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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8529-8.txt b/8529-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8820ba8 --- /dev/null +++ b/8529-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5981 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The World Decision, by Robert Herrick + +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: The World Decision + +Author: Robert Herrick + +Posting Date: October 20, 2012 [EBook #8529] +Release Date: July, 2005 +First Posted: July 20, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD DECISION *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Anne Reshnyk, Charles Franks, and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + + +THE WORLD DECISION + +BY + +ROBERT HERRICK + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +_PART ONE--ITALY_ + + I. ITALY HESITATES + + II. THE POLITICIAN SPEAKS + +III. THE POET SPEAKS + + IV. THE PIAZZA SPEAKS + + V. ITALY DECIDES + + VI. THE EVE OF THE WAR + + +_PART TWO--FRANCE_ + + I. THE FACE OF PARIS + + II. THE WOUNDS OF FRANCE + +III. THE BARBARIAN + + IV. THE GERMAN LESSON + + V. THE FAITH OF THE FRENCH + + VI. THE NEW FRANCE + + +_PART THREE--AMERICA_ + + I. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO US? + + II. THE CHOICE + +III. PEACE + + + + +THE WORLD DECISION + + +PART ONE--ITALY + + +I + + +_Italy Hesitates_ + +Last April, when I left New York for Europe, Italy was "on the verge" +of entering the great war. According to the meager reports that a strict +censorship permitted to reach the world, Italy had been hesitating for +many months between a continuance of her precarious neutrality and joining +with the Allies, with an intermittent war fever in her pulses. It was +known that she was buying supplies for her ill-equipped army--boots and +food and arms. Nevertheless, American opinion had come to the somewhat +cynical belief that Italy would never get further than the verge of war; +that her Austrian ally would be induced by the pressure of necessity to +concede enough of those "national aspirations," of which we had heard +much, to keep her southern neighbor at least lukewarmly neutral until +the conclusion of the war. An American diplomat in Italy, with the best +opportunity for close observation, said, as late as the middle of May: +"I shall believe that Italy will go into the war only when I see it!" + +The process of squeezing her Austrian ally when the latter was in a +tight place--as Italy's negotiating was interpreted commonly in +America--naturally aroused little enthusiasm for the nation, and when +suddenly, during the stormy weeks of mid-May, Italy made her decision +and broke with Austria, Americans inferred, erroneously, that her +"sordid" bargaining having met with a stubborn resistance from Vienna, +there was nothing left for a government that had spent millions in war +preparation but to declare war. The affair had that surface appearance, +which was noisily proclaimed by Germany to the world. Chancellor +Bethmann-Hollweg's sneer concerning the "voice of the piazza having +prevailed" revealed not merely pique, but also a complete +misunderstanding, a Teutonic misapprehension of the underlying motives +that led to an inevitable step. No one who witnessed, as I did at close +range, the swift unfolding of the drama which ended on May 23 in a +declaration of war, can accept such a base or trivial reading of the +matter. Like all things human the psychology of Italy's action was +complex, woven in an intricate pattern, nevertheless at its base simple +and inevitable, granted the fundamental racial postulates. Old impulses +stirred in the Italians as well as new. Italy repeated according to the +modern formula the ancient defiance by her Roman forefathers of the +Teutonic danger. _"Fuori i barbari"_--out with the barbarians--has lain +in the blood of Italy for two thousand years, to be roused to a fresh +heat of hate by outraged Belgium, by invaded France, by the Lusitania +murders. Less conscious, perhaps, but not less mighty as a moving force +than this personal antagonism was the spiritual antagonism between the +Latin and the German, between the two visions of the world which the +German and the Latin imagine and seek to perpetuate. That in a large and +very real sense this world agony of war is the supreme struggle between +these two opposed traditions of civilization--a decision between two +competing forms of life--seems to me so obvious as to need no argument. +In such a struggle Italy must, by compulsion of historical tradition as +well as of political situation, take her part on the side of those who +from one angle or another are upholding with their lives the inheritance +of Rome against the pretensions of force--law, justice, mercy, beauty +against the dead weight of physical and material strength. + + * * * * * + +One had no more than put foot on the quay at Naples before the atmosphere +of fateful hesitation in which Italy had lived for eight months became +evident to the senses of the traveler. Naples was less strident, less +vocal than ever before. That mob of hungry Neapolitans, which usually +seizes violent hold of the stranger and his effects, was thin and +spiritless. Naples was almost quiet. The Santa Lucia was deserted; the +line of pretentious hotels with drawn shutters had the air of a summer +resort out of season. The war had cut off Italy's greatest source of ready +money--the idler. Naples was living to itself a subdued, zestless life. +Cook's was an empty inutility. The sunny slopes of Sorrento, where during +the last generation the German has established himself in all favorable +sites, were thick with signs of sale. + +In other respects there were indications of prosperity--more building, +cleaner streets, better shops. In the dozen years since I had been there, +Italy had undoubtedly prospered, and even this beggar's paradise of sun +and tourists had bettered itself after the modern way. I saw abundant +signs of the new Italy of industrial expansion, which under German +tutelage had begun to manufacture, to own ships, and to exploit itself. +And there were also signs of war-time bloat--the immense cotton business. +Naples as well as Genoa was stuffed with American cotton, the quays piled +with the bales that could not be got into warehouses. It took a large +credulity to believe that all this cotton was to satisfy Italian wants. +Cotton, as everybody knew, was going across the Alps by the trainload. +Nevertheless, our ship, which had a goodly amount of the stuff, was held +at Gibraltar only a day until the English Government decided to accept +the guarantees of consul and Italian Ambassador that it was legitimately +destined for Italian factories--a straw indicating England's perplexity +in the cotton business, especially with a nation that might any day become +an ally! It would be wiser to let a little more cotton leak into Germany +through Switzerland than to agitate the question of contraband at this +delicate moment. + +The cotton brokers, the grain merchants, and a few others were making +money out of Italy's neutrality, and _neutralista_ sentiment was +naturally strong among these classes and their satellites. No doubt +they did their best to give an impression of nationalism to the creed +of their pockets. But a serious-minded merchant from Milan who dined +opposite me on the way to Rome expressed the prevailing beliefs of his +class as well as any one,--"War, yes, in time.... It must come.... But +first we must be ready--we are not quite ready yet"; and he predicted +almost to a day when Italy, finding herself ready, would enter the great +conflict. He showed no enthusiasm either for or against war: his was a +curiously fatalistic attitude of mind, an acceptance of the inevitable, +which the American finds so hard to understand. + + * * * * * + +And this was the prevailing note of Rome those early days of May--a +dull, passive acceptance of the dreaded fate which had been threatening +for so many months on the national horizon, ever since Austria plumped +her brutal ultimatum upon little Serbia. There were no vivid debates, +no pronounced current of opinion one way or the other, not much public +interest in the prolonged discussions at the Consulta; just a lethargic +iteration of the belief that sooner or later war must come with its +terrible risks, its dubious victories. Given the Italian temperament +and the nearness of the brink toward which the country was drifting, +one looked for flashes of fire. But Rome, if more normal in its daily +life than Naples in spite of the absence of those tourists who gather +here at this season by the tens of thousands, was equally acquiescent +and on the surface uninterested in the event. + +The explanation of this outward apathy in the public is simple: nobody +knew anything definite enough as yet to rouse passions. The Italian +newspaper is probably the emptiest receptacle of news published +anywhere. The journals are all personal "organs," and anybody can know +whose "views" they are voicing. There was the "Messagero," subsidized by +the French and the English embassies, which emitted cheerful pro-Ally +paragraphs of gossip. There was the "Vittorio," founded by the German +party, patently the mouthpiece of Teutonic diplomacy. There was the +"Giornale d'Italia" that spoke for the Vatican, and the "Idea Nazionale" +which voiced radical young Italy. And so on down the list. But there was +a perfectly applied censorship which suppressed all diplomatic leaks. So +one read with perfect confidence that Prince von Bülow had driven to the +Consulta at eleven-fifteen yesterday, and having been closeted with Baron +Sonnino, the Italian Foreign Minister, or with the Premier, Signor +Salandra, or with both, for forty-seven minutes, had emerged upon the +street smiling. And shortly after this event Baron Macchio, the Austrian +Envoy, arrived at the Consulta in his motor-car and had spent within the +mystery of the Foreign Office twenty or more minutes. The reader might +insert any fatal interpretation he liked between the lines of this +chronicle. That was quite all the reality the Roman public, the people +of Italy, had to speculate upon during weeks of waiting, and for the most +part they waited quietly, patiently. For whatever the American prejudice +against the dangers of secret diplomacy may be, the European, especially +the Italian, idea is that all grave negotiations should be conducted +privately--that the diplomatic cake should be composed by experts in +retirement until it is ready for the baking. And the European public +is well trained in controlling its curiosities. + +It was sufficiently astonishing to the American onlooker, however, +accustomed to flaming extras and the plethoric discussion in public of the +most intimate affairs, state and personal, to witness the acquiescence of +emotional Italians in this complete obscurity about their fate and that of +their children and their nation, which was being sorted behind the closed +doors of the Consulta. Every one seemed to go about his personal business +with an apparent calm, a shrug of expressive shoulders at the most, +signifying belief in the sureness of war--soon. There was little animation +in the cafés, practically none on the streets. Arragno's, usually buzzing +with political prophecy, had a depressing, provincial calm. Unoccupied +deputies sat in gloomy silence over their thin _consommations_. Even the +1st of May passed without that demonstration by the Socialists against war +so widely expected. To be sure, the Government had prudently packed Rome +and the northern cities with troops: soldiers were lurking in every old +courtyard, up all the narrow alleys, waiting for some hardy Socialist to +"demonstrate." But it was not the plentiful troops, not even a lively +thunderstorm that swept Rome all the afternoon, which discouraged the +Socialists: they too were in doubt and apathy. They were hesitating, +passing resolutions, defining themselves into fine segments of political +opinion--and waiting for Somebody to act! They too awaited the completion +of those endless discussions among the diplomats at the Consulta, at the +Ballplatz in Vienna, and wherever diplomacy is made in Berlin. The first +of May came and went, and the _carabinieri_, the secret police, the +infantry, the cavalry with their fierce hairy helmets filed off to their +barracks in a dripping dusk, dispirited, as if disappointed themselves +that nothing definite, even violence, had yet come out of the business. So +one caught a belated cab and scurried through the deserted streets to an +empty hotel on the Pincian, more than half convinced that the Government +meant really to do nothing except "negotiate" until the spirit of war had +died from the hearts of the people. + +Yet much was going on beneath the surface. There were flashes to be +seen in broad daylight. The King and his ministers at the eleventh hour +decided not to attend the ceremonies at Quarto of the unveiling of the +monument to the Garibaldian "Thousand." Now, what could that mean? Did +it indicate that the King was not yet ready to choose his road and feared +to compromise himself by appearing in company with the Francophile poet +D'Annunzio, who was to give the address? It would be a hard matter to +explain to Berlin, to whose nostrils the poet was anathema. Or did it +mean literally that the negotiations with reluctant Austria had reached +that acute point which might not permit the absence of authority from Rome +even for twenty-four hours? The drifting, if it were drifting, was more +rapid, day by day. + +There was a constant troop movement all over Italy, which could not be +disguised from anybody who went to a railroad station. Italy was not +"mobilizing," but that term in this year of war has come to have a +diplomatic insignificance. Every one knew that a large army had already +gone north toward the disputed frontier. More soldiers were going every +day, and more men of the younger sort were silently disappearing from +their ordinary occupations, as the way is in conscript countries. It was +all being done admirably, swiftly, quietly--no placards. The _carabinieri_ +went from house to house and delivered verbal orders. But all this might +be a mere "preparation," an argument that could not be used diplomatically +at the Consulta, yet of vital force. + +There was the sudden twenty-four-hour visit of the Italian Ambassador +at Paris to Rome. Why had he taken that long journey home for such a +brief visit, consumed in conferences with the ministers? And Prince von +Bülow had rallied to his assistance the Catholic Deputy Erzburger. Rome +was seething with rumor. + + * * * * * + +The remarkable passivity of the Italian public during these anxious +moments was due in good part, no doubt, to its thorough confidence in +the men who were directing the state, specifically in the Prime Minister +Salandra and his Minister of Foreign Affairs Baron Sonnino, who were the +Government. They were honest,--that everybody admitted,--and they were +experienced. In less troubled times the nation might prefer the popular +politician Giolitti, who had a large majority of the deputies in the +Parliament in his party, and who had presented Italy a couple of years +earlier with its newest plaything, Libya,--and concealed the bills. But +Giolitti had prudently retired to his little Piedmont home in Cavour. All +the winter he had kept out of Rome, leaving the Salandra Government to +work out a solution of the knotty tangle in which he had helped to involve +his country. Nobody knew precisely what Giolitti's views were, but it was +generally accepted that he preserved the tradition of the Crispi +statesmanship, which had made the abortion of the Triple Alliance. If he +could not openly champion an active fulfillment of the alliance, at least +he was avowedly _neutralista_, the best that Berlin and Vienna had come to +hope from their southern ally. He was the great unknown factor politically, +with his majority in the Chamber, his personal prestige. A clever American, +long resident in Rome in sufficient intimacy with the political powers to +make his words significant, told me,--"The country does not know what it +wants. But Giolitti will tell them. When he comes we shall know whether +there will be war!" That was May 9--a Sunday. Giolitti arrived in Rome +the same week--and we knew, but not as the political prophet thought.... + +Meanwhile, there were mutterings of the thunder to come out of this +stagnant hesitation. One day I went out to the little town of Genzano +in the Alban Hills, with an Italian mother who wished to see her son +in garrison there. The regiment of Sardinian _Granatieri_, ordinarily +stationed near the King in Rome, had been sent to this dirty little +hill town to keep order. The populace were so threatening in their +attitude that the soldiers were confined in their quarters to prevent +street rows. We could see their heads at the windows of the old houses +and convents where they were billeted, like schoolboys in durance vile. +I read the word "_Socilismo_" scrawled in chalk over the walls and +half-effaced by the hand of authority. The hard faces of the townsfolk +scowled at us while we talked with a young captain. The Genzanans were +against the war, the officer said, and stoned the soldiers. They did not +want another African jaunt, with more taxes and fewer men to till the +fields. + +Elsewhere one heard that the "populace" generally was opposed to war. +"We shall have to shoot up some hundreds of the rats in Florence before +the troops leave," the youthful son of a prefect told me. That in the +North. As for the South, a shrug of the shoulders expressed the national +doubt of Calabria, Sicily,--the weaker, less certain members of the +family. Remembering the dire destruction of the earthquake in the Abruzzi, +which wrought more ruin to more people than the Messina catastrophe, also +the floods that had destroyed crops in the fertile river bottoms a few +weeks before, one could understand popular opposition to more dangers and +more taxes. These were some of the perplexities that beset the Government. +No wonder that the diplomats were weighing their words cautiously at the +Consulta, also weighing with extreme fineness the _quid pro quo_ they +would accept as "compensation" from Austria for upsetting the Balkan +situation. It was, indeed, a delicate matter to decide how many of those +national aspirations might be sacrificed for the sake of present security +without jeopardizing the nation's future. Italy needed the wisdom of +patriots if ever in her history. + +The Salandra Government kept admirable order during these dangerous +days, suppressing the slightest popular movement, pro or con. That was +the wise way, until they knew themselves which road to take and had +prepared the public mind. And they had plenty of troops to be occupied +somehow. The exercise of the firm hand of authority against popular +ebullitions is always a marvel to the American. To the European mind +government means power, and power is exercised practically, concretely, +not by writs of courts and sheriffs, but by armed troops. The Salandra +Government had the power, and apparently did not mean to have its hand +forced by the populace.... + +The young officer at Genzano had no doubt that war was coming, nor +had the handsome boy whom we at last ran to ground in an old Franciscan +convent. He talked eagerly of the "promise" his regiment had received "to +go first." His mother's face contracted with a spasm of pain as he spoke, +but like a Latin mother she made no protest. If his country needed him, +if war had to be.... On our way back to Rome across the Campagna we saw a +huge silver fish swimming lazily in the misty blue sky--one of Italy's new +dirigibles exercising. There were soldiers everywhere in their new gray +linen clothes--tanned, boyish faces, many of them fine large fellows, +scooped up from villages and towns all over Italy. The night was broken +by the sound of marching feet, for troop movements were usually made at +night. The soldiers were going north by the trainload. Each day one saw +more of them in the streets, coming and going. Yet Baron Macchio and +Prince von Bülow were as busy as ever at the Consulta on the Quirinal +Hill, and rumor said that at last they were offering real "compensations." + + * * * * * + +The shops of Rome, as those of every city and town in Europe, were +hung with war maps, of course. In Rome the prevailing map was that highly +colored, imaginative rearrangement of southern Europe to fit the national +aspirations. The new frontier ran along the summits of the Alps and took +a wide swath down the Adriatic coast. It was a most flattering prospect +and lured many loiterers to the shop windows. At the office of the +"Giornale d'Italia" in the Corso there was displayed beside an irredentist +map an approximate sketch of what Austria was willing to give, under +German persuasion. The discrepancy between the two maps was obvious and +vast. On the bulletin boards there were many news items emanating from the +"unredeemed" in Trent and Trieste, chronicling riots and the severely +repressive measures taken by the Austrian masters. The little piazza in +front of the newspaper office was thronged from morning to night, and the +old woman in the kiosk beside the door did a large business in maps. + +And yet this aspect of the Italian situation seems to me to have been +much exaggerated. There was, so far as I could see, no great popular +fervor over the disinherited Italians in Austrian lands, in spite of the +hectic items about Austrian tyranny appearing daily in the newspapers--no +great popular agony of mind over these "unredeemed." Also it was obvious +that Italy in her new frontier proposed to include quite as many +unredeemed Austrians and other folk as redeemed Italians! No; it was +rather a high point of propaganda--as we should say commercially, a good +talking proposition. Deeper, it represented the urge of nationalism, +which is one of the extraordinary phenomena of this remarkable war. The +American, vague in his feeling of nationalism, refuses to take quite +seriously agitation for the "unredeemed." Why, he asks with naïveté, go +to war for a few thousands of Italians in Trent and Trieste? + +I am not attempting to write history. I am guessing like another, +seeking causes in a complex state of mind. We shall have to go back. +Secret diplomacy may be the inveterate habit of Europe, especially of +Italy. The new arrangement with the Allies has never been published, +probably never will be. One suspects that it was made, essentially, before +Italy had broken with Austria, before, perhaps, she had denounced her old +alliance on the 5th of May at Vienna. And yet, although inveterately +habituated to the mediaevalism of secret international arrangements, Italy +is enough filled with the spirit of modern democracy to break any treaty +that does not fulfill the will of the people. The Triple Alliance was +really doomed at its conception, because it was a trade made by a few +politicians and diplomats in secret and never known in its terms to the +people who were bound by it. Any strain would break such a bond. The +strain was always latent, but it became acute of late years, especially +when Austria thwarted Italy's move on Turkey--as Salandra revealed later +under the sting of Bethmann-Hollweg's taunts. It was badly strained, +virtually broken, when Austria without warning to Italy stabbed at Serbia. +Austria made a grave blunder there, in not observing the first term of the +Triple Alliance, by which she was bound to take her allies into +consultation. The insolence of the Austrian attitude was betrayed in the +disregard of this obligation: Italy evidently was too unimportant a factor +to be precise with. Italy might, then and there, the 1st of August, 1914, +very well have denounced the Alliance, and perhaps would have done so had +she been prepared for the consequences, had the Salandra Government been +then at the helm. + +There is another coil to the affair, not generally recognized in America. +Austria in striking at Serbia was potentially aiming at a closer +envelopment of Italy along the Adriatic, provision for which had been made +in a special article of the Triple Alliance,--the seventh,--under which +she had bound herself to grant compensations to Italy for any disturbance +of the Balkan situation. Austria, when she was brought to recognize this +commission of fault,--which was not until December, 1914, not seriously +until the close of January, 1915,--pretended that her blow at Serbia was +chastisement, not occupation. But it is absurd to assume that having +chastised the little Balkan state she would leave it free and independent. +It is true that in January Austrian troops were no longer in Balkan +territory, but that was not due to intention or desire! They had been +there, they are there now, and they will be there as long as the Teutonic +arms prevail. It is a game of chess: Italy knew the gambit as soon as +Austria moved against Serbia. The response she must have known also, but +she had not the power to move then. So she insisted pertinaciously on her +right under the seventh clause of the Triple Alliance to open negotiations +for "compensations" for Austria's aggression in the Balkans, and finally +with the assistance of Berlin compelled the reluctant Emperor to admit her +right. + +These complexities of international chess, which the American mind +never seems able to grasp, are instinctively known by the man in the +street in Europe. Every one has learned the gambits: they do not have +to be explained, nor their importance demonstrated. The American can +profitably study those maps so liberally displayed in shop windows, +as I studied them for hours in default of anything better to do in +the drifting days of early May. The maps will show at a glance that +Italy's northern frontiers are so ingeniously drawn--by her hereditary +enemy--that her head is virtually in chancery, as every Italian knows +and as the whole world has now realized after four months of patient +picking by Italian troops at the outer set of Austrian locks. And there +is the Adriatic. When Austria made the frontier, the sea-power question +was not as important as it has since become. The east coast of the +Adriatic was a wild hinterland that might be left to the rude peoples +of Montenegro and Albania. But it has come into the world since then. +Add to this that the Italian shore of the Adriatic is notably without +good harbors and indefensible, and one has all the elements of the +strategic situation. All fears would be superfluous if Austria, the old +bully at the north, would keep quiet: the Triple Alliance served well +enough for over thirty years. But would Austria play fair with an +unsympathetic ally that she had not taken into her confidence when +she determined to violate the first term of the Triple Alliance? + +All this may now be pondered in the "Green Book," more briefly and +cogently in the admirable statement which Italy made to the Powers when +she declared war on Austria. That the Italian Government was not only +within its treaty rights in demanding those "compensations" from Austria, +but would have been craven to pass the incident of the attack on Serbia +without notice, seems to me clear. That it was a real necessity, not a +mere trading question, for Italy to secure a stronger frontier and control +of the Adriatic, seems to me equally obvious. These, I take it, were the +vital considerations, not the situation of the "unredeemed" Italians in +Trent and Trieste. But Austria, in that grudging maximum of concession +which she finally offered to Italy's minimum of demand, insisted upon +taking the sentimental or knavish view of the Italian attitude: she would +yield the more Italianated parts of the territory in dispute, not the +vitally strategic places. Nor would she deliver her concessions until +after the conclusion of the war--if ever!--after she had got what use +there was from the Italians enrolled in her armies fighting Russia. For +Vienna to regard the tender principle of nationalism is a good enough +joke, as we say. Her persistence in considering Italy's demands as either +greed or sentiment is proof of Teutonic lack of imagination. The Italians +are sentimental, but they are even more practical. It was not the woes of +the "unredeemed" that led the Salandra Government to reject the final +offering of Austria, and to accept the risks of war instead. It was rather +the very practical consideration of that indefensible frontier, which +Austria stubbornly refused to make safe for Italy--after she had given +cause, by her attack upon Serbia, to render all her neighbors uneasy in +their minds for their safety. + +So much for the sentimental and the strategical threads in the Consulta +negotiations. It was neither for sentiment nor for strategical advantage +solely that Italy finally entered the war. Nevertheless, if the German +Powers had frankly and freely from the start recognized Italy's position, +and surrendered to her _immediate_ possession--as they were ready to do +at the last moment--sufficient of those national aspirations to safeguard +national security, with hands off in the Adriatic, Italy most probably +would have preferred to remain neutral. I cannot believe that Salandra +or the King really wanted war. They were sincerely struggling to keep +their nation out of the European melting-pot as long as they could. But +they were both shrewd and patriotic enough not to content themselves with +present security at the price of ultimate danger. And if they had been as +weak as the King of Greece, as subservient as the King of Bulgaria, they +would have had to reckon with a very different people from the Bulgars and +the Greeks--a nation that might quite conceivably have turned Italy into a +republic and ranged her beside her Latin sister on the north in the world +struggle. The path of peace was in no way the path of prudence for the +House of Savoy. + + * * * * * + +Lack of imagination is surely one of the prominent characteristics of +the modern German, at least in statecraft. Imagination applied to the +practical matters of daily living is nothing more than the ability to +project one's own personality beneath the skin of another, to look +around at the world through that other person's eyes and to realize +what values the world holds for him. The Prince von Bülow, able diplomat +though they call him, could not look upon the world through Italian +eyes in spite of his Italian wife, his long residence in Rome, his +professed love for Italy. It must have been with his consent if not +by his suggestion that Erzburger, the leader of the Catholic party in +the Reichstag, was sent to Rome at this critical juncture. The German +mind probably said,--"Here is a notable Catholic, political leader of +German Catholics, and so he must be especially agreeable to Italians, +who, as all the world knows, are Catholics." The reasoning of a stupid +child! Outwardly Italy is Catholic, but modern Italy has shown herself +very restive at any papal meddling in national affairs. To have an +alien--one of the "_barbari_"--seat himself at the Vatican and try to +use the papal power in determining the policy of the nation in a matter +of such magnitude, was a fatal blunder of tactless diplomacy. Nor could +Herr Erzburger's presence at the Vatican these tense days be kept secret +from the curious journalists, who lived on such meager items of news. No +more tactful was it for Prince von Bülow to meet the Italian politician +Giolitti at the Palace Hotel on the Pincian. There is no harm in one +gentleman's meeting another in the rooms of a public hotel so respectable +as the Palace, but when the two are playing the international chess +game and one is regarded as an enemy and the other as a possible traitor, +the popular mind is likely to take a heated and prejudiced view of the +small incident. Less obvious to the public, but none the less untactful, +was the manner in which the German Ambassador tried to use his social +connection in Rome, his family relationships in the aristocracy of Italy, +to influence the King and his ministers. He might have taken warning from +the royal speech attributed to the Queen Mother in reply to the Kaiser: +"The House of Savoy rules one at a time." He should have kept away from +the back stairs. He should have known Italy well enough to realize that +the elements of Roman society with which he was affiliated do not +represent either power or public opinion in Italy any more than good +society does in most modern states. Roman aristocracy, like all +aristocracies, whether of blood or of money, is international in its +sympathies, skeptic in its soul. And its influence, in a decisive question +of life and death to the nation, is nil. The Prince von Bülow was wasting +his time with people who could not decide anything. As Salandra said, with +dignified restraint in answer to the vulgar attack upon him made by the +German Chancellor,--"The Prince was a sincere lover of Italy, but he was +ill-advised by persons who no longer had any weight in the nation"--as +his colleague in London seems to have been ill-advised when he assured +his master that Englishmen would not fight under any circumstances! The +trouble with diplomacy would seem to be that its ranks are still recruited +from "the upper classes," whose gifts are social and whose sympathies +reflect the views and the prejudices of a very small element in the +state. Good society in Rome was still out on the Pincian for the afternoon +promenade, was still exchanging calls and dinners these golden spring +days, but its views and sympathies could not count in the enormous complex +of beliefs and emotions that make the mind of a nation in a crisis. Prince +von Bülow's motor was busily running about the narrow streets of old Rome, +the gates of the pretty Villa Malta were hospitably open,--guarded by +_carabinieri_,--but if the German Ambassador had put on an old coat and +strolled through the Trastevere, or had sat at a little marble-topped +table in some obscure café, or had traveled second or third class between +Rome and Naples, he might have heard things that would have brought the +negotiations at the Consulta to an abrupter close one way or the other. +For Italy was making up its mind against his master. + + * * * * * + +Rome was very still these hesitant days of early May, Rome was very +beautiful--I have never known her so beautiful! The Pincian, in spite +of its afternoon parade, had the sad air of forced retirement of some +well-to-do family. The Piazza di Spagna basked in its wonted flood +of sunshine with a curious Sabbatical calm. A stray _forestieri_ might +occasionally cross its blazing pavements and dive into Piale's or Cook's, +and a few flower girls brought their irises and big white roses to the +steps, more from habit than for profit surely. The Forum was like a wild, +empty garden, and the Palatine, a melancholy waste of fragments of the +past where an old Garibaldian guard slunk after the stranger, out of +lonesomeness, babbling strangely of that other war in which he had part +and mixing his memories with the tags of history he had been taught to +recite anent the Roman monuments. As I wandered there in the drowse of +bees among the spring blossoms and looked out upon the silent field that +once was the heart of Rome, it was hard to realize that again on this +richly human soil of Italy the fate of its people was to be tested in +the agony of a merciless war, that even now the die was being cast less +than a mile away across the roofs. The soil of Rome is the most deeply +laden in the world with human memories, which somehow exhale a subtle +fragrance that even the most casual stranger cannot escape, that condition +the children of the soil. The roots of the modern Italian run far down +into the mould of ancient things: his distant ancestors have done much +of his political thinking for him, have established in his soul the +conditions of his present dilemma.... I wonder if Prince von Bülow ever +spent a meditative hour looking down on the fragments of the Forum from +the ilex of the Palatine, over the steep ascent of the Capitoline that +leads to the Campidolgio, as far as the grandiose marble pile that fronts +the newer city? Probably not. + + * * * * * + +Germany wanted her place in the sun. She had always wanted it from the +day, two thousand years and more ago, when the first Teuton tribes came +over the Alpine barrier and spread through the sun-kissed fields of +northern Italy. The Italian knows that in his blood. There are two ways +in which to deal with this German lust of another's lands--to kill the +invader or to absorb him. Italy has tried both. It takes a long time to +absorb a race,--hundreds of years,--and precious sacrifices must be made +in the process. No wonder that Italy does not wish to become Germany's +place in the sun! Nor to swallow the modern German. + +When the Teuton first crossed the Alpine barrier and poured himself +lustfully out over the fertile plains of northern Italy, it was literally +a place in the sun which he coveted. In the ages since then his lust has +changed its form: now it is economic privilege that he seeks for his +people. In order to maintain that level of industrial superiority, of +material prosperity, to which he has raised himself, he must "expand" +in trade and influence. He must have more markets to exploit and always +more. It is the same lust with a new name. "Thou shalt not covet" surely +was written for nations as well as for individuals. But our modern +economic theory, the modern Teutonic state, is based on the belief: "Thou +shalt covet, and the race that covets most and by power gets most, that +race shall survive!" And here is the central knot of the whole dark +tangle. The German coveting greater economic opportunities, knowing +himself strong to survive, believes in his divine right to possess. It +is conscious Darwinism--the survival of the fittest, materially, which +he is applying to the world--Darwinism accelerated by an intelligent will. +And the non-Germanic world--the Latin world, for it _is_ a Latin world in +varying degrees of saturation outside of Germany--rejects the theory and +the practice with loathing--when it sees what it means. + + * * * * * + +What makes for the happiness of a nation? I asked myself in the mellow +silence of ancient Rome. Is it true that economic conquest makes for +strength, happiness, survival for the nation or for the individual? + +This Italy has always been poor, at least within modern memory--a literal, +actual poverty when often there has not been enough to eat in the family +pot to go around. She has had a difficult time in the economic race for +bread and butter for her children. There is neither sufficient land easily +cultivable nor manufacturing resources to make her rich, to support her +growing population according to the modern standards of comfort. The +Germans despise the Italians for their little having. + +Yet the Italian peasant--man, woman, or child--is a strong human being, +inured to meager living and hardship, loving the soil from which he digs +his living with an intense, fiery love. And poverty has not killed the +joy of living in the Italian. Far from it! In spite of the exceedingly +laborious lives which the majority lead, the privations in food, clothing, +housing, the narrowness,--in the modern view,--of their lives, no one +could consider the Italian people unhappy. Their characters, like their +hillside farms, are the result of an intensive cultivation--of making +the most out of very little naturally given. + +A healthy, high-tempered, vital people these, not to be despised in the +_kaiserliche_ fashion even as soldiers. Surely not as human beings, as a +human society. And their poverty has had much influence in making the +Italians the sturdy people they are to-day. Poverty has some depressing +aspects, but in the main her very lack of economic opportunity--the want +of coal and factories and other sources of wealth--has kept most of these +people close to the soil, where one feels the majority of any healthy, +enduring race should be. Poverty has made the Italians hard, content with +little, and able to wring the most out of that little. It has cultivated +them intensively as a people, just as they have been forced to cultivate +their rock-bound fields foot by foot. + +There are qualities in human living more precious than prosperity, and +in these Italians have shared abundantly--beauty, sentiment, tradition, +all that give color and meaning to life. These are the treasures of Latin +civilization in behalf of which the allied nations of Europe are now +fighting.... + + * * * * * + +I am well enough aware that all this is contrary to the premises of the +economic and social polity that controls modern statecraft. I know that +our great nations, notably Germany, are based on exactly the opposite +premise--that the strength of a state depends on the economic +development of its people, on its wealth-producing power. Germany has +been the most convinced, the most conscious, the most relentless exponent +of the pernicious belief that the ultimate welfare of the state depends +primarily on the wealth-getting power of its citizens. She has exalted +an economic theory into a religion of nationality with mystical appeals. +She has taught her children to go singing into the jaws of death in order +that the Fatherland may extend her markets and thus enrich her citizens +at the expense of the citizens of other states, who are her inferiors in +the science of slaughter. A queer religion, and all the more abhorrent +when dressed out with the phrases of Christianity! + +All modern states are more or less tainted with the same +delusion--ourselves most, perhaps, after Germany. "We have all sinned," +as an eminent Frenchman said, "your people and mine, as well as England +and Germany." It is time to revise some of the fundamental assumptions +of political philosophers and statesmen. Let us admit that peoples may +be strong and happy and contented without seeking to control increasingly +those sources of wealth still left undeveloped on the earth's surface, +without cutting one another's throats in an effort for national expansion. +The psychology of states cannot be fundamentally different from that of +the individuals in them. And the happiness of the individual has never +been found to consist wholly, even largely, in his economic prosperity. + +Because the Latin soul divines this axiomatic belief, because the +Latin world admits a larger, finer interpretation of life than +economic success, all civilization waits upon the great decision of +this war. + + * * * * * + +Suddenly in the calm of these drifting, hesitant days, when nobody +knew what the nation desired, there came a bolt of lightning. I have +said that the German people lack imagination by which to understand +the world outside themselves. They do not coördinate their activities. +Otherwise, why commit the barbarism of sinking the Lusitania, just at +the moment when they were straining to keep Italy from breaking +completely the frayed bonds of the Triple Alliance? Probably it never +entered any German head in the "high commandment" that the prosecution +of his undersea warfare might have a very real connection with the +Italian situation. He could not credit any nation with such "soft +sentimentality," as he calls it. Yet I am not alone in ascribing a +large significance to the sinking of the Lusitania in Italy's decision +to make war. Every observer of these events whom I have talked with or +whose report I have read gives the same testimony, that Italy first +woke to her own mind at the shock of the Lusitania murders.... + +The news came to me in my peaceful room above the Barberini Gardens. +The fountain was softly dripping below, the spring air was full of the +song of birds as another perfect day opened. The warm sunshine reached +lovingly up the yellowed walls of the old palace opposite. All the +little, old, familiar things of a long past, which pull so strongly +here in Rome at the human heart, were moving in the new day. The life +of men, so troubled, so sad, seemed beautiful this May morning, with +the suave beauty of ideals that for centuries have coursed through the +blood of Italy.... Luigi, the black-haired, black-eyed lad who brought +the morning coffee and newspapers, was telling me of the horrid crime. +With his outstretched fist clenched and shaking with rage he said the +words, then, dropping the paper with its heavy headlines, cursed it as +if it too symbolically represented the hideous thing that Germany had +become. "Now," he cried, "there'll be war! We shall fight them, the +swine!" A few days afterward Luigi departed to fight the "swine" on +some Alpine pass. + +Luigi's reaction to the sinking of the Lusitania was typical of all +Rome, all Italy. The same burst of execration and horror was in every +mouth. "Fuori i Barbari" was the title of a little anti-German sheet +that was appearing in Rome: it got a new significance as it hung in +the kiosks or was scanned by scowling men. It became the muttered cry +of the street. I am not simple enough to believe that the sinking of +the Lusitania of itself "drove Italy into the war." Nations no more +than individuals, alas, are idealistic enough to sacrifice themselves +simply for their moral resentments. But this fresh example of cynical +indifference to the opinion of civilization, just at the critical point +of decision for the Italian people, had much to do with the rousing of +that war fury without which no government can push a nation into war. +First there must be the spirit of hate, a personal emotion in the hearts +of many. It must be remembered also that Italy had felt with the entire +civilized world the outrage of Belgium. It has even been rumored that +one of the hard passages between Italy and her German allies was the +condition that Germany wished to attach to any Austrian concessions, +by which Italy at the peace conference should uphold Germany's "claims" +to Belgium. No one knows the truth about this, but if true it is in +itself an adequate explanation of the failure of the negotiations. And +now the Lusitania came with a fresh shock as an iterated example of +German state policy. It proclaimed glaringly to the eyes of all men +what the Teutonic thing is, what it means to the world. The Latin has +been cruel and bloody in his deeds, like all men, but he has never made +a cult of inhumanity, never justified it as a principle of statecraft. +Italians, prone to hate as to love, prone especially to hate the Teuton, +those aliens who have lusted after their richness and beauty all these +centuries, felt the Lusitania murders to the depths of their souls. It +was like a red writing on the wall, serving notice that in due season +Germany and Austria would tear Italy limb from limb because of her +"treachery" in not abetting them in their attack upon the peace of +the world. + +Prince von Bülow and Baron Macchio might as well have discontinued +their daily visits to the Consulta after the 7th of May. Whatever +they might have hoped to accomplish with their diplomacy to keep Italy +neutral had been irretrievably ruined by the diplomacy of Grand Admiral +von Tirpitz. The smallest match, the scratch of a boot-heel on stone, +can set off a powder magazine. The Lusitania was a goodly sized match. +If the King and his ministers were waiting for the country to declare +itself, if they wanted the excuse of national emotion before taking +the final irrevocable steps into war, they had their desire. From the +hour when the news of the sinking of the Lusitania came over the wires, +Italy began to mutter and shout. The months of hesitation were ended. +There were elements enough of hate, and Germany had given them all +focus. "Fuori i Barbari!" I bought a sheet from the old woman who +went hurrying up the street shouting hoarsely,--"Fuori i Barbari!" ... +"Fuori i Barbari!" ... "Barbari!".... + + + + +II + + +_The Politician Speaks_ + +Giovanni Giolitti came to Rome, a few days after the Lusitania affair. +Ostensibly he had come to town from his home in little Cavour, where he +had been in retirement all the winter, to visit a sick wife at Frascati. +Montecitorio, home of politicians, began to hum. Rome quivering with the +emotions of its great decision muttered. What did Giolitti's presence at +this eleventh hour signify? Remember what the shrewd American observer +had said the week before,--"Giolitti will tell the Italians what they +want." + +The master politician, the ex-Premier, the heir to Crispian policies, +was received at the railroad station by a few faithful friends, much +as Boss Barnes or Boss Penrose, returning from a voluntary exile in +New York or Pennsylvania, might be received by a few of the "boys." +They were Deputies from Montecitorio frock-coated and silk-hatted, +like politicians all the world over, not a popular throng of a hundred +thousand Romans singing and shouting, such as a few days later was to +gather in the piazza before the same station to greet the poet, +D'Annunzio. It is well to understand the significance of this +unobtrusive coming of the political leader at the moment, to realize +what sinister meaning it had for the existing Government, for the +Italian nation, for the Allies--for the world. + +The Italian Deputies who had been elected two years before, long before +even the astutest politician had any suspicion of the black cloud that +was to rise over Europe, were Giolittian by a great majority. Giolitti +was then the chief figure in Italian politics and controlled the Chamber +of Deputies. The Giolitti "machine," as we should say, was the only +machine worth mention in Italy. Rumor says that it was buttressed with +patronage as American machines are, and, more specifically, that Giolitti +when in power had diverted funds which should have gone into national +defense to political ends, also had deferred the bills of the Libyan +expedition so that at the outbreak of the war Italy found herself badly +in debt and with an army in need of everything. Soldiers drilled in the +autumn of 1914 in patent leathers or barefooted and dressed as they could, +while the Giolittian clubs and interests flourished. Also it was said +that the prefects of the provinces, who in the Italian system have large +powers, especially in influencing elections, were henchmen of the +politician. I do not know how just these accusations may be, nor how +true the more serious accusation shortly to be hurled abroad that +Giolitti had sold himself for German gold. The latter is easy to say +and hard to prove; the former is hard to prove and easy to believe--it +being the way of politicians the world over. + +However dull or bright Giolitti's personal honor may have been, +the Parliamentary situation was difficult in the extreme--one of +those absurd paradoxes of representative government liable to happen +any time. Here were five hundred-odd elected representatives of the +people owing allegiance, really, not to the King, not to the nation, +not to the responsible ministers in charge of the state, but to the +politician Giolitti. If they had been elected under the stress of +the war, after the 1st of August, 1914, they might not have been the +same personal representatives of Giovanni Giolitti. We cannot say. +Democracies are prone to be deceived in their chosen representatives: +they discover them mortgaged to a leader, secret or open. The Salandra +Government knew, of course, Giolitti's prejudices in favor of Italy's +old allies, disguised as patriotically _neutralista_ sympathies. He +had discreetly retired to little Cavour in Piedmont all the winter, +maintaining a disinterested aloofness throughout the prolonged +negotiations. Yet he knew, the Salandra Government and the King knew, +the people knew, that Giovanni Giolitti must be reckoned with before +Parliament could be opened to ratify the acts of the ministers, to +support them in whatever measures they had prepared to take. It would +be simple political insanity to open the Chamber before Giolitti had +been dealt with, leading to acrid discussions, scandal, the inevitable +downfall of the ministry, and political chaos. The nation must be united +and express itself unitedly by its legal mouthpieces before the world. + + * * * * * + +It has been said, I do not know with what truth, that Prince von Bülow had +informed the ex-Premier of Austria's ultimate concessions even before they +were presented to Salandra and Sonnino, and consequently that Giolitti was +precisely aware of the situation when he reached Rome. It is easy to +believe almost anything of a diplomacy that dealt with Giolitti in the +private rooms of a hotel after the downfall of the Salandra Government.... +At any rate, Giolitti went through the forms correctly: he called on the +Premier Salandra, the Foreign Minister Sonnino, who laid before the +ex-Premier the situation as it had shaped itself. Even the King received +him in private audience. So much was due to the leading politician of +Italy, who controlled, supposedly, a majority of the existing Parliament. +In a sense he held the Salandra Government in his hand, after the opening +of the Chamber, which could not be long delayed. + +Then the politician spoke. Rather, to be precise, he wrote a little note +to a faithful intimate, which was meant for the newspapers and got into +them at once. It was a very innocent little note of a few lines in which +he confided to "Caro Carlo" his opinion on the tense national situation: +better stay with the old allies--the Austrian offers seemed sufficiently +satisfactory. This may well have been a sincere, a patriotic judgment, as +sincere and patriotic as Bryan's resignation from the American Cabinet a +few weeks later. But Italians did not think so. Almost universally they +gave it other, sinister interpretations. Giolitti had been "bought," was +nothing more than the knavish mouthpiece of German intrigue. Giolitti +became overnight _traditore_, the arch-conspirator, the enemy of his +country! It must have staggered the politician, this sudden fury which +his innocent advice had roused. And, to condemn him, it is not necessary +to believe him to have been a knave bought by German gold. + +It is important to realize what happened overnight. Giolitti had +become the most hated, most denounced man in all Italy, and in so far +as he represented honest _neutralista_ sentiment the cause was dead. +If that was what the Salandra Government wanted to achieve, they had +got their desire. If, as the politicians say, they were "feeling out" +popular sentiment, they need no longer doubt what it was. Columns of +vituperation appeared in the anti-German newspapers, crowds began to +form and shout in the streets. "_Traditore_," hissed with every accent +of hate and scorn, filled the air. Giolitti's life was seriously in +danger--or the Government preferred to think so. The great apartment +house on the Via Cavour in which he lived was cordoned off by double +lines of troops. Cavalry kept guard, all day and half the night, before +the steps of Santa Maria Maggiore, ready to sweep through the crowded +streets in case the mob got out of hand. Other troops poured out of the +barracks over the city, doing _piquet a mato_ on all the main streets +and squares of the city. + +Giolitti had, indeed, swayed events,--"told the people what they +wanted,"--but not in the expected manner. He had revealed the nation +to itself, drifting on the verge of war, and they knew now that they +wanted nothing of Giolitti or neutrality or German compromises. They +wanted war with Austria. The remarkable fact is that a nation which had +submitted in passivity to absolute ignorance of the diplomatic exchanges, +waiting dumbly the decision that should determine its fate,--of which it +could be said that a large number, perhaps a majority, were neutral at +heart,--suddenly overnight awoke to a realization of the political +situation and rejected the prudent advice of their popular politician, +denounced him, and inferentially proclaimed themselves for war. At last +they had seen: they saw that the Salandra Government in which they had +confidence had come to the parting of the ways with Austria, and they +saw the hand of Giolitti trying to play the game of their ancient enemy. + +Then the Salandra Government did a bold, a dramatic thing: it resigned +in a body, leaving the King free to choose ministers who could obtain +the support of the Giolitti following in Parliament. It was inevitable, +it was simple, it was sincere, and it was masterly politics. The public +was aghast. At the eleventh hour the state was left thus leaderless +because its real desires were to be thwarted by a politician who took +his orders from the German Embassy. + +Thereupon the "demonstrations" against Giolitti, against Austria and +Germany, began in earnest. + + * * * * * + +The first popular "demonstration" which I saw in Rome was a harmless +enough affair, and for that matter none of them were really serious. +The Government always had the situation firmly in hand, with many +regiments of infantry, also cavalry, to reinforce the police, the secret +service, and the _carabinieri_, who alone might very well have handled +all the disorder that occurred. Never, I suspect, was there any more +demonstrating than the Government thought wise. The first occasion was +a little crowd of boys and youths,--not precisely riff-raff, rather like +our own college boys,--and they did less mischief than a few hundred +freshmen or sophomores would have done. They marched down the street from +the Piazza Tritone, shouting and carrying a couple of banners inscribed +with "Abasso Giolitti." They stoned a few signs, notably the one over the +empty office of the Austrian-Lloyd company, then, being turned from the +Corso and the Austrian Embassy by the police, they rushed back up the +hill to the Salandra residence, to hang about and yell themselves hoarse +in the hope of evoking something from the former Premier. The two poles +of the following "demonstrations" were the Salandra and the Giolitti +residences with occasional futile dashes into the Corso.... + +For the better part of a week these street excitements kept up, not +merely in Rome, but all over Italy: for that one week, while the King +sent for various public men and offered them the task of forming a +new ministry, which in every case was respectfully declined--as was +expected. + + * * * * * + +Why did the King not send for Giovanni Giolitti, the one statesman +who under ordinary circumstances might have expected a summons? +Neither Giolitti nor any of his intimates was invited to form a cabinet +and reëstablish constitutional government. Nothing would appear to be +more natural than that the leader of the Opposition, controlling a +majority of the Deputies, who avowedly represented a policy opposed +to that of the ministers who had resigned, should be asked himself to +take charge. But Giolitti was never asked, and daily the shouting in +the streets grew louder, more menacing, and the mood of the public more +tense. Nothing was plainer than that if Giolitti had a majority of the +Deputies, the people were not for him and his policies. The House of +Savoy, as the King so well put it, rules by expressing the will of the +people. Each day it was more evident what that will was. Giolitti, the +master politician, was being outplayed by mere honest men. They had used +him--as Germany had used him--to try out the temper of the nation. With +him they drew the _neutralista_ and pro-German fire beforehand, prudently, +not to be defeated by hostile party criticism in the Chamber. And when +they got through with the politician, they threw him out: literally they +intimated through the Minister of Public Safety that they would not be +responsible any longer for his personal safety. There was nothing for +him but to go--before Parliament had assembled! + +As Italy seethed and boiled, threatening to break into revolutionary +violence, while the King received one respectable nonentity after +another, who each time after a very brief consideration declined the +proffered responsibility, Giolitti must have thought that the life of +the politician is not an easy one. He was stoned when he appeared on +the streets in his motor. He had to sneak out of the city at dawn that +last day. Where was all the _neutralista_ sentiment so evident the first +months of the war? And where was the German influence supposed to be so +strong in the upper commercial classes? Germans as well as Austrians +were scurrying out of Italy as fast as they could. Their insinuating +multiplicity was proved by the numbers of shuttered shops. More hotels +along the Pincian, whose "Swiss" managers found it prudent to retire +over the Alps, were closed. Angry crowds swarmed about the Austrian +and German consulates, also the embassies when they could get through +the cordons of troops on the Piazza Colonna. Noisy Rome these days might +very well give rise to pessimistic reflections on the folly of popular +government to politicians like Giolitti and the Prince von Bülow, whose +obviously prudent policies were thus being upset by the "voice of the +piazza" led by a very literary poet! No doubt at this moment they would +point to Ferdinand of Bulgaria and the King of Greece as enlightened +monarchs who know how to secure their own safety by ignoring the will +of their peoples. But the end for Ferdinand and Constantine is not yet. + + * * * * * + +The trouble with the politician as with the trained diplomat is that +he never goes beneath the surface. He takes appearances for realities. +He has often lost that instinct of race which should enable him to +understand his own humanity. To a Giolitti, adept in the trading game +of political management, it must seem insane for Italy to plunge into +the war against powerful allies, who at just this time were triumphing +in West and East alike--all the more when the sentimental and trading +instincts of the populace might be partly satisfied with the concessions +so grudgingly wrung from Austria. It was not only rash: it was bad +politics! + +But what Giolitti and men of his stripe the world over cannot +understand is that the people are never as crafty and wise and mean as +their politicians. The people are still capable of honest emotions, of +heroic desires, of immense sacrifices. They love and hate and loathe +with simple hearts. The politician like the popular novelist makes the +fatal mistake of underrating his audience. And his audience will leave +him in the lurch at the crisis, as Italy left Giolitti. Italy was never +enthusiastic, as its enemies have charged, for a war of mere aggression, +for realizing the "aspirations" because Austria was in a tight place, +even for redeeming a million and a half more or less of expatriated +Italians in Austrian territory. Politicians and statesmen talked of +these matters, perforce; the people repeated them. For they were tangible +"causes." But what Italians hated was Austrian and German leadership--were +the "_barbari_" themselves, their ancient foe; and when told that they +had better continue to make their bed with the "_barbari_," they revolted. + +There are many men in every nation,--some of the politician type, some +of the aristocratic type, some of the business type,--who by interest +and temperament are timid and fundamentally cynical. They are pacifists +for profit. About them gather the uncourageous "intellectuals," who +believe in the potency of all established and dominating power whatever +it may be. But these "leading citizens" fortunately are a minority in +any democracy. They do most of the negotiating, much of the talking, but +when the crisis comes,--and the issue is out in the open for every one +to see,--they have to reckon with the instinctive majority, whose +emotional nature has not been dwarfed. That majority is not necessarily +the "rabble," the irresponsible and ignorant mob of the piazza as the +German Chancellor sees them: it is the great human army of "little +people," normal, simple, for the most part honest, whose selfish stake +in the community is not large enough to stifle their deepest instincts. +In them, I believe, lies the real idealism of any nation, also its plain +virtues and its abiding strength. + +The Italian situation was a difficult one, obviously. Public opinion +had been perplexed. There were the classes I have just mentioned, by +interest and temperament either pro-German or honestly neutral. There +was the radical mob that the year before had temporarily turned Italy +into republics. There was the unreliable South. And the hard-ground +peasants who feared, justly, heavier taxes and the further hardships +of war. And there were the millions of honest but undecided Italians +who hated Teutonism and all its deeds, who were intelligent enough to +realize the exposed situation of Italy, who felt the call of blood for +the "unredeemed," and the vaguer but none the less powerful call of +civilization from their northern kin--above all who responded to the +fervid historical idealism of the poet voicing the longing of their +souls to become once more the mighty nation they had been. These were +the people whose change of hearts and minds surprised Giolitti and the +Germans. + +What had been going on in those hearts of the plain people all these +months of the great war, Giolitti could not understand. It was another +Italy from the one he had charmed that rose at his prudent advice and +threw the bitter word "_traditore_" in his teeth and howled him out of +Rome. Traitor, yes! traitor to the loftier, bolder, finer longings of +their hearts to take their stand at all cost with their natural allies +in this last titanic struggle with the barbarians. It was this sort of +public that spoke in the piazza and whose voice prevailed. + + * * * * * + +The diplomat deals too exclusively with conventional persons, with the +sophisticated. The politician deals too exclusively with the successful, +with the commercial and exploiting classes. Giolitti's associations +were of this class. Like any other _bourgeoisie_ of finance and trade, +"big business" in Italy was on the side of the big German battalions, +who at this juncture were winning victories. Italy was peculiarly under +the influence of German and Austrian finance. One of its leading lending +banks--the Banca Commerciale--was a German concern. Most of its newer +developments had been accomplished with German capital, were run by German +engineers, equipped with German machines. Germany has bitterly reproached +her former ally for the "ingratitude" of siding against the people who had +brought her prosperity. Gratitude and ingratitude in business transactions +are meaningless terms. The lender gets his profit as well as the borrower, +usually before the borrower. If Italy has needed German capital, Germany +has needed the Italian markets and Italian industries for her capital. The +Germans surely have used Italy as their commercial colony. Italy bought +her bathtubs, her electric machines, her coal, and her engines from +Germany. For the past generation the German commercial traveler has been +as common in Italy as the German tourist. In fact, was there ever a German +tourist who was not in some sense a commercial