders + eloquent of his feelings, our chauffeur abandoned the horn altogether and + put his whole soul into the accelerator.... + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + Soissons was in very much the same case as Arras. There was the same + pregnant silence in her streets, the same effect of waiting for the moment + which draws nearer and nearer, when the brooding German lines away there + will be full of the covert activities of retreat, when the streets of the + old town will stir with the joyous excitement of the conclusive advance. + </p> + <p> + The organisation of Soissons for defence is perfect. I may not describe + it, but think of whatever would stop and destroy an attacking party or + foil the hostile shell. It is there. Men have had nothing else to do and + nothing else to think of for two years. I crossed the bridge the English + made in the pursuit after the Marne, and went into the first line trenches + and peeped towards the invisible enemy. To show me exactly where to look a + seventy-five obliged with a shell. In the crypt of the Abbey of St. Medard + near by it—it must provoke the Germans bitterly to think that all + the rest of the building vanished ages ago—the French boys sleep + beside the bones of King Childebert the Second. They shelter safely in the + prison of Louis the Pious. An ineffective shell from a German + seventy-seven burst in the walled garden close at hand as I came out from + those thousand-year-old memories again. + </p> + <p> + The cathedral at Soissons had not been nearly so completely smashed up as + the one at Arras; I doubt if it has been very greatly fired into. There is + a peculiar beauty in the one long vertical strip of blue sky between the + broken arches in the chief gap where the wall has tumbled in. And the + people are holding on in many cases exactly as they are doing in Arras; I + do not know whether it is habit or courage that is most apparent in this + persistence. About the chief place of the town there are ruined houses, + but some invisible hand still keeps the grass of the little garden within + bounds and has put out a bed of begonias. In Paris I met a charming + American writer, the wife of a French artist, the lady who wrote <i>My + House on the Field of Honour.</i> She gave me a queer little anecdote. On + account of some hospital work she had been allowed to visit Soissons—a + rare privilege for a woman—and she stayed the night in a lodging. + The room into which she was shown was like any other French provincial + bedroom, and after her Anglo-Saxon habit she walked straight to the + windows to open them. + </p> + <p> + They looked exactly like any other French bedroom windows, with neat, + clean white lace curtains across them. The curtains had been put there, + because they were the proper things to put there. + </p> + <p> + “Madame,” said the hostess, “need not trouble to open the glass. There is + no more glass in Soissons.” + </p> + <p> + But there were curtains nevertheless. There was all the precise delicacy + of the neatly curtained home life of France. + </p> + <p> + And she told me too of the people at dinner, and how as the little + serving-maid passed about a proud erection of cake and conserve and cream, + came the familiar “Pheeee—-woooo—-<i>Bang!</i>” + </p> + <p> + “That must have been the Seminaire,” said someone. + </p> + <p> + As one speaks of the weather or a passing cart. + </p> + <p> + “It was in the Rue de la Bueire, M'sieur,” the little maid asserted with + quiet conviction, poising the trophy of confectionery for Madame Huard + with an unshaking hand. + </p> + <p> + So stoutly do the roots of French life hold beneath the tramplings of war. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. THE GRADES OF WAR + </h2> + <p> + 1 Soissons and Arras when I visited them were samples of the deadlock war; + they were like Bloch come true. The living fact about war so far is that + Bloch has not come true—<i>yet.</i> I think in the end he will come + true, but not so far as this war is concerned, and to make that clear it + is necessary to trouble the reader with a little disquisition upon war—omitting + as far as humanly possible all mention of Napoleon's campaigns. + </p> + <p> + The development of war has depended largely upon two factors. One of these + is invention. New weapons and new methods have become available, and have + modified tactics, strategy, the relative advantage of offensive and + defensive. The other chief factor in the evolution of the war has been + social organisation. As Machiavelli points out in his <i>Art of War</i>, + there was insufficient social stability in Europe to keep a properly + trained and disciplined infantry in the field from the passing of the + Roman legions to the appearance of the Swiss footmen. He makes it very + clear that he considers the fighting of the Middle Ages, though frequent + and bloody, to be a confused, mobbing sort of affair, and politically and + technically unsatisfactory. The knight was an egotist in armour. + Machiavelli does small justice to the English bowmen. It is interesting to + note that Switzerland, that present island of peace, was regarded by him + as the mother of modern war. Swiss aggression was the curse of the + Milanese. That is a remark by the way; our interest here is to note that + modern war emerges upon history as the sixteenth century unfolds, as an + affair in which the essential factor is the drilled and trained + infantryman. The artillery is developing as a means of breaking the + infantry; cavalry for charging them when broken, for pursuit and scouting. + To this day this triple division of forces dominates soldiers' minds. The + mechanical development of warfare has consisted largely in the development + of facilities for enabling or hindering the infantry to get to close + quarters. As that has been made easy or difficult the offensive or the + defensive has predominated. + </p> + <p> + A history of military method for the last few centuries would be a record + of successive alternate steps in which offensive and defensive + contrivances pull ahead, first one and then the other. Their relative + fluctuations are marked by the varying length of campaigns. From the very + outset we have the ditch and the wall; the fortified place upon a pass or + main road, as a check to the advance. Artillery improves, then + fortification improves. The defensive holds its own for a long period, + wars are mainly siege wars, and for a century before the advent of + Napoleon there are no big successful sweeping invasions, no marches upon + the enemy capital and so on. There were wars of reduction, wars of + annoyance. Napoleon developed the offensive by seizing upon the + enthusiastic infantry of the republic, improving transport and mobile + artillery, using road-making as an aggressive method. In spite of the + successful experiment of Torres Vedras and the warning of Plevna the + offensive remained dominant throughout the nineteenth century. + </p> + <p> + But three things were working quietly towards the rehabilitation of the + defensive; firstly the increased range, accuracy and rapidity of rifle + fire, with which we may include the development of the machine gun; + secondly the increasing use of the spade, and thirdly the invention of + barbed wire. By the end of the century these things had come so far into + military theory as to produce the great essay of Bloch, and to surprise + the British military people, who are not accustomed to read books or talk + shop, in the Boer war. In the thinly populated war region of South Africa + the difficulties of forcing entrenched positions were largely met by + outflanking, the Boers had only a limited amount of barbed wire and could + be held down in their trenches by shrapnel, and even at the beginning of + the present war there can be little doubt that we and our Allies were + still largely unprepared for the full possibilities of trench warfare, we + attempted a war of manoeuvres, war at about the grade to which war had + been brought in 1898, and it was the Germans who first brought the war up + to date by entrenching upon the Aisne. We had, of course, a few aeroplanes + at that time, but they were used chiefly as a sort of accessory cavalry + for scouting; our artillery was light and our shell almost wholly + shrapnel. + </p> + <p> + Now the grades of warfare that have been developed since the present war + began, may be regarded as a series of elaborations and counter + elaborations of the problem which begins as a line of trenches behind + wire, containing infantry with rifles and machine guns. Against this an + infantry attack with bayonet, after shrapnel fails. This we will call + Grade A. To this the offensive replies with improved artillery, and + particularly with high explosive shell instead of shrapnel. By this the + wire is blown away, the trench wrecked and the defender held down as the + attack charges up. This is Grade B. But now appear the dug-out elaborating + the trench and the defensive battery behind the trench. The defenders, + under the preliminary bombardment, get into the dug-outs with their rifles + and machine guns, and emerge as fresh as paint as the attack comes up. + Obviously there is much scope for invention and contrivance in the dug-out + as the reservoir of counter attacks. Its possibilities have been very ably + exploited by the Germans. Also the defensive batteries behind, which have + of course the exact range of the captured trench, concentrate on it and + destroy the attack at the moment of victory. The trench falls back to its + former holders under this fire and a counter attack. Check again for the + offensive. Even if it can take, it cannot hold a position under these + conditions. This we will call Grade A2; a revised and improved A. What is + the retort from the opposite side? Obviously to enhance and extend the + range of the preliminary bombardment behind the actual trench line, to + destroy or block, if it can, the dug-outs and destroy or silence the + counter offensive artillery. If it can do that, it can go on; otherwise + Bloch wins. + </p> + <p> + If fighting went on only at ground level Bloch would win at this stage, + but here it is that the aeroplane comes in. From the ground it would be + practically impossible to locate the enemies' dug-outs, secondary + defences, and batteries. But the aeroplane takes us immediately into a new + grade of warfare, in which the location of the defender's secondary + trenches, guns, and even machine-gun positions becomes a matter of extreme + precision—provided only that the offensive has secured command of + the air and can send his aeroplanes freely over the defender lines. Then + the preliminary bombardment becomes of a much more extensive character; + the defender's batteries are tackled by the overpowering fire of guns they + are unable to locate and answer; the secondary dug-outs and strong places + are plastered down, a barrage fire shuts off support from the doomed + trenches, the men in these trenches are held down by a concentrated + artillery fire and the attack goes up at last to hunt them out of the + dug-outs and collect the survivors. Until the attack is comfortably + established in the captured trench, the fire upon the old counter attack + position goes on. This is the grade, Grade B2, to which modern warfare has + attained upon the Somme front. The appearance of the Tank has only + increased the offensive advantage. There at present warfare rests. + </p> + <p> + There is, I believe, only one grade higher possible. The success of B2 + depends upon the completeness of the aerial observation. The invention of + an anti-aircraft gun which would be practically sure of hitting and + bringing down an aeroplane at any height whatever up to 20,000 feet, would + restore the defensive and establish what I should think must be the final + grade of war, A3. But at present nothing of the sort exists and nothing of + the sort is likely to exist for a very long time; at present hitting an + aeroplane by any sort of gun at all is a rare and uncertain achievement. + Such a gun is not impossible and therefore we must suppose such a gun will + some day be constructed, but it will be of a novel type and character, + unlike anything at present in existence. The grade of fighting that I was + privileged to witness on the Somme, the grade at which a steady successful + offensive is possible, is therefore, I conclude, the grade at which the + present war will end. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + But now having thus spread out the broad theory of the business, let me go + on to tell some of the actualities of the Somme offensive. They key fact + upon both British and French fronts was the complete ascendancy of the + Allies aeroplanes. It is the necessary preliminary condition for the + method upon which the great generals of the French army rely in this + sanitary task of shoving the German Thing off the soil of Belgium and + France back into its own land. A man who is frequently throwing out + prophecies is bound to score a few successes, and one that I may + legitimately claim is my early insistence upon that fact that the equality + of the German aviator was likely to be inferior to that of his French or + British rival. The ordinary German has neither the flexible quality of + body, the quickness of nerve, the temperament, nor the mental habits that + make a successful aviator. This idea was first put into my head by + considering the way in which Germans walk and carry themselves, and by + nothing the difference in nimbleness between the cyclists in the streets + of German and French towns. It was confirmed by a conversation I had with + a German aviator who was also a dramatist, and who came to see me upon + some copyright matter in 1912. He broached the view that aviation would + destroy democracy, because he said only aristocrats make aviators. (He was + a man of good family.) With a duke or so in my mind I asked him why. + Because, he explained, a man without aristocratic quality in tradition, + cannot possibly endure the “high loneliness” of the air. That sounded + rather like nonsense at the time, and then I reflected that for a Prussian + that might be true. There may be something in the German composition that + does demand association and the support of pride and training before + dangers can be faced. The Germans are social and methodical, the French + and English are by comparison chaotic and instinctive; perhaps the very + readiness for a conscious orderliness that makes the German so formidable + upon the ground, so thorough and fore-seeking, makes him slow and unsure + in the air. At any rate the experiences of this war have seemed to carry + out this hypothesis. The German aviators will not as a class stand up to + those of the Allies. They are not nimble in the air. Such champions as + they have produced have been men of one trick; one of their great men, + Immelmann—he was put down by an English boy a month or so ago—had + a sort of hawk's swoop. He would go very high and then come down at his + utmost pace at his antagonist, firing his machine gun at him as he came. + If he missed in this hysterical lunge, he went on down.... This does not + strike the Allied aviator as very brilliant. A gentleman of that sort can + sooner or later be caught on the rise by going for him over the German + lines. + </p> + <p> + The first phase, then, of the highest grade offensive, the ultimate + development of war regardless of expense, is the clearance of the air. + Such German machines as are up are put down by fighting aviators. These + last fly high; in the clear blue of the early morning they look exactly + like gnats; some trail a little smoke in the sunshine; they take their + machine guns in pursuit over the German lines, and the German + anti-aircraft guns, the Archibalds, begin to pattern the sky about them + with little balls of black smoke. From below one does not see men nor feel + that men are there; it is as if it were an affair of midges. Close after + the fighting machines come the photographic aeroplanes, with cameras as + long as a man is high, flying low—at four or five thousand feet that + is—over the enemy trenches. The Archibald leaves these latter alone; + it cannot fire a shell to explode safely so soon after firing; but they + are shot at with rifles and machine guns. They do not mind being shot at; + only the petrol tank and the head and thorax of the pilot are to be + considered vital. They will come back with forty or fifty bullet holes in + the fabric. They will go under this fire along the length of the German + positions exposing plate after plate; one machine will get a continuous + panorama of many miles and then come back straight to the aerodrome to + develop its plates. + </p> + <p> + There is no waste of time about the business, the photographs are + developed as rapidly as possible. Within an hour and a half after the + photographs were taken the first prints are going back into the bureau for + the examination of the photographs. Both British and French air + photographs are thoroughly scrutinised and marked. + </p> + <p> + An air photograph to an inexperienced eye is not a very illuminating + thing; one makes our roads, blurs of wood, and rather vague buildings. But + the examiner has an eye that has been in training; he is a picked man; he + has at hand yesterday's photographs and last week's photographs, marked + maps and all sorts of aids and records. If he is a Frenchman he is only + too happy to explain his ideas and methods. Here, he will point out, is a + little difference between the German trench beyond the wood since + yesterday. For a number of reasons he thinks that will be a new machine + gun emplacement; here at the centre of the farm wall they have been making + another. This battery here—isn't it plain? Well, it's a dummy. The + grass in front of it hasn't been scorched, and there's been no serious + wear on the road here for a week. Presently the Germans will send one or + two waggons up and down that road and instruct them to make figures of + eight to imitate scorching on the grass in front of the gun. We know all + about that. The real wear on the road, compare this and this and this, + ends here at this spot. It turns off into the wood. There's a sort of + track in the trees. Now look where the trees are just a little displaced! + (This lens is rather better for that.) <i>That's</i> one gun. You see? + Here, I will show you another.... + </p> + <p> + That process goes on two or three miles behind the front line. Very clean + young men in white overalls do it as if it were a labour of love. And the + Germans in the trenches, the German gunners, <i>know it is going on.</i> + They know that in the quickest possible way these observations of the + aeroplane that was over them just now will go to the gunners. The careful + gunner, firing by the map and marking by aeroplane, kite balloon or direct + observation, will be getting onto the located guns and machine guns in + another couple of hours. The French claim that they have located new + batteries, got their <i>tir de demolition</i> upon them in and destroyed + them within five hours. The British I told of that found it incredible. + Every day the French print special maps showing the guns, sham guns, + trenches, everything of significance behind the German lines, showing + everything that has happened in the last four-and-twenty hours. It is + pitiless. It is indecent. The map-making and printing goes on in the room + next and most convenient to the examination of the photographs. And, as I + say, the German army knows of this, and knows that it cannot prevent it + because of its aerial weakness. That knowledge is not the last among the + forces that is crumpling up the German resistance upon the Somme. + </p> + <p> + I visited some French guns during the <i>tir de demolition</i> phase. I + counted nine aeroplanes and twenty-six kite balloons in the air at the + same time. There was nothing German visible in the air at all. + </p> + <p> + It is a case of eyes and no eyes. + </p> + <p> + The French attack resolves itself into a triple system of gunfire. First + for a day or so, or two or three days, there is demolition fire to smash + up all the exactly located batteries, organisation, supports, behind the + front line enemy trenches; then comes barrage fire to cut off supplies and + reinforcements; then, before the advance, the hammering down fire, “heads + down,” upon the trenches. When at last this stops and the infantry goes + forward to rout out the trenches and the dug-outs, they go forward with a + minimum of inconvenience. The first wave of attack fights, destroys, or + disarms the surviving Germans and sends them back across the open to the + French trenches. They run as fast as they can, hands up, and are + shepherded farther back. The French set to work to turn over the captured + trenches and organise themselves against any counter attack that may face + the barrage fire. + </p> + <p> + That is the formula of the present fighting, which the French have + developed. After an advance there is a pause, while the guns move up + nearer the Germans and fresh aeroplane reconnaissance goes on. Nowhere on + this present offensive has a German counter attack had more than the most + incidental success; and commonly they have had frightful losses. Then + after a few days of refreshment and accumulation, the Allied attack + resumes. + </p> + <p> + That is the perfected method of the French offensive. I had the pleasure + of learning its broad outlines in good company, in the company of M. + Joseph Reinach and Colonel Carence, the military writer. Their talk + together and with me in the various messes at which we lunched was for the + most part a keen discussion of every detail and every possibility of the + offensive machine; every French officer's mess seems a little council upon + the one supreme question in France, <i>how to do it best.</i> M. Reinach + has made certain suggestions about the co-operation of the French and + British that I will discuss elsewhere, but one great theme was the + constitution of “the ideal battery.” For years French military thought has + been acutely attentive to the best number of guns for effective common + action, and has tended rather to the small battery theory. My two + companies were playing with the idea that the ideal battery was a battery + of one big gun, with its own aeroplane and kite balloon marking for it. + </p> + <p> + The British seem to be associated with the adventurous self-reliance + needed in the air. The British aeroplanes do not simply fight the Germans + out of the sky; they also make themselves an abominable nuisance by + bombing the enemy trenches. For every German bomb that is dropped by + aeroplane on or behind the British lines, about twenty go down on the + heads of the Germans. British air bombs upon guns, stores and + communications do some of the work that the French effect by their + systematic demolition fire. + </p> + <p> + And the British aviator has discovered and is rapidly developing an + altogether fresh branch of air activity in the machine-gun attack at a + very low altitude. Originally I believe this was tried in western Egypt, + but now it is being increasingly used upon the British front in France. An + aeroplane which comes down suddenly, travelling very rapidly, to a few + hundred feet, is quite hard to hit, even if it is not squirting bullets + from a machine gun as it advances. Against infantry in the open this sort + of thing is extremely demoralising. It is a method of attack still in its + infancy, but there are great possibilities for it in the future, when the + bending and cracking German line gives, as ultimately it must give if this + offensive does not relax. If the Allies persist in their pressure upon the + western front, if there is no relaxation in the supply of munitions from + Britain and no lapse into tactical stupidity, a German retreat eastward is + inevitable. + </p> + <p> + Now a cavalry pursuit alone may easily come upon disaster, cavalry can be + so easily held up by wire and a few machine guns. I think the Germans have + reckoned on that and on automobiles, probably only the decay of their <i>morale</i> + prevents their opening their lines now on the chance of the British + attempting some such folly as a big cavalry advance, but I do not think + the Germans have reckoned on the use of machine guns in aeroplanes, + supported by and supporting cavalry or automobiles. At the present time I + should imagine there is no more perplexing consideration amidst the many + perplexities of the German military intelligence than the new complexion + put upon pursuit by these low level air developments. It may mean that in + all sorts of positions where they had counted confidently on getting away, + they may not be able to get away—from the face of a scientific + advance properly commanding and using modern material in a dexterous and + intelligent manner. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. THE WAR LANDSCAPE + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + I saw rather more of the British than of the French aviators because of + the vileness of the weather when I visited the latter. It is quite + impossible for me to institute comparisons between these two services. I + should think that the British organisation I saw would be hard to beat, + and that none but the French could hope to beat it. On the Western front + the aviation has been screwed up to a very much higher level than on the + Italian line. In Italy it has not become, as it has in France, the + decisive factor. The war on the Carso front in Italy—I say nothing + of the mountain warfare, which is a thing in itself—is in fact still + in the stage that I have called B. It is good warfare well waged, but not + such an intensity of warfare. It has not, as one says of pianos and + voices, the same compass. + </p> + <p> + This is true in spite of the fact that the Italians along of all the + western powers have adopted a type of aeroplane larger and much more + powerful than anything except the big Russian machines. They are not at + all suitable for any present purpose upon the Italian front, but at a + later stage, when the German is retiring and Archibald no longer searches + the air, they would be invaluable on the western front because of their + enormous bomb or machine gun carrying capacity. “But sufficient for the + day is the swat thereof,” as the British public schoolboy says, and no + doubt we shall get them when we have sufficiently felt the need for them. + The big Caproni machines which the Italians possess are of 300 h.p. and + will presently be of 500 h.p. One gets up a gangway into them was one gets + into a yacht; they wave a main deck, a forward machine gun deck and an aft + machine gun; one may walk about in them; in addition to guns and men they + carry a very considerable weight of bombs beneath. They cannot of course + beget up with the speed nor soar to the height of our smaller aeroplanes; + it is as carriers in raids behind a force of fighting machines that they + should find their use. + </p> + <p> + The British establishment I visited was a very refreshing and reassuring + piece of practical organisation. The air force of Great Britain has had + the good fortune to develop with considerable freedom from old army + tradition; many of its officers are ex-civil engineers and so forth; + Headquarters is a little shy of technical direction; and all this in a + service that is still necessarily experimental and plastic is to the good. + There is little doubt that, given a release from prejudice, bad + associations and the equestrian tradition, British technical intelligence + and energy can do just as well as the French. Our problem with our army is + not to create intelligence, there is an abundance of it, but to release it + from a dreary social and official pressure. The air service ransacks the + army for men with technical training and sees that it gets them, there is + a real keenness upon the work, and the men in these great mobile hangars + talk shop readily and clearly. + </p> + <p> + I have already mentioned and the newspapers have told abundantly of the + pluck, daring, and admirable work of our aviators; what is still + untellable in any detail is the energy and ability of the constructive and + repairing branch upon whose efficiency their feats depend. Perhaps the + most interesting thing I saw in connection with the air work was the + hospital for damaged machines and the dump to which those hopelessly + injured are taken, in order that they may be disarticulated and all that + is sound in them used for reconstruction. How excellently this work is + being done may be judged from the fact that our offensive in July started + with a certain number of aeroplanes, a number that would have seemed + fantastic in a story a year before the war began. These aeroplanes were in + constant action; they fought, they were shot down, they had their share of + accidents. Not only did the repair department make good every loss, but + after three weeks of the offensive the army was fighting with fifty more + machines than at the outset. One goes through a vast Rembrandtesque shed + opening upon a great sunny field, in whose cool shadows rest a number of + interesting patients; captured and slightly damaged German machines, + machines of our own with scars of battle upon them, one or two cases of + bad landing. The star case came over from Peronne. It had come in two days + ago. + </p> + <p> + I examined this machine and I will tell the state it was in, but I + perceive that what I have to tell will read not like a sober statement of + truth but like strained and silly lying. The machine had had a direct hit + from an Archibald shell. The propeller had been clean blown away; so had + the machine gun and all its fittings. The engines had been stripped naked + and a good deal bent about. The timber stay over the aviator had been + broken, so that it is marvellous the wings of the machine did not just up + at once like the wings of a butterfly. The solitary aviator had been + wounded in the face. He had then come down in a long glide into the + British lines, and made a tolerable landing.... + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + One consequence of the growing importance of the aeroplane in warfare is + the development of a new military art, the art of camouflage. Camouflage + is humbugging disguise, it is making things—and especially in this + connection, military things—seem not what they are, but something + peaceful and rural, something harmless and quite uninteresting to + aeroplane observers. It is the art of making big guns look like haystacks + and tents like level patches of field. + </p> + <p> + Also it includes the art of making attractive models of guns, camps, + trenches and the like that are not bona-fide guns, camps, or trenches at + all, so that the aeroplane bomb-dropper and the aeroplane observer may + waste his time and energies and the enemy gunfire be misdirected. In Italy + I saw dummy guns so made as to deceive the very elect at a distance of a + few thousand feet. The camouflage of concealment aims either at + invisibility or imitation; I have seen a supply train look like a row of + cottages, its smoke-stack a chimney, with the tops of sham palings running + along the back of the engine and creepers painted up its sides. But that + was a flight of the imagination; the commonest camouflage is merely to + conceal. Trees are brought up and planted near the object to be hidden, it + is painted in the same tones as its background, it is covered with an + awning painted to look like grass or earth. I suppose it is only a matter + of development before a dummy cow or so is put up to chew the cud on the + awning. + </p> + <p> + But camouflage or no camouflage, the bulk of both the French and British + forces