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diff --git a/1804.txt b/1804.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5209fd3 --- /dev/null +++ b/1804.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6343 @@ +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] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAR AND THE FUTURE *** + + + + +Produced by Morgan L. Owens and David Widger + + + + + +WAR AND THE FUTURE + +Italy, France and Britain at War + + +by H. G. Wells + + + + +Contents + + The Passing of the Effigy + + The War in Italy (August, 1916) + I. The Isonzo Front + II. The Mountain War + III. Behind the Front + + The Western War (September, 1916) + I. Ruins + II. The Grades of War + III. The War Landscape + IV. New Arms for Old Ones + V. Tanks + + How People Think About the War + I. Do they Really Think at all? + II. The Yielding Pacifist and the Conscientious Objector + III. The Religious Revival + IV. The Riddle of the British + V. The Social Changes in Progress + VI. The Ending of the War + + + + +THE PASSING OF THE EFFIGY + + +1 + +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 _Maison de la Presse_ 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. + +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." + +So we have this curious byplay of the war, and one day I find Mr. +Nabokoff, the editor of the _Retch_, 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 _Prisoner of War_ 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. + +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 _Queer._ 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 _poilus_ 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 _you_ understand.... + +"In which case---...?" + +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 _Ammonites_ unknown to me, from the hills to the east +of the Adige, partially wrapped in a back number of the _Corriere +della Sera_, 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. + + +2 + +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 _Labour Leader_, 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. + +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 _could_ have happened, with Michael and his infernal War +Machine in the very centre of Europe, but this tremendous disaster? + +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. + +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? + +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 _Note Book._ 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 _Note Book_ 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.... + +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? + + +3 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 "_Restaurant_" 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.... + +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. + +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 _Kipps._ I intimated that though I had written _Kipps_ 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. + +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, "_Entente Cordiale._" 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. + +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. + +But of that I will write later. My present concern is with General +Joffre as the antithesis of the Effigy. The effigy, + + "Thou Prince of Peace, + Thou God of War," + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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 _plan_ +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. + +Is any greater contrast possible than between so implacable, patient, +reasonable--and above all things _capable_--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? + +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. + +If I were to set a frontispiece to a book about this War I would make +General Joffre the frontispiece. + + +4 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +5 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _ski_ to _off_ 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. + +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 _obstinate_ thing.... + +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.... + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +6 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +"Well," I said, "it's got to be done." + +"Aye," he said, easing the strap of his rifle a little; "it's got to be +done." + + + + +THE WAR IN ITALY (AUGUST, 1916) + + + + +I. THE ISONZO FRONT + + +1 + +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. + +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. + +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 _en route._ +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. + +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. + +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 _en route_ for +contemporary history. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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. + +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.... + +Along about four thousand miles of the various fronts this sort of thing +was going on that morning.... + + +2 + +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. + + + + +II. THE MOUNTAIN WAR + + +1 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Such briefly is the _idea_ 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. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"That," proceeded General Bompiani, pointing with a giddy flourish of +his riding whip, "is Monte Tomba." + +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.... + + +2 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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. + +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.... + +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.... + + +3 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +III. BEHIND THE FRONT + + +1 + +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. + +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.... + +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.... + + +2 + +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." + +But there is a return trade. Near Paris I saw scores of thousands of +shells piled high to go to Italy.... + +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. + +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 _Banca Commerciale +Italiana._ + +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 _was_, secondly what it might _become_, thirdly +what it might _do_, and fourthly what, if anything, had to be done to +it. + +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. "_Pecunia non +olet_," 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. + +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..." + +"After all," I said presently, after reflection, "in that matter of +_Pecunia non olet_; 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." + +"Italy," said Captain Pirelli, "isn't a girl. And she hasn't been +playing bridge." + +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.... + +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.... + +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. + + +3 + +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. + +"To-night," said my companion, "I think we shall declare war upon +Germany. The decision is being made." + +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. + +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. + +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...." + +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 _worked_ by the enemy. + +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. + +I did my best to echo these beautiful things. + +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. + +"But," said the husband casually, "Mr. Runciman is a shipowner." + +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. + +"In Italy I think we should," said the husband of the Irish lady. + + +4 + +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. + +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. + +"It was here," said my host, "that we burnt the German stuff." + +"What German stuff?" + +"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." + + + + +THE WESTERN WAR (SEPTEMBER, 1916) + + + + +I. RUINS + + +1 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +2 + +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. + +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, "_Bang_---Pheeee---woooo" and then +far away "_dump._" One of ours. Then presently back comes +"Pheeee---woooo---_Bang!