agent for the Fatherland? + +To the international financier all this is simply intelligible--a matter +of mutually desirable exchange. No debtor nation should feel aggrieved +with a creditor nation: rather it should rejoice that it has attracted +the services of foreign capital. Is the international economist right +in his reasoning? Why does the delusion persist among plain people that +the creditor is not always a benefactor? It is a very old and persistent +delusion, so strong in the Middle Ages that interest was considered +illegal and the despised Jews were the only people who dared finance +the world. Abstractly the economists are undoubtedly right, yet I am +fain to believe that the popular notion has some ground of truth in it +too. Obviously, according to modern notions a country rich in natural +resources, but poor in capital, inherited savings, must borrow money to +"develop" itself. But granting for the moment that material exploitation +of a country is as desirable as our modern notions assume it to be, even +then there are reasons for grave suspicion of foreign lenders. Take abused +Mexico. Its woes are in good part traceable to the pernicious influence +upon its domestic politics of the foreign capital which its riches have +attracted. One might instance the United States as an example of +beneficial exploitation by foreign capital, but with us it must be +remembered the lender has had neither industrial nor political power. +We have always been strong enough to manage our affairs ourselves and +satisfy our creditors with their interest--if need be with their +principal. We have drawn on the European horde as upon an international +bank, but we have absolutely controlled the disposition of the moneys +borrowed. A weak country can hardly do that. Mexico could not. It had +to suffer the foreign exploiter, with his selfish intrigues, in person. +Italy has never been as weak as Mexico: it has maintained its own +government, its own civilization. But the increasing amount of foreign +investment, the increasing number of foreign "interests" in Italy, has +been evident to every Italian. The hotels, the factories, the shops all +testify patently to the presence of the stranger within the gates looking +after his own interests, breeding his money on Italian soil. + +But why not? the dispassionate internationalist may ask. Why should not +the Italian hotels be in the hands of Austrians, Germans, and Swiss; the +new electrical developments be installed and run by Germans; the shops +for tourists and Italians be owned by foreigners? There we cross the +unconscious instinct of nationality, which cannot be ignored. Assuming +that there is something precious, to be guarded as a chief treasure in +the instinct of nationality, as I assume, there are grave dangers in too +much friendly commercial "infiltration" from the outside. The indirect +influences of commercial exploitation with foreign capital are the +insidious, the dangerous ones. The dislike of the foreign trader, the +foreign creditor, may voice itself crudely as mere envy, know-nothingism, +but it has a healthy root in national self-preservation. For an Italian +the German article should be undesirable, especially if its possession +means accepting the German and his way of life along with his goods. The +small merchant and the peasant express their resentments of foreign +competition rawly, no doubt. Consciously it is half envy of the more +efficient stranger. Unconsciously they are voicing the deep traditions +of their ancestors, vindicating their race ideals, cherishing what is +most enduring in themselves. They would not see their country given over +to the stranger, whose life is not their life. + +One unpleasant aspect of the commercial invasion of Italy by the Teuton +was his liking to live there, and consequently the amount of real estate +which he was collecting on the Latin peninsula--so much that the lovely +environs of Naples were fast becoming a German principality! These +invaders were not traders, nor workers, but capitalists and exploiters. +The process is known now as "infiltration." The German had filtered into +Italy in every possible way, was supplanting its own native life with the +Teutonic thing, as it had in France so largely. Italy could well profit +from that experience of its sister nation. The Germans who filtered into +French life, commercial, industrial, social, were German first and last. +When the crisis came they turned from their adopted land, where they had +lived on terms of cordial hospitality for ten, twenty, thirty years, and +took themselves back to Germany, in many cases to reappear as the invader +at the head of armed troops. The experience of France proved that the +peaceful German resident was a German all the years of his life, not a +loyal, vital factor in his adopted country--too often something of a spy +as well. Therefore Italy might well be disturbed over the presence of so +much Teutonic "infiltration" in her own beloved land. And why should +Germany call her ungrateful when she sought to rid herself of her +unwelcome creditors? German capital had made its five per cent on its +investments, and better: it should not expect to absorb the life of the +nation also. + + * * * * * + +In every debtor nation there must be an element which profits directly +from the creditor relation. It assumes, naturally, the aspects of +"progress," and consists of the richer trading class and bankers, +sustainers of politicians. Such, I take it, were the followers of +Giolitti, and such was Giolitti himself, a sincere admirer of Teutonic +success and believer in the economic help which Germany could render +to his kind of Italian. Such men as Giolitti are easily impressed by +evidences of German superiority: they identify progress with the rapid +introduction of German plumbing, German hotel-keeping, German electric +devices, German banks. All these, they believe, help a "backward country" +to come forward. They do not understand the finer spiritual risks that +such material benefits may involve. They are not as sensitive as the +humble peasant, as simpler citizens, to the gradual sapping of the +precious national roots, of the internal debasement that may be going +on through the process of "infiltration." They are too prosperous, too +cosmopolitan to feel losses in national individuality. They realize +merely the better hotels, the better railways, the improved plumbing +in their country. Their souls are already half-Teutonized. + +In his dignified answer to the German Chancellor's vulgar attack on him +in the Reichstag, Salandra referred to the long history of the Italian +people, who "were civilized and leaders of the world" when the Teuton +hordes were still savage. It was the spirit of that ancient civilization +which did not consist primarily of industrial development that stirred +in the souls of true Italians and made them scorn the advice of the +Teutonized politician. He was "_traditore_" to all that nobler Italians +hold dear--to the Latin tradition. + + + + +III + + +_The Poet Speaks_ + +The poet prophet has so long abdicated his rights among us moderns +that we are incredulous when told that he has again exercised his +function. That is the reason why the story of a poet's part in leading +the Italian people toward their decision is received by Americans with +such skeptical humor. And Gabriele d' Annunzio in the rôle! A poet who +is popularly supposed to be decadent, if not degenerate, gossipingly +known for his celebrated affair with a famous actress, whose novels and +plays, when not denounced for their eroticism, are very much caviar to +the "wholesome" man, so full are they of a remote symbolism, so purely +"literary." "Exotic" is the chosen word for the more tolerant American +minds with which to describe the author of "Il Fuoco" and "San Sebastian." + +In recent years the Italian poet has abandoned his native land, living +in Paris, writing his last work in French, having apparently exiled +himself for the rest of his life and renounced his former Italianism. +Circumstances were stronger than the poet. The war came, and D'Annunzio +turned back to his native land. + + * * * * * + +He came to Italy at a critical moment and characteristically he filled +the moment with all the drama of which it was capable. His reappearance +in Italy, as every one knows, was due to the ceremonies in connection +with the unveiling of a monument to the famous Garibaldian band,--the +Thousand,--in the little village of Quarto outside of Genoa, from which +Garibaldi and his Thousand set forth on their march of liberation +fifty-five years ago. The monument had been long in the making. The +opportunity for patriotic instigation was heightened by the crisis of +the great war. The King and his ministers had indicated, previously, +their intention of participating in this national commemoration, but +as the day grew near and the political situation became more acute, +it was announced that the urgency of public affairs would not permit +the Government to leave Rome. It may have been the literal fact that +the situation precipitated by the presence of Giolitti demanded their +constant watchfulness. Or it may well have been that the King and the +Salandra Government had no intention of allowing their hand in this +dangerous game to be forced by any reckless fervor of the poet. They +were not ready, yet, to countenance his inflammation. At any rate, +they left the occasion solely to the poet. + +How he improved it may best be gathered from his address. To the +American reader, accustomed to a blunter appeal, the famous _Sagra_ +will seem singularly uninflammatory--intensely vague, and literary. +One wonders how it could fire that, vast throng which poured out along +the Genoa road and filled the little Garibaldian town. But one must +remember that nine months of hesitation had prepared Italian minds for +the poet's theme--the future of Italy. He linked the present crisis of +choice with the heroic memories of that first making of a nation, "_Oggi +sta sulla patria un giorno di porpora; e questo é un ritorno per una +nova dipartita, o gente d'Italia!_"--A purple day is dawning for the +Fatherland and this is a return for a new departure, O people of Italy! +The return for the new departure--to make a larger, greater Italy, just +as the Thousand had departed from this spot to gather the fragments of +a nation into one. "All that you are, all that you have, and yourselves, +give it to the flame-bearing Italy!" And in conclusion he invoked in a +new beatitude the strong youth of Italy who must bear their country to +these new triumphs: "O happy those who have more because they can give +more, can burn more.... Happy those youths who are famished for glory, +because they will be appeased.... Happy the pure in heart, happy those +who return with victory, because they will see the new face of Rome, +the recrowned brow of Dante, the triumphal beauty of Italy." + +The youth of Italy avidly seized upon the poet's appeal. The _Sagra_ +was read in the wineshops of little villages, on the streets of the +cities. The voice of the poet reached to that fount of racial idealism, +of patriotism, that glows in the hearts of all real Italians. He tied +their heroic past with the heroic opportunity of the present. And he +did not speak of the "unredeemed" or of the "aspirations." Instead, +"This is a return for a new departure, O people of Italy!" + +The politician, awaiting in Rome the effect of his advice to choose +the safe path, must have wondered, as too many Americans wondered, +how this poet fellow could stir such mad passion by his fine figures +of birds and sea! But there was a spirit abroad in Italy that would +not be appeased with "compensations": the poet had the following of +all "young Italy." + + * * * * * + +D'Annunzio came to Rome. Not at once. A whole week elapsed after the +_Sagra_ at Quarto, the 5th of May, before he reached Rome--a week of +growing tumult, of anti-Giolitti demonstrations, in which his glowing +words could sink like hot wine into the hearts of the people. The delay +was well considered. If the poet had seized the occasion of Quarto, he +made his appearance on the larger scene after the interest of the whole +nation had been heightened by reading his address. + +I was one of the immense throng that awaited the arrival of the train +bringing D'Annunzio to the capital. The great bare place before the +terminal station was packed with a patient crowd. The windows of the +massive buildings flanking the square were filled with faces. There +were faces everywhere, as far as the recesses of the National Museum, +around the flamboyant fountain, up the avenues. There were soldiers +also, many of them, inside and outside of the station, to prevent any +excessive disturbance, part of the remarkable precaution with which +the Government was hedging every act. But the soldiers were not needed. +The huge throng that waited hour after hour to greet the poet was not +rabble: it was a quiet, respectable, orderly concourse of Romans. There +was a preponderance of men over women, of youth over middle age, as was +natural, but so far as their behavior went, they were as self-contained +a "mob" as one might find in Berlin. + +The train arrived about dusk, as the great electric lamps began to +shine above the sea of white faces. To most the arrival was evident +merely from the swaying of the dense human mass, from the cadence +of the Garibaldian Hymn that rose into the air from thousands of +throats. As room was made for the motor-car, one could see a slight +figure, a gray face, swallowed up in the surging mass. Then the crowd +broke on the run to follow the motor-car to the hotel on the Pincian +where the poet was to stay. The newspapers said there were a hundred +and fifty thousand people before the Regina Hotel in the Via Veneto +and the adjacent streets. I cannot say. All the way from the Piazza +Tritone to the Borghese Gardens, even to the Villa Malta where Prince +von Bülow lived, the crowd packed, in the hope of hearing some words +from the poet. The words of Mameli's "L'Inno" rose in the twilight +air. At last the little gray figure appeared on the balcony above the +throng.... + +It is impossible to give an adequate idea of the effect of what D'Annunzio +said. His words fell like moulded bronze into the stillness, one by one, +with an extraordinary distinctness, an intensity that made them vibrate +through the mass of humanity. They were filled with historical allusions +that any stranger must miss in part, but that touched the fibers of his +hearers. He seized, as he had at Quarto, on the triumphant advance of the +liberating Thousand and recounted the inspiring incidents of that day +fifty years and more ago. As I stood in that huge crowd listening to the +poet's words as they fell into the thirsty hearts of the people,--who +were weary with too much negotiation,--I realized as never before that +speech is given to man for more than reason. The words were not merely +beautiful in themselves: they flamed with passion and they touched into +flame that something of heroic passion in the hearts of all men which +makes them transcend themselves. The crowd sighed as if it saw visions, +and there rose instinctively in response the familiar strains of the +Garibaldian Hymn. + +Italy had found its voice! The poet did not speak of "compensations," +a little more of Trent and Trieste, of a more strategic frontier. He +stirred them with visions of their past and their future. He voiced +their scorns. "We are not, we will not be a museum, an inn, a picnic +ground, an horizon in Prussian blue for international honeymoons!... +Our genius calls us to put our imprint on the molten matter of the new +world.... Let there breathe once more in our heaven that air which flames +in the prodigious song of Dante in which he describes the flight of the +Roman eagle, of your eagle, citizens!... Italy is arming, not for the +burlesque, but for a serious combat.... _Viva, viva Roma_, without shame, +_viva_ the great and pure Italy!" + +That was the voice which called Italy into the war: the will that +Italy should live "ever grander, ever purer, without shame." The poet +spoke to the Latin in the souls of his hearers. + + * * * * * + +He spoke again a number of times. In those feverish days when the +nation was in a ferment, the restless youth of Rome would rush in +crowds to the hotel on the Pincian and wait there patiently for their +poet to counsel them. He gratified their desire, not often, and each +time that he spoke he stung them to a fuller consciousness of will. +He spoke of the larger Italy to be, and they knew that he did not mean +an enlargement of boundaries. He spoke clearly, briefly, intensely. +It was once more the indubitable voice of the poet and prophet raised +in the land of great poetry. + +D'Annunzio grew bolder. He recognized openly his antagonist--the traitor. +The most dramatic of his little speeches was at the Costanzi Theater +where a trivial operetta was being given, which was quickly swept into +the wings. After the uproar on his entrance had been somewhat stilled, +he spoke of Von Bülow and Giolitti and their efforts to thwart the will +of the nation. + +"This betrayal is inspired, instigated, abetted by a foreigner. It is +committed by an Italian statesman, a member of the Italian Parliament +in collusion with this foreigner to debase, to enslave, to dishonor +Italy.".... _Traditore!_ I never thought to hear the word off the +operatic stage. From D'Annunzio's lips it fell like a wave of fire +upon that inflammable audience. A grizzled, well-dressed citizen +suddenly leaped to his feet, yelling,--"I will drink his blood, the +traitor.... Death to Giolitti!".... + +While the big theater rocked and stormed with passion, outside on +the Via Viminale barricades were being hastily thrown up. The cavalry, +that had been sitting their mounts all day before Santa Maria Maggiore +guarding the unwelcome Giolitti from the angry mob, had charged the +packed street, sweeping it clear with the ugly sound of horses' hoofs +on pavement and cries of hunted men and women. That was the end. The +next morning, be it remembered, the politician sneaked away, and two +days afterwards the Salandra Government returned to power. Rome, all +Italy, became suddenly calm, purged of its passion, awaiting confidently +the reopening of Parliament. + +The Government had won. The people had won. The poet had beaten the +politician. For his was the voice to which the great mass of his +countrymen responded. + + * * * * * + +D'Annunzio spoke again admirably at those great gatherings of concord +when the citizens of Rome assembled in the Piazza del Popolo and in the +Campidolgio. The poet had made himself the spokesman of the new Italy +which had found itself in the storm of the past agonizing weeks, and as +such he was recognized by the Government. The King and the ministers +accorded him audiences; he was given a commission in the army and +attached to the general staff. Wherever he appeared he was received +with acclamations, with all the honor that is accorded the one who can +interpret nobly the soul of a nation. And the poet deserved all the +recognition which he received--the throngs, the flowers, the _vivas_, +the adoration of Italian youths. For he alone, one might say, raised +the crisis from the wallow of sordid bargaining, from the tawdriness +of sentiment, to a purer passion of Latin ambition and patriotism. He +loftily recalled to his countrymen the finer ideals of their past. He +made them feel themselves Latin, guardians of civilization, not traders +for safety and profit. + + * * * * * + +Germans, naturally, have had bitter things to say about D'Annunzio. +German sympathizers in America as well as the German Chancellor have +sneered at the influence wielded in Italy's crisis by a "decadent" +poet. Even among American lovers of Italy there has been skepticism +of the sincerity of a national mind so easily swayed by a man who "is +not nice to women." A peculiarly American view that hardly needs +comment! + +Is it not wiser to assume that the case of D'Annunzio was really +the case of Italy itself--conversion? The deepest passion in the +poet's life came to him when, a voluntary exile in France, he witnessed +the splendid reawakening of French spirit in face of awful danger. +Living in Paris during the early months of the cataclysm, witness of +the mobilization, the rape of Belgium, and the turn at the Marne, the +heroic struggle for national existence in the winter trenches, he saw +with a poet's vision what France was at death-grips with, what the +Allies were fighting for, was not territorial gains or glory or even +altogether selfish self-preservation, but rather, more deeply, for +the existence of a certain humanity. This world war he realized is no +local quarrel: it is the greatest of world decisions in the making. +And the man himself was transfigured by it: he found himself in his +greatest passion as Italy found herself at her greatest crisis. Latin +that he is, he divined the inner meaning of the confused issues presented +to the puzzled world. He was fired with the desire to light from his +inspiration his own hesitant, confused people, to voice for them the +call to the Latin soul that he had heard. For Italy, most Latin of all +the heirs of Rome, with her tragic and heroic past, the war must be not +a winning of a little Austrian territory, the redeeming of a few lost +Italians, but a fight for the world's best tradition against the forces +of death. Once more it was "_Fuori i barbari_," as it had been with her +Latin ancestors. + +It seems to me no great mystery. + +In the poet's writing there are passages of a large historical +understanding. Of all modern writers he is foremost Latin, in +knowledge, in instinct for beauty and form, in love of tradition. +Even in his erotic and mystical passages this vein of purest gold +may be seen, this understanding of the potential greatness of the +tradition into which he was born. What wonder, then, that the first +fundamental passion of the mature man's soul should be his desire to +proclaim once more the cause of Latin civilization, should be the +ardor of fighting in his own manner with his weapon of inspired words +the world battle? So it seemed to me as I listened to his voice in +the stillness of that May night. The voice of Roman glory, of ancient +ideals awoke an answering passion in the hearts of the thousands who +had gathered there. "_Una grande e pura Italia ... sensa onta_." And +it would be a lasting shame for Italy to keep out of the struggle +that the allied nations were making, to take her "compensations" +prudently and shrink back within a cowardly neutrality. Better any +other fate. + +So it seemed to that throng of eager, soul-hungry Italians who stood +beneath the balcony of the hotel on the Pincian and drank the poet's +fiery message like a full-bodied wine. At last they had found +themselves. + + + + +IV + + +_The Piazza Speaks_ + +"The voice of the piazza prevailed," the German Chancellor sneered +in his denunciation of Italy at the conclusion. It can easily be +imagined, the picture he made to himself, in his ugly northern office +on Friedrichstrasse, of the influence that upset all German pressure +and sent Italy into the war on the side of the Allies; that defeated +the industry of the skilled ambassador, the will of the wily politician. +The Chancellor saw one of those large public squares in which Latin +countries abound, open centers in their close-built cities, where so +much of the common life of the people goes on, now as it has for hundreds +of years. For the piazza, descending in direct tradition from the ancient +Forum, is the public hall of citizens, where they trade, gossip, quarrel, +plot, love, and hate, from the crone sunning herself in a sheltered nook +over her bag of chestnuts to the grandee whose palace windows open above +the noisy commonalty. The Chancellor saw this common meeting-ground, this +glorified street, filled with a ragged mob of "the baser quality," as on +the operatic stage, emptily vocal or evilly skulking for mischief, like +the _mafia_, the _apache_. He saw this loose gathering of irresponsibles +suddenly stirred to evanescent passion against the real benefactors of +their country by the secret agents of the Allies, "corrupted by English +gold," in the mechanical melodrama of the German imagination, marching +to and fro, attacking the shops and homes of worthy Germans, howling and +stoning, by mere noise drowning the sober protests of reflecting citizens, +intimidating a weak king, connived at by a bought government, pushing a +whole nation into the bloody sacrifice of war out of mere recklessness of +rioting--a piazza filled with the rabble minority who have nothing to lose +because they neither fight nor pay. + + * * * * * + +Such a picture, reflected in Bethmann-Hollweg's splenetic phrase, +is a complete delusion of the German mind. I was in Rome and saw the +real piazza at work. I was on the streets all hours of day and night, +and what I saw was nothing like the trite imaginings of the German +Chancellor. As I have said in a previous chapter, the "demonstrations" +did not begin in any perceptible form until the bungling hand of Prince +von Bülow betrayed his intrigue with Giolitti and the politician's +intention of defeating the Salandra Government in its preparations for +war became evident. At no time did the rioting in the streets equal the +violence of what a third-class strike in an American mill town can +produce. Such as it was the Government showed the determination and +ability to keep it strictly within bounds. Rome was filled with troops. +Alleyways and courtyards oozed troops at the first shouts from the +piazza: the danger points of the Corso, especially the Piazza Colonna +on which the Chigi Palace, the residence of the Austrian Ambassador, +fronts, were kept almost constantly empty by cordons of troops. All +told, the destruction done by the mobs could not have amounted to +several hundred dollars--a few signs and shop windows smashed, a few +pavements torn up in the Via Viminale. It is true that after war was +declared upon Austria there was some pillage of Austrian and German +shops in Milan, which has been greatly exaggerated by the German and +pro-German press; it was nothing worse than what happened in Berlin +to English residents in August, 1914. And the Italian Government +immediately took severe measures with the officials who had permitted +the disorders--removing the prefect and the military commander of +Milan. + +There is no saying, of course, what might have happened had the King +offered the premiership to Giolitti, and had that astute politician +been rash enough to accept the responsibility of forming a government +in accord with his own _neutralista_ sympathies. It is more than +likely that revolution would have ensued: possibly Italy would have +entered the war as a republic. For the Italians are not Greeks, as +has been amply proved. But the King of Italy, whatever his own +sympathies may have been, showed plainly that he had enough political +understanding not to run counter to the expressed will of his people, +to deal with the "traitor." After a week of tempestuous inter-regnum, +in which the piazza expressed itself passionately, the Salandra +Government returned to power with all which that implied in foreign +policy. Then the piazza became quiet. If the piazza must shoulder the +responsibility of Italy's decision, it must be credited with knowing +marvelously well its own mind. + + * * * * * + +The constitution of this "mob" is worth attention. I saw it at +many angles. I followed its first erratic flights through the streets +when Salandra resigned and a gaping void opened before the nation. I +waited for the poet's arrival at the Roman station, for hours, while +the dense throng of men and women pressed into the great square and +swelled like a dark pool into the adjoining streets. And I followed +with the "piazza" in its instinctive rush to the hotel on the Pincian +Hill to hear the voice of its spokesman. Again I was in the Corso when +the plumed cavalry cleared the surging mass from the Piazza Venezia to +the Piazza Colonna. I heard the people yell, "Death to the traitor +Giolitti!" and "_Fuori i barbari!_" and sing Mameli's "L'Inno." I saw +the uproar melt away in the soft darkness of the Roman nights, leaving +the cavalry at their vigil before Santa Maria Maggiore, guarding the +repose of Giovanni Giolitti. + +I can testify that the "piazza" was composed very largely of perfectly +respectable folk like myself. It varied more or less as chance gatherings +of men will vary. Sometimes there were more workingmen in dirty clothes, +sometimes more youths and boys with their banners, sometimes more +shouters and fewer actors. But the core of it was always that same mass +of common citizenship that gathered anciently in the Forum, that to-day +goes orderly enough to the polls in New York or Chicago,--plain men, +rather young than old, who are so distinctly left on the outside of +affairs, who must perforce turn to the newspaper for information and +to the open street for expression, who relieve themselves of uncomplex +emotions by shouting, and who symbolize the things they hate to the +depth of their souls with personalities like Giolitti and occasionally +shy bricks at the guarded home of authority. All this, yes, but not +"riff-raff," not anarchist, nor _mafia_, nor _apache_. Nothing of that +did I see those days and nights. + +The greeting to D'Annunzio was made by men of the professional and +intellectual classes I should say, having wormed my way in and out +of that vast piazza gathering. The daily crowds before the poet's +hotel were composed chiefly of youths, at school or college, others +in working dress. The noisiest, most inflammable of all these mobs +was that in the Costanzi Theater the evening of D'Annunzio's appearance +there. They were citizens--and their wives--who could afford to pay +the not inconsiderable price charged--and seats were at a premium. +The men around me in evening dress, who were by no means silent, came +from the "classes" rather than the masses. The crowds that hung about +the Corso and the adjacent squares were more mixed, but they held a +goodly proportion of the frequenters of the Café Arragno. The worst +that could be said against these casual gatherings was their youth. +It is the way of youth to vent its passion in speech, to move and not +to stand. Middle age stood on the sidewalks and watched, sympathetically. +Old age looked down from the windows, contemplatively. But both old +age and middle age consorted with youth in the great meetings of +consecration in the Piazza del Popolo and the Campidolgio, after the +will of the people had prevailed. And after all, youth must fight the +wars, and pay for them for long years afterwards--why should it not +have its say in the making of them as well as middle age and old age? +The youths in the ranks of the patient, good-natured soldiers who did +_piquet a mato_ all day and half the night in the Roman streets during +that vocal week while the piazza spoke, were openly sympathetic with +the mobs they were holding down. I knew some of the gray-clad boys. +I strolled along the lines and saw the smiles, heard the chaffing +give-and-take of citizen and soldier as the mob tried to rush through +the double ranks that cordoned the streets. There was no hatred there, +no violent conflict with authority. Each understood the other. The young +officers seemed to say to the crowd,--"You may howl all you like, you +fellows, but you mustn't throw stones or make a mess.... What's the +good! War is coming anyway in a few days--they can't talk it away!" +And the crowd replied heartily,--"You are all right. We understand +each other. You are doing your duty. Soon you will be doing something +better worth while than policing streets and saving that traitor +Giolitti's skin from us. You will be chasing the Austrians out of +Italian territory, and many of us will be with you then!" And the +young officers looked the other way when the members of the "mob" +offered the tired soldiers cigarettes and chocolate, and sometimes +slipped through the cordon on private business within the forbidden +area. Only once, once only in all the excitement did the long-haired +horsemen clatter through the streets in a serious charge, scattering +the shrieking pedestrians. That was by way of warning, possibly as +much to the Government as to the populace. + +Then the decision was made, and after the Salandra Ministry, in +whom the people had confidence, had returned to power, the ministry +that had broken with Austria and refused her grudging compromises, +the piazza purred like doves and listened to long patriotic speeches +from "representative citizens." No soldiers were needed to keep order +in these immense gatherings. For all were citizens, then, piazza and +palace alike in the face of war. + + * * * * * + +One easily understands the German Chancellor's scorn over any irregular +expression of public opinion, his disgust that the loose public in the +streets dares to vent any emotion or will other than that suggested to +it by a strong government, above all daring to voice it passionately. +In a nation such as Germany, where the franchise is so hedged about +that even those who have it cannot effectively express their wills, +where political opinion is supplied from a central fount of authority, +where the nation goes into war at the command of the Kaiser and his +military advisers, where a war of "defense" and all other national +interests are controlled by the "high commandment," consisting at the +most of forty or fifty men, while the remaining sixty-five millions of +the people are obedient puppets, nourished on falsehoods, where the +popular emotion can be turned on like an electric current at the order +of the "high commandment,"--now against this enemy, now against that +one,--first hate of English, then hate of Italians, now hate of +Americans--it is natural that a high government functionary should +despise all popular effervescence and misread its manifestations as +merely the meretricious, bought noise of the mob, quickly roused in +the Southern temperament and badly controlled by a weak, and probably +corrupt, government. The elements in the piazza have no power in the +close organization of Germany, no political expression whatever: all +good citizens are instructed by a carefully controlled press how to +think and feel and speak. To my thinking it is rather to the glory of +the Latin temperament that it cannot be throttled and guided like the +more docile Teuton nature, that when it feels vividly it will express +itself, and that it can feel vividly, unselfishly in international +concerns. The Latin cannot be made to march in blind obedience into +the jaws of death. The piazza merely shouted what Italy had come to +feel, that Teutonic domination would be intolerable, that at all cost +the Austro-German ambitions must be checked, and the Latin tradition +vindicated and made to endure. It was proved by the marvelous content, +the fervid unanimity of patriotism that spread over Italy, once the +great decision had been made. + + * * * * * + +Since those full May weeks the world has had an example of what no +doubt the Imperial Chancellor considers the suitable method of dealing +with popular sentiment. The sympathies of Greeks and Rumanians have +been, since the opening of the war, with the allied nations, yet +their Teutonized sovereigns have kept both countries from declaring +themselves in favor of the Allies. The King of Greece has stretched +the constitution to preserve a distasteful neutrality, which, if it +were not for the failure of the Allies to make impressive gains in +the first year of the war, would have doubtless cost him his crown. +The Balkan States are near enough the actual theater of war to suffer +acutely from fear, and a natural timidity worked upon by many German +agents, more successfully than Prince von Bülow, has thus far kept the +people of Rumania and Greece passive in a false neutrality. Bulgaria +is a fine example of the perfect working of the German method. The +piazza certainly had no hand in the intrigues of King Ferdinand of +Bulgaria. The representatives of his people urged him to maintain at +least neutrality, not to put the nation at war with its blood kin, +against its best interest. But the thing had all been "arranged" +between the German King of Bulgaria and the German Government through +"negotiation." Germany had been successful in buying the coöperation +of Bulgaria as it tried to buy Italy's neutrality, at the expense of +Austria. There were other factors in the case of Bulgaria that worked +to the German advantage, but the method is clear. Not the voice of the +piazza, but the secret agreement of "responsible government," in other +words, the control of despotic, German rulers. Italy may well be proud +that she has a sovereign who faithfully interprets his responsibility of +rule in a constitutional state and executes the will of his people--who +listens also to the voice of the piazza, not merely to the arguments of +the foreign diplomat. And Italy may also be proud that the piazza spoke +at a dark hour in the Allies' cause, if not the darkest, when German +arms were prevailing in the East; if the dangers of German conquest were +not as close to Italy as with the Balkan States, they were not remote, +as German threats too plainly showed. + +The Venezelos-Zaimis situation was impossible in Italy, though the +circumstances were almost parallel, with Salandra and Giolitti. The +piazza knew the deep Biblical truth, "He who is not for me is against +me," and execrated the professed _neutralista_ Giolitti. But the Greeks, +it seems, are more easily managed by a "strong" government and a German +king. The end, however, is not yet in sight. It remains to be seen +whether the path of prudent passivity is the safe one, even selfishly. + + * * * * * + +Why, after all, should we feel so apologetic for the voice of the piazza? +All popular government, even in the limited form of a constitutional +monarchy such as Italy, is a rough, uncertain affair. "The House of Savoy +rules by executing the will of the Italian people." Good! But how is that +popular will to be determined? Not, surely, by taking a poll of the five +hundred-odd Deputies of the Italian Parliament elected two years before +the world was upset by the Teuton desire to rule. Those Deputies were +chosen, as we Americans know only too well how, by mean intrigues of party +machines, by clever manipulation of trained politicians like Giovanni +Giolitti, who by their control of appointed servants--the prefects of the +provinces--can throw the elections as they will, can even disfranchise +unfriendly elements of the population. Manhood suffrage is not a precise, +a scientific method of getting at public opinion. It is possibly the least +accurate method of gauging the will of a people. Something other than the +poll is needed to resolve the will of a nation. And when that will is +determined it makes little odds what instrumentality expresses it. Even +the Giolittian Deputies, when brought to the urn for a secret vote on the +Salandra measures a week after the lively expression of popular will in +the piazza, voted--secretly--against their neutral leader, in favor of +war! They had been converted by the voice of the piazza--by other things +also in all likelihood. If their votes had been taken ten days before, +when Giolitti first arrived in Rome, the result would have been far +different: as Salandra and his colleagues knew. In the end the Italian +Parliament merely registered the will of the people, both men and women, +which expressed itself, as it always must, in diverse ways, through the +press, by the voice of the piazza, in public and private discussion, +flightily, weightily, passionately, timidly. + + * * * * * + +Will, individual or collective, is a mysterious force. What enters into +that act of decision which results in will is never wholly apparent, from +the least to the gravest matters. And no scheme of government, which +admits the right of the individual citizen, plain and exalted alike, +to be heard and obeyed, has discovered a perfect way of polling this +collective will of the nation. Our electoral representative method and +majority vote is surely rough, though better than the Bulgarian way. That +right to vote, for which our women are so eagerly striving, as thinking +men realize only too well, is an empty privilege. The will of a people is +inaccurately registered, not made, by the vote. The voice of the piazza +when deep enough and strong enough is as good as any other way, perhaps, +of determining the collective will of a nation in a crisis; surely far +better than the secret way of Ferdinand of Bulgaria. Further, the reason +of the piazza on any vital fundamental matter, such as war, which means +life or death, is as sure as your intelligence or mine, possibly surer, +because the piazza, having less to lose or gain, feels and believes and +acts more simply, basically. The Roman piazza, the people of Italy, +reacted to the crime against Belgium, to the atrocities committed on +priests and women and children, to the murders of the Lusitania,--all +deeds of that ancient enemy whose barbarism had now reappeared, after +centuries, under an intellectual and sophisticated mask with a blasphemous +perversion of religious sanction. They reacted also, it might be, to their +own sense of personal danger from an unprotected frontier dividing them +from this unscrupulous enemy, to the wrongs of some thousands of Italians +condemned to live under Austrian rule and fight her battles against their +friends. They responded also to the glory of Garibaldi's Thousand, who had +liberated their fathers from foreign domination and made a nation out of +Italy, and they responded to the great past of their people from whom the +essential elements of what men know to-day as civilization has spread over +the world. All these emotions were hidden in that one cry,--"Out with the +barbarians!" + +The voice of the piazza, with its simple unanimity, its childlike +psychology, came nearer to expressing the soul of Italy than the German +Chancellor can comprehend, than any sophisticated diplomat, who has +associated only with "thinking" and "leading" people, can believe. The +Latin soul of Italy which cursed its politician and thrilled at the words +of its poet! That soul of a people which is greater than any individual, +which somehow expresses itself more authoritatively through the simple +people who must suffer for their faiths than through the intellectuals +and the protected members of a society.... + +"_Viva Italia!_" the tanned conscript leaning from the car window at +Subiaco shouted back to his friends and home. And the old men and girls +left in the fields raised their hats as the train passed and shouted in +reply,--"_Viva Italia!_" It was not English gold, nor the desire for +Trent and Trieste, that brought that cry to the boy's lips! + + + + +V + + +_Italy Decides_ + +Whatever one may think of the piazza voice, whether the disposition is +to sneer with the German or to trust with the democrat in its spontaneous +expression, it is a matter of history now that Italy's decision had been +made before the question came to a vote in the Chamber of Deputies, a +fortnight or more before the reluctant ambassadors of the ex-Alliance +backed into their waiting trains and departed homeward across the Alps. +It is a significant fact of personal psychology that the crisis of a +decision takes place before action results to calm the disturbed mind. So +it was with Italy. Her decision had really been taken when the Lusitania +sank, when the politician, in face of this fresh outrage, advised the +safer course of neutrality, which would amount to a connivance with her +former associates in their predatory programme. _Traditore!_ meant but +one thing--a betrayal of the nation's soul. In the light of more recent +events, since Italy entered the war, there are probably many Italians who +secretly wish that the safer counsel had prevailed, that, like Greece and +Rumania, Italy had "preserved a benevolent neutrality" in the great war, +even possibly that she had concluded to make her bed in the Teutonic camp. +If the world is to be Teutonized, they would argue, why put one's head in +the wolf's jaw! There are prudent people of that stripe in every nation, +but since the end of May they have kept silence in Italy. And it should be +forever remembered to her honor that Italy made her decision in face of +Teutonic successes. If the military situation did not look so black for +the Allies at the end of May as it does this December, it looked black +enough with the crumbling Russian resistance before Mackensen's phalanx. +Neuve Chapelle had been a costly and empty victory. There had been no +successful drive in Champagne and Artois to encourage those who bet only +on winning cards. There were heavy clouds in the east, merely a sad +silence along the western wall. It was long past Easter, when England +had boastfully expected to open the Dardanelles and the truth was +beginning to appear that Constantinople might never be reached by the +allied operations in Gallipoli. Italy threw in her lot with the Allies +in a dark hour, if not the darkest. + +The great decision which had lain in solution in the hearts of the +people was evoked by events and made vocal by the flaming words of +D'Annunzio, interpreted by a faithful king, who resisted the temptation +to dethrone himself by calling Germany's hired man to power, and finally +registered by the Deputies at Montecitorio on May 19. It was virtually +made, I say, the tumultuous week that came on the resignation of the +Salandra Government. What followed the return of the ministry to power +was merely automatic, as peaceful as any day's routine. Parliament was +called to meet on Wednesday, the 19th. The Sunday afternoon before, the +piazza, and the palace and all other elements of Roman citizenship met +in a great gathering of content and consecration at the foot of the +Pincian Hill in the Piazza del Popolo, again the day after in the +Campidolgio above the Forum. How fortunate a people are to have such +hallowed places of meeting, steeped in associations of great events! + +It was a warm, brilliant, sunny day, that Sunday, and in the afternoon +every one in Rome, it seemed, was as near the Piazza del Popolo as he +could get. The meeting was addressed by a number of well-known Romans +of varied political affiliations. But the high note of all the speeches +was a fervid patriotism and harmony. Rome was calm, believing that it had +chosen nobly if not wisely. On the Campidolgio, D'Annunzio again sounded +the tocsin of the heroic Thousand, and lauded the army which had been +belittled by the followers of Giolitti. Already the troops were leaving +Rome.... Then Parliament opened. The meeting of the Deputies if memorable +was short. The square and streets about Montecitorio had been carefully +cleared and held empty by cordons of troops. There was to be no shouting, +no demonstration within hearing of Parliament. Long before midday the +Chamber was crowded with all the notables who could gain admission. The +proceedings were extremely brief, formal. All knew that the die had been +cast: what remained was for the army to accomplish. The Premier Salandra +made a brief statement summarizing the diplomatic efforts that his +Government had undertaken to reach a satisfactory understanding with +Austria, the record of which could be followed in the "Green Book," +which was then given to the public. He informed the Chamber, what was +generally known, that the Triple Alliance had already been denounced on +the 5th of May, and he offered a "project of law," which was tantamount +to a vote of confidence in the Government and which also gave the King +and his ministers power to make war and to govern the country during the +period of war without the intervention of Parliament. It thus authorized +both the past acts of the Salandra Ministry and its future course. The +measure, undebated, was voted on secretly. And it is significant that of +more than five hundred Deputies present only seventy-two voted in the +negative. Of these seventy-two who voted against the Government, some +were out-and-out _neutralistas_, and some few were Socialists who had +the courage of their convictions. The great majority of the Giolittians +must have voted for war. Had they seen a great light since the piazza +raised its voice, since their leader had fallen from his high place? +Possibly they had never been with Giolitti on this vital national +question. At least, the fact illustrates how representative government +does roughly perform the will of its people when that will is clear +enough and passionate enough: the will registers itself even through +unwilling instruments. + +After the vote had been taken, the Chamber adjourned, and when the +following day the Senate ratified, unanimously, the action of the +Chamber of Deputies, Parliament was dissolved. Many of the members +enlisted and went to the front. Since the end of May Italy has been +autocratically governed. The decrees of the King and his ministers +are law--an efficient method of governing a country at war, avoiding +those legislative intrigues that latterly have threatened the concord +of France. + +It is noteworthy that the Italian Senate voted unanimously for war. +The Senate is not an elective body. It is composed of dignitaries, old, +conservative men from the successful classes of the nation, who are not +easily swayed by the emotions of the piazza. From this unrepresentative +body might have been expected a show of resistance to the Government's +measure, if, as Giolitti and the German party asserted, there was a +serious sentiment in the country in favor of neutrality which had been +howled down by the mobs. It is inconceivable that such a body could have +been completely cowed by rioting in the streets. The unanimous vote of +the Italian Senators is sufficient refutation of the Bethmann-Hollweg +slur. + + * * * * * + +As I crossed the Piazza Colonna the morning Parliament opened, my +attention was caught by a small crowd before a billboard. First one, +then another passer-by stopped, read something affixed there, and, +smiling or laughing, passed on his way. In the center of the board was +a small black-bordered sheet of paper, with all the mourning emblems, +precisely resembling those mortuary announcements which Latin countries +employ. It read: "Giovanni Giolitti, this day taken to himself by the +Devil, lamented by his faithful friends"; and there followed a list of +noted Giolittians, some of whom even then were voting for war with +Austria. A bit of Roman ribaldry, specimen of that ebullition of the +piazza disdained by the German Chancellor; nevertheless, it must have +bit through the hide of the politician, who for the sake of his safety +was not among the Deputies voting at Montecitorio. Later I read in a +Paris newspaper that Giolitti was to spend the summer as far away from +the disturbance of war as he could get, in the Pyrenees, but it was +rumored in Paris that the French Government, having intimated to its +new ally that it did not wish to harbor Giolitti, the Italian politician +was forced to remain at home. I believe that once since the "Caro Carlo" +letter he has spoken to his countrymen, a patriotic interview in which +he announced that he had been converted to the necessity of the war with +Austria! Thus even the politician comes to see light. But Giovanni +Giolitti, as the black-bordered card said, is dead politically. + + * * * * * + +With the votes of Parliament the Roman part in the drama, the +civil part, was ended. Rome began to empty fast of soldiers, officers, +officials. The scene had shifted to the north, where the hearts of all +Italians were centered. There was a singular calm in the city. One +other memorable meeting should be recorded, on the Saturday afternoon +following the Parliamentary decision. If popular manifestations count +for anything, the dense throng in the Campidolgio and later the same +afternoon before the Quirinal Palace demonstrated the enthusiasm with +which the certainty of war with Austria was accepted. + +There are few lovelier spots on earth than the little square of the +Campidolgio on the Capitoline Hill and none more laden with memories +of a long past. Led by a sure instinct the people of Rome crowded up +the steep passages that led to the crest of the hill, by tens of +thousands. In this hour of the New Resurrection of Italy, the people +sought the hearthstone of ancient Rome on the Capitoline. About the +pillars of the Cancelleria, which stands on Roman foundations, up the +long flight of steps leading to the Aracoeli, even under the belly of +the bronze horse in the center of the square, Italians thrust themselves. +Rome was never more beautiful than that afternoon. Little fleecy clouds +were floating across the deep blue sky. The vivid green of the cypresses +on the slope below were stained with the red and white of blooming roses. +In the distance swam the dome of St. Peter's, across the bend of the +Tiber, and through the rift between the crowded palaces one might look +down upon the peaceful Forum. The birthplace of the nation! Here it was +that the people, the decision having been made to play their part in the +destiny of the new world now in the making, came to rejoice. The spirit +of the throng was entirely festal. And these were the people, working-men +and their wives and mothers from the dark corners of old Rome, neither +hoodlums nor aristocracy, the people whose men for the most part were +already joining the colors. + +The flags of the unredeemed provinces together with the Italian +flag were borne through the crowd up the steps of the municipal palace +to wave beside Prince Colonna, as he appeared from within the palace. +Mayor of Rome, he had that afternoon resigned his position in order to +join the army with his sons. Handsome, with a Roman face that reminded +one of the portrait busts of his ancestors in the Capitoline Museum +close by, he stood silent above the great multitude. The time for oratory +had passed. He raised his hands and shouted with a full voice--"_Viva +Italia!_" and was silent. It was as if one of the conscript fathers had +returned to his city to pronounce a benediction upon the act of his +descendants. The people repeated the cry again and again, then broke +into the beautiful words of Mameli's "L'Inno,"--"_Fratelli d' Italia._" + +Then the gathering turned to cross the city to the Quirinal, where the +King had promised to meet them. The way led past one of the two Austrian +embassies in the Piazza Venezia--a danger spot throughout the agitation; +but this afternoon the crowd streamed by without swerving, intent on +better things. On the Quirinal Hill, between the royal palace and the +Consulta, where the diplomatic conferences are held, the people packed +in again. The roofs of the neighboring palaces were lined with spectators +and every window except those of the royal palace was filled with faces. +On the balcony above the palace gate some footmen were arranging a red +velvet hanging. Then the royal family stepped out from the room behind. +The King, with his little son at his side, stood bareheaded while the +crowd cheered. On his other side were the Queen and her two daughters. +King Victor, whose face was very grave, bowed repeatedly to the cheering +people, but said no word. The little prince stared out into the crowd +with serious intensity, as if he already knew that what was being done +these days might well cost him his father's throne. The people cried +again and again,--_"Viva Italia, viva il re"_; also more rarely, _"Imperio +Romano!"_ At the end the King spoke, merely,--_"Viva Italia, mi!"_ + +Perhaps the presence of the German and the Austrian Ambassadors, +who that very hour were at the Consulta vainly trying to arrange a +bargain, restrained the King from saying more to his people then. +Possibly he felt that the occasion was beyond any words. His face was +set and worn. The full passion of the decision had passed through him. +His people had desired war, and he had faithfully followed their will. +Yet he more than any one in that crowd must know the terrible risk, the +awful cost of this war. Those national aspirations for which his country +was to strive,--Trent and Trieste, Istraia and the Dalmatian coast, in +all a few hundred miles of territory, a few millions of people,--the +well informed were saying would cost one hundred and fifty thousand +Italian soldiers a month, to pick the locks that Austria had put along +her Alpine frontier! No wonder the King of Italy met his people after +the great decision in solemn mood. + + * * * * * + +The crowd melted from the Quirinal Square in every direction, content. +Some stopped to cheer in front of the Ministry of War, which these days +and nights was busy as a factory working overtime and night shifts. +People were reading the newspapers, which in default of more vivid news +contained copious extracts from the "Libro Verde." Yet the "Green Book" +was not even now completed! + +The politician had spoken, the poet had said his fiery word to the +people, the piazza had hurled its will, Parliament had acted and gone +its way, the army staff was hastening north. Yet the Austrian Ambassador +and his German colleague had not taken the trains waiting for them outside +the Porta Pia with steam up. It was a mystery why they were lingering on +in a country on the verge of hostilities, where they were so obviously +not wanted any longer. Daily since Parliament had voted they had been at +the Consulta--were there now in this solemn hour of understanding between +the King and his people! Singly and together they were conferring with +Baron Sonnino and the Premier. What were they offering? We know now that +at this last moment of the eleventh hour Austria had wakened to the real +gravity of the situation, and with Teutonic pertinacity and Teutonic +dullness of perception made her first real offer--the immediate cession +and occupation of the ceded territories she had set as her maximum, a +thing she had refused all along to consider, insisting that the transfer +be deferred to the vague settlement time of the "Peace." I do not know +that if she had frankly started the negotiations with this essential +concession, it would have made any real difference. I think not. Her +maximum was insufficient: it nowhere provided for that defensible +frontier, and it was but a meager satisfaction of those other aspirations +of nationality which she despised. It still left a good many Italians +outside of the national fold, and it still left Italy exposed to whatever +strong hand might gain control on the east shores of the Adriatic. At all +events, in this last moment of the eleventh hour, if the ambassadors had +been authorized to yield all that Baron Sonnino had begun by asking, it +would not have kept Italy from the war--now. + +Elsewhere I have dealt with the legal and strategic questions involved +in the "Green Book." These diplomatic briefs, White or Yellow or Orange +or Green, seem more important at the moment than in perspective. They +are all we observers have of definite reason to think upon. But nations +do not go to war for the reasons assigned in them--nothing is clearer +than that. Like the lengthy briefs in some famous law case, they are +but the intellectual counters that men use to mask their passions, their +instincts, their faiths. According to the briefs both sides should win +and neither. And the blanks between the lines of these diplomatic briefs +are often more significant than the printed words. + +While Baron Macchio and Prince von Bülow, the Ballplatz and +Friedrichstrasse, Baron Sonnino and his colleagues were making the +substance of the "Green Book," the people of Italy were deciding the +momentous question on their own grounds. The spirit of all Italy was +roused. Italian patriotism gave the answer. + + * * * * * + +"_Viva Italia!_" the boy conscript shouted, leaning far out of the +car window in a last look at the familiar fields and roof of his +native village. "_Viva Italia!_" the King of Italy cried, and his +people responded with a mighty shout,--"_Viva Italia!