in the new won ground of the great offensive lay necessarily in the + open. Only the big guns and the advanced Red Cross stations had got into + pits and subterranean hiding places. The advance has been too rapid and + continuous for the armies to make much of a toilette as they halted, and + the destruction and the desolation of the country won afforded few + facilities for easy concealment. Tents, transport, munitions, these all + indicated an army on the march—at the rate of half a mile in a week + or so, to Germany. If the wet and mud of November and December have for a + time delayed that advance, the force behind has but accumulated for the + resumption of the thrust. + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + A journey up from the base to the front trenches shows an interesting + series of phases. One leaves Amiens, in which the normal life threads its + way through crowds of resting men in khaki and horizon blue, in which + staff officers in automobiles whisk hither and thither, in which there are + nurses and even a few inexplicable ladies in worldly costume, in which + restaurants and cafes are congested and busy, through which there is a + perpetual coming and going of processions of heavy vans to the railway + sidings. One dodges past a monstrous blue-black gun going up to the + British front behind two resolute traction engines—the three + sun-blistered young men in the cart that trails behind lounge in attitudes + of haughty pride that would shame the ceiling gods of Hampton Court. One + passes through arcades of waiting motor vans, through arcades of waiting + motor vans, through suburbs still more intensely khaki or horizon blue, + and so out upon the great straight poplar-edged road—to the front. + Sometimes one laces through spates of heavy traffic, sometimes the dusty + road is clear ahead, now we pass a vast aviation camp, now a park of + waiting field guns, now an encampment of cavalry. One turns aside, and + abruptly one is in France—France as one knew it before the war, on a + shady secondary road, past a delightful chateau behind its iron gates, + past a beautiful church, and then suddenly we are in a village street full + of stately Indian soldiers. + </p> + <p> + It betrays no military secret to say that commonly the rare tourist to the + British offensive passes through Albert, with its great modern red + cathedral smashed to pieces and the great gilt Madonna and Child that once + surmounted the tower now, as everyone knows, hanging out horizontally in + an attitude that irresistibly suggests an imminent dive upon the passing + traveller. One looks right up under it. + </p> + <p> + Presently we begin to see German prisoners. The whole lot look entirely + contented, and are guarded by perhaps a couple of men in khaki. These + German prisoners do not attempt to escape, they have not the slightest + desire for any more fighting, they have done their bit, they say, honour + is satisfied; they give remarkably little trouble. A little way further on + perhaps we pass their cage, a double barbed-wire enclosure with a few + tents and huts within. + </p> + <p> + A string of covered waggons passes by. I turn and see a number of men + sitting inside and looking almost as cheerful as a beanfeast in Epping + Forest. They make facetious gestures. They have a subdued sing-song going + on. But one of them looks a little sick, and then I notice not very + obtrusive bandages. “Sitting-up cases,” my guide explains. + </p> + <p> + These are part of the casualties of last night's fight. + </p> + <p> + The fields on either side are now more evidently in the war zone. The + array of carts, the patches of tents, the coming and going of men + increases. But here are three women harvesting, and presently in a + cornfield are German prisoners working under one old Frenchman. Then the + fields become trampled again. Here is a village, not so very much knocked + about, and passing through it we go slowly beside a long column of men + going up to the front. We scan their collars for signs of some familiar + regiment. These are new men going up for the first time; there is a sort + of solemn elation in many of their faces. + </p> + <p> + The men coming down are usually smothered in mud or dust, and unless there + has been a fight they look pretty well done up. They stoop under their + equipment, and some of the youngsters drag. One pleasant thing about this + coming down is the welcome of the regimental band, which is usually at + work as soon as the men turn off from the high road. I hear several bands + on the British front; they do much to enhance the general cheerfulness. On + one of these days of my tour I had the pleasure of seeing the —-th + Blankshires coming down after a fight. As we drew near I saw that they + combined an extreme muddiness with an unusual elasticity. They all seemed + to be looking us in the face instead of being too fagged to bother. Then I + noticed a nice grey helmet dangling from one youngster's bayonet, in fact + his eye directed me to it. A man behind him had a black German helmet of + the type best known in English illustrations; then two more grey appeared. + The catch of helmets was indeed quite considerable. Then I perceived on + the road bank above and marching parallel with this column, a double file + of still muddier Germans. Either they wore caps or went bare-headed. There + were no helmets among them. We do not rob our prisoners but—a helmet + is a weapon. Anyhow, it is an irresistible souvenir. + </p> + <p> + Now and then one sees afar off an ammunition dump, many hundreds of stacks + of shells—without their detonators as yet—being unloaded from + railway trucks, transferred from the broad gauge to the narrow gauge line, + or loaded onto motor trolleys. Now and then one crosses a railway line. + The railway lines run everywhere behind the British front, the + construction follows the advance day by day. They go up as fast as the + guns. One's guide remarks as the car bumps over the level crossing, “That + is one of Haig's railways.” It is an aspect of the Commander-in-Chief that + has much impressed and pleased the men. And at last we begin to enter the + region of the former Allied trenches, we pass the old German front line, + we pass ruined houses, ruined fields, and thick patches of clustering + wooden crosses and boards where the dead of the opening assaults lie. + There are no more reapers now, there is no more green upon the fields, + there is no green anywhere, scarcely a tree survives by the roadside, but + only overthrown trunks and splintered stumps; the fields are wildernesses + of shell craters and coarse weeds, the very woods are collections of + blasted stems and stripped branches. This absolutely ravaged and ruined + battlefield country extends now along the front of the Somme offensive for + a depth of many miles; across it the French and British camps and + batteries creep forward, the stores, the dumps, the railways creep + forward, in their untiring, victorious thrust against the German lines. + Overhead hum and roar the aeroplanes, away towards the enemy the humped, + blue sausage-shaped kite balloons brood thoughtfully, and from this point + and that, guns, curiously invisible until they speak, flash suddenly and + strike their one short hammer-blow of sound. + </p> + <p> + Then one sees an enemy shell drop among the little patch of trees on the + crest to the right, and kick up a great red-black mass of smoke and dust. + We see it, and then we hear the whine of its arrival and at last the bang. + The Germans are blind now, they have lost the air, they are firing by + guesswork and their knowledge of the abandoned territory. + </p> + <p> + “They think they have got divisional headquarters there,” someone + remarks.... “They haven't. But they keep on.” + </p> + <p> + In this zone where shells burst the wise automobile stops and tucks itself + away as inconspicuously as possible close up to a heap of ruins. There is + very little traffic on the road now except for a van or so that hurries + up, unloads, and gets back as soon as possible. Mules and men are taking + the stuff the rest of the journey. We are in a flattened village, all + undermined by dug-outs that were in the original German second line. We + report ourselves to a young troglodyte in one of these, and are given a + guide, and so set out on the last part of the journey to the ultimate + point, across the land of shell craters and barbed wire litter and old and + new trenches. We have all put on British steel helmets, hard but heavy and + inelegant head coverings. I can write little that is printable about these + aesthetic crimes. The French and German helmets are noble and beautiful + things. These lumpish <i>pans.</i>.. + </p> + <p> + They ought to be called by the name of the man who designed them. + </p> + <p> + Presently we are advised to get into a communication trench. It is not a + very attractive communication trench, and we stick to our track across the + open. Three or four shells shiver overhead, but we decide they are British + shells, going out. We reach a supporting trench in which men are waiting + in a state of nearly insupportable boredom for the midday stew, the one + event of interest in a day-long vigil. Here we are told imperatively to + come right in at once, and we do. + </p> + <p> + All communication trenches are tortuous and practically endless. On an + offensive front they have vertical sides of unsupported earth and + occasional soakaways for rain, covered by wooden gratings, and they go on + and on and on. At rare intervals they branch, and a notice board says “To + Regent Street,” or “To Oxford Street,” or some such lie. It is all just + trench. For a time you talk, but talking in single file soon palls. You + cease to talk, and trudge. A great number of telephone wires come into the + trench and cross and recross it. You cannot keep clear of them. Your + helmet pings against them and they try to remove it. Sometimes you have to + stop and crawl under wires. Then you wonder what the trench is like in + really wet weather. You hear a shell burst at no great distance. You pass + two pages of <i>The Strand Magazine.</i> Perhaps thirty yards on you pass + a cigarette end. After these sensational incidents the trench quiets down + again and continues to wind endlessly—just a sandy, extremely narrow + vertical walled trench. A giant crack. + </p> + <p> + At last you reach the front line trench. On an offensive sector it has + none of the architectural interest of first line trenches at such places + as Soissons or Arras. It was made a week or so ago by joining up shell + craters, and if all goes well we move into the German trench along by the + line of scraggy trees, at which we peep discreetly, to-morrow night. We + can peep discreetly because just at present our guns are putting shrapnel + over the enemy at the rate of about three shells a minute, the puffs + follow each other up and down the line, and no Germans are staring out to + see us. + </p> + <p> + The Germans “strafed” this trench overnight, and the men are tired and + sleepy. Our guns away behind us are doing their best now to give them a + rest by strafing the Germans. One or two men are in each forward sap + keeping a look out; the rest sleep, a motionless sleep, in the earthy + shelter pits that have been scooped out. One officer sits by a telephone + under an earth-covered tarpaulin, and a weary man is doing the toilet of a + machine gun. We go on to a shallow trench in which we must stoop, and + which has been badly knocked about.... Here we have to stop. The road to + Berlin is not opened up beyond this point. + </p> + <p> + My companion on this excursion is a man I have admired for years and never + met until I came out to see the war, a fellow writer. He is a journalist + let loose. Two-thirds of the junior British officers I met on this journey + were really not “army men” at all. One finds that the apparent subaltern + is really a musician, or a musical critic, or an Egyptologist, or a + solicitor, or a cloth manufacturer, or a writer. At the outbreak of the + war my guide dyed his hair to conceal its tell-tale silver, and having + been laughed to scorn by the ordinary recruiting people, enlisted in the + sportsmen's battalion. He was wounded, and then the authorities discovered + that he was likely to be of more use with a commission and drew him, in + spite of considerable resistance, out of the firing line. To which he + always returns whenever he can get a visitor to take with him as an + excuse. He now stood up, fairly high and clear, explaining casually that + the Germans were no longer firing, and showed me the points of interest. + </p> + <p> + I had come right up to No Man's Land at last. It was under my chin. The + skyline, the last skyline before the British could look down on Bapaume, + showed a mangy wood and a ruined village, crouching under repeated + gobbings of British shrapnel. “They've got a battery just there, and we're + making it uncomfortable.” No Man's Land itself is a weedy space broken up + by shell craters, with very little barbed wire in front of us and very + little in front of the Germans. “They've got snipers in most of the + craters, and you see them at twilight hopping about from one to the + other.” We have very little wire because we don't mean to stay for very + long in this trench, but the Germans have very little wire because they + have not been able to get it up yet. They never will get it up now.... + </p> + <p> + I had been led to believe that No Man's Land was littered with the + unburied dead, but I saw nothing of the sort at this place. There had been + no German counter attack since our men came up here. But at one point as + we went along the trench there was a dull stench. “Germans, I think,” said + my guide, though I did not see how he could tell. + </p> + <p> + He looked at his watch and remarked reluctantly, “If you start at once, + you may just do it.” + </p> + <p> + I wanted to catch the Boulogne boat. It was then just past one in the + afternoon. We met the stew as we returned along the communication trench, + and it smelt very good indeed.... We hurried across the great spaces of + rusty desolation upon which every now and again a German shell was + bursting.... + </p> + <p> + That night I was in my flat in London. I had finished reading the + accumulated letters of some weeks, and I was just going comfortably to + bed. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. NEW ARMS FOR OLD ONES + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + Such are the landscapes and method of modern war. It is more difficult in + its nature from war as it was waged in the nineteenth century than that + was from the nature of the phalanx or the legion. The nucleus fact—when + I talked to General Joffre he was very insistent upon this point—is + still as ever the ordinary fighting man, but all the accessories and + conditions of his personal encounter with the fighting man of the other + side have been revolutionised in a quarter of a century. The fighting + together in a close disciplined order, shoulder to shoulder, which has + held good for thousands of years as the best and most successful fighting, + has been destroyed; the idea of <i>breaking</i> infantry formation as the + chief offensive operation has disappeared, the cavalry charge and the + cavalry pursuit are as obsolete as the cross-bow. The modern fighting man + is as individualised as a half back or a centre forward in a football + team. Personal fighting has become “scrapping” again, an individual + adventure with knife, club, bomb, revolver or bayonet. In this war we are + working out things instead of thinking them out, and these enormous + changes are still but imperfectly apprehended. The trained and specialised + military man probably apprehends them as feebly as anyone. + </p> + <p> + This is a thing that I want to state as emphatically as possible. It is + the pith of the lesson I have learnt at the front. The whole method of war + has been so altered in the past five and twenty years as to make it a new + and different process altogether. Much the larger part of this alteration + has only become effective in the last two years. Everyone is a beginner at + this new game; everyone is experimenting and learning. + </p> + <p> + The idea has been put admirably by <i>Punch.</i> That excellent picture of + the old-fashioned sergeant who complains to his officer of the new + recruit; “'E's all right in the trenches, Sir; 'e's all right at a scrap; + but 'e won't never make a soldier,” is the quintessence of everything I am + saying here. And were there not the very gravest doubts about General + Smuts in British military circles because he had “had no military + training”? A Canadian expressed the new view very neatly on being asked, + in consequence of a deficient salute, whether he wanted to be a soldier, + by saying, “Not I! I want to be a fighter!” + </p> + <p> + The professional officer of the old dispensation was a man specialised in + relation to one of the established “arms.” He was an infantryman, a + cavalryman, a gunner or an engineer. It will be interesting to trace the + changes that have happened to all these arms. + </p> + <p> + Before this war began speculative writers had argued that infantry drill + in close formation had now no fighting value whatever, that it was no + doubt extremely necessary for the handling, packing, forwarding and + distribution of men, but that the ideal infantry fighter was now a highly + individualised and self-reliant man put into a pit with a machine gun, and + supported by a string of other men bringing him up supplies and ready to + assist him in any forward rush that might be necessary. + </p> + <p> + The opening phases of the war seemed to contradict this. It did not at + first suit the German game to fight on this most modern theory, and + isolated individual action is uncongenial to the ordinary German + temperament and opposed to the organised social tendencies of German life. + To this day the Germans attack only in close order; they are unable to + produce a real modern infantry for aggressive purposes, and it is a matter + of astonishment to military minds on the English side that our hastily + trained new armies should turn out to be just as good at the new fighting + as the most “seasoned troops.” But there is no reason whatever why they + should not be. “Leading,” in the sense of going ahead of the men and + making them move about mechanically at the word of command, has ceased. On + the British side our magnificent new subalterns and our equally + magnificent new non-commissioned officers play the part of captains of + football teams; they talk their men individually into an understanding of + the job before them; they criticise style and performance. On the French + side things have gone even farther. Every man in certain attacks has been + given a large scale map of the ground over which he has to go, and has had + his own individual job clearly marked and explained to him. All the Allied + infantrymen tend to become specialised, as bombers, as machine-gun men, + and so on. The unspecialised common soldier, the infantryman who has stood + and marched and moved in ranks and ranks, the “serried lines of men,” who + are the main substance of every battle story for the last three thousand + years, are as obsolete as the dodo. The rifle and bayonet very probably + are becoming obsolete too. Knives and clubs and revolvers serve better in + the trenches. The krees and the Roman sword would be as useful. The fine + flourish of the bayonet is only possible in the rare infrequent open. Even + the Zulu assegai would serve as well. + </p> + <p> + The two operations of the infantry attack now are the rush and the + “scrap.” These come after the artillery preparation. Against the rush, the + machine gun is pitted. The machine gun becomes lighter and more and more + controllable by one man; as it does so the days of the rifle draw to a + close. Against the machine gun we are now directing the “Tank,” which goes + ahead and puts out the machine gun as soon as it begins to sting the + infantry rush. We are also using the swooping aeroplane with a machine + gun. Both these devices are of British origin, and they promise very well. + </p> + <p> + After the rush and the scrap comes the organisation of the captured + trench. “Digging in” completes the cycle of modern infantry fighting. You + may consider this the first or the last phase of an infantry operation. It + is probably at present the least worked-out part of the entire cycle. Here + lies the sole German superiority; they bunch and crowd in the rush, they + are inferior at the scrap, but they do dig like moles. The weakness of the + British is their failure to settle down. They like the rush and the scrap; + they press on too far, they get outflanked and lost “in the blue”; they + are not naturally clever at the excavating part of the work, and they are + not as yet well trained in making dug-outs and shelter-pits rapidly and + intelligently. They display most of the faults that were supposed to be + most distinctively French before this war came to revolutionise all our + conceptions of French character. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + Now the operations of this modern infantry, which unlike any preceding + infantry in the history of war does not fight in disciplined formations + but as highly individualised specialists, are determined almost completely + by the artillery preparation. Artillery is now the most essential + instrument of war. You may still get along with rather bad infantry; you + may still hold out even after the loss of the aerial ascendancy, but so + soon as your guns fail you approach defeat. The backbone process of the + whole art of war is the manufacture in overwhelming quantities, the + carriage and delivery of shell upon the vulnerable points of the enemy's + positions. That is, so to speak, the essential blow. Even the infantryman + is now hardly more than the residuary legatee after the guns have taken + their toll. + </p> + <p> + I have now followed nearly every phase in the life history of a shell from + the moment when it is a segment of steel bar just cut off, to the moment + when it is no more than a few dispersed and rusting rags and fragments of + steel—pressed upon the stray visitor to the battlefield as + souvenirs. All good factories are intensely interesting places to visit, + but a good munition factory is romantically satisfactory. It is as nearly + free from the antagonism of employer and employed as any factory can be. + The busy sheds I visited near Paris struck me as being the most living and + active things in the entire war machine. Everywhere else I saw fitful + activity, or men waiting. I have seen more men sitting about and standing + about, more bored inactivity, during my tour than I have ever seen before + in my life. Even the front line trenches seem to slumber; the Angel of + Death drowses over them, and moves in his sleep to crush out men's lives. + The gunfire has an indolent intermittence. But the munition factories + grind on night and day, grinding against the factories in Central Europe, + grinding out the slow and costly and necessary victory that should end + aggressive warfare in the world for ever. + </p> + <p> + It would be very interesting if one could arrange a meeting between any + typical Allied munition maker on the one hand, and the Kaiser and + Hindenburg, those two dominant effigies of the German nationalists' dream + of “world might.” Or failing that, Mr. Dyson might draw the encounter. You + imagine these two heroic figures got up for the interview, very + magnificent in shining helms and flowing cloaks, decorations, splendid + swords, spurs. “Here,” one would say, “is the power that has held you. You + were bolstered up very loyally by the Krupp firm and so forth, you piled + up shell, guns, war material, you hoped to snatch your victory before the + industrialisation and invention of the world could turn upon you. But you + failed. You were not rapid enough. The battle of the Marne was your + misfortune. And Ypres. You lost some chances at Ypres. Two can play at + destructive industrialism, and now we out-gun you. We are piling up + munitions now faster than you. The essentials of this Game of the War Lord + are idiotically simple, but it was not of our choosing. It is now merely a + question of months before you make your inevitable admission. This is no + war to any great commander's glory. This gentleman in the bowler hat is + the victor, Sire; not you. Assisted, Sire, by these disrespectful-looking + factory girls in overalls.” + </p> + <p> + For example, there is M. Citroen. Before the war I understand he made + automobiles; after the war he wants to turn to and make automobiles again. + For the duration of the war he makes shell. He has been temporarily + diverted from constructive to destructive industrialism. He did me the + honours of his factory. He is a compact, active man in dark clothes and a + bowler hat, with a pencil and notebook conveniently at hand. He talked to + me in carefully easy French, and watched my face with an intelligent eye + through his pince-nez for the signs of comprehension. Then he went on to + the next point. + </p> + <p> + He took me through every stage of his process. In his office he showed me + the general story. Here were photographs of certain vacant fields and old + sheds—“this place”—he indicated the altered prospect from the + window—“at the outbreak of the war.” He showed me a plan of the + first undertaking. “Now we have rather over nine thousand workpeople.” + </p> + <p> + He showed me a little row of specimens. “These we make for Italy. These go + to Russia. These are the Rumanian pattern.” + </p> + <p> + Thence to the first stage, the chopping up of the iron bars, the furnace, + the punching out of the first shape of the shell; all this is men's work. + I had seen this sort of thing before in peace ironworks, but I saw it + again with the same astonishment, the absolute precision of movement on + the part of the half-naked sweating men, the calculated efficiency of each + worker, the apparent heedlessness, the real certitude, with which the + blazing hot cylinder is put here, dropped there, rolls to its next + appointed spot, is chopped up and handed on, the swift passage to the + cooling crude, pinkish-purple shell shape. Down a long line one sees in + perspective a practical symmetry, of furnace and machine group and the + shells marching on from this first series of phases to undergo the long + succession of operations, machine after machine, across the great width of + the shed in which eighty per cent of the workers are women. There is a + thick dust of sounds in the air, a rumble of shafting, sudden thuddings, + clankings, and M. Citroen has to raise his voice. He points out where he + has made little changes in procedures, cut out some wasteful movement.... + He has an idea and makes a note in the ever-ready notebook. + </p> + <p> + There is a beauty about all these women, there is extraordinary grace in + their finely adjusted movements. I have come from an after-lunch coffee + upon the boulevards and from watching the ugly fashion of our time; it is + a relief to be reminded that most women can after all be beautiful—if + only they would not “dress.” these women wear simple overalls and caps. In + the cap is a rosette. Each shed has its own colour of rosette. + </p> + <p> + “There is much esprit de corps here,” says M. Citroen. + </p> + <p> + “And also,” he adds, showing obverse as well as reverse of the world's + problem of employment and discipline, “we can see at once if a woman is + not in her proper shed.” + </p> + <p> + Across the great sheds under the shafting—how fine it must look at + night!—the shells march, are shaped, cut, fitted with copper bands, + calibrated, polished, varnished.... + </p> + <p> + Then we go on to another system of machines in which lead is reduced to + plastic ribbons and cut into shrapnel bullets as the sweetstuff makers + pull out and cut up sweetstuff. And thence into a warren of hot + underground passages in which run the power cables. There is not a cable + in the place that is not immediately accessible to the electricians. We + visit the dynamos and a vast organisation of switchboards.... + </p> + <p> + These things are more familiar to M. Citroen than they are to me. He wants + me to understand, but he does not realise that I would like a little + leisure to wonder. What is interesting him just now, because it is the + newest thing, is his method of paying his workers. He lifts a hand + gravely: “I said, what we must do is abolish altogether the counting of + change.” + </p> + <p> + At a certain hour, he explained, came pay-time. The people had done; it + was to his interest and their that they should get out of the works as + quickly as possible and rest and amuse themselves. He watched them + standing in queues at the wickets while inside someone counted; so many + francs, so many centimes. It bored him to see this useless, tiresome + waiting. It is abolished. Now at the end of each week the worker goes to a + window under the initial of his name, and is handed a card on which these + items have been entered: + </p> + <p> + Balance from last week. So many hours at so much. Premiums. + </p> + <p> + The total is so many francs, so many centimes. This is divided into the + nearest round number, 100, 120, 80 francs as the case may be, and a + balance of the odd francs and centimes. The latter is carried forward to + the next week's account. At the bottom of the card is a tear-off coupon + with a stamp, coloured to indicate the round sum, green, let us say, for + 100, blue for 130 francs. This is taken to a wicket marked 100 or 130 as + the case may be, and there stands a cashier with his money in piles of 100 + or 130 francs counted ready to hand; he sweeps in the coupon, sweeps out + the cash. “<i>Next!