_" One of theirs. + +Amidst these pleasantries, the life of the town goes on. _Le Lion +d'Arras_, an excellent illustrated paper, produces its valiant sheets, +and has done so since the siege began. + +The current number of _Le Lion d'Arras_ 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. + +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. + +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---_Bang!_ One would +be irresistibly reminded of a Sunday afternoon in the city of London, if +it were not for those unmeaning explosions. + +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. + +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. + +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 _embusque._ Every now and then a shell came +over--an aimless shell. + +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 _Bang!_ One's mind hung expectant and disappointed. It was +a dud shell. + +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, "_That_ 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.... + + +3 + +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. + +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. + +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 _My House on the Field of Honour._ 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. + +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. + +"Madame," said the hostess, "need not trouble to open the glass. There +is no more glass in Soissons." + +But there were curtains nevertheless. There was all the precise delicacy +of the neatly curtained home life of France. + +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---_Bang!_" + +"That must have been the Seminaire," said someone. + +As one speaks of the weather or a passing cart. + +"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. + +So stoutly do the roots of French life hold beneath the tramplings of +war. + + + + +II. THE GRADES OF WAR + + +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--_yet._ 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. + +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 _Art of War_, +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +2 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.) _That's_ one gun. You +see? Here, I will show you another.... + +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, _know it is going +on._ 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 _tir de demolition_ 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. + +I visited some French guns during the _tir de demolition_ 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. + +It is a case of eyes and no eyes. + +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. + +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. + +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, _how to do it best._ +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _morale_ 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. + + + + +III. THE WAR LANDSCAPE + + +1 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + + +2 + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +3 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +These are part of the casualties of last night's fight. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"They think they have got divisional headquarters there," someone +remarks.... "They haven't. But they keep on." + +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 _pans._.. + +They ought to be called by the name of the man who designed them. + +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. + +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 _The Strand Magazine._ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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. + +He looked at his watch and remarked reluctantly, "If you start at once, +you may just do it." + +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.... + +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. + + + + +IV. NEW ARMS FOR OLD ONES + + +1 + +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 _breaking_ +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. + +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. + +The idea has been put admirably by _Punch._ 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!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +2 + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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." + +He showed me a little row of specimens. "These we make for Italy. These +go to Russia. These are the Rumanian pattern." + +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. + +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. + +"There is much esprit de corps here," says M. Citroen. + +"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." + +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.... + +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.... + +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." + +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: + +Balance from last week. So many hours at so much. Premiums. + +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. "_Next!_" + +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. + +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. + + +3 + +The shell factory and the explosives shed stand level with the drill +yard as the real first stage in one of the two essential _punches_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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."... + +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. + +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. + + +4 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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. + + +5 + +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. + +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. + +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 _might_ +advance across fields and so forth, but only as a very accessory part of +the general advance.... + +And what else is there for the cavalry to do? + +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. + +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. + + +6 + +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. + +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 +"_creation_"? 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. + +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. + +For that peace we struggle against the dull inflexibility of the German +Will-to-Power. + + + + +V. TANKS + + +1 + +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 _The Strand +Magazine_ 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. + +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. + +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 _tir de demolition_ 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--_properly handled_, 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. + + +2 + +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. + +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. + +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 _some_ 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. + +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. + +"You will smash your hat," said Colonel Stern. "No; keep it on, or else +you will smash your head." + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. _Now_, these things walk through." + + +3 + +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. + +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. _If only we do not rob these great factories and +works of their men._ + +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. + +In X, in the forges and machine shops, I saw already too large a +proportion of boys and grey heads. + +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. + +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. + + +4 + +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 _that are bound to come if +there is no world pacification_, are going to do. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _reductio ad absurdum_ +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. + +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. + +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 _capable of warfare +under modern conditions._ 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. + +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. + + + + +HOW PEOPLE THINK ABOUT THE WAR + + + + +I. DO THEY REALLY THINK AT ALL? + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _a priori_ +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. + +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. + +"First," they say, "you saw a little round red glow that spread. Then +you saw the whole Zeppelin glowing. Oh, it was _beautiful!_ 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!" + +There is a feeling that the Germans really must after all be a splendid +people to provide such magnificent pyrotechnics. + +Some people in London the other day were pretending to be shocked by an +American who boasted that he had been in "two _bully_ 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 +"_Lovely! Lovely!_" + +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. + +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, "_There_, don't you worry. That'll be all right. +That's _settled._" 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. + +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.... + +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. + +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. + +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 _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._ 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. + +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. + + + + +II. THE YIELDING PACIFIST AND THE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR + + +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 _The Morning Post._ But most of the people +I meet, and most of the people I met on my journey, are pacifists like +myself who want to _make_ 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. + +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 _embusque._ "We don't +generalise," I said, "we treat each case on its merits!" + +One interlocutor near Udine was exercised by our Italian Red Cross work. + +"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." + +He reflected. "One, I think, has been decorated," he said.... + +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 _bona +fides._ 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." + +These are not easy things to say in Elementary (and slightly Decayed) +French or in Elementary and Corrupt Italian. + +"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?" + +"That," I said, "is the Whig tradition." + +When they pressed me further, I said: "I am really the questioner. I +am visiting _your_ country, and you have to tell _me_ things. It is +not right that I should do all the telling. Tell me all about Romain +Rolland." + +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. + +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 _Lederlos_ 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. + + +2 + +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. + +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. + +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--_we are rebels._" + +Such a typical paper as the British _Labour Leader_, 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". + +That is the true psychology of the Resentful Employee. He is a +de-socialised man. His sense of the State has been destroyed. + +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.... + +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. + + +3 + +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. + +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... + +Nobody took him by the collar and shook him. + +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. + +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 _all_ 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. + +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 _permanent +German hostility?..._ + +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 _Revanche?_" + +"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." + + + + +III. THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL + + +1 + +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 _thought +out_, 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.... + +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. + +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 _apropos_ 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. + +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. + +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 +_that?_ 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. + +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 _it +isn't religion!_ 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. + + +2 + +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. + +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. + +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 +_Le Journal._ + +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 "_La Pensee du Pape._" +Cross-heads sufficiently indicated the general tone. One read: + +_"Le Saint Siege impartial... Au-dessus de la bataille...."_ 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, _Audiatur et altera pars_, 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).... + +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.... + +The next column of _Le Journal_ 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 _Audiatur et altera pars_ 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.... + +_Audiatur et altera pars_, 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 _Le Journal_, displays a +countenance of serene contentment, a sort of incarnate "Told-you-so." + +So the Vatican lifts its pontifical skirts and shakes the dust of +western Europe off its feet. + +It is the most astounding renunciation in history. + +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.... + + +3 + +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. + +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. + +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, _The World Set Free_ (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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _this_ movement. We +are feeling our way towards a bigger rule." + +"The rule of Righteousness," said Mr. Lubin. + +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. + +"But _I_ say that," cried Mr. Lubin, "I have put my name to that. +And--it is _here!_" + +He struggled up, seized an Old Testament that lay upon a side table. +He stood over it and rapped its cover. "It is _here_," he said, looking +more like Gladstone than ever, "in the Prophets." + + +4 + +That is all I mean to tell at present of that conversation. + +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.... + +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. + +"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." + + + + +IV. THE RIDDLE OF THE BRITISH + + +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 +_La Vie Parisienne._ It is what they have been led to expect of French +literature. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +2 + +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, "_They +are as good as ours._" It was his acme of all possible praise. + +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. + +But I will not expand further upon the general impression made by the +English in France. Philippe Millet's _En Liaison avec les Anglais_ 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.... + +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." + +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.... + +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...." + +"Have I ever told you the story of compulsory Greek at Oxford and +Cambridge?" I asked abruptly. + +"What has that to do with it?" + +"Or how two undistinguished civil service commissioners can hold up the +scientific education of our entire administrative class?" + +M. Reinach protested further. + +"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!" + + +3 + +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 _de-militarisation_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _esprit de corps_ and +prize it as if it were a noble quality. + +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.... + +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?..." + +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.) + +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. + +"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...." + +I descended from my rhetoric to find M. Reinach asking how and when this +greater Britain was likely to become politically effective. + + + + +V. THE SOCIAL CHANGES IN PROGRESS + + +1 + +"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?" + +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. + +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 _rentier_ 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. + +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 _less_ 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 _rentier_ +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. + +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 _rentier_ 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 _rentier_ socialism, and it +is interesting to note that while the London _Times_ 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. _The New Statesman_ and the Fabian +Society, however, display a wider intelligence. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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 +_rentiers_ 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 +_my_ time." + +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 _frightful_ trouble with labour after the war," I say. + +They try to persuade themselves that military discipline is breaking in +labour.... + + +2 + +What does British labour think of the outlook after the war? + +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 _John Bull._ +The so-called labour papers are perhaps less representative of British +Labour than any other section of the press; the _Labour Leader_, for +example, is the organ of such people as Bertrand Russell, Vernon Lee, +Morel, academic _rentiers_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"Germans invade _Us!_" she cried. "Who'd _let_ 'em, I'd like to know? +Who'd _let_ 'em?" + +And then she reverted to her grievance about the gardener. + +"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!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +"National industrial syndication," say the business organisers. + +"Guild socialism," say the workers. + +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. + +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." + +I like N's ideas. "Practically," I said, "you've been a public official. +You've treated your business like a public service." + +That was his idea. + +"Would you mind if it was a public service?" + +He reflected, and some disagreeable memory darkened his face. "Under the +politicians?" he said. + +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. + +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. + +"How much land?" I asked. + +"Just over nine thousand acres," he said. + +"But you could manage forty or fifty thousand with little more trouble." + +"If I had it. In some ways it would be easier." + +"What a waste!" I said. "Of course you ought not to _own_ 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." + +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... + +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. + +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. + + +3 + +The impression I have of the present mental process in the European +communities is that while the official class and the _rentier_ 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. + +But service to what? + +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. + +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. + +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 _Eclipse or Empire?_ (The title +_World Might or Downfall?_ 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? + +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. + +The blind man must lunge again. + +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. + +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 _La Republique Francais_, 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. + +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. + + + + +VI. THE ENDING OF THE WAR + + +1 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _nach Paris_ and _nach +London_; Lord Curzon filled our minds with a pleasant image of the +Bombay Lancers riding down _Unter den Linden._ 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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + + +2 + +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 _Lusitania_ 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. + +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:-- + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +3 + +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. + +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 +_Lusitania_ 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 +"_au-dessus de la melee._" 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. + +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. + +Let me relate two trivial anecdotes. + +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, _Colonel in the United States army._" + +"Oh! These Americans!" said X with a gesture. + +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 _de grand luxe_; 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." + +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. + +Then Colonel Z pointed with two fingers and remarked to us, without any +excess of admiration: + +"_America!_" + +Then he shrugged his shoulders and pulled down the corners of his mouth. + +We felt there was nothing more to add to that, and after a little pause +the previous question was resumed. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +4 + +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. + +Let me take three instances of the impossibility of complete victory +_on either side_ giving a solution satisfactory to the conscience and +intelligence of reasonable men. + +The first--on which I will not expatiate, for everyone knows of its +peculiar difficulty--is Poland. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + +5 + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _show_--in +consequences. + +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. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of War and the Future, by H. G. 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