_" What do they +mean? In the simplest, the most primitive sense they mean literally +the earth, the trees, the homes they have always known--the physical +body of the mother country. And this primal love of the earth that +has borne you and your ancestors seems to me infinitely stronger, +more passionate with the European than with the American. We roam: +our frontiers are still horizons.... But even for the simple peasant +lad, joining the colors to fight for his country, patriotism is +something more complex than love of native soil. It is love of life +as he has known it, its tongue, its customs, its aspects. It is love +of the religion he has known, of the black or brown or yellow-haired +mother he knows--of the women of his race, of the men of his race, +and their kind. + +Deeper yet, scarce conscious to the simple instinctive man, patriotism +is belief in the tradition that has made you what you are, in the ideal +that your ancestors have seeded in you of what life should be. Therefore, +patriotism is the better part of man, his ideal of life woven in with +his tissue. Men have always fought for these things,--for their own +earth, for their own kind, for their own ideal,--and they will continue +to give their blood for them as long as they are men, until wrong and +unreason and aggression are effaced from the earth. The pale concept +of internationalism, whether a class interest of the worker or an +intellectual ideal of total humanity, cannot maintain itself before +the passion of patriotism, as this year of fierce war has proved beyond +discussion. + +Italian patriotism, which in the last analysis Italy evinced in +making war against Austria, was composed of all three elements. Italian +patriotism is loyalty to the Italian tradition, hence to the Latin ideal +which is fighting a death battle with the Teutonic tradition and ideal. +Teutonism--militaristic, efficient, materialistic, unimaginative, +unindividual--has challenged openly the world. Italy responded nobly +to that challenge. + + + + +VI + + +_The Eve of the War_ + +Rome became still, so still as to be oppressive. Her heart was +elsewhere,--in the north whither the King was about to go. Rome, like +all the war capitals, having played her part must relapse more and more +into a state of waiting and watching, stirred occasionally by rumors and +rejoicings. The streets were empty, for all men of military age had gone +and others had returned to their normal occupations. Officers hurried +toward the station in cabs with their boxes piled before them. And the +sound of marching troops also on the way to the station did not cease at +once. + +Saturday, the 22d of May, I took the night express for Venice. The +train of first- and second-class coaches was longer than usual, filled +with officers rejoining their regiments which had already gone north +in the slower troop trains. There were also certain swarthy persons +in civilian garb, whom it took no great divination to recognize as +secret police agents. The spy mania had begun. Theirs was the hopeless +task of sorting out civilian enemies from nationals, which, thanks to +the complexity of modern international relations, is like picking +needles from a haystack. My papers, however, were all in order, and +so far there had been no restrictions on travel; in fact no military +zone had been declared, because as yet there was no war! When would +the declaration come? In another week? I settled myself comfortably +in my corner opposite a stout captain who rolled himself in his gray +cloak and went to sleep. Other officers wandered restlessly to and fro +in the corridor outside, discussing the coming war. It was a heavenly +summer night. The Umbrian Hills swam before us in the clear moonlight +as the train passed north over the familiar, beautiful route. If +Germany should strike from behind at Milan, exposing the north of +Italy? One shuddered. After Belgium Germany was capable of any attack, +and Germany was expected then to go with her ally. + +One thing was evident over and above the beauty of the moonlit country +through which we were rushing at a good pace, and that was the remarkable +improvement in Italian railroading since my last visit to Italy a dozen +years before. This was a modern rock-ballasted, double-tracked roadbed, +which accounted in part for the rapidity and ease of the troop movements +these last months. The ordinary passenger traffic had scarcely been +interrupted even now on the eve of war. The terrors of the mobilization +period, thanks to Italy's efficient preparation, were unfounded. It spoke +well for Italy at war. It was a sign of her economic development, her +modernization. Even Germany had not gone into the business of war more +methodically, more efficiently. Italy, to be sure, had nine months for +her preparation, but to one who remembered the country during the +Abyssinian expedition, time alone would not explain the improvement. + +The railroad stations at Florence and Bologna were under military +control, the quays patrolled, the exits guarded, the buildings stuffed +with soldiers. I could see their sleeping forms huddled in the straw +of the cattle cars on the sidings, also long trains of artillery and +supplies. Shortly after daylight the guards pulled down our shutters +and warned us against looking out of the windows for the remainder of +the journey. A childish precaution, it seemed, which the officers +constantly disregarded. But when I peeped at the sunny fields of the +flat Lombard plain, one of the swarthy men in civilian black leaned +over and firmly pulled down the shade. Italy was taking her war +seriously. + +At Mestre we lost the officers: they were going north to Udine +and--beyond. The almost empty train rolled into the Venetian station +only an hour late. The quay outside the station was strangely silent, +with none of that noisy crew of boatmen trying to capture arriving +_forestieri._ They had gone to the war. One old man, the figure of +Charon on his dingy poop, sole survivor of the gay tribe, took me +aboard and ferried me through the network of silent canals toward the +piazza. Dismantled boats lay up along the waterways, the windows of the +palaces were tightly shuttered, and many bore paper signs of renting. +"The Austrians," Charon laconically informed me. It would seem that +Venice had been almost an Austrian possession, so much emptiness was +left at her flight. But within the little squares and along the winding +stony lanes between the ancient palaces, Venice was alive with citizens +and soldiers--and very much herself for the first time in many centuries. +The famous piazza recalled the processional pictures of Guardi. Only the +companies of soldiers that marched through it on their way to the station +were not gorgeously robed: they were in dirty gray with heavy kits on +their backs. The bronze horses were being lowered from St. Mark's, one +of them poised in midair with his ramping legs in a sling. Inside the +church a heavy wooden truss had been put in place to strengthen the arch +of gleaming mosaics. There was a tall hoarding of fresh boards along the +water side of the Ducal Palace, and the masons were fast filling in the +arches with brick supports. Venice was putting herself in readiness for +the enemy. Even the golden angel on the new Campanile had been shrouded +in black in order that she might not attract a winged monster by her +gleam. From many a palace roof aerial guns were pointed to the sky, and +squads of soldiers patrolled the platforms that had been hastily built +to hold them. + +Out at San Niccolo da Lido, where I supped at a little _osteria_ +beneath the trees, a number of gray torpedo boats rushed to and fro +in the harbor entrance, restless as hunting dogs straining at the +leash. That night Venice was dark, so black that one stumbled from +wall to wall along the narrow lanes in the search for his own doorway. +War was close at hand: the menace of it, a few miles, a few hours +only away, across the blue Adriatic, at Pola. In order to understand +the significance of frontiers an American should be in Venice on the +eve of war. + + * * * * * + +Some hours later I awoke startled from a heavy sleep, the +reverberation of a dream ringing in my ears. It was not yet dawn. +In the gray-blue light outside the birds were wheeling in frightened +circles above the garden below my balcony. Mingled in my dreams with +the disturbing noise was the song of a nightingale--and then there came +another dull, thunderous explosion, followed immediately by the long +whine and shriek of sirens at the arsenal, also the crackle of machine +guns from all sides. Now I realized what it meant. It was war. The +Austrians had taken this way to acknowledge Italy's defiance. The enemy +had threatened to destroy Venice, and this was their first attempt. Above +the sputter of the machine guns and the occasional explosions of shrapnel +could be distinguished the buzz of an aeroplane that moment by moment +approached nearer. Soon the machine itself became visible, flying oddly +enough from the land direction, not from the Adriatic. It flew high and +directly, across Venice, aiming apparently for the arsenal, the Lido, +the open sea. + +It was an unreality, that little winged object aloft like a large +aerial beetle buzzing busily through the still gray morning sky, heading +straight with human intelligence in a set line, bent on destruction. The +bombs could not be seen as they fell, of course, but while I gazed into +the heavens another thunderous explosion came from near by, which I took +to be the aviator's bomb, distinguished by the sharpness of its explosion +from the anti-aircraft bombardment. Other guns along the route of the +enemy took up the attack, then gradually all became silent once more. +Only the cries of the frightened birds circling above the garden and the +voices of the awakened inhabitants could be heard. From every window and +balcony half-dressed people watched the flight of the monoplane until it +had disappeared in the vague dawn beyond St. Mark's. + +In another half-hour the sirens shrieked again and the machine gun +on the roof of the Papadopoli Palace just below on the Grand Canal +began to sputter. This time every one knew what it meant and there +was a large gathering on the balconies and in the little squares to +witness the arrival of the hostile aeroplane. It was another monoplane +coming from the same land direction, flying much lower than the first +one, so low that its hooded aviator could be distinguished and the +bands of color across the belly of the car. It skirted the city toward +the Adriatic more cautiously. Later it was rumored that the second +aeroplane had been brought down in the lagoons and its men captured. + +Thereafter no one tried to sleep: the little Venetian bridges and +passages were filled with talking people, and rumors of the damage +done began to come in. Eleven bombs in all were dropped on this first +attack, killing nobody and doing no serious harm, except possibly at +the arsenal where one fell. I was at the local police station when +one of the unexploded bombs was brought in. It was of the incendiary +type containing petroleum. Also there had been picked up somewhere in +the canals the half of a Munich newspaper, which seemed to indicate, +although there was nothing of special significance in the sheet, that +the monoplane was German rather than Austrian. Yet Germany had not yet +declared war on Italy. But was it not the German Kaiser who had threatened +to destroy Italy's art treasures? Were not the German armies in Flanders +and France making war against defenceless, unmilitary monuments? + + * * * * * + +I realized now the necessity of those preparations to guard the +treasures of Venice, priceless and irreplaceable--why the Belle Arti +had been emptied, and the Colleoni trussed with an ugly wooden framework. +But little at the best could be done to protect Venice herself, which lies +exposed in all her fragile loveliness to the attacks of the new Vandals. +The delicate palaces,--already crumbling from age,--the marvelous façade +of the Ducal Palace with its lustrous color, the leaning _campanili_, the +little churches filled with noble monuments to its great ones,--all were +helpless before an aerial attack, or shelling from warships. Nothing could +save Venice from even a slight bombardment, quite apart from such pounding +as the Germans have given Rheims, or Arras, or Ypres. At the first hostile +blow Venice would sink into the sea, a mass of ruins, returning thus +bereaved to her ancient bridegroom. + +Italy is aware of the vengeful warfare she must expect. Great +preparations for the defense of Venice have been made. The city might +be ruined; it could not be taken. The gray destroyers moving in and +out past the Zattere contrasted strangely with the tiny gondolas shaped +like pygmy triremes. It was the mingling of two worlds,--the world of +the gondola, the marble palace of the doges, of the jeweled church of +St. Mark's, and the world of the torpedo boat and the aerial bomb,--the +world as man is making it to-day. The old Venetians were good fighters, +to be sure, not to say quarrelsome. War was never long absent, as may +easily be realized from the great battle-pieces in the Ducal Palace. +But war then was more the rough play of boisterous children than the +slaughterous, purely destructive thing that modern men have made it. And +when those old Venetians were not fighting, they were building greatly, +beautifully, lovingly: they were making life resplendent. + +That awakening in the early dawn into the modern world of distant +enemies and secret deadly missiles was unforgettable. Some one showed +me a steel arrow which had been dropped within the arsenal, a small, +sharpened, nail-like thing that would transfix a body from head to feet. +These arrows are dumped over by the thousands to fall where they will. +That little machine a mile and more aloft in the sky, busily buzzing +its way across the heavens, is the true symbol of war today, not face +to face except on rare occasions, but hellish in its impersonal will +to destroy. + + * * * * * + +A wonderful day dawned on Venice after the departure of the hostile +aeroplanes, a day among days, and all the Venetians were abroad. The +attack which brought home the actual dangers to them did not seem to +dull their lively spirits. They were busy in the quaint aquatic manner +of Venice. The little shops were full of people, the boatmen reviled +one another in the narrow canals as they squeezed past, the _vaporetti_ +and the motor-boats snorted up and down the Grand Canal. + +Venice seemingly had accepted her liability to night attack as a new +condition of her peculiar life. + +There were more soldiers than ever moving in the narrow, winding +footpaths, the restaurants were full of officers in fresh uniforms. +On the water-front beyond the Salute there was much movement among +the destroyers. One of these gray seabirds went out at midnight, when +war was declared, and took a small Austrian station on the Adriatic. +They brought back some prisoners and booty which seemed to interest +the Venetians more than the hostile aeroplanes. + +Yet with all this warlike activity it was hard to realize the fact +of war in Italy, to remember that just over the low line of the Lido +the hostile fleets were looking for each other in the Adriatic, that +a few miles to the north the attack had begun all along the twisting +frontier, that the first caravan of the wounded had started for Padua. +As I floated that afternoon over the lagoons past the Giudecca, and +the blue Euganean Hills rose out of the gray mist that seems ever to +hang on the Venetian horizon, it was impossible to believe in the fact, +to realize that all this human beauty around me, the slow accumulation +of the ages of the finest work of man, was in danger of eternal +destruction. Venice rose from the green sea water like the city of +enchantment that Turner so often painted. Venice was never so lovely, +so wholly the palace of enchantment as she was then, stripped of all +the tourist triviality and vulgarity that she usually endures at this +season. It was Venice left to her ancient self in this hour of her +danger. She was like a marvelous, fragile, still beautiful great lady, +so delicate that the least violence might kill her! In this dying light +of the day she was already something unearthly, on the extreme marge +of our modern world.... + +That evening the restaurant windows were covered tight with shutters +and heavy screens before the doors. The waiter put a candle in a saucer +before your plate and you ate your food in this wavering light. There +was not the usual temptation to linger in the piazza after dinner, for +the cafés were all sealed against a betraying gleam of light and the +Venetian public had taken to heart the posted advice to stay within +doors and draw their wooden shutters. As I entered my room, the moon +was rising behind the Salute, throwing its light across the Canal on to +the walls of the palaces opposite. The soft night was full of murmuring +voices, for Venice is the most vocal of cities. The people were exchanging +views across their waterways from darkened house to house, speculating on +the chances of another aerial raid tonight. They were making salty jokes +about their enemies in the Venetian manner. The moonlight illuminated the +broad waterway beneath my window with its shuttered palaces as if it were +already day. A solitary gondola came around the bend of the Canal and its +boatman began to sing one of the familiar songs that once was bawled from +illuminated barges on spring nights like this, for the benefit of the +tourists in the hotels. To-night he was singing it for himself, because +of the soft radiance of the night, because of Venice. His song rose from +the silver ripple of the waves below, and in the little garden behind the +nightingale began to sing. Had he also forgotten the disturber of this +morning and opened his heart in the old way to the moonlight May night +and to Venice? + + * * * * * + +The enemy did not return that night, the moon gave too clear a light. +But a few evenings later, when the sky was covered with soft clouds, +there was an alarm and the guns mounted on the palace roofs began again +bombarding the heavens. This time the darkness was shot by comet-like +flashes of light, and the exploding shells gave a strange pyrotechnic +aspect to the battle in the air. Again the enemy fled across the Adriatic +without having done any special damage. Only a few old houses in the +poorer quarter near the arsenal were crumbled to dust. + +Since that first week of the war the aeroplane attacks upon Venice +have been repeated a number of times, and though the bombs have fallen +perilously near precious things, until the Tiepolo frescoes in the +Scalsi church were ruined, no great harm had been done. The military +excuse--if after Rheims and Arras the Teuton needed an excuse--is the +great arsenal in Venice. The real reason, of course, is that Venice is +the most easily touched, most precious of all Italian treasure cities, +and the Teuton, as a French general said to me, wages war not merely +upon soldiers, but also upon women and children and monuments. It is +vengefulness, lust of destruction, that tempts the Austrian aeroplanes +across the Adriatic--the essential spirit of the barbarian which the +Latin abhors. + + * * * * * + +There are some things in this world that can never be replaced once +destroyed, and Venice is one of them. And there are some things greater +than power, efficiency, and all _kaiserliche Kultur_. Such is Italy +with its ever-renewed, inexhaustible youth, its treasure of deathless +beauty. As I passed through the fertile fields on my way from Venice +to Milan and the north, I understood as never before the inner reason +for Italy's entering the war. The heritage of beauty, of humane +civilization,--the love of freedom for the individual, the golden mean +between liberty and license that is the Latin inheritance,--all this +compelled young Italy to fight, not merely for her own preservation, +but also for the preservation of these things in the world against the +force that would destroy. The spirit that created the Latin has not +died. "We would not be an Inn, a Museum," the poet said, and at the +risk of all her jewels Italy bravely defied the enemy across the Alps. +This war on which she had embarked after nine long months of preparation +is no mere adventure after stolen land, as the Germans would have it: it +is a fight unto death between two opposed principles of life. + +"He who is not for me is against me." There is no possible neutrality +on the greater issues of life. + + + + +PART TWO--FRANCE + + +I + + +_The Face of Paris_ + +I shall never forget the poignant impression that Paris made on me that +first morning in early June when I descended from the train at the Gare +de Lyon. After a time I came to accept the new aspect of things as normal, +to forget what Paris had been before the war, but as with persons so with +places the first impression often gives a deeper, keener insight into +character than repeated contacts. I knew that the German invasion, which +had swept so close to the city in the first weeks of the war, and which +after all the anxious winter months was still no farther than an hour's +motor ride from Paris, must have wrought a profound change in this, the +most personal of cities. One read of the scarcity of men on the streets, +of the lack of cabs, of shuttered shops, of women and girls performing +the ordinary tasks of men, of the ever-rising tide of convalescent +wounded, etc. But no written words are able to convey the whole meaning +of things: one must see with one's own eyes, must feel subconsciously +the many details that go to make truth. + +When the long train from Switzerland pulled into the station there +were enough old men and boys to take the travelers' bags, which is +not always the case these war times when every sort of worker has +much more than two hands can do. There were men waiters in the station +restaurant where I took my morning coffee. It is odd how quickly one +scanned these protected workers with the instinctive question--"Why +are you too not fighting for your country?" But if not old or decrepit, +it was safe to say that these civilian workers were either women or +foreigners--Greeks, Balkans, or Spanish, attracted to Paris by +opportunities for employment. For the entire French nation was +practically mobilized, including women and children, so much of the +daily labor was done by them. The little café was full of men,--almost +every one in some sort of uniform,--drinking their coffee and scanning +the morning papers. Everybody in Paris seemed to read newspapers all +day long,--the cabmen as they drove, the passers-by as they walked +hastily on their errands, the waiters in the cafés,--and yet they +told so little of what was going on _là-bas!_.... The silence in the +restaurant seemed peculiarly dead. A gathering of Parisians no matter +where, as I remembered, was rarely silent, a French café never. But I +soon realized that one of the significant aspects of the new France +since the war was its taciturnity, its silence. Almost all faces were +gravely preoccupied with the national task, and whatever their own +small part in it might be, it was too serious a matter to encourage +chattering, gesticulating, or disputing in the pleasant Latin way. + +Will the French ever recover wholly their habit of free, careless, +expressive speech? Of all the peoples under the trials of this war +they have become by general report the most sternly, grimly silent. +Compared with them the English, deemed by nature taciturn, have +become almost hysterically voluble. They complain, apologize, accuse, +recriminate. Each new manifestation of Teutonic strategy has evoked +from the English a flood of outraged comment. But from the beginning +the French have wasted no time on such _bêtise_ as they would call +it: they have put all their energies into their business, which as +every French creature knows is to fight this war through to a triumphant +end--and not talk. An extraordinary reversal of national temperaments +that! From the mobilization hour it was the same thing: every Frenchman +knew what it meant, the hour of supreme trial for his country, and he +went about his part in it with set face, without the beating of drums, +and he has kept that mood since. Henri Lavedan, in a little sketch of +the reunion between a _poilu_, on leave after nine months' absence in +the trenches, and his wife, has caught this significant note. The good +woman has gently reproached her husband for not being more talkative, +not telling her any of his experiences. The soldier says,--"One doesn't +talk about it, little one, one does it. And he who talks war doesn't +fight.... Later, I'll tell you, after, when _it_ is signed!" + + * * * * * + +There were plenty of cabs and taxis on the streets by the time I +reached Paris, rather dangerously driven by strangers ignorant of the +ramifications of the great city and of the complexities of motor engines. +Most of the tram-lines were running, and the metro gave full service +until eleven at night, employing many young women as conductors--and +they made neat, capable workers. Many of the shops, especially along +the boulevards, were open for a listless business, although the shutters +were often up, with the little sign on them announcing that the place was +closed because the _patron_ was mobilized. And there was a steady stream +of people on the sidewalks of all main thoroughfares,--at least while +daylight lasted, for the streets emptied rapidly after dark when a dim +lamp at the intersection of streets gave all the light there was--quite +brilliant to me after the total obscurity of Venice at night! But my +French and American friends, who had lived in Paris all through the +crisis before the battle of the Marne,--with the exodus of a million +or so inhabitants streaming out along the southern routes, the dark, +empty, winter streets,--found Paris almost normal. The restaurants were +going, the hotels were almost all open, except the large ones on the +Champs Élysées that had been transformed into hospitals. At noon one +would find something like the old frivol in the Ritz Restaurant,--large +parties of much-dressed and much-eating women. For the parasites were +fluttering back or resting on their way to and from the Riviera, +Switzerland, New York, and London. The Opéra Comique gave several +performances of familiar operas each week, rendered patriotic by the +recitation of the _Marseillaise_ by Madame Chenal clothed in the national +colors with a mighty Roman sword with which to emphasize "_Aux armes, +citoyens!_" The Française also was open several times a week and some +of the smaller theaters as well as the omnipresent cinema shows, +advertising reels fresh from the front by special permission of the +general staff. + +The cafés along the boulevards did a fair business every afternoon, +but there was a striking absence of uniforms in them owing to the strict +enforcement of the posted regulations against selling liquor to soldiers. +That and the peremptory closing of cafés and restaurants at ten-thirty +reminded the stranger that Paris was still an "entrenched camp" under +military law with General Gallieni as governor.... The number of women +one saw at the cafés, sitting listlessly about the little tables, usually +without male companions, indicated one of the minor miseries of the great +war. For the _midinette_ and the _femme galante_ there seemed nothing to +do. A paternal government had found occupation and pay for all other +classes of women, also a franc and a half a day for the soldier's wife +or mother, but the daughter of joy was left very joyless indeed, with the +cold misery of a room from which she could not be evicted "_pendant la +guerre._" They haunted the cafés, the boulevards,--ominous, pitiful +specters of the manless world the war was making. + +Hucksters' carts lined the side streets about the Marché Saint-Honoré +as usual, and I could not see that prices of food had risen abnormally +in spite of complaints in the newspapers and the discussion about +cold storage in the Chamber of Deputies. Restaurant portions were +parsimonious and prices high as usual, but the hotels made specially +low rates, "_pendant la guerre,_" which the English took advantage of +in large numbers. The Latin Quarter seemed harder hit by the war than +other quarters, emptier, as at the end of a long vacation; around the +Arch there was a subdued movement as between seasons. The people were +there, but did not show themselves. One went to a simple dinner _à la +guerre_ at an early hour. All, even purely fashionable persons, were +too much occupied by grave realities and duties to make an effort for +forms and ceremonies. Life suddenly had become terribly uncomplex, even +for the sophisticated. In these surface ways living in Paris was like +going back a century or so to a society much less highly geared than +the one we are accustomed to. I liked it. + + * * * * * + +Even at its busiest hours Paris gave a peculiar sense of emptiness, +hard to account for when all about men and women and vehicles were +moving, when it was best to look carefully before crossing the streets. +It could not be due wholly to the absence of men and the diminution of +business--there was at least half of the ordinary volume of movement. +Nor was it altogether a cessation of that soft roar of traffic which +ordinarily enveloped Paris day and night. It was not exactly like Paris +on Sunday--except in the rue de la Paix--as I remembered Paris Sundays. +No, it was something quite new--the physical expression of that inner +silence, of that tenacity of mute will which I read in all the faces +that passed me. Paris was living within, or beyond--_là-bas_, all along +those hundreds of miles of earth walls from Flanders to the Vosges, +where for nine months their men had faced the invader. + +Most of the women one met were in black, almost every one wearing some +sort of mourning, for there was scarcely a family in France that had +not already paid its toll of life, many several times over. But the +faces of these women in black were calm and dry-eyed: there were few +outward signs of grief other than the mourning clothes, just an enduring +silence. "The time for our mourning is not yet," a Frenchman said whose +immediate family circle had given seven of its members. With some, one +felt, the time for weeping would never come: they had transmuted their +personal woe into devotion to others.... + +There was little loitering and gazing in at shop windows, few shoppers +in the empty stores these days. Everybody seemed to have something +important that must be done at once and had best be done in sober +silence. Even the wounded had lost the habit of telling their troubles. +Doctors and nurses related as one of the interesting phenomena in the +hospitals this dislike of talking about what they had been through, +even among the common soldiers. Most likely their experiences had been +too horrible for gossip. There was a conspiracy of silence, a tacit +recognition of the futility of words, and almost never a complaint! +One day a soldier walked a block to give me a direction, and in reply +to my inquiry pointed to his lower jaw where a deep wound was hidden +in a thick beard. "A ball," he said simply. It was the second wound +he had received, and that night he was going back to his _dépôt_. For +they went back again and again into that hell so close to this peaceful +Paris, and what happened there was too bad for words. It must be +endured in silence. + +There were not many troops on the streets,--at least French soldiers +and officers; there was a surprising number of English of all branches +of the service and a few Belgians. The French were either at the front +or in their _dépôts_ outside the city. On the Fourteenth of July, when +the remains of Rouget de Lisle, the author of the _Marseillaise_, were +brought to the Invalides, a few companies of city guards on horseback +and of colonial troops in soiled uniforms formed the escort down the +Champs Élysées behind the ancient gun carriage that bore the poet's ashes. +There were many wounded soldiers, hopelessly crippled or convalescing, in +the theaters, at the cafés, and on the streets. As the weeks passed they +seemed to become more numerous, though the authorities had taken pains to +keep Paris comparatively empty of the wounded. One met them hobbling down +the Élysées under the shade of the chestnut trees, in the metro, at the +cafés, the legless and armless, also the more horrible ones whose faces +had been shot awry. They were so young, so white-faced, with life's long +road ahead to be traveled, thus handicapped! There was something wistful +often in their silent eyes. + +To cope with the grist of wounded, the mass of refugees and destitute, +Paris was filled with relief organizations. The sign of some "_oeuvre_" +decorated every other building of any size, it seemed. Apart from the +numerous hospitals, there were hostels for the refugee women and +children, who earlier in the war had poured into Paris from the north +and east, workrooms for making garments, distributing agencies, etc. +All civilian Paris had turned itself into one vast relief organization +to do what it could to stanch the wounds of France. Of the relief and +hospital side of Paris I have the space to say little: much has been +written of it by those more competent than I. But in passing I cannot +refrain from my word of gratitude to those generous Americans who by +their acts and their gifts have put in splendid relief the timid +inanities of our official diplomacy. While the President has been +exchanging futile words with the Barbarian over the murders on the +Lusitania, to the bewilderment and contempt of the French nation, +the American Ambulance at Neuilly has offered splendid testimony +to the real feelings of the vast majority of true Americans, also +an excellent example of the generous American way of doing things. +That great hospital, as well as the American Clearing-House and the +individual efforts of many American men and women working in numberless +organizations, encourage a citizen from our rich republic to hold up +his head in spite of German-American disloyalty, gambling in munitions +stocks, and official timidity. + + * * * * * + +Already the French had realized the necessity of creating agencies +for bringing back into a life of activity and service the large +numbers of seriously wounded--to find for them suitable labor and +to reëducate their crippled faculties so that they could support +themselves and take heart once more. Schools were started for the +blind and the deaf, of whom the war has made a fearful number. I +remember meeting one of these pupils, a young officer, blind, with +one arm gone, and wounded in the face. On his breast was the Service +Cross and the cross of the Legion of Honor. He was led into the room +by his wife, a young school teacher from Algeria, who had given up +her position and come to Paris to nurse her fiancé back to life and +hope. He was being taught telegraphy by an American teacher of the +blind. + +In such ways the people of Paris kept themselves from eating their +hearts out in grief and anxiety. + + * * * * * + +At three o'clock in the afternoons, when the day's _communiqué_ was +given out from the War Office, little groups gathered in front of +the windows of certain shops where the official report was posted. +They would scan the usually colorless lines in silence and turn away, +as though saying to themselves,--"Not to-day--then to-morrow!" The +newsless newspapers abounded in something perhaps more heartening +than favorable reports from the front--an endless chronicle of bravery +and devotion, of valor, heroism, and chivalry in the trench. That is +what fed the anxious hearts of the waiting people, details of the large, +heroic picture that France was creating so near at hand, _là-bas_. + +There were few occasions for popular gatherings. The taste for +"demonstrations" of any sort had gone out of the people. Sympathetic +crowds met the trains from Switzerland that contained the first of +the "_grands blessés_" the militarily useless wounded whom Germany at +last concluded to give back to their homes. And I recall one pathetic +sight which I witnessed by accident--the arrival of one of the long +trains from the front bringing back the first "_permissionnaires_" +those soldiers who had been given a three or four days' leave after +nine months in the trenches. In front of the Gare de l'Est a great +throng of women and children were kept back by rope and police, until +at the appearance of the uniformed men at the exit they surged forward +and sought out each her own man. There were little laughs and sobs and +kisses under the flaring gas lamps of the station yard until the last +_poilu_ had been claimed, and the crowd melted away into Paris. + + * * * * * + +Across the street from my hotel there was an elementary school; several +times each day a buzz of children's voices rose from the leafy yard +into which they were let out for their recess. Again the thin chorus of +children's voices came from the schoolroom. It seemed the one completely +natural thing in Paris, the one living thing unconscious of the war. Yet +even the school children were learning history in a way they will never +forget. In one of the provincial schools visited by an inspector, all +the pupils rose as a crippled child hobbled into the schoolroom. "He +suffered from the Germans," the teacher explained. "His mates always +rise when he appears." A French mother walking with her little boy in +one of the parks met a legless soldier, and turning to her child she +said sternly, as if to teach an unforgettable lesson,--"Do you see that +legless man? The _Boches_ did that--remember it!" In these ways the new +generation is learning its history, and it is not likely to forget it +for many years to come. + + * * * * * + +At dawn and dusk in Paris one was likely to hear the familiar buzz +of the aeroplane, and looking aloft could detect a dark spot in the +clear June sky--one of the aerial guard that keeps perpetual watch +over Paris. Sometimes when I came home at night through the dark +streets I could see the silver beams of their searchlights sweeping +like a friendly comet through the heavens, or watch the dimmed lamp +glowing like a red Mars among the lower stars, rising and falling +from space to space. Often I was awakened in the gray dawn by the +persistent hum of this winged sentry and looked down from my balcony +into the misty city beneath, securely sleeping, thanks to the incessant +watchfulness of these "eyes of Paris." The aviator would make wide +circles above the silent city, then swiftly turn back toward Issy and +breakfast. Thanks to the activity of the aerial guard the Zeppelins +have done very little damage in Paris and latterly have made no +attempts to sneak down on the city. It is too risky. They have succeeded +in killing some peaceable folk near the Gare du Nord, in dropping one +bomb on Notre Dame, I believe,--for which they have less excuse than +even for Louvain or Rheims,--and in making a big hole close to the +Trocadero. This after all the vaunted terrors of the Zeppelins! What +they have done, what they could do at the best is of the nature of +petty damage and occasional murder. Instead of terrorizing the Parisians +the Zeppelin raids have merely roused a vivid sense of sportsmanship +and curiosity among them--at first they had a real _réclame!_ + +Day by day as I lived in Paris the city took on more of its ordinary +activities and aspects. More people flowed by along the boulevards or +sat at the tables in front of the cafés, more shops opened--even the +great dressmaking establishments began to operate in an attempt to +restore commercial circulation. More transients flitted through the +city. There were more people of a Sunday in the Bois and at Vincennes. +Considering that less than a year before the national government had +left Paris, together with a million of its people, also that the +battle-line had remained all these months almost within hearing, it +was marvelous how quietly much of the ordinary machinery of life had +been set running again. Yet Paris was not the same. It was a Paris +almost wholly stripped to the outward eye of that parasitic luxury with +which it has catered to the self-indulgent of the world. Paris--as had +been the case with Italy--had returned under the stress of its tragedy +to its best self--a suffering, tense, deeply earnest self. If the nation +conquers--and there is not a Frenchman who believes any other solution +possible--victory will be of the highest significance to the race. It +will fix in the French people another character wrought in suffering--a +deeper, nobler, purer character than her enemies, or her friends for that +matter, have believed her to possess. Paris will never again become so +totally submerged in the business of providing international frivolities. +She has lived too long in the face of death. + + + + +II + + +_The Wounds of France_ + +The wounds of France are still bleeding. The trench wall still lies +for four hundred miles across the fair face of the country from the +Vosges to the North Sea, and the invader rules some of her richest +provinces, in all an area equal to something less than a tenth of +the whole. + +The wounds have already begun to heal in the marvelous manner of +nature: already life has begun again in the valley of the Marne; +the vineyards and grainfields run close up to the front trenches. +Yet even where the scar has covered the wound it is plain enough to +see how deep that wound has been. The scorched and bruised valley of +the Marne, the ruined villages of Champagne and Artois, have been +described many times by visiting journalists, yet it is worth while +to record once more some of the outstanding features of this rape +of France. + + * * * * * + +To begin with Senlis, which is one of the nearest points to Paris +reached by the German cyclone in September, 1914. There are fewer +older towns in France than Senlis, thirty miles or so northeast of +Paris, the center of the old "Island of France." Once a Roman camp +whose stout masonry walls can still be seen for considerable distances, +it had a mediaeval castle, and, until the greater grandeur of Beauvais +stole the honor, was a bishopric with a lovely small Gothic cathedral. +Its lofty gray spire dominates the green fields and thick woods in the +midst of which Senlis sleeps away the modern day. There are other +curious and beautiful examples of Gothic building in Senlis: indeed, +just here, the experts find the first workings of the principles of +pure Gothic architecture, transforming the round-arched, thick-walled +Norman building. If for nothing more Senlis would have amply earned its +right to live always as the birthplace of French Gothic. + +What happened to Senlis when the German troops visited it can be +seen at a glance to-day. From the railroad station at one end of +the town to the green fields beyond the hospital on the Chantilly +road at the other end, a black swath of burned and ruined buildings +is the memento. These houses and stores were not shelled: they were +burned methodically. The Germans arrived late in the afternoon of +the 2d of September, in that state of nervous excitement and hysterical +fear of _francs-tirailleurs_ that characterized them from the time +they passed Liége. The Mayor of Senlis, an old man over seventy, was +made to understand that he would be held responsible for the conduct +of the citizens, and was ordered to have water and lights turned on +in the town and a dinner for the German staff prepared at the chief +hotel. While he was busy with these commands,--most of the inhabitants +had fled that morning,--shots were exchanged in the lower end of the +town between the Germans and the retreating French. Thereupon the usual +order to burn and destroy was given, and the buildings along the main +thoroughfare were set on fire. The mayor and six other citizens, +gathered haphazard on the streets, were taken to a field outside the +town and shot. There were other moving and significant incidents in +the occupation of Senlis which are well authenticated, characteristic +of the German method, but need not be repeated here. + +The older part of the town, the cathedral, the Roman wall fortunately +escaped with only a few chance shell holes here and there. The black +scar runs through the place from end to end, incontrovertible instance +of the German thing, which has been visited by thousands of French and +foreigners the past year. The wounds of Senlis are not deep: by +comparison with much else done by the Germans they are almost trivial. +The murder of the Mayor of Senlis was not a large crime in the German +scale. But the whole is nicely typical: Senlis is the kindergarten +lesson in the German method of making war. + + * * * * * + +As every one knows, the Germans breaking into France at Namur and +Mons came on with unexampled rapidity from the north and east toward +the south and west, circled somewhat to the west as they neared Paris, +and then the 5th of September recoiled under the shock of the French +offensive. For the better part of a week two millions of men struggled +on a thousand different battlefields from Nancy and Verdun on the east +to Coulommiers, Meaux, and Amiens on the south and west. This was the +great battle of the Marne, which checked the German invasion. The +pressure of this human cyclone, in general from northeast to southwest, +was more intense in some places than others. One of the bloodiest storm +centers lay east and west from the town of Vitry-le-François--from +Sermaize-les-Bains on the east to Fère-le-Champenoise, Montmirail, and +Esternay on the west. For fifty miles there in the heart of Champagne +the path of the cyclone can be traced by the blackened villages, the +gutted churches, the countless crosses in the midst of green fields. + +One thinks of Champagne as a land of vineyards, but here in the +center and south of the fertile province there are few vines, mostly +fields of ripening wheat, green alfalfa, or beets--long undulating +swales of rich fields, cut by little copses of thick woods and by +white poplar-lined highways as everywhere in France. It has peculiarly +that smiling and gracious air of _la douce France_--gently sloping +fields and woods and little gray stone villages each with its small +church ornamented by the square tower and spire of Champenoise Gothic. +And it was here that the blast struck hardest, along the little streams, +in the thick copses, up and down the straight roads whose deep ditches +lent themselves to entrenchment, and in almost every village and +crossroads hamlet. + +It is a country of few towns, of many small villages, farm and manor +houses. The buildings cluster in the hollows or about the crossroads, +and sometimes they escaped the storm because the shells exchanged +from hill to hill went quite over their roofs; again, as was the +case with Huiron just outside Vitry or with Maurupt near by, they +could not escape because they were perched on hills, and they were +almost completely razed by the fierce fire that raked them for days. +Sometimes they escaped shell and machine gun to be burned to the +ground vengefully with incendiary bombs, as at Sermaize-les-Bains, +where of nine hundred buildings less than forty were left standing +after the Germans retreated. These instances are the saddest of all +because so wanton! There was scarcely a single collection of houses +in that fifty miles which I traversed which did not bear its ugly +scar of fire and shell, scarcely a farmhouse that was not crumbled +or peppered with machine-gun bullets. Miles of desolation may be +seen in a couple of hours' drive around Vitry-le-François,--Favresse, +Blesmes, Écrinnes, Thiéblemont, Maurupt, Vauclerc,--with acre upon +acre of ruined buildings, a chimney standing here and there, heaps +of twisted iron that once were farm machines, withered trees--and +graves, everywhere soldiers' graves. + +The churches suffered most, probably because they were used for +temporary defense. At Huiron the upper half of the thirteenth-century +Gothic church had been shaved off--in the ten-foot deep mass of débris +lay the richly carved capitals of the massive pillars. At Écrinnes near +by the apse of the exquisite little church had been blown off, leaving +the front and spire intact. At Maurupt the whole edifice, which commanded +the rolling countryside for miles, was riddled from end to end. Again, +I would enter an apparently sound building to find a pile of rubbish in +the nave, a gaping hole in the roof. And the same thing was true about +Bar-le-Duc to the east and Meaux to the west. It is safe to say that in +a fifty-mile wide stretch from Nancy to the English Channel not one +village in ten has escaped the scourge. + + * * * * * + +I speak of the churches because of their irreplaceable +beauty, the human tenderness of their relation with the earth. +But even more poignant, perhaps, were the wrecks of little country +homes--the stacks of ruined farm machinery, the gutted barns, the +burned houses. In many cases not a habitable building was left after +the cyclone passed. In one hamlet of thirty houses near Esternay I +remember, all but seven had been devastated--by incendiary fire. +Indeed, it was clearly distinguishable--the "legitimate" wrack of +war, from the deliberate spite of incendiarism. Maurupt was the one +case, Sermaize-les-Bains (where there was no fighting) the other. If +it had been simple war, shell and machine gun, probably fifty per cent +or more of the devastation would have been saved. But the German makes +war against an entire country, inanimate as well as animate. + +The inhabitants of these ruins had come back in many instances--where +else had they to go? Swept up before the blast of the cyclone, they had +fled south over the fields and hard white roads, then crept back a few +days after the cyclone had passed to find their homes pillaged, burned, +their villages blackened scars on the earth. But they stayed there! The +English Society of Friends has given some money with which to put up +wooden huts, on which old men and Belgian refugees were working when I +passed that way. There is a French charity that tries to outfit these +new homes in the devastated districts, one of the numberless efforts of +the French to put their national house in order. But for all that charity +can do, the lot of these villagers is a bitter one: their strong men have +gone to the front; old men, women, and children are left to scratch the +fields, and exist miserably in the cellars, underneath bits of corrugated +iron roof, in tiny wooden huts. But they have planted their potatoes, in +the ruins in some cases, and have taken up sturdily the struggle of +existence in the wreck of their old homes. The children play among the +crumbling walls, the women go barefoot to the public well for water. The +fields have been sown and harvested somehow. Until the Germans can kill +off the French peasant women, they can never hope to conquer France. + +Compared with the burning of homes, the razing of villages, mere +pilfering and looting seem commonplace, unreprehensible crimes. Yet +the loss of property by plain theft is no inconsiderable item in that +bill which France expects to present some day. The old châteaux that +were fouled and gutted by the invader, the trainloads of plunder that +went back to German cities, the emptied cellars and ransacked houses +have fed the fire of disgust and loathing which the French feel for +their foe. Yet they should not begrudge the invader the extraordinary +quantity of good wine which he consumed on his raid, because the +victory of the Marne was doubtless won in part by the aid of the +champagne bottle! + + * * * * * + +When I passed through the Marne valley the fields were being harvested +for the first time since those fatal days in September. Among the +harvesters were a number of middle-aged men with the soldiers' _képi_, +who had been given leave to make the crop, which was unusually abundant. +The fields of old Champagne, watered with the best blood of France, had +yielded their richest returns. Outside the charred and crumbled ruins +of the villages one might have forgotten the fact of war were it not for +the graves. Here and there the corner of some wood where a battery had +been placed was mowed as if cut by a giant reaper. The tall poplars +along the roadsides had been ripped and torn as by a violent storm. Some +hillsides were scarred with ripples from burrowing shells, and hastily +made trenches had not yet been ploughed completely under. But over the +undulating golden fields it would be difficult to trace the course of +the tempest were it not for the crosses above the graves, thousands upon +thousands of them,--singly, in clumps, in long lines where the dead +bodies had been brought out of the copses and buried side by side in +trenches, or where at a crossroads a little cemetery had been made to +receive the dead of the vicinity. + +Often as you crawled along in a train you could follow the battle by +the bare spots left in the fields around the graves. They will never +be ploughed under and sown, not even the graves of Germans, not in +the richest land. Generally they were carefully fenced off, almost +always with a simple cross on the point of which hung the soldier's +_képi_ whenever it was found with the body. It is remarkable, considering +the scarcity of hands, the desolation of the country, the difficulty of +existence, what tender care has been given these graves of the unknown +dead. Many of them were decorated with fresh flowers or those metal +wreaths that the Europeans use, and where a company lay together a +little monument had been erected with a simple inscription. It would +seem that these Champenoise peasants still retain some of that pagan +reverence for the dead which their Latin ancestors had cultivated, +mingled with passionate love for those who gave themselves in defense +of _la patrie._ + +So for years to come the beautiful fields of France will be strewn +with these little spots of sanctuary where Frenchmen died fighting +the invader. The fields are already green again: Nature is doing her +best to remove the scars of battle from this land where so often in +the past ages she has been called upon to heal the wounds inflicted +by men. Nature will have completed her task long before the ruined +villages can be restored, long, long before the scars in men's hearts +made by this ruthless invasion can be healed. Another generation, +that of the little children playing in the ruins of their fathers' +homes, must grow up with hate in their hearts and die before the +wounds can be forgotten. + + * * * * * + +The Germans were shelling Rheims the day I was there. From the +little Mountain of Rheims, five miles away on the Épernay road, I +could see the gray and black clouds from bursting shells rise in the +mist around the massive cathedral. An observation balloon was floating +calmly over the hill beyond, directing the fire on the desolated city. +It was necessary to wait outside the town until a lull came in the +bombardment, and when our motor at last entered, it was like speeding +through a city of the dead, with crushed walls, weed-grown streets, +and empty silence everywhere save for the low whine of the big shells. +With the five or six hundred large shells hurled into Rheims that one +day, the Germans killed three civilians, wounded eighteen more, and +knocked over some hollow houses already gutted in previous bombardments. +They did not damage the cathedral that day, though several explosions +occurred within a few feet of the building. + +There were no soldiers, no artillery in Rheims--there have not been +any for many months. Of its one hundred and thirty thousand people, +only twenty thousand were left hiding in cellars, skulking along the +walls, clinging to their homes in the immense desolation of the city +with that tenacity which is peculiarly French. In the afternoon when +the fire ceased the boys were playing in the streets and women sat in +front of their cellar homes sewing. They have adapted themselves to +sudden death. They move about from hole to hole in the wilderness of +shattered buildings. For the city had been gutted by the acre: street +after street was nothing but an empty shell of walls that crumpled up +from time to time and tottered over. Within lay an indescribable mass +of household articles, merchandise, all that once had been homes and +stores and factories. Around the cathedral there was a peculiar silence, +for this quarter of the city which received most of the shells is +absolutely deserted. The grass grew high between the stones in the +pavement all about. The sun was throwing golden cross-lights over the +battered walls as I came into the deserted square and stood beside the +little figure of Jeanne d'Arc before the great portal. As seen from +afar, now in the full nearer view, the amazing thing was the majesty +of the windowless, roofless, defaced cathedral. Acres of other buildings +have crumbled utterly, but not even the German guns have succeeded in +smashing the dignity out of this ancient altar of French royalty. It +still stands firm and mighty, dominating its ruined city, as if too old, +too deeply rooted in the soil of France to be crushed by her enemies. +After a year of bombardment it still raised its mutilated face in dumb +protest above the crumbling dwellings of its people, whom it could no +longer protect from the barbarian. + +Not that the Germans have spared the cathedral in their senseless +bombardment of Rheims! From that first day, when their own wounded +lay within its walls and were carried out of the burning building +by the French, until the morning I was there, when a shell tore at +the ground beneath the buttresses hitherto untouched, the Germans +seem to have taken a special malignant delight in shelling the +cathedral. They have already damaged it beyond the possibility of +complete repair, even should their hearts at this late day be +miraculously touched by shame for what they have done and their guns +should cease from further desecration. The glorious glass has already +been broken into a million fragments; many of the finely executed +mouldings and figures--irreplaceable specimens of a forgotten art--have +been crushed; great wall spaces pounded and marred. It is as if a huge, +fat German hand had ground itself across a delicately moulded face, +smearing and smudging with vindictive energy its glorious beauty. +Rheims Cathedral must bear these brutal German scars forever, even +should the vandal hand be stayed now. It can never again be what it +was--the full, marvelous flowering of Gothic art, precious heritage +from dim centuries long past. Like a woman at the full flower of her +life who has been raped and defiled, all the perfection of her ripened +being defaced in a moment of lust, she will live on afterward with a +certain grandeur of horror in her eyes, of tragic dignity that can +never utterly be erased from her outraged person.... + +A French officer, speculating on the German intentions with that +admirably dispassionate intelligence with which the French consider +these brutal manifestations of the German mind, remarked, "At present +they seem engaged in ringing the cathedral with their fire, as if to +see how close they can come without hitting the building itself, but +of course from that distance they must sometimes miss." One theory +why the enemy pursues this unmilitary monument with such peculiarly +relentless ferocity is that they enjoy the outcry which their vandalism +creates. Moreover, it is a way of boasting to the world that they have +not yet been expelled from their positions behind Rheims, are not being +driven back. If any special explanation were needed, I should find it +rather in the fact that Rheims is peculiarly associated with French +history,--minster of her kings,--and its destruction would be especially +bruising to French pride. William the Second probably swells with +magnitude at the thought of destroying with his big guns this sanctuary +of French kings. Some of the graven kings still cling to their niches +in the lofty façade. Two have been taken to the ground for safety and +look out with horror in their blind eyes at the ruin all about them. +The little figure of Jeanne d'Arc, rescuer of a French king, still +stands untouched before the great portal, astride her prancing horse, +bravely waving her bronze flag. Around her were heaped garlands of +fresh flowers, touching evidence that the city of Rheims still holds +stout souls with faith in the ultimate salvation of their great church, +who lay their tribute at the feet of the virgin warrior. Once she +protected their ancestors from a less barbarous enemy. + +What use to enumerate the wounds and outrages in minute detail? For +by to-day more of this unique beauty has gone to that everlasting +grave from which no German skill can resurrect it.... Within, the +cathedral has been less spoiled, but is even sadder. One walked over +the stone pavement crunching fragments of the purple glass that had +fallen from the gorgeous windows, now sightless. Once at this hour +it was all aglow with color, radiating a mysterious splendor into +the vaults of transept and nave. A shell had blasted its way into +one corner, another had rent the roof vaulting near the crossing of +transept and nave. The columns and arches were blackened by the smoke +of that fire which caught in the straw on which the German wounded +lay. There was something peculiarly forlorn, ghostly within the dim +ruins of what was once so great, and I was glad to escape to the old +hospital in the close, now turned into a hospital for the cathedral +itself. Here on benches and in piles about the floor of the low-vaulted +room had been gathered those fragments of statue and moulding that a +pious search could rescue from the débris around the cathedral. In this +room, while the German guns were still raining shells upon Rheims, an +old man in workman's apron was already moulding casts of the faces and +lines of the shattered stones so that in some happier day an effort to +reproduce them might be made. I saw between his trembling old fingers +the fine features of a stone angel which he was covering with clay. I +know of nothing more beautifully eloquent of the French spirit than +this labor of preservation. Within range of shell fire this old man +was calmly working to save what he might of the beauty that had been +so prodigally murdered. If spiritual laws are still operative in this +mad world of ours, the Latin must endure and conquer because of his +unshakable faith.... + +At the hill on the Épernay road I looked back for a last view of the +cathedral. The evening mist was already creeping over its scarred +walls. With the two towers lifting the great portal to the sky, it +dominated the valley, the ruined city at its feet, a monument of men's +aspirations raising its head high into the sky in spite of the unseen +missiles that even then were beginning once more their attack. I would +that these words might go to swell that cry which has gone up from all +civilized peoples at the sacrilege to Rheims! Even now something of its +majesty and its glory might be saved if the German guns were silenced--if +within the German nation there were left any respect for the ancient +decencies and traditions of man. But I know too well with what contempt +the Germans view such pleas for beauty, for old memories and loves. They +are but "sentimental weakness," in the words of the "War Book," along +with respect for defenseless women and children. The people who gloried +in the sinking of the Lusitania will hardly be moved to refrain from the +destruction of a cathedral. Rheims--unless saved by a miracle--is doomed. +And it is because neither beauty nor humanity, neither ancient tradition +nor common pity can touch the modern German, that this war must be fought +to a real finish. There is not room in this world for the German ideal +and the Latin ideal: one must die. + + * * * * * + +The tragedy of Rheims has been repeated again and again--at Soissons, +at Arras, at Ypres, in every town and village throughout that blackened +band of invaded France from the Vosges to the sea. Also the tragedy of +exiled and imprisoned country folk, of ruined farms and houses, of mere +destruction. + +The wounds of France are so many, the outward physical bleeding of +the land is so vast, that volumes have been written already as the +record. Very little can be said or written about another wound,--the +lives of those in the invaded provinces behind the German lines,--for +almost nothing is known as to what has happened there, what is going +on now. A word now and then comes from that dead, no man's land; a +rare fugitive escapes from the conqueror's hand. The military rule +forbids any correspondence through neutrals, as is permitted prisoners +of war, to those held "behind the lines." The inhabitants are kept as +prisoners. Worse, they have been used at certain places along the front +as bucklers against the fire of their countrymen--in a quarry near +Soissons, at Saint-Mihiel. It is known that heavy imposts are laid upon +them, as at Lille, and that the invader is exploiting this richest part +of France's industrial territory. This last wound is, perhaps, the most +serious of all for France, in this modern, machine war. Latterly rumor +has it that the treatment of the inhabitants imprisoned behind the +German lines has become less rigorous, because, as a French general +explained,--"They hope to make peace with us--_quelle sale race!_" + +These wounds are still bleeding. They cannot be ignored. They, as +well as the death, suffering, and agony of the long trench combat, +make the faces of the French tense, silent. "To think that they are +still here after a whole year since this happened!" a young Frenchman +exclaimed in bitterness of soul as we looked out over the thickly +scattered graves in the fields around Bercy. To him it was as if a +crazed and drunken marauder had taken possession of his house, burned +a part of it, and still caroused in another wing. The unforgettable, +unforgivable wounds of France! + +The French, so clear-seeing, so reasonable even about their own +tragedies, are bitter to the soul when they think of the brutality +done to their _"douce France."