</i>” + </p> + <p> + I became interested in the worker's side of this organisation. I insist on + seeing the entrances, the clothes-changing places, the lavatories, and so + forth of the organisation. As we go about we pass a string of electric + trolleys steered by important-looking girls, and loaded with shell, + finished as far as these works are concerned and on their way to the + railway siding. We visit the hospital, for these works demand a medical + staff. It is not only that men and women faint or fall ill, but there are + accidents, burns, crushings, and the like. The war casualties begin + already here, and they fall chiefly among the women. I saw a wounded woman + with a bandaged face sitting very quietly in the corner. + </p> + <p> + The women here face danger, perhaps not quite such obvious danger as the + women who, at the next stage in the shell's career, make and pack the + explosives in their silk casing, but quite considerable risk. And they + work with a real enthusiasm. They know they are fighting the Bloches as + well as any men. Certain of them wear Russian decorations. The women of + this particular factory have been thanked by the Tsar, and a number of + decorations were sent by him for distribution among them. + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + The shell factory and the explosives shed stand level with the drill yard + as the real first stage in one of the two essential <i>punches</i> in + modern war. When one meets the shell again it is being unloaded from the + railway truck into an ammunition dump. And here the work of control is + much more the work of a good traffic manager than of the old-fashioned + soldier. + </p> + <p> + The dump I best remember I visited on a wet and windy day. Over a great + space of ground the sidings of the rail-head spread, the normal gauge + rail-head spread out like a fan and interdigitated with the narrow gauge + lines that go up practically to the guns. And also at the sides camions + were loading, and an officer from the Midi in charge of one of these was + being dramatically indignant at five minutes' delay. Between these two + sets of lines, shells were piled of all sizes, I should think some + hundreds of thousands of shells altogether, wet and shining in the rain. + French reservists, soldiers from Madagascar, and some Senegalese were busy + at different points loading and unloading the precious freights. A little + way from me were despondent-looking German prisoners handling timber. All + this dump was no more than an eddy as it were in the path of the shell + from its birth from the steel bars near Paris to the accomplishment of its + destiny in the destruction or capture of more Germans. + </p> + <p> + And next the visitor meets the shell coming up upon a little trolley to + the gun. He sees the gunners, as drilled and precise as the men he saw at + the forges, swing out the breech block and run the shell, which has met + and combined with its detonators and various other industrial products + since it left the main dump, into the gun. The breech closes like a safe + door, and hides the shell from the visitor. It is “good-bye.” He receives + exaggerated warning of the danger to his ears, stuffs his fingers into + them, and opens his mouth as instructed, hears a loud but by no means + deafening report, and sees a spit of flame near the breech. Regulations of + a severe character prevent his watching from an aeroplane the delivery of + the goods upon the customers opposite. + </p> + <p> + I have already described the method of locating enemy guns and so forth by + photography. Many of the men at this work are like dentists rather than + soldiers; they are busy in carefully lit rooms, they wear white overalls, + they have clean hands and laboratory manners. The only really romantic + figure in the whole of this process, the only figure that has anything of + the old soldierly swagger about him still, is the aviator. And, as one + friend remarked to me when I visited the work of the British flying corps, + “The real essential strength of this arm is the organisation of its + repairs. Here is one of the repair vans through which our machine guns go. + It is a motor workshop on wheels. But at any time all this park, + everything, can pack up and move forward like Barnum and Bailey's Circus. + The machine guns come through this shop in rotation; they go out again, + cleaned, repaired, made new again. Since we got all that working we have + heard nothing of a machine gun jamming in any air fight at all.”... + </p> + <p> + The rest of the career of the shell after it has left the gun one must + imagine chiefly from the incoming shell from the enemy. You see suddenly a + flying up of earth and stones and anything else that is movable in the + neighbourhood of the shell-burst, the instantaneous unfolding of a dark + cloud of dust and reddish smoke, which comes very quickly to a certain + size and then begins slowly to fray out and blow away. Then, after seeing + the cloud of the burst you hear the hiss of the shell's approach, and + finally you are hit by the sound of the explosion. This is the climax and + end of the life history of any shell that is not a dud shell. Afterwards + the battered fuse may serve as some journalist's paper-weight. The rest is + scrap iron. + </p> + <p> + Such is, so to speak, the primary process of modern warfare. I will not + draw the obvious pacifist moral of the intense folly of human + concentration upon such a process. The Germans willed it. We Allies have + but obeyed the German will for warfare because we could not do otherwise, + we have taken up this simple game of shell delivery, and we are teaching + them that we can play it better, in the hope that so we and the world may + be freed from the German will-to-power and all its humiliating and + disgusting consequences henceforth for ever. Europe now is no more than a + household engaged in holding up and if possible overpowering a monomaniac + member. + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + Now the whole of this process of the making and delivery of a shell, which + is the main process of modern warfare, is one that can be far better + conducted by a man accustomed to industrial organisation or transit work + than by the old type of soldier. This is a thing that cannot be too + plainly stated or too often repeated. Germany nearly won this way because + of her tremendously modern industrial resources; but she blundered into it + and she is losing it because she has too many men in military uniform and + because their tradition and interests were to powerful with her. All the + state and glories of soldiering, the bright uniforms, the feathers and + spurs, the flags, the march-past, the disciplined massed advance, the + charge; all these are as needless and obsolete now in war as the masks and + shields of an old-time Chinese brave. Liberal-minded people talk of the + coming dangers of militarism in the face of events that prove conclusively + that professional militarism is already as dead as Julius Caesar. What is + coming is not so much the conversion of men into soldiers as the + socialisation of the economic organisation of the country with a view to + both national and international necessities. We do not want to turn a + chemist or a photographer into a little figure like a lead soldier, moving + mechanically at the word of command, but we do want to make his chemistry + or photography swiftly available if the national organisation is called + upon to fight. + </p> + <p> + We have discovered that the modern economic organisation is in itself a + fighting machine. It is so much so that it is capable of taking on and + defeating quite easily any merely warrior people that is so rash as to pit + itself against it. Within the last sixteen years methods of fighting have + been elaborated that have made war an absolutely hopeless adventure for + any barbaric or non-industrialised people. In the rush of larger events + few people have realised the significance of the rapid squashing of the + Senussi in western Egypt, and the collapse of De Wet's rebellion in South + Africa. Both these struggles would have been long, tedious and uncertain + even in A.D. 1900. This time they have been, so to speak, child's play. + </p> + <p> + Occasionally into the writer's study there come to hand drifting fragments + of the American literature upon the question of “preparedness,” and + American papers discussing the Mexican situation. In none of these is + there evident any clear realisation of the fundamental revolution that has + occurred in military methods during the last two years. It looks as if a + Mexican war, for example, was thought of as an affair of rather + imperfectly trained young men with rifles and horses and old-fashioned + things like that. A Mexican war on that level might be as tedious as the + South African war. But if the United States preferred to go into Mexican + affairs with what I may perhaps call a 1916 autumn outfit instead of the + small 1900 outfit she seems to possess at present, there is no reason why + America should not clear up any and every Mexican guerilla force she + wanted to in a few weeks. + </p> + <p> + To do that she would need a plant of a few hundred aeroplanes, for the + most part armed with machine guns, and the motor repair vans and so forth + needed to go with the aeroplanes; she would need a comparatively small + army of infantry armed with machine guns, with motor transport, and a few + small land ironclads. Such a force could locate, overtake, destroy and + disperse any possible force that a country in the present industrial + condition of Mexico could put into the field. No sort of entrenchment or + fortification possible in Mexico could stand against it. It could go from + one end of the country to the other without serious loss, and hunt down + and capture anyone it wished.... + </p> + <p> + The practical political consequence of the present development of warfare, + of the complete revolution in the conditions of warfare since this century + began, is to make war absolutely hopeless for any peoples not able either + to manufacture or procure the very complicated appliances and munitions + now needed for its prosecution. Countries like Mexico, Bulgaria, Serbia, + Afghanistan or Abyssinia are no more capable of going to war without the + connivance and help of manufacturing states than horses are capable of + flying. And this makes possible such a complete control of war by the few + great states which are at the necessary level of industrial development as + not the most Utopian of us have hitherto dared to imagine. + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + Infantrymen with automobile transport, plentiful machine guns, Tanks and + such-like accessories; that is the first Arm in modern war. The factory + hand and all the material of the shell route from the factory to the gun + constitute the second Arm. Thirdly comes the artillery, the guns and the + photographic aeroplanes working with the guns. Next I suppose we must + count sappers and miners as a fourth Arm of greatly increased importance. + The fifth and last combatant Arm is the modern substitute for cavalry; and + that also is essentially a force of aeroplanes supported by automobiles. + Several of the French leaders with whom I talked seemed to be convinced + that the horse is absolutely done with in modern warfare. There is + nothing, they declared, that cavalry ever did that cannot now be done + better by aeroplane. + </p> + <p> + This is something to break the hearts of the Prussian junkers and of + old-fashioned British army people. The hunt across the English + countryside, the preservation of the fox as a sacred animal, the race + meeting, the stimulation of betting in all classes of the public; all + these things depend ultimately upon the proposition that the “breed of + horses” is of vital importance to the military strength of Great Britain. + But if the arguments of these able French soldiers are sound, the cult of + the horse ceases to be of any more value to England than the elegant + activities of the Toxophilite Society. Moreover, there has been a colossal + buying of horses for the British army, a tremendous organisation for the + purchase and supply of fodder, then employment of tens of thousands of men + as grooms, minders and the like, who would otherwise have been in the + munition factories or the trenches. + </p> + <p> + To what possible use can cavalry be put? Can it be used in attack? Not + against trenches; that is better done by infantrymen following up gunfire. + Can it be used against broken infantry in the open? Not if the enemy has + one or two machine guns covering their retreat. Against expose infantry + the swooping aeroplane with a machine gun is far more deadly and more + difficult to hit. Behind it your infantry can follow to receive + surrenders; in most circumstances they can come up on cycles if it is a + case of getting up quickly across a wide space. Similarly for pursuit the + use of wire and use of the machine gun have abolished the possibility of a + pouring cavalry charge. The swooping aeroplane does everything that + cavalry can do in the way of disorganising the enemy, and far more than it + can do in the way of silencing machine guns. It can capture guns in + retreat much more easily by bombing traction engines and coming down low + and shooting horses and men. An ideal modern pursuit would be an advance + of guns, automobiles full of infantry, motor cyclists and cyclists, behind + a high screen of observation aeroplanes and a low screen of bombing and + fighting aeroplanes. Cavalry <i>might</i> advance across fields and so + forth, but only as a very accessory part of the general advance.... + </p> + <p> + And what else is there for the cavalry to do? + </p> + <p> + It may be argued that horses can go over country that is impossible for + automobiles. That is to ignore altogether what has been done in this war + by such devices as caterpillar wheels. So far from cavalry being able to + negotiate country where machines would stick and fail, mechanism can now + ride over places where any horse would flounder. + </p> + <p> + I submit these considerations to the horse-lover. They are not my original + observations; they have been put to me and they have convinced me. Except + perhaps as a parent of transport mules I see no further part henceforth + for the horse to play in war. + </p> + <p> + 6 + </p> + <p> + The form and texture of the coming warfare—if there is still warfare + to come—are not yet to be seen in their completeness upon the modern + battlefield. One swallow does not make a summer, nor a handful of + aeroplanes, a “Tank” or so, a few acres of shell craters, and a village + here and there, pounded out of recognition, do more than foreshadow the + spectacle of modernised war on land. War by these developments has become + the monopoly of the five great industrial powers; it is their alternative + to end or evolve it, and if they continue to disagree, then it must needs + become a spectacle of majestic horror such as no man can yet conceive. It + has been wise of Mr. Pennell therefore, who has recently been drawing his + impressions of the war upon stone, to make his pictures not upon the + battlefield, but among the huge industrial apparatus that is thrusting + behind and thrusting up through the war of the gentlemen in spurs. He + gives us the splendours and immensities of forge and gun pit, furnace and + mine shaft. He shows you how great they are and how terrible. Among them + go the little figures of men, robbed of all dominance, robbed of all + individual quality. He leaves it for you to draw the obvious conclusion + that presently, if we cannot contrive to put an end to war, blacknessess + like these, enormities and flares and towering threats, will follow in the + track of the Tanks and come trampling over the bickering confusion of + mankind. + </p> + <p> + There is something very striking in these insignificant and incidental men + that Mr. Pennell shows us. Nowhere does a man dominate in all these + wonderful pictures. You may argue perhaps that that is untrue to the + essential realities; all this array of machine and workshop, all this + marshalled power and purpose, has been the creation of inventor and + business organiser. But are we not a little too free with that word “<i>creation</i>”? + Falstaff was a “creation” perhaps, or the Sistine sibyls; there we have + indubitably an end conceived and sought and achieved; but did these + inventors and business organisers do more than heed certain unavoidable + imperatives? Seeking coal they were obliged to mine in a certain way; + seeking steel they had to do this and this and not that and that; seeking + profit they had to obey the imperative of the economy. So little did they + plan their ends that most of these manufacturers speak with a kind of + astonishment of the deadly use to which their works are put. They find + themselves making the new war as a man might wake out of some drugged + condition to find himself strangling his mother. + </p> + <p> + So that Mr. Pennell's sketchy and transient human figures seem altogether + right to me. He sees these forges, workshops, cranes and the like, as + inhuman and as wonderful as cliffs or great caves or icebergs or the + stars. They are a new aspect of the logic of physical necessity that made + all these older things, and he seizes upon the majesty and beauty of their + dimensions with an entire impartiality. And they are as impartial. Through + all these lithographs runs one present motif, the motif of the supreme + effort of western civilisation to save itself and the world from the + dominance of the reactionary German Imperialism of modern science. The + pictures are arranged to shape out the life of a shell, from the mine to + the great gun; nothing remains of their history to show except the + ammunition dump, the gun in action and the shell-burst. Upon this theme + all these great appearances are strung to-day. But to-morrow they may be + strung upon some other and nobler purpose. These gigantic beings of which + the engineer is the master and slave, are neither benevolent nor + malignant. To-day they produce destruction, they are the slaves of the + spur; to-morrow we hope they will bridge and carry and house and help + again. + </p> + <p> + For that peace we struggle against the dull inflexibility of the German + Will-to-Power. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. TANKS + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + It is the British who have produced the “land ironclad” since I returned + from France, and used it apparently with very good effect. I felt no + little chagrin at not seeing them there, because I have a peculiar + interest in these contrivances. It would be more than human not to claim a + little in this matter. I described one in a story in <i>The Strand + Magazine</i> in 1903, and my story could stand in parallel columns beside + the first account of these monsters in action given by Mr. Beach Thomas or + Mr. Philip Gibbs. My friend M. Joseph Reinach has successfully passed off + long extracts from my story as descriptions of the Tanks upon British + officers who had just seen them. The filiation was indeed quite traceable. + They were my grandchildren—I felt a little like King Lear when first + I read about them. Yet let me state at once that I was certainly not their + prime originator. I took up an idea, manipulated it slightly, and handed + it on. The idea was suggested to me by the contrivances of a certain Mr. + Diplock, whose “ped-rail” notion, the notion of a wheel that was something + more than a wheel, a wheel that would take locomotives up hill-sides and + over ploughed fields, was public property nearly twenty years ago. + Possibly there were others before Diplock. To the Ped-rail also Commander + Murray Sueter, one of the many experimentalists upon the early tanks, + admits his indebtedness, and it would seem that Mr. Diplock was actually + concerned in the earlier stage of the tanks. + </p> + <p> + Since my return I have been able to see the Tank at home, through the + courtesy of the Ministry of Munitions. They have progressed far beyond any + recognisable resemblance to the initiatives of Mr. Diplock; they have + approximated rather to the American caterpillar. As I suspected when first + I heard of these devices, the War Office and the old army people had + practically nothing to do with their development. They took to it very + reluctantly—as they have taken to every novelty in this war. One + brilliant general scrawled over an early proposal the entirely + characteristic comment that it was a pity the inventor could not use his + imagination to better purpose. (That foolish British trick of sneering at + “imagination” has cost us hundreds of thousands of useless casualties and + may yet lose us the war.) Tanks were first mooted at the front about a + year and a half ago; Mr. Winston Churchill was then asking questions about + their practicability; he filled many simple souls with terror; they + thought him a most dangerous lunatic. The actual making of the Tanks arose + as an irregular side development of the armoured-car branch of the Royal + Naval Air Service work. The names most closely associated with the work + are (I quote a reply of Dr. Macnamara's in the House of Commons) Mr. + d'Eyncourt, the Director of Naval Construction, Mr. W. O. Tritton, Lieut. + Wilson, R.N.A.S., Mr. Bussell, Lieut. Stern, R.N.A.S., who is now Colonel + Stern, Captain Symes, and Mr. F. Skeens. There are many other claims too + numerous to mention in detail. + </p> + <p> + But however much the Tanks may disconcert the gallant Colonel Newcomes who + throw an air of restraint over our victorious front, there can be no doubt + that they are an important as well as a novel development of the modern + offensive. Of course neither the Tanks nor their very obvious next + developments going to wrest the decisive pre-eminence from the aeroplane. + The aeroplane remains now more than ever the instrument of victory upon + the western front. Aerial ascendancy, properly utilised, is victory. But + the mobile armoured big gun and the Tank as a machine-gun silencer must + enormously facilitate an advance against the blinded enemy. Neither of + them can advance against properly aimed big gun fire. That has to be + disposed of before they make their entrance. It remains the function of + the aeroplane to locate the hostile big guns and to direct the <i>tir de + demolition</i> upon them before the advance begins—possibly even to + bomb them out. But hitherto, after the destruction of driving back of the + defender's big guns has been effected, the dug-out and the machine gun + have still inflicted heavy losses upon the advancing infantry until the + fight is won. So soon as the big guns are out, the tanks will advance, + destroying machine guns, completing the destruction of the wire, and + holding prisoners immobile. Then the infantry will follow to gather in the + sheaves. Multitudinously produced and—I write it with a defiant eye + on Colonel Newcome—<i>properly handled</i>, these land ironclads are + going to do very great things in shortening the war, in pursuit, in + breaking up the retreating enemy. Given the air ascendancy, and I am + utterly unable to imagine any way of conclusively stopping or even greatly + delaying an offensive thus equipped. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + The young of even the most horrible beasts have something piquant and + engaging about them, and so I suppose it is in the way of things that the + land ironclad which opens a new and more dreadful and destructive phase in + the human folly of warfare, should appear first as if it were a joke. + Never has any such thing so completely masked its wickedness under an + appearance of genial silliness. The Tank is a creature to which one + naturally flings a pet name; the five or six I was shown wandering, + rooting and climbing over obstacles, round a large field near X, were as + amusing and disarming as a little of lively young pigs. + </p> + <p> + At first the War Office prevented the publication of any pictures or + descriptions of these contrivances except abroad; then abruptly the + embargo was relaxed, and the press was flooded with photographs. The + reader will be familiar now with their appearance. They resemble large + slugs with an underside a little like the flattened rockers of a + rocking-horse, slugs between 20 and 40 feet long. They are like flat-sided + slugs, slugs of spirit, who raise an enquiring snout, like the snout of a + dogfish, into the air. They crawl upon their bellies in a way that would + be tedious to describe to the general reader and unnecessary to describe + to the enquiring specialists. They go over the ground with the sliding + speed of active snails. Behind them trail two wheels, supporting a flimsy + tail, wheels that strike one as incongruous as if a monster began kangaroo + and ended doll's perambulator. (These wheels annoy me.) They are not + steely monsters; they are painted with drab and unassuming colours that + are fashionable in modern warfare, so that the armour seems rather like + the integument of a rhinoceros. At the sides of the head project armoured + checks, and from above these stick out guns that look like stalked eyes. + That is the general appearance of the contemporary tank. + </p> + <p> + It slides on the ground; the silly little wheels that so detract from the + genial bestiality of its appearance dandle and bump behind it. It swings + about its axis. It comes to an obstacle, a low wall let us say, or a heap + of bricks, and sets to work to climb it with its snout. It rears over the + obstacle, it raises its straining belly, it overhangs more and more, and + at last topples forward; it sways upon the heap and then goes plunging + downwards, sticking out the weak counterpoise of its wheeled tail. If it + comes to a house or a tree or a wall or such-like obstruction it rams + against it so as to bring all its weight to bear upon it—it weighs + <i>some</i> tons—and then climbs over the debris. I saw it, and + incredulous soldiers of experience watched it at the same time, cross + trenches and wallow amazingly through muddy exaggerations of small holes. + Then I repeated the tour inside. + </p> + <p> + Again the Tank is like a slug. The slug, as every biological student + knows, is unexpectedly complicated inside. The Tank is as crowded with + inward parts as a battleship. It is filled with engines, guns and + ammunition, and in the interstices men. + </p> + <p> + “You will smash your hat,” said Colonel Stern. “No; keep it on, or else + you will smash your head.” + </p> + <p> + Only Mr. C. R. W. Nevinson could do justice to the interior of a Tank. You + see a hand gripping something; you see the eyes and forehead of an + engineer's face; you perceive that an overall bluishness beyond the engine + is the back of another man. “Don't hold that,” says someone; “it is too + hot. Hold on to that.” The engines roar, so loudly that I doubt whether + one could hear guns without; the floor begins to slope and slopes until + one seems to be at forty-five degrees or thereabouts; then the whole + concern swings up and sways and slants the other way. You have crossed a + bank. You heel sideways. Through the door which has been left open you see + the little group of engineers, staff officers and naval men receding and + falling away behind you. You straighten up and go up hill. You halt and + begin to rotate. Through the open door, the green field, with its red + walls, rows of worksheds and forests of chimneys in the background, begins + a steady processional movement. The group of engineers and officers and + naval men appears at the other side of the door and farther off. Then + comes a sprint down hill. You descend and stretch your legs. + </p> + <p> + About the field other Tanks are doing their stunts. One is struggling in + an apoplectic way in the mud pit with a cheek half buried. It noses its + way out and on with an air of animal relief. + </p> + <p> + They are like jokes by Heath Robinson. One forgets that these things have + already saved the lives of many hundreds of our soldiers and smashed and + defeated thousands of Germans. + </p> + <p> + Said one soldier to me: “In the old attacks you used to see the British + dead lying outside the machine-gun emplacements like birds outside a butt + with a good shot inside. <i>Now</i>, these things walk through.” + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + I saw other things that day at X. The Tank is only a beginning in a new + phase of warfare. Of these other things I may only write in the most + general terms. + </p> + <p> + But though Tanks and their collaterals are being made upon a very + considerable scale in X, already I realised as I walked through gigantic + forges as high and marvellous as cathedrals, and from workshed to workshed + where gun carriages, ammunition carts and a hundred such things were + flowing into existence with the swelling abundance of a river that flows + out of a gorge, that as the demand for the new developments grows clear + and strong, the resources of Britain are capable still of a tremendous + response. <i>If only we do not rob these great factories and works of + their men.