_ To the French, quite as much as to +the Bryanited American, war is a senseless, inhuman thing; but it +becomes direfully necessary when the home has been burned and laid +waste. The Gallic spirit cannot understand that spirit of malevolent +destruction which vengefully wreaks its spite against defenseless and +inanimate works of age to be reverenced, of art to be loved. There are +certain scrupulosities of soul in the Latin that divide him from his +enemy, more effectually than a thousand years of life and an entire +world of space. + + + + +III + + +_The Barbarian_ + +The barbarian, as the Greeks used the word, was not necessarily a +person or a people without civilization. Indeed, certain ancient +peoples known as barbarians had a high degree of luxury, civilization. +The Persians under the barbarian Xerxes were probably quite the equals +in the mechanics of civilization of the Greeks, and the Egyptians could +lay claim to a large amount of what even the Greeks considered culture. +The barbarian was a person or a nation without a spiritual sense in his +values. The barbarian was often strong, able, intelligent, "organized" +as we say, but he was incapable of self-government: the barbarian nations +were ruled despotically. Their position in the world depended upon the +force and the ability of the particular despot who got control of their +destinies. The barbarian peoples were often crude in what is called +fine art. They neither believed in nor practiced those amenities of daily +life which express themselves superficially in manners, more deeply in +sensitive inhibitions, nor those amenities of the soul which are known +as honor, justice, mercy. The barbarian despised as soft and degenerate +such persons as permitted themselves to be trammeled in their conduct by +non-utilitarian considerations. In his primitive state the barbarian's +instinct was to destroy what he could not understand; as he became more +sophisticated, his instinct was to imitate what he could not create. + +What, above all, the barbarian cannot appreciate is the suave mean +of life, the ideal of individual human excellence, of a tempered +social control, the liberty of the individual within the fewest +possible restrictions to work out his own scheme of existence, his +own civilization. For the barbarian mind recognizes only two sorts +of beings--the master and the slave. One is a tyrant and the other +is a docile imitation of manhood. The barbarian never totally dies +from the world. In every race, in every nation, in every community +fine examples of the barbarian instinct, the barbarian philosophy +of existence can be found. I have known personally a great many +barbarians,--American life is full of them,--and my knowledge of +them, of their strengths and their limitations, has given me my +understanding of the modern German as manifested in this world war. + + * * * * * + +Real truth often underlies popular nomenclature. It is neither accident +nor a desire to abuse that has given the German the name of barbarian +in the Latin nations. Just as the Latin peoples are the inheritors of +Greek ideals, so the German peoples seem to be the active modern +protagonists of all that the Greeks meant by their term "barbarian." +The French before the war regarded the Germans as not wholly well-bred +persons, lacking in some of those niceties of feeling and conduct which +seemed to them important--"_parvenus_" as a French officer characterized +his feeling about the race, and added the descriptive adjective +"_sale_"--dirty. Since the war there has been ground into the French the +more awful inhumanities of which these _parvenus_ are capable. Therefore, +when they think of the German, there comes instinctively to their lips +the ancient term of complete distinction,--_les barbares_,--by which is +meant a person and a nation who are not governed by ideals of taste, +honor, humanity, what to the non-barbarian are summed up in the one +word "decency." The adjective that the officer used--"_sale_"--does +not imply necessarily literal physical dirt, but a moral callousness +and unrefinement of soul which in the spiritual realm corresponds with +the term "dirty" in the physical. He sees the soul of the German as a +dirty soul, unclean, unsqueamish. And this conception of the enemy has +given to the French soldier something of that crusader spirit which has +sustained him through his terrible conflict. As M. Émile Hovelaque has +expressed it,--"France is fighting the battle of humanity, of the world, +of America, of every nation, man, and child who are resolved to live +their own life in their own way, under the dictates of their conscience, +within the limits of the laws they have accepted." The battle of the +world to push back once more the pest of barbarism! It is that which +has roused French chivalry, French heroism, not merely the love of +the _patrie_. Indeed, for the higher spirits the _patrie_ is closely +identified with the non-barbaric ideals of humanity. + + * * * * * + +The whole conscious world has had the manifestations of the new +barbarism before its eyes for an entire year and more. It has recoiled +in disgust from the invasion of Belgium, the sinking of the Lusitania, +the shooting of Edith Cavell, from the wanton destruction of monuments. +All these barbarities are indisputable facts, which may be explained +and extenuated, but cannot be denied. There is another class of +barbarities,--the so-called "atrocities,"--which are more easily denied, +but which most people who have taken the trouble to examine the charges +know to be equally true. The record of these multiplied atrocities is +so enormous and so well authenticated that it would seem to me useless +to add any words to the theme were it not for an amazing attitude of +indifference to the subject on the part of many Americans. "We don't +want to hear any more atrocity stories," they say. "Perhaps the +atrocities have been exaggerated, probably there's truth on both sides. +Anyway, war is brutal as every one knows." Some newspapers will not +publish the atrocity charges, whether because of our popular prejudice +against anything "unpleasant" unless freshly sensational or because of +more sinister reasons, the reader may judge. + +This attitude is both evasive and cowardly. It is essential to +understand the atrocity for a proper realization of the war and of +the German menace. It is false to say that all war is barbarous, and +that in every war similar atrocities have occurred. As Mr. Hilaire +Belloc has well said,--"Men have often talked during this war ... as +though the crime accompanying Prussian activities in the field were +normal to warfare.... It is of the very first importance to appreciate +the truth that Prussia in this campaign has postulated in one point +after another new doctrines which repudiate everything her neighbors +have held sacred from the time when a common Christianity first began +to influence the states of Europe. The violation of the Belgian +territory is on a par with the murder of civilians in cold blood, and +after admission of their innocence, with the massacre of priests and +the sinking without warning of unarmed ships with their passengers and +crews. To regard these things as something normal to warfare in the past +is as monstrous an historical error as it would be to regard the Reign +of Terror during the French Revolution as normal to civil disputes +within the states." + +It is the business of every person who is concerned about anything +more than his own selfish fate to examine into the atrocity charges +and to convince himself, not only of the truth, but of the more serious +implications in their premeditated and persistent character. The record +has been well made, fortunately, often in judicial form. It is already +voluminous and being added to constantly. Best of all the evidence, +perhaps, are the German diaries of soldiers and officers, extracts of +which have been edited by Professor Bédier, of the Collège de France, +with facsimile photographs of the texts. Next I should place in evidence +the so-called German "War Book" ("Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege"), where +under the convenient title of "Indispensable Severities" may be found +the text for many of the worst atrocities committed in Belgium and +France. + +If the atrocity charge against the Germans is false or exaggerated, +it is surely time to know it, but no mere denial or general argument +can be accepted in rebuttal. The world must convince itself of the +truth. The German crimes have been too many and too public, too well +authenticated by witnesses to be disproved by mere denial. The best +public opinion of the world has condemned military Germany as a +barbarous outlaw. The crimes committed with the connivance of the +supreme military authorities, authorized by their instructions to +their officers, have fouled the name German for eternity: it will +be coupled with Vandal, Tartar, Barbarian. + + * * * * * + +I believe the atrocity charges to be substantially true in a vast +majority of cases. Moreover, I do not believe that half the truth of +them has been told or ever will be. My reasons for this belief in the +atrocity charge are the following: First, undisputed crimes, such as +the Lusitania and Cavell cases. A government that would sanction these +murders would sanction all other atrocities. Second, the witness of +persons in whose credibility I have confidence, such as French officers +and civilians, nurses and doctors, whose occupations have thrown +first-hand evidence in their way, who have personal knowledge of +specific outrages. Third, from what I myself gathered while I was in +France from the lips of abused persons. Although I did not look for +atrocities, I could not avoid getting reports from such people as I +met in the devastated territory of the Marne, weighing their stories, +and estimating the validity of them. + +I believe in the truthfulness of that abbé of Esternay, who was one +of the unfortunates that the Germans used as a screen before the +operations of a body of troops. I believe in the truthfulness of the +keen old peasant woman at Châtillon, whose home had been riddled by +German bullets and who had been fired at when she took refuge in the +cellar of her house, and of many others with whom I talked of their +experiences during the early days of September, 1914. Unfortunately, +there was no photographer at work those days along the Marne valley, +though no doubt the German denying office would instantly impugn the +evidence of a photograph of the act. Each one of us, however, has his +own inner instinctive tests of truth to which he puts the credibility +of a story, and I believe the abbé, the old woman, and many others +who suffered abominably at the hands of German soldiers. + +One fact only too evident to anybody who has followed in German +footsteps through the valley of the Marne is the part that mere +drunkenness had in this affair. The flower of the German army was +incredibly drunken throughout the advance into France. Pillage, rape, +incendiarism followed inevitably. They are common crimes to be expected +where an exhausted soldiery is inflamed with drink. But the cowardly +slaughter of non-combatants, the wanton destruction of monuments, the +brutal tyrannies toward conquered peoples--these are the blacker crimes +against the German name. + + * * * * * + +Self-control is not a Teutonic ideal. Of all the psychological surprises +that the war has revealed, the exhibition of the German temperament has +not been one of the least. Not its frank philosophic materialism, which +any one who had followed the drift of German thought and literature might +have expected, but its extraordinary lack of self-control. English and +Americans are taught that an individual who cannot master his own temper +is unfit to master others. Yet here is a people pretending to world rule +whose tempers individually are so little under control that they explode +in senseless passion on the least provocation. The German nation froths +with hate first against the English because they were neither as cowardly +nor selfish as had been expected, then against the Italians because they +would not listen to Prince von Bülow's song, latterly against Americans +because the United States dared to question the divine right of Germany +to do with neutrals what she pleased. Judging from the German press and +from the Germans whom I have met, the German nation is living in a +ferment of rage, all the more extraordinary as the fighting seems to +have gone their way thus far. What would happen to this uncontrolled +people should the war take an unfavorable turn and not supply them with +daily victories? Self-control is not included in that famous German +discipline. Uncontrolled tempers, drink, the ordinary fund of brutality +in the pit of human beings with the extraordinary conditions of war +will explain much of all this barbarism--but not all. + +The supreme evidence of German atrocities is to be found in the +infamous "Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege," a singular revelation of +national character in which the German general staff has summed +up for young officers the principles that should govern the conduct +of invading armies. One finds here,--"By steeping himself in military +history an officer will be able to guard himself against excessive +humanitarian notions; it will teach him that certain severities +are indispensable to war, nay, more, that the only true humanity +very often lies in a ruthless application of them." This convenient +generalization covers the multitude of Belgian crimes. This interesting +manual of conduct for officers further warns against "sentimentalism +and flabby emotion," such as are embodied in the Hague Conventions, +and after stating the generally accepted rule or custom of warfare +warns that exceptions are always permissible where the officer deems +exceptional severities are "indispensable." After perusing the +"Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege," need one seek more evidence of German +atrocities from the levying of confiscatory fines upon conquered +peoples to the use of noncombatants as human screens in military +operations? The germ of the barbarous system is there contained in +its entirety. + + * * * * * + +But the implication of all this is much deeper than might appear on the +surface. Such a theory of warfare as is set forth in the "War Book," as +has been exemplified throughout the war, having its climax to date in +the murder of Edith Cavell, is not the result of uncontrolled passions +wrought to ferocity. It is deliberate, preconceived, defended,--an +article of faith intimately bound up with the German ideal of the state. +There is the danger. That the precept of the higher military authorities +is accepted by the general public may be seen in the following passage +from the Hamburg "Fremdenblatt"--or is it but a press note inserted by +the high commandment? "Toxic gases are simply a new instrument of +warfare; they are condemned because they are not universally adopted.... +In warfare humanity does not exist and cannot exist. All the lucubrations +of the Hague Conferences on this subject are childish babbling. New +technical knowledge gives new arms to those who are not fools and know +how to use them.... Knowledge creates power, power creates law, law +creates humanity. All these are changing ideas and Germans are not +disposed to discuss them during the war." + +An Indian on the warpath scalps, burns, tortures, and we say it is +the Indian nature to do these things. So-called civilized white men +have gone on the loose in and out of war and have done many shameful +deeds: we blush for them and draw the veil. But what never before has +been accomplished is to have barbarism deliberately inculcated as +part of the policy of warfare by a so-called civilized state; also +warfare considered to be the flower of statecraft. Clausewitz lays +down the principle that war is the legitimate carrying-out of state +policy; the state relies upon war to execute its designs. The German +military authorities announce and print for the use of their officers +that in war deviation from any recognized principle of conduct is +permitted under the excuse of "indispensable severity"--for the sake +of terrorizing hostile peoples--and humanitarianism is condemned as +"sentimentalism and flabby emotion." + +There we have the gist of the whole affair--what makes the Frenchman +instinctively consider the German to be a barbarian, what makes modern +Germany the menace of the entire world. It is not its militaristic +ideals, its mechanical civilization, not even its brutality and +vulgarity, not even the ferocity of its warfare: it is the methodical +application of this underlying principle of conduct which has been +inculcated into the people so that they rejoice at the sinking of the +Lusitania, which has been employed in this war systematically from the +first day. This is the barbarian essence of the German character. + +It is not the raping of women, not the staff officers' drunken +orgies in châteaux, not the looting and burning of houses, not the +stupid treatment of Belgians and French "hostages," etc. All these +are distressing but not necessarily characteristic. It is the principle +of the legitimacy of evil provided only that evil works to the advantage +of the German state. That is the vicious term in the German syllogism. +The state can do no wrong: therefore the individual acting for the state +can do no wrong. The one supreme end sanctioned by divine authority is +the endurance and the magnification of the German state. Whatever a +German may do or cause to be done with this holy end in view is not +merely just and reasonable, but necessary and praiseworthy. Hence there +follows, naturally, the vile system of German espionage, of propaganda +in neutral countries, the indiscriminate use of the submarine weapon, +terrorization, military murders of civilians, and all the rest of the +long count against Germany. Assume the vital major premise and the rest +follows inevitably, provided her citizens are both docile and have a +natural fund of brutality. + + * * * * * + +"In warfare humanity does not exist and cannot exist. All the +lucubrations of the Hague Conferences on this subject are childish +babbling.... Knowledge creates power, power creates law, law creates +humanity. All these are changing ideas." + +The world has known the barbarian always; we are all acquainted with +him from personal experience. But the world has never before known a +reasoned, intellectual barbarism, a barbarian that has elevated into +a philosophy of human life with the sanctions of religion his instincts +and impulses. And that is the menace of the German, not his force nor +his brutality, but the risk that he can successfully impose upon the +world such an atrocious creed, intimidating into imitation those cowardly +souls whom he does not care to conquer. If Germany were to win this war, +it would not be her bumptious aggression that the world ought to fear +so much as the enormous impulse it would give to her detestable creed, +to the principle of evil in the world. The danger for us Americans is +greater than for others, not because of exposed coasts and an unprepared +army, but because we are already tainted with the same raw materialism +of belief. Too many individuals in America would find a sympathetic +echo in their own hearts to the German creed of collective selfishness +and barbarism. + + * * * * * + +One heard in Paris surprisingly little about German atrocities, less +than in Boston and New York, much less than in London. Not that the +French do not believe them: they know the bitter truth about German +inhumanity as none others. With that admirable stoicism and lucid +conservation of moral force displayed by the French from the beginning, +they do not waste their strength in denunciation: they have accepted +it as one of the terrible aspects of the evil they are fighting. They +probably understand the German character as now wholly revealed better +than the rest of the world and are not so much surprised by its +manifestations. They have examined the German, and have fortified +themselves against his cruel power. + +But they cannot forget these incredible outrages. There are too many +fresh examples--too many robbed and maltreated refugees, too many +fatherless and motherless children, still coming to Paris by the +trainload, whom they must provide for, too many relatives and friends +who have been abused and murdered or whose property has been looted +by German soldiers and officers. Also there are too many Frenchmen +who have seen the horrors with their own eyes, too many doctors and +stretcher-bearers shot down by those they were trying to aid, too many +hospitals bombarded, too many wounded prisoners killed. The German +atrocity is documented in France over and over, within the knowledge +of millions. It will prove to be Germany's great stumbling-block after +the war, when she looks about a shocked world for peoples to trade with. + + * * * * * + +In the dining-room of the military club at Commercy, where a corps +of the French army now has its headquarters, there is a wall painting +of the last century representing the heroic deeds of Jeanne d'Arc. +"That," said General C., pointing to the little figure on horseback, +"is French! And the French have fought this war chivalrously--not +against monuments, against women and children and old people, but +as soldiers against soldiers!" + +The Latin is sometimes cruel--he has within him the capacity for +cruelty--and the history of Latin peoples is stained here and there +with ferocity. But the Latin has never organized cruelty methodically, +has never elevated terrorization into a principle of warfare, a weapon +of statecraft. For one thing he is too intelligent: he knows that +cruelty begets reprisals, that brutality breeds hate. After Alsace +the German should have known too much to try the same method in harsher +forms upon Belgium and invaded France. But the barbarian learns no +spiritual lessons. Persian atrocity, Saracen atrocity, Indian atrocity, +Spanish atrocity--they have all failed. An enduring triumph was never +won on that principle of "indispensable severity." + +It is barbarism as well as the barbarian which France is fighting, +and the French know it, are profoundly conscious of it, from the +cool, dispassionate philosopher, like Bergson or Boutroux or Hovelaque, +to the girl conductor on the tram, the dirty _poilu_ in the trench. +For more than a generation the French world has suffered from the +fear of this new barbarian, and the time has come again, as it has +come so many times before in history, for the momentous decision with +the barbarian. Again as before it must come on the fields of France +where the ancient curse of barbarism has been met and destroyed. + + + + +IV + + +_The German Lesson_ + +The barbarian must be met on his own ground of force and efficiency,--"an +eye for an eye," not with arguments or apologies, not even with numbers +or wealth. The vital question for us all to-day is not how unprepared the +Allies were for the onslaught of barbarism, but how far they have overcome +their handicap, how thoroughly they have learned the barbarian's lesson. +The varying degrees in which the different allied nations have grasped +the meaning of the lesson and applied it tell us not merely their chance +of survival, but also the probable outcome of the world decision. What +that lesson is which Germany is teaching the world by blood and iron is +a byword on men's tongues to-day: the value of it is another question. + + * * * * * + +Long before the war, Germany had published far and wide her scorn +of her enemies. The Russians were an undisciplined barbarian horde; +the English, stupid idlers who spent on their sport the energy that +the industrious German devoted to preparing himself for world rule. +As for the French, they were an amiable and amusing people, but +degenerate--fickle, feeble, rotten with disease. Germany's hate +was reserved for the English, her most ignoble slurs for the French. +Needless to say, Germany has not found any one of her many enemies as +wholly despicable as she had imagined them to be. Her miscalculations +were greatest with France. That the French people are smaller in +stature than the German, that they eat less and breed less, that by +temperament they are cheerful and gay and witty convinced the dull +German mind that the race had become degenerate and trivial,--negligible. +This habit of contemptuously attributing to other peoples vileness and +degeneracy because their social ideals differ from her own is part of +that lack of imagination which is the Teuton's undoing. + +The courage, endurance, and high spirit displayed by the French have +compelled German admiration. The French have become the most tolerable +of all her enemies, and it is an open secret that for many months +Germany has desired to win France away from her allies by an honorable, +even advantageous peace. Meantime French prisoners are favored in the +German prison camps, being accorded a treatment altogether more humane +than that given the English prisoners or the Russians. But France has +replied to the dishonorable advances no more than to the calumnies. +One of the astonishing revelations of national psychology unfolded in +the war has been the taciturnity of the French, their silent tenacity. +For nearly two generations the nation has lived in expectation of an +ultimate struggle for existence with the barbarian: now that it has +come with more than the feared ferocity the French have no time or +energy to waste in comment. They must expel the barbarian from their +home and put a limit "for an hundred years" to the menace of his +barbarism. + +That is in part why the clear-headed Latin has learned the German +lesson faster than his allies. + + * * * * * + +What everybody knows by this time, and in America is repeating with +sickening fluency, is that Germany is "efficient," not only militarily +efficient, but socially and economically efficient--which these days +amounts to the same thing. Germany is "organized" both for peace and +war more efficiently than any other nation in the world. The two terms +that this war has driven into all men's consciousness are "efficiency" +and "organization." We in America, prone to admire the sheen of tin, +have bowed down in greater admiration than any other people to German +"efficiency." For efficiency values in the operations of life are just +the ones we are most capable of appreciating, although our government +and general social organization remain as lamentably inefficient as, +say, the English. But being a business people we are fitted to admire +business qualities above all others. The German army, the German state +are magnificently run businesses! To some of us, however, the term +"efficiency" has become nauseating because it has been associated with +so much else that we loathe from the bottom of our souls. If we cannot +have an "efficient" civilization without paying the price for it that +Germany has paid,--the price of humanity, of beauty, the price of her +soul,--let us return to the primitive inefficiency of a Sicilian +village! + +Germany under a highly autocratic system of government has created +a social machine of unexampled and formidable efficiency. The German +realized before his rivals that war had become, like all other human +activities, a matter of business on a huge scale. And he had prepared +not merely the special instruments of war, but also the tributary +business on this scale of modern magnitude: he had converted his state +into a powerful war machine. All this which is now commonplace has +become more glaringly evident to us onlookers because of the lamentable +failure of England and Russia especially to meet the requirements of +the new business. So incapable do they seem of learning the German +lesson that to some Americans the cause of the Allies is doomed already +to disaster. Certainly the English and the Russians have justified many +of those bitter German taunts. + +It has not been so with France. The French also were caught +unprepared--to their honor--like their allies. Can a real democracy +ever be prepared for war? France, suffering grievously from the first +blow dealt by the enemy, looked destruction in the face before the +stand at the Marne. The famous victory of the Marne, I believe, is +still unknown in Germany--I have been so informed by an American who +spent last winter in Germany. The battle of the Marne may not rank +in history as quite the greatest battle in the history of the world. +The French may exaggerate its importance as a military event. The +English have certainly exaggerated the part played by their little +expeditionary force of less than a hundred thousand in "saving France." +That is for others to dispute. But it was without any question a great +moral victory for the French of the utmost tonic value to the nation. +It saved France from despair, possibly from the annihilation that +follows despair. And ever since the Marne victory, French confidence +and _élan_ have been rapidly growing. During that bloody September week +they realized that the barbarian was not invincible, the machine was +not so perfect but that human will and human courage could resist it. +Moreover, the machine lacked that quality of spirit which the French +felt in themselves. As the months have dragged around an entire year +and more in the trenches, almost contempt has grown in the mind of +the French soldier for the formidable German machine. Strong as it +is, it yet lacks something--that something of human spirit without +which permanent victories cannot be achieved. Its strength can be +imitated. The spirit cannot be "organized." + +French confidence is more than an official phrase, a mere bluff! + + * * * * * + +But--and just here lies the profound significance of it all--the +French realized at once that in order to conquer the German machine +they must create an equally efficient and powerful machine, which +with that plus of human spirit and the inspiration of their cause +would carry them over into victory. So while the English were berating +the barbarian for his atrocious misconduct, advertising "business as +usual," and filching what German trade they could, bungling at this +and that, until they have become a spectacle to themselves, the French +nation concentrated all its energies upon preparing an organization +fit to meet the German organization. While General Joffre held the +Germans behind the four hundred miles of trenches, France made itself +over into a society organized for war--the new business kind of war +which is waged in factory and railway terminal, not by gallant charges. +"_Organiser_" has become in the Frenchman's vocabulary the next most +popular word to "_patrie_." One implies, these days, the other. + +It is said that when Germany invaded France, the French had not a +ton of their chief high explosive on hand. Some of its ingredients +they had been getting from Germany! France lost her coal and iron +mines and her largest factories the first weeks of the war and has +not regained them. Yet early in last April, according to the official +announcement, France was turning out six times as much ammunition as +was deemed, before the war, the maximum requirement, and would shortly +turn out ten times as much, which has ere this probably been greatly +exceeded. Meanwhile, by April the artillery had been increased +sevenfold. In attaining these results, France has accomplished a +greater marvel relatively speaking than the most boasted German +efficiency. She has had to get her coal from England, her ores from +Spain, her machines for making guns and shells from us. She has had +to improvise shell factories and gun plants from automobile factories, +electric plants, railway repair shops--from anything and everything. +I visited a small tile factory that was being utilized to make hand +grenades. Innumerable small shops in Paris are engaged in munition +work. The amount of ammunition bought in America by France has been +grossly exaggerated by the German press. Latterly, France has employed +American engineers to build large munition plants in France that will +become the property of the Government. + +Throughout the spring the Paris newspapers appeared every morning +with large headlines: "More guns! More ammunition!!" And they got +them, made them. The headlines are no longer needed, for the +superiority in shell and guns rests with the French, not with the +Germans, on the western front. + + * * * * * + +France, industrially crippled, has accomplished this marvel in +one short year. The country has become one vast workshop for war. +The Latin genius for organization on the small scale has met the +German genius for organization on the large scale. The industrial +transformation has been facilitated by the system of conscription +over which the English have wrangled so long and so futilely to the +mystery of their keener-witted allies. To the Frenchman conscription +means merely the most effective method of applying patriotism, of +coöperation for the common cause. France has mobilized not only her +men, but her women and children, it might be said, so thoroughly have +the civilian elements worked into the shops and other non-military +labor. To sort out their labor and put it where it was most effective, +to substitute women workers for men wherever possible, were the first +steps in the huge work of social reorganization. There were no labor +troubles to contend with, thanks to the conscription system and to +the awakened patriotism of every element in society. France looked +on aghast when her necessary supplies of coal were threatened by the +strike of Welsh miners, averted only by the personal pleadings of a +popular minister! To the Latin, more disciplined and more alive to +the real dangers of the situation than the Anglo-Saxon, the English +attitude was simply incomprehensible. Also France has not had her +efficiency so seriously threatened by the liquor problem as has +England: the military authorities have taken stern measures against +this danger and have carried them out firmly. So far as the army +itself is concerned, the drink evil does not exist. + +The manufacture of ammunition and cannon is but one element in the new +warfare. France has had to feed, clothe, and maintain her armies under +the same handicap, to meet all the unexpected requirements in material +of the trench war. The French have rediscovered the hand grenade and +developed it into the characteristic weapon of the war, have unearthed +all their old mortars from the arsenals and adapted them to the trench, +and created the best aerial service of all the combatants. Incidentally +they have effectually protected Paris from air raids since the first +months of the war by their careful aerial patrol. All this is aside from +the task of putting the nation socially and economically on the war +basis--in providing for the wounded, the dependent women and children, +and also for a perpetual stream of refugees from Belgium and the invaded +provinces, a burden that Germany has not yet had to carry. + +Not all this huge work of reorganization could be done immediately +with equal success. The sanitary service suffered grievously, especially +at the beginning,--needed all the help that generous outsiders could +give,--still needs it. The percentage of death among the wounded is too +high, of those returned to the army too low. There have been wastes in +other directions due to haste, inexperience, political interference, but +nothing like the wastes that England has suffered from the same causes, +infinitely less than we should suffer judging from the ineptitudes we +displayed in our little Spanish War. + +Probably France is not as well organized to-day for the war business +as is Germany. Very possibly she never will be, which is not to the +discredit of her people. The nation has had to do in one short year, +grievously handicapped at the start, what Germany has done at her leisure +during forty years. Moreover, the Latin temperament is intolerant of the +mechanical, the routine, which is the glory of the German. Although the +French have realized with marvelous quickness the necessity of war +organization and have adapted themselves to it,--have learned the German +lesson,--they are spiritually above making it the supreme ideal of +national effort. Without argument they have accepted the conditions +imposed upon them, but they do not regard the modern war business as +the flower of human civilization. + + * * * * * + +Mere preparation, no matter how scientific and thorough, is by no +means the whole of the German lesson. The first months of the war +we heard too much about German preparedness, too little about German +character. By this time the world is realizing that military preparation +is but one manifestation of that German character, and the real danger +is German character itself. According to reports in her own newspapers +Germany found herself running short of war materials after the first +weeks of this extraordinarily prodigal war, which exceeded even her +prudent calculations. But Germany had the habit of preparation and the +social machinery ready to enlarge her war product. Without advertising +her situation to the world, she provided for the new requirements so +abundantly that she has not yet betrayed any deficiency in material. +And while she was sweeping victoriously across northern France toward +Paris, with the belief that the city must fall before her big guns, +nevertheless her engineers took pains to prepare the Aisne line of +defense, which saved her armies from disaster and enabled them to keep +their tenacious grip on Belgium and northern France. This is the real +strength of Germany, the real import of the bitter lesson she is +teaching the world--the habit of preparation, discipline, organization, +thrift. On the specifically military side the French seem to have learned +this lesson well. They have fortified the ground between the present +front and Paris with line after line of defensive works. The fields are +gray with barbed wire. A few miles outside of the suburbs of Paris may +be seen as complete a system of trenches as on the front, and the _képi_ +of the territorial digging a trench is a familiar sight almost anywhere +in eastern France. It is inconceivable that any "drive" on the western +front could be successful. The confidence of the French rests in part +on these precautions. + +Whether the French can apply the inner meaning of the German lesson, +can incorporate it into their characters and transmit it to their +children, is a larger question for us as well as for them, for the +whole world. But their success in applying it in this war is all +the more noteworthy in contrast with the failure of their two great +allies, who were not invaded, not handicapped at the start, as was +France. The failure of Great Britain and of Russia to master the +lesson is so obvious, so lamentable, that it needs no emphasis here. +France, with the brunt of invasion only a few miles from the gates +of Paris, her factories and mines lost, has provided herself very +largely, has supplied Serbia with ammunition, Italy with artillery, +Russia, England, and Italy with aeroplanes. For many months the +thirty miles of the western front held by the English was defended +with the assistance of French artillery. + +The Slav one expected to fail in getting his German lesson, for +obvious reasons, especially because of his reactionary and corrupt +bureaucracy. But not the Anglo-Saxon! As a clever French staff +officer remarked,--"The two disappointments of the war have been +the Zeppelins and the English." Without making a _post mortem_ on +the English case, the Latin superiority is a phenomenon worth +pondering. For the Anglo-Saxon, cousin to the Teuton, would supposably +be the better fitted to receive the German lesson of organization +and discipline. But that ideal of individual liberty, which England +surely did not inherit from her Germanic ancestors, seems to have +degenerated into a license that threatens her very existence as a +great state. The English still talk of "muddling through somehow"! +If the end of autocracy is barbarism, the end of liberty is anarchy. + +The Latin has kept the mean between the two extremes. The French, +having fought more desperately in their great revolution for individual +freedom than any other people, seem able to recognize its necessary +limits and to subordinate the individual at necessity to the salvation +of the nation. In the Latin blood, however modified, there remains +always the tradition of the greatest empire the world has known, which +for centuries withstood the assaults of ancient barbarism. The wonderful +resistance and adaptability of the French to-day is of more than +sentimental importance to mankind. All the world, including their foes, +pay homage to the gallantry and greatness of the French spirit in their +dire struggle, but what has not been sufficiently recognized is the +significance to the future of the recovery by the Latin peoples of the +leadership of civilization. We Americans who have both traditions in our +blood, with many modifications, are as much concerned in this world +decision as the combatants themselves. + +So much has become involved in the titanic struggle, so many +subordinate issues have risen to cloud the one cardinal spiritual +issue at stake, that we are likely to forget it or deny that there +is any. Is the world to be barbarized again or not? + + * * * * * + +This reiterated use of the term "barbarism" is not merely rhetorical +nor cheap invective. It is exact. One of the Olympian jests of this +world tragedy has been the passionate verbal battles over the claims +of respective "_Kulturs_" to the favor of survival. Why deny that the +barbarian can have a very superior form of "_Kultur_" and yet remain +a barbarian in soul? These pages on the German lesson are a tribute +to Germany's special contribution to the world. Social and industrial +organization, systematic instead of loose ways of doing things, +prudence, thrift, obedience and subordination of the individual to +the state, discipline--in a word, an efficient society. It is a great +lesson! No one to-day can belittle its meaning. Possibly the remote, +hidden reason for all this seemingly useless bloody sacrifice in our +prosperous modern world is to teach the primary principles of the +lesson. God knows that we all need it--we in America most after the +Russian, and next to us the English. If the world can learn the lesson +which Germany is pounding in with ruin, slaughter, and misery,--can +discipline itself without becoming Teutonized,--the sacrifice is not +too great. If the non-Germanic peoples cannot learn the lesson +sufficiently well, then the Teuton must rule the world with "his old +German God." His boasted superiority will become fact, destiny. + +That is the momentous decision which is being wrought out these days +in Europe with blood and tears--the relative importance to mankind of +discipline and liberty. The ideal is to have both, as much of one as +is consistent with the other. In this country and in England may be +seen the evil of an individualism run into license--the waste, the +folly of it. And in Germany may be seen the monstrous result of an +idolatrous devotion to the other ideal--the man-made machine without +a soul. Between the two lies the fairest road into the future, and +that road, with an unerring instinct, the Latin follows. + + * * * * * + +The German lesson is not the whole truth: it is the poorer half of +the truth. An undisciplined world is more in God's image than a world +from which beauty, humanity, and chivalry have been exterminated. But +discipline is the primal condition of survival. Between these two poles, +between its body and its soul, mankind must struggle as it has always +struggled from the beginning of time.... + +When I looked on the sensitive, suffering faces of Frenchwomen in +their mourning, the wistful eyes of crippled youths, the limp forms +of wounded men, the tense, bent figures of dirty _poilus_ in their +muddy trenches, I knew that through their souls and bodies was +passing the full agony of this struggle. + + + + +V + + +_The Faith of the French_ + +I do not mean religious faith, although that too has been evoked, +reaffirmed by the trials and griefs of the war, but I mean faith in +themselves, in their cause, in life. The unshakable faith of the French +is the one most exhilarating, abiding impression that the visitor takes +from France these days. It is so universal, so pervasive, so contagious +that he too becomes irresistibly convinced, no matter how dark the present +may be, how many victories German arms may win, that the ultimate triumph +of the cause is merely deferred. + +There has never been the slightest panic in France, not during the +mobilization when white-faced men and women realized that the dreaded +hour had struck, not even in those days of suspense when the public +began to realize that the first reports of French victories in Alsace +were deceptive and that the enemy was almost at the gates of Paris. +A million or so people left the city with the Government in order to +escape the expected siege, but there was no panic, not even among the +wretched creatures driven from their homes in the provinces before the +blast of the German cyclone. + +Ever since the battle of the Marne the tide of confidence has been +steadily rising, in spite of the tedious disappointments of trench +warfare, the small gains of ground, the steady toll of lives, in +spite of reverses in Galicia and Poland and the mistakes in the +Dardanelles, in spite of English sluggishness and Russian weakness. +Each reverse has been courageously accepted, analyzed, and found not +decisive, merely temporary. Victory must come to the ones who can +endure to the end, and the French know now that they can endure. +"We can do it all alone, if we have to!" Again, "The Germans know +that they are beaten already: they know it in Berlin as well as we +do." This confidence is based on realities--first on the success with +which France has learned the German lesson and completely reorganized +her life for the business of war. "We were not ready last August--but +we are now." Her machine is growing stronger in spite of the daily +waste of life, while the German machine is weakening steadily. + + * * * * * + +The farther one gets into the military zone, the more fervent and +evident is this confidence, until on the front it is an irresistible +conviction that inspires men and officers alike. Even a novice like +myself began to understand why the army is sure of ultimate victory, +and the longer one stays at the front the more this faith of the +French seems justified. In the first place, they have so well got +that German lesson! The supply of shell and gun is so abundant, also +of fresh troops in reserve thanks to "Papa" Joffre's frugality with +human lives; the first, second, third lines--on _ad infinitum_ to +Paris--are so carefully fortified, so alertly held against any "drive"! +And the troops are so fit! They have made themselves at home in their +new camping life behind the lines of dugouts and caves; they have +become gnomes, woodsmen, cavemen, taking on the earth colors of the +primitive world to which they have been forced to return in order +to free the soil of their country. Then one sees the steady creeping +forward of the front itself, not much as it looks on a small-scale +map, but as the officers point out the blasted woods, or the brow of +a hill over which the trenches have been slowly pushed metre by metre +throughout the interminable weeks of constant struggle, one sees that +gradually the French have got the upper hand, the commanding positions +in long stretches of the trench wall. They are on the hills, their +artillery commands the level fields before them. It is like the struggle +between two titanic wrestlers who have swayed back and forth over the +same ground so long that the spectator can see no advance for either. +But one wrestler knows that the inches gained from his adversary count, +that the body in his grasp is growing weaker, that the collapse will +come soon--with a rush. He cannot tell fully why he feels this +superiority, but he knows that his adversary is weakening. + +Perhaps a colonel on the front will tell you with elation,--"We know +that the Boches across the way are discouraged, because our prisoners +say so,--we take prisoners more easily than we did,--and they are all +mixed up in their formations. We know that they have to drive their men +to the job, that the lines about here are stripped as bare as they dare +keep them. There used to be a lot of reserve troops behind their lines, +but our aviators say there aren't any in X----any more! And they aren't +as free with their _obus_ as they used to be, and they are 'old +nightingales,' not first quality." Perhaps the staff officers will smile, +knowing that the enemy is massing his forces elsewhere on the long front, +but this trick of rapid change is becoming harder to perform, and more +exhausting. At any rate, the plain _poilus_ in the front trenches are +instinctively sure: "We'll have 'em now soon!" They have watched that +grim gray wall opposite so long that, like animals, they can feel what +is going on there on the other side. + + * * * * * + +At staff headquarters in a more contained, reserved way there is +the same air of vital confidence. "Have you seen the new pump?" the +general asked me. "We are pumping good water all over this sector +into the front trenches, too.... Oh, we are _bien installé!_ ... It +may be another year, two, perhaps more, but the end is certain. There +is one man in the trenches, another just behind in reserve, still +another resting somewhere in the woods for his week off, and more, +all the men we want back in the _dépôts_!" And he turns the talk to +the good health of his men, their fine spirit. For one of the human, +lovable qualities of the officers whom I met is that they prefer to +talk about the comfort, the _morale_, the _esprit_, of their men to +discussing "operations." + +Just here I see where the French have risen above the machine idea +of the German lesson. There is a something plus, over and above +"preparation," "organization," "efficiency," which the Latin has +and on which his confidence in ultimate victory largely rests. That +is his belief in the individual, his reliance on the strength of the +individual's spirit. To the French officer this seems the all-important +factor in the army: military force depends ultimately upon the _esprit_ +of the individual which creates the _morale_ of the whole. Of course, +the army must be equipped in the modern way and fought in the modern +way with all the resources of science, with aeroplanes, bombs, motor +transport, and heavy artillery. But without the full devotion of the +individual, without the coöperation of his _esprit_, the army would +be a dead machine, especially in this nerve-rending endurance contest +of the trenches. Here is the Latin idea, which is absolutely opposed +to the German machine theory of war. + +The German staff has done marvels with its machine. It hurls armies +over the map of Europe of initiative and devotion in the common soldier, +who in the Latin conception of the word remains a human being with a +soul. An officer remarked to me, "We cannot have our men come from the +trenches glum and downcast--a Frenchman must laugh and joke or something +is wrong with him. So we started these vaudevilles behind the lines, and +sports." Instead of more drill they give their men "shows," so that they +may laugh and forget the horrors of the trench. Good psychology! + + * * * * * + +The civilian shines through every French soldier--the civilian who is +a human being like you or me, with the same human needs. The officers +chat and joke familiarly with their men. Comradeship is substituted for +tyranny. France, one comprehends, is a real democracy, and still takes +the ideal of equality seriously. When I asked an officer at Rheims why +he had not had a day's leave in ten months while English officers went +home on leave, he said, with a shrug,--"France is a republic: our men +must get their leaves first." + +The machine system gives startling results--in a short campaign. But +when it comes to an endurance contest, to the long, long strains of +trench warfare, something other than drill and organization is necessary, +something that will rouse the human being to the last atom of effort +that he has in him. When men must stand up to their waists in icy water, +live in the inferno of constant bombardment, not for hours and days, but +for weeks and months, something other than discipline is needed to keep +them sufficiently alive to be of use. Doctors tell how willingly, +unquestioningly, the wounded go back to the hell they have escaped,--not +once, but twice, three times. To evoke the capacity for heroism in the +individual soldier has been the triumph of the Latin system. + +The faith of the French rests justly on their heroic resolution, their +ability to endure as individuals, more than on the lesson learned of +preparation and organization. + + * * * * * + +Faith is a belief in the evidence of things unseen. French faith +is of many kinds, not purely material, not military. They believe +so profoundly in the perfect justice and high importance of their +cause that it would seem as if they counted upon the cause alone to +win the victory. No nation, they say, ever spent itself in a better +cause. Victims of an unprovoked attack, unprepared, which is the best +evidence of peaceable will, witnesses of the outrage of a neighbor +people, bleeding from the wounds of their own country,--what better +cause for war could men have? And the Latin intelligence of the +French enables them from the humblest to the highest to perceive the +universality of the principles for which they are called upon to die. +It is no selfish, not even a merely national, cause--it is the cause +of nothing less than humanity in which they fight. + +The philosopher Bergson expressed this sublime confidence in the +cause thus (I give the substance of his words from memory): "Not all +wars can be avoided--perhaps nine out of ten can. But this one, no! +For it is a war of principles. It will be a long war because the enemy +is strong and we were unprepared. But we can wait the end confident in +the result. The Germans have created a false belief, a wrong idea, and +have carried that idea into action with extraordinary thoroughness. But +the belief rests upon error. When the day comes that they meet reverses, +when their idol of force no longer works miracles for them, then they +will collapse, from within. There will be a general breakdown of +personality from realizing the falsity of their idea. There lies our +victory." + +The philosopher's belief is based on the faith that the principles +of justice, of law, of humanity are stronger, more enduring than any +organization of force no matter how efficient, for this is a moral +world. And the individual or nation who relies upon might to enforce +wrong must in the end, perceiving the irrationality of his world, +collapse. The grinding of the mill may be heart-breakingly slow, but +the grist is as sure as life itself. + +Similarly, the statesman Hanotaux has expressed "The Moral Victory": +"It is the noblest, the highest of causes which has been submitted +to the arbitrament of arms. Its grandeur justifies the terrible extent +of the drama and the immense sacrifices it imposes. The material results +of victory will be immense, the moral results will be even greater.... +Moral forces are superior to physical forces, and in spite of all they +will have the last word.... Our youth has gone to the front in the +serene conviction that it was fighting not only for the _patrie_, but +for humanity, that this war was a sort of crusade, that they could +claim place beside St. Louis and Jeanne d'Arc." + +It is that heroic consciousness of a righteous martyrdom that I read +on the faces of the black-robed women in the street, too proud for +tears; in the silent figures on the hospital beds, suffering without +protest an agony too deep for words. And when I encountered a file +of soldiers in the muddy trenches, flattening themselves out against +the earth walls to let me pass, carrying pails of soup to the comrades +up front, or sitting motionless beside their burrows along the trench +wall, their hands clasping their rifles,--dirty, grimed, and bearded,--I +saw the same thing in their tired eyes, their drawn faces. Mute martyrs +in the cause of humanity, in _my_ cause, they were giving their lives +for others, for _me_, not merely that the German might be driven from +France, but that justice and honor and peace between men might prevail +in the world! + + * * * * * + +Because the French people are inspired with the grandeur and the +moral significance of their cause, they cannot understand a certain +cynical attitude of mind, well illustrated by a former Senator of +the United States, who has been high in the councils of the defunct +Progressive Party. After spending ten days in Paris last spring, he +remarked at a luncheon given him by some distinguished Frenchmen,--"Don't +tell me about the justice of your cause or about the atrocities. I am +not interested in that. What I want to know is, who is going to win!" +Who is going to win! There spoke the barbarian mind. The barbarian +mind cannot comprehend that the winning itself in a world cause is +inextricably involved in the justice and worth of the cause. + +For the same reason the French people have been puzzled by the sort +of neutrality preached and practiced at Washington since the outbreak +of the war. It is plain enough that neither France nor England desires +to have the United States go to war with Germany. We can help them +better as a huge supply house than as an ally, much as that might +offend our vanity. The French appreciate also our President's desire +to keep his country at peace. They are a peace-loving people and know +the frightful costs of war. But they cannot understand a neutrality +that avoids committing itself upon a moral issue such as was presented +to the world in Belgium, in the sinking of the Lusitania. And in spite +of the strict censorship, which for obvious reasons has muzzled the +French press in its comment upon our diplomacy with Germany, occasionally +flashes of a biting scorn of the Wilson neutrality have appeared in print, +as the following from Hanotaux: "We should be wanting truly in frankness +toward our great sister republic if we left her in the belief that this +series of documents, of a tone particularly friendly and affectionate, +addressed to the German Government after such acts as theirs, had not +occasioned in France a certain surprise.... Up to this time the Allies, +who have not, God be praised, compromised or even menaced the life of +any neutral, of any American, have not received the twentieth part of +these friendly terms that the German Government has brought forth by +its implacable acts.... What the world awaits from President Wilson is +not merely a note, it is a verdict. What do neutral peoples, what does +the American Government, what does President Wilson think of the German +doctrine,--'Necessity knows no law--the end justifies the means'?... +Every Government that acts or speaks at the present hour decides the +nature of the real peace, whether it will be an affirmation of those +eternal principles that are alone capable of directing humanity toward +its sacred end." + +To our eternal shame as a nation our Government has evaded, up to +this hour, pronouncing the expected verdict, has preferred to quibble +and define, in its vain attempt to hold the barbarian to a "strict +accountability"--whatever that may mean. France does not want our +army or our navy, not even our money and our factories, except on +business terms, but she has looked in vain for our affirmation as +a nation of our belief in her great cause, which should be our own +cause--the cause of all free peoples. + + * * * * * + +What a timid and verbal interpretation of neutrality has prevented +our Government from affirming, the American people, let us be +thankful, have done generously, abundantly. They have pronounced +a not uncertain verdict, and they have followed this moral verdict +with countless acts of sympathy. The cause of France, the faith of +the French, have roused the chivalry of the best Americans. Our youths +are fighting in the trenches, our doctors and nurses are giving their +services, our money is helping to stanch the wounds of France. As +a people we too have affirmed our faith in the cause and are doing +generously, spontaneously, as is our wont, what we can to win that +cause for the world. The splendid hospital of the American Ambulance +at Neuilly, equipped and operated on the generous American scale, +is the real monument to the beliefs, the hopes, the faith of the +American people. + +In that modification of the Anglo-Saxon tradition which America is +fast evolving, there is a subtle sympathy and likeness with the Latin, +which this crisis has brought into evidence. We are less English than +French in spirit, in our ideal of culture, of life. + + + + +VI + + +_The New France_ + +"This is a return for a new departure!" the Italian poet cried to +his people at Quarto when they were still hesitating between the +paths of a prudent neutrality and intervention in the world decision. +Probably in the poet's thought there was more of concrete ambition +for "national aspirations" than of spiritual rebirth. But for the +French nation it is the spiritual rebirth alone that has any meaning. +No material enlargement of France has ever been seriously contemplated. +The acquisition of Alsace can hardly be termed conquest, and whatever +hopes of indemnity or other material advantages the French may have +permitted themselves to dream of must fade as the financial burden of +all Europe mounts ever higher. Even the recovery of Alsace, according +to those best able to judge,--in spite of German assertions,--would +never have roused France to an aggressive war. Conquest, material +growth, is not an active principle in the French character. How often +I have heard this thought on French lips,--"We want to be let alone, +to be free to live our lives as we think best, to develop our own +institutions,--that is what we are fighting for!" For forty years +the nation has lived under the fear of invasion, a black cloud +always more or less threatening on the frontier, and when the day of +mobilization came every Frenchman knew instinctively what it meant--the +long-expected fight for national existence. And the hope that sustains +the people in their blackest moments is the hope of ending the thing +forever. "Our children and our children's children will not have to +endure what we suffer. It will be a better world because of our +sacrifice." + +The conquest that France will achieve is the conquest of herself, +and the fruits of that she has already attained in a marvelous measure. +The reality of a new France is felt to-day by every Frenchman and is +aboundingly obvious to the stranger visiting the country he once knew +in her soft hours of peace. To be sure, intelligent French people say +to you, when you comment on the fact, "But we were always really like +this at bottom, serious and moral and courageous, only you did not see +the real France." Pardonable pride! The French themselves did not know +it. As so often with individual souls, it took the fierce fire of +prolonged trial to evoke the true national character, to bring once +more to the surface ancient and forgotten racial virtues, to brighten +qualities that had become dim in the petty occupations of prosperity. + +After I had been in France a short time, nothing seemed falser +to me than the pessimistic assertions of certain German-Americans +and faint-hearted other Americans, that whatever the outcome of the +world war France was "done for," "exhausted," "ruined," must sink to +the level of a third-rate power, and so forth. Nor can I believe the +words of those saddened sympathizers and helpers in the ambulances +and hospitals, that "France is proudly bleeding to death." Her wounds +have been frightful, and through them is still gushing much of the +best blood of the nation. Her bereavement has been enormous, but not +irreparable. Once a real peace achieved, the triumph of the cause, +and I venture to predict that France will give an astonishing +spectacle of rapid recovery, materially and humanly. For the New +France is already a fact, not a faith. + + * * * * * + +Evidence of this rebirth is naturally difficult to make concrete +as with all spiritual quality. It is not merely the solidarity of +the nation, the fervent patriotism, the readiness for every sacrifice, +which are qualities more or less true of all the warring nations, +especially of Germany. It is more than the perpetual Sunday calm +along the rue de la Paix, the absence of that parasitic frivolity +with which Paris--a small part of Paris--entertained the world. +It is not simply that French people have become serious, silent, +determined, with set wills to endure and to win--for that moral +tenacity may relax after the crisis has passed. It is all these +and much more which I shall try to express that has revealed a +new France. + +To start with some prosaic proofs of the new life, I will take +the liquor question, a test of social vitality. It is significant +to examine how the different belligerent nations have treated this +problem, which becomes acute whenever it is necessary to call upon +all national reserves in a crisis. Turkey, Italy, and Germany +apparently have no liquor problem; at least the war has not called +attention to it. Russia, whose peasantry was notoriously cursed with +drunkenness, eradicated the evil, ostensibly, by one arbitrary ukase, +though, if persistent reports from the eastern war region are true, +her great reform has not yet reached her officers. England has played +feebly with the question from the beginning when the ravages of drink +among the working population--what every visitor to England had +known--became painfully evident to the Government in its efforts +to mobilize war industries and increase production. Various minor +restrictions on the liquor traffic have been imposed, but nothing +that has reached to the roots of the matter--probably because of +the powerful liquor interest in Parliament as much as from the +Englishman's fetish of individual liberty. Although the direct +handicap of drunken workmen did not affect France as it did England, +the French authorities quickly realized the indirect menace of +alcoholism and have taken real measures to combat it. Absinthe has +been abolished. For the army--and that includes practically all the +younger and abler men--the danger has been minimized by the strict +enforcement of regulations as to hours and the non-alcoholic nature +of drinks permitted, which are posted conspicuously in all cafés +and drinking-places and which are carefully observed, as any one who +tries to order liquor in company with a man in uniform will quickly +find out! I never saw a soldier or an officer in the least degree +under the influence of liquor while I was in France, either at +the front or outside the military zone, and very few workingmen. +Not content with the control of liquor in the army, the French have +seriously attacked the whole problem, which in France centers in the +right of the fruit-grower to distill brandy,--an ancient custom that +in certain provinces has resulted in great abuses. Legislation +against the _bouilleurs de crue_ is one inevitable outcome of the +awakened sense of social responsibility in France. + +Connected with the liquor evil is the birth-rate question, to which +since the war the attention of all serious-minded people has been +drawn. The French Academy of Sciences has undertaken an elaborate +series of investigations into the relations between the birth-rate +and the consumption of alcohol, which would seem to show that there +is cause and effect between the excessive use of alcohol and a +declining birth-rate. This will undoubtedly tend to create a popular +sentiment favorable to restrictive liquor legislation, specifically +to abolishing the right to distill spirits. But what is of more real +significance is the changing sentiment among the French in favor of +larger families. Due, no doubt, directly to the necessities of a +draining war, it is also an expression of those deeper experiences +that trial has brought. The French have always prized family life, +and French family life is, perhaps, the best type of the social bond +that the world knows. Under the stress of widespread bereavement the +French are realizing that the base of the family is not love between +the sexes, but the existence of children. They want children, not +only to take the place of their men sacrificed, but as symbols of +that greater love for the race that the war has evoked. Although +the crudity of the "war-bride" method of increasing the population +is not evident in France, every working-girl wears the medallion of +some "hero" on her breast. Girls say frankly that they want children. +The Latin will never accept the German principle of indiscriminate +breeding. As in every other aspect of life, the Latin emphasizes the +individual, the personal; but an awakened patriotism and pride of +race, a deepened sense of the real values of life will lead to a +greater devotion to the family ideal. + + * * * * * + +To shift to the political life of France, the history of the republic +has been tempestuous in the past. There has been a succession of +_coups d'état_, plots, and scandals. One political _cause célèbre_ +has followed another--the Boulanger, the Dreyfus, and quite lately +the Caillaux. The wide publicity which these political scandals have +had is due partly to the Latin love of excitement, also to the Latin +frankness about washing dirty political linen in public. To the +foreigner it has seemed strange that a republic could endure with +such abysses of intrigue and personal corruption beneath its political +life as have been shown in the Panama and Dreyfus scandals. The Germans +probably have been misled by them into considering the French nation +wholly despicable and degenerate. But France has not only endured in +spite of these rotten spots, but her republicanism has grown stronger. +Americans experienced in their own sordid politics should understand +how uncharacteristic of the real citizenship of a democracy politicians +can be. The real France has never taken with entire seriousness the +machinations of "those rats in the Chamber." These "rats" were quite +active during the first months of the war. Aside from the incompetence +of the first war ministry, which kept the public in ignorance of the +danger so completely that the enemy was at Soissons before Paris was +aware that the French army was being driven back, and all the blunders +of the raid into Alsace, France had its sinister political menace in +Joseph Caillaux, who it has been rumored plotted a disgraceful peace +with Germany before the battle of the Marne. Caillaux, when his +creature, the grafting paymaster-general, was exposed, found it wise +to go to South America. An able and on the whole a competent ministry +was placed in power. + +When Caillaux returned last spring, rumors of legislative unrest +and plotting against the Joffre-Millerand control of the army +began once more. Outwardly it was an attempt of party leaders in +the Chamber to gain greater legislative control of the conduct of +the war, ostensibly for the improvement of bureaucratic methods, +as in the sanitary service, which was notably deficient. But beneath +this agitation were the dangerous forces of political France seeking +to oust Joffre, and there lay the menace that a political clique might +get control of the army. This agitation, however, did not disturb +the public. As one Frenchman put it, "If those rats get too active, +Gallieni will take them out and shoot them. France is behind the +army, and the people will not tolerate legislative interference with +it." The political unrest has at last resulted in a new and larger +cabinet, admittedly the most representative body that France could +have. The danger of political interference has passed without resort +to summary methods. It is a triumph of democracy. France will fight +the war to an end under constitutional government, a much more +difficult task than Germany's. Obviously, as may be seen in England, +parliamentary government is a great hindrance to a nation in the +abnormal state of war. Free societies have this handicap to contend +with when they fight an autocratic machine. To maintain her republican +government without scandals throughout the war will be a political +triumph for France, indicative of the new spirit that has entered +into the nation. The seriousness of the present situation has sobered +all men and has suppressed the politicians by the mere weight of +responsibility. The New France emerging from the trial of war can +profit by this experience to purge her political life of the +scandalous elements in it. + +Italy has closed her Parliament and relapsed temporarily into autocracy. +England and France are struggling to maintain popular government as we +did through the Civil War. + + * * * * * + +Much has been said of the heroic spirit of the French nation under +the tragedy of the war. Too much could not be said. The war has +evoked patriotism among all the peoples engaged, but with the French +there is a peculiar idealistic passion of tenderness for the _patrie_ +which impresses every observer who has had the good fortune to see +the nation at war. I shall not linger long on these familiar, +inspiring aspects of love for country that the war has called forth +from all classes. The ideal spirit of French youth has been +illustrated in some letters given to the public by the novelist, +Henry Bordeaux, called "Two Heroes." They relate the personal +experiences of two youths, one twenty, the other twenty-one, whose +baptism of fire came in the battle of the Marne. They grew old fast +under the ordeal of battle and of responsibility for the lives of +their men; their letters home show a loftiness of spirit, a sense +of self-forgetfulness, of devotion to the cause, that is sublime, +poignant--and typical. In every rank of society the same immense +devotion, the same utter renouncement of selfish thought can be felt. +A spirit of ideal sacrifice has spread throughout the nation, making +France proud, heroic, confident. Such a spirit must be a benediction +for generations to come. + +The common effort, the universal grief, has drawn all French people +so close together that social and party differences have disappeared. +The French priest has become once more the heroic leader of his +people, fighting by their side in the trenches. The scholars, the +poets, the artists have all done their part,--the nuns, the +aristocrats, the working-people theirs. While England has been +harassed with strikes and class recriminations, France has never +known in her entire history such absolute social harmony and unity, +such universal and concentrated will. + +This spirit of "sacred union" embraces the women who are doing men's +tasks, the rich who are surrendering their good American securities +to the Government in exchange for national defense bonds, the poor +who are bringing their little hordes of gold to the Bank of France to +swell the gold reserve. I wish that every American might stand in the +court of the Bank of France and watch that file of women and old men +depositing their gold--the only absolute security against want they +have! That is faith made evident, and love. + + * * * * * + +In looking over the bulky file of French newspapers, illustrated +weeklies, and pamphlets on the war, which I brought back with me, I +am struck by the fact that the outstanding characteristic of all this +comment on the great war from journalist to statesman and publicist +is not denunciation of the barbarian. Denunciation plays a singularly +small part in the French reaction to their suffering. References to +Germans and Germany are usually of a psychological or humorous +character, illustrating the grotesque and antipathetic aspects in +which the Teuton presents himself to the Latin mind. That part which +grieving and denunciation have played in English comment, the gross +and apoplectic hate of the German press, is taken by lyrical +enthusiasm for heroism. The newspapers, sure pulse of popular +appetite, are filled daily with stories of sacrifice, gallantry, +heroism. This is the aspect of the sordid bloody war that the French +spirit feeds on. It is a fresh manifestation of an old national +trait--the love of chivalry. Some day, doubtless, these splendid +tales of individual heroism, of soldierly and civilian sacrifice, +will be gathered together to make the laurel wreath of the New +France. I could fill a volume with those I have read and heard. And I +like to think that while Germany went wild over the torpedoing of the +Lusitania,--even dared to celebrate it in America,--while the +Zeppelin raids arouse her patriotic enthusiasm, the French gloat over +the story of the private who crawled out of the trench and hunted for +two days without food or water for his wounded officer. The love of +the _beau geste_ is an ineradicable trait of French character. It has +had a bountiful satisfaction in this war. + +"We have fought a chivalrous war," General C. exclaimed, pointing to +the little figure of Jeanne d'Arc. The same general ordered that the +government dole of a franc and a half a day be paid to those Alsatian +women whose husbands were fighting in the German army. "They are +French women: it is not their fault that their husbands are fighting +against France!" And the deathless touch of all, which will be +remembered in the world long after the destruction wrought to the +cathedral of Rheims, is the picture of French saving German wounded +in the burning church--fired by German shells! + +The _beau geste_, the beautiful act, which ennobles all men, not +merely the doer of the deed,--that is what France is giving the +world. The image of men who are more than efficient and strong and +physically courageous, of men who are filled with a divine spirit of +sacrifice and devotion. Truly supermen. + +Chivalry was a trait of the Old France as it is of the New. It +has fallen somewhat into disrepute of late years with the rise +of the comfort and efficiency standards. Nowhere else on the broad +battlefields of Europe has it revived, to redeem the horror of war, +so shiningly as in the New France. + + * * * * * + +Another aspect of French character which is both old and new is +the quality of humorous "sportsmanship" the French have displayed. +When Germany's crack aviator made a daily visit to Paris, dropping +bombs, in the afternoon during the early weeks of the war, the +Parisians took his arrival as a spectacle and thronged the boulevards +to watch him and applaud. When at last he was shot through the head, +the French press lamented his loss with genuine appreciation of his +nerve and his skill. A young cavalry officer at the front told me +this story: One of the younger officers of his regiment, to encourage +his men, had offered rewards for German shoulder straps, that is, +prisoners. Two simple peasants, misunderstanding his words, proudly +brought in a couple of pairs of German ears strung on a string like +game. The officer, brooding over the incident, resolved to explain +and apologize to the enemy. Putting his handkerchief on the point of +his sword, he crawled out of the trench and advanced across the field +of death between the lines. + +Tales from the trenches by the hundreds prove that the French have +not lost the sparkle of wit even under the dreary conditions of +trench-fighting. When Italy joined the Allies, some soldiers of a +front-line trench hoisted the placard,--"Macaroni mit uns!" Again, +when boasting placards of German successes in Galicia were displayed, +the French _poilus_ retorted,--"You lie. You have taken ten thousand +officers and ten millions of troops." When in a German military +prison the keepers boasted of their recent successes on the western +front, the French prisoners began to sing the _Marseillaise_ to the +astonishment of their German guards, "because," as they explained, +"we know if you have killed all those French soldiers, you must have +lost at least four times as many!" + +The barbarian misread the Gallic love of wit and laughter. To joke +and quip seemed to him beneath the dignity of men. It is, rather, +the safety-valve of a highly intelligent people--the outlet for their +ironic perceptions of life. The most amusing songs of the war that I +have heard were given by the _poilus_ on a little stage near Commercy +while the cannon thundered a few miles away. This ability to turn +upon himself and see his life in a humorous light is an invaluable +quality of the French soldier. So, too, is his love of handicraft +which finds many ingenious expressions even in the trenches. The +French soldier is always a civilian, with a love of neatly arranged +gardens and terraces, and he lays out a _potager_ in the curve of a +shell-swept hillside, or a neat flower garden in the crumbled walls +of a village house. He makes rings from the aluminum found in German +shell-caps, carves the doorposts of his stone dugout, or likenesses +of his officers on beam-ends, as I saw in a colonel's quarters in +the Bois-le-Prêtre. + +The French soldier remains, even in this bloodiest of wars, always +a civilian, a man, capable of laughter and tears, of heroic heights, +of chivalrous sacrifices,--with the soul's image of what manhood +requires, with the vision of a state of free individual men like +himself. + + * * * * * + +The New France is inspired with qualities of Old France, qualities +which I call Latin, which have emerged into high relief under grief +and suffering and effort. It is above all gallant and high-minded. +The wounded Frenchman never complains or whimpers. "_C'est la +guerre--que voulez-vous!_" To the surgeon who has operated on +him,--"_Merci, mon major_." And they lie legless or armless, perhaps +with running sores, a smile on the face in answer to the sympathetic +word, in long hospital rows.... + +The fundamental element in this New France is the gravity, the +seriousness of it. Of all the warring peoples the French seem to +realize most clearly what it all means, what it is for, and the deep +import of the decision not merely to them, but to the whole world. +They are fighting, not for territory, but for principles. Peace must +be not a rearrangement of maps, but of men's ideas, of men's wills. +They are the conscious protagonists of a long tradition of ideals +that have once more been put in jeopardy. It is the character of this +human world of ours which they are struggling to mould, and like +actors in a Greek tragedy they are suitably impressed with the +gravity of the issue in their hands. + +The New France has been born in the travail of the monstrous +desolation of trench-land that stretches, scabby with shell-holes, +leprous with gray wire, pitted with countless graves, scarred with +crumbled villages for four hundred miles across the fair fields of +_la douce France_. In this savage desert, inhumanly silent except +for the shrieking of shells, for now more than a year's time France +has struggled with the incarnated spirit of evil, rearing its head +again, armed with all the enginery of modern science. The little, +dirty-bearded soldiers squat there in their burrows, white-faced, +tense, silent, waiting, watching, month after month, or plunge over +their walls to give their lives on that death-field outside. They are +the simple martyrs of the New France. + + * * * * * + +France has learned her German lesson; has reorganized her life to +make it tell effectively for her task, has reorganized her inner +life, discarding frivolity and waste. She has found herself in the +fire. France is not "done for," as my German-American friends so +pityingly deem. Bleeding from her terrible wounds, she is stronger +today than ever before,--stronger in will, in spirit, in courage, the +things that count in the long, long run even in the winning of wars. +Technically minded soldiers may judge that "Germany can't be beaten." +But the French know in their souls that she can be, that she is beaten +today! In this greatest of world's decisions it is the spirit of the +Latin that triumphs again--the sanest, suavest, noblest tradition that +the earth has ever known, under which men may work out their mysterious +destiny. + + + + +Part Three--America + + +I + + +_What Does It Mean to Us?_ + +I went from the French front back to America. The steamer slipped +down the Gironde between green vineyards, past peaceful villages, +a whole universe distant from that grim, gray trench-land where the +French army was holding the invader in Titan grip, stole cautiously +into the Bay of Biscay at nightfall to escape prowling submarines, +and began to roll in the Atlantic surges, part of those "three +thousand miles of cool sea-water" on which our President so complacently +relies as a nonconductor of warfare. I was homeward bound to America, +the land of Peace, after four months spent in "war-ridden Europe"--to +that homeland stranger somehow than the war lands, where my countrymen +were protesting to both belligerents and making money, manufacturing +war supplies and blowing up factories, talking "peace" and "preparedness" +in the same breath; also--and God be thanked for that!--helping to feed +the starving Belgians, sending men, money, and sympathy to the French. +As the old steamer settled into her fourteen-knot gait, the submarines +ceased to be of more than conversational concern, and I began to ask +myself,--"What does it all mean to us, this bloody sacrifice of world +war,--to us, strong, rich, peaceful, confident Americans?" + +For in spite of a curious indifference among many Americans to the +outcome, so long as it did not get us into trouble with either party, +betrayed by personal letters and press articles which I had received, +I was profoundly convinced that the issues of the world tragedy were +momentous to us too. "This European butchery means nothing," said one +friend, who supplies editorial comment for a most widely read American +weekly, "except a lot of poverty, a lot of cripples, and a lot of +sodden hate in the hearts of the people engaged. Europe will not be +changed appreciably as a result of the war!" Our pacifist ex-Secretary +of State, I remember, wrote Baron d'Estournelles de Constant inquiring +what the French were fighting for, implying that to the reasonable +onlooker there was no clear issue involved in the whole business, +merely the passions of misguided patriotism. The well-meaning agitation +for peace, which as I write has been lifted into the grotesque by the +Ford peace ship, is based largely on this inability to realize the +reality of the issue between the belligerents. And there is our national +attitude of strict neutrality, which fairly represents the evasive mind +of many Americans. Happily, they seem to say to themselves, "This war is +not our affair." We were warned by Washington to keep clear of European +"quarrels," and wisely we covered our retreat at The Hague by inserting +that little clause which relieved us from all real responsibility for +the observance of the conventions. Excuse for cowardice and blindness +of vision! Such Americans like to think that as a nation we have no more +concern in the present war than a peaceable family in one house has with +the domestic upheavals of an unfortunate family in the next house. The +part of prudence is to ignore all evidences of unpleasantness, to profess +good offices, and to keep on friendly terms with all the belligerents. + +The impression that such an attitude makes on the American in +Europe is painful, whether it be expressed in personal letters, +in newspapers and magazines, or in diplomatic "notes." He becomes +impatient with the provincialism of his own people, ashamed of their +transparent selfishness, astonished that human values should have got +so fatally distorted in our fat, comfortable world. To the European, +American neutrality has become a matter of public indifference, of +private contempt. Inspired with the lofty ambition of playing the +rôle of mediator in the world war, President Wilson has lost his +chance of influencing the decision toward which Europe is bloodily +fighting its way. At that great peace conference which every European +has perpetually in mind, America will be ignored. Only those who have +shared the bloody sacrifice--at least have had the courage to declare +their beliefs--will penetrate its inner councils. We have had our +reward--money and safety. It is not fantastic even to expect that the +conquerors might under certain circumstances say to the conquered, +"Take your losses from the Americans: they alone have made money out +of our common woe!" + +No, ours has not been the _beau geste_ as a nation. Nor can the +American take comfort in the thought that Washington diplomacy does +not fairly represent the sentiment of our people. As the weeks slip +past, it is only too evident that our President has interpreted +exactly the national will. The farther west one travels the colder +is the American heart, and duller the American vision. The numerical +center of the United States is somewhere in the Mississippi Valley. +Europe gave Chicago, in her distress after the great fire, eighty +cents per person; Chicago has given Belgium and France seven cents +per Chicagoan. Not a single Chicago bank appears on the list of +subscribers to the Anglo-French loan,--very few banks anywhere west +of the Alleghanies. "It is not our quarrel; we are not concerned +except to get our money for the goods we sell them!" + + * * * * * + +But are we not concerned? I asked myself as the old steamer throbbed +wheezily westward. Beneath the deck in the ship's strong room there +were thick bundles of American bonds, millions of them, part of the +big American mortgage that Europe has been obliged to sell back to +us. They represent European savings, hopes of tranquil old age, girls' +_dots_, boys' education and start in life. The American mortgage is +being lifted rapidly. The stocks and bonds were going home to pay for +the heavy cargoes of foodstuffs and ammunition and clothes which we +had been shipping to Europe. The savings of the thrifty French were +going to us, who were too rich already. The French were bleeding their +thrift into our bulging pockets, selling their investments for shells +and guns and barbed wire which would not keep old age warm, marry their +girls, or start their boys in life. They were doing it freely, proudly, +for the salvation of their _patrie_, which they love as the supreme +part of themselves. And to us what did all this sacrifice mean? Oh, +that we were growing richer day by day while the war lasted; "dollar +exchange" was coming nearer; we were fast getting "rotten with money," +as a genial young coal merchant who had the deck chair next mine +remarked affably. Yes, the war meant that to us surely,--we were fast +raking in most of the gold that Europe has been forced to throw on the +table of international finance, the savings, the _dots_, the stakes of +her next generation. The number of lean-faced American business men, +war brokers, on the steamer was plain evidence of that. Already +Prosperity was flooding into America--that prosperity upon which our +President congratulated the country in his Thanksgiving address. + +But is that prosperity a good thing for the American people just +now? Aside from the speculation excited by the superabundance of gold +in our banks, there is the envy of hungry Europe to be reckoned with +a few months or years hence, after the close of the great war, an envy +that might readily be translated into predatory action under certain +circumstances, as some thoughtful Americans are beginning to perceive. +Eastern America, where the war money has largely settled, is already +fearful, desires to arm the nation to protect its prosperity. And +there is the more subtle, the more profound danger that this undigested +war bloat of ours will dull the American vision still further to the +real issue at stake--the kind of world we are willing, the kind of soul +we wish, to possess. Can we safely digest the prosperity that the happy +accident of our temporary isolation and the prudent policies of our +Government have given us? Are we not feeding a cancer that will take +another war to cut from our vitals? + + * * * * * + +Most of us on board were Americans going about our businesses on a +belligerent nation's ship in defiance of Mr. Bryan's advice. The man +next to me was building a new munitions plant for France, and beyond +him was the European manager for a large American corporation whose +factories have been taken over by the German Government. He was +returning to America to enter the munitions business in Pittsburg +or Connecticut. To these commercial travelers of war the European +struggle meant, naturally, first of all money, the opportunity of a +lifetime to make money quickly; it meant also less vividly helping +the Allies, who needed everything they could get from us and were +willing to pay almost any price for it. Sometimes they talked of the +long list of "accidents" that were happening daily in American factories +and genially cursed the hyphenated Germans. As for the other sort of +Germans they felt vaguely that some day America must reckon with them, +too. Evidently they put small faith in the "three thousand miles of +cool sea-water" as a nonconductor of warfare! So here was another +aspect of the war--the possible dangers to us, without a friend in +the world, as every one agreed. And we talked "preparedness" in the +usual desultory way. The munitions men seemed to think that they were +patriotically working for their own country in getting "the plant" of +war into being. "Some day we shall need guns and shells too!" Afterwards +I found in America that this vague fear of probable enemies had seized +hold of the country quite generally, and that the very Government which +had done nothing toward settling the present war rightly was planning +for "defense" with a prodigal hand. Peaceful America was getting +alarmed--of what? + +There were also in our number some young doctors and nurses who were +returning from the hospitals in France for a little needed rest. They +were of those young Americans who are giving themselves so generously +for the cause, eager, courageous, sympathetic. They seemed to me to +have gotten most from the war of all us Americans, much more than the +munitions men who were making money so fast. In Belgium, in Serbia, +behind the French lines, in the great hospital at Neuilly, they had +got comprehension and all the priceless rewards of pure giving. They +had seen horror, suffering, and waste indescribable; but they had +seen heroism and devotion and chivalry. And with them should be joined +all the tender-hearted and generous Americans at home who have aided +their efforts, who are working with the energy of the American character +"for the cause." Alas, already the word was coming of a relaxation in +the generosities, the devotions, the enthusiasms of these Americans. +Other interests were coming into our rapid activities to distract us +from last year's sympathies.... + + * * * * * + +So as we rolled on through the soft summer night while the passengers +discussed the latest Russian reverse of which news had been received +by wireless, I kept asking myself,--"What does it really mean to us? +To vast, rich, young America?" Surely not merely more money, more +power, even a loftier inspiration for the few who have given themselves +generously in sympathy and aid. After all, these were but incidental. +The threat we were beginning to feel to our own security, this campaign +for "preparedness," did not seem of prime, moving importance. Probably +in our bewildered state of mind we should wrangle politically about the +matter of how much defense we needed, then drop some more hundreds of +millions into the bottomless pit of governmental extravagance and waste. +We had already spent enough to equip another Germany! When peace was +finally made in Europe, we would forget our fears; our Congressmen and +their parasites would fatten on the new appropriations, which would be +as actually futile as all their predecessors had been. No; these were +hardly the significant aspects of the war to us as a people. + +No more was that acrobatic exhibition of diplomatic tight-rope +walking we had witnessed from Washington. Mere "words, words, words, +professor!" Our dialectic President had thus far failed to establish +any one of his contentions, either with Germany or Great Britain, nor +did it seem likely that he ever could. While he was still modifying +that awkward phrase, "strict accountability," Germany obviously would +murder whomsoever it suited her purpose to murder, and England would +hold up any ship that attempted to trade with Germany. All those +neutral rights for which Washington was paying big cable tolls had +not been advanced an atom. The time had gone by when our strong voice +could compel respect from the barbarian, could hearten the soul of +other weaker neutrals. Europe had taken our exact measure. We should +have saved some dignity had we not murmured more than a formal +protest.... + +And yet, returning from "war-ridden Europe" I was more convinced +than of anything else in life that what was being slowly settled +in that grim trench--land over there did mean something to us--more, +much more than money or neutral rights or sympathetic charities. Not +that I was apprehensive of an immediate German raid on New York, the +crumbling of her sky-scrapers and the exaction of colossal indemnities. +For it looked to me that Germany might well have other occupation +after peace was made in Europe, whichever way the war should go. The +German peril did not lie, I thought, in her big guns, her ships, her +"Prussianized machine." It lay deeper, in herself, in her image of +the world. If Germany could win even a partial victory under that +monstrous creed of applied materialism, illuminated as it had been +with every sort of cynical crime, with its reasoned defiance of contract, +its principle of "indispensable severities," its "military reasons," +_that_ must become inexorably the law of the world--the barbarians' +law. Germany would have made the morality of the world! And of all +the world's peoples to accept the victor's new reading of the +commandments, proud America would be the first. For we cannot resist +the fascination of success. The German aim, the German tyranny over +the individual, the German morality--one for you and me as individuals +and another utterly lawless one when we get together in a social +state--would be imitated more than the German lesson of thoroughness +in civil and military organization. Hypnotized by German success, we +should not discipline ourselves, which is the German lesson, so much +as we should riot in the moral license of the German creed. Americans +would worship at the altar of that queer "old German god," who +apparently encourages rape, murder, arson, and tyranny in his followers. +For in young America, with every social tradition in it seething blood, +there is already an insidious tendency to accept this new-old religion +of triumphant force. American "Big Business" can understand the Kaiser's +philosophy, can reverence his "old German god" when he brings victory, +more than any other people outside of Germany. For it, too, believes +in "putting things over" with a strong hand. There is not an argument +of the German militarist propaganda that would not find a sympathetic +echo somewhere in the headquarters of American corporations. + + * * * * * + +When the old fourteen-knot steamer finally dropped anchor off +quarantine in New York Harbor and the reporters came on board with +the dust of America on their shoes, the roar of America in their +voices, I was surer than ever that this greatest of world wars meant +a vast deal more to us than trade or charity or politics, which is +what we seem to be making of it for the most part. It means the form +which our national character is to take ultimately. The German peril, +which is held before the public in moving pictures and in alarmist +appeals for "preparedness," is already in our midst, not so much at +work blowing up our factories as insidiously at work in our hearts. +The German apologist--even of Anglo-Saxon blood--is suggesting the +reasonableness of a German verdict. "After all," one hears from his +lips, "there is much on the other side of the shield, which our +English prejudices have prevented us from seeing. Germany cannot be +the monster of barbarism that she has been painted. As for broken +treaties, the atrocities, the submarines, the murder of Edith Cavell, +and her rough work over here,--well, we must remember it is war, and +the Russian Cossacks have not been saints!... As to her military +autocracy, perhaps a little of it would not be a bad thing for +America. At any rate, Germany seems to have the power--it is useless +to think of putting her down.... The American public will forget all +about German crimes once Germany is victorious." "Nothing succeeds +like success." "There is always a reason for success," etc. Which +cynical acceptance proves that we have already "committed adultery in +our hearts." + +There are many voices in the air, too many. Americans have not yet +found themselves in this crisis of world tragedy, and the Government +at Washington has not helped them to an understanding. We are vastly +relieved at not finding ourselves "involved" and accept shabby verbal +subterfuges as a triumph of American diplomacy. Meanwhile the Lusitania +incident has been conveniently forgotten, with the awkward phrase +"strictly accountable." Along the eastern seaboard the anxious and the +timid are clamoring for "defense"--against what? The talkative pacifists, +who would make a grotesque farce of the bloody sacrifice by a futile +peace, are bringing further ridicule and contempt on their country +with their impertinent if well-meant efforts. Meantime, the money-makers +have taken this occasion to stage a spectacular bull market, grumbling +on the fruits of war! And there is the "good-time" side to American life. +For a few brief months after the outbreak of the war Americans were +staggered by the awfulness of the tragedy and moved under its shadow. +Their hearts went out in sympathy, in feeding the dispossessed, and +sending aid to the wounded. We spent less on ourselves, partly because +of financial fear, partly because of our desire to give, partly because +our hearts were too heavy to play. But already that serious mood is +passing, and to-day as a people we are hard at it again, chasing a good +time. We feel once more the same old lustful urge to get and enjoy.... +The other night as I looked out on the peopled sea of the New York +opera-house, with its women richly dressed and jeweled, its white-faced +men, leading the same life of easy prodigal expense, of sensual +gratification, I remembered another opera staged in the mysterious +twilight of Bayreuth where from the gloom emerged the hoarse bass of +Fafner's cry,--"I lie here possessing!" The voice of the great worm +proved to be the voice of Germany. Is it ours also? + + * * * * * + +Do we Americans desire to have our world Germanized? Not in art and +language and customs, though may Heaven preserve us from that fate +also! But Germanized in soul? Do we want the German image or the Latin +image of the world to prevail? And are we strong enough in our own +ideal to resist a "peaceful penetration" by triumphant Germany into +our minds and hearts? That is the urgent matter for us. No amount +spent on big guns, superdreadnoughts, submarines, and continental +guards--no amount of peace talk--can keep the German peril out of +America if we surrender our souls to her creed, now that Germany +seems to be imposing it successfully with her armies in Europe. Those +dirty _poilus_ in the front trenches are, indeed, fighting our battle +for us, if we did but know it! + + + + +II + + +_The Choice_ + +"We have all sinned, your people as well as mine, the English, +the French, the Germans, all, all of us,--but Germany has sinned +most." When M. Hanotaux spoke these words with a Hebraic fervor of +conviction, I did not have to be told what he meant. The people of +our time have sinned through their hot desire for material possession +of the earth and its riches--through commercialism, capitalism, call +it what you will. Each great nation has made its selfish race for +economic advancement at the expense of other peoples: commercial +rivalry has largely begotten this bloody war, which is essentially +a predatory raid by one barbarous tribe against the riches of its +neighbors. Whether England or Russia under similar circumstances +would have dared a similar attack on the liberties of the world is +open to speculation. To Germany alone, however, has been reserved the +distinction of elevating greed and the lust of power to the dignity +of a philosophic system, a creed with the religious sanction of that +"old German god" to smite the rivals of the Fatherland and take away +their wealth. It is because Germany has made a consistent monster out +of her materialistic interpretation of modern science that she is now +held up before the nations of the world as a spectacle and a warning. +"We have all sinned" in believing that the body is more than the +spirit, that food and pleasure and power are the primary ends of all +living; but Germany alone has had the effrontery to justify her +cynicism by conscious theory and to teach it systematically to all +her people. She has endowed with life a philosophical idea, given it +the personality of her people, created a national Frankenstein to be +feared and loathed. More, she is coming perilously nigh to imposing +her god upon the world! + +We have all worshiped at the shrine of material achievement--in +America with the riot of young strength. England, like old King +Amfortas, is now bleeding from the sins of her youth and calling in +vain for some Parsifal to deliver her from their penalty. She has +built her rich civilization on a morass of exploited millions, and +her Nemesis is that in her hour of peril her sodden millions strike +and drink and feel no imperative urge to give their lives for an +England that sucked her prosperity from their veins. In the race for +commercial supremacy the Latin nations--Italy, Spain, and France--have +been deemed inferior to Germany, England, and the United States, +because they were less tainted with the lust of possession, less +materialistic in their reading of life, less powerful in their grasp +upon economic opportunity than their rivals. In the Latin countries +industry yet remains largely on the small scale, which is economically +wasteful, but which does not build up fabulous wealth at the expense +of the individual worker. The great corporation designed for the rapid +creation of wealth has not found that congenial home on Latin soil +which it has on ours, or on German soil. And this fact accounts for +the touch of handicraft lingering in the product of Latin industry, +for the strength and health individually of their working classes, +for their fervor of devotion to the national tradition. The Latin +has never forgotten the claims of the individual life: democracy to +him is more than the right to vote. Therefore, pure art, pure science, +pure literature--also the world of ideas--has a larger part in the life +of Latin peoples than with us in the eternal struggle with the +materialistic forces of life. To the Latin living is not solely the +gratification of the body. He reckons on the intelligence and the +spirit of man as well. + + * * * * * + +It may seem to some that throughout these pages I have spoken +paradoxically of the world war as primarily a struggle between the +Latin and the Germanic ideal, ignoring the significance of Russia +and of England. In spite of the heroic resistance of the French and +the pertinacious thrust of the Italians against the steel wall in +which Austria has bound them, the Latin forces engaged are obviously +less than half of the Allied Powers. On the sea England is virtually +alone. Nevertheless, I see the struggle as a Latin-German one, the +great decision as essentially a decision between these two types of +ideals. All else is relative and accidental. Apart from the +surprising vitality developed by the two Latin peoples, their +astonishing force in the brutal struggle for survival,--which has +disagreeably put wrong the calculations of their enemy,--it is the +mental and spiritual leadership of the world which is being fought +for rather than the physical. The ideas and the ideals under which +the Allies are fighting, which can be simply summed up however +divergent their manifestations, are French, are Latin ideas and +ideals, not English, not Russian. The spirit of the cause to which +England has lent her imperial supremacy and Russia her undeveloped +strength is Latin, and since the war began the English have widely +borne testimony to this fact. + +The right of peoples, little as well as strong nations, to live their +own lives, to preserve their own political autonomy, to develop their +own traditions, is part of the Latin lesson learned in the throes of +the great Revolution. It is expressed passionately, wistfully in that +universal cry of the French people: "We must end this thing--it must +never happen again--we must win the right to live as we see fit, not +under the dictation of another!" To the Latin mind the world is +peopled by individuals who cannot and should not be pressed in the +same political or economic mould, who must win their individual +salvation by an individual struggle and evolution. This is the ideal +of liberty the world over, which prompted France to send us help in +our struggle with England. It is a wasteful, an uneconomic ideal, as +we Americans have proved in our slovenly administration of our great +inheritance. Yet we would not have a machine-made, autocratic +organization, no matter how clean and thrifty and efficient it might +make our cities. We prefer the slow process of conversion to the +machine process of coercion. And that is one source of our sympathy +with French civilization. Let us have all liberty to its possible +limit short of license: the Latin intelligence has known how to +preserve liberty from becoming license. The result in the human being +of the principle of liberty is individual intelligence and spiritual +power; those are the high ideals toward which democracy aims. The +cost of them is efficiency, organization--immediate results which +German discipline obtains. But the cost of the German ideal is the +humanity of life, and that is too big a price to pay. That there +should be found many among us who are willing to exchange the +spiritual flower of our civilization for the sake of a more efficient +social organization is evidence of the extent to which the cancer of +a materialistic commercialism has already eaten into our life. + + * * * * * + +The Latin vision of life includes chivalry, as has been abundantly +revealed by the spirit of the French, sorely tried in their struggle +with the new barbarian. Chivalry means beauty of conduct, an +uneconomic, a sentimental ideal, but without which the life of man on +this earth would be forlorn, lacking in dignity, in meaning. Take +from mankind the shadowy dream of himself implied in his desire for a +chivalrous world, and you leave him a naked animal from the jungle, +more despicable the more skillful he becomes in gratifying his lusts. +The Latin vision of life includes also beauty of art, man's radiation +of his inner spiritual world, and closely woven with the love of art +is respect for tradition--reverence for the past which has been +bequeathed to him by his ancestors, which is incorporated in his +blood. + +We in America have striven for these beauties of chivalry, art, and +tradition. We have striven to put them into our lives often blindly, +crudely. We have borrowed and bought what we could not create; +instinctively we pay homage to what is beyond our industrial power +to make, confessing the inadequacy of our materialism to satisfy our +souls. We, too, demand a world in which beauty of conduct, beauty of +manners, and beauty of art shall be cultivated to give meaning to our +lives. The bombardment of Rheims, the murder of Edith Cavell are as +shameful to the American mind as to the French, and as incomprehensible. +These are not matters of reason, but of instinct--commands of the soul. + + * * * * * + +The Latin ideal is not predatory. Whatever they may have done in +their past, the Latin peoples to-day are not greedy of conquest. If +the Allies win, France will gain little territory. Both Italy and +France have limited their territorial ambitions to securing their +future safety by establishing frontiers on natural barriers. France +also expects indemnity for her huge losses and for outraged Belgium. +She must rebuild her home and be freed for generations to come from +the inhibiting fear of invasion. One does not feel so confident of +England: in the past she has had the pilfering hand. But from +prudence if not from shame England may content herself with a +reestablished prestige and a tranquil Europe. Russia has already +reconciled herself to relinquishing Poland, and except for her +natural ambition to enter the Mediterranean she seems without +predatory desires. Russia, it should not be forgotten, took up arms +to protect her own kin from the Austrians. The Slav and the Latin +have a spiritual sympathy that cannot exist between the Latin and the +Teuton, which gives their present union more than an accidental +significance. + +Whatever secret ambitions may be brewing in the chancelleries of +Europe, France has put herself on record against conquest too +emphatically to countenance at the peace conference any predatory +rearrangement of the map of Europe. She has made the great war a +struggle of principle--the principle of national liberty against the +principle of military conquest. It is this great principle which +gives significance to her cause and justifies the awful slaughter and +waste of bleeding Europe. If the pretensions of physical might, no +matter with what excuses, can be thoroughly defeated, proved to be an +impossible theory of life, so that never again in the history of the +world will a nation attempt to take with the sword what does not +belong to it, the bloody sacrifice will have been well worth making. +The issues of the great conflict have been obscured, especially in +America, but to the humblest soldier of France they are as clear as +blazing sunlight. "Never again!" Never the monstrous pretension that +power alone makes right, that the will to eat gives free license to +the eater, however great his appetite or his belief in himself. That +is the cause of all the world, for which the French are willing to +give all that they have. And I know no cause more important to be +settled for the future of the human race. + + * * * * * + +Are we not interested in the right decision of this cause? A +peaceable people, loving our own way, jealous of interference, +we should assuredly present a lamentable spectacle were we called +upon to defend ourselves against a predatory enemy. Possibly a more +lamentable spectacle of inefficiency combined with corruption than +England has given the world the past year! And at last we are becoming +aware that our policy of selfish isolation does not mean immunity from +attack. We are realizing that those "three thousand miles of cool +sea-water" no longer make an effectual barrier against the ingenuity +of modern men. + +But I would not put the matter on the selfish basis of our own +security. It is vastly larger than that. It is, vitally, what +manner of world we wish to have for ourselves and our children. +At the invasion of Belgium, America gave with splendid unanimity +the response: Americans did not want the German world! Since then, +alas, it would seem that the clear moral reaction of our people to +the demonstration of the world struggle has been gradually weakening: +we are becoming confused, permitting insidious reasoners to cloud the +issue, listening to the prompting of the beast in our own bellies, +hesitating, dividing, excusing, evading the great question--"seeing +both sides." As if there were two sides to such a plain issue stripped +of all its fallacies and subterfuges and lies! Do we wish to have +American life take on the moral and intellectual and artistic color +of German ideals? Do we prefer the "old German god" to the culture +and humanities we have inherited from the Latin tradition?... "We, +too, have sinned." In our blood is all the crude materialism of a +triumphant Germany without her discipline and her organization. We, +too, are ready to enter the fierce war of commercial rivalry with +England and Germany. We, too, believe in the good of economic expansion, +though dubious about our own imperialism. Surely no people that ever +lived stood hesitating so dangerously at the crossroads as America at +this hour. Prudence has prevented us as a nation from pronouncing +that moral verdict on the cause which might have had decisive weight +in hastening the world decision. But a selfish timidity cannot prevent +us individually from realizing the immense importance to us of the +decision that is being ground out in the tears and blood of Europe. +And no ideal of diplomatic neutrality can prevent Americans who care +for anything but their own selfish well-being from doing all in their +power to make ours a Latin rather than a Teutonic world. + +Every soldier who dies in the trenches of France, who bears a maimed +and disfigured body through life, is giving himself for us, so that +we may live in a world where individual rights and liberties are +respected, where beauty of conduct and beauty of art may endure, +where life means more than the satisfaction of bodily appetites. + + + + +III + + +_Peace_ + +The real cynics of the war are the pacifists. They see nothing more +serious in the European agony than what can be disposed of easily at +any time in a peace conference--by talk and adjustment. So obsessed +are some of them by the slaughter of men, by the woe and travail of +Europe, that they would turn the immense sacrifice into a grotesque +farce by any sort of compromise--a peace that could be no peace, +merely the armistice for further war. Their eyes are so blinded by +the economic waste of the war and its suffering that they are incapable +of seeing the great underlying principle that must be decided. Americans, +having evaded the responsibility of pronouncing a decisive moral +judgment on the rape of Belgium, the sinking of the Lusitania, and +the extermination of the Armenians, play the buffoon with women's +peace conferences, peace ships, and endless impertinent peace talk. +We, who have forfeited our right to sit at the peace conference, who +are busily making money off the war, having prudently kept our own +skins out of danger, are officiously ready with proposals of peace. +What a peace! The only peace that could be made to-day would be a +dastardly treason to every one of the millions whose blood has watered +Europe, to every woman who has given a son or a father or a husband +to the settlement of the cause. The parochialism of the American +intelligence has never been more humiliatingly displayed than in +the activities of our busy peacemakers. + + * * * * * + +No sane person believes in war. The sordidness and the horror of war +have never been so fully revealed as during this past year. War has +been stripped of its every romantic feature. Modern war is worse than +hell--it is pure insanity. We do not need peace foundations, peace +conferences, peace ships to demonstrate the awfulness of war. But +crying peace, thinking peace, willing peace will not bring peace +unless conditions that make peace exist. Here in America we use the +word peace too loosely, as if it meant some absolute state of being +which we had achieved through our innate wisdom rather than from the +happy accident of our world position. But peace is an entirely +relative term, as any one who has given heed to the social conditions +we have created should realize. We have enjoyed a certain kind of +peace, the value of which is debatable. And now, alarmed at the +exposed condition of our eastern seaboard, we are agitatedly +preparing to arm to protect ourselves--from what? From Germany? Or is +it from England? And still we recommend an instant peace to Europe! + +Awful as are the waste and suffering caused by war, hideous as modern +warfare is, there are worse evils for humanity. To my thinking the +perpetuation of the lawless, materialistic creed of the new Germany +would be infinitely worse for the world than any war could be. When +the German tide broke into Belgium and poured out over northern +France, sweeping all before it, killing, burning, raping, the +pacifists no doubt would have accepted the conqueror as the will of +God and have made peace then!... There are none more eager for peace +than the soldiers in the trenches who are giving their lives to press +back the barbarian flood. But no peace until their "work has been +done, the cause won." I have heard Americans express the fear that +European civilization is in danger of annihilation from the prolonged +conflict. Even that were preferable to submission to the wrong ideal. +But I see, rather, the possibility of a higher civilization through +the settlement of fundamental principles, the reaffirmation of +necessary laws. It is surely with this abiding faith that the +enormous sacrifices are being freely made by the allied nations. "It +is of little importance what happens to us," a Frenchman said to me +in Rheims, whose home had been destroyed that morning, whose son had +already been killed in the trenches. "There will be a better world +for the generations to come because of what we have endured." That is +what the American pacifist cannot seem to understand--the necessity +of present sacrifice for a better future, the cost in blood and agony +of ultimate principles. + + * * * * * + +This war is leading us all back to the basic commonplaces of +thinking. Is life under any and all conditions worth the having? Our +reason says not. It tells us that the diseased and the weak-minded +should not be permitted to breed, that an anaemic existence under +degenerating influences is not worth calling life. We shudder in our +armchairs at the thought of "cannon food," but why not shudder +equally at the words "factory food," "mine food," and "sweat-shop +food"? We are inclined to sentimentalize over those brave lives that +have been spent by the hundreds of thousands on the battlefields of +France and Poland, but for the most part we live placidly unconscious +of the lives ground out in industrial competition all about us. +Between the two methods of eating up, of maiming, of suppressing +human lives, the battle method may be the more humane--I should +prefer it for myself, for my child. What our pacifists desire is not +so much peace as bloodlessness. We should be honest enough to +recognize that for many human beings,--possibly a majority even in +our prosperous, war-free society,--a violent death may not be by any +means the worst event. And it may be the happiest if the individual +is convinced that the sacrifice of his existence will help others to +realize a better life. That is the hope, the faith of every loyal +soldier who dies for his country, of every soldier's father and +mother who pays with a son for the endurance of those ideals more +precious than life itself. + +The higher one rises in consciousness, the more nearly free and +self-determined life becomes, the greater are the rewards of complete +sacrifice. There are many who have "fallen on the field of honor" +whose lives, if lived out under normal peace conditions, might have +meant much to themselves, possibly to humanity. They have given +themselves freely, without question, for what seems to them of more +importance than life. Wounded, mutilated past all usefulness, dying, +they have not rebelled. Doctors and nurses in the hospitals tell the +story of their endurance without complaint of their bitter fate. Much +as we must feel the awful price which they have felt obliged to pay, +it is not sentimental to say that the finer spirits among them have +lived more fully in the few crowded weeks of their struggle than if +they had been permitted to live out their lives in all the +gratifications of our comfortable civilization. Letters from them +give an extraordinary revelation of priceless qualities gained by +these soldiers through complete renunciation and sacrifice. War, it +must not be denied, is a great developer as well as a destroyer of +life. Nothing else, it would seem, in our present state of evolution +presses the cup of human experience so full of realization and +understanding as battle and death. The men who are paying for their +beliefs with their lives are living more in moments and hours than we +who escape the ordeal can ever live. For life cannot be measured by +time or comfort or enjoyment. It is too subtle for that! A supreme +effort, even a supreme agony, may have more real living worth than +years of "normal" existence. The youths whose graves now dot so +plentifully the pleasant fields of France have drunk deeper than we +can fathom of the mystery of life. + +As for the nation, that greater mother for whose existence they have +given their individual lives, there is even less question of the +benefit of this war. We Americans are fond of measuring loss and gain +in figures: we reckon up the huge war debts, the toll of killed and +wounded, and against this heavy account we set down--nothing. It is +all dead loss. Yet even to-day, in the crisis of their struggle, +there is not a Frenchman who will not admit the immense good that has +already come to his people, that will come increasingly out of the +bloody sacrifice. The war has united all individuals, swept aside the +trivial and the base, revealed the nation to itself. The French have +discovered within their souls and shown before the world qualities, +unsuspected or forgotten, of chivalry, steadfastness, seriousness, +and they have renewed their familiar virtues of bravery and good +humor and intelligence. The French soldier, the French citizen, and +the French woman are to-day marvelously moulded in the heroic type +of their best tradition: in the full sense of the word they are +gallant--chivalrous, self-forgetful, devoted. Is there any price +too great to pay for such a resurrection of human nobility? + +The pacifist is fain to babble of the "disciplines of peace." No +one denies them. But how can humanity be compelled to embrace these +disciplines of peace? The German lesson of thoroughness and social +organization and responsibility was as necessary before the war as it +is to-day, but neither England nor France, neither Russia nor our own +America gave heed to it until the terrible menace of extermination +in this war ground the lesson into their unwilling souls. It may be +lamentable that humanity should still be held so firmly in the grip +of biologic law that it must kill and be killed in order to save +itself, but there are things worse than death. Until humanity learns +the secret of self-discipline it will create diseases that can be +eradicated only with the knife; it is merely blind to assume that +the insanity of war can be prevented by any system of parliamenting, +or litigation, or paper schemes of international arbitration. Some +issues are of a primary importance, unarguable, fundamental. No +man--and no nation--is worthy of life who is not ready to lay it down +in their settlement. I know that some Americans are still unable to +perceive that any such fundamental principle is at stake in Europe +to-day. Extraordinary as it seems to me I hear intelligent men refer +to the great war as if it were a local quarrel of no real consequence +to us. Even the humblest _poilu_ in the trenches, the simplest +working-woman in France, know that they are giving themselves not +merely in the righteous cause of self-defense, but in the world's +cause in defense of its best tradition, its highest ideals. Their +cause is big enough to consecrate them. + + * * * * * + +Therefore a new, a larger, a more vital life has already begun for +invaded and unconquered France! In order to reap the blessings of +war, a nation must have an irreproachable cause, and aside from +Belgium, France has the clearest record of all the belligerents in +this world war. She will gain most from it, not in land or wealth, +but in honor and moral strength, in dignity and pride. She is ready +to pay the great price for her soul. This is the one supreme +inspiration that the French are giving an admiring world--their +readiness to give all rather than yield to the evil that threatens +them. With the light of such nobility in one's eyes, it is difficult, +indeed, to be patient with the cynical clamor of comfortable neutrals +for peace at any price. If there is anything of dignity and meaning +in human life, it lies in selfless devotion to beliefs, to +principles; it is readiness to sacrifice happiness, life, all, in +their defense. + +And that is patriotism in its larger aspect. Our intellectuals +discuss coldly the primitive quality of patriotism and its unexpected +recrudescence in this world war. They talk of it in the jargon of +social science as "group consciousness." Before I felt its fervor +in the crisis of Italy's decision, in the sublime endurance of the +French, I did not realize what patriotism might mean. It is not +merely the instinctive love for the land of birth, loyalty to the +known and familiar. Much more than that! The natal soil is but the +symbol. Patriotism is human loyalty to the deeper, better part of +one's own being, to the loves and the ideals and the beliefs of one's +race. It is the love of family, of land, of tongue, of religion, of +the woman who bore you and of the woman you get with child, of the +God you reverence. It is loyalty to life as it has been poured into +you by your forefathers, to those ideals which your race has conceived +and given to the world. "_Viva Italia!_" "_Vive la France!_" is a +prayer of the deepest, purest sort that the Italian or the Frenchman +can breathe. Without these subconscious devotions and loyalties the +human animal would be a forlorn complex of mind and sense. Those +amorphous beings who, thanks to our modern economic wealth, have become +"citizens of the world," who wander physically and intellectually from +land to land, who taste of this and that without incorporating any +supreme devotion in their blood, our cosmopolites and expatriates and +intellectuals, froth of a too comfortable existence, give forth a +hollow sound at the savage touch of war. They become pacifists. They +can see neither good nor evil: all is a vague blur of "humanity." + +Patriotism is the supreme loyalty to life of the individual. Wherever +this loyalty is instinctive, vivid, there some precious tradition has +been bequeathed to a people that still burns in their blood. Latin +patriotism is ardent like man's one great love for woman, ennobling +the giver as well as the loved one; it is tender like the son's love +for the mother, with the sanctity of acknowledgment of the debt of +life. Can any vision of "internationalism" take the place of these +powerful personal loyalties to racial ideals?... "Mere boys led to +the slaughter" is the sentimentality one hears of the marching +conscripts of European armies. Better even so than the curse of no +supreme allegiance, or devotion, or readiness to sacrifice--than the +aimless selfishness in which our American youth are brought up! + + * * * * * + +For every boy in Europe knows, as soon as he knows anything, that he +owes one certain fixed debt, and that is service to his country, to +that larger whole that has given him the best part of his own being. +If need be, he owes it his life itself. It is an obligation he must +fulfill before all other obligations, at no matter what inconvenience +or sacrifice to himself, unquestioningly, immediately. + +What takes the place for the American youth of this primary +obligation? Himself! He is expensively nurtured, schooled, put +forward into life--for what? To help himself as best he can at the +general table of society. He can never forget himself, subordinate +his personal ambition to any transcendent loyalty. He becomes from +his cradle the egotist. + +To-day under the shadow of world war we are taking thought of +national protection, projecting schemes of defense including the +enrollment of citizens who may be called upon to fight for their +country. It is less important to teach our youth the military lessons +of self-protection than it is to teach them the greater lesson of +self-forgetfulness, of devotion to a national ideal--so that they may +be ready to give their lives for that national ideal as the youth of +Europe have given their lives to settle this world cause. Not a few +hundreds of thousands of national guards, then, in order to secure +ourselves from invasion are what we need, but that every man or woman +born into the nation or adopting it as home should be made to feel +the obligation of national service. It matters less what form that +service should take, whether purely military or partly military and +partly social. It is the service, the sense of obligation that counts +for the individual and for the nation. The responsibility of service +teaches the importance of ideas, the necessity of sacrifice. And he +who is ready to sacrifice himself, to forget himself and become +absorbed in the life that surrounds him, of which he is but an +infinitesimal unit, to which he owes the best in him, has already +achieved a larger peace than the pacifist dreams of. + + * * * * * + +Consider what happened to the youth of France a little more than +a year ago. Suddenly with no preparation or warning they were called +to defend their country from invasion. It was no longer possible to +argue the rights of that diplomatic tangle into which European +statesmen had muddled. Whatever the ultimate truth, the ultimate +right of the controversy, the state--that larger self which was their +home, their mesh of loves and interests and beliefs--demanded their +service. The youth of France had been brought up with the knowledge +that any day such a sacrifice might be required, with the +consciousness deeply rooted in their beings that one of the necessary +conditions of their living was to give their all at the call of the +state. They conceived of no honorable alternative: it was as +inevitable to pay this obligation as it is for decently minded +citizens to pay their legal debts. They hurried to their mobilization +posts, donned uniforms and equipment, and were shipped away in +regiments to the front. Most of them did not worry about the +possibility of death, but acted like all healthy human beings, +ignoring what they could not affect, caught up in the novelty and the +requirements of the new life. Yet deep in the consciousness of the +most careless must have lain some thought that he might never return, +that the cross-marked grave on the hillside, the pit, or the hospital +might be waiting for him. + +This consciousness that he can no longer dispose of himself, at +least for the finer spirit, must act as a great release. Having +accepted his fate, and therefore willed it as the only possible +choice for him, he becomes another person, a largely selfless person, +a strangely older, calmer being capable of thinking and acting +clearly, nobly. Once the great personal decision made, the resolve +to forego life and happiness and personal achievement, a clogging +burden of selfish considerations drop from within. So one can read +the experience of those two young officers preserved in Henry +Bordeaux's "Two Heroes." They were free as never before to do what +lay before them,--their officers' duty,--simply, directly. Many things +that they had previously valued seemed to have lost color, to have +become trivial. They thought solely of acquitting themselves with, +honor in what it was their fate to do. They were ready to obey +because before death they were humble. They had begun to glimpse +the blind mystery that is life, in which every one must needs act +his part without questioning, with faith in its ultimate meaning, +with the will to trust its end. They were brave because they were +simple and single-hearted, selfless. They were strong because they +disdained to be weak, having renounced all. If it were to be their +fate to die unnoted, they were content with the satisfaction of having +done what was expected of them. And if they died in glory, they were +unaware of their honor, believing that they had done no more than +any of their fellows would have done in the same opportunity. + +Thus, having laid down their lives for the cause that commanded +their faith and loyalty, they found their real lives--larger, more +beautiful, stronger.... Not once, but many thousands of times, has +this miracle happened! Their graves are strewn, singly and in groups, +over every field of eastern France. They paid the debt, did their +part little or great, unknown or glorified by men. Literally they +have given their blood for the soil of their fathers' land. + + * * * * * + +We know that they have given much more than their blood to that soil. +Just as at the call to arms, the selfish, the mean, the vicious +qualities of these lives dropped from them in the freedom of +sacrifice accepted, and in place of egotistic preoccupations rose +once more to the surface of their natures the ancient virtues of +their race, so in their going they left for the others who lived, who +were to be born, a tremendous legacy of honor and noble +responsibility. By watering the soil with their blood they have made +it infinitely more precious for every human being that treads upon +it. They have helped to make mere life more significant for those who +remain to mourn them. It can never again be quite the same +commonplace affair, so lightly, cheaply spent, as it had been before. +They have not left behind them joy, but faith. And that is why the +faces of the earnest living who are able to realize this sacrifice of +youth have a grave sternness in them which touches even the most +careless stranger. Something of the glory created by the dead and the +wounded radiates out even to us in a distant, peaceful land.... + +But why, we ask, all this sacrifice, this cruel, agonizing sacrifice +of war? That is a mystery too deep for any to fathom. It is better +not to probe too insistently, to accept it as the man in Rheims,--"It +must be better for the others afterward because of what we have +endured." That is the expression of faith in life which is the better +part of any religion. For what we suffer now, for what we give now of +our most precious, it will be repaid to those who are to come. Life +will be freer, grander, more significant: it will be a better world. +Nobody who has seen or felt the heavy tragedy of this world war could +endure its horror if he were not sustained by that faith. But with +that faith the losses seem not too vast. One by one the world's great +decisions must be made, in suffering, in blood and tears. Peace comes +not through evasion or compromise, either for the individual or for +the state. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The World Decision, by Robert Herrick + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD DECISION *** + +***** This file should be named 8529-8.txt or 8529-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/5/2/8529/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Anne Reshnyk, Charles Franks, and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: The World Decision + +Author: Robert Herrick + +Posting Date: October 20, 2012 [EBook #8529] +Release Date: July, 2005 +First Posted: July 20, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD DECISION *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Anne Reshnyk, Charles Franks, and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + + +THE WORLD DECISION + +BY + +ROBERT HERRICK + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +_PART ONE--ITALY_ + + I. ITALY HESITATES + + II. THE POLITICIAN SPEAKS + +III. THE POET SPEAKS + + IV. THE PIAZZA SPEAKS + + V. ITALY DECIDES + + VI. THE EVE OF THE WAR + + +_PART TWO--FRANCE_ + + I. THE FACE OF PARIS + + II. THE WOUNDS OF FRANCE + +III. THE BARBARIAN + + IV. THE GERMAN LESSON + + V. THE FAITH OF THE FRENCH + + VI. THE NEW FRANCE + + +_PART THREE--AMERICA_ + + I. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO US? + + II. THE CHOICE + +III. PEACE + + + + +THE WORLD DECISION + + +PART ONE--ITALY + + +I + + +_Italy Hesitates_ + +Last April, when I left New York for Europe, Italy was "on the verge" +of entering the great war. According to the meager reports that a strict +censorship permitted to reach the world, Italy had been hesitating for +many months between a continuance of her precarious neutrality and joining +with the Allies, with an intermittent war fever in her pulses. It was +known that she was buying supplies for her ill-equipped army--boots and +food and arms. Nevertheless, American opinion had come to the somewhat +cynical belief that Italy would never get further than the verge of war; +that her Austrian ally would be induced by the pressure of necessity to +concede enough of those "national aspirations," of which we had heard +much, to keep her southern neighbor at least lukewarmly neutral until +the conclusion of the war. An American diplomat in Italy, with the best +opportunity for close observation, said, as late as the middle of May: +"I shall believe that Italy will go into the war only when I see it!" + +The process of squeezing her Austrian ally when the latter was in a +tight place--as Italy's negotiating was interpreted commonly in +America--naturally aroused little enthusiasm for the nation, and when +suddenly, during the stormy weeks of mid-May, Italy made her decision +and broke with Austria, Americans inferred, erroneously, that her +"sordid" bargaining having met with a stubborn resistance from Vienna, +there was nothing left for a government that had spent millions in war +preparation but to declare war. The affair had that surface appearance, +which was noisily proclaimed by Germany to the world. Chancellor +Bethmann-Hollweg's sneer concerning the "voice of the piazza having +prevailed" revealed not merely pique, but also a complete +misunderstanding, a Teutonic misapprehension of the underlying motives +that led to an inevitable step. No one who witnessed, as I did at close +range, the swift unfolding of the drama which ended on May 23 in a +declaration of war, can accept such a base or trivial reading of the +matter. Like all things human the psychology of Italy's action was +complex, woven in an intricate pattern, nevertheless at its base simple +and inevitable, granted the fundamental racial postulates. Old impulses +stirred in the Italians as well as new. Italy repeated according to the +modern formula the ancient defiance by her Roman forefathers of the +Teutonic danger. _"Fuori i barbari"_--out with the barbarians--has lain +in the blood of Italy for two thousand years, to be roused to a fresh +heat of hate by outraged Belgium, by invaded France, by the Lusitania +murders. Less conscious, perhaps, but not less mighty as a moving force +than this personal antagonism was the spiritual antagonism between the +Latin and the German, between the two visions of the world which the +German and the Latin imagine and seek to perpetuate. That in a large and +very real sense this world agony of war is the supreme struggle between +these two opposed traditions of civilization--a decision between two +competing forms of life--seems to me so obvious as to need no argument. +In such a struggle Italy must, by compulsion of historical tradition as +well as of political situation, take her part on the side of those who +from one angle or another are upholding with their lives the inheritance +of Rome against the pretensions of force--law, justice, mercy, beauty +against the dead weight of physical and material strength. + + * * * * * + +One had no more than put foot on the quay at Naples before the atmosphere +of fateful hesitation in which Italy had lived for eight months became +evident to the senses of the traveler. Naples was less strident, less +vocal than ever before. That mob of hungry Neapolitans, which usually +seizes violent hold of the stranger and his effects, was thin and +spiritless. Naples was almost quiet. The Santa Lucia was deserted; the +line of pretentious hotels with drawn shutters had the air of a summer +resort out of season. The war had cut off Italy's greatest source of ready +money--the idler. Naples was living to itself a subdued, zestless life. +Cook's was an empty inutility. The sunny slopes of Sorrento, where during +the last generation the German has established himself in all favorable +sites, were thick with signs of sale. + +In other respects there were indications of prosperity--more building, +cleaner streets, better shops. In the dozen years since I had been there, +Italy had undoubtedly prospered, and even this beggar's paradise of sun +and tourists had bettered itself after the modern way. I saw abundant +signs of the new Italy of industrial expansion, which under German +tutelage had begun to manufacture, to own ships, and to exploit itself. +And there were also signs of war-time bloat--the immense cotton business. +Naples as well as Genoa was stuffed with American cotton, the quays piled +with the bales that could not be got into warehouses. It took a large +credulity to believe that all this cotton was to satisfy Italian wants. +Cotton, as everybody knew, was going across the Alps by the trainload. +Nevertheless, our ship, which had a goodly amount of the stuff, was held +at Gibraltar only a day until the English Government decided to accept +the guarantees of consul and Italian Ambassador that it was legitimately +destined for Italian factories--a straw indicating England's perplexity +in the cotton business, especially with a nation that might any day become +an ally! It would be wiser to let a little more cotton leak into Germany +through Switzerland than to agitate the question of contraband at this +delicate moment. + +The cotton brokers, the grain merchants, and a few others were making +money out of Italy's neutrality, and _neutralista_ sentiment was +naturally strong among these classes and their satellites. No doubt +they did their best to give an impression of nationalism to the creed +of their pockets. But a serious-minded merchant from Milan who dined +opposite me on the way to Rome expressed the prevailing beliefs of his +class as well as any one,--"War, yes, in time.... It must come.... But +first we must be ready--we are not quite ready yet"; and he predicted +almost to a day when Italy, finding herself ready, would enter the great +conflict. He showed no enthusiasm either for or against war: his was a +curiously fatalistic attitude of mind, an acceptance of the inevitable, +which the American finds so hard to understand. + + * * * * * + +And this was the prevailing note of Rome those early days of May--a +dull, passive acceptance of the dreaded fate which had been threatening +for so many months on the national horizon, ever since Austria plumped +her brutal ultimatum upon little Serbia. There were no vivid debates, +no pronounced current of opinion one way or the other, not much public +interest in the prolonged discussions at the Consulta; just a lethargic +iteration of the belief that sooner or later war must come with its +terrible risks, its dubious victories. Given the Italian temperament +and the nearness of the brink toward which the country was drifting, +one looked for flashes of fire. But Rome, if more normal in its daily +life than Naples in spite of the absence of those tourists who gather +here at this season by the tens of thousands, was equally acquiescent +and on the surface uninterested in the event. + +The explanation of this outward apathy in the public is simple: nobody +knew anything definite enough as yet to rouse passions. The Italian +newspaper is probably the emptiest receptacle of news published +anywhere. The journals are all personal "organs," and anybody can know +whose "views" they are voicing. There was the "Messagero," subsidized by +the French and the English embassies, which emitted cheerful pro-Ally +paragraphs of gossip. There was the "Vittorio," founded by the German +party, patently the mouthpiece of Teutonic diplomacy. There was the +"Giornale d'Italia" that spoke for the Vatican, and the "Idea Nazionale" +which voiced radical young Italy. And so on down the list. But there was +a perfectly applied censorship which suppressed all diplomatic leaks. So +one read with perfect confidence that Prince von Buelow had driven to the +Consulta at eleven-fifteen yesterday, and having been closeted with Baron +Sonnino, the Italian Foreign Minister, or with the Premier, Signor +Salandra, or with both, for forty-seven minutes, had emerged upon the +street smiling. And shortly after this event Baron Macchio, the Austrian +Envoy, arrived at the Consulta in his motor-car and had spent within the +mystery of the Foreign Office twenty or more minutes. The reader might +insert any fatal interpretation he liked between the lines of this +chronicle. That was quite all the reality the Roman public, the people +of Italy, had to speculate upon during weeks of waiting, and for the most +part they waited quietly, patiently. For whatever the American prejudice +against the dangers of secret diplomacy may be, the European, especially +the Italian, idea is that all grave negotiations should be conducted +privately--that the diplomatic cake should be composed by experts in +retirement until it is ready for the baking. And the European public +is well trained in controlling its curiosities. + +It was sufficiently astonishing to the American onlooker, however, +accustomed to flaming extras and the plethoric discussion in public of the +most intimate affairs, state and personal, to witness the acquiescence of +emotional Italians in this complete obscurity about their fate and that of +their children and their nation, which was being sorted behind the closed +doors of the Consulta. Every one seemed to go about his personal business +with an apparent calm, a shrug of expressive shoulders at the most, +signifying belief in the sureness of war--soon. There was little animation +in the cafes, practically none on the streets. Arragno's, usually buzzing +with political prophecy, had a depressing, provincial calm. Unoccupied +deputies sat in gloomy silence over their thin _consommations_. Even the +1st of May passed without that demonstration by the Socialists against war +so widely expected. To be sure, the Government had prudently packed Rome +and the northern cities with troops: soldiers were lurking in every old +courtyard, up all the narrow alleys, waiting for some hardy Socialist to +"demonstrate." But it was not the plentiful troops, not even a lively +thunderstorm that swept Rome all the afternoon, which discouraged the +Socialists: they too were in doubt and apathy. They were hesitating, +passing resolutions, defining themselves into fine segments of political +opinion--and waiting for Somebody to act! They too awaited the completion +of those endless discussions among the diplomats at the Consulta, at the +Ballplatz in Vienna, and wherever diplomacy is made in Berlin. The first +of May came and went, and the _carabinieri_, the secret police, the +infantry, the cavalry with their fierce hairy helmets filed off to their +barracks in a dripping dusk, dispirited, as if disappointed themselves +that nothing definite, even violence, had yet come out of the business. So +one caught a belated cab and scurried through the deserted streets to an +empty hotel on the Pincian, more than half convinced that the Government +meant really to do nothing except "negotiate" until the spirit of war had +died from the hearts of the people. + +Yet much was going on beneath the surface. There were flashes to be +seen in broad daylight. The King and his ministers at the eleventh hour +decided not to attend the ceremonies at Quarto of the unveiling of the +monument to the Garibaldian "Thousand." Now, what could that mean? Did +it indicate that the King was not yet ready to choose his road and feared +to compromise himself by appearing in company with the Francophile poet +D'Annunzio, who was to give the address? It would be a hard matter to +explain to Berlin, to whose nostrils the poet was anathema. Or did it +mean literally that the negotiations with reluctant Austria had reached +that acute point which might not permit the absence of authority from Rome +even for twenty-four hours? The drifting, if it were drifting, was more +rapid, day by day. + +There was a constant troop movement all over Italy, which could not be +disguised from anybody who went to a railroad station. Italy was not +"mobilizing," but that term in this year of war has come to have a +diplomatic insignificance. Every one knew that a large army had already +gone north toward the disputed frontier. More soldiers were going every +day, and more men of the younger sort were silently disappearing from +their ordinary occupations, as the way is in conscript countries. It was +all being done admirably, swiftly, quietly--no placards. The _carabinieri_ +went from house to house and delivered verbal orders. But all this might +be a mere "preparation," an argument that could not be used diplomatically +at the Consulta, yet of vital force. + +There was the sudden twenty-four-hour visit of the Italian Ambassador +at Paris to Rome. Why had he taken that long journey home for such a +brief visit, consumed in conferences with the ministers? And Prince von +Buelow had rallied to his assistance the Catholic Deputy Erzburger. Rome +was seething with rumor. + + * * * * * + +The remarkable passivity of the Italian public during these anxious +moments was due in good part, no doubt, to its thorough confidence in +the men who were directing the state, specifically in the Prime Minister +Salandra and his Minister of Foreign Affairs Baron Sonnino, who were the +Government. They were honest,--that everybody admitted,--and they were +experienced. In less troubled times the nation might prefer the popular +politician Giolitti, who had a large majority of the deputies in the +Parliament in his party, and who had presented Italy a couple of years +earlier with its newest plaything, Libya,--and concealed the bills. But +Giolitti had prudently retired to his little Piedmont home in Cavour. All +the winter he had kept out of Rome, leaving the Salandra Government to +work out a solution of the knotty tangle in which he had helped to involve +his country. Nobody knew precisely what Giolitti's views were, but it was +generally accepted that he preserved the tradition of the Crispi +statesmanship, which had made the abortion of the Triple Alliance. If he +could not openly champion an active fulfillment of the alliance, at least +he was avowedly _neutralista_, the best that Berlin and Vienna had come to +hope from their southern ally. He was the great unknown factor politically, +with his majority in the Chamber, his personal prestige. A clever American, +long resident in Rome in sufficient intimacy with the political powers to +make his words significant, told me,--"The country does not know what it +wants. But Giolitti will tell them. When he comes we shall know whether +there will be war!" That was May 9--a Sunday. Giolitti arrived in Rome +the same week--and we knew, but not as the political prophet thought.... + +Meanwhile, there were mutterings of the thunder to come out of this +stagnant hesitation. One day I went out to the little town of Genzano +in the Alban Hills, with an Italian mother who wished to see her son +in garrison there. The regiment of Sardinian _Granatieri_, ordinarily +stationed near the King in Rome, had been sent to this dirty little +hill town to keep order. The populace were so threatening in their +attitude that the soldiers were confined in their quarters to prevent +street rows. We could see their heads at the windows of the old houses +and convents where they were billeted, like schoolboys in durance vile. +I read the word "_Socilismo_" scrawled in chalk over the walls and +half-effaced by the hand of authority. The hard faces of the townsfolk +scowled at us while we talked with a young captain. The Genzanans were +against the war, the officer said, and stoned the soldiers. They did not +want another African jaunt, with more taxes and fewer men to till the +fields. + +Elsewhere one heard that the "populace" generally was opposed to war. +"We shall have to shoot up some hundreds of the rats in Florence before +the troops leave," the youthful son of a prefect told me. That in the +North. As for the South, a shrug of the shoulders expressed the national +doubt of Calabria, Sicily,--the weaker, less certain members of the +family. Remembering the dire destruction of the earthquake in the Abruzzi, +which wrought more ruin to more people than the Messina catastrophe, also +the floods that had destroyed crops in the fertile river bottoms a few +weeks before, one could understand popular opposition to more dangers and +more taxes. These were some of the perplexities that beset the Government. +No wonder that the diplomats were weighing their words cautiously at the +Consulta, also weighing with extreme fineness the _quid pro quo_ they +would accept as "compensation" from Austria for upsetting the Balkan +situation. It was, indeed, a delicate matter to decide how many of those +national aspirations might be sacrificed for the sake of present security +without jeopardizing the nation's future. Italy needed the wisdom of +patriots if ever in her history. + +The Salandra Government kept admirable order during these dangerous +days, suppressing the slightest popular movement, pro or con. That was +the wise way, until they knew themselves which road to take and had +prepared the public mind. And they had plenty of troops to be occupied +somehow. The exercise of the firm hand of authority against popular +ebullitions is always a marvel to the American. To the European mind +government means power, and power is exercised practically, concretely, +not by writs of courts and sheriffs, but by armed troops. The Salandra +Government had the power, and apparently did not mean to have its hand +forced by the populace.... + +The young officer at Genzano had no doubt that war was coming, nor +had the handsome boy whom we at last ran to ground in an old Franciscan +convent. He talked eagerly of the "promise" his regiment had received "to +go first." His mother's face contracted with a spasm of pain as he spoke, +but like a Latin mother she made no protest. If his country needed him, +if war had to be.... On our way back to Rome across the Campagna we saw a +huge silver fish swimming lazily in the misty blue sky--one of Italy's new +dirigibles exercising. There were soldiers everywhere in their new gray +linen clothes--tanned, boyish faces, many of them fine large fellows, +scooped up from villages and towns all over Italy. The night was broken +by the sound of marching feet, for troop movements were usually made at +night. The soldiers were going north by the trainload. Each day one saw +more of them in the streets, coming and going. Yet Baron Macchio and +Prince von Buelow were as busy as ever at the Consulta on the Quirinal +Hill, and rumor said that at last they were offering real "compensations." + + * * * * * + +The shops of Rome, as those of every city and town in Europe, were +hung with war maps, of course. In Rome the prevailing map was that highly +colored, imaginative rearrangement of southern Europe to fit the national +aspirations. The new frontier ran along the summits of the Alps and took +a wide swath down the Adriatic coast. It was a most flattering prospect +and lured many loiterers to the shop windows. At the office of the +"Giornale d'Italia" in the Corso there was displayed beside an irredentist +map an approximate sketch of what Austria was willing to give, under +German persuasion. The discrepancy between the two maps was obvious and +vast. On the bulletin boards there were many news items emanating from the +"unredeemed" in Trent and Trieste, chronicling riots and the severely +repressive measures taken by the Austrian masters. The little piazza in +front of the newspaper office was thronged from morning to night, and the +old woman in the kiosk beside the door did a large business in maps. + +And yet this aspect of the Italian situation seems to me to have been +much exaggerated. There was, so far as I could see, no great popular +fervor over the disinherited Italians in Austrian lands, in spite of the +hectic items about Austrian tyranny appearing daily in the newspapers--no +great popular agony of mind over these "unredeemed." Also it was obvious +that Italy in her new frontier proposed to include quite as many +unredeemed Austrians and other folk as redeemed Italians! No; it was +rather a high point of propaganda--as we should say commercially, a good +talking proposition. Deeper, it represented the urge of nationalism, +which is one of the extraordinary phenomena of this remarkable war. The +American, vague in his feeling of nationalism, refuses to take quite +seriously agitation for the "unredeemed." Why, he asks with naivete, go +to war for a few thousands of Italians in Trent and Trieste? + +I am not attempting to write history. I am guessing like another, +seeking causes in a complex state of mind. We shall have to go back. +Secret diplomacy may be the inveterate habit of Europe, especially of +Italy. The new arrangement with the Allies has never been published, +probably never will be. One suspects that it was made, essentially, before +Italy had broken with Austria, before, perhaps, she had denounced her old +alliance on the 5th of May at Vienna. And yet, although inveterately +habituated to the mediaevalism of secret international arrangements, Italy +is enough filled with the spirit of modern democracy to break any treaty +that does not fulfill the will of the people. The Triple Alliance was +really doomed at its conception, because it was a trade made by a few +politicians and diplomats in secret and never known in its terms to the +people who were bound by it. Any strain would break such a bond. The +strain was always latent, but it became acute of late years, especially +when Austria thwarted Italy's move on Turkey--as Salandra revealed later +under the sting of Bethmann-Hollweg's taunts. It was badly strained, +virtually broken, when Austria without warning to Italy stabbed at Serbia. +Austria made a grave blunder there, in not observing the first term of the +Triple Alliance, by which she was bound to take her allies into +consultation. The insolence of the Austrian attitude was betrayed in the +disregard of this obligation: Italy evidently was too unimportant a factor +to be precise with. Italy might, then and there, the 1st of August, 1914, +very well have denounced the Alliance, and perhaps would have done so had +she been prepared for the consequences, had the Salandra Government been +then at the helm. + +There is another coil to the affair, not generally recognized in America. +Austria in striking at Serbia was potentially aiming at a closer +envelopment of Italy along the Adriatic, provision for which had been made +in a special article of the Triple Alliance,--the seventh,--under which +she had bound herself to grant compensations to Italy for any disturbance +of the Balkan situation. Austria, when she was brought to recognize this +commission of fault,--which was not until December, 1914, not seriously +until the close of January, 1915,--pretended that her blow at Serbia was +chastisement, not occupation. But it is absurd to assume that having +chastised the little Balkan state she would leave it free and independent. +It is true that in January Austrian troops were no longer in Balkan +territory, but that was not due to intention or desire! They had been +there, they are there now, and they will be there as long as the Teutonic +arms prevail. It is a game of chess: Italy knew the gambit as soon as +Austria moved against Serbia. The response she must have known also, but +she had not the power to move then. So she insisted pertinaciously on her +right under the seventh clause of the Triple Alliance to open negotiations +for "compensations" for Austria's aggression in the Balkans, and finally +with the assistance of Berlin compelled the reluctant Emperor to admit her +right. + +These complexities of international chess, which the American mind +never seems able to grasp, are instinctively known by the man in the +street in Europe. Every one has learned the gambits: they do not have +to be explained, nor their importance demonstrated. The American can +profitably study those maps so liberally displayed in shop windows, +as I studied them for hours in default of anything better to do in +the drifting days of early May. The maps will show at a glance that +Italy's northern frontiers are so ingeniously drawn--by her hereditary +enemy--that her head is virtually in chancery, as every Italian knows +and as the whole world has now realized after four months of patient +picking by Italian troops at the outer set of Austrian locks. And there +is the Adriatic. When Austria made the frontier, the sea-power question +was not as important as it has since become. The east coast of the +Adriatic was a wild hinterland that might be left to the rude peoples +of Montenegro and Albania. But it has come into the world since then. +Add to this that the Italian shore of the Adriatic is notably without +good harbors and indefensible, and one has all the elements of the +strategic situation. All fears would be superfluous if Austria, the old +bully at the north, would keep quiet: the Triple Alliance served well +enough for over thirty years. But would Austria play fair with an +unsympathetic ally that she had not taken into her confidence when +she determined to violate the first term of the Triple Alliance? + +All this may now be pondered in the "Green Book," more briefly and +cogently in the admirable statement which Italy made to the Powers when +she declared war on Austria. That the Italian Government was not only +within its treaty rights in demanding those "compensations" from Austria, +but would have been craven to pass the incident of the attack on Serbia +without notice, seems to me clear. That it was a real necessity, not a +mere trading question, for Italy to secure a stronger frontier and control +of the Adriatic, seems to me equally obvious. These, I take it, were the +vital considerations, not the situation of the "unredeemed" Italians in +Trent and Trieste. But Austria, in that grudging maximum of concession +which she finally offered to Italy's minimum of demand, insisted upon +taking the sentimental or knavish view of the Italian attitude: she would +yield the more Italianated parts of the territory in dispute, not the +vitally strategic places. Nor would she deliver her concessions until +after the conclusion of the war--if ever!--after she had got what use +there was from the Italians enrolled in her armies fighting Russia. For +Vienna to regard the tender principle of nationalism is a good enough +joke, as we say. Her persistence in considering Italy's demands as either +greed or sentiment is proof of Teutonic lack of imagination. The Italians +are sentimental, but they are even more practical. It was not the woes of +the "unredeemed" that led the Salandra Government to reject the final +offering of Austria, and to accept the risks of war instead. It was rather +the very practical consideration of that indefensible frontier, which +Austria stubbornly refused to make safe for Italy--after she had given +cause, by her attack upon Serbia, to render all her neighbors uneasy in +their minds for their safety. + +So much for the sentimental and the strategical threads in the Consulta +negotiations. It was neither for sentiment nor for strategical advantage +solely that Italy finally entered the war. Nevertheless, if the German +Powers had frankly and freely from the start recognized Italy's position, +and surrendered to her _immediate_ possession--as they were ready to do +at the last moment--sufficient of those national aspirations to safeguard +national security, with hands off in the Adriatic, Italy most probably +would have preferred to remain neutral. I cannot believe that Salandra +or the King really wanted war. They were sincerely struggling to keep +their nation out of the European melting-pot as long as they could. But +they were both shrewd and patriotic enough not to content themselves with +present security at the price of ultimate danger. And if they had been as +weak as the King of Greece, as subservient as the King of Bulgaria, they +would have had to reckon with a very different people from the Bulgars and +the Greeks--a nation that might quite conceivably have turned Italy into a +republic and ranged her beside her Latin sister on the north in the world +struggle. The path of peace was in no way the path of prudence for the +House of Savoy. + + * * * * * + +Lack of imagination is surely one of the prominent characteristics of +the modern German, at least in statecraft. Imagination applied to the +practical matters of daily living is nothing more than the ability to +project one's own personality beneath the skin of another, to look +around at the world through that other person's eyes and to realize +what values the world holds for him. The Prince von Buelow, able diplomat +though they call him, could not look upon the world through Italian +eyes in spite of his Italian wife, his long residence in Rome, his +professed love for Italy. It must have been with his consent if not +by his suggestion that Erzburger, the leader of the Catholic party in +the Reichstag, was sent to Rome at this critical juncture. The German +mind probably said,--"Here is a notable Catholic, political leader of +German Catholics, and so he must be especially agreeable to Italians, +who, as all the world knows, are Catholics." The reasoning of a stupid +child! Outwardly Italy is Catholic, but modern Italy has shown herself +very restive at any papal meddling in national affairs. To have an +alien--one of the "_barbari_"--seat himself at the Vatican and try to +use the papal power in determining the policy of the nation in a matter +of such magnitude, was a fatal blunder of tactless diplomacy. Nor could +Herr Erzburger's presence at the Vatican these tense days be kept secret +from the curious journalists, who lived on such meager items of news. No +more tactful was it for Prince von Buelow to meet the Italian politician +Giolitti at the Palace Hotel on the Pincian. There is no harm in one +gentleman's meeting another in the rooms of a public hotel so respectable +as the Palace, but when the two are playing the international chess +game and one is regarded as an enemy and the other as a possible traitor, +the popular mind is likely to take a heated and prejudiced view of the +small incident. Less obvious to the public, but none the less untactful, +was the manner in which the German Ambassador tried to use his social +connection in Rome, his family relationships in the aristocracy of Italy, +to influence the King and his ministers. He might have taken warning from +the royal speech attributed to the Queen Mother in reply to the Kaiser: +"The House of Savoy rules one at a time." He should have kept away from +the back stairs. He should have known Italy well enough to realize that +the elements of Roman society with which he was affiliated do not +represent either power or public opinion in Italy any more than good +society does in most modern states. Roman aristocracy, like all +aristocracies, whether of blood or of money, is international in its +sympathies, skeptic in its soul. And its influence, in a decisive question +of life and death to the nation, is nil. The Prince von Buelow was wasting +his time with people who could not decide anything. As Salandra said, with +dignified restraint in answer to the vulgar attack upon him made by the +German Chancellor,--"The Prince was a sincere lover of Italy, but he was +ill-advised by persons who no longer had any weight in the nation"--as +his colleague in London seems to have been ill-advised when he assured +his master that Englishmen would not fight under any circumstances! The +trouble with diplomacy would seem to be that its ranks are still recruited +from "the upper classes," whose gifts are social and whose sympathies +reflect the views and the prejudices of a very small element in the +state. Good society in Rome was still out on the Pincian for the afternoon +promenade, was still exchanging calls and dinners these golden spring +days, but its views and sympathies could not count in the enormous complex +of beliefs and emotions that make the mind of a nation in a crisis. Prince +von Buelow's motor was busily running about the narrow streets of old Rome, +the gates of the pretty Villa Malta were hospitably open,--guarded by +_carabinieri_,--but if the German Ambassador had put on an old coat and +strolled through the Trastevere, or had sat at a little marble-topped +table in some obscure cafe, or had traveled second or third class between +Rome and Naples, he might have heard things that would have brought the +negotiations at the Consulta to an abrupter close one way or the other. +For Italy was making up its mind against his master. + + * * * * * + +Rome was very still these hesitant days of early May, Rome was very +beautiful--I have never known her so beautiful! The Pincian, in spite +of its afternoon parade, had the sad air of forced retirement of some +well-to-do family. The Piazza di Spagna basked in its wonted flood +of sunshine with a curious Sabbatical calm. A stray _forestieri_ might +occasionally cross its blazing pavements and dive into Piale's or Cook's, +and a few flower girls brought their irises and big white roses to the +steps, more from habit than for profit surely. The Forum was like a wild, +empty garden, and the Palatine, a melancholy waste of fragments of the +past where an old Garibaldian guard slunk after the stranger, out of +lonesomeness, babbling strangely of that other war in which he had part +and mixing his memories with the tags of history he had been taught to +recite anent the Roman monuments. As I wandered there in the drowse of +bees among the spring blossoms and looked out upon the silent field that +once was the heart of Rome, it was hard to realize that again on this +richly human soil of Italy the fate of its people was to be tested in +the agony of a merciless war, that even now the die was being cast less +than a mile away across the roofs. The soil of Rome is the most deeply +laden in the world with human memories, which somehow exhale a subtle +fragrance that even the most casual stranger cannot escape, that condition +the children of the soil. The roots of the modern Italian run far down +into the mould of ancient things: his distant ancestors have done much +of his political thinking for him, have established in his soul the +conditions of his present dilemma.... I wonder if Prince von Buelow ever +spent a meditative hour looking down on the fragments of the Forum from +the ilex of the Palatine, over the steep ascent of the Capitoline that +leads to the Campidolgio, as far as the grandiose marble pile that fronts +the newer city? Probably not. + + * * * * * + +Germany wanted her place in the sun. She had always wanted it from the +day, two thousand years and more ago, when the first Teuton tribes came +over the Alpine barrier and spread through the sun-kissed fields of +northern Italy. The Italian knows that in his blood. There are two ways +in which to deal with this German lust of another's lands--to kill the +invader or to absorb him. Italy has tried both. It takes a long time to +absorb a race,--hundreds of years,--and precious sacrifices must be made +in the process. No wonder that Italy does not wish to become Germany's +place in the sun! Nor to swallow the modern German. + +When the Teuton first crossed the Alpine barrier and poured himself +lustfully out over the fertile plains of northern Italy, it was literally +a place in the sun which he coveted. In the ages since then his lust has +changed its form: now it is economic privilege that he seeks for his +people. In order to maintain that level of industrial superiority, of +material prosperity, to which he has raised himself, he must "expand" +in trade and influence. He must have more markets to exploit and always +more. It is the same lust with a new name. "Thou shalt not covet" surely +was written for nations as well as for individuals. But our modern +economic theory, the modern Teutonic state, is based on the belief: "Thou +shalt covet, and the race that covets most and by power gets most, that +race shall survive!" And here is the central knot of the whole dark +tangle. The German coveting greater economic opportunities, knowing +himself strong to survive, believes in his divine right to possess. It +is conscious Darwinism--the survival of the fittest, materially, which +he is applying to the world--Darwinism accelerated by an intelligent will. +And the non-Germanic world--the Latin world, for it _is_ a Latin world in +varying degrees of saturation outside of Germany--rejects the theory and +the practice with loathing--when it sees what it means. + + * * * * * + +What makes for the happiness of a nation? I asked myself in the mellow +silence of ancient Rome. Is it true that economic conquest makes for +strength, happiness, survival for the nation or for the individual? + +This Italy has always been poor, at least within modern memory--a literal, +actual poverty when often there has not been enough to eat in the family +pot to go around. She has had a difficult time in the economic race for +bread and butter for her children. There is neither sufficient land easily +cultivable nor manufacturing resources to make her rich, to support her +growing population according to the modern standards of comfort. The +Germans despise the Italians for their little having. + +Yet the Italian peasant--man, woman, or child--is a strong human being, +inured to meager living and hardship, loving the soil from which he digs +his living with an intense, fiery love. And poverty has not killed the +joy of living in the Italian. Far from it! In spite of the exceedingly +laborious lives which the majority lead, the privations in food, clothing, +housing, the narrowness,--in the modern view,--of their lives, no one +could consider the Italian people unhappy. Their characters, like their +hillside farms, are the result of an intensive cultivation--of making +the most out of very little naturally given. + +A healthy, high-tempered, vital people these, not to be despised in the +_kaiserliche_ fashion even as soldiers. Surely not as human beings, as a +human society. And their poverty has had much influence in making the +Italians the sturdy people they are to-day. Poverty has some depressing +aspects, but in the main her very lack of economic opportunity--the want +of coal and factories and other sources of wealth--has kept most of these +people close to the soil, where one feels the majority of any healthy, +enduring race should be. Poverty has made the Italians hard, content with +little, and able to wring the most out of that little. It has cultivated +them intensively as a people, just as they have been forced to cultivate +their rock-bound fields foot by foot. + +There are qualities in human living more precious than prosperity, and +in these Italians have shared abundantly--beauty, sentiment, tradition, +all that give color and meaning to life. These are the treasures of Latin +civilization in behalf of which the allied nations of Europe are now +fighting.... + + * * * * * + +I am well enough aware that all this is contrary to the premises of the +economic and social polity that controls modern statecraft. I know that +our great nations, notably Germany, are based on exactly the opposite +premise--that the strength of a state depends on the economic +development of its people, on its wealth-producing power. Germany has +been the most convinced, the most conscious, the most relentless exponent +of the pernicious belief that the ultimate welfare of the state depends +primarily on the wealth-getting power of its citizens. She has exalted +an economic theory into a religion of nationality with mystical appeals. +She has taught her children to go singing into the jaws of death in order +that the Fatherland may extend her markets and thus enrich her citizens +at the expense of the citizens of other states, who are her inferiors in +the science of slaughter. A queer religion, and all the more abhorrent +when dressed out with the phrases of Christianity! + +All modern states are more or less tainted with the same +delusion--ourselves most, perhaps, after Germany. "We have all sinned," +as an eminent Frenchman said, "your people and mine, as well as England +and Germany." It is time to revise some of the fundamental assumptions +of political philosophers and statesmen. Let us admit that peoples may +be strong and happy and contented without seeking to control increasingly +those sources of wealth still left undeveloped on the earth's surface, +without cutting one another's throats in an effort for national expansion. +The psychology of states cannot be fundamentally different from that of +the individuals in them. And the happiness of the individual has never +been found to consist wholly, even largely, in his economic prosperity. + +Because the Latin soul divines this axiomatic belief, because the +Latin world admits a larger, finer interpretation of life than +economic success, all civilization waits upon the great decision of +this war. + + * * * * * + +Suddenly in the calm of these drifting, hesitant days, when nobody +knew what the nation desired, there came a bolt of lightning. I have +said that the German people lack imagination by which to understand +the world outside themselves. They do not cooerdinate their activities. +Otherwise, why commit the barbarism of sinking the Lusitania, just at +the moment when they were straining to keep Italy from breaking +completely the frayed bonds of the Triple Alliance? Probably it never +entered any German head in the "high commandment" that the prosecution +of his undersea warfare might have a very real connection with the +Italian situation. He could not credit any nation with such "soft +sentimentality," as he calls it. Yet I am not alone in ascribing a +large significance to the sinking of the Lusitania in Italy's decision +to make war. Every observer of these events whom I have talked with or +whose report I have read gives the same testimony, that Italy first +woke to her own mind at the shock of the Lusitania murders.... + +The news came to me in my peaceful room above the Barberini Gardens. +The fountain was softly dripping below, the spring air was full of the +song of birds as another perfect day opened. The warm sunshine reached +lovingly up the yellowed walls of the old palace opposite. All the +little, old, familiar things of a long past, which pull so strongly +here in Rome at the human heart, were moving in the new day. The life +of men, so troubled, so sad, seemed beautiful this May morning, with +the suave beauty of ideals that for centuries have coursed through the +blood of Italy.... Luigi, the black-haired, black-eyed lad who brought +the morning coffee and newspapers, was telling me of the horrid crime. +With his outstretched fist clenched and shaking with rage he said the +words, then, dropping the paper with its heavy headlines, cursed it as +if it too symbolically represented the hideous thing that Germany had +become. "Now," he cried, "there'll be war! We shall fight them, the +swine!" A few days afterward Luigi departed to fight the "swine" on +some Alpine pass. + +Luigi's reaction to the sinking of the Lusitania was typical of all +Rome, all Italy. The same burst of execration and horror was in every +mouth. "Fuori i Barbari" was the title of a little anti-German sheet +that was appearing in Rome: it got a new significance as it hung in +the kiosks or was scanned by scowling men. It became the muttered cry +of the street. I am not simple enough to believe that the sinking of +the Lusitania of itself "drove Italy into the war." Nations no more +than individuals, alas, are idealistic enough to sacrifice themselves +simply for their moral resentments. But this fresh example of cynical +indifference to the opinion of civilization, just at the critical point +of decision for the Italian people, had much to do with the rousing of +that war fury without which no government can push a nation into war. +First there must be the spirit of hate, a personal emotion in the hearts +of many. It must be remembered also that Italy had felt with the entire +civilized world the outrage of Belgium. It has even been rumored that +one of the hard passages between Italy and her German allies was the +condition that Germany wished to attach to any Austrian concessions, +by which Italy at the peace conference should uphold Germany's "claims" +to Belgium. No one knows the truth about this, but if true it is in +itself an adequate explanation of the failure of the negotiations. And +now the Lusitania came with a fresh shock as an iterated example of +German state policy. It proclaimed glaringly to the eyes of all men +what the Teutonic thing is, what it means to the world. The Latin has +been cruel and bloody in his deeds, like all men, but he has never made +a cult of inhumanity, never justified it as a principle of statecraft. +Italians, prone to hate as to love, prone especially to hate the Teuton, +those aliens who have lusted after their richness and beauty all these +centuries, felt the Lusitania murders to the depths of their souls. It +was like a red writing on the wall, serving notice that in due season +Germany and Austria would tear Italy limb from limb because of her +"treachery" in not abetting them in their attack upon the peace of +the world. + +Prince von Buelow and Baron Macchio might as well have discontinued +their daily visits to the Consulta after the 7th of May. Whatever +they might have hoped to accomplish with their diplomacy to keep Italy +neutral had been irretrievably ruined by the diplomacy of Grand Admiral +von Tirpitz. The smallest match, the scratch of a boot-heel on stone, +can set off a powder magazine. The Lusitania was a goodly sized match. +If the King and his ministers were waiting for the country to declare +itself, if they wanted the excuse of national emotion before taking +the final irrevocable steps into war, they had their desire. From the +hour when the news of the sinking of the Lusitania came over the wires, +Italy began to mutter and shout. The months of hesitation were ended. +There were elements enough of hate, and Germany had given them all +focus. "Fuori i Barbari!" I bought a sheet from the old woman who +went hurrying up the street shouting hoarsely,--"Fuori i Barbari!" ... +"Fuori i Barbari!" ... "Barbari!".... + + + + +II + + +_The Politician Speaks_ + +Giovanni Giolitti came to Rome, a few days after the Lusitania affair. +Ostensibly he had come to town from his home in little Cavour, where he +had been in retirement all the winter, to visit a sick wife at Frascati. +Montecitorio, home of politicians, began to hum. Rome quivering with the +emotions of its great decision muttered. What did Giolitti's presence at +this eleventh hour signify? Remember what the shrewd American observer +had said the week before,--"Giolitti will tell the Italians what they +want." + +The master politician, the ex-Premier, the heir to Crispian policies, +was received at the railroad station by a few faithful friends, much +as Boss Barnes or Boss Penrose, returning from a voluntary exile in +New York or Pennsylvania, might be received by a few of the "boys." +They were Deputies from Montecitorio frock-coated and silk-hatted, +like politicians all the world over, not a popular throng of a hundred +thousand Romans singing and shouting, such as a few days later was to +gather in the piazza before the same station to greet the poet, +D'Annunzio. It is well to understand the significance of this +unobtrusive coming of the political leader at the moment, to realize +what sinister meaning it had for the existing Government, for the +Italian nation, for the Allies--for the world. + +The Italian Deputies who had been elected two years before, long before +even the astutest politician had any suspicion of the black cloud that +was to rise over Europe, were Giolittian by a great majority. Giolitti +was then the chief figure in Italian politics and controlled the Chamber +of Deputies. The Giolitti "machine," as we should say, was the only +machine worth mention in Italy. Rumor says that it was buttressed with +patronage as American machines are, and, more specifically, that Giolitti +when in power had diverted funds which should have gone into national +defense to political ends, also had deferred the bills of the Libyan +expedition so that at the outbreak of the war Italy found herself badly +in debt and with an army in need of everything. Soldiers drilled in the +autumn of 1914 in patent leathers or barefooted and dressed as they could, +while the Giolittian clubs and interests flourished. Also it was said +that the prefects of the provinces, who in the Italian system have large +powers, especially in influencing elections, were henchmen of the +politician. I do not know how just these accusations may be, nor how +true the more serious accusation shortly to be hurled abroad that +Giolitti had sold himself for German gold. The latter is easy to say +and hard to prove; the former is hard to prove and easy to believe--it +being the way of politicians the world over. + +However dull or bright Giolitti's personal honor may have been, +the Parliamentary situation was difficult in the extreme--one of +those absurd paradoxes of representative government liable to happen +any time. Here were five hundred-odd elected representatives of the +people owing allegiance, really, not to the King, not to the nation, +not to the responsible ministers in charge of the state, but to the +politician Giolitti. If they had been elected under the stress of +the war, after the 1st of August, 1914, they might not have been the +same personal representatives of Giovanni Giolitti. We cannot say. +Democracies are prone to be deceived in their chosen representatives: +they discover them mortgaged to a leader, secret or open. The Salandra +Government knew, of course, Giolitti's prejudices in favor of Italy's +old allies, disguised as patriotically _neutralista_ sympathies. He +had discreetly retired to little Cavour in Piedmont all the winter, +maintaining a disinterested aloofness throughout the prolonged +negotiations. Yet he knew, the Salandra Government and the King knew, +the people knew, that Giovanni Giolitti must be reckoned with before +Parliament could be opened to ratify the acts of the ministers, to +support them in whatever measures they had prepared to take. It would +be simple political insanity to open the Chamber before Giolitti had +been dealt with, leading to acrid discussions, scandal, the inevitable +downfall of the ministry, and political chaos. The nation must be united +and express itself unitedly by its legal mouthpieces before the world. + + * * * * * + +It has been said, I do not know with what truth, that Prince von Buelow had +informed the ex-Premier of Austria's ultimate concessions even before they +were presented to Salandra and Sonnino, and consequently that Giolitti was +precisely aware of the situation when he reached Rome. It is easy to +believe almost anything of a diplomacy that dealt with Giolitti in the +private rooms of a hotel after the downfall of the Salandra Government.... +At any rate, Giolitti went through the forms correctly: he called on the +Premier Salandra, the Foreign Minister Sonnino, who laid before the +ex-Premier the situation as it had shaped itself. Even the King received +him in private audience. So much was due to the leading politician of +Italy, who controlled, supposedly, a majority of the existing Parliament. +In a sense he held the Salandra Government in his hand, after the opening +of the Chamber, which could not be long delayed. + +Then the politician spoke. Rather, to be precise, he wrote a little note +to a faithful intimate, which was meant for the newspapers and got into +them at once. It was a very innocent little note of a few lines in which +he confided to "Caro Carlo" his opinion on the tense national situation: +better stay with the old allies--the Austrian offers seemed sufficiently +satisfactory. This may well have been a sincere, a patriotic judgment, as +sincere and patriotic as Bryan's resignation from the American Cabinet a +few weeks later. But Italians did not think so. Almost universally they +gave it other, sinister interpretations. Giolitti had been "bought," was +nothing more than the knavish mouthpiece of German intrigue. Giolitti +became overnight _traditore_, the arch-conspirator, the enemy of his +country! It must have staggered the politician, this sudden fury which +his innocent advice had roused. And, to condemn him, it is not necessary +to believe him to have been a knave bought by German gold. + +It is important to realize what happened overnight. Giolitti had +become the most hated, most denounced man in all Italy, and in so far +as he represented honest _neutralista_ sentiment the cause was dead. +If that was what the Salandra Government wanted to achieve, they had +got their desire. If, as the politicians say, they were "feeling out" +popular sentiment, they need no longer doubt what it was. Columns of +vituperation appeared in the anti-German newspapers, crowds began to +form and shout in the streets. "_Traditore_," hissed with every accent +of hate and scorn, filled the air. Giolitti's life was seriously in +danger--or the Government preferred to think so. The great apartment +house on the Via Cavour in which he lived was cordoned off by double +lines of troops. Cavalry kept guard, all day and half the night, before +the steps of Santa Maria Maggiore, ready to sweep through the crowded +streets in case the mob got out of hand. Other troops poured out of the +barracks over the city, doing _piquet a mato_ on all the main streets +and squares of the city. + +Giolitti had, indeed, swayed events,--"told the people what they +wanted,"--but not in the expected manner. He had revealed the nation +to itself, drifting on the verge of war, and they knew now that they +wanted nothing of Giolitti or neutrality or German compromises. They +wanted war with Austria. The remarkable fact is that a nation which had +submitted in passivity to absolute ignorance of the diplomatic exchanges, +waiting dumbly the decision that should determine its fate,--of which it +could be said that a large number, perhaps a majority, were neutral at +heart,--suddenly overnight awoke to a realization of the political +situation and rejected the prudent advice of their popular politician, +denounced him, and inferentially proclaimed themselves for war. At last +they had seen: they saw that the Salandra Government in which they had +confidence had come to the parting of the ways with Austria, and they +saw the hand of Giolitti trying to play the game of their ancient enemy. + +Then the Salandra Government did a bold, a dramatic thing: it resigned +in a body, leaving the King free to choose ministers who could obtain +the support of the Giolitti following in Parliament. It was inevitable, +it was simple, it was sincere, and it was masterly politics. The public +was aghast. At the eleventh hour the state was left thus leaderless +because its real desires were to be thwarted by a politician who took +his orders from the German Embassy. + +Thereupon the "demonstrations" against Giolitti, against Austria and +Germany, began in earnest. + + * * * * * + +The first popular "demonstration" which I saw in Rome was a harmless +enough affair, and for that matter none of them were really serious. +The Government always had the situation firmly in hand, with many +regiments of infantry, also cavalry, to reinforce the police, the secret +service, and the _carabinieri_, who alone might very well have handled +all the disorder that occurred. Never, I suspect, was there any more +demonstrating than the Government thought wise. The first occasion was +a little crowd of boys and youths,--not precisely riff-raff, rather like +our own college boys,--and they did less mischief than a few hundred +freshmen or sophomores would have done. They marched down the street from +the Piazza Tritone, shouting and carrying a couple of banners inscribed +with "Abasso Giolitti." They stoned a few signs, notably the one over the +empty office of the Austrian-Lloyd company, then, being turned from the +Corso and the Austrian Embassy by the police, they rushed back up the +hill to the Salandra residence, to hang about and yell themselves hoarse +in the hope of evoking something from the former Premier. The two poles +of the following "demonstrations" were the Salandra and the Giolitti +residences with occasional futile dashes into the Corso.... + +For the better part of a week these street excitements kept up, not +merely in Rome, but all over Italy: for that one week, while the King +sent for various public men and offered them the task of forming a +new ministry, which in every case was respectfully declined--as was +expected. + + * * * * * + +Why did the King not send for Giovanni Giolitti, the one statesman +who under ordinary circumstances might have expected a summons? +Neither Giolitti nor any of his intimates was invited to form a cabinet +and reestablish constitutional government. Nothing would appear to be +more natural than that the leader of the Opposition, controlling a +majority of the Deputies, who avowedly represented a policy opposed +to that of the ministers who had resigned, should be asked himself to +take charge. But Giolitti was never asked, and daily the shouting in +the streets grew louder, more menacing, and the mood of the public more +tense. Nothing was plainer than that if Giolitti had a majority of the +Deputies, the people were not for him and his policies. The House of +Savoy, as the King so well put it, rules by expressing the will of the +people. Each day it was more evident what that will was. Giolitti, the +master politician, was being outplayed by mere honest men. They had used +him--as Germany had used him--to try out the temper of the nation. With +him they drew the _neutralista_ and pro-German fire beforehand, prudently, +not to be defeated by hostile party criticism in the Chamber. And when +they got through with the politician, they threw him out: literally they +intimated through the Minister of Public Safety that they would not be +responsible any longer for his personal safety. There was nothing for +him but to go--before Parliament had assembled! + +As Italy seethed and boiled, threatening to break into revolutionary +violence, while the King received one respectable nonentity after +another, who each time after a very brief consideration declined the +proffered responsibility, Giolitti must have thought that the life of +the politician is not an easy one. He was stoned when he appeared on +the streets in his motor. He had to sneak out of the city at dawn that +last day. Where was all the _neutralista_ sentiment so evident the first +months of the war? And where was the German influence supposed to be so +strong in the upper commercial classes? Germans as well as Austrians +were scurrying out of Italy as fast as they could. Their insinuating +multiplicity was proved by the numbers of shuttered shops. More hotels +along the Pincian, whose "Swiss" managers found it prudent to retire +over the Alps, were closed. Angry crowds swarmed about the Austrian +and German consulates, also the embassies when they could get through +the cordons of troops on the Piazza Colonna. Noisy Rome these days might +very well give rise to pessimistic reflections on the folly of popular +government to politicians like Giolitti and the Prince von Buelow, whose +obviously prudent policies were thus being upset by the "voice of the +piazza" led by a very literary poet! No doubt at this moment they would +point to Ferdinand of Bulgaria and the King of Greece as enlightened +monarchs who know how to secure their own safety by ignoring the will +of their peoples. But the end for Ferdinand and Constantine is not yet. + + * * * * * + +The trouble with the politician as with the trained diplomat is that +he never goes beneath the surface. He takes appearances for realities. +He has often lost that instinct of race which should enable him to +understand his own humanity. To a Giolitti, adept in the trading game +of political management, it must seem insane for Italy to plunge into +the war against powerful allies, who at just this time were triumphing +in West and East alike--all the more when the sentimental and trading +instincts of the populace might be partly satisfied with the concessions +so grudgingly wrung from Austria. It was not only rash: it was bad +politics! + +But what Giolitti and men of his stripe the world over cannot +understand is that the people are never as crafty and wise and mean as +their politicians. The people are still capable of honest emotions, of +heroic desires, of immense sacrifices. They love and hate and loathe +with simple hearts. The politician like the popular novelist makes the +fatal mistake of underrating his audience. And his audience will leave +him in the lurch at the crisis, as Italy left Giolitti. Italy was never +enthusiastic, as its enemies have charged, for a war of mere aggression, +for realizing the "aspirations" because Austria was in a tight place, +even for redeeming a million and a half more or less of expatriated +Italians in Austrian territory. Politicians and statesmen talked of +these matters, perforce; the people repeated them. For they were tangible +"causes." But what Italians hated was Austrian and German leadership--were +the "_barbari_" themselves, their ancient foe; and when told that they +had better continue to make their bed with the "_barbari_," they revolted. + +There are many men in every nation,--some of the politician type, some +of the aristocratic type, some of the business type,--who by interest +and temperament are timid and fundamentally cynical. They are pacifists +for profit. About them gather the uncourageous "intellectuals," who +believe in the potency of all established and dominating power whatever +it may be. But these "leading citizens" fortunately are a minority in +any democracy. They do most of the negotiating, much of the talking, but +when the crisis comes,--and the issue is out in the open for every one +to see,--they have to reckon with the instinctive majority, whose +emotional nature has not been dwarfed. That majority is not necessarily +the "rabble," the irresponsible and ignorant mob of the piazza as the +German Chancellor sees them: it is the great human army of "little +people," normal, simple, for the most part honest, whose selfish stake +in the community is not large enough to stifle their deepest instincts. +In them, I believe, lies the real idealism of any nation, also its plain +virtues and its abiding strength. + +The Italian situation was a difficult one, obviously. Public opinion +had been perplexed. There were the classes I have just mentioned, by +interest and temperament either pro-German or honestly neutral. There +was the radical mob that the year before had temporarily turned Italy +into republics. There was the unreliable South. And the hard-ground +peasants who feared, justly, heavier taxes and the further hardships +of war. And there were the millions of honest but undecided Italians +who hated Teutonism and all its deeds, who were intelligent enough to +realize the exposed situation of Italy, who felt the call of blood for +the "unredeemed," and the vaguer but none the less powerful call of +civilization from their northern kin--above all who responded to the +fervid historical idealism of the poet voicing the longing of their +souls to become once more the mighty nation they had been. These were +the people whose change of hearts and minds surprised Giolitti and the +Germans. + +What had been going on in those hearts of the plain people all these +months of the great war, Giolitti could not understand. It was another +Italy from the one he had charmed that rose at his prudent advice and +threw the bitter word "_traditore_" in his teeth and howled him out of +Rome. Traitor, yes! traitor to the loftier, bolder, finer longings of +their hearts to take their stand at all cost with their natural allies +in this last titanic struggle with the barbarians. It was this sort of +public that spoke in the piazza and whose voice prevailed. + + * * * * * + +The diplomat deals too exclusively with conventional persons, with the +sophisticated. The politician deals too exclusively with the successful, +with the commercial and exploiting classes. Giolitti's associations +were of this class. Like any other _bourgeoisie_ of finance and trade, +"big business" in Italy was on the side of the big German battalions, +who at this juncture were winning victories. Italy was peculiarly under +the influence of German and Austrian finance. One of its leading lending +banks--the Banca Commerciale--was a German concern. Most of its newer +developments had been accomplished with German capital, were run by German +engineers, equipped with German machines. Germany has bitterly reproached +her former ally for the "ingratitude" of siding against the people who had +brought her prosperity. Gratitude and ingratitude in business transactions +are meaningless terms. The lender gets his profit as well as the borrower, +usually before the borrower. If Italy has needed German capital, Germany +has needed the Italian markets and Italian industries for her capital. The +Germans surely have used Italy as their commercial colony. Italy bought +her bathtubs, her electric machines, her coal, and her engines from +Germany. For the past generation the German commercial traveler has been +as common in Italy as the German tourist. In fact, was there ever a German +tourist who was not in some sense a commercial agent for the Fatherland? + +To the international financier all this is simply intelligible--a matter +of mutually desirable exchange. No debtor nation should feel aggrieved +with a creditor nation: rather it should rejoice that it has attracted +the services of foreign capital. Is the international economist right +in his reasoning? Why does the delusion persist among plain people that +the creditor is not always a benefactor? It is a very old and persistent +delusion, so strong in the Middle Ages that interest was considered +illegal and the despised Jews were the only people who dared finance +the world. Abstractly the economists are undoubtedly right, yet I am +fain to believe that the popular notion has some ground of truth in it +too. Obviously, according to modern notions a country rich in natural +resources, but poor in capital, inherited savings, must borrow money to +"develop" itself. But granting for the moment that material exploitation +of a country is as desirable as our modern notions assume it to be, even +then there are reasons for grave suspicion of foreign lenders. Take abused +Mexico. Its woes are in good part traceable to the pernicious influence +upon its domestic politics of the foreign capital which its riches have +attracted. One might instance the United States as an example of +beneficial exploitation by foreign capital, but with us it must be +remembered the lender has had neither industrial nor political power. +We have always been strong enough to manage our affairs ourselves and +satisfy our creditors with their interest--if need be with their +principal. We have drawn on the European horde as upon an international +bank, but we have absolutely controlled the disposition of the moneys +borrowed. A weak country can hardly do that. Mexico could not. It had +to suffer the foreign exploiter, with his selfish intrigues, in person. +Italy has never been as weak as Mexico: it has maintained its own +government, its own civilization. But the increasing amount of foreign +investment, the increasing number of foreign "interests" in Italy, has +been evident to every Italian. The hotels, the factories, the shops all +testify patently to the presence of the stranger within the gates looking +after his own interests, breeding his money on Italian soil. + +But why not? the dispassionate internationalist may ask. Why should not +the Italian hotels be in the hands of Austrians, Germans, and Swiss; the +new electrical developments be installed and run by Germans; the shops +for tourists and Italians be owned by foreigners? There we cross the +unconscious instinct of nationality, which cannot be ignored. Assuming +that there is something precious, to be guarded as a chief treasure in +the instinct of nationality, as I assume, there are grave dangers in too +much friendly commercial "infiltration" from the outside. The indirect +influences of commercial exploitation with foreign capital are the +insidious, the dangerous ones. The dislike of the foreign trader, the +foreign creditor, may voice itself crudely as mere envy, know-nothingism, +but it has a healthy root in national self-preservation. For an Italian +the German article should be undesirable, especially if its possession +means accepting the German and his way of life along with his goods. The +small merchant and the peasant express their resentments of foreign +competition rawly, no doubt. Consciously it is half envy of the more +efficient stranger. Unconsciously they are voicing the deep traditions +of their ancestors, vindicating their race ideals, cherishing what is +most enduring in themselves. They would not see their country given over +to the stranger, whose life is not their life. + +One unpleasant aspect of the commercial invasion of Italy by the Teuton +was his liking to live there, and consequently the amount of real estate +which he was collecting on the Latin peninsula--so much that the lovely +environs of Naples were fast becoming a German principality! These +invaders were not traders, nor workers, but capitalists and exploiters. +The process is known now as "infiltration." The German had filtered into +Italy in every possible way, was supplanting its own native life with the +Teutonic thing, as it had in France so largely. Italy could well profit +from that experience of its sister nation. The Germans who filtered into +French life, commercial, industrial, social, were German first and last. +When the crisis came they turned from their adopted land, where they had +lived on terms of cordial hospitality for ten, twenty, thirty years, and +took themselves back to Germany, in many cases to reappear as the invader +at the head of armed troops. The experience of France proved that the +peaceful German resident was a German all the years of his life, not a +loyal, vital factor in his adopted country--too often something of a spy +as well. Therefore Italy might well be disturbed over the presence of so +much Teutonic "infiltration" in her own beloved land. And why should +Germany call her ungrateful when she sought to rid herself of her +unwelcome creditors? German capital had made its five per cent on its +investments, and better: it should not expect to absorb the life of the +nation also. + + * * * * * + +In every debtor nation there must be an element which profits directly +from the creditor relation. It assumes, naturally, the aspects of +"progress," and consists of the richer trading class and bankers, +sustainers of politicians. Such, I take it, were the followers of +Giolitti, and such was Giolitti himself, a sincere admirer of Teutonic +success and believer in the economic help which Germany could render +to his kind of Italian. Such men as Giolitti are easily impressed by +evidences of German superiority: they identify progress with the rapid +introduction of German plumbing, German hotel-keeping, German electric +devices, German banks. All these, they believe, help a "backward country" +to come forward. They do not understand the finer spiritual risks that +such material benefits may involve. They are not as sensitive as the +humble peasant, as simpler citizens, to the gradual sapping of the +precious national roots, of the internal debasement that may be going +on through the process of "infiltration." They are too prosperous, too +cosmopolitan to feel losses in national individuality. They realize +merely the better hotels, the better railways, the improved plumbing +in their country. Their souls are already half-Teutonized. + +In his dignified answer to the German Chancellor's vulgar attack on him +in the Reichstag, Salandra referred to the long history of the Italian +people, who "were civilized and leaders of the world" when the Teuton +hordes were still savage. It was the spirit of that ancient civilization +which did not consist primarily of industrial development that stirred +in the souls of true Italians and made them scorn the advice of the +Teutonized politician. He was "_traditore_" to all that nobler Italians +hold dear--to the Latin tradition. + + + + +III + + +_The Poet Speaks_ + +The poet prophet has so long abdicated his rights among us moderns +that we are incredulous when told that he has again exercised his +function. That is the reason why the story of a poet's part in leading +the Italian people toward their decision is received by Americans with +such skeptical humor. And Gabriele d' Annunzio in the role! A poet who +is popularly supposed to be decadent, if not degenerate, gossipingly +known for his celebrated affair with a famous actress, whose novels and +plays, when not denounced for their eroticism, are very much caviar to +the "wholesome" man, so full are they of a remote symbolism, so purely +"literary." "Exotic" is the chosen word for the more tolerant American +minds with which to describe the author of "Il Fuoco" and "San Sebastian." + +In recent years the Italian poet has abandoned his native land, living +in Paris, writing his last work in French, having apparently exiled +himself for the rest of his life and renounced his former Italianism. +Circumstances were stronger than the poet. The war came, and D'Annunzio +turned back to his native land. + + * * * * * + +He came to Italy at a critical moment and characteristically he filled +the moment with all the drama of which it was capable. His reappearance +in Italy, as every one knows, was due to the ceremonies in connection +with the unveiling of a monument to the famous Garibaldian band,--the +Thousand,--in the little village of Quarto outside of Genoa, from which +Garibaldi and his Thousand set forth on their march of liberation +fifty-five years ago. The monument had been long in the making. The +opportunity for patriotic instigation was heightened by the crisis of +the great war. The King and his ministers had indicated, previously, +their intention of participating in this national commemoration, but +as the day grew near and the political situation became more acute, +it was announced that the urgency of public affairs would not permit +the Government to leave Rome. It may have been the literal fact that +the situation precipitated by the presence of Giolitti demanded their +constant watchfulness. Or it may well have been that the King and the +Salandra Government had no intention of allowing their hand in this +dangerous game to be forced by any reckless fervor of the poet. They +were not ready, yet, to countenance his inflammation. At any rate, +they left the occasion solely to the poet. + +How he improved it may best be gathered from his address. To the +American reader, accustomed to a blunter appeal, the famous _Sagra_ +will seem singularly uninflammatory--intensely vague, and literary. +One wonders how it could fire that, vast throng which poured out along +the Genoa road and filled the little Garibaldian town. But one must +remember that nine months of hesitation had prepared Italian minds for +the poet's theme--the future of Italy. He linked the present crisis of +choice with the heroic memories of that first making of a nation, "_Oggi +sta sulla patria un giorno di porpora; e questo e un ritorno per una +nova dipartita, o gente d'Italia!