</i> + </p> + <p> + Upon this question certain things need to be said very plainly. The + decisive factor in the sort of war we are now waging is production and + right use of mechanical material; victory in this war depends now upon + three things: the aeroplane, the gun, and the Tank developments. These—and + not crowds of men—are the prime necessity for a successful + offensive. Every man we draw from munition making to the ranks brings our + western condition nearer to the military condition of Russia. In these + things we may be easily misled by military “experts” We have to remember + that the military “expert” is a man who learnt his business before 1914, + and that the business of war has been absolutely revolutionised since + 1914; the military expert is a man trained to think of war as essentially + an affair of cavalry, infantry in formation, and field guns, whereas + cavalry is entirely obsolete, infantry no longer fights in formation, and + the methods of gunnery have been entirely changed. The military man I + observe still runs about the world in spurs, he travels in trains in + spurs, he walks in spurs, he thinks in terms of spurs. He has still to + discover that it is about as ridiculous as if he were to carry a crossbow. + I take it these spurs are only the outward and visible sign of an inward + obsolescence. The disposition of the military “expert” is still to think + too little of machinery and to demand too much of the men. Behind our + front at the time of my visit there were, for example, many thousands of + cavalry, men tending horses, men engaged in transporting bulky fodder for + horses and the like. These men were doing about as much in this war as if + they had been at Timbuctoo. Every man who is taken from munition making at + X to spur-worshipping in khaki, is a dead loss to the military efficiency + of the country. Every man that is needed or is likely to be needed for the + actual operations of modern warfare can be got by combing out the cavalry, + the brewing and distilling industries, the theatres and music halls, and + the like unproductive occupations. The under-staffing of munition works, + the diminution of their efficiency by the use of aged and female labour, + is the straight course to failure in this war. + </p> + <p> + In X, in the forges and machine shops, I saw already too large a + proportion of boys and grey heads. + </p> + <p> + War is a thing that changes very rapidly, and we have in the Tanks only + the first of a great series of offensive developments. They are bound to + be improved, at a great pace. The method of using them will change very + rapidly. Any added invention will necessitate the scrapping of old types + and the production of the new patterns in quantity. It is of supreme + necessity to the Allies if they are to win this war outright that the lead + in inventions and enterprise which the British have won over the Germans + in this matter should be retained. It is our game now to press the + advantage for all it is worth. We have to keep ahead to win. We cannot do + so unless we have unstinted men and unstinted material to produce each new + development as its use is realised. + </p> + <p> + Given that much, the Tank will enormously enhance the advantage of the new + offensive method on the French front; the method that is of gun demolition + after aerial photography, followed by an advance; it is a huge addition to + our prospect of decisive victory. What does it do? It solves two problems. + The existing Tank affords a means of advancing against machine-gun fire + and of destroying wire and machine guns without much risk of loss, so soon + as the big guns have done their duty by the enemy guns. And also behind + the Tank itself, it is useless to conceal, lies the possibility of + bringing up big guns and big gun ammunition, across nearly any sort of + country, as fast as the advance can press forward. Hitherto every advance + has paid a heavy toll to the machine gun, and every advance has had to + halt after a couple of miles or so while the big guns (taking five or six + days for the job) toiled up to the new positions. + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + It is impossible to restrain a note of sharp urgency from what one has to + say about these developments. The Tanks remove the last technical + difficulties in our way to decisive victory and a permanent peace; they + also afford a reason for straining every nerve to bring about a decision + and peace soon. At the risk of seeming an imaginative alarmist I would + like to point out the reasons these things disclose for hurrying this war + to a decision and doing our utmost to arrange the world's affairs so as to + make another war improbable. Already these serio-comic Tanks, weighing + something over twenty tons or so, have gone slithering around and sliding + over dead and wounded men. That is not an incident for sensitive minds to + dwell upon, but it is a mere little child's play anticipation of what the + big land ironclads <i>that are bound to come if there is no world + pacification</i>, are going to do. + </p> + <p> + What lies behind the Tank depends upon this fact; there is no definable + upward limit of mass. Upon that I would lay all the stress possible, + because everything turns upon that. + </p> + <p> + You cannot make a land ironclad so big and heavy but that you cannot make + a caterpillar track wide enough and strong enough to carry it forward. + Tanks are quite possible that will carry twenty-inch or twenty-five inch + guns, besides minor armament. Such Tanks may be undesirable; the + production may exceed the industrial resources of any empire to produce; + but there is no inherent impossibility in such things. There are not even + the same limitations as to draught and docking accommodation that sets + bounds to the size of battleships. It follows, therefore, as a necessary + deduction that if the world's affairs are so left at the end of the war + that the race of armaments continues, that Tank will develop steadily into + a tremendous instrument of warfare, driven by engines of scores of + thousands of horse-power, tracking on a track scores of hundreds of yards + wide and weighing hundreds or thousands of tons. Nothing but a world + agreement not to do so can prevent this logical development of the land + ironclad. Such a structure will make wheel-ruts scores of feet deep; it + will plough up, devastate and destroy the country it passes over + altogether. + </p> + <p> + For my own part I never imagined the land ironclad idea would get loose + into war. I thought that the military intelligence was essentially + unimaginative and that such an aggressive military power as Germany, + dominated by military people, would never produce anything of the sort. I + thought that this war would be fought out without Tanks and that then war + would come to an end. For of course it is mere stupidity that makes people + doubt the ultimate ending of war. I have been so far justified in these + expectations of mine, that it is not from military sources that these + things have come. They have been thrust upon the soldiers from without. + But now that they are loose, now that they are in war, we have to face + their full possibilities, to use our advantage in them and press on to the + end of the war. In support of a photo-aero directed artillery, even our + present Tanks can be used to complete an invisible offensive. We shall not + so much push as ram. It is doubtful if the Germans can get anything of the + sort into action before six months are out. We ought to get the war on to + German soil before the Tanks have grown to more than three or four times + their present size. Then it will not matter so much how much bigger they + grow. It will be the German landscape that will suffer. + </p> + <p> + After one has seen the actual Tanks it is not very difficult to close + one's eyes and figure the sort of Tank that may be arguing with Germany in + a few months' time about the restoration of Belgium and Serbia and France, + the restoration of the sunken tonnage, the penalties of the various + Zeppelin and submarine murders, the freedom of seas and land alike from + piracy, the evacuation of all Poland including Posen and Cracow, and the + guarantees for the future peace of Europe. The machine will be perhaps as + big as a destroyer and more heavily armed and equipped. It will swim over + and through the soil at a pace of ten or twelve miles an hour. In front of + it will be corn, land, neat woods, orchards, pasture, gardens, villages + and towns. It will advance upon its belly with a swaying motion, devouring + the ground beneath it. Behind it masses of soil and rock, lumps of turf, + splintered wood, bits of houses, occasional streaks of red, will drop from + its track, and it will leave a wake, six or seven times as wide as a high + road, from which all soil, all cultivation, all semblance to cultivated or + cultivatable land will have disappeared. It will not even be a track of + soil. It will be a track of subsoil laid bare. It will be a flayed strip + of nature. In the course of its fighting the monster may have to + turnabout. It will then halt and spin slowly round, grinding out an arena + of desolation with a diameter equal to its length. If it has to retreat + and advance again these streaks and holes of destruction will increase and + multiply. Behind the fighting line these monsters will manoeuvre to and + fro, destroying the land for all ordinary agricultural purposes for ages + to come. The first imaginative account of the land ironclad that was ever + written concluded with the words, “They are the <i>reductio ad absurdum</i> + of war.” They are, and it is to the engineers, the ironmasters, the + workers and the inventive talent of Great Britain and France that we must + look to ensure that it is in Germany, the great teacher of war, that this + demonstration of war's ultimate absurdity is completed. + </p> + <p> + For forty years Frankenstein Germany invoked war, turned every development + of material and social science to aggressive ends, and at last when she + felt the time was ripe she let loose the new monster that she had made of + war to cow the spirit of mankind. She set the thing trampling through + Belgium. She cannot grumble if at last it comes home, stranger and more + dreadful even than she made it, trampling the German towns and fields with + German blood upon it and its eyes towards Berlin. + </p> + <p> + This logical development of the Tank idea may seem a gloomy prospect for + mankind. But it is open to question whether the tremendous development of + warfare that has gone on in the last two years does after all open a + prospect of unmitigated gloom. There has been a good deal of cheap and + despondent sneering recently at the phrase, “The war that will end war.” + It is still possible to maintain that that may be a correct description of + this war. It has to be remembered that war, as the aeroplane and the Tank + have made it, has already become an impossible luxury for any barbaric or + uncivilised people. War on the grade that has been achieved on the Somme + predicates an immense industrialism behind it. Of all the States in the + world only four can certainly be said to be fully capable of sustaining + war at the level to which it has now been brought upon the western front. + These are Britain, France, Germany, and the United States of America. Less + certainly equal to the effort are Italy, Japan, Russia, and Austria. These + eight powers are the only powers <i>capable of warfare under modern + conditions.</i> Five are already Allies and one is incurably pacific. + There is no other power or people in the world that can go to war now + without the consent and connivance of these great powers. If we consider + their alliances, we may count it that the matter rests now between two + groups of Allies and one neutral power. So that while on the one hand the + development of modern warfare of which the Tank is the present symbol + opens a prospect of limitless senseless destruction, it opens on the other + hand a prospect of organised world control. This Tank development must + ultimately bring the need of a real permanent settlement within the + compass of the meanest of diplomatic intelligences. A peace that will + restore competitive armaments has now become a less desirable prospect for + everyone than a continuation of the war. Things were bad enough before, + when the land forces were still in a primitive phase of infantry, cavalry + and artillery, and when the only real race to develop monsters and + destructors was for sea power. But the race for sea power before 1914 was + mere child's play to the breeding of engineering monstrosities for land + warfare that must now follow any indeterminate peace settlement. I am no + blind believer in the wisdom of mankind, but I cannot believe that men are + so insensate and headstrong as to miss the plain omens of the present + situation. + </p> + <p> + So that after all the cheerful amusement the sight of a Tank causes may + not be so very unreasonable. These things may be no more than one of those + penetrating flashes of wit that will sometimes light up and dispel the + contentions of an angry man. If they are not that, then they are the + grimmest jest that ever set men grinning. Wait and see, if you do not + believe me. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + HOW PEOPLE THINK ABOUT THE WAR + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + I. DO THEY REALLY THINK AT ALL? + </h2> + <p> + All human affairs are mental affairs; the bright ideas of to-day are the + realities of to-morrow. The real history of mankind is the history of how + ideas have arisen, how they have taken possession of men's minds, how they + have struggled, altered, proliferated, decayed. There is nothing in this + war at all but a conflict of ideas, traditions, and mental habits. The + German Will clothed in conceptions of aggression and fortified by cynical + falsehood, struggles against the fundamental sanity of the German mind and + the confused protest of mankind. So that the most permanently important + thing in the tragic process of this war is the change of opinion that is + going on. What are people making of it? Is it producing any great common + understandings, any fruitful unanimities? + </p> + <p> + No doubt it is producing enormous quantities of cerebration, but is it + anything more than chaotic and futile cerebration? We are told all sorts + of things in answer to that, things without a scrap of evidence or + probability to support them. It is, we are assured, turning people to + religion, making them moral and thoughtful. It is also, we are assured + with equal confidence, turning them to despair and moral disaster. It will + be followed by (1) a period of moral renascence, and (2) a debauch. It is + going to make the workers (1) more and (2) less obedient and industrious. + It is (1) inuring men to war and (2) filling them with a passionate + resolve never to suffer war again. And so on. I propose now to ask what is + really happening in this matter? How is human opinion changing? I have + opinions of my own and they are bound to colour my discussion. The reader + must allow for that, and as far as possible I will remind him where + necessary to make his allowance. + </p> + <p> + Now first I would ask, is any really continuous and thorough mental + process going on at all about this war? I mean, is there any considerable + number of people who are seeing it as a whole, taking it in as a whole, + trying to get a general idea of it from which they can form directing + conclusions for the future? Is there any considerable number of people + even trying to do that? At any rate let me point out first that there is + quite an enormous mass of people who—in spite of the fact that their + minds are concentrated on aspects of this war, who are at present hearing, + talking, experiencing little else than the war—are nevertheless + neither doing nor trying to do anything that deserves to be called + thinking about it at all. They may even be suffering quite terribly by it. + But they are no more mastering its causes, reasons, conditions, and the + possibility of its future prevention than a monkey that has been rescued + in a scorching condition from the burning of a house will have mastered + the problem of a fire. It is just happening to and about them. It may, for + anything they have learnt about it, happen to them again. + </p> + <p> + A vast majority of people are being swamped by the spectacular side of the + business. It was very largely my fear of being so swamped myself that made + me reluctant to go as a spectator to the front. I knew that my chances of + being hit by a bullet were infinitesimal, but I was extremely afraid of + being hit by some too vivid impression. I was afraid that I might see some + horribly wounded man or some decayed dead body that would so scar my + memory and stamp such horror into me as to reduce me to a mere useless, + gibbering, stop-the-war-at-any-price pacifist. Years ago my mind was once + darkened very badly for some weeks with a kind of fear and distrust of + life through a sudden unexpected encounter one tranquil evening with a + drowned body. But in this journey in Italy and France, although I have had + glimpses of much death and seen many wounded men, I have had no really + horrible impressions at all. That side of the business has, I think, been + overwritten. The thing that haunts me most is the impression of a + prevalent relapse into extreme untidiness, of a universal discomfort, of + fields, and of ruined houses treated disregardfully.... But that is not + what concerns us now in this discussion. What concerns us now is the fact + that this war is producing spectacular effects so tremendous and incidents + so strange, so remarkable, so vivid, that the mind forgets both causes and + consequences and simply sits down to stare. + </p> + <p> + For example, there is this business of the Zeppelin raids in England. It + is a supremely silly business; it is the most conclusive demonstration of + the intellectual inferiority of the German to the Western European that is + should ever have happened. There was the clearest <i>a priori</i> case + against the gas-bag. I remember the discussions ten or twelve years ago in + which it was established to the satisfaction of every reasonable man that + ultimately the “heavier than air” machine (as we called it then) must fly + better than the gas-bag, and still more conclusively that no gas-bag was + conceivable that could hope to fight and defeat aeroplanes. Nevertheless + the German, with that dull faith of his in mere “Will,” persisted along + his line. He knew instinctively that he could not produce aviators to meet + the Western European; all his social instincts made him cling to the idea + of a great motherly, almost sow-like bag of wind above him. At an enormous + waste of resources Germany has produced these futile monsters, that drift + in the darkness over England promiscuously dropping bombs on fields and + houses. They are now meeting the fate that was demonstrably certain ten + years ago. If they found us unready for them it is merely that we were + unable to imagine so idiotic an enterprise would ever be seriously + sustained and persisted in. We did not believe in the probability of + Zeppelin raids any more than we believed that Germany would force the + world into war. It was a thing too silly to be believed. But they came—to + their certain fate. In the month after I returned from France and Italy, + no less than four of these fatuities were exploded and destroyed within + thirty miles of my Essex home.... There in chosen phrases you have the + truth about these things. But now mark the perversion of thought due to + spectacular effect. + </p> + <p> + I find over the Essex countryside, which has been for more than a year and + a half a highway for Zeppelins, a new and curious admiration for them that + has arisen out of these very disasters. Previously they were regarded with + dislike and a sort of distrust, as one might regard a sneaking neighbour + who left his footsteps in one's garden at night. But the Zeppelins of + Billericay and Potter's Bar are—heroic things. (The Cuffley one came + down too quickly, and the fourth one which came down for its crew to + surrender is despised.) I have heard people describe the two former with + eyes shining with enthusiasm. + </p> + <p> + “First,” they say, “you saw a little round red glow that spread. Then you + saw the whole Zeppelin glowing. Oh, it was <i>beautiful!</i> Then it began + to turn over and come down, and it flames and pieces began to break away. + And then down it came, leaving flaming pieces all up the sky. At last it + was a pillar of fire eight thousand feet high.... Everyone said, 'Ooooo!' + And then someone pointed out the little aeroplane lit up by the flare—such + a leetle thing up there in the night! It is the greatest thing I have ever + seen. Oh! the most wonderful—most wonderful!” + </p> + <p> + There is a feeling that the Germans really must after all be a splendid + people to provide such magnificent pyrotechnics. + </p> + <p> + Some people in London the other day were pretending to be shocked by an + American who boasted that he had been in “two <i>bully</i> bombardments,” + but he was only saying what everyone feels more or less. We are at a + spectacle that—as a spectacle—our grandchildren will envy. I + understand now better the story of the man who stared at the sparks + raining up from his own house as it burnt in the night and whispered “<i>Lovely! + Lovely!</i>” + </p> + <p> + The spectacular side of the war is really an enormous distraction from + thought. And against thought there also fights the native indolence of the + human mind. The human mind, it seems, was originally developed to think + about the individual; it thinks reluctantly about the species. It takes + refuge from that sort of thing if it possibly can. And so the second great + preventive of clear thinking is the tranquillising platitude. + </p> + <p> + The human mind is an instrument very easily fatigued. Only a few + exceptions go on thinking restlessly—to the extreme exasperation of + their neighbours. The normal mind craves for decisions, even wrong or + false decisions rather than none. It clutches at comforting falsehoods. It + loves to be told, “<i>There</i>, don't you worry. That'll be all right. + That's <i>settled.</i>” This war has come as an almost overwhelming + challenge to mankind. To some of us it seems as it if were the Sphynx + proffering the alternative of its riddle or death. Yet the very urgency of + this challenge to think seems to paralyse the critical intelligence of + very many people altogether. They will say, “This war is going to produce + enormous changes in everything.” They will then subside mentally with a + feeling of having covered the whole ground in a thoroughly safe manner. Or + they will adopt an air of critical aloofness. They will say, “How is it + possible to foretell what may happen in this tremendous sea of change?” + And then, with an air of superior modesty, they will go on doing—whatever + they feel inclined to do. Many others, a degree less simple in their + methods, will take some entirely partial aspect, arrive at some guesswork + decision upon that, and then behave as though that met every question we + have to face. Or they will make a sort of admonitory forecast that is + conditional upon the good behaviour of other people. “Unless the Trade + Unions are more reasonable,” they will say. Or, “Unless the shipping + interest is grappled with and controlled.” Or, “Unless England wakes up.” + And with that they seem to wash their hands of further responsibility for + the future. + </p> + <p> + One delightful form of put-off is the sage remark, “Let us finish the war + first, and then let us ask what is going to happen after it.” One likes to + think of the beautiful blank day after the signing of the peace when these + wise minds swing round to pick up their deferred problems.... + </p> + <p> + I submit that a man has not done his duty by himself as a rational + creature unless he has formed an idea of what is going on, as one + complicated process, until he has formed an idea sufficiently definite for + him to make it the basis of a further idea, which is his own relationship + to that process. He must have some notion of what the process is going to + do to him, and some notion of what he means to do, if he can, to the + process. That is to say, he must not only have an idea how the process is + going, but also an idea of how he wants it to go. It seems so natural and + necessary for a human brain to do this that it is hard to suppose that + everyone has not more or less attempted it. But few people, in Great + Britain at any rate, have the habit of frank expression, and when people + do not seem to have made out any of these things for themselves there is a + considerable element of secretiveness and inexpressiveness to be allowed + for before we decide that they have not in some sort of fashion done so. + Still, after all allowances have been made, there remains a vast amount of + jerry-built and ready-made borrowed stuff in most of people's philosophies + of the war. The systems of authentic opinion in this world of thought + about the war are like comparatively rare thin veins of living mentality + in a vast world of dead repetitions and echoed suggestions. And that being + the case, it is quite possible that history after the war, like history + before the war, will not be so much a display of human will and purpose as + a resultant of human vacillations, obstructions, and inadvertences. We + shall still be in a drama of blind forces following the line of least + resistance. + </p> + <p> + One of the people who is often spoken of as if he were doing an enormous + amount of concentrated thinking is “the man in the trenches.” We are told—by + gentlemen writing for the most part at home—of the most + extraordinary things that are going on in those devoted brains, how they + are getting new views about the duties of labour, religion, morality, + monarchy, and any other notions that the gentleman at home happens to + fancy and wished to push. Now that is not at all the impression of the + khaki mentality I have reluctantly accepted as correct. For the most part + the man in khaki is up against a round of tedious immediate duties that + forbid consecutive thought; he is usually rather crowded and not very + comfortable. He is bored. + </p> + <p> + The real horror of modern war, when all is said and done, is the boredom. + To get killed our wounded may be unpleasant, but it is at any rate + interesting; the real tragedy is in the desolated fields, the desolated + houses, the desolated hours and days, the bored and desolated minds that + hang behind the melee and just outside the melee. The peculiar beastliness + of the German crime is the way the German war cant and its consequences + have seized upon and paralysed the mental movement of Western Europe. + Before 1914 war was theoretically unpopular in every European country; we + thought of it as something tragic and dreadful. Now everyone knows by + experience that it is something utterly dirty and detestable. We thought + it was the Nemean lion, and we have found it is the Augean stable. But + being bored by war and hating war is quite unproductive <i>unless you are + thinking about its nature and causes so thoroughly that you will presently + be able to take hold of it and control it and end it.</i> It is no good + for everyone to say unanimously, “We will have no more war,” unless you + have thought out how to avoid it, and mean to bring that end about. It is + as if everyone said, “We will have no more catarrh,” or “no more flies,” + or “no more east wind.” And my point is that the immense sorrows at home + in every European country and the vast boredom of the combatants are + probably not really producing any effective remedial mental action at all, + and will not do so unless we get much more thoroughly to work upon the + thinking-out process. + </p> + <p> + In such talks as I could get with men close up to the front I found beyond + this great boredom and attempts at distraction only very specialised talk + about changes in the future. Men were keen upon questions of army + promotion, of the future of conscription, of the future of the temporary + officer, upon the education of boys in relation to army needs. But the war + itself was bearing them all upon its way, as unquestioned and uncontrolled + as if it were the planet on which they lived. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + II. THE YIELDING PACIFIST AND THE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR + </h2> + <p> + 1 Among the minor topics that people are talking about behind the western + fronts is the psychology of the Yielding Pacifist and the Conscientious + Objector. Of course, we are all pacifists nowadays; I know of no one who + does not want not only to end this war but to put an end to war + altogether, except those blood-red terrors Count Reventlow, Mr. Leo Maxse—how + he does it on a vegetarian dietary I cannot imagine!—and our + wild-eyed desperados of <i>The Morning Post.</i> But most of the people I + meet, and most of the people I met on my journey, are pacifists like + myself who want to <i>make</i> peace by beating the armed man until he + gives in and admits the error of his ways, disarming him and reorganising + the world for the forcible suppression of military adventures in the + future. They want belligerency put into the same category as burglary, as + a matter of forcible suppression. The Yielding Pacifist who will accept + any sort of peace, and the Conscientious Objector who will not fight at + all, are not of that opinion. + </p> + <p> + Both Italy and France produce parallel types to those latter, but it would + seem that in each case England displays the finer developments. The Latin + mind is directer than the English, and its standards—shall I say?—more + primitive; it gets more directly to the fact that here are men who will + not fight. And it is less charitable. I was asked quite a number of times + for the English equivalent of an <i>embusque.</i> “We don't generalise,” I + said, “we treat each case on its merits!” + </p> + <p> + One interlocutor near Udine was exercised by our Italian Red Cross work. + </p> + <p> + “Here,” he said, “are sixty or seventy young Englishmen, all fit for + military service.... Of course they go under fire, but it is not like + being junior officers in the trenches. Not one of them has been killed or + wounded.” + </p> + <p> + He reflected. “One, I think, has been decorated,” he said.... + </p> + <p> + My French and Italian are only for very rough common jobs; when it came to + explaining the Conscientious Objector sympathetically they broke down + badly. I had to construct long parenthetical explanations of our + antiquated legislative methods to show how it was that the “conscientious + objector” had been so badly defined. The foreigner does not understand the + importance of vague definition in British life. “Practically, of course, + we offered to exempt anyone who conscientiously objected to fight or + serve. Then the Pacifist and German people started a campaign to enrol + objectors. Of course every shirker, every coward and slacker in the + country decided at once to be a conscientious objector. Anyone but a + British legislator could have foreseen that. Then we started Tribunals to + wrangle with the objectors about their <i>bona fides.</i> Then the + Pacifists and the Pro-Germans issued little leaflets and started + correspondence courses to teach people exactly how to lie to the + Tribunals. Trouble about freedom of the pamphleteer followed. I had to + admit—it has been rather a sloppy business. The people who made the + law knew their own minds, but we English are not an expressive people.” + </p> + <p> + These are not easy things to say in Elementary (and slightly Decayed) + French or in Elementary and Corrupt Italian. + </p> + <p> + “But why do people support the sham conscientious objector and issue + leaflets to help him—when there is so much big work clamouring to be + done?” + </p> + <p> + “That,” I said, “is the Whig tradition.” + </p> + <p> + When they pressed me further, I said: “I am really the questioner. I am + visiting <i>your</i> country, and you have to tell <i>me</i> things. It is + not right that I should do all the telling. Tell me all about Romain + Rolland.” + </p> + <p> + And so I pressed them about the official socialists in Italy and the + Socialist minority in France until I got the question out of the net of + national comparisons and upon a broader footing. In several conversations + we began to work out in general terms the psychology of those people who + were against the war. But usually we could not get to that; my + interlocutors would insist upon telling me just what they would like to do + or just what they would like to see done to stop-the-war pacifists and + conscientious objectors; pleasant rather than fruitful imaginative + exercises from which I could effect no more than platitudinous uplifts. + </p> + <p> + But the general drift of such talks as did seem to penetrate the question + was this, that among these stop-the-war people there are really three + types. First there is a type of person who hates violence and the + infliction of pain under any circumstances, and who have a mystical belief + in the rightness (and usually the efficacy) of non-resistance. These are + generally Christians, and then their cardinal text is the instruction to + “turn the other cheek.” Often they are Quakers. If they are consistent + they are vegetarians and wear <i>Lederlos</i> boots. They do not desire + police protection for their goods. They stand aloof from all the force and + conflict of life. They have always done so. This is an understandable and + respectable type. It has numerous Hindu equivalents. It is a type that + finds little difficulty about exemptions—provided the individual has + not been too recently converted to his present habits. But it is not the + prevalent type in stop-the-war circles. Such genuine ascetics do not + number more than a thousand or so, all three of our western allied + countries. The mass of the stop-the-war people is made up quite other + elements. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + In the complex structure of the modern community there are two groups or + strata or pockets in which the impulse of social obligation, the + gregarious sense of a common welfare, is at its lowest; one of these is + the class of the Resentful Employee, the class of people who, without + explanation, adequate preparation or any chance, have been shoved at an + early age into uncongenial work and never given a chance to escape, and + the other is the class of people with small fixed incomes or with small + salaries earnt by routine work, or half independent people practising some + minor artistic or literary craft, who have led uneventful, irresponsible + lives from their youth up, and never came at any point into relations of + service to the state. This latter class was more difficult to define than + the former—because it is more various within itself. My French + friends wanted to talk of the “Psychology of the Rentier.” I was for such + untranslatable phrases as the “Genteel Whig,” or the “Donnish Liberal.” + But I lit up an Italian—he is a Milanese manufacturer—with + “these Florentine English who would keep Italy in a glass case.” “I know,” + he said. Before I go on to expand this congenial theme, let me deal first + with the Resentful Employee, who is a much more considerable, and to me a + much more sympathetic, figure in European affairs. I began life myself as + a Resentful Employee. By the extremest good luck I have got my mind and + spirit out of the distortions of that cramping beginning, but I can still + recall even the anger of those old days. + </p> + <p> + He becomes an employee between thirteen and fifteen; he is made to do work + he does not like for no other purpose that he can see except the profit + and glory of a fortunate person called his employer, behind whom stand + church and state blessing and upholding the relationship. He is not + allowed to feel that he has any share whatever in the employer's business, + or that any end is served but the employer's profit. He cannot see that + the employer acknowledges any duty to the state. Neither church nor state + seems to insist that the employer has any public function. At no point + does the employee come into a clear relationship of mutual obligation with + the state. There does not seem to be any way out for the employee from a + life spent in this subordinate, toilsome relationship. He feels put upon + and cheated out of life. He is without honour. If he is a person of + ability or stubborn temper he struggles out of his position; if he is a + kindly and generous person he blames his “luck” and does his work and + lives his life as cheerfully as possible—and so live the bulk of our + amazing European workers; if he is a being of great magnanimity he is + content to serve for the ultimate good of the race; if he has imagination, + he says, “Things will not always be like this,” and becomes a socialist or + a guild socialist, and tries to educate the employer to a sense of + reciprocal duty; but if he is too human for any of these things, then he + begins to despise and hate the employer and the system that made him. He + wants to hurt them. Upon that hate it is easy to trade. + </p> + <p> + A certain section of what is called the Socialist press and the Socialist + literature in Europe is no doubt great-minded; it seeks to carve a better + world out of the present. But much of it is socialist only in name. Its + spirit is Anarchistic. Its real burthen is not construction but grievance; + it tells the bitter tale of the employee, it feeds and organises his + malice, it schemes annoyance and injury for the hated employer. The state + and the order of the world is confounded with the capitalist. Before the + war the popular so-called socialist press reeked with the cant of + rebellion, the cant of any sort of rebellion. “I'm a rebel,” was the silly + boast of the young disciple. “Spoil something, set fire to something,” was + held to be the proper text for any girl or lad of spirit. And this blind + discontent carried on into the war. While on the one hand a great rush of + men poured into the army saying, “Thank God! we can serve our country at + last instead of some beastly profiteer,” a sourer remnant, blind to the + greater issues of the war, clung to the reasonless proposition, “the state + is only for the Capitalist. This war is got up by Capitalists. Whatever + has to be done—<i>we are rebels.</i>” + </p> + <p> + Such a typical paper as the British <i>Labour Leader</i>, for example, may + be read in vain, number after number, for any sound and sincere + constructive proposal. It is a prolonged scream of extreme individualism, + a monotonous repetition of incoherent discontent with authority, with + direction, with union, with the European effort. It wants to do nothing. + It just wants effort to stop—even at the price of German victory. If + the whole fabric of society in western Europe were to be handed over to + those pseudo-socialists to-morrow, to be administered for the common good, + they would fly the task in terror. They would make excuses and refuse the + undertaking. They do not want the world to go right. The very idea of the + world going right does not exist in their minds. They are embodied + discontent and hatred, making trouble, and that is all they are. They want + to be “rebels”—to be admired as “rebels”. + </p> + <p> + That is the true psychology of the Resentful Employee. He is a + de-socialised man. His sense of the State has been destroyed. + </p> + <p> + The Resentful Employees are the outcome of our social injustices. They are + the failures of our social ad educational systems. We may regret their + pitiful degradation, we may exonerate them from blame; none the less they + are a pitiful crew. I have seen the hardship of the trenches, the gay and + gallant wounded. I do a little understand what our soldiers, officers and + men alike, have endured and done. And though I know I ought to allow for + all that I have stated, I cannot regard these conscientious objectors with + anything but contempt. Into my house there pours a dismal literature + rehearsing the hardships of these men who set themselves up to be martyrs + for liberty; So and So, brave hero, has been sworn at—positively + sworn at by a corporal; a nasty rough man came into the cell of So and So + and dropped several h's; So and So, refusing to undress and wash, has been + undressed and washed, and soap was rubbed into his eyes—perhaps + purposely; the food and accommodation are not of the best class; the + doctors in attendance seem hasty; So and So was put into a damp bed and + has got a nasty cold. Then I recall a jolly vanload of wounded men I saw + out there.... + </p> + <p> + But after all, we must be just. A church and state that permitted these + people to be thrust into dreary employment in their early 'teens, without + hope or pride, deserves such citizens as these. The marvel is that there + are so few. There are a poor thousand or so of these hopeless, + resentment-poisoned creatures in Great Britain. Against five willing + millions. The Allied countries, I submit, have not got nearly all the + conscientious objectors they deserve. + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + If the Resentful Employee provides the emotional impulse of the resisting + pacifist, whose horizon is bounded by his one passionate desire that the + particular social system that has treated him so ill should collapse and + give in, and its leaders and rulers be humiliated and destroyed, the + intellectual direction of a mischievous pacifism comes from an entirely + different class. + </p> + <p> + The Genteel Whig, though he differs very widely in almost every other + respect from the Resentful Employee, has this much in common, that he has + never been drawn into the whirl of collective life in any real and + assimilative fashion. This is what is the matter with both of them. He is + a little loose, shy, independent person. Except for eating and drinking—in + moderation, he has never done anything real from the day he was born. He + has frequently not even faced the common challenge of matrimony. Still + more frequently is he childless, or the daring parent of one particular + child. He has never traded nor manufactured. He has drawn his dividends or + his salary with an entire unconsciousness of any obligations to policemen + or navy for these punctual payments. Probably he has never ventured even + to reinvest his little legacy. He is acutely aware of possessing an + exceptionally fine intelligence, but he is entirely unconscious of a + fundamental unreality. Nothing has ever occurred to him to make him ask + why the mass of men were either not possessed of his security or + discontented with it. The impulses that took his school friends out upon + all sorts of odd feats and adventures struck him as needless. As he grew + up he turned with an equal distrust from passion or ambition. His friends + went out after love, after adventure, after power, after knowledge, after + this or that desire, and became men. But he noted merely that they became + fleshly, that effort strained them, that they were sometimes angry or + violent or heated. He could not but feel that theirs were vulgar + experiences, and he sought some finer exercise for his exceptional + quality. He pursued art or philosophy or literature upon their more + esoteric levels, and realised more and more the general vulgarity and + coarseness of the world about him, and his own detachment. The vulgarity + and crudity of the things nearest him impressed him most; the dreadful + insincerity of the Press, the meretriciousness of success, the loudness of + the rich, the baseness of common people in his own land. The world + overseas had by comparison a certain glamour. Except that when you said + “United States” to him he would draw the air sharply between his teeth and + beg you not to... + </p> + <p> + Nobody took him by the collar and shook him. + </p> + <p> + If our world had considered the advice of William James and insisted upon + national service from everyone, national service in the drains or the + nationalised mines or the nationalised deep-sea fisheries if not in the + army or navy, we should not have had any such men. If it had insisted that + wealth and property are no more than a trust for the public benefit, we + should have had no genteel indispensables. These discords in our national + unanimity are the direct consequence of our bad social organisation. We + permit the profiteer and the usurer; they evoke the response of the + Reluctant Employee, and the inheritor of their wealth becomes the Genteel + Whig. + </p> + <p> + But that is by the way. It was of course natural and inevitable that the + German onslaught upon Belgium and civilisation generally should strike + these recluse minds not as a monstrous ugly wickedness to be resisted and + overcome at any cost, but merely as a nerve-racking experience. Guns were + going off on both sides. The Genteel Whig was chiefly conscious of a + repulsive vast excitement all about him, in which many people did + inelegant and irrational things. They waved flags—nasty little + flags. This child of the ages, this last fruit of the gigantic and tragic + tree of life, could no more than stick its fingers in its ears as say, + “Oh, please, do <i>all</i> stop!” and then as the strain grew intenser and + intenser set itself with feeble pawings now to clamber “Au-dessus de la + Melee,” and now to—in some weak way—stop the conflict. + (“Au-dessus de la Melee”—as the man said when they asked him where + he was when the bull gored his sister.) The efforts to stop the conflict + at any price, even at the price of entire submission to the German Will, + grew more urgent as the necessity that everyone should help against the + German Thing grew more manifest. + </p> + <p> + Of all the strange freaks of distressed thinking that this war has + produced, the freaks of the Genteel Whig have been among the most + remarkable. With an air of profound wisdom he returns perpetually to his + proposition that there are faults on both sides. To say that is his + conception of impartiality. I suppose that if a bull gored his sister he + would say that there were faults on both sides; his sister ought not to + have strayed into the field, she was wearing a red hat of a highly + provocative type; she ought to have been a cow and then everything would + have been different. In the face of the history of the last forty years, + the Genteel Whig struggles persistently to minimise the German outrage + upon civilisation and to find excuses for Germany. He does this, not + because he has any real passion for falsehood, but because by training, + circumstance, and disposition he is passionately averse from action with + the vulgar majority and from self-sacrifice in a common cause, and because + he finds in the justification of Germany and, failing that, in the + blackening of the Allies to an equal blackness, one line of defence + against the wave of impulse that threatens to submerge his private self. + But when at last that line is forced he is driven back upon others equally + extraordinary. You can often find simultaneously in the same Pacifist + paper, and sometimes even in the utterances of the same writer, two + entirely incompatible statements. The first is that Germany is so + invincible that it is useless to prolong the war since no effort of the + Allies is likely to produce any material improvement in their position, + and the second is that Germany is so thoroughly beaten that she is now + ready to abandon militarism and make terms and compensations entirely + acceptable to the countries she has forced into war. And when finally + facts are produced to establish the truth that Germany, though still + largely wicked and impenitent, is being slowly and conclusively beaten by + the sanity, courage and persistence of the Allied common men, then the + Genteel Whig retorts with his last defensive absurdity. He invents a + national psychology for Germany. Germany, he invents, loves us and wants + to be our dearest friend. Germany has always loved us. The Germans are a + loving, unenvious people. They have been a little mislead—but nice + people do not insist upon that fact. But beware of beating Germany, beware + of humiliating Germany; then indeed trouble will come. Germany will begin + to dislike us. She will plan a revenge. Turning aside from her erstwhile + innocent career, she may even think of hate. What are our obligations to + France, Italy, Serbia and Russia, what is the happiness of a few thousands + of the Herero, a few millions of the Belgians—whose numbers moreover + are constantly diminishing—when we might weigh them against the + danger, the most terrible danger, of incurring <i>permanent German + hostility?...</i> + </p> + <p> + A Frenchman I talked to knew better than that. “What will happen to + Germany,” I asked, “if we are able to do so to her and so; would she take + to dreams of a <i>Revanche?</i>” + </p> + <p> + “She will take to Anglomania,” he said, and added after a flash of + reflection, “In the long run it will be the worse for you.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + III. THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + One of the indisputable things about the war, so far as Britain and France + go—and I have reason to believe that on a lesser scale things are + similar in Italy—is that it has produced a very great volume of + religious thought and feeling. About Russia in these matters we hear but + little at the present time, but one guesses at parallelism. People + habitually religious have been stirred to new depths of reality and + sincerity, and people are thinking of religion who never thought of + religion before. But as I have already pointed out, thinking and feeling + about a matter is of no permanent value unless something is <i>thought out</i>, + unless there is a change of boundary or relationship, and it an altogether + different question to ask whether any definite change is resulting from + this universal ferment. If it is not doing so, then the sleeper merely + dreams a dream that he will forget again.... + </p> + <p> + Now in no sort of general popular mental activity is there so much froth + and waste as in religious excitements. This has been the case in all + periods of religious revival. The number who are rather impressed, who for + a few days or weeks take to reading their Bibles or going to a new place + of worship or praying or fasting or being kind and unselfish, is always + enormous in relation to the people whose lives are permanently changed. + The effort needed if a contemporary is to blow off the froth, is always + very considerable. + </p> + <p> + Among the froth that I would blow off is I think most of the tremendous + efforts being made in England by the Anglican church to attract favourable + attention to itself <i>apropos</i> of the war. I came back from my visit + to the Somme battlefields to find the sylvan peace of Essex invaded by a + number of ladies in blue dresses adorned with large white crosses, who, + regardless of the present shortage of nurses, were visiting every home in + the place on some mission of invitation whose details remained obscure. So + far as I was able to elucidate this project, it was in the nature of a + magic incantation; a satisfactory end of the war was to be brought about + by convergent prayer and religious assiduities. The mission was shy of + dealing with me personally, although as a lapsed communicant I should have + thought myself a particularly hopeful field for Anglican effort, and it + came to my wife and myself merely for our permission and countenance in an + appeal to our domestic servants. My wife consulted the household; it + seemed very anxious to escape from that appeal, and as I respect + Christianity sufficiently to detest the identification of its services + with magic processes, the mission retired—civilly repulsed. But the + incident aroused an uneasy curiosity in my mind with regard to the general + trend of Anglican teaching and Anglican activities at the present time. + The trend of my enquiries is to discover the church much more incoherent + and much less religious—in any decent sense of the word—than I + had supposed it to be. + </p> + <p> + Organisation is the life of material and the death of mental and spiritual + processes. There could be no more melancholy exemplification of this than + the spectacle of the Anglican and Catholic churches at the present time, + one using the tragic stresses of war mainly for pew-rent touting, and the + other paralysed by its Austrian and South German political connections + from any clear utterance upon the moral issues of the war. Through the + opening phases of the war the Established Church of England was + inconspicuous; this is no longer the case, but it may be doubted whether + the change is altogether to its advantage. To me this is a very great + disappointment. I have always had a very high opinion of the intellectual + values of the leading divines of both the Anglican and Catholic + communions. The self-styled Intelligentsia of Great Britain is all too + prone to sneer at their equipment; but I do not see how any impartial + person can deny that Father Bernard Vaughn is in mental energy, vigour of + expression, richness of thought and variety of information fully the equal + of such an influential lay publicist as Mr. Horatio Bottomley. One might + search for a long time among prominent laymen to find the equal of the + Bishop of London. Nevertheless it is impossible to conceal the impression + of tawdriness that this latter gentleman's work as head of the National + Mission has left upon my mind. Attired in khaki he has recently been + preaching in the open air to the people of London upon Tower Hill, + Piccadilly, and other conspicuous places. Obsessed as I am by the + humanities, and impressed as I have always been by the inferiority of + material to moral facts, I would willingly have exchanged the sight of two + burning Zeppelins for this spectacle of ecclesiastical fervour. But as it + is, I am obliged to trust to newspaper reports and the descriptions of + hearers and eye-witnesses. They leave to me but little doubt of the + regrettable superficiality of the bishop's utterances. + </p> + <p> + We have a multitude of people chastened by losses, ennobled by a common + effort, needing support in that effort, perplexed by the reality of evil + and cruelty, questioning and seeking after God. What does the National + Mission offer? On Tower Hill the bishop seems to have been chiefly busy + with a wrangling demonstration that ten thousand a year is none too big a + salary for a man subject to such demands and expenses as his see involves. + So far from making anything out of his see he was, he declared, two + thousand a year to the bad. Some day, when the church has studied + efficiency, I suppose that bishops will have the leisure to learn + something about the general state of opinion and education in their + dioceses. The Bishop of London was evidently unaware of the almost + automatic response of the sharp socialists among his hearers. Their first + enquiry would be to learn how he came by that mysterious extra two + thousand a year with which he supplemented his stipend. How did he earn <i>that?</i> + And if he didn't earn it—-! And secondly, they would probably have + pointed out to him that his standard of housing, clothing, diet and + entertaining was probably a little higher than theirs. It is really no + proof of virtuous purity that a man's expenditure exceeds his income. And + finally some other of his hearers were left unsatisfied by his silence + with regard to the current proposal to pool all clerical stipends for the + common purposes of the church. It is a reasonable proposal, and if bishops + must dispute about stipends instead of preaching the kingdom of God, then + they are bound to face it. The sooner they do so, the more graceful will + the act be. From these personal apologetics the bishop took up the + question of the exemption, at the request of the bishops, of the clergy + from military service. It is one of our contrasts with French conditions—and + it is all to the disadvantage of the British churches. + </p> + <p> + In his Piccadilly contribution to the National Mission of Repentance and + Hope the bishop did not talk politics but sex. He gave his hearers the + sort of stuff that is handed out so freely by the Cinema Theatres, White + Slave Traffic talk, denunciations of “Night Hawks”—whatever “Night + Hawks” may be—and so on. One this or another occasion the bishop—he + boasts that he himself is a healthy bachelor—lavished his eloquence + upon the Fall in the Birth Rate, and the duty of all married people, from + paupers upward, to have children persistently. Now sex, like diet, is a + department of conduct and a very important department, but <i>it isn't + religion!</i> The world is distressed by international disorder, by the + monstrous tragedy of war; these little hot talks about indulgence and + begetting have about as much to do with the vast issues that concern us + as, let us say, a discussion of the wickedness of eating very new and + indigestible bread. It is talking round and about the essential issue. It + is fogging the essential issue, which is the forgotten and neglected + kingship of God. The sin that is stirring the souls of men is the sin of + this war. It is the sin of national egotism and the devotion of men to + loyalties, ambitions, sects, churches, feuds, aggressions, and divisions + that are an outrage upon God's universal kingdom. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + The common clergy of France, sharing the military obligations and the food + and privations of their fellow parishioners, contrast very vividly with + the home-staying types of the ministries of the various British churches. + I met and talked to several. Near Frise there were some barge gunboats—they + have since taken their place in the fighting, but then they were a + surprise—and the men had been very anxious to have their craft + visited and seen. The priest who came after our party to see if he could + still arrange that, had been decorated for gallantry. Of course the + English too have their gallant chaplains, but they are men of the officer + caste, they are just young officers with peculiar collars; not men among + men, as are the French priests. + </p> + <p> + There can be no doubt that the behaviour of the French priests in this war + has enormously diminished anti-clerical bitterness in France. There can be + no doubt that France is far more a religious country than it was before + the war. But if you ask whether that means any return to the church, any + reinstatement of the church, the answer is a doubtful one. Religion and + the simple priest are stronger in France to-day; the church, I think, is + weaker. + </p> + <p> + I trench on no theological discussion when I record the unfavourable + impression made upon all western Europe by the failure of the Holy Father + to pronounce definitely upon the rights and wrongs of the war. The church + has abrogated its right of moral judgement. Such at least seemed to be the + opinion of the Frenchmen with whom I discussed a remarkable interview with + Cardinal Gasparri that I found one morning in <i>Le Journal.</i> + </p> + <p> + It was not the sort of interview to win the hearts of men who were ready + to give their lives to set right what they believe to be the greatest + outrage that has ever been inflicted upon Christendom, that is to say the + forty-three years of military preparation and of diplomacy by threats that + culminated in the ultimatum to Serbia, the invasion of Belgium and the + murder of the Vise villagers. It was adorned with a large portrait of + “Benoit XV.,” looking grave and discouraging over his spectacles, and the + headlines insisted it was “<i>La Pensee du Pape.</i>” Cross-heads + sufficiently indicated the general tone. One read: + </p> + <p> + <i>“Le Saint Siege impartial... Au-dessus de la bataille....”</i> The good + Cardinal would have made a good lawyer. He had as little to say about God + and the general righteousness of things as the Bishop of London. But he + got in some smug reminders of the severance of diplomatic relations with + the Vatican. Perhaps now France will be wiser. He pointed out that the + Holy See in its Consistorial Allocution of January 22nd, 1915, invited the + belligerents to observe the rules of war. Could anything more be done than + that? Oh!—in the general issue of the war, if you want a judgement + on the war as a whole, how is it possible that the Vatican to decide? + Surely the French know that excellent principle of justice, <i>Audiatur et + altera pars</i>, and how under existing circumstances can the Vatican do + that...? The Vatican is cut off from communication with Austria and + Germany. The Vatican has been deprived of its temporal power and local + independence (another neat point).... + </p> + <p> + So France is bowed out. When peace is restored, the Vatican will perhaps + be able to enquire if there was a big German army in 1914, if German + diplomacy was aggressive from 1875 onward, if Belgium was invaded + unrighteously, if (Catholic) Austria forced the pace upon (non-Catholic) + Russia. But now—now the Holy See must remain as impartial as an + unbought mascot in a shop window.... + </p> + <p> + The next column of <i>Le Journal</i> contained an account of the Armenian + massacres; the blood of the Armenian cries out past the Holy Father to + heaven; but then Armenians are after all heretics, and here again the + principle of <i>Audiatur et altera pars</i> comes in. Communications are + not open with the Turks. Moreover, Armenians, like Serbs, are worse than + infidels; they are heretics. Perhaps God is punishing them.... + </p> + <p> + <i>Audiatur et altera pars</i>, and the Vatican has not forgotten the + infidelity and disrespect of both France and Italy in the past. These are + the things, it seems, that really matter to the Vatican. Cardinal + Gasparri's portrait, in the same issue of <i>Le Journal</i>, displays a + countenance of serene contentment, a sort of incarnate “Told-you-so.” + </p> + <p> + So the Vatican lifts its pontifical skirts and shakes the dust of western + Europe off its feet. + </p> + <p> + It is the most astounding renunciation in history. + </p> + <p> + Indubitably the Christian church took a wide stride from the kingship of + God when it placed a golden throne for the unbaptised Constantine in the + midst of its most sacred deliberations at Nicaea. But it seems to me that + this abandonment of moral judgements in the present case by the Holy See + is an almost wider step from the church's allegiance to God.... + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + Thought about the great questions of life, thought and reasoned direction, + this is what the multitude demands mutely and weakly, and what the + organised churches are failing to give. They have not the courage of their + creeds. Either their creeds are intellectual flummery or they are the + solution to the riddles with which the world is struggling. But the + churches make no mention of their creeds. They chatter about sex and the + magic effect of church attendance and simple faith. If simple faith is + enough, the churches and their differences are an imposture. Men are + stirred to the deepest questions about life and God, and the Anglican + church, for example, obliges—as I have described. + </p> + <p> + It is necessary to struggle against the unfavourable impression made by + these things. They must not blind us to the deeper movement that is in + progress in a quite considerable number of minds in England and France + alike towards the realisation of the kingdom of God. + </p> + <p> + What I conceive to be the reality of the religious revival is to be found + in quarters remote from the religious professionals. Let me give but one + instance of several that occur to me. I met soon after my return from + France a man who has stirred my curiosity for years, Mr. David Lubin, the + prime mover in the organisation of the International Institute of + Agriculture in Rome. It is a movement that has always appealed to my + imagination. The idea is to establish and keep up to date a record of the + food supplies in the world with a view to the ultimate world control of + food supply and distribution. When its machinery has developed + sufficiently to a control in the interests of civilisation of many other + staples besides foodstuffs. It is in fact the suggestion and beginning of + the economic world peace and the economic world state, just as the Hague + Tribunal is the first faint sketch of a legal world state. The King of + Italy has met Mr. Lubin's idea with open hands. (It was because of this + profoundly interesting experiment that in a not very widely known book of + mine, <i>The World Set Free</i> (May, 1914), in which I represented a + world state as arising out of Armageddon, I made the first world + conference meet at Brissago in Italian Switzerland under the presidency of + the King of Italy.) So that when I found I could meet Mr. Lubin I did so + very gladly. We lunched together in a pretty little room high over + Knightsbridge, and talked through an afternoon. + </p> + <p> + He is a man rather after the type of Gladstone; he could be made to look + like Gladstone in a caricature, and he has that compelling quality of + intense intellectual excitement which was one of the great factors in the + personal effectiveness of Gladstone. He is a Jew, but until I had talked + to him for some time that fact did not occur to me. He is in very ill + health, he has some weakness of the heart that grips him and holds him at + times white and silent. + </p> + <p> + At first we talked of his Institute and its work. Then we came to shipping + and transport. Whenever one talks now of human affairs one comes presently + to shipping and transport generally. In Paris, in Italy, when I returned + to England, everywhere I found “cost of carriage” was being discovered to + be a question of fundamental importance. Yet transport, railroads and + shipping, these vitally important services in the world's affairs, are + nearly everywhere in private hands and run for profit. In the case of + shipping they are run for profit on such antiquated lines that freights + vary from day to day and from hour to hour. It makes the business of food + supply a gamble. And it need not be a gamble. + </p> + <p> + But that is by the way in the present discussion. As we talked, the + prospect broadened out from a prospect of the growing and distribution of + food to a general view of the world becoming one economic community. + </p> + <p> + I talked of various people I had been meeting in the previous few weeks. + “So many of us,” I said, “seem to be drifting away from the ideas of + nationalism and faction and policy, towards something else which is + larger. It is an idea of a right way of doing things for human purposes, + independently of these limited and localised references. Take such things + as international hygiene for example, take <i>this</i> movement. We are + feeling our way towards a bigger rule.” + </p> + <p> + “The rule of Righteousness,” said Mr. Lubin. + </p> + <p> + I told him that I had been coming more and more to the idea—not as a + sentimentality or a metaphor, but as the ruling and directing idea, the + structural idea, of all one's political and social activities—of the + whole world as one state and community and of God as the King of that + state. + </p> + <p> + “But <i>I</i> say that,” cried Mr. Lubin, “I have put my name to that. And—it + is <i>here!