_"--A purple day is dawning for the +Fatherland and this is a return for a new departure, O people of Italy! +The return for the new departure--to make a larger, greater Italy, just +as the Thousand had departed from this spot to gather the fragments of +a nation into one. "All that you are, all that you have, and yourselves, +give it to the flame-bearing Italy!" And in conclusion he invoked in a +new beatitude the strong youth of Italy who must bear their country to +these new triumphs: "O happy those who have more because they can give +more, can burn more.... Happy those youths who are famished for glory, +because they will be appeased.... Happy the pure in heart, happy those +who return with victory, because they will see the new face of Rome, +the recrowned brow of Dante, the triumphal beauty of Italy." + +The youth of Italy avidly seized upon the poet's appeal. The _Sagra_ +was read in the wineshops of little villages, on the streets of the +cities. The voice of the poet reached to that fount of racial idealism, +of patriotism, that glows in the hearts of all real Italians. He tied +their heroic past with the heroic opportunity of the present. And he +did not speak of the "unredeemed" or of the "aspirations." Instead, +"This is a return for a new departure, O people of Italy!" + +The politician, awaiting in Rome the effect of his advice to choose +the safe path, must have wondered, as too many Americans wondered, +how this poet fellow could stir such mad passion by his fine figures +of birds and sea! But there was a spirit abroad in Italy that would +not be appeased with "compensations": the poet had the following of +all "young Italy." + + * * * * * + +D'Annunzio came to Rome. Not at once. A whole week elapsed after the +_Sagra_ at Quarto, the 5th of May, before he reached Rome--a week of +growing tumult, of anti-Giolitti demonstrations, in which his glowing +words could sink like hot wine into the hearts of the people. The delay +was well considered. If the poet had seized the occasion of Quarto, he +made his appearance on the larger scene after the interest of the whole +nation had been heightened by reading his address. + +I was one of the immense throng that awaited the arrival of the train +bringing D'Annunzio to the capital. The great bare place before the +terminal station was packed with a patient crowd. The windows of the +massive buildings flanking the square were filled with faces. There +were faces everywhere, as far as the recesses of the National Museum, +around the flamboyant fountain, up the avenues. There were soldiers +also, many of them, inside and outside of the station, to prevent any +excessive disturbance, part of the remarkable precaution with which +the Government was hedging every act. But the soldiers were not needed. +The huge throng that waited hour after hour to greet the poet was not +rabble: it was a quiet, respectable, orderly concourse of Romans. There +was a preponderance of men over women, of youth over middle age, as was +natural, but so far as their behavior went, they were as self-contained +a "mob" as one might find in Berlin. + +The train arrived about dusk, as the great electric lamps began to +shine above the sea of white faces. To most the arrival was evident +merely from the swaying of the dense human mass, from the cadence +of the Garibaldian Hymn that rose into the air from thousands of +throats. As room was made for the motor-car, one could see a slight +figure, a gray face, swallowed up in the surging mass. Then the crowd +broke on the run to follow the motor-car to the hotel on the Pincian +where the poet was to stay. The newspapers said there were a hundred +and fifty thousand people before the Regina Hotel in the Via Veneto +and the adjacent streets. I cannot say. All the way from the Piazza +Tritone to the Borghese Gardens, even to the Villa Malta where Prince +von Buelow lived, the crowd packed, in the hope of hearing some words +from the poet. The words of Mameli's "L'Inno" rose in the twilight +air. At last the little gray figure appeared on the balcony above the +throng.... + +It is impossible to give an adequate idea of the effect of what D'Annunzio +said. His words fell like moulded bronze into the stillness, one by one, +with an extraordinary distinctness, an intensity that made them vibrate +through the mass of humanity. They were filled with historical allusions +that any stranger must miss in part, but that touched the fibers of his +hearers. He seized, as he had at Quarto, on the triumphant advance of the +liberating Thousand and recounted the inspiring incidents of that day +fifty years and more ago. As I stood in that huge crowd listening to the +poet's words as they fell into the thirsty hearts of the people,--who +were weary with too much negotiation,--I realized as never before that +speech is given to man for more than reason. The words were not merely +beautiful in themselves: they flamed with passion and they touched into +flame that something of heroic passion in the hearts of all men which +makes them transcend themselves. The crowd sighed as if it saw visions, +and there rose instinctively in response the familiar strains of the +Garibaldian Hymn. + +Italy had found its voice! The poet did not speak of "compensations," +a little more of Trent and Trieste, of a more strategic frontier. He +stirred them with visions of their past and their future. He voiced +their scorns. "We are not, we will not be a museum, an inn, a picnic +ground, an horizon in Prussian blue for international honeymoons!... +Our genius calls us to put our imprint on the molten matter of the new +world.... Let there breathe once more in our heaven that air which flames +in the prodigious song of Dante in which he describes the flight of the +Roman eagle, of your eagle, citizens!... Italy is arming, not for the +burlesque, but for a serious combat.... _Viva, viva Roma_, without shame, +_viva_ the great and pure Italy!" + +That was the voice which called Italy into the war: the will that +Italy should live "ever grander, ever purer, without shame." The poet +spoke to the Latin in the souls of his hearers. + + * * * * * + +He spoke again a number of times. In those feverish days when the +nation was in a ferment, the restless youth of Rome would rush in +crowds to the hotel on the Pincian and wait there patiently for their +poet to counsel them. He gratified their desire, not often, and each +time that he spoke he stung them to a fuller consciousness of will. +He spoke of the larger Italy to be, and they knew that he did not mean +an enlargement of boundaries. He spoke clearly, briefly, intensely. +It was once more the indubitable voice of the poet and prophet raised +in the land of great poetry. + +D'Annunzio grew bolder. He recognized openly his antagonist--the traitor. +The most dramatic of his little speeches was at the Costanzi Theater +where a trivial operetta was being given, which was quickly swept into +the wings. After the uproar on his entrance had been somewhat stilled, +he spoke of Von Buelow and Giolitti and their efforts to thwart the will +of the nation. + +"This betrayal is inspired, instigated, abetted by a foreigner. It is +committed by an Italian statesman, a member of the Italian Parliament +in collusion with this foreigner to debase, to enslave, to dishonor +Italy.".... _Traditore!_ I never thought to hear the word off the +operatic stage. From D'Annunzio's lips it fell like a wave of fire +upon that inflammable audience. A grizzled, well-dressed citizen +suddenly leaped to his feet, yelling,--"I will drink his blood, the +traitor.... Death to Giolitti!".... + +While the big theater rocked and stormed with passion, outside on +the Via Viminale barricades were being hastily thrown up. The cavalry, +that had been sitting their mounts all day before Santa Maria Maggiore +guarding the unwelcome Giolitti from the angry mob, had charged the +packed street, sweeping it clear with the ugly sound of horses' hoofs +on pavement and cries of hunted men and women. That was the end. The +next morning, be it remembered, the politician sneaked away, and two +days afterwards the Salandra Government returned to power. Rome, all +Italy, became suddenly calm, purged of its passion, awaiting confidently +the reopening of Parliament. + +The Government had won. The people had won. The poet had beaten the +politician. For his was the voice to which the great mass of his +countrymen responded. + + * * * * * + +D'Annunzio spoke again admirably at those great gatherings of concord +when the citizens of Rome assembled in the Piazza del Popolo and in the +Campidolgio. The poet had made himself the spokesman of the new Italy +which had found itself in the storm of the past agonizing weeks, and as +such he was recognized by the Government. The King and the ministers +accorded him audiences; he was given a commission in the army and +attached to the general staff. Wherever he appeared he was received +with acclamations, with all the honor that is accorded the one who can +interpret nobly the soul of a nation. And the poet deserved all the +recognition which he received--the throngs, the flowers, the _vivas_, +the adoration of Italian youths. For he alone, one might say, raised +the crisis from the wallow of sordid bargaining, from the tawdriness +of sentiment, to a purer passion of Latin ambition and patriotism. He +loftily recalled to his countrymen the finer ideals of their past. He +made them feel themselves Latin, guardians of civilization, not traders +for safety and profit. + + * * * * * + +Germans, naturally, have had bitter things to say about D'Annunzio. +German sympathizers in America as well as the German Chancellor have +sneered at the influence wielded in Italy's crisis by a "decadent" +poet. Even among American lovers of Italy there has been skepticism +of the sincerity of a national mind so easily swayed by a man who "is +not nice to women." A peculiarly American view that hardly needs +comment! + +Is it not wiser to assume that the case of D'Annunzio was really +the case of Italy itself--conversion? The deepest passion in the +poet's life came to him when, a voluntary exile in France, he witnessed +the splendid reawakening of French spirit in face of awful danger. +Living in Paris during the early months of the cataclysm, witness of +the mobilization, the rape of Belgium, and the turn at the Marne, the +heroic struggle for national existence in the winter trenches, he saw +with a poet's vision what France was at death-grips with, what the +Allies were fighting for, was not territorial gains or glory or even +altogether selfish self-preservation, but rather, more deeply, for +the existence of a certain humanity. This world war he realized is no +local quarrel: it is the greatest of world decisions in the making. +And the man himself was transfigured by it: he found himself in his +greatest passion as Italy found herself at her greatest crisis. Latin +that he is, he divined the inner meaning of the confused issues presented +to the puzzled world. He was fired with the desire to light from his +inspiration his own hesitant, confused people, to voice for them the +call to the Latin soul that he had heard. For Italy, most Latin of all +the heirs of Rome, with her tragic and heroic past, the war must be not +a winning of a little Austrian territory, the redeeming of a few lost +Italians, but a fight for the world's best tradition against the forces +of death. Once more it was "_Fuori i barbari_," as it had been with her +Latin ancestors. + +It seems to me no great mystery. + +In the poet's writing there are passages of a large historical +understanding. Of all modern writers he is foremost Latin, in +knowledge, in instinct for beauty and form, in love of tradition. +Even in his erotic and mystical passages this vein of purest gold +may be seen, this understanding of the potential greatness of the +tradition into which he was born. What wonder, then, that the first +fundamental passion of the mature man's soul should be his desire to +proclaim once more the cause of Latin civilization, should be the +ardor of fighting in his own manner with his weapon of inspired words +the world battle? So it seemed to me as I listened to his voice in +the stillness of that May night. The voice of Roman glory, of ancient +ideals awoke an answering passion in the hearts of the thousands who +had gathered there. "_Una grande e pura Italia ... sensa onta_." And +it would be a lasting shame for Italy to keep out of the struggle +that the allied nations were making, to take her "compensations" +prudently and shrink back within a cowardly neutrality. Better any +other fate. + +So it seemed to that throng of eager, soul-hungry Italians who stood +beneath the balcony of the hotel on the Pincian and drank the poet's +fiery message like a full-bodied wine. At last they had found +themselves. + + + + +IV + + +_The Piazza Speaks_ + +"The voice of the piazza prevailed," the German Chancellor sneered +in his denunciation of Italy at the conclusion. It can easily be +imagined, the picture he made to himself, in his ugly northern office +on Friedrichstrasse, of the influence that upset all German pressure +and sent Italy into the war on the side of the Allies; that defeated +the industry of the skilled ambassador, the will of the wily politician. +The Chancellor saw one of those large public squares in which Latin +countries abound, open centers in their close-built cities, where so +much of the common life of the people goes on, now as it has for hundreds +of years. For the piazza, descending in direct tradition from the ancient +Forum, is the public hall of citizens, where they trade, gossip, quarrel, +plot, love, and hate, from the crone sunning herself in a sheltered nook +over her bag of chestnuts to the grandee whose palace windows open above +the noisy commonalty. The Chancellor saw this common meeting-ground, this +glorified street, filled with a ragged mob of "the baser quality," as on +the operatic stage, emptily vocal or evilly skulking for mischief, like +the _mafia_, the _apache_. He saw this loose gathering of irresponsibles +suddenly stirred to evanescent passion against the real benefactors of +their country by the secret agents of the Allies, "corrupted by English +gold," in the mechanical melodrama of the German imagination, marching +to and fro, attacking the shops and homes of worthy Germans, howling and +stoning, by mere noise drowning the sober protests of reflecting citizens, +intimidating a weak king, connived at by a bought government, pushing a +whole nation into the bloody sacrifice of war out of mere recklessness of +rioting--a piazza filled with the rabble minority who have nothing to lose +because they neither fight nor pay. + + * * * * * + +Such a picture, reflected in Bethmann-Hollweg's splenetic phrase, +is a complete delusion of the German mind. I was in Rome and saw the +real piazza at work. I was on the streets all hours of day and night, +and what I saw was nothing like the trite imaginings of the German +Chancellor. As I have said in a previous chapter, the "demonstrations" +did not begin in any perceptible form until the bungling hand of Prince +von Buelow betrayed his intrigue with Giolitti and the politician's +intention of defeating the Salandra Government in its preparations for +war became evident. At no time did the rioting in the streets equal the +violence of what a third-class strike in an American mill town can +produce. Such as it was the Government showed the determination and +ability to keep it strictly within bounds. Rome was filled with troops. +Alleyways and courtyards oozed troops at the first shouts from the +piazza: the danger points of the Corso, especially the Piazza Colonna +on which the Chigi Palace, the residence of the Austrian Ambassador, +fronts, were kept almost constantly empty by cordons of troops. All +told, the destruction done by the mobs could not have amounted to +several hundred dollars--a few signs and shop windows smashed, a few +pavements torn up in the Via Viminale. It is true that after war was +declared upon Austria there was some pillage of Austrian and German +shops in Milan, which has been greatly exaggerated by the German and +pro-German press; it was nothing worse than what happened in Berlin +to English residents in August, 1914. And the Italian Government +immediately took severe measures with the officials who had permitted +the disorders--removing the prefect and the military commander of +Milan. + +There is no saying, of course, what might have happened had the King +offered the premiership to Giolitti, and had that astute politician +been rash enough to accept the responsibility of forming a government +in accord with his own _neutralista_ sympathies. It is more than +likely that revolution would have ensued: possibly Italy would have +entered the war as a republic. For the Italians are not Greeks, as +has been amply proved. But the King of Italy, whatever his own +sympathies may have been, showed plainly that he had enough political +understanding not to run counter to the expressed will of his people, +to deal with the "traitor." After a week of tempestuous inter-regnum, +in which the piazza expressed itself passionately, the Salandra +Government returned to power with all which that implied in foreign +policy. Then the piazza became quiet. If the piazza must shoulder the +responsibility of Italy's decision, it must be credited with knowing +marvelously well its own mind. + + * * * * * + +The constitution of this "mob" is worth attention. I saw it at +many angles. I followed its first erratic flights through the streets +when Salandra resigned and a gaping void opened before the nation. I +waited for the poet's arrival at the Roman station, for hours, while +the dense throng of men and women pressed into the great square and +swelled like a dark pool into the adjoining streets. And I followed +with the "piazza" in its instinctive rush to the hotel on the Pincian +Hill to hear the voice of its spokesman. Again I was in the Corso when +the plumed cavalry cleared the surging mass from the Piazza Venezia to +the Piazza Colonna. I heard the people yell, "Death to the traitor +Giolitti!" and "_Fuori i barbari!_" and sing Mameli's "L'Inno." I saw +the uproar melt away in the soft darkness of the Roman nights, leaving +the cavalry at their vigil before Santa Maria Maggiore, guarding the +repose of Giovanni Giolitti. + +I can testify that the "piazza" was composed very largely of perfectly +respectable folk like myself. It varied more or less as chance gatherings +of men will vary. Sometimes there were more workingmen in dirty clothes, +sometimes more youths and boys with their banners, sometimes more +shouters and fewer actors. But the core of it was always that same mass +of common citizenship that gathered anciently in the Forum, that to-day +goes orderly enough to the polls in New York or Chicago,--plain men, +rather young than old, who are so distinctly left on the outside of +affairs, who must perforce turn to the newspaper for information and +to the open street for expression, who relieve themselves of uncomplex +emotions by shouting, and who symbolize the things they hate to the +depth of their souls with personalities like Giolitti and occasionally +shy bricks at the guarded home of authority. All this, yes, but not +"riff-raff," not anarchist, nor _mafia_, nor _apache_. Nothing of that +did I see those days and nights. + +The greeting to D'Annunzio was made by men of the professional and +intellectual classes I should say, having wormed my way in and out +of that vast piazza gathering. The daily crowds before the poet's +hotel were composed chiefly of youths, at school or college, others +in working dress. The noisiest, most inflammable of all these mobs +was that in the Costanzi Theater the evening of D'Annunzio's appearance +there. They were citizens--and their wives--who could afford to pay +the not inconsiderable price charged--and seats were at a premium. +The men around me in evening dress, who were by no means silent, came +from the "classes" rather than the masses. The crowds that hung about +the Corso and the adjacent squares were more mixed, but they held a +goodly proportion of the frequenters of the Cafe Arragno. The worst +that could be said against these casual gatherings was their youth. +It is the way of youth to vent its passion in speech, to move and not +to stand. Middle age stood on the sidewalks and watched, sympathetically. +Old age looked down from the windows, contemplatively. But both old +age and middle age consorted with youth in the great meetings of +consecration in the Piazza del Popolo and the Campidolgio, after the +will of the people had prevailed. And after all, youth must fight the +wars, and pay for them for long years afterwards--why should it not +have its say in the making of them as well as middle age and old age? +The youths in the ranks of the patient, good-natured soldiers who did +_piquet a mato_ all day and half the night in the Roman streets during +that vocal week while the piazza spoke, were openly sympathetic with +the mobs they were holding down. I knew some of the gray-clad boys. +I strolled along the lines and saw the smiles, heard the chaffing +give-and-take of citizen and soldier as the mob tried to rush through +the double ranks that cordoned the streets. There was no hatred there, +no violent conflict with authority. Each understood the other. The young +officers seemed to say to the crowd,--"You may howl all you like, you +fellows, but you mustn't throw stones or make a mess.... What's the +good! War is coming anyway in a few days--they can't talk it away!" +And the crowd replied heartily,--"You are all right. We understand +each other. You are doing your duty. Soon you will be doing something +better worth while than policing streets and saving that traitor +Giolitti's skin from us. You will be chasing the Austrians out of +Italian territory, and many of us will be with you then!" And the +young officers looked the other way when the members of the "mob" +offered the tired soldiers cigarettes and chocolate, and sometimes +slipped through the cordon on private business within the forbidden +area. Only once, once only in all the excitement did the long-haired +horsemen clatter through the streets in a serious charge, scattering +the shrieking pedestrians. That was by way of warning, possibly as +much to the Government as to the populace. + +Then the decision was made, and after the Salandra Ministry, in +whom the people had confidence, had returned to power, the ministry +that had broken with Austria and refused her grudging compromises, +the piazza purred like doves and listened to long patriotic speeches +from "representative citizens." No soldiers were needed to keep order +in these immense gatherings. For all were citizens, then, piazza and +palace alike in the face of war. + + * * * * * + +One easily understands the German Chancellor's scorn over any irregular +expression of public opinion, his disgust that the loose public in the +streets dares to vent any emotion or will other than that suggested to +it by a strong government, above all daring to voice it passionately. +In a nation such as Germany, where the franchise is so hedged about +that even those who have it cannot effectively express their wills, +where political opinion is supplied from a central fount of authority, +where the nation goes into war at the command of the Kaiser and his +military advisers, where a war of "defense" and all other national +interests are controlled by the "high commandment," consisting at the +most of forty or fifty men, while the remaining sixty-five millions of +the people are obedient puppets, nourished on falsehoods, where the +popular emotion can be turned on like an electric current at the order +of the "high commandment,"--now against this enemy, now against that +one,--first hate of English, then hate of Italians, now hate of +Americans--it is natural that a high government functionary should +despise all popular effervescence and misread its manifestations as +merely the meretricious, bought noise of the mob, quickly roused in +the Southern temperament and badly controlled by a weak, and probably +corrupt, government. The elements in the piazza have no power in the +close organization of Germany, no political expression whatever: all +good citizens are instructed by a carefully controlled press how to +think and feel and speak. To my thinking it is rather to the glory of +the Latin temperament that it cannot be throttled and guided like the +more docile Teuton nature, that when it feels vividly it will express +itself, and that it can feel vividly, unselfishly in international +concerns. The Latin cannot be made to march in blind obedience into +the jaws of death. The piazza merely shouted what Italy had come to +feel, that Teutonic domination would be intolerable, that at all cost +the Austro-German ambitions must be checked, and the Latin tradition +vindicated and made to endure. It was proved by the marvelous content, +the fervid unanimity of patriotism that spread over Italy, once the +great decision had been made. + + * * * * * + +Since those full May weeks the world has had an example of what no +doubt the Imperial Chancellor considers the suitable method of dealing +with popular sentiment. The sympathies of Greeks and Rumanians have +been, since the opening of the war, with the allied nations, yet +their Teutonized sovereigns have kept both countries from declaring +themselves in favor of the Allies. The King of Greece has stretched +the constitution to preserve a distasteful neutrality, which, if it +were not for the failure of the Allies to make impressive gains in +the first year of the war, would have doubtless cost him his crown. +The Balkan States are near enough the actual theater of war to suffer +acutely from fear, and a natural timidity worked upon by many German +agents, more successfully than Prince von Buelow, has thus far kept the +people of Rumania and Greece passive in a false neutrality. Bulgaria +is a fine example of the perfect working of the German method. The +piazza certainly had no hand in the intrigues of King Ferdinand of +Bulgaria. The representatives of his people urged him to maintain at +least neutrality, not to put the nation at war with its blood kin, +against its best interest. But the thing had all been "arranged" +between the German King of Bulgaria and the German Government through +"negotiation." Germany had been successful in buying the cooeperation +of Bulgaria as it tried to buy Italy's neutrality, at the expense of +Austria. There were other factors in the case of Bulgaria that worked +to the German advantage, but the method is clear. Not the voice of the +piazza, but the secret agreement of "responsible government," in other +words, the control of despotic, German rulers. Italy may well be proud +that she has a sovereign who faithfully interprets his responsibility of +rule in a constitutional state and executes the will of his people--who +listens also to the voice of the piazza, not merely to the arguments of +the foreign diplomat. And Italy may also be proud that the piazza spoke +at a dark hour in the Allies' cause, if not the darkest, when German +arms were prevailing in the East; if the dangers of German conquest were +not as close to Italy as with the Balkan States, they were not remote, +as German threats too plainly showed. + +The Venezelos-Zaimis situation was impossible in Italy, though the +circumstances were almost parallel, with Salandra and Giolitti. The +piazza knew the deep Biblical truth, "He who is not for me is against +me," and execrated the professed _neutralista_ Giolitti. But the Greeks, +it seems, are more easily managed by a "strong" government and a German +king. The end, however, is not yet in sight. It remains to be seen +whether the path of prudent passivity is the safe one, even selfishly. + + * * * * * + +Why, after all, should we feel so apologetic for the voice of the piazza? +All popular government, even in the limited form of a constitutional +monarchy such as Italy, is a rough, uncertain affair. "The House of Savoy +rules by executing the will of the Italian people." Good! But how is that +popular will to be determined? Not, surely, by taking a poll of the five +hundred-odd Deputies of the Italian Parliament elected two years before +the world was upset by the Teuton desire to rule. Those Deputies were +chosen, as we Americans know only too well how, by mean intrigues of party +machines, by clever manipulation of trained politicians like Giovanni +Giolitti, who by their control of appointed servants--the prefects of the +provinces--can throw the elections as they will, can even disfranchise +unfriendly elements of the population. Manhood suffrage is not a precise, +a scientific method of getting at public opinion. It is possibly the least +accurate method of gauging the will of a people. Something other than the +poll is needed to resolve the will of a nation. And when that will is +determined it makes little odds what instrumentality expresses it. Even +the Giolittian Deputies, when brought to the urn for a secret vote on the +Salandra measures a week after the lively expression of popular will in +the piazza, voted--secretly--against their neutral leader, in favor of +war! They had been converted by the voice of the piazza--by other things +also in all likelihood. If their votes had been taken ten days before, +when Giolitti first arrived in Rome, the result would have been far +different: as Salandra and his colleagues knew. In the end the Italian +Parliament merely registered the will of the people, both men and women, +which expressed itself, as it always must, in diverse ways, through the +press, by the voice of the piazza, in public and private discussion, +flightily, weightily, passionately, timidly. + + * * * * * + +Will, individual or collective, is a mysterious force. What enters into +that act of decision which results in will is never wholly apparent, from +the least to the gravest matters. And no scheme of government, which +admits the right of the individual citizen, plain and exalted alike, +to be heard and obeyed, has discovered a perfect way of polling this +collective will of the nation. Our electoral representative method and +majority vote is surely rough, though better than the Bulgarian way. That +right to vote, for which our women are so eagerly striving, as thinking +men realize only too well, is an empty privilege. The will of a people is +inaccurately registered, not made, by the vote. The voice of the piazza +when deep enough and strong enough is as good as any other way, perhaps, +of determining the collective will of a nation in a crisis; surely far +better than the secret way of Ferdinand of Bulgaria. Further, the reason +of the piazza on any vital fundamental matter, such as war, which means +life or death, is as sure as your intelligence or mine, possibly surer, +because the piazza, having less to lose or gain, feels and believes and +acts more simply, basically. The Roman piazza, the people of Italy, +reacted to the crime against Belgium, to the atrocities committed on +priests and women and children, to the murders of the Lusitania,--all +deeds of that ancient enemy whose barbarism had now reappeared, after +centuries, under an intellectual and sophisticated mask with a blasphemous +perversion of religious sanction. They reacted also, it might be, to their +own sense of personal danger from an unprotected frontier dividing them +from this unscrupulous enemy, to the wrongs of some thousands of Italians +condemned to live under Austrian rule and fight her battles against their +friends. They responded also to the glory of Garibaldi's Thousand, who had +liberated their fathers from foreign domination and made a nation out of +Italy, and they responded to the great past of their people from whom the +essential elements of what men know to-day as civilization has spread over +the world. All these emotions were hidden in that one cry,--"Out with the +barbarians!" + +The voice of the piazza, with its simple unanimity, its childlike +psychology, came nearer to expressing the soul of Italy than the German +Chancellor can comprehend, than any sophisticated diplomat, who has +associated only with "thinking" and "leading" people, can believe. The +Latin soul of Italy which cursed its politician and thrilled at the words +of its poet! That soul of a people which is greater than any individual, +which somehow expresses itself more authoritatively through the simple +people who must suffer for their faiths than through the intellectuals +and the protected members of a society.... + +"_Viva Italia!_" the tanned conscript leaning from the car window at +Subiaco shouted back to his friends and home. And the old men and girls +left in the fields raised their hats as the train passed and shouted in +reply,--"_Viva Italia!_" It was not English gold, nor the desire for +Trent and Trieste, that brought that cry to the boy's lips! + + + + +V + + +_Italy Decides_ + +Whatever one may think of the piazza voice, whether the disposition is +to sneer with the German or to trust with the democrat in its spontaneous +expression, it is a matter of history now that Italy's decision had been +made before the question came to a vote in the Chamber of Deputies, a +fortnight or more before the reluctant ambassadors of the ex-Alliance +backed into their waiting trains and departed homeward across the Alps. +It is a significant fact of personal psychology that the crisis of a +decision takes place before action results to calm the disturbed mind. So +it was with Italy. Her decision had really been taken when the Lusitania +sank, when the politician, in face of this fresh outrage, advised the +safer course of neutrality, which would amount to a connivance with her +former associates in their predatory programme. _Traditore!_ meant but +one thing--a betrayal of the nation's soul. In the light of more recent +events, since Italy entered the war, there are probably many Italians who +secretly wish that the safer counsel had prevailed, that, like Greece and +Rumania, Italy had "preserved a benevolent neutrality" in the great war, +even possibly that she had concluded to make her bed in the Teutonic camp. +If the world is to be Teutonized, they would argue, why put one's head in +the wolf's jaw! There are prudent people of that stripe in every nation, +but since the end of May they have kept silence in Italy. And it should be +forever remembered to her honor that Italy made her decision in face of +Teutonic successes. If the military situation did not look so black for +the Allies at the end of May as it does this December, it looked black +enough with the crumbling Russian resistance before Mackensen's phalanx. +Neuve Chapelle had been a costly and empty victory. There had been no +successful drive in Champagne and Artois to encourage those who bet only +on winning cards. There were heavy clouds in the east, merely a sad +silence along the western wall. It was long past Easter, when England +had boastfully expected to open the Dardanelles and the truth was +beginning to appear that Constantinople might never be reached by the +allied operations in Gallipoli. Italy threw in her lot with the Allies +in a dark hour, if not the darkest. + +The great decision which had lain in solution in the hearts of the +people was evoked by events and made vocal by the flaming words of +D'Annunzio, interpreted by a faithful king, who resisted the temptation +to dethrone himself by calling Germany's hired man to power, and finally +registered by the Deputies at Montecitorio on May 19. It was virtually +made, I say, the tumultuous week that came on the resignation of the +Salandra Government. What followed the return of the ministry to power +was merely automatic, as peaceful as any day's routine. Parliament was +called to meet on Wednesday, the 19th. The Sunday afternoon before, the +piazza, and the palace and all other elements of Roman citizenship met +in a great gathering of content and consecration at the foot of the +Pincian Hill in the Piazza del Popolo, again the day after in the +Campidolgio above the Forum. How fortunate a people are to have such +hallowed places of meeting, steeped in associations of great events! + +It was a warm, brilliant, sunny day, that Sunday, and in the afternoon +every one in Rome, it seemed, was as near the Piazza del Popolo as he +could get. The meeting was addressed by a number of well-known Romans +of varied political affiliations. But the high note of all the speeches +was a fervid patriotism and harmony. Rome was calm, believing that it had +chosen nobly if not wisely. On the Campidolgio, D'Annunzio again sounded +the tocsin of the heroic Thousand, and lauded the army which had been +belittled by the followers of Giolitti. Already the troops were leaving +Rome.... Then Parliament opened. The meeting of the Deputies if memorable +was short. The square and streets about Montecitorio had been carefully +cleared and held empty by cordons of troops. There was to be no shouting, +no demonstration within hearing of Parliament. Long before midday the +Chamber was crowded with all the notables who could gain admission. The +proceedings were extremely brief, formal. All knew that the die had been +cast: what remained was for the army to accomplish. The Premier Salandra +made a brief statement summarizing the diplomatic efforts that his +Government had undertaken to reach a satisfactory understanding with +Austria, the record of which could be followed in the "Green Book," +which was then given to the public. He informed the Chamber, what was +generally known, that the Triple Alliance had already been denounced on +the 5th of May, and he offered a "project of law," which was tantamount +to a vote of confidence in the Government and which also gave the King +and his ministers power to make war and to govern the country during the +period of war without the intervention of Parliament. It thus authorized +both the past acts of the Salandra Ministry and its future course. The +measure, undebated, was voted on secretly. And it is significant that of +more than five hundred Deputies present only seventy-two voted in the +negative. Of these seventy-two who voted against the Government, some +were out-and-out _neutralistas_, and some few were Socialists who had +the courage of their convictions. The great majority of the Giolittians +must have voted for war. Had they seen a great light since the piazza +raised its voice, since their leader had fallen from his high place? +Possibly they had never been with Giolitti on this vital national +question. At least, the fact illustrates how representative government +does roughly perform the will of its people when that will is clear +enough and passionate enough: the will registers itself even through +unwilling instruments. + +After the vote had been taken, the Chamber adjourned, and when the +following day the Senate ratified, unanimously, the action of the +Chamber of Deputies, Parliament was dissolved. Many of the members +enlisted and went to the front. Since the end of May Italy has been +autocratically governed. The decrees of the King and his ministers +are law--an efficient method of governing a country at war, avoiding +those legislative intrigues that latterly have threatened the concord +of France. + +It is noteworthy that the Italian Senate voted unanimously for war. +The Senate is not an elective body. It is composed of dignitaries, old, +conservative men from the successful classes of the nation, who are not +easily swayed by the emotions of the piazza. From this unrepresentative +body might have been expected a show of resistance to the Government's +measure, if, as Giolitti and the German party asserted, there was a +serious sentiment in the country in favor of neutrality which had been +howled down by the mobs. It is inconceivable that such a body could have +been completely cowed by rioting in the streets. The unanimous vote of +the Italian Senators is sufficient refutation of the Bethmann-Hollweg +slur. + + * * * * * + +As I crossed the Piazza Colonna the morning Parliament opened, my +attention was caught by a small crowd before a billboard. First one, +then another passer-by stopped, read something affixed there, and, +smiling or laughing, passed on his way. In the center of the board was +a small black-bordered sheet of paper, with all the mourning emblems, +precisely resembling those mortuary announcements which Latin countries +employ. It read: "Giovanni Giolitti, this day taken to himself by the +Devil, lamented by his faithful friends"; and there followed a list of +noted Giolittians, some of whom even then were voting for war with +Austria. A bit of Roman ribaldry, specimen of that ebullition of the +piazza disdained by the German Chancellor; nevertheless, it must have +bit through the hide of the politician, who for the sake of his safety +was not among the Deputies voting at Montecitorio. Later I read in a +Paris newspaper that Giolitti was to spend the summer as far away from +the disturbance of war as he could get, in the Pyrenees, but it was +rumored in Paris that the French Government, having intimated to its +new ally that it did not wish to harbor Giolitti, the Italian politician +was forced to remain at home. I believe that once since the "Caro Carlo" +letter he has spoken to his countrymen, a patriotic interview in which +he announced that he had been converted to the necessity of the war with +Austria! Thus even the politician comes to see light. But Giovanni +Giolitti, as the black-bordered card said, is dead politically. + + * * * * * + +With the votes of Parliament the Roman part in the drama, the +civil part, was ended. Rome began to empty fast of soldiers, officers, +officials. The scene had shifted to the north, where the hearts of all +Italians were centered. There was a singular calm in the city. One +other memorable meeting should be recorded, on the Saturday afternoon +following the Parliamentary decision. If popular manifestations count +for anything, the dense throng in the Campidolgio and later the same +afternoon before the Quirinal Palace demonstrated the enthusiasm with +which the certainty of war with Austria was accepted. + +There are few lovelier spots on earth than the little square of the +Campidolgio on the Capitoline Hill and none more laden with memories +of a long past. Led by a sure instinct the people of Rome crowded up +the steep passages that led to the crest of the hill, by tens of +thousands. In this hour of the New Resurrection of Italy, the people +sought the hearthstone of ancient Rome on the Capitoline. About the +pillars of the Cancelleria, which stands on Roman foundations, up the +long flight of steps leading to the Aracoeli, even under the belly of +the bronze horse in the center of the square, Italians thrust themselves. +Rome was never more beautiful than that afternoon. Little fleecy clouds +were floating across the deep blue sky. The vivid green of the cypresses +on the slope below were stained with the red and white of blooming roses. +In the distance swam the dome of St. Peter's, across the bend of the +Tiber, and through the rift between the crowded palaces one might look +down upon the peaceful Forum. The birthplace of the nation! Here it was +that the people, the decision having been made to play their part in the +destiny of the new world now in the making, came to rejoice. The spirit +of the throng was entirely festal. And these were the people, working-men +and their wives and mothers from the dark corners of old Rome, neither +hoodlums nor aristocracy, the people whose men for the most part were +already joining the colors. + +The flags of the unredeemed provinces together with the Italian +flag were borne through the crowd up the steps of the municipal palace +to wave beside Prince Colonna, as he appeared from within the palace. +Mayor of Rome, he had that afternoon resigned his position in order to +join the army with his sons. Handsome, with a Roman face that reminded +one of the portrait busts of his ancestors in the Capitoline Museum +close by, he stood silent above the great multitude. The time for oratory +had passed. He raised his hands and shouted with a full voice--"_Viva +Italia!_" and was silent. It was as if one of the conscript fathers had +returned to his city to pronounce a benediction upon the act of his +descendants. The people repeated the cry again and again, then broke +into the beautiful words of Mameli's "L'Inno,"--"_Fratelli d' Italia._" + +Then the gathering turned to cross the city to the Quirinal, where the +King had promised to meet them. The way led past one of the two Austrian +embassies in the Piazza Venezia--a danger spot throughout the agitation; +but this afternoon the crowd streamed by without swerving, intent on +better things. On the Quirinal Hill, between the royal palace and the +Consulta, where the diplomatic conferences are held, the people packed +in again. The roofs of the neighboring palaces were lined with spectators +and every window except those of the royal palace was filled with faces. +On the balcony above the palace gate some footmen were arranging a red +velvet hanging. Then the royal family stepped out from the room behind. +The King, with his little son at his side, stood bareheaded while the +crowd cheered. On his other side were the Queen and her two daughters. +King Victor, whose face was very grave, bowed repeatedly to the cheering +people, but said no word. The little prince stared out into the crowd +with serious intensity, as if he already knew that what was being done +these days might well cost him his father's throne. The people cried +again and again,--_"Viva Italia, viva il re"_; also more rarely, _"Imperio +Romano!"_ At the end the King spoke, merely,--_"Viva Italia, mi!"_ + +Perhaps the presence of the German and the Austrian Ambassadors, +who that very hour were at the Consulta vainly trying to arrange a +bargain, restrained the King from saying more to his people then. +Possibly he felt that the occasion was beyond any words. His face was +set and worn. The full passion of the decision had passed through him. +His people had desired war, and he had faithfully followed their will. +Yet he more than any one in that crowd must know the terrible risk, the +awful cost of this war. Those national aspirations for which his country +was to strive,--Trent and Trieste, Istraia and the Dalmatian coast, in +all a few hundred miles of territory, a few millions of people,--the +well informed were saying would cost one hundred and fifty thousand +Italian soldiers a month, to pick the locks that Austria had put along +her Alpine frontier! No wonder the King of Italy met his people after +the great decision in solemn mood. + + * * * * * + +The crowd melted from the Quirinal Square in every direction, content. +Some stopped to cheer in front of the Ministry of War, which these days +and nights was busy as a factory working overtime and night shifts. +People were reading the newspapers, which in default of more vivid news +contained copious extracts from the "Libro Verde." Yet the "Green Book" +was not even now completed! + +The politician had spoken, the poet had said his fiery word to the +people, the piazza had hurled its will, Parliament had acted and gone +its way, the army staff was hastening north. Yet the Austrian Ambassador +and his German colleague had not taken the trains waiting for them outside +the Porta Pia with steam up. It was a mystery why they were lingering on +in a country on the verge of hostilities, where they were so obviously +not wanted any longer. Daily since Parliament had voted they had been at +the Consulta--were there now in this solemn hour of understanding between +the King and his people! Singly and together they were conferring with +Baron Sonnino and the Premier. What were they offering? We know now that +at this last moment of the eleventh hour Austria had wakened to the real +gravity of the situation, and with Teutonic pertinacity and Teutonic +dullness of perception made her first real offer--the immediate cession +and occupation of the ceded territories she had set as her maximum, a +thing she had refused all along to consider, insisting that the transfer +be deferred to the vague settlement time of the "Peace." I do not know +that if she had frankly started the negotiations with this essential +concession, it would have made any real difference. I think not. Her +maximum was insufficient: it nowhere provided for that defensible +frontier, and it was but a meager satisfaction of those other aspirations +of nationality which she despised. It still left a good many Italians +outside of the national fold, and it still left Italy exposed to whatever +strong hand might gain control on the east shores of the Adriatic. At all +events, in this last moment of the eleventh hour, if the ambassadors had +been authorized to yield all that Baron Sonnino had begun by asking, it +would not have kept Italy from the war--now. + +Elsewhere I have dealt with the legal and strategic questions involved +in the "Green Book." These diplomatic briefs, White or Yellow or Orange +or Green, seem more important at the moment than in perspective. They +are all we observers have of definite reason to think upon. But nations +do not go to war for the reasons assigned in them--nothing is clearer +than that. Like the lengthy briefs in some famous law case, they are +but the intellectual counters that men use to mask their passions, their +instincts, their faiths. According to the briefs both sides should win +and neither. And the blanks between the lines of these diplomatic briefs +are often more significant than the printed words. + +While Baron Macchio and Prince von Buelow, the Ballplatz and +Friedrichstrasse, Baron Sonnino and his colleagues were making the +substance of the "Green Book," the people of Italy were deciding the +momentous question on their own grounds. The spirit of all Italy was +roused. Italian patriotism gave the answer. + + * * * * * + +"_Viva Italia!_" the boy conscript shouted, leaning far out of the +car window in a last look at the familiar fields and roof of his +native village. "_Viva Italia!_" the King of Italy cried, and his +people responded with a mighty shout,--"_Viva Italia!