</i>” + </p> + <p> + He struggled up, seized an Old Testament that lay upon a side table. He + stood over it and rapped its cover. “It is <i>here</i>,” he said, looking + more like Gladstone than ever, “in the Prophets.” + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + That is all I mean to tell at present of that conversation. + </p> + <p> + We talked of religion for two hours. Mr. Lubin sees things in terms of + Israel and I do not. For all that we see things very much after the same + fashion. That talk was only one of a number of talks about religion that I + have had with hard and practical men who want to get the world straighter + than it is, and who perceive that they must have a leadership and + reference outside themselves. That is why I assert so confidently that + there is a real deep religious movement afoot in the world. But not one of + those conversations could have gone on, it would have ceased instantly, if + anyone bearing the uniform and brand of any organised religious body, any + clergyman, priest, mollah, of suchlike advocate of the ten thousand + patented religions in the world, had come in. He would have brought in his + sectarian spites, his propaganda of church-going, his persecution of the + heretic and the illegitimate, his ecclesiastical politics, his taboos, and + his doctrinal touchiness.... That is why, though I perceive there is a + great wave of religious revival in the world to-day, I doubt whether it + bodes well for the professional religions.... + </p> + <p> + The other day I was talking to an eminent Anglican among various other + people and someone with an eye to him propounded this remarkable view. + </p> + <p> + “There are four stages between belief and utter unbelief. There are those + who believe in God, those who doubt like Huxley the Agnostic, those who + deny him like the Atheists but who do at least keep his place vacant, and + lastly those who have set up a Church in his place. That is the last + outrage of unbelief.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IV. THE RIDDLE OF THE BRITISH + </h2> + <p> + All the French people I met in France seemed to be thinking and talking + about the English. The English bring their own atmosphere with them; to + begin with they are not so talkative, and I did not find among them + anything like the same vigour of examination, the same resolve to + understand the Anglo-French reaction, that I found among the French. In + intellectual processes I will confess that my sympathies are undisguisedly + with the French; the English will never think nor talk clearly until the + get clerical “Greek” and sham “humanities” out of their public schools and + sincere study and genuine humanities in; our disingenuous Anglican + compromise is like a cold in the English head, and the higher education in + England is a training in evasion. This is an always lamentable state of + affairs, but just now it is particularly lamentable because quite + tremendous opportunities for the good of mankind turn on the possibility + of a thorough and entirely frank mutual understanding between French, + Italians, and English. For years there has been a considerable amount of + systematic study in France of English thought and English developments. + Upon almost any question of current English opinion and upon most current + English social questions, the best studies are in French. But there has + been little or no reciprocal activity. The English in France seem to + confine their French studies to <i>La Vie Parisienne.</i> It is what they + have been led to expect of French literature. + </p> + <p> + There can be no doubt in any reasonable mind that this war is binding + France and England very closely together. They dare not quarrel for the + next fifty years. They are bound to play a central part in the World + League for the Preservation of Peace that must follow this struggle. There + is no question of their practical union. It is a thing that must be. But + it is remarkable that while the French mind is agog to apprehend every + fact and detail it can about the British, to make the wisest and fullest + use of our binding necessities, that strange English “incuria”—to + use the new slang—attains to its most monumental in this matter. + </p> + <p> + So there is not much to say about how the British think about the French. + They do not think. They feel. At the outbreak of the war, when the + performance of France seemed doubtful, there was an enormous feeling for + France in Great Britain; it was like the formless feeling one has for a + brother. It was as if Britain had discovered a new instinct. If France had + crumpled up like paper, the English would have fought on passionately to + restore her. That is ancient history now. Now the English still feel + fraternal and fraternally proud; but in a mute way they are dazzled. Since + the German attack on Verdun began, the French have achieved a crescendo. + None of us could have imagined it. It did not seem possible to very many + of us at the end of 1915 that either France or Germany could hold on for + another year. There was much secret anxiety for France. It has given place + now to unstinted confidence and admiration. In their astonishment the + British are apt to forget the impressive magnitude of their own effort, + the millions of soldiers, the innumerable guns, the endless torrent of + supplies that pour into France to avenge the little army of Mons. It seems + natural to us that we should so exert ourselves under the circumstances. I + suppose it is wonderful, but, as a sample Englishman, I do not feel that + it is at all wonderful. I did not feel it wonderful even when I saw the + British aeroplanes lording it in the air over Martinpuich, and not a + German to be seen. Since Michael would have it so, there, at last, they + were. + </p> + <p> + There was a good deal of doubt in France about the vigour of the British + effort, until the Somme offensive. All that had been dispelled in August + when I reached Paris. There was not the shadow of a doubt remaining + anywhere of the power and loyalty of the British. These preliminary + assurances have to be made, because it is in the nature of the French mind + to criticise, and it must not be supposed that criticisms of detail and + method affect the fraternity and complete mutual confidence which is the + stuff of the Anglo-French relationship. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + Now first the French have been enormously astonished by the quality of the + ordinary British soldiers in our new armies. One Colonial colonel said + something almost incredible to me—almost incredible as coming as + from a Frenchman; it was a matter to solemn for any compliments or polite + exaggerations; he said in tones of wonder and conviction, “<i>They are as + good as ours.</i>” It was his acme of all possible praise. + </p> + <p> + That means any sort of British soldier. Unless he is assisted by a kilt + the ordinary Frenchman is unable to distinguish between one sort of + British soldier and another. He cannot tell—let the ardent + nationalist mark the fact!—a Cockney from an Irishman or the Cardiff + from the Essex note. He finds them all extravagantly and unquenchably + cheerful and with a generosity—“like good children.” There his + praise is a little tinged by doubt. The British are reckless—recklessness + in battle a Frenchman can understand, but they are also reckless about + to-morrow's bread and whether the tent is safe against a hurricane in the + night. He is struck too by the fact that they are much more vocal than the + French troops, and that they seem to have a passion for bad lugubrious + songs. There he smiles and shrugs his shoulders, and indeed what else can + any of us do in the presence of that mystery? At any rate the legend of + the “phlegmatic” Englishman has been scattered to the four winds of heaven + by the guns of the western front. The men are cool in action, it is true; + but for the rest they are, by the French standards, quicksilver. + </p> + <p> + But I will not expand further upon the general impression made by the + English in France. Philippe Millet's <i>En Liaison avec les Anglais</i> + gives in a series of delightful pictures portraits of British types from + the French angle. There can be little doubt that the British quality, + genial naive, plucky and generous, has won for itself a real affection in + France wherever it has had a chance to display itself.... + </p> + <p> + But when it comes to British methods then the polite Frenchman's + difficulties begin. Translating hints into statements and guessing at + reservations, I would say that the French fall very short of admiration of + the way in which our higher officers set about their work, they are + disagreeably impressed by a general want of sedulousness and close method + in our leading. They think we economise brains and waste blood. They are + shocked at the way in which obviously incompetent or inefficient men of + the old army class are retained in their positions even after serious + failures, and they were profoundly moved by the bad staff work and + needlessly heavy losses of our opening attacks in July. They were ready to + condone the blunderings and flounderings of the 1915 offensive as the + necessary penalties of an “amateur” army, they had had to learn their own + lesson in Champagne, but they were surprised to find how much the British + had still to learn in July, 1916. The British officers excuse themselves + because, they plead, they are still amateurs. “That is no reason,” says + the Frenchman, “why they should be amateurish.” + </p> + <p> + No Frenchman said as much as this to me, but their meaning was as plain as + daylight. I tackled one of my guides on this matter; I said that it was + the plain duty of the French military people to criticise British military + methods sharply if they thought they were wrong. “It is not easy,” he + said. “Many British officers do not think they have anything to learn. And + English people do not like being told things. What could we do? We could + hardly send a French officer or so to your headquarters in a tutorial + capacity. You have to do things in your own way.” When I tried to draw + General Castelnau into this dangerous question by suggesting that we might + borrow a French general or so, he would say only, “There is only one way + to learn war, and that is to make war.” When it was too late, in the lift, + I thought of the answer to that. There is only one way to make war, and + that is by the sacrifice of incapables and the rapid promotion of able + men. If old and tried types fail now, new types must be sought. But to do + that we want a standard of efficiency. We want a conception of + intellectual quality in performance that is still lacking.... + </p> + <p> + M. Joseph Reinach, in whose company I visited the French part of the Somme + front, was full of a scheme, which he has since published, for the + breaking up and recomposition of the French and British armies into a + series of composite armies which would blend the magnificent British + manhood and material with French science and military experience. He + pointed out the endless advantages of such an arrangement; the stimulus of + emulation, the promotion of intimate fraternal feeling between the peoples + of the two countries. “At present,” he said, “no Frenchman ever sees an + Englishman except at Amiens or on the Somme. Many of them still have no + idea of what the English are doing....” + </p> + <p> + “Have I ever told you the story of compulsory Greek at Oxford and + Cambridge?” I asked abruptly. + </p> + <p> + “What has that to do with it?” + </p> + <p> + “Or how two undistinguished civil service commissioners can hold up the + scientific education of our entire administrative class?” + </p> + <p> + M. Reinach protested further. + </p> + <p> + “Because you are proposing to loosen the grip of a certain narrow and + limited class upon British affairs, and you propose it as though it were a + job as easy as rearranging railway fares or sending a van to Calais. That + is the problem that every decent Englishman is trying to solve to-day, + every man of that Greater Britain which has supplied these five million + volunteers, these magnificent temporary officers and all this wealth of + munitions. And the oligarchy is so invincibly fortified! Do you think it + will let in Frenchmen to share its controls? It will not even let in + Englishmen. It holds the class schools; the class universities; the + examinations for our public services are its class shibboleths; it is the + church, the squirearchy, the permanent army class, permanent officialdom; + it makes every appointment, it is the fountain of honour; what it does not + know is not knowledge, what it cannot do must not be done. It rules India + ignorantly and obstructively; it will wreck the empire rather than + relinquish its ascendancy in Ireland. It is densely self-satisfied and + instinctively monopolistic. It is on our backs, and with it on our backs + we common English must bleed and blunder to victory.... And you make this + proposal!” + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + The antagonistic relations of the Anglican oligarchy with the greater and + greater-spirited Britain that thrust behind it in this war are probably + paralleled very closely in Germany, probably they are exaggerated in + Germany with a bigger military oligarchy and a relatively lesser civil + body under it. This antagonism is the oddest outcome of the tremendous <i>de-militarisation</i> + of war that has been going on. In France it is probably not so marked + because of the greater flexibility and adaptability of the French culture. + </p> + <p> + All military people—people, that is, professionally and primarily + military—are inclined to be conservative. For thousands of years the + military tradition has been a tradition of discipline. The conception of + the common soldier has been a mechanically obedient, almost dehumanised + man, of the of officer a highly trained autocrat. In two years all this + has been absolutely reversed. Individual quality, inventive organisation + and industrialism will win this war. And no class is so innocent of these + things as the military caste. Long accustomed as they are to the + importance of moral effect they put a brave face upon the business; they + save their faces astonishingly, but they are no longer guiding and + directing this war, they are being pushed from behind by forces they never + foresaw and cannot control. The aeroplanes and great guns have bolted with + them, the tanks begotten of naval and civilian wits, shove them to victory + in spite of themselves. + </p> + <p> + Wherever I went behind the British lines the officers were going about in + spurs. These spurs at last got on my nerves. They became symbolical. They + became as grave an insult to the tragedy of the war as if they were false + noses. The British officers go for long automobile rides in spurs. They + walk about the trenches in spurs. Occasionally I would see a horse; I do + not wish to be unfair in this matter, there were riding horses sometimes + within two or three miles of the ultimate front, but they were rarely + used. + </p> + <p> + I do not say that the horse is entirely obsolescent in this war. In was + nothing is obsolete. In the trenches men fight with sticks. In the Pasubio + battle the other day one of the Alpini silenced a machine gun by throwing + stones. In the West African campaign we have employed troops armed with + bows and arrows, and they have done very valuable work. But these are + exceptional cases. The military use of the horse henceforth will be such + an exceptional case. It is ridiculous for these spurs still to clink about + the modern battlefield. What the gross cost of the spurs and horses and + trappings of the British army amount to, and how many men are grooming and + tending horses who might just as well be ploughing and milking at home, I + cannot guess; it must be a total so enormous as seriously to affect the + balance of the war. + </p> + <p> + And these spurs and their retention are only the outward and visible + symbol of the obstinate resistance of the Anglican intelligence to the + clear logic of the present situation. It is not only the external + equipment of our leaders that falls behind the times; our political and + administrative services are in the hands of the same desolatingly + inadaptable class. The British are still wearing spurs in Ireland; they + are wearing them in India; and the age of the spur has passed. At the + outset of this war there was an absolute cessation of criticism of the + military and administrative castes; it is becoming a question whether we + may not pay too heavily in blundering and waste, in military and economic + lassitude, in international irritation and the accumulation of future + dangers in Ireland, Egypt, India, and elsewhere, for an apparent absence + of internal friction. These people have no gratitude for tacit help, no + spirit of intelligent service, and no sense of fair play to the outsider. + The latter deficiency indeed they call <i>esprit de corps</i> and prize it + as if it were a noble quality. + </p> + <p> + It becomes more and more imperative that the foreign observer should + distinguish between this narrower, older official Britain and the greater + newer Britain that struggles to free itself from the entanglement of a + system outgrown. There are many Englishmen who would like to say to the + French and Irish and the Italians and India, who indeed feel every week + now a more urgent need of saying, “Have patience with us.” The Riddle of + the British is very largely solved if you will think of a great modern + liberal nation seeking to slough an exceedingly tough and tight skin.... + </p> + <p> + Nothing is more illuminating and self-educational than to explain one's + home politics to an intelligent foreigner enquirer; it strips off all the + secondary considerations, the allusiveness, the merely tactical + considerations, the allusiveness, the merely tactical considerations. One + sees the forest not as a confusion of trees but as something with a + definite shape and place. I was asked in Italy and in France, “Where does + Lord Northcliffe come into the British system—or Lloyd George? Who + is Mr. Redmond? Why is Lloyd George a Minister, and why does not Mr. + Redmond take office? Isn't there something called an ordnance department, + and why is there a separate ministry of munitions? Can Mr. Lloyd George + remove an incapable general?...” + </p> + <p> + I found it M. Joseph Reinach particularly penetrating and persistent. It + is an amusing but rather difficult exercise to recall what I tried to + convey to him by way of a theory of Britain. He is by no means an + uncritical listener. I explained that there is an “inner Britain,” + official Britain, which is Anglican or official Presbyterian, which at the + outside in the whole world cannot claim to speak for twenty million + Anglican or Presbyterian communicants, which monopolises official + positions, administration and honours in the entire British empire, + dominates the court, and, typically, is spurred and red-tabbed. (It was + just at this time that the spurs were most on my nerves.) + </p> + <p> + This inner Britain, I went on to explain, holds tenaciously to its + positions of advantage, from which it is difficult to dislodge it without + upsetting the whole empire, and it insists upon treating the rest of the + four hundred millions who constitute that empire as outsiders, foreigners, + subject races and suspected persons. + </p> + <p> + “To you,” I said, “it bears itself with an appearance of faintly hostile, + faintly contemptuous apathy. It is still so entirely insular that it + shudders at the thought of the Channel Tunnel. This is the Britain which + irritates and puzzles you so intensely—that you are quite unable to + conceal these feelings from me. Unhappily it is the Britain you see most + of. Well, outside this official Britain is 'Greater Britain'—the + real Britain with which you have to reckon in the future.” (From this + point a faint flavour of mysticism crept into my dissertation. I found + myself talking with something in my voice curiously reminiscent of those + liberal Russians who set themselves to explain the contrasts and + contradictions of “official” Russia and “true” Russia.) “This Greater + Britain,” I asserted, “is in a perpetual conflict with official Britain, + struggling to keep it up to its work, shoving it towards its ends, + endeavouring in spite of its tenacious mischievousness of the privileged + to keep the peace and a common aim with the French and Irish and Italians + and Russians and Indians. It is to that outer Britain that those + Englishmen you found so interesting and sympathetic, Lloyd George and Lord + Northcliffe, for example, belong. It is the Britain of the great effort, + the Britain of the smoking factories and the torrent of munitions, the + Britain of the men and subalterns of the new armies, the Britain which + invents and thinks and achieves, and stands now between German imperialism + and the empire of the world. I do not want to exaggerate the quality of + greater Britain. If the inner set are narrowly educated, the outer set if + often crudely educated. If the inner set is so close knit as to seem like + a conspiracy, the outer set is so loosely knit as to seem like a noisy + confusion. Greater Britain is only beginning to realise itself and find + itself. For all its crudity there is a giant spirit in it feeling its way + towards the light. It has quite other ambitions for the ending of the war + than some haggled treaty of alliance with France and Italy; some advantage + that will invalidate German competition; it begins to realise newer and + wider sympathies, possibilities of an amalgamation of interests and + community of aim that is utterly beyond the habits of the old oligarchy to + conceive, beyond the scope of that tawdry word 'Empire' to express....” + </p> + <p> + I descended from my rhetoric to find M. Reinach asking how and when this + greater Britain was likely to become politically effective. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + V. THE SOCIAL CHANGES IN PROGRESS + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + “Nothing will be the same after the war.” This is one of the consoling + platitudes with which people cover over voids of thought. They utter it + with an air of round-eyed profundity. But to ask in reply, “Then how will + things be different?” is in many cases to rouse great resentment. It is + almost as rude as saying, “Was that thought of yours really a thought?” + </p> + <p> + Let us in this chapter confine ourselves to the social-economic processes + that are going on. So far as I am able to distinguish among the things + that are being said in these matters, they may be classified out into + groups that centre upon several typical questions. There is the question + of “How to pay for the war?” There is the question of the behaviour of + labour after the war. “Will there be a Labour Truce or a violent labour + struggle?” There is the question of the reconstruction of European + industry after the war in the face of an America in a state of monetary + and economic repletion through non-intervention. My present purpose in + this chapter is a critical one; it is not to solve problems but to set out + various currents of thought that are flowing through the general mind. + Which current is likely to seize upon and carry human affairs with it, is + not for our present speculation. + </p> + <p> + There seem to be two distinct ways of answering the first of the questions + I have noted. They do not necessarily contradict each other. Of course the + war is being largely paid for immediately out of the accumulated private + wealth of the past. We are buying off the “hold-up” of the private owner + upon the material and resources we need, and paying in paper money and war + loans. This is not in itself an impoverishment of the community. The + wealth of individuals is not the wealth of nations; the two things may + easily be contradictory when the rich man's wealth consists of land or + natural resources or franchises or privileges the use of which he + reluctantly yields for high prices. The conversion of held-up land and + material into workable and actively used material in exchange for national + debt may be indeed a positive increase in the wealth of the community. And + what is happening in all the belligerent countries is the taking over of + more and more of the realities of wealth from private hands and, in + exchange, the contracting of great masses of debt to private people. The + nett tendency is towards the disappearance of a reality holding class and + the destruction of realities in warfare, and the appearance of a vast <i>rentier</i> + class in its place. At the end of the war much material will be destroyed + for evermore, transit, food production and industry will be everywhere + enormously socialised, and the country will be liable to pay every year in + interest, a sum of money exceeding the entire national expenditure before + the war. From the point of view of the state, and disregarding material + and moral damages, that annual interest is the annual instalment of the + price to be paid for the war. + </p> + <p> + Now the interesting question arises whether these great belligerent states + may go bankrupt, and if so to what extent. States may go bankrupt to the + private creditor without repudiating their debts or seeming to pay less to + him. They can go bankrupt either by a depreciation of their currency or—without + touching the gold standard—through a rise in prices. In the end both + these things work out to the same end; the creditor gets so many loaves or + pairs of boots or workman's hours of labour for his pound <i>less</i> than + he would have got under the previous conditions. One may imagine this + process of price (and of course wages) increase going on to a limitless + extent. Many people are inclined to look to such an increase in prices as + a certain outcome of the war, and just so far as it goes, just so far will + the burthen of the <i>rentier</i> class, their call, tat is, for goods and + services, be lightened. This expectation is very generally entertained, + and I can see little reason against it. The intensely stupid or dishonest + “labour” press, however, which in the interests of the common enemy + misrepresents socialism and seeks to misguide labour in Great Britain, + ignores these considerations, and positively holds out this prospect of + rising prices as an alarming one to the more credulous and ignorant of its + readers. + </p> + <p> + But now comes the second way of meeting the after-the-war obligations. + This second way is by increasing the wealth of the state and by increasing + the national production to such an extent that the payment of the <i>rentier</i> + class will not be an overwhelming burthen. Rising prices bilk the + creditor. Increased production will check the rise in prices and get him a + real payment. The outlook for the national creditor seems to be that he + will be partly bilked and partly paid; how far he will be bilked and how + far depends almost entirely upon this possible increase in production; and + there is consequently a very keen and quite unprecedented desire very + widely diffused among intelligent and active people, holding War Loan + scrip and the like, in all the belligerent countries, to see bold and + hopeful schemes for state enrichment pushed forward. The movement towards + socialism is receiving an impulse from a new and unexpected quarter, there + is now a <i>rentier</i> socialism, and it is interesting to note that + while the London <i>Times</i> is full of schemes of great state + enterprises, for the exploitation of Colonial state lands, for the state + purchase and wholesaling of food and many natural products, and for the + syndication of shipping and the great staple industries into vast trusts + into which not only the British but the French and Italian governments may + enter as partners, the so-called socialist press of Great Britain is + chiefly busy about the draughts in the cell of Mr. Fenner Brockway and the + refusal of Private Scott Duckers to put on his khaki trousers. <i>The New + Statesman</i> and the Fabian Society, however, display a wider + intelligence. + </p> + <p> + There is a great variety of suggestions for this increase of public wealth + and production. Many of them have an extreme reasonableness. The extent to + which they will be adopted depends, no doubt, very largely upon the + politician and permanent official, and both these classes are prone to + panic in the presence of reality. In spite of its own interests in + restraining a rise in prices, the old official “salariat” is likely to be + obstructive to any such innovations. It is the resistance of spurs and red + tabs to military innovations over again. This is the resistance of quills + and red tape. On the other hand the organisation of Britain for war has + “officialised” a number of industrial leaders, and created a large body of + temporary and adventurous officials. They may want to carry on into peace + production the great new factories the war has created. At the end of the + war, for example, every belligerent country will be in urgent need of + cheap automobiles for farmers, tradesmen, and industrial purposes + generally, America is now producing such automobiles at a price of eighty + pounds. But Europe will be heavily in debt to America, her industries will + be disorganised, and there will therefore be no sort of return payment + possible for these hundreds of thousands of automobiles. A country that is + neither creditor nor producer cannot be an importer. Consequently though + those cheap tin cars may be stacked as high as the Washington Monument in + America, they will never come to Europe. On the other hand the great shell + factories of Europe will be standing idle and ready, their staffs + disciplined and available, for conversion to the new task. The imperative + common sense of the position seems to be that the European governments + should set themselves straight away to out-Ford Ford, and provide their + own people with cheap road transport. + </p> + <p> + But here comes in the question whether this common-sense course is + inevitable. Suppose the mental energy left in Europe after the war is + insufficient for such a constructive feat as this. There will certainly be + the obstruction of official pedantry, the hold-up of this vested interest + and that, the greedy desire of “private enterprise” to exploit the + occasion upon rather more costly and less productive lines, the general + distrust felt by ignorant and unimaginative people of a new way of doing + things. The process after all may not get done in the obviously wise way. + This will not mean that Europe will buy American cars. It will be quite + unable to buy American cars. It will be unable to make anything that + America will not be able to make more cheaply for itself. But it will mean + that Europe will go on without cheap cars, that is to say it will go on a + more sluggishly and clumsily and wastefully at a lower economic level. + Hampered transport means hampered production of other things, and in + increasing inability to buy abroad. And so we go down and down. + </p> + <p> + It does not follow that because a course is the manifestly right and + advantageous course for the community that it will be taken. I am reminded + of this by a special basket in my study here, into which I pitch letters, + circulars, pamphlets and so forth as they come to hand from a gentleman + named Gattie, and his friends Mr. Adrian Ross, Mr. Roy Horniman, Mr. Henry + Murray and others. His particular project is the construction of a Railway + Clearing House for London. It is an absolutely admirable scheme. It would + cut down the heavy traffic in the streets of London to about one-third; it + would enable us to run the goods traffic of England with less than half + the number of railway trucks we now employ; it would turn over enormous + areas of valuable land from their present use as railway goods yards and + sidings; it would save time in the transit of goods and labour in their + handling. It is a quite beautifully worked out scheme. For the last eight + or ten years this group of devoted fanatics has been pressing this + undertaking upon an indifferent country with increasing vehemence and + astonishment at that indifference. The point is that its adoption, though + it would be of general benefit, would be of no particular benefit to any + leading man or highly placed official. On the other hand it would upset + all sorts of individuals who are in a position to obstruct it quietly—and + they do so. Meaning no evil. I dip my hand in the accumulation and extract + a leaflet by the all too zealous Mr. Murray. In it he denounces various + public officials by name as he cheats and scoundrels, and invites a + prosecution for libel. + </p> + <p> + In that fashion nothing will ever get done. There is no prosecution, but + for all that I do not agree with Mr. Murray about the men he names. These + gentlemen are just comfortable gentlemen, own brothers to these old + generals of ours who will not take off their spurs. They are probably + quite charming people except that they know nothing of that Fear of God + which searches by heart. Why should they bother? + </p> + <p> + So many of these after-the-war problems bring one back to the question of + how far the war has put the Fear of God into the hearts of responsible + men. There is really no other reason in existence that I can imagine why + they should ask themselves the question, “Have I done my best?” and that + still more important question, “Am I doing my best now?” And so while I + hear plenty of talk about the great reorganisations that are to come after + the war, while there is the stir of doubt among the <i>rentiers</i> + whether, after all, they will get paid, while the unavoidable stresses and + sacrifices of the war are making many people question the rightfulness of + much that they did as a matter of course, and of much that they took for + granted, I perceive there is also something dull and not very articulate + in this European world, something resistant and inert, that is like the + obstinate rolling over of a heavy sleeper after he has been called upon to + get up. “Just a little longer.... Just for <i>my</i> time.” + </p> + <p> + One thought alone seems to make these more intractable people anxious. I + thrust it in as my last stimulant when everything else has failed. “There + will be <i>frightful</i> trouble with labour after the war,” I say. + </p> + <p> + They try to persuade themselves that military discipline is breaking in + labour.... + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + What does British labour think of the outlook after the war? + </p> + <p> + As a distinctive thing British labour does not think. “Class-conscious + labour,” as the Marxists put it, scarcely exists in Britain. The only + convincing case I ever met was a bath-chairman of literary habits + Eastbourne. The only people who are, as a class, class-conscious in the + British community are the Anglican gentry and their fringe of the genteel. + Everybody else is “respectable.” The mass of British workers find their + thinking in the ordinary halfpenny papers or in <i>John Bull.</i> The + so-called labour papers are perhaps less representative of British Labour + than any other section of the press; the <i>Labour Leader</i>, for + example, is the organ of such people as Bertrand Russell, Vernon Lee, + Morel, academic <i>rentiers</i> who know about as much as of the labour + side of industrialism as they do of cock-fighting. All the British peoples + are racially willing and good-tempered people, quite ready to be led by + those they imagine to be abler than themselves. They make the most + cheerful and generous soldiers in the whole world, without insisting upon + that democratic respect which the Frenchman exacts. They do not criticise + and they do not trouble themselves much about the general plan of + operations, so long as they have confidence in the quality and good will + of their leading. But British soldiers will of their loading. But British + soldiers will hiss a general when they think he is selfish, unfeeling, or + a muff. And the socialist propaganda has imported ideas of public service + into private employment. Labour in Britain has been growing increasingly + impatient of bad or selfish industrial leadership. Labour trouble in Great + Britain turns wholly upon the idea crystallised in the one word + “profiteer.” Legislation and regulation of hours of labour, high wages, + nothing will keep labour quiet in Great Britain if labour thinks it is + being exploited for private gain. + </p> + <p> + Labour feels very suspicious of private gain. For that suspicion a certain + rather common type of employer is mainly to blame. Labour believes that + employers is mainly to blame. Labour believes that employers as a class + cheat workmen as a class, plan to cheat them of their full share in the + common output, and drive hard bargains. It believes that private employers + are equally ready to sacrifice the welfare of the nation and the welfare + of the workers for mere personal advantage. It has a traditional + experience to support these suspicions. + </p> + <p> + In no department of morals have ideas changed so completely during the + last eight years as in relation to “profits”. Eighty years ago everyone + believed in the divine right of property to do what it pleased its + advantages, a doctrine more disastrous socially than the divine right of + kings. There was no such sense of the immorality of “holding up” as + pervades the public conscience to-day. The worker was expected not only to + work, but to be grateful for employment. The property owner held his + property and handed it out for use and development or not, just as he + thought fit. These ideas are not altogether extinct today. Only a few days + ago I met a magnificent old lady of seventy nine or eighty, who discoursed + upon the wickedness of her gardener in demanding another shilling a week + because of war prices. + </p> + <p> + She was a valiant and handsome personage. A face that had still a healthy + natural pinkness looked out from under blond curls, and an elegant and + carefully tended hand tossed back some fine old lace to gesticulate more + freely. She had previously charmed her hearers by sweeping aside certain + rumours that were drifting about. + </p> + <p> + “Germans invade <i>Us!</i>” she cried. “Who'd <i>let</i> 'em, I'd like to + know? Who'd <i>let</i> 'em?” + </p> + <p> + And then she reverted to her grievance about the gardener. + </p> + <p> + “I told him that after the war he'd be glad enough to get anything. + Grateful! They'll all be coming back after the war—all of 'em, glad + enough to get anything. Asking for another shilling indeed!” + </p> + <p> + Everyone who heard her looked shocked. But that was the tone of everyone + of importance in the dark years that followed the Napoleonic wars. That is + just one survivor of the old tradition. Another is Blight the solicitor, + who goes about bewailing the fact that we writers are “holding out false + hopes of higher agricultural wages after the war.” But these are both + exceptions. They are held to be remarkable people even by their own class. + The mass of property owners and influential people in Europe to-day no + more believe in the sacred right of property to hold up development and + dictate terms than do the more intelligent workers. The ideas of + collective ends and of the fiduciary nature of property, had been soaking + through the European community for years before the war. The necessity for + sudden and even violent co-operations and submersions of individuality in + a common purpose, is rapidly crystallising out these ideas into clear + proposals. + </p> + <p> + War is an evil thing, but most people who will not learn from reason must + have an ugly teacher. This war has brought home to everyone the supremacy + of the public need over every sort of individual claim. + </p> + <p> + One of the most remarkable things in the British war press is the amount + of space given to the discussion of labour developments after the war. + This in its completeness peculiar to the British situation. Nothing on the + same scale is perceptible in the press of the Latin allies. A great + movement on the part of capitalists and business organisers is manifest to + assure the worker of a change of heart and a will to change method. Labour + is suspicious, not foolishly but wisely suspicious. But labour is + considering it. + </p> + <p> + “National industrial syndication,” say the business organisers. + </p> + <p> + “Guild socialism,” say the workers. + </p> + <p> + There is also a considerable amount of talking and writing about + “profit-sharing” and about giving the workers a share in the business + direction. Neither of these ideas appeals to the shrewder heads among the + workers. So far as direction goes their disposition is to ask the captain + to command the ship. So far as profits go, they think the captain has no + more right than the cabin boy to speculative gains; he should do his work + for his pay whether it is profitable or unprofitable work. There is little + balm for labour discontent in these schemes for making the worker also an + infinitesimal profiteer. + </p> + <p> + During my journey in Italy and France I met several men who were keenly + interested in business organisation. Just before I started my friend N, + who has been the chief partner in the building up of a very big and very + extensively advertised American business, came to see me on his way back + to America. He is as interested in his work as a scientific specialist, + and as ready to talk about it to any intelligent and interested hearer. He + was particularly keen upon the question of continuity in the business, + when it behoves the older generation to let in the younger to responsible + management and to efface themselves. He was a man of five-and-forty. + Incidentally he mentioned that he had never taken anything for his private + life out of the great business he had built up but a salary, “a good + salary,” and that now he was gong to grant himself a pension. “I shan't + interfere any more. I shall come right away and live in Europe for a year + so as not to be tempted to interfere. The boys have got to run it some + day, and they had better get their experience while they're young and + capable of learning by it. I did.” + </p> + <p> + I like N's ideas. “Practically,” I said, “you've been a public official. + You've treated your business like a public service.” + </p> + <p> + That was his idea. + </p> + <p> + “Would you mind if it was a public service?” + </p> + <p> + He reflected, and some disagreeable memory darkened his face. “Under the + politicians?” he said. + </p> + <p> + I took the train of thought N had set going abroad with me next day. I had + the good luck to meet men who were interesting industrially. Captain + Pirelli, my guide in Italy, has a name familiar to every motorist; his + name goes wherever cars go, spelt with a big long capital P. Lieutenant de + Tessin's name will recall one of the most interesting experiments in + profit-sharing to the student of social science. I tried over N's problem + on both of them. I found in both their minds just the same attitude as he + takes up towards his business. They think any businesses that are worthy + of respect, the sorts of businesses that interest them, are public + functions. Money-lenders and speculators, merchants and gambling + gentlefolk may think in terms of profit; capable business directors + certainly do nothing of the sort. + </p> + <p> + I met a British officer in France who is also a landowner. I got him to + talk about his administrative work upon his property. He was very keen + upon new methods. He said he tried to do his duty by his land. + </p> + <p> + “How much land?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “Just over nine thousand acres,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “But you could manage forty or fifty thousand with little more trouble.” + </p> + <p> + “If I had it. In some ways it would be easier.” + </p> + <p> + “What a waste!” I said. “Of course you ought not to <i>own</i> these + acres; what you ought to be is the agricultural controller of just as big + an estate of the public lands as you could manage—with a suitable + salary.” + </p> + <p> + He reflected upon that idea. He said he did not get much of a salary out + of his land as it was, and made a regrettable allusion to Mr. Lloyd + George. “When a man tries to do his duty by his land,” he said... + </p> + <p> + But here running through the thoughts of the Englishman and the Italian + and the Frenchman and the American alike one finds just the same idea of a + kind of officialdom in ownership. It is an idea that pervades our thought + and public discussion to-day everywhere, and it is an idea that is + scarcely traceable at all in the thought of the early half of the + nineteenth century. The idea of service and responsibility in property has + increased and is increasing, the conception of “hold-up,” the usurer's + conception of his right to be bought out of the way, fades. And the + process has been enormously enhanced by the various big-scale experiments + in temporary socialism that have been forced upon the belligerent powers. + Men of the most individualistic quality are being educated up to the + possibilities of concerted collective action. My friend and fellow-student + Y, inventor and business organiser, who used to make the best steam + omnibuses in the world, and who is now making all sorts of things for the + army, would go pink with suspicious anger at the mere words “inspector” or + “socialism” three or four years ago. He does not do so now. + </p> + <p> + A great proportion of this sort of man, this energetic directive sort of + man in England, is thinking socialism to-day. They may not be saying + socialism, but they are thinking it. When labour begins to realise what is + adrift it will be divided between two things: between appreciative + co-operation, for which guild socialism in particular has prepared its + mind, and traditional suspicion. I will not over to guess here which will + prevail. + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + The impression I have of the present mental process in the European + communities is that while the official class and the <i>rentier</i> class + is thinking very poorly and inadequately and with a merely obstructive + disposition; while the churches are merely wasting their energies in + futile self-advertisement; while the labour mass is suspicious and + disposed to make terms for itself rather than come into any large schemes + of reconstruction that will abolish profit as a primary aim in economic + life, there is still a very considerable movement towards such a + reconstruction. Nothing is so misleading as a careless analogy. In the + dead years that followed the Napoleonic wars, which are often quoted as a + precedent for expectation now, the spirit of collective service was near + its minimum; it was never so strong and never so manifestly spreading and + increasing as it is to-day. + </p> + <p> + But service to what? + </p> + <p> + I have my own very strong preconceptions here, and since my temperament is + sanguine they necessarily colour my view. I believe that this impulse to + collective service can satisfy itself only under the formula that mankind + is one state of which God is the undying king, and that the service of + men's collective needs is the true worship of God. But eagerly as I would + grasp at any evidence that this idea is being developed and taken up by + the general consciousness, I am quite unable to persuade myself that + anything of the sort is going on. I do perceive a search for large forms + into which the prevalent impulse to devotion can be thrown. But the + organised religious bodies, with their creeds and badges and their + instinct for self-preservation at any cost, stand between men and their + spiritual growth in just the same way the forestallers stand between men + and food. Their activities at present are an almost intolerable nuisance. + One cannot say “God” but some tout is instantly seeking to pluck one into + his particular cave of flummery and orthodoxy. What a rational man means + by God is just God. The more you define and argue about God the more he + remains the same simple thing. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, modern Hindu + religious thought, all agree in declaring that there is one God, master + and leader of all mankind, in unending conflict with cruelty, disorder, + folly and waste. To my mind, it follows immediately that there can be no + king, no government of any sort, which is not either a subordinate or a + rebel government, a local usurpation, in the kingdom of God. But no + organised religious body has ever had the courage and honesty to insist + upon this. They all pander to nationalism and to powers and princes. They + exists so to pander. Every organised religion in the world exists only to + exploit and divert and waste the religious impulse in man. + </p> + <p> + This conviction that the world kingdom of God is the only true method of + human service, is so clear and final in my own mind, it seems so + inevitably the conviction to which all right-thinking men must ultimately + come, that I feel almost like a looker-on at a game of blind-man's bluff + as I watch the discussion of synthetic political ideas. The blind man + thrusts his seeking hands into the oddest corners, he clutches at chairs + and curtains, but at last he must surely find and hold and feel over and + guess the name of the plainly visible quarry. + </p> + <p> + Some of the French and Italian people I talked to said they were fighting + for “Civilisation.” That is one name for the kingdom of God, and I have + heard English people use it too. But much of the contemporary thought of + England stills wanders with its back to the light. Most of it is pawing + over jerry-built, secondary things. I have before me a little book, the + joint work of Dr. Grey and Mr. Turner, of an ex-public schoolmaster and a + manufacturer, called <i>Eclipse or Empire?</i> (The title <i>World Might + or Downfall?</i> had already been secured in another quarter.) It is a + book that has been enormously advertised; it has been almost impossible to + escape its column-long advertisements; it is billed upon the hoardings, + and it is on the whole a very able and right-spirited book. It calls for + more and better education, for more scientific methods, for less class + suspicion and more social explicitness and understanding, for a franker + and fairer treatment of labour. But why does it call for these things? + Does it call for them because they are right? Because in accomplishing + them one serves God? + </p> + <p> + Not at all. But because otherwise this strange sprawling empire of ours + will drop back into a secondary place in the world. These two writers + really seem to think that the slack workman, the slacker wealthy man, the + negligent official, the conservative schoolmaster, the greedy usurer, the + comfortable obstructive, confronted with this alternative, terrified at + this idea of something or other called the Empire being “eclipsed,” eager + for the continuance of this undefined glory over their fellow-creatures + called “Empire,” will perceive the error of their ways and become + energetic, devoted, capable. They think an ideal of that sort is going to + change the daily lives of men.... I sympathise with their purpose, and I + deplore their conception of motives. If men will not give themselves for + righteousness, they will not give themselves for a geographical score. If + they will not work well for the hatred of bad work, they will not work + well for the hatred of Germans. This “Empire" idea has been cadging about + the British empire, trying to collect enthusiasm and devotion, since the + days of Disraeli. It is, I submit, too big for the mean-spirited, and too + tawdry and limited for the fine and generous. It leaves out the French and + the Italians and the Belgians and all our blood brotherhood of allies. It + has no compelling force in it. We British are not naturally Imperialist; + we are something greater—or something less. For two years and a half + now we have been fighting against Imperialism in its most extravagant + form. It is a poor incentive to right living to propose to parody the + devil we fight against. + </p> + <p> + The blind man must lunge again. + </p> + <p> + For when the right answer is seized it answers not only the question why + men should work for their fellow-men but also why nation should cease to + arm and plan and contrive against nation. The social problem is only the + international problem in retail, the international problem is only the + social one in gross. + </p> + <p> + My bias rules me altogether here. I see men in social, in economic and in + international affairs alike, eager to put an end to conflict, + inexpressibly weary of conflict and the waste and pain and death it + involves. But to end conflict one must abandon aggressive or uncordial + pretensions. Labour is sick at the idea of more strikes and struggles + after the war, industrialism is sick of competition and anxious for + service, everybody is sick of war. But how can they end any of these + clashes except by the definition and recognition of a common end which + will establish a standard for the trial of every conceivable issue, to + which, that is, every other issue can be subordinated; and what common end + can there be in all the world except this idea of the world kingdom of + God? What is the good of orienting one's devotion to a firm, or to class + solidarity, or <i>La Republique Francais</i>, or Poland, or Albania, or + such love and loyalty as people profess for King George or King Albert or + the Duc d'Orleans—it puzzles me why—or any such intermediate + object of self-abandonment? We need a standard so universal that the + platelayer may say to the barrister or the duchess, or the Red Indian to + the Limehouse sailor, or the Anzac soldier to the Sinn Feiner or the + Chinaman, “What are we two doing for it?” And to fill the place of that + “it,” no other idea is great enough or commanding enough, but only the + world kingdom of God. + </p> + <p> + However long he may have to hunt, the blind man who is seeking service and + an end to bickerings will come to that at last, because of all the + thousand other things he may clutch at, nothing else can satisfy his + manifest need. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + VI. THE ENDING OF THE WAR + </h2> + <p> + 1 + </p> + <p> + About the end of the war there are two chief ways of thinking, there is a + simpler sort of mind which desires merely a date, and a more complex kind + which wants particulars. To the former class belong most of the men out at + the front. They are so bored by this war that they would welcome any peace + that did not definitely admit defeat—and examine the particulars + later. The “tone” of the German army, to judge by its captured letters, is + even lower. It would welcome peace in any form. Never in the whole history + of the world has a war been so universally unpopular as this war. + </p> + <p> + The mind of the soldier is obsessed by a vision of home-coming for good, + so vivid and alluring that it blots out nearly every other consideration. + The visions of people at home are of plenty instead of privation, lights + up, and the cessation of a hundred tiresome restrictions. And it is + natural therefore that a writer rather given to guesses and forecasts + should be asked very frequently to guess how long the war has still to + run. + </p> + <p> + All such forecasting is the very wildest of shooting. There are the + chances of war to put one out, and of a war that changes far faster than + the military intelligence. I have made various forecasts. At the outset I + thought that military Germany would fight at about the 1899 level, would + be lavish with cavalry and great attacks, that it would be reluctant to + entrench, and that the French and British had learnt the lesson of the + Boer war better than the Germans. I trusted to the melodramatic instinct + of the Kaiser. I trusted to the quickened intelligence of the British + military caste. The first rush seemed to bear me out, and I opened my + paper day by day expecting to read of the British and French entrenched + and the Germans beating themselves to death against wire and trenches. In + those days I wrote of the French being over the Rhine before 1915. But it + was the Germans who entrenched first. + </p> + <p> + Since then I have made some other attempts. I did not prophesy at all in + 1915, so far as I can remember. If I had I should certainly have backed + the Gallipoli attempt to win. It was the right thing to do, and it was + done abominably. It should have given us Constantinople and brought + Bulgaria to our side; it gave us a tragic history of administrative + indolence and negligence, and wasted bravery and devotion. I was very + hopeful of the western offensive in 1915; and in 1916 I counted still on + our continuing push. I believe we were very near something like decision + this last September, but some archaic dream of doing it with cavalry + dashed these hopes. The “Tanks” arrived to late to do their proper work, + and their method of use is being worked out very slowly.... I still + believe in the western push, if only we push it for all we are worth. If + only we push it with our brains, with our available and still unorganised + brains; if only we realise that the art of modern war is to invent and + invent and invent. Hitherto I have always hoped and looked for decision, a + complete victory that would enable the Allies to dictate peace. But such + an expectation is largely conditioned by these delicate questions of + adaptability that my tour of the front has made very urgent in my mind. A + spiteful German American writer has said that the British would rather + kill twenty thousand of their men than break one general. Even a grain of + truth in such a remark is a very valid reasoning for lengthening one's + estimate of the duration of the war. + </p> + <p> + There can be no doubt that the Western allies are playing a winning game + upon the western front, and that this is the front of decision now. It is + not in doubt that they are beating the Germans and shoving them back. The + uncertain factor is the rate at which they are shoving them back. If they + can presently get to so rapid an advance as to bring the average rate + since July 1st up to two or three miles a day, then we shall still see the + Allies dictating terms. But if the shove drags on at its present pace of + less than a mile and four thousand prisoners a week over the limited Somme + front only, if nothing is attempted elsewhere to increase the area of + pressure, [*This was written originally before the French offensive at + Verdun.] then the intolerable stress and boredom of the war will bring + about a peace long before the Germans are decisively crushed. But the war, + universally detested, may go on into 1918 or 1919. Food riots, famine, and + general disorganisation will come before 1920, if it does. The Allies have + a winning game before them, but they seem unable to discover and promote + the military genius needed to harvest an unquestionable victory. In the + long run this may not be an unmixed evil. Victory, complete and dramatic, + may be bought too dearly. We need not triumphs out of this war but the + peace of the world. + </p> + <p> + This war is altogether unlike any previous war, and its ending, like its + development, will follow a course of its own. For a time people's minds + ran into the old grooves, the Germans were going <i>nach Paris</i> and <i>nach + London</i>; Lord Curzon filled our minds with a pleasant image of the + Bombay Lancers riding down <i>Unter den Linden.</i> But the Versailles + precedent of a council of victors dictating terms to the vanquished is not + now so evidently in men's minds. The utmost the Allies talk upon now is to + say, “We must end the war on German soil.” The Germans talk frankly of + “holding out.” I have guessed that the western offensive will be chiefly + on German soil by next June; it is a mere guess, and I admit it is quite + conceivable that the “push” may still be grinding out its daily tale of + wounded and prisoners in 1918 far from that goal. + </p> + <p> + None of the combatants expected such a war as this, and the consequence is + that the world at large has no idea how to get out of it. The war may stay + with us like a schoolboy caller, because it does not know how to go. The + Italians said as much to me. “Suppose we get to Innsbruck and Laibach and + Trieste,” they said, “it isn't an end!” Lord Northcliffe, I am told, came + away from Italy with the conviction that the war would last six years. + </p> + <p> + There is the clearest evidence that nearly everyone is anxious to get out + of the war now. Nobody at all, except perhaps a few people who may be + called to account, and a handful of greedy profit-seekers, wants to keep + it going. Quietly perhaps and unobtrusively, everyone I know is now trying + to find the way out of the war, and I am convinced that the same is the + case in Germany. That is what makes the Peace-at-any-price campaign so + exasperating. It is like being chased by clamorous geese across a common + in the direction in which you want to go. But how are we to get out—with + any credit—in such a way as to prevent a subsequent collapse into + another war as frightful? + </p> + <p> + At present three programmes are before the world of the way in which the + war can be ended. The first of these assumes a complete predominance of + our Allies. It has been stated in general terms by Mr. Asquith. + Evacuation, reparation, due punishment of those responsible for the war, + and guarantees that nothing of the sort shall happen again. There is as + yet no mention of the nature of these guarantees. Just exactly what is to + happen to Poland, Austria, and the Turkish Empire does not appear in this + prospectus. The German Chancellor is equally elusive. The Kaiser has + stampeded the peace-at-any-price people of Great Britain by proclaiming + that Germany wants peace. We knew that. But what sort of peace? It would + seem that we are promised vaguely evacuation and reparation on the western + frontier, and in addition there are to be guarantees—but it is quite + evident that they are altogether different guarantees from Mr. Asquith's—that + nothing of the sort is ever to happen again. The programme of the British + and their Allies seems to contemplate something like a forcible + disarmament and military occupation of Belgium, the desertion of Serbia + and Russia, and the surrender to Germany of every facility for a later and + more successful German offensive in the west. But it is clear that on + these terms as stated the war must go on to the definite defeat of one + side or the other, or a European chaos. They are irreconcilable sets of + terms. + </p> + <p> + Yet it is hard to say how they can be modified on either side, if the war + is to be decided only between the belligerents and by standards of + national interest only, without reference to any other considerations. Our + Allies would be insane to leave the Hohenzollern at the end of the war + with a knife in his hand, after the display he has made of his quality. To + surrender his knife means for the Hohenzollern the abandonment of his + dreams, the repudiation of the entire education and training of Germany + for half a century. When we realise the fatality of this antagonism, we + realise how it is that, in this present anticipation of hell, the weary, + wasted and tormented nations must still sustain their monstrous dreary + struggle. And that is why this thought that possible there may be a side + way out, a sort of turning over of the present endlessly hopeless game + into a new and different and manageable game through the introduction of + some external factor, creeps and spreads as I find it creeping and + spreading. + </p> + <p> + That is what the finer intelligences of America are beginning to realise, + and why men in Europe continually turn their eyes to America, with a + surmise, with a doubt. + </p> + <p> + A point of departure for very much thinking in this matter is the recent + speech of President Wilson that heralded the present discussion. All + Europe was impressed by the truth, and by President Wilson's recognition + of the truth, that from any other great war after this America will be + unable to abstain. Can America come into this dispute at the end to insist + upon something better than a new diplomatic patchwork, and so obviate the + later completer Armageddon? Is there, above the claims and passions of + Germany, France, Britain, and the rest of them, a conceivable right thing + to do for all mankind, that it might also be in the interest of America to + support? Is there a Third Party solution, so to speak, which may possibly + be the way out from this war? + </p> + <p> + And further I would go on to ask, is not this present exchange of Notes, + appealing to the common sense of the world, really the beginning, and the + proper beginning, of the unprecedented Peace Negotiations to end this + unprecedented war? And, I submit, the longer this open discussion goes on + before the doors close upon the secret peace congress the better for + mankind. + </p> + <p> + 2 + </p> + <p> + Let me sketch out here what I conceive to be the essentials of a world + settlement. Some of the items are the mere commonplaces of everyone who + discusses this question; some are less frequently insisted upon. I have + been joining up one thing to another, suggestions I have heard from this + man and that, and I believe that it is really possible to state a solution + that will be acceptable to the bulk of reasonable men all about the world. + Directly we put the panic-massacres of Dinant and Louvain, the crime of + the <i>Lusitania</i> and so on into the category of symptoms rather than + essentials, outrages that call for special punishments and reparations, + but that do not enter further into the ultimate settlement, we can begin + to conceive a possible world treaty. Let me state the broad outlines of + this pacification. The outlines depend one upon the other; each is a + condition of the other. It is upon these lines that the thoughtful, as + distinguished from the merely the combative people, seem to be drifting + everywhere. + </p> + <p> + In the first place, it is agreed that there would have to be an identical + treaty between all the great powers of the world binding them to certain + things. It would have to provide:— + </p> + <p> + That the few great industrial states capable of producing modern war + equipment should take over and control completely the manufacture of all + munitions of war in the world. And that they should absolutely close the + supply of such material to all the other states in the world. This is a + far easier task than many people suppose. War has now been so developed on + its mechanical side that the question of its continuance or abolition + rests now entirely upon four or five great powers. + </p> + <p> + Next comes the League of Peace idea; that there should be an International + Tribunal for the discussion and settlement of international disputes. That + the dominating powers should maintain land and sea forces only up to a + limit agreed upon and for internal police use only or for the purpose of + enforcing the decisions of the Tribunal. That they should all be bound to + attack and suppress any power amongst them which increases its war + equipment beyond its defined limits. + </p> + <p> + That much has already been broached in several quarters. But so far is not + enough. It ignores the chief processes of that economic war that aids and + abets and is inseparably a part of modern international conflicts. If we + are to go as far as we have already stated in the matter of international + controls, then we must go further and provide that the International + Tribunal should have power to consider and set aside all tariffs and + localised privileges that seem grossly unfair or seriously irritating + between the various states of the world. It should have power to pass or + revise all new tariff, quarantine, alien exclusion, or the like + legislation affecting international relations. Moreover, it should take + over and extend the work of the International Bureau of Agriculture at + Rome with a view to the control of all staple products. It should + administer the sea law of the world, and control and standardise freights + in the common interests of mankind. Without these provisions it would be + merely preventing the use of certain weapons; it would be doing nothing to + prevent countries strangling or suffocating each other by commercial + warfare. It would not abolish war. + </p> + <p> + Now upon this issue people do not seem to me to be yet thinking very + clearly. It is the exception to find anyone among the peace talkers who + really grasps how inseparably the necessity for free access for everyone + to natural products, to coal and tropical products, e.g. free shipping at + non-discriminating tariffs, and the recognition by a Tribunal of the + principle of common welfare in trade matters, is bound up with the ideal + of a permanent world peace. But any peace that does not provide for these + things will be merely laying down of the sword in order to take up the + cudgel. And a “peace” that did not rehabilitate industrial Belgium, + Poland, and the north of France would call imperatively for the imposition + upon the Allies of a system of tariffs in the interests of these + countries, and for a bitter economic “war after the war” against Germany. + That restoration is, of course, an implicit condition to any attempt to + set up an economic peace in the world. + </p> + <p> + These things being arranged for the future, it would be further necessary + to set up an International Boundary Commission, subject to certain + defining conditions agreed upon by the belligerents, to re-draw the map of + Europe, Asia, and Africa. This war does afford an occasion such as the + world may never have again of tracing out the “natural map” of mankind, + the map that will secure the maximum of homogeneity and the minimum of + racial and economic freedom. All idealistic people hope for a restored + Poland. But it is a childish thing to dream of a contented Poland with + Posen still under the Prussian heel, with Cracow cut off, and without a + Baltic port. These claims of Poland to completeness have a higher sanction + than the mere give and take of belligerents in congress. + </p> + <p> + Moreover this International Tribunal, if it was indeed to prevent war, + would need also to have power to intervene in the affairs of any country + or region in a state of open and manifest disorder, for the protection of + foreign travellers and of persons and interests localised in that country + but foreign to it. + </p> + <p> + Such an agreement as I have here sketched out would at once lift + international politics out of the bloody and hopeless squalor of the + present conflict. It is, I venture to assert, the peace of the reasonable + man in any country whatever. But it needs the attention of such a + disengaged people as the American people to work it out and supply it with—weight. + It needs putting before the world with some sort of authority greater than + its mere entire reasonableness. Otherwise it will not come before the + minds of ordinary men with the effect of a practicable proposition. I do + not see any such plant springing from the European battlefields. It is + America's supreme opportunity. And yet it is the common sense of the + situation, and the solution that must satisfy a rational German as + completely as a rational Frenchman or Englishman. It has nothing against + it but the prejudice against new and entirely novel things. + </p> + <p> + 3 + </p> + <p> + In throwing out the suggestion that America should ultimately undertake + the responsibility of proposing a world peace settlement, I admit that I + run counter to a great deal of European feeling. Nowhere in Europe now do + people seem to be in love with the United States. But feeling is a colour + that passes. And the question is above matters of feeling. Whether the + belligerents dislike Americans or the Americans dislike the belligerents + is an incidental matter. The main question is of the duty of a great and + fortunate nation towards the rest of the world and the future of mankind. + </p> + <p> + I do not know how far Americans are aware of the trend of feeling in + Europe at the present time. Both France and Great Britain have a sense of + righteousness in this war such as no nation, no people, has ever felt in + war before. We know we are fighting to save all the world from the rule of + force and the unquestioned supremacy of the military idea. Few Frenchmen + or Englishmen can imagine the war presenting itself to an American + intelligence under any other guise. At the invasion of Belgium we were + astonished that America did nothing. At the sinking of the <i>Lusitania</i> + all Europe looked to America. The British mind contemplates the spectacle + of American destroyers acting as bottleholders to German submarines with a + dazzled astonishment. “Manila,” we gasp. In England we find excuses for + America in our own past. In '64 we betrayed Denmark; in '70 we deserted + France. The French have not these memories. They do not understand the + damning temptations of those who feel they are “<i>au-dessus de la melee.</i>” + They believe they had some share in the independence of America, that + there is a sacred cause in republicanism, that there are grounds for a + peculiar sympathy between France and the United States in republican + institutions. They do not realise that Germany and America have a common + experience in recent industrial development, and a common belief in the + “degeneracy” of all nations with a lower rate of trade expansion. They do + not realise how a political campaign with the slogan of “Peace and a Full + Dinner-Pail” looks in the middle west, what an honest, simple, rational + appeal it makes there. Atmospheres alter values. In Europe, strung up to + tragic and majestic issues, to Europe gripping a gigantic evil in a death + struggle, that would seem an inscription worthy of a pigsty. A child in + Europe would know now that the context is, “until the bacon-buyer calls,” + and it is difficult to realise that adult citizens in America may be + incapable of realising that obvious context. + </p> + <p> + I set these things down plainly. There is a very strong disposition in all + the European countries to believe America fundamentally indifferent to the + rights and wrongs of the European struggle; sentimentally interested + perhaps, but fundamentally indifferent. President Wilson is regarded as a + mere academic sentimentalist by a great number of Europeans. There is a + very widespread disposition to treat America lightly and contemptuously, + to believe that America, as one man put it to me recently, “hasn't the + heart to do anything great or the guts to do anything wicked.” There is a + strong undercurrent of hostility therefore to the idea of America having + any voice whatever in the final settlement after the war. It is not for a + British writer to analyse the appearance that have thus affected American + world prestige. I am telling what I have observed. + </p> + <p> + Let me relate two trivial anecdotes. + </p> + <p> + X came to my hotel in Paris one day to take me to see a certain munitions + organisation. He took from his pocket a picture postcard that had been + sent him by a well-meaning American acquaintance from America. It bore a + portrait of General Lafayette, and under it was printed the words, + “General Lafayette, <i>Colonel in the United States army.</i>” + </p> + <p> + “Oh! These Americans!” said X with a gesture. + </p> + <p> + And as I returned to Paris from the French front, our train stopped at + some intermediate station alongside of another train of wounded men. + Exactly opposite our compartment was a car. It arrested our conversation. + It was, as it were, an ambulance <i>de grand luxe</i>; it was a thing of + very light, bright wood and very golden decorations; at one end of it was + painted very large and fair the Stars and Stripes, and at the other + fair-sized letters of gold proclaimed—I am sure the lady will not + resent this added gleam of publicity—“Presented by Mrs. William + Vanderbilt.” + </p> + <p> + My companions were French writers and French military men, and they were + discussing with very keen interest that persistent question, “the ideal + battery.” But that ambulance sent a shaft of light into our carriage, and + we stared together. + </p> + <p> + Then Colonel Z pointed with two fingers and remarked to us, without any + excess of admiration: + </p> + <p> + “<i>America!</i>” + </p> + <p> + Then he shrugged his shoulders and pulled down the corners of his mouth. + </p> + <p> + We felt there was nothing more to add to that, and after a little pause + the previous question was resumed. + </p> + <p> + I state these things in order to make it clear that America will start at + a disadvantage when she starts upon the mission of salvage and + reconciliation which is, I believe, her proper role in this world + conflict. One would have to be blind and deaf on this side to be ignorant + of European persuasion of America's triviality. I would not like to be an + American travelling in Europe now, and those I meet here and there have + some of the air of men who at any moment may be dunned for a debt. They + explode without provocation into excuses and expostulations. + </p> + <p> + And I will further confess that when Viscount Grey answered the + intimations of President Wilson and ex-President Taft of an American + initiative to found a World League for Peace, by asking if America was + prepared to back that idea with force, he spoke the doubts of all + thoughtful European men. No one but an American deeply versed in the + idiosyncrasies of the American population can answer that question, or + tell us how far the delusion of world isolation which has prevailed in + America for several generations has been dispelled. But if the answer to + Lord Grey is “Yes,” then I think history will emerge with a complete + justification of the obstinate maintenance of neutrality by America. It is + the end that reveals a motive. It is our ultimate act that sometimes + teaches us our original intention. No one can judge the United States yet. + Were you neutral because you are too mean and cowardly, or too stupidly + selfish, or because you had in view an end too great to be sacrificed to a + moment of indignant pride and a force in reserve too precious to dispel? + That is the still open question for America. + </p> + <p> + Every country is a mixture of many strands. There is a Base America, there + is a Dull America, there is an Ideal and Heroic America. And I am + convinced that at present Europe underrates and misjudges the + possibilities of the latter. + </p> + <p> + All about the world to-day goes a certain freemasonry of thought. It is an + impalpable and hardly conscious union of intention. It thinks not in terms + of national but human experience; it falls into directions and channels of + thinking that lead inevitably to the idea of a world-state under the rule + of one righteousness. In no part of the world is this modern type of mind + so abundantly developed, less impeded by antiquated and perverse political + and religious forms, and nearer the sources of political and + administrative power, than in America. It does not seem to matter what + thousand other things America may happen to be, seeing that it is also + that. And so, just as I cling to the belief, in spite of hundreds of + adverse phenomena, that the religious and social stir of these times must + ultimately go far to unify mankind under the kingship of God, so do I + cling also to the persuasion that there are intellectual forces among the + rational elements in the belligerent centres, among the other neutrals and + in America, that will co-operate in enabling the United States to play + that role of the Unimpassioned Third Party, which becomes more and more + necessary to a generally satisfactory ending of the war. + </p> + <p> + 4 + </p> + <p> + The idea that the settlement of this war must be what one might call an + unimpassioned settlement or, if you will, a scientific settlement or a + judicial and not a treaty settlement, a settlement, that is, based upon + some conception of what is right and necessary rather than upon the + relative success or failure of either set of belligerents to make its Will + the standard of decision, is one that, in a great variety of forms and + partial developments, I find gaining ground in the most different circles. + The war was an adventure, it was the German adventure under the + Hohenzollern tradition, to dominate the world. It was to be the last of + the Conquests. It has failed. Without calling upon the reserve strength of + America the civilised world has defeated it, and the war continues now + partly upon the issue whether it shall be made for ever impossible, and + partly because Germany has no organ but its Hohenzollern organisation + through which it can admit its failure and develop its latent readiness + for a new understanding on lines of mutual toleration. For that purpose + nothing more reluctant could be devised than Hohenzollern imperialism. But + the attention of every new combatant—it is not only Germany now—has + been concentrated upon military necessities; every nation is a clenched + nation, with its powers of action centred in its own administration, bound + by many strategic threats and declarations, and dominated by the idea of + getting and securing advantages. It is inevitable that a settlement made + in a conference of belligerents alone will be shortsighted, harsh, limited + by merely incidental necessities, and obsessed by the idea of hostilities + and rivalries continuing perennially; it will be a trading of advantages + for subsequent attacks. It will be a settlement altogether different in + effect as well as in spirit from a world settlement made primarily to + establish a new phase in the history of mankind. + </p> + <p> + Let me take three instances of the impossibility of complete victory <i>on + either side</i> giving a solution satisfactory to the conscience and + intelligence of reasonable men. + </p> + <p> + The first—on which I will not expatiate, for everyone knows of its + peculiar difficulty—is Poland. + </p> + <p> + The second is a little one, but one that has taken hold of my imagination. + In the settlement of boundaries preceding this war the boundary between + Serbia and north-eastern Albania was drawn with an extraordinary disregard + of the elementary needs of the Albanians of that region. It ran along the + foot of the mountains which form their summer pastures and their refuge + from attack, and it cut their mountains off from their winter pastures and + market towns. Their whole economic life was cut to pieces and existence + rendered intolerable for them. Now an intelligent Third Party settling + Europe would certainly restore these market towns, Ipek, Jakova, and + Prisrend, to Albania. But the Albanians have no standing in this war; + theirs is the happy lot that might have fallen to Belgium had she not + resisted; the war goes to and fro through Albania; and when the settlement + comes, it is highly improbable that the slightest notice will be taken of + Albania's plight in the region. In which case these particular Albanians + will either be driven into exile to America or they will be goaded to + revolt, which will be followed no doubt by the punitive procedure usual in + the Balkan peninsula. + </p> + <p> + For my third instance I would step from a matter as small as three market + towns and the grazing of a few thousand head of sheep to a matter as big + as the world. What is going to happen to the shipping of the world after + this war? The Germans, with that combination of cunning and stupidity + which baffles the rest of mankind, have set themselves to destroy the + mercantile marine not merely of Britain and France but of Norway and + Sweden, Holland, and all the neutral countries. The German papers openly + boast that they are building up a big mercantile marine that will start + out to take up the world's overseas trade directly peace is declared. + Every such boast receives careful attention in the British press. We have + heard a very great deal about the German will-to-power in this war, but + there is something very much older and tougher and less blatant and + conspicuous, the British will. In the British papers there has appeared + and gained a permanent footing this phrase, “ton for ton.” This means that + Britain will go on fighting until she has exacted and taken over from + Germany the exact equivalent of all the British shipping Germany has + submarined. People do not realise that a time may come when Germany will + be glad and eager to give Russia, France and Italy all that they require + of her, when Great Britain may be quite content to let her allies make an + advantageous peace and herself still go on fighting Germany. She does not + intend to let that furtively created German mercantile marine ship or coal + or exist upon the high seas—so long as it can be used as an economic + weapon against her. Neither Britain nor France nor Italy can tolerate + anything of the sort. + </p> + <p> + It has been the peculiar boast of Great Britain that her shipping has been + unpatriotic. She has been the impartial carrier of the whole world. Her + shippers may have served their own profit; they have never served hers. + The fluctuations of freight charges may have been a universal nuisance, + but they have certainly not been an aggressive national conspiracy. It is + Britain's case against any German ascendancy at sea, an entirely + convincing case, that such an ascendancy would be used ruthlessly for the + advancement of German world power. The long-standing freedom of the seas + vanishes at the German touch. So beyond the present war there opens the + agreeable prospect of a mercantile struggle, a bitter freight war and a + war of Navigation Acts for the ultimate control in the interests of + Germany or of the Anti-German allies, of the world's trade. + </p> + <p> + Now how in any of these three cases can the bargaining and trickery of + diplomatists and the advantage-hunting of the belligerents produce any + stable and generally beneficial solution? What all the neutrals want, what + every rational and far-sighted man in the belligerent countries wants, + what the common sense of the whole world demands, is neither the + “ascendancy” of Germany nor the “ascendancy” of Great Britain nor the + “ascendancy” of any state or people or interest in the shipping of the + world. The plain right thing is a world shipping control, as impartial as + the Postal Union. What right and reason and the welfare of coming + generations demand in Poland is a unified and autonomous Poland, with + Cracow, Danzig, and Posen brought into the same Polish-speaking ring-fence + with Warsaw. What everyone who has looked into the Albanian question + desires is that the Albanians shall pasture their flocks and market their + sheepskins in peace, free of Serbian control. In every country at present + at war, the desire of the majority of people is for a non-contentious + solution that will neither crystallise a triumph nor propitiate an enemy, + but which will embody the economic and ethnological and geographical + common sense of the matter. But while the formulae of national + belligerence are easy, familiar, blatant, and instantly present, the + gentler, greater formulae of that wider and newer world pacifism has still + to be generally understood. It is so much easier to hate and suspect than + negotiate generously and patiently; it is so much harder to think than to + let go in a shrill storm of hostility. The rational pacifist is hampered + not only by belligerency, but by a sort of malignant extreme pacifism as + impatient and silly as the extremest patriotism. + </p> + <p> + 5 + </p> + <p> + I sketch out these ideas of a world pacification from a third-party + standpoint, because I find them crystallising out in men's minds. I note + how men discuss the suggestion that America may play a large part in such + a permanent world pacification. There I end my account rendered. These + things are as much a part of my impression of the war as a shell-burst on + the Carso or the yellow trenches at Martinpuich. But I do not know how + opinion is going in America, and I am quite unable to estimate the power + of these new ideas I set down, relative to the blind forces of instinct + and tradition that move the mass of mankind. On the whole I believe more + in the reason-guided will-power of men than I did in the early half of + 1914. If I am doubtful whether after all this war will “end war,” I think + on the other hand it has had such an effect of demonstration that it may + start a process of thought and conviction, it may sow the world with + organisations and educational movements considerable enough to grapple + with an either arrest or prevent the next great war catastrophe. I am by + no means sure even now that this is not the last great war in the + experience of men. I still believe it may be. + </p> + <p> + The most dangerous thing in the business so far is concerned is the wide + disregard of the fact that national economic fighting is bound to cause + war, and the almost universal ignorance of the necessity of subjecting + shipping and overseas and international trade to some kind of + international control. These two things, restraint of trade and advantage + of shipping, are the chief material causes of anger between modern states. + But they would not be in themselves dangerous things if it were not for + the exaggerated delusions of kind and difference, and the crack-brained + “loyalties” arising out of these, that seem still to rule men's minds. + Years ago I came to the conviction that much of the evil in human life was + due to the inherent vicious disposition of the human mind to intensify + classification.[*See my “First and Last Things,” Book I. and my “Modern + Utopia,” Chapter X.] I do not know how it will strike the reader, but to + me this war, this slaughter of eight or nine million people, is due almost + entirely to this little, almost universal lack of clear-headedness; I + believe that the share of wickedness in making war is quite secondary to + the share of this universal shallow silliness of outlook. These effigies + of emperors and kings and statesmen that lead men into war, these legends + of nationality and glory, would collapse before our universal derision, if + they were not stuffed tight and full with the unthinking folly of the + common man. + </p> + <p> + There is in all of us an indolent capacity for suffering evil and + dangerous things, that I contemplate each year of my life with a deepening + incredulity. I perceive we suffer them; I record the futile protests of + the intelligence. It seems to me incredible that men should not rise up + out of this muddy, bloody, wasteful mess of a world war, with a resolution + to end for ever the shams, the prejudices, the pretences and habits that + have impoverished their lives, slaughtered our sons, and wasted the world, + a resolution so powerful and sustained that nothing could withstand it. + </p> + <p> + But it is not apparent that any such will arises. Does it appear at all? I + find it hard to answer that question because my own answer varies with my + mood. There are moods when it seems to me that nothing of the sort is + happening. This war has written its warning in letters of blood and flame + and anguish in the skies of mankind for two years and a half. When I look + for the collective response to that warning, I see a multitude of little + chaps crawling about their private ends like mites in an old cheese. The + kings are still in their places, not a royal prince has been killed in + this otherwise universal slaughter; when the fatuous portraits of the + monarchs flash upon the screen the widows and orphans still break into + loyal song. The ten thousand religions of mankind are still ten thousand + religions, all busy at keeping men apart and hostile. I see scarcely a + measurable step made anywhere towards that world kingdom of God, which is, + I assert, the manifest solution, the only formula that can bring peace to + all mankind. Mankind as a whole seems to have learnt nothing and forgotten + nothing in thirty months of war. + </p> + <p> + And then on the other hand I am aware of much quiet talking. This book + tells of how I set out to see the war, and it is largely conversation.... + Perhaps men have always expected miracles to happen; if one had always + lived in the night and only heard tell of the day, I suppose one would + have expected dawn to come as a vivid flash of light. I suppose one would + still think it was night long after the things about one had crept out of + the darkness into visibility. In comparison with all previous wars there + has been much more thinking and much more discussion. If most of the talk + seems to be futile, if it seems as if everyone were talking and nobody + doing, it does not follow that things are not quietly slipping and sliding + out of their old adjustments amidst the babble and because of the babble. + Multitudes of men must be struggling with new ideas. It is reasonable to + argue that there must be reconsideration, there must be time, before these + millions of mental efforts can develop into a new collective purpose and + really <i>show</i>—in consequences. + </p> + <p> + But that they will do so is my hope always and, on the whole, except in + moods of depression and impatience, my belief. When one has travelled to a + conviction so great as mine it is difficult to doubt that other men faced + by the same universal facts will not come to the same conclusion. I + believe that only through a complete simplification o religion to its + fundamental idea, to a world-wide realisation of God as the king of the + heart and of all mankind, setting aside monarchy and national egotism + altogether, can mankind come to any certain happiness and security. The + precedent of Islam helps my faith in the creative inspiration of such a + renascence of religion. The Sikh, the Moslem, the Puritan have shown that + men can fight better for a Divine Idea than for any flag or monarch in the + world. It seems to me that illusions fade and effigies lose credit + everywhere. It is a very wonderful thing to me that China is now a + republic.... I take myself to be very nearly an average man, abnormal only + by reason of a certain mental rapidity. I conceive myself to be thinking + as the world thinks, and if I find no great facts, I find a hundred little + indications to reassure me that God comes. Even those who have neither the + imagination nor the faith to apprehend God as a reality will, I think, + realise presently that the Kingdom of God over a world-wide system of + republican states, is the only possible formula under which we may hope to + unify and save mankind. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of War and the Future, by H. G. 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