_" What do they +mean? In the simplest, the most primitive sense they mean literally +the earth, the trees, the homes they have always known--the physical +body of the mother country. And this primal love of the earth that +has borne you and your ancestors seems to me infinitely stronger, +more passionate with the European than with the American. We roam: +our frontiers are still horizons.... But even for the simple peasant +lad, joining the colors to fight for his country, patriotism is +something more complex than love of native soil. It is love of life +as he has known it, its tongue, its customs, its aspects. It is love +of the religion he has known, of the black or brown or yellow-haired +mother he knows--of the women of his race, of the men of his race, +and their kind. + +Deeper yet, scarce conscious to the simple instinctive man, patriotism +is belief in the tradition that has made you what you are, in the ideal +that your ancestors have seeded in you of what life should be. Therefore, +patriotism is the better part of man, his ideal of life woven in with +his tissue. Men have always fought for these things,--for their own +earth, for their own kind, for their own ideal,--and they will continue +to give their blood for them as long as they are men, until wrong and +unreason and aggression are effaced from the earth. The pale concept +of internationalism, whether a class interest of the worker or an +intellectual ideal of total humanity, cannot maintain itself before +the passion of patriotism, as this year of fierce war has proved beyond +discussion. + +Italian patriotism, which in the last analysis Italy evinced in +making war against Austria, was composed of all three elements. Italian +patriotism is loyalty to the Italian tradition, hence to the Latin ideal +which is fighting a death battle with the Teutonic tradition and ideal. +Teutonism--militaristic, efficient, materialistic, unimaginative, +unindividual--has challenged openly the world. Italy responded nobly +to that challenge. + + + + +VI + + +_The Eve of the War_ + +Rome became still, so still as to be oppressive. Her heart was +elsewhere,--in the north whither the King was about to go. Rome, like +all the war capitals, having played her part must relapse more and more +into a state of waiting and watching, stirred occasionally by rumors and +rejoicings. The streets were empty, for all men of military age had gone +and others had returned to their normal occupations. Officers hurried +toward the station in cabs with their boxes piled before them. And the +sound of marching troops also on the way to the station did not cease at +once. + +Saturday, the 22d of May, I took the night express for Venice. The +train of first- and second-class coaches was longer than usual, filled +with officers rejoining their regiments which had already gone north +in the slower troop trains. There were also certain swarthy persons +in civilian garb, whom it took no great divination to recognize as +secret police agents. The spy mania had begun. Theirs was the hopeless +task of sorting out civilian enemies from nationals, which, thanks to +the complexity of modern international relations, is like picking +needles from a haystack. My papers, however, were all in order, and +so far there had been no restrictions on travel; in fact no military +zone had been declared, because as yet there was no war! When would +the declaration come? In another week? I settled myself comfortably +in my corner opposite a stout captain who rolled himself in his gray +cloak and went to sleep. Other officers wandered restlessly to and fro +in the corridor outside, discussing the coming war. It was a heavenly +summer night. The Umbrian Hills swam before us in the clear moonlight +as the train passed north over the familiar, beautiful route. If +Germany should strike from behind at Milan, exposing the north of +Italy? One shuddered. After Belgium Germany was capable of any attack, +and Germany was expected then to go with her ally. + +One thing was evident over and above the beauty of the moonlit country +through which we were rushing at a good pace, and that was the remarkable +improvement in Italian railroading since my last visit to Italy a dozen +years before. This was a modern rock-ballasted, double-tracked roadbed, +which accounted in part for the rapidity and ease of the troop movements +these last months. The ordinary passenger traffic had scarcely been +interrupted even now on the eve of war. The terrors of the mobilization +period, thanks to Italy's efficient preparation, were unfounded. It spoke +well for Italy at war. It was a sign of her economic development, her +modernization. Even Germany had not gone into the business of war more +methodically, more efficiently. Italy, to be sure, had nine months for +her preparation, but to one who remembered the country during the +Abyssinian expedition, time alone would not explain the improvement. + +The railroad stations at Florence and Bologna were under military +control, the quays patrolled, the exits guarded, the buildings stuffed +with soldiers. I could see their sleeping forms huddled in the straw +of the cattle cars on the sidings, also long trains of artillery and +supplies. Shortly after daylight the guards pulled down our shutters +and warned us against looking out of the windows for the remainder of +the journey. A childish precaution, it seemed, which the officers +constantly disregarded. But when I peeped at the sunny fields of the +flat Lombard plain, one of the swarthy men in civilian black leaned +over and firmly pulled down the shade. Italy was taking her war +seriously. + +At Mestre we lost the officers: they were going north to Udine +and--beyond. The almost empty train rolled into the Venetian station +only an hour late. The quay outside the station was strangely silent, +with none of that noisy crew of boatmen trying to capture arriving +_forestieri._ They had gone to the war. One old man, the figure of +Charon on his dingy poop, sole survivor of the gay tribe, took me +aboard and ferried me through the network of silent canals toward the +piazza. Dismantled boats lay up along the waterways, the windows of the +palaces were tightly shuttered, and many bore paper signs of renting. +"The Austrians," Charon laconically informed me. It would seem that +Venice had been almost an Austrian possession, so much emptiness was +left at her flight. But within the little squares and along the winding +stony lanes between the ancient palaces, Venice was alive with citizens +and soldiers--and very much herself for the first time in many centuries. +The famous piazza recalled the processional pictures of Guardi. Only the +companies of soldiers that marched through it on their way to the station +were not gorgeously robed: they were in dirty gray with heavy kits on +their backs. The bronze horses were being lowered from St. Mark's, one +of them poised in midair with his ramping legs in a sling. Inside the +church a heavy wooden truss had been put in place to strengthen the arch +of gleaming mosaics. There was a tall hoarding of fresh boards along the +water side of the Ducal Palace, and the masons were fast filling in the +arches with brick supports. Venice was putting herself in readiness for +the enemy. Even the golden angel on the new Campanile had been shrouded +in black in order that she might not attract a winged monster by her +gleam. From many a palace roof aerial guns were pointed to the sky, and +squads of soldiers patrolled the platforms that had been hastily built +to hold them. + +Out at San Niccolo da Lido, where I supped at a little _osteria_ +beneath the trees, a number of gray torpedo boats rushed to and fro +in the harbor entrance, restless as hunting dogs straining at the +leash. That night Venice was dark, so black that one stumbled from +wall to wall along the narrow lanes in the search for his own doorway. +War was close at hand: the menace of it, a few miles, a few hours +only away, across the blue Adriatic, at Pola. In order to understand +the significance of frontiers an American should be in Venice on the +eve of war. + + * * * * * + +Some hours later I awoke startled from a heavy sleep, the +reverberation of a dream ringing in my ears. It was not yet dawn. +In the gray-blue light outside the birds were wheeling in frightened +circles above the garden below my balcony. Mingled in my dreams with +the disturbing noise was the song of a nightingale--and then there came +another dull, thunderous explosion, followed immediately by the long +whine and shriek of sirens at the arsenal, also the crackle of machine +guns from all sides. Now I realized what it meant. It was war. The +Austrians had taken this way to acknowledge Italy's defiance. The enemy +had threatened to destroy Venice, and this was their first attempt. Above +the sputter of the machine guns and the occasional explosions of shrapnel +could be distinguished the buzz of an aeroplane that moment by moment +approached nearer. Soon the machine itself became visible, flying oddly +enough from the land direction, not from the Adriatic. It flew high and +directly, across Venice, aiming apparently for the arsenal, the Lido, +the open sea. + +It was an unreality, that little winged object aloft like a large +aerial beetle buzzing busily through the still gray morning sky, heading +straight with human intelligence in a set line, bent on destruction. The +bombs could not be seen as they fell, of course, but while I gazed into +the heavens another thunderous explosion came from near by, which I took +to be the aviator's bomb, distinguished by the sharpness of its explosion +from the anti-aircraft bombardment. Other guns along the route of the +enemy took up the attack, then gradually all became silent once more. +Only the cries of the frightened birds circling above the garden and the +voices of the awakened inhabitants could be heard. From every window and +balcony half-dressed people watched the flight of the monoplane until it +had disappeared in the vague dawn beyond St. Mark's. + +In another half-hour the sirens shrieked again and the machine gun +on the roof of the Papadopoli Palace just below on the Grand Canal +began to sputter. This time every one knew what it meant and there +was a large gathering on the balconies and in the little squares to +witness the arrival of the hostile aeroplane. It was another monoplane +coming from the same land direction, flying much lower than the first +one, so low that its hooded aviator could be distinguished and the +bands of color across the belly of the car. It skirted the city toward +the Adriatic more cautiously. Later it was rumored that the second +aeroplane had been brought down in the lagoons and its men captured. + +Thereafter no one tried to sleep: the little Venetian bridges and +passages were filled with talking people, and rumors of the damage +done began to come in. Eleven bombs in all were dropped on this first +attack, killing nobody and doing no serious harm, except possibly at +the arsenal where one fell. I was at the local police station when +one of the unexploded bombs was brought in. It was of the incendiary +type containing petroleum. Also there had been picked up somewhere in +the canals the half of a Munich newspaper, which seemed to indicate, +although there was nothing of special significance in the sheet, that +the monoplane was German rather than Austrian. Yet Germany had not yet +declared war on Italy. But was it not the German Kaiser who had threatened +to destroy Italy's art treasures? Were not the German armies in Flanders +and France making war against defenceless, unmilitary monuments? + + * * * * * + +I realized now the necessity of those preparations to guard the +treasures of Venice, priceless and irreplaceable--why the Belle Arti +had been emptied, and the Colleoni trussed with an ugly wooden framework. +But little at the best could be done to protect Venice herself, which lies +exposed in all her fragile loveliness to the attacks of the new Vandals. +The delicate palaces,--already crumbling from age,--the marvelous facade +of the Ducal Palace with its lustrous color, the leaning _campanili_, the +little churches filled with noble monuments to its great ones,--all were +helpless before an aerial attack, or shelling from warships. Nothing could +save Venice from even a slight bombardment, quite apart from such pounding +as the Germans have given Rheims, or Arras, or Ypres. At the first hostile +blow Venice would sink into the sea, a mass of ruins, returning thus +bereaved to her ancient bridegroom. + +Italy is aware of the vengeful warfare she must expect. Great +preparations for the defense of Venice have been made. The city might +be ruined; it could not be taken. The gray destroyers moving in and +out past the Zattere contrasted strangely with the tiny gondolas shaped +like pygmy triremes. It was the mingling of two worlds,--the world of +the gondola, the marble palace of the doges, of the jeweled church of +St. Mark's, and the world of the torpedo boat and the aerial bomb,--the +world as man is making it to-day. The old Venetians were good fighters, +to be sure, not to say quarrelsome. War was never long absent, as may +easily be realized from the great battle-pieces in the Ducal Palace. +But war then was more the rough play of boisterous children than the +slaughterous, purely destructive thing that modern men have made it. And +when those old Venetians were not fighting, they were building greatly, +beautifully, lovingly: they were making life resplendent. + +That awakening in the early dawn into the modern world of distant +enemies and secret deadly missiles was unforgettable. Some one showed +me a steel arrow which had been dropped within the arsenal, a small, +sharpened, nail-like thing that would transfix a body from head to feet. +These arrows are dumped over by the thousands to fall where they will. +That little machine a mile and more aloft in the sky, busily buzzing +its way across the heavens, is the true symbol of war today, not face +to face except on rare occasions, but hellish in its impersonal will +to destroy. + + * * * * * + +A wonderful day dawned on Venice after the departure of the hostile +aeroplanes, a day among days, and all the Venetians were abroad. The +attack which brought home the actual dangers to them did not seem to +dull their lively spirits. They were busy in the quaint aquatic manner +of Venice. The little shops were full of people, the boatmen reviled +one another in the narrow canals as they squeezed past, the _vaporetti_ +and the motor-boats snorted up and down the Grand Canal. + +Venice seemingly had accepted her liability to night attack as a new +condition of her peculiar life. + +There were more soldiers than ever moving in the narrow, winding +footpaths, the restaurants were full of officers in fresh uniforms. +On the water-front beyond the Salute there was much movement among +the destroyers. One of these gray seabirds went out at midnight, when +war was declared, and took a small Austrian station on the Adriatic. +They brought back some prisoners and booty which seemed to interest +the Venetians more than the hostile aeroplanes. + +Yet with all this warlike activity it was hard to realize the fact +of war in Italy, to remember that just over the low line of the Lido +the hostile fleets were looking for each other in the Adriatic, that +a few miles to the north the attack had begun all along the twisting +frontier, that the first caravan of the wounded had started for Padua. +As I floated that afternoon over the lagoons past the Giudecca, and +the blue Euganean Hills rose out of the gray mist that seems ever to +hang on the Venetian horizon, it was impossible to believe in the fact, +to realize that all this human beauty around me, the slow accumulation +of the ages of the finest work of man, was in danger of eternal +destruction. Venice rose from the green sea water like the city of +enchantment that Turner so often painted. Venice was never so lovely, +so wholly the palace of enchantment as she was then, stripped of all +the tourist triviality and vulgarity that she usually endures at this +season. It was Venice left to her ancient self in this hour of her +danger. She was like a marvelous, fragile, still beautiful great lady, +so delicate that the least violence might kill her! In this dying light +of the day she was already something unearthly, on the extreme marge +of our modern world.... + +That evening the restaurant windows were covered tight with shutters +and heavy screens before the doors. The waiter put a candle in a saucer +before your plate and you ate your food in this wavering light. There +was not the usual temptation to linger in the piazza after dinner, for +the cafes were all sealed against a betraying gleam of light and the +Venetian public had taken to heart the posted advice to stay within +doors and draw their wooden shutters. As I entered my room, the moon +was rising behind the Salute, throwing its light across the Canal on to +the walls of the palaces opposite. The soft night was full of murmuring +voices, for Venice is the most vocal of cities. The people were exchanging +views across their waterways from darkened house to house, speculating on +the chances of another aerial raid tonight. They were making salty jokes +about their enemies in the Venetian manner. The moonlight illuminated the +broad waterway beneath my window with its shuttered palaces as if it were +already day. A solitary gondola came around the bend of the Canal and its +boatman began to sing one of the familiar songs that once was bawled from +illuminated barges on spring nights like this, for the benefit of the +tourists in the hotels. To-night he was singing it for himself, because +of the soft radiance of the night, because of Venice. His song rose from +the silver ripple of the waves below, and in the little garden behind the +nightingale began to sing. Had he also forgotten the disturber of this +morning and opened his heart in the old way to the moonlight May night +and to Venice? + + * * * * * + +The enemy did not return that night, the moon gave too clear a light. +But a few evenings later, when the sky was covered with soft clouds, +there was an alarm and the guns mounted on the palace roofs began again +bombarding the heavens. This time the darkness was shot by comet-like +flashes of light, and the exploding shells gave a strange pyrotechnic +aspect to the battle in the air. Again the enemy fled across the Adriatic +without having done any special damage. Only a few old houses in the +poorer quarter near the arsenal were crumbled to dust. + +Since that first week of the war the aeroplane attacks upon Venice +have been repeated a number of times, and though the bombs have fallen +perilously near precious things, until the Tiepolo frescoes in the +Scalsi church were ruined, no great harm had been done. The military +excuse--if after Rheims and Arras the Teuton needed an excuse--is the +great arsenal in Venice. The real reason, of course, is that Venice is +the most easily touched, most precious of all Italian treasure cities, +and the Teuton, as a French general said to me, wages war not merely +upon soldiers, but also upon women and children and monuments. It is +vengefulness, lust of destruction, that tempts the Austrian aeroplanes +across the Adriatic--the essential spirit of the barbarian which the +Latin abhors. + + * * * * * + +There are some things in this world that can never be replaced once +destroyed, and Venice is one of them. And there are some things greater +than power, efficiency, and all _kaiserliche Kultur_. Such is Italy +with its ever-renewed, inexhaustible youth, its treasure of deathless +beauty. As I passed through the fertile fields on my way from Venice +to Milan and the north, I understood as never before the inner reason +for Italy's entering the war. The heritage of beauty, of humane +civilization,--the love of freedom for the individual, the golden mean +between liberty and license that is the Latin inheritance,--all this +compelled young Italy to fight, not merely for her own preservation, +but also for the preservation of these things in the world against the +force that would destroy. The spirit that created the Latin has not +died. "We would not be an Inn, a Museum," the poet said, and at the +risk of all her jewels Italy bravely defied the enemy across the Alps. +This war on which she had embarked after nine long months of preparation +is no mere adventure after stolen land, as the Germans would have it: it +is a fight unto death between two opposed principles of life. + +"He who is not for me is against me." There is no possible neutrality +on the greater issues of life. + + + + +PART TWO--FRANCE + + +I + + +_The Face of Paris_ + +I shall never forget the poignant impression that Paris made on me that +first morning in early June when I descended from the train at the Gare +de Lyon. After a time I came to accept the new aspect of things as normal, +to forget what Paris had been before the war, but as with persons so with +places the first impression often gives a deeper, keener insight into +character than repeated contacts. I knew that the German invasion, which +had swept so close to the city in the first weeks of the war, and which +after all the anxious winter months was still no farther than an hour's +motor ride from Paris, must have wrought a profound change in this, the +most personal of cities. One read of the scarcity of men on the streets, +of the lack of cabs, of shuttered shops, of women and girls performing +the ordinary tasks of men, of the ever-rising tide of convalescent +wounded, etc. But no written words are able to convey the whole meaning +of things: one must see with one's own eyes, must feel subconsciously +the many details that go to make truth. + +When the long train from Switzerland pulled into the station there +were enough old men and boys to take the travelers' bags, which is +not always the case these war times when every sort of worker has +much more than two hands can do. There were men waiters in the station +restaurant where I took my morning coffee. It is odd how quickly one +scanned these protected workers with the instinctive question--"Why +are you too not fighting for your country?" But if not old or decrepit, +it was safe to say that these civilian workers were either women or +foreigners--Greeks, Balkans, or Spanish, attracted to Paris by +opportunities for employment. For the entire French nation was +practically mobilized, including women and children, so much of the +daily labor was done by them. The little cafe was full of men,--almost +every one in some sort of uniform,--drinking their coffee and scanning +the morning papers. Everybody in Paris seemed to read newspapers all +day long,--the cabmen as they drove, the passers-by as they walked +hastily on their errands, the waiters in the cafes,--and yet they +told so little of what was going on _la-bas!_.... The silence in the +restaurant seemed peculiarly dead. A gathering of Parisians no matter +where, as I remembered, was rarely silent, a French cafe never. But I +soon realized that one of the significant aspects of the new France +since the war was its taciturnity, its silence. Almost all faces were +gravely preoccupied with the national task, and whatever their own +small part in it might be, it was too serious a matter to encourage +chattering, gesticulating, or disputing in the pleasant Latin way. + +Will the French ever recover wholly their habit of free, careless, +expressive speech? Of all the peoples under the trials of this war +they have become by general report the most sternly, grimly silent. +Compared with them the English, deemed by nature taciturn, have +become almost hysterically voluble. They complain, apologize, accuse, +recriminate. Each new manifestation of Teutonic strategy has evoked +from the English a flood of outraged comment. But from the beginning +the French have wasted no time on such _betise_ as they would call +it: they have put all their energies into their business, which as +every French creature knows is to fight this war through to a triumphant +end--and not talk. An extraordinary reversal of national temperaments +that! From the mobilization hour it was the same thing: every Frenchman +knew what it meant, the hour of supreme trial for his country, and he +went about his part in it with set face, without the beating of drums, +and he has kept that mood since. Henri Lavedan, in a little sketch of +the reunion between a _poilu_, on leave after nine months' absence in +the trenches, and his wife, has caught this significant note. The good +woman has gently reproached her husband for not being more talkative, +not telling her any of his experiences. The soldier says,--"One doesn't +talk about it, little one, one does it. And he who talks war doesn't +fight.... Later, I'll tell you, after, when _it_ is signed!" + + * * * * * + +There were plenty of cabs and taxis on the streets by the time I +reached Paris, rather dangerously driven by strangers ignorant of the +ramifications of the great city and of the complexities of motor engines. +Most of the tram-lines were running, and the metro gave full service +until eleven at night, employing many young women as conductors--and +they made neat, capable workers. Many of the shops, especially along +the boulevards, were open for a listless business, although the shutters +were often up, with the little sign on them announcing that the place was +closed because the _patron_ was mobilized. And there was a steady stream +of people on the sidewalks of all main thoroughfares,--at least while +daylight lasted, for the streets emptied rapidly after dark when a dim +lamp at the intersection of streets gave all the light there was--quite +brilliant to me after the total obscurity of Venice at night! But my +French and American friends, who had lived in Paris all through the +crisis before the battle of the Marne,--with the exodus of a million +or so inhabitants streaming out along the southern routes, the dark, +empty, winter streets,--found Paris almost normal. The restaurants were +going, the hotels were almost all open, except the large ones on the +Champs Elysees that had been transformed into hospitals. At noon one +would find something like the old frivol in the Ritz Restaurant,--large +parties of much-dressed and much-eating women. For the parasites were +fluttering back or resting on their way to and from the Riviera, +Switzerland, New York, and London. The Opera Comique gave several +performances of familiar operas each week, rendered patriotic by the +recitation of the _Marseillaise_ by Madame Chenal clothed in the national +colors with a mighty Roman sword with which to emphasize "_Aux armes, +citoyens!_" The Francaise also was open several times a week and some +of the smaller theaters as well as the omnipresent cinema shows, +advertising reels fresh from the front by special permission of the +general staff. + +The cafes along the boulevards did a fair business every afternoon, +but there was a striking absence of uniforms in them owing to the strict +enforcement of the posted regulations against selling liquor to soldiers. +That and the peremptory closing of cafes and restaurants at ten-thirty +reminded the stranger that Paris was still an "entrenched camp" under +military law with General Gallieni as governor.... The number of women +one saw at the cafes, sitting listlessly about the little tables, usually +without male companions, indicated one of the minor miseries of the great +war. For the _midinette_ and the _femme galante_ there seemed nothing to +do. A paternal government had found occupation and pay for all other +classes of women, also a franc and a half a day for the soldier's wife +or mother, but the daughter of joy was left very joyless indeed, with the +cold misery of a room from which she could not be evicted "_pendant la +guerre._" They haunted the cafes, the boulevards,--ominous, pitiful +specters of the manless world the war was making. + +Hucksters' carts lined the side streets about the Marche Saint-Honore +as usual, and I could not see that prices of food had risen abnormally +in spite of complaints in the newspapers and the discussion about +cold storage in the Chamber of Deputies. Restaurant portions were +parsimonious and prices high as usual, but the hotels made specially +low rates, "_pendant la guerre,_" which the English took advantage of +in large numbers. The Latin Quarter seemed harder hit by the war than +other quarters, emptier, as at the end of a long vacation; around the +Arch there was a subdued movement as between seasons. The people were +there, but did not show themselves. One went to a simple dinner _a la +guerre_ at an early hour. All, even purely fashionable persons, were +too much occupied by grave realities and duties to make an effort for +forms and ceremonies. Life suddenly had become terribly uncomplex, even +for the sophisticated. In these surface ways living in Paris was like +going back a century or so to a society much less highly geared than +the one we are accustomed to. I liked it. + + * * * * * + +Even at its busiest hours Paris gave a peculiar sense of emptiness, +hard to account for when all about men and women and vehicles were +moving, when it was best to look carefully before crossing the streets. +It could not be due wholly to the absence of men and the diminution of +business--there was at least half of the ordinary volume of movement. +Nor was it altogether a cessation of that soft roar of traffic which +ordinarily enveloped Paris day and night. It was not exactly like Paris +on Sunday--except in the rue de la Paix--as I remembered Paris Sundays. +No, it was something quite new--the physical expression of that inner +silence, of that tenacity of mute will which I read in all the faces +that passed me. Paris was living within, or beyond--_la-bas_, all along +those hundreds of miles of earth walls from Flanders to the Vosges, +where for nine months their men had faced the invader. + +Most of the women one met were in black, almost every one wearing some +sort of mourning, for there was scarcely a family in France that had +not already paid its toll of life, many several times over. But the +faces of these women in black were calm and dry-eyed: there were few +outward signs of grief other than the mourning clothes, just an enduring +silence. "The time for our mourning is not yet," a Frenchman said whose +immediate family circle had given seven of its members. With some, one +felt, the time for weeping would never come: they had transmuted their +personal woe into devotion to others.... + +There was little loitering and gazing in at shop windows, few shoppers +in the empty stores these days. Everybody seemed to have something +important that must be done at once and had best be done in sober +silence. Even the wounded had lost the habit of telling their troubles. +Doctors and nurses related as one of the interesting phenomena in the +hospitals this dislike of talking about what they had been through, +even among the common soldiers. Most likely their experiences had been +too horrible for gossip. There was a conspiracy of silence, a tacit +recognition of the futility of words, and almost never a complaint! +One day a soldier walked a block to give me a direction, and in reply +to my inquiry pointed to his lower jaw where a deep wound was hidden +in a thick beard. "A ball," he said simply. It was the second wound +he had received, and that night he was going back to his _depot_. For +they went back again and again into that hell so close to this peaceful +Paris, and what happened there was too bad for words. It must be +endured in silence. + +There were not many troops on the streets,--at least French soldiers +and officers; there was a surprising number of English of all branches +of the service and a few Belgians. The French were either at the front +or in their _depots_ outside the city. On the Fourteenth of July, when +the remains of Rouget de Lisle, the author of the _Marseillaise_, were +brought to the Invalides, a few companies of city guards on horseback +and of colonial troops in soiled uniforms formed the escort down the +Champs Elysees behind the ancient gun carriage that bore the poet's ashes. +There were many wounded soldiers, hopelessly crippled or convalescing, in +the theaters, at the cafes, and on the streets. As the weeks passed they +seemed to become more numerous, though the authorities had taken pains to +keep Paris comparatively empty of the wounded. One met them hobbling down +the Elysees under the shade of the chestnut trees, in the metro, at the +cafes, the legless and armless, also the more horrible ones whose faces +had been shot awry. They were so young, so white-faced, with life's long +road ahead to be traveled, thus handicapped! There was something wistful +often in their silent eyes. + +To cope with the grist of wounded, the mass of refugees and destitute, +Paris was filled with relief organizations. The sign of some "_oeuvre_" +decorated every other building of any size, it seemed. Apart from the +numerous hospitals, there were hostels for the refugee women and +children, who earlier in the war had poured into Paris from the north +and east, workrooms for making garments, distributing agencies, etc. +All civilian Paris had turned itself into one vast relief organization +to do what it could to stanch the wounds of France. Of the relief and +hospital side of Paris I have the space to say little: much has been +written of it by those more competent than I. But in passing I cannot +refrain from my word of gratitude to those generous Americans who by +their acts and their gifts have put in splendid relief the timid +inanities of our official diplomacy. While the President has been +exchanging futile words with the Barbarian over the murders on the +Lusitania, to the bewilderment and contempt of the French nation, +the American Ambulance at Neuilly has offered splendid testimony +to the real feelings of the vast majority of true Americans, also +an excellent example of the generous American way of doing things. +That great hospital, as well as the American Clearing-House and the +individual efforts of many American men and women working in numberless +organizations, encourage a citizen from our rich republic to hold up +his head in spite of German-American disloyalty, gambling in munitions +stocks, and official timidity. + + * * * * * + +Already the French had realized the necessity of creating agencies +for bringing back into a life of activity and service the large +numbers of seriously wounded--to find for them suitable labor and +to reeducate their crippled faculties so that they could support +themselves and take heart once more. Schools were started for the +blind and the deaf, of whom the war has made a fearful number. I +remember meeting one of these pupils, a young officer, blind, with +one arm gone, and wounded in the face. On his breast was the Service +Cross and the cross of the Legion of Honor. He was led into the room +by his wife, a young school teacher from Algeria, who had given up +her position and come to Paris to nurse her fiance back to life and +hope. He was being taught telegraphy by an American teacher of the +blind. + +In such ways the people of Paris kept themselves from eating their +hearts out in grief and anxiety. + + * * * * * + +At three o'clock in the afternoons, when the day's _communique_ was +given out from the War Office, little groups gathered in front of +the windows of certain shops where the official report was posted. +They would scan the usually colorless lines in silence and turn away, +as though saying to themselves,--"Not to-day--then to-morrow!" The +newsless newspapers abounded in something perhaps more heartening +than favorable reports from the front--an endless chronicle of bravery +and devotion, of valor, heroism, and chivalry in the trench. That is +what fed the anxious hearts of the waiting people, details of the large, +heroic picture that France was creating so near at hand, _la-bas_. + +There were few occasions for popular gatherings. The taste for +"demonstrations" of any sort had gone out of the people. Sympathetic +crowds met the trains from Switzerland that contained the first of +the "_grands blesses_" the militarily useless wounded whom Germany at +last concluded to give back to their homes. And I recall one pathetic +sight which I witnessed by accident--the arrival of one of the long +trains from the front bringing back the first "_permissionnaires_" +those soldiers who had been given a three or four days' leave after +nine months in the trenches. In front of the Gare de l'Est a great +throng of women and children were kept back by rope and police, until +at the appearance of the uniformed men at the exit they surged forward +and sought out each her own man. There were little laughs and sobs and +kisses under the flaring gas lamps of the station yard until the last +_poilu_ had been claimed, and the crowd melted away into Paris. + + * * * * * + +Across the street from my hotel there was an elementary school; several +times each day a buzz of children's voices rose from the leafy yard +into which they were let out for their recess. Again the thin chorus of +children's voices came from the schoolroom. It seemed the one completely +natural thing in Paris, the one living thing unconscious of the war. Yet +even the school children were learning history in a way they will never +forget. In one of the provincial schools visited by an inspector, all +the pupils rose as a crippled child hobbled into the schoolroom. "He +suffered from the Germans," the teacher explained. "His mates always +rise when he appears." A French mother walking with her little boy in +one of the parks met a legless soldier, and turning to her child she +said sternly, as if to teach an unforgettable lesson,--"Do you see that +legless man? The _Boches_ did that--remember it!" In these ways the new +generation is learning its history, and it is not likely to forget it +for many years to come. + + * * * * * + +At dawn and dusk in Paris one was likely to hear the familiar buzz +of the aeroplane, and looking aloft could detect a dark spot in the +clear June sky--one of the aerial guard that keeps perpetual watch +over Paris. Sometimes when I came home at night through the dark +streets I could see the silver beams of their searchlights sweeping +like a friendly comet through the heavens, or watch the dimmed lamp +glowing like a red Mars among the lower stars, rising and falling +from space to space. Often I was awakened in the gray dawn by the +persistent hum of this winged sentry and looked down from my balcony +into the misty city beneath, securely sleeping, thanks to the incessant +watchfulness of these "eyes of Paris." The aviator would make wide +circles above the silent city, then swiftly turn back toward Issy and +breakfast. Thanks to the activity of the aerial guard the Zeppelins +have done very little damage in Paris and latterly have made no +attempts to sneak down on the city. It is too risky. They have succeeded +in killing some peaceable folk near the Gare du Nord, in dropping one +bomb on Notre Dame, I believe,--for which they have less excuse than +even for Louvain or Rheims,--and in making a big hole close to the +Trocadero. This after all the vaunted terrors of the Zeppelins! What +they have done, what they could do at the best is of the nature of +petty damage and occasional murder. Instead of terrorizing the Parisians +the Zeppelin raids have merely roused a vivid sense of sportsmanship +and curiosity among them--at first they had a real _reclame!_ + +Day by day as I lived in Paris the city took on more of its ordinary +activities and aspects. More people flowed by along the boulevards or +sat at the tables in front of the cafes, more shops opened--even the +great dressmaking establishments began to operate in an attempt to +restore commercial circulation. More transients flitted through the +city. There were more people of a Sunday in the Bois and at Vincennes. +Considering that less than a year before the national government had +left Paris, together with a million of its people, also that the +battle-line had remained all these months almost within hearing, it +was marvelous how quietly much of the ordinary machinery of life had +been set running again. Yet Paris was not the same. It was a Paris +almost wholly stripped to the outward eye of that parasitic luxury with +which it has catered to the self-indulgent of the world. Paris--as had +been the case with Italy--had returned under the stress of its tragedy +to its best self--a suffering, tense, deeply earnest self. If the nation +conquers--and there is not a Frenchman who believes any other solution +possible--victory will be of the highest significance to the race. It +will fix in the French people another character wrought in suffering--a +deeper, nobler, purer character than her enemies, or her friends for that +matter, have believed her to possess. Paris will never again become so +totally submerged in the business of providing international frivolities. +She has lived too long in the face of death. + + + + +II + + +_The Wounds of France_ + +The wounds of France are still bleeding. The trench wall still lies +for four hundred miles across the fair face of the country from the +Vosges to the North Sea, and the invader rules some of her richest +provinces, in all an area equal to something less than a tenth of +the whole. + +The wounds have already begun to heal in the marvelous manner of +nature: already life has begun again in the valley of the Marne; +the vineyards and grainfields run close up to the front trenches. +Yet even where the scar has covered the wound it is plain enough to +see how deep that wound has been. The scorched and bruised valley of +the Marne, the ruined villages of Champagne and Artois, have been +described many times by visiting journalists, yet it is worth while +to record once more some of the outstanding features of this rape +of France. + + * * * * * + +To begin with Senlis, which is one of the nearest points to Paris +reached by the German cyclone in September, 1914. There are fewer +older towns in France than Senlis, thirty miles or so northeast of +Paris, the center of the old "Island of France." Once a Roman camp +whose stout masonry walls can still be seen for considerable distances, +it had a mediaeval castle, and, until the greater grandeur of Beauvais +stole the honor, was a bishopric with a lovely small Gothic cathedral. +Its lofty gray spire dominates the green fields and thick woods in the +midst of which Senlis sleeps away the modern day. There are other +curious and beautiful examples of Gothic building in Senlis: indeed, +just here, the experts find the first workings of the principles of +pure Gothic architecture, transforming the round-arched, thick-walled +Norman building. If for nothing more Senlis would have amply earned its +right to live always as the birthplace of French Gothic. + +What happened to Senlis when the German troops visited it can be +seen at a glance to-day. From the railroad station at one end of +the town to the green fields beyond the hospital on the Chantilly +road at the other end, a black swath of burned and ruined buildings +is the memento. These houses and stores were not shelled: they were +burned methodically. The Germans arrived late in the afternoon of +the 2d of September, in that state of nervous excitement and hysterical +fear of _francs-tirailleurs_ that characterized them from the time +they passed Liege. The Mayor of Senlis, an old man over seventy, was +made to understand that he would be held responsible for the conduct +of the citizens, and was ordered to have water and lights turned on +in the town and a dinner for the German staff prepared at the chief +hotel. While he was busy with these commands,--most of the inhabitants +had fled that morning,--shots were exchanged in the lower end of the +town between the Germans and the retreating French. Thereupon the usual +order to burn and destroy was given, and the buildings along the main +thoroughfare were set on fire. The mayor and six other citizens, +gathered haphazard on the streets, were taken to a field outside the +town and shot. There were other moving and significant incidents in +the occupation of Senlis which are well authenticated, characteristic +of the German method, but need not be repeated here. + +The older part of the town, the cathedral, the Roman wall fortunately +escaped with only a few chance shell holes here and there. The black +scar runs through the place from end to end, incontrovertible instance +of the German thing, which has been visited by thousands of French and +foreigners the past year. The wounds of Senlis are not deep: by +comparison with much else done by the Germans they are almost trivial. +The murder of the Mayor of Senlis was not a large crime in the German +scale. But the whole is nicely typical: Senlis is the kindergarten +lesson in the German method of making war. + + * * * * * + +As every one knows, the Germans breaking into France at Namur and +Mons came on with unexampled rapidity from the north and east toward +the south and west, circled somewhat to the west as they neared Paris, +and then the 5th of September recoiled under the shock of the French +offensive. For the better part of a week two millions of men struggled +on a thousand different battlefields from Nancy and Verdun on the east +to Coulommiers, Meaux, and Amiens on the south and west. This was the +great battle of the Marne, which checked the German invasion. The +pressure of this human cyclone, in general from northeast to southwest, +was more intense in some places than others. One of the bloodiest storm +centers lay east and west from the town of Vitry-le-Francois--from +Sermaize-les-Bains on the east to Fere-le-Champenoise, Montmirail, and +Esternay on the west. For fifty miles there in the heart of Champagne +the path of the cyclone can be traced by the blackened villages, the +gutted churches, the countless crosses in the midst of green fields. + +One thinks of Champagne as a land of vineyards, but here in the +center and south of the fertile province there are few vines, mostly +fields of ripening wheat, green alfalfa, or beets--long undulating +swales of rich fields, cut by little copses of thick woods and by +white poplar-lined highways as everywhere in France. It has peculiarly +that smiling and gracious air of _la douce France_--gently sloping +fields and woods and little gray stone villages each with its small +church ornamented by the square tower and spire of Champenoise Gothic. +And it was here that the blast struck hardest, along the little streams, +in the thick copses, up and down the straight roads whose deep ditches +lent themselves to entrenchment, and in almost every village and +crossroads hamlet. + +It is a country of few towns, of many small villages, farm and manor +houses. The buildings cluster in the hollows or about the crossroads, +and sometimes they escaped the storm because the shells exchanged +from hill to hill went quite over their roofs; again, as was the +case with Huiron just outside Vitry or with Maurupt near by, they +could not escape because they were perched on hills, and they were +almost completely razed by the fierce fire that raked them for days. +Sometimes they escaped shell and machine gun to be burned to the +ground vengefully with incendiary bombs, as at Sermaize-les-Bains, +where of nine hundred buildings less than forty were left standing +after the Germans retreated. These instances are the saddest of all +because so wanton! There was scarcely a single collection of houses +in that fifty miles which I traversed which did not bear its ugly +scar of fire and shell, scarcely a farmhouse that was not crumbled +or peppered with machine-gun bullets. Miles of desolation may be +seen in a couple of hours' drive around Vitry-le-Francois,--Favresse, +Blesmes, Ecrinnes, Thieblemont, Maurupt, Vauclerc,--with acre upon +acre of ruined buildings, a chimney standing here and there, heaps +of twisted iron that once were farm machines, withered trees--and +graves, everywhere soldiers' graves. + +The churches suffered most, probably because they were used for +temporary defense. At Huiron the upper half of the thirteenth-century +Gothic church had been shaved off--in the ten-foot deep mass of debris +lay the richly carved capitals of the massive pillars. At Ecrinnes near +by the apse of the exquisite little church had been blown off, leaving +the front and spire intact. At Maurupt the whole edifice, which commanded +the rolling countryside for miles, was riddled from end to end. Again, +I would enter an apparently sound building to find a pile of rubbish in +the nave, a gaping hole in the roof. And the same thing was true about +Bar-le-Duc to the east and Meaux to the west. It is safe to say that in +a fifty-mile wide stretch from Nancy to the English Channel not one +village in ten has escaped the scourge. + + * * * * * + +I speak of the churches because of their irreplaceable +beauty, the human tenderness of their relation with the earth. +But even more poignant, perhaps, were the wrecks of little country +homes--the stacks of ruined farm machinery, the gutted barns, the +burned houses. In many cases not a habitable building was left after +the cyclone passed. In one hamlet of thirty houses near Esternay I +remember, all but seven had been devastated--by incendiary fire. +Indeed, it was clearly distinguishable--the "legitimate" wrack of +war, from the deliberate spite of incendiarism. Maurupt was the one +case, Sermaize-les-Bains (where there was no fighting) the other. If +it had been simple war, shell and machine gun, probably fifty per cent +or more of the devastation would have been saved. But the German makes +war against an entire country, inanimate as well as animate. + +The inhabitants of these ruins had come back in many instances--where +else had they to go? Swept up before the blast of the cyclone, they had +fled south over the fields and hard white roads, then crept back a few +days after the cyclone had passed to find their homes pillaged, burned, +their villages blackened scars on the earth. But they stayed there! The +English Society of Friends has given some money with which to put up +wooden huts, on which old men and Belgian refugees were working when I +passed that way. There is a French charity that tries to outfit these +new homes in the devastated districts, one of the numberless efforts of +the French to put their national house in order. But for all that charity +can do, the lot of these villagers is a bitter one: their strong men have +gone to the front; old men, women, and children are left to scratch the +fields, and exist miserably in the cellars, underneath bits of corrugated +iron roof, in tiny wooden huts. But they have planted their potatoes, in +the ruins in some cases, and have taken up sturdily the struggle of +existence in the wreck of their old homes. The children play among the +crumbling walls, the women go barefoot to the public well for water. The +fields have been sown and harvested somehow. Until the Germans can kill +off the French peasant women, they can never hope to conquer France. + +Compared with the burning of homes, the razing of villages, mere +pilfering and looting seem commonplace, unreprehensible crimes. Yet +the loss of property by plain theft is no inconsiderable item in that +bill which France expects to present some day. The old chateaux that +were fouled and gutted by the invader, the trainloads of plunder that +went back to German cities, the emptied cellars and ransacked houses +have fed the fire of disgust and loathing which the French feel for +their foe. Yet they should not begrudge the invader the extraordinary +quantity of good wine which he consumed on his raid, because the +victory of the Marne was doubtless won in part by the aid of the +champagne bottle! + + * * * * * + +When I passed through the Marne valley the fields were being harvested +for the first time since those fatal days in September. Among the +harvesters were a number of middle-aged men with the soldiers' _kepi_, +who had been given leave to make the crop, which was unusually abundant. +The fields of old Champagne, watered with the best blood of France, had +yielded their richest returns. Outside the charred and crumbled ruins +of the villages one might have forgotten the fact of war were it not for +the graves. Here and there the corner of some wood where a battery had +been placed was mowed as if cut by a giant reaper. The tall poplars +along the roadsides had been ripped and torn as by a violent storm. Some +hillsides were scarred with ripples from burrowing shells, and hastily +made trenches had not yet been ploughed completely under. But over the +undulating golden fields it would be difficult to trace the course of +the tempest were it not for the crosses above the graves, thousands upon +thousands of them,--singly, in clumps, in long lines where the dead +bodies had been brought out of the copses and buried side by side in +trenches, or where at a crossroads a little cemetery had been made to +receive the dead of the vicinity. + +Often as you crawled along in a train you could follow the battle by +the bare spots left in the fields around the graves. They will never +be ploughed under and sown, not even the graves of Germans, not in +the richest land. Generally they were carefully fenced off, almost +always with a simple cross on the point of which hung the soldier's +_kepi_ whenever it was found with the body. It is remarkable, considering +the scarcity of hands, the desolation of the country, the difficulty of +existence, what tender care has been given these graves of the unknown +dead. Many of them were decorated with fresh flowers or those metal +wreaths that the Europeans use, and where a company lay together a +little monument had been erected with a simple inscription. It would +seem that these Champenoise peasants still retain some of that pagan +reverence for the dead which their Latin ancestors had cultivated, +mingled with passionate love for those who gave themselves in defense +of _la patrie._ + +So for years to come the beautiful fields of France will be strewn +with these little spots of sanctuary where Frenchmen died fighting +the invader. The fields are already green again: Nature is doing her +best to remove the scars of battle from this land where so often in +the past ages she has been called upon to heal the wounds inflicted +by men. Nature will have completed her task long before the ruined +villages can be restored, long, long before the scars in men's hearts +made by this ruthless invasion can be healed. Another generation, +that of the little children playing in the ruins of their fathers' +homes, must grow up with hate in their hearts and die before the +wounds can be forgotten. + + * * * * * + +The Germans were shelling Rheims the day I was there. From the +little Mountain of Rheims, five miles away on the Epernay road, I +could see the gray and black clouds from bursting shells rise in the +mist around the massive cathedral. An observation balloon was floating +calmly over the hill beyond, directing the fire on the desolated city. +It was necessary to wait outside the town until a lull came in the +bombardment, and when our motor at last entered, it was like speeding +through a city of the dead, with crushed walls, weed-grown streets, +and empty silence everywhere save for the low whine of the big shells. +With the five or six hundred large shells hurled into Rheims that one +day, the Germans killed three civilians, wounded eighteen more, and +knocked over some hollow houses already gutted in previous bombardments. +They did not damage the cathedral that day, though several explosions +occurred within a few feet of the building. + +There were no soldiers, no artillery in Rheims--there have not been +any for many months. Of its one hundred and thirty thousand people, +only twenty thousand were left hiding in cellars, skulking along the +walls, clinging to their homes in the immense desolation of the city +with that tenacity which is peculiarly French. In the afternoon when +the fire ceased the boys were playing in the streets and women sat in +front of their cellar homes sewing. They have adapted themselves to +sudden death. They move about from hole to hole in the wilderness of +shattered buildings. For the city had been gutted by the acre: street +after street was nothing but an empty shell of walls that crumpled up +from time to time and tottered over. Within lay an indescribable mass +of household articles, merchandise, all that once had been homes and +stores and factories. Around the cathedral there was a peculiar silence, +for this quarter of the city which received most of the shells is +absolutely deserted. The grass grew high between the stones in the +pavement all about. The sun was throwing golden cross-lights over the +battered walls as I came into the deserted square and stood beside the +little figure of Jeanne d'Arc before the great portal. As seen from +afar, now in the full nearer view, the amazing thing was the majesty +of the windowless, roofless, defaced cathedral. Acres of other buildings +have crumbled utterly, but not even the German guns have succeeded in +smashing the dignity out of this ancient altar of French royalty. It +still stands firm and mighty, dominating its ruined city, as if too old, +too deeply rooted in the soil of France to be crushed by her enemies. +After a year of bombardment it still raised its mutilated face in dumb +protest above the crumbling dwellings of its people, whom it could no +longer protect from the barbarian. + +Not that the Germans have spared the cathedral in their senseless +bombardment of Rheims! From that first day, when their own wounded +lay within its walls and were carried out of the burning building +by the French, until the morning I was there, when a shell tore at +the ground beneath the buttresses hitherto untouched, the Germans +seem to have taken a special malignant delight in shelling the +cathedral. They have already damaged it beyond the possibility of +complete repair, even should their hearts at this late day be +miraculously touched by shame for what they have done and their guns +should cease from further desecration. The glorious glass has already +been broken into a million fragments; many of the finely executed +mouldings and figures--irreplaceable specimens of a forgotten art--have +been crushed; great wall spaces pounded and marred. It is as if a huge, +fat German hand had ground itself across a delicately moulded face, +smearing and smudging with vindictive energy its glorious beauty. +Rheims Cathedral must bear these brutal German scars forever, even +should the vandal hand be stayed now. It can never again be what it +was--the full, marvelous flowering of Gothic art, precious heritage +from dim centuries long past. Like a woman at the full flower of her +life who has been raped and defiled, all the perfection of her ripened +being defaced in a moment of lust, she will live on afterward with a +certain grandeur of horror in her eyes, of tragic dignity that can +never utterly be erased from her outraged person.... + +A French officer, speculating on the German intentions with that +admirably dispassionate intelligence with which the French consider +these brutal manifestations of the German mind, remarked, "At present +they seem engaged in ringing the cathedral with their fire, as if to +see how close they can come without hitting the building itself, but +of course from that distance they must sometimes miss." One theory +why the enemy pursues this unmilitary monument with such peculiarly +relentless ferocity is that they enjoy the outcry which their vandalism +creates. Moreover, it is a way of boasting to the world that they have +not yet been expelled from their positions behind Rheims, are not being +driven back. If any special explanation were needed, I should find it +rather in the fact that Rheims is peculiarly associated with French +history,--minster of her kings,--and its destruction would be especially +bruising to French pride. William the Second probably swells with +magnitude at the thought of destroying with his big guns this sanctuary +of French kings. Some of the graven kings still cling to their niches +in the lofty facade. Two have been taken to the ground for safety and +look out with horror in their blind eyes at the ruin all about them. +The little figure of Jeanne d'Arc, rescuer of a French king, still +stands untouched before the great portal, astride her prancing horse, +bravely waving her bronze flag. Around her were heaped garlands of +fresh flowers, touching evidence that the city of Rheims still holds +stout souls with faith in the ultimate salvation of their great church, +who lay their tribute at the feet of the virgin warrior. Once she +protected their ancestors from a less barbarous enemy. + +What use to enumerate the wounds and outrages in minute detail? For +by to-day more of this unique beauty has gone to that everlasting +grave from which no German skill can resurrect it.... Within, the +cathedral has been less spoiled, but is even sadder. One walked over +the stone pavement crunching fragments of the purple glass that had +fallen from the gorgeous windows, now sightless. Once at this hour +it was all aglow with color, radiating a mysterious splendor into +the vaults of transept and nave. A shell had blasted its way into +one corner, another had rent the roof vaulting near the crossing of +transept and nave. The columns and arches were blackened by the smoke +of that fire which caught in the straw on which the German wounded +lay. There was something peculiarly forlorn, ghostly within the dim +ruins of what was once so great, and I was glad to escape to the old +hospital in the close, now turned into a hospital for the cathedral +itself. Here on benches and in piles about the floor of the low-vaulted +room had been gathered those fragments of statue and moulding that a +pious search could rescue from the debris around the cathedral. In this +room, while the German guns were still raining shells upon Rheims, an +old man in workman's apron was already moulding casts of the faces and +lines of the shattered stones so that in some happier day an effort to +reproduce them might be made. I saw between his trembling old fingers +the fine features of a stone angel which he was covering with clay. I +know of nothing more beautifully eloquent of the French spirit than +this labor of preservation. Within range of shell fire this old man +was calmly working to save what he might of the beauty that had been +so prodigally murdered. If spiritual laws are still operative in this +mad world of ours, the Latin must endure and conquer because of his +unshakable faith.... + +At the hill on the Epernay road I looked back for a last view of the +cathedral. The evening mist was already creeping over its scarred +walls. With the two towers lifting the great portal to the sky, it +dominated the valley, the ruined city at its feet, a monument of men's +aspirations raising its head high into the sky in spite of the unseen +missiles that even then were beginning once more their attack. I would +that these words might go to swell that cry which has gone up from all +civilized peoples at the sacrilege to Rheims! Even now something of its +majesty and its glory might be saved if the German guns were silenced--if +within the German nation there were left any respect for the ancient +decencies and traditions of man. But I know too well with what contempt +the Germans view such pleas for beauty, for old memories and loves. They +are but "sentimental weakness," in the words of the "War Book," along +with respect for defenseless women and children. The people who gloried +in the sinking of the Lusitania will hardly be moved to refrain from the +destruction of a cathedral. Rheims--unless saved by a miracle--is doomed. +And it is because neither beauty nor humanity, neither ancient tradition +nor common pity can touch the modern German, that this war must be fought +to a real finish. There is not room in this world for the German ideal +and the Latin ideal: one must die. + + * * * * * + +The tragedy of Rheims has been repeated again and again--at Soissons, +at Arras, at Ypres, in every town and village throughout that blackened +band of invaded France from the Vosges to the sea. Also the tragedy of +exiled and imprisoned country folk, of ruined farms and houses, of mere +destruction. + +The wounds of France are so many, the outward physical bleeding of +the land is so vast, that volumes have been written already as the +record. Very little can be said or written about another wound,--the +lives of those in the invaded provinces behind the German lines,--for +almost nothing is known as to what has happened there, what is going +on now. A word now and then comes from that dead, no man's land; a +rare fugitive escapes from the conqueror's hand. The military rule +forbids any correspondence through neutrals, as is permitted prisoners +of war, to those held "behind the lines." The inhabitants are kept as +prisoners. Worse, they have been used at certain places along the front +as bucklers against the fire of their countrymen--in a quarry near +Soissons, at Saint-Mihiel. It is known that heavy imposts are laid upon +them, as at Lille, and that the invader is exploiting this richest part +of France's industrial territory. This last wound is, perhaps, the most +serious of all for France, in this modern, machine war. Latterly rumor +has it that the treatment of the inhabitants imprisoned behind the +German lines has become less rigorous, because, as a French general +explained,--"They hope to make peace with us--_quelle sale race!_" + +These wounds are still bleeding. They cannot be ignored. They, as +well as the death, suffering, and agony of the long trench combat, +make the faces of the French tense, silent. "To think that they are +still here after a whole year since this happened!" a young Frenchman +exclaimed in bitterness of soul as we looked out over the thickly +scattered graves in the fields around Bercy. To him it was as if a +crazed and drunken marauder had taken possession of his house, burned +a part of it, and still caroused in another wing. The unforgettable, +unforgivable wounds of France! + +The French, so clear-seeing, so reasonable even about their own +tragedies, are bitter to the soul when they think of the brutality +done to their _"douce France."_ To the French, quite as much as to +the Bryanited American, war is a senseless, inhuman thing; but it +becomes direfully necessary when the home has been burned and laid +waste. The Gallic spirit cannot understand that spirit of malevolent +destruction which vengefully wreaks its spite against defenseless and +inanimate works of age to be reverenced, of art to be loved. There are +certain scrupulosities of soul in the Latin that divide him from his +enemy, more effectually than a thousand years of life and an entire +world of space. + + + + +III + + +_The Barbarian_ + +The barbarian, as the Greeks used the word, was not necessarily a +person or a people without civilization. Indeed, certain ancient +peoples known as barbarians had a high degree of luxury, civilization. +The Persians under the barbarian Xerxes were probably quite the equals +in the mechanics of civilization of the Greeks, and the Egyptians could +lay claim to a large amount of what even the Greeks considered culture. +The barbarian was a person or a nation without a spiritual sense in his +values. The barbarian was often strong, able, intelligent, "organized" +as we say, but he was incapable of self-government: the barbarian nations +were ruled despotically. Their position in the world depended upon the +force and the ability of the particular despot who got control of their +destinies. The barbarian peoples were often crude in what is called +fine art. They neither believed in nor practiced those amenities of daily +life which express themselves superficially in manners, more deeply in +sensitive inhibitions, nor those amenities of the soul which are known +as honor, justice, mercy. The barbarian despised as soft and degenerate +such persons as permitted themselves to be trammeled in their conduct by +non-utilitarian considerations. In his primitive state the barbarian's +instinct was to destroy what he could not understand; as he became more +sophisticated, his instinct was to imitate what he could not create. + +What, above all, the barbarian cannot appreciate is the suave mean +of life, the ideal of individual human excellence, of a tempered +social control, the liberty of the individual within the fewest +possible restrictions to work out his own scheme of existence, his +own civilization. For the barbarian mind recognizes only two sorts +of beings--the master and the slave. One is a tyrant and the other +is a docile imitation of manhood. The barbarian never totally dies +from the world. In every race, in every nation, in every community +fine examples of the barbarian instinct, the barbarian philosophy +of existence can be found. I have known personally a great many +barbarians,--American life is full of them,--and my knowledge of +them, of their strengths and their limitations, has given me my +understanding of the modern German as manifested in this world war. + + * * * * * + +Real truth often underlies popular nomenclature. It is neither accident +nor a desire to abuse that has given the German the name of barbarian +in the Latin nations. Just as the Latin peoples are the inheritors of +Greek ideals, so the German peoples seem to be the active modern +protagonists of all that the Greeks meant by their term "barbarian." +The French before the war regarded the Germans as not wholly well-bred +persons, lacking in some of those niceties of feeling and conduct which +seemed to them important--"_parvenus_" as a French officer characterized +his feeling about the race, and added the descriptive adjective +"_sale_"--dirty. Since the war there has been ground into the French the +more awful inhumanities of which these _parvenus_ are capable. Therefore, +when they think of the German, there comes instinctively to their lips +the ancient term of complete distinction,--_les barbares_,--by which is +meant a person and a nation who are not governed by ideals of taste, +honor, humanity, what to the non-barbarian are summed up in the one +word "decency." The adjective that the officer used--"_sale_"--does +not imply necessarily literal physical dirt, but a moral callousness +and unrefinement of soul which in the spiritual realm corresponds with +the term "dirty" in the physical. He sees the soul of the German as a +dirty soul, unclean, unsqueamish. And this conception of the enemy has +given to the French soldier something of that crusader spirit which has +sustained him through his terrible conflict. As M. Emile Hovelaque has +expressed it,--"France is fighting the battle of humanity, of the world, +of America, of every nation, man, and child who are resolved to live +their own life in their own way, under the dictates of their conscience, +within the limits of the laws they have accepted." The battle of the +world to push back once more the pest of barbarism! It is that which +has roused French chivalry, French heroism, not merely the love of +the _patrie_. Indeed, for the higher spirits the _patrie_ is closely +identified with the non-barbaric ideals of humanity. + + * * * * * + +The whole conscious world has had the manifestations of the new +barbarism before its eyes for an entire year and more. It has recoiled +in disgust from the invasion of Belgium, the sinking of the Lusitania, +the shooting of Edith Cavell, from the wanton destruction of monuments. +All these barbarities are indisputable facts, which may be explained +and extenuated, but cannot be denied. There is another class of +barbarities,--the so-called "atrocities,"--which are more easily denied, +but which most people who have taken the trouble to examine the charges +know to be equally true. The record of these multiplied atrocities is +so enormous and so well authenticated that it would seem to me useless +to add any words to the theme were it not for an amazing attitude of +indifference to the subject on the part of many Americans. "We don't +want to hear any more atrocity stories," they say. "Perhaps the +atrocities have been exaggerated, probably there's truth on both sides. +Anyway, war is brutal as every one knows." Some newspapers will not +publish the atrocity charges, whether because of our popular prejudice +against anything "unpleasant" unless freshly sensational or because of +more sinister reasons, the reader may judge. + +This attitude is both evasive and cowardly. It is essential to +understand the atrocity for a proper realization of the war and of +the German menace. It is false to say that all war is barbarous, and +that in every war similar atrocities have occurred. As Mr. Hilaire +Belloc has well said,--"Men have often talked during this war ... as +though the crime accompanying Prussian activities in the field were +normal to warfare.... It is of the very first importance to appreciate +the truth that Prussia in this campaign has postulated in one point +after another new doctrines which repudiate everything her neighbors +have held sacred from the time when a common Christianity first began +to influence the states of Europe. The violation of the Belgian +territory is on a par with the murder of civilians in cold blood, and +after admission of their innocence, with the massacre of priests and +the sinking without warning of unarmed ships with their passengers and +crews. To regard these things as something normal to warfare in the past +is as monstrous an historical error as it would be to regard the Reign +of Terror during the French Revolution as normal to civil disputes +within the states." + +It is the business of every person who is concerned about anything +more than his own selfish fate to examine into the atrocity charges +and to convince himself, not only of the truth, but of the more serious +implications in their premeditated and persistent character. The record +has been well made, fortunately, often in judicial form. It is already +voluminous and being added to constantly. Best of all the evidence, +perhaps, are the German diaries of soldiers and officers, extracts of +which have been edited by Professor Bedier, of the College de France, +with facsimile photographs of the texts. Next I should place in evidence +the so-called German "War Book" ("Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege"), where +under the convenient title of "Indispensable Severities" may be found +the text for many of the worst atrocities committed in Belgium and +France. + +If the atrocity charge against the Germans is false or exaggerated, +it is surely time to know it, but no mere denial or general argument +can be accepted in rebuttal. The world must convince itself of the +truth. The German crimes have been too many and too public, too well +authenticated by witnesses to be disproved by mere denial. The best +public opinion of the world has condemned military Germany as a +barbarous outlaw. The crimes committed with the connivance of the +supreme military authorities, authorized by their instructions to +their officers, have fouled the name German for eternity: it will +be coupled with Vandal, Tartar, Barbarian. + + * * * * * + +I believe the atrocity charges to be substantially true in a vast +majority of cases. Moreover, I do not believe that half the truth of +them has been told or ever will be. My reasons for this belief in the +atrocity charge are the following: First, undisputed crimes, such as +the Lusitania and Cavell cases. A government that would sanction these +murders would sanction all other atrocities. Second, the witness of +persons in whose credibility I have confidence, such as French officers +and civilians, nurses and doctors, whose occupations have thrown +first-hand evidence in their way, who have personal knowledge of +specific outrages. Third, from what I myself gathered while I was in +France from the lips of abused persons. Although I did not look for +atrocities, I could not avoid getting reports from such people as I +met in the devastated territory of the Marne, weighing their stories, +and estimating the validity of them. + +I believe in the truthfulness of that abbe of Esternay, who was one +of the unfortunates that the Germans used as a screen before the +operations of a body of troops. I believe in the truthfulness of the +keen old peasant woman at Chatillon, whose home had been riddled by +German bullets and who had been fired at when she took refuge in the +cellar of her house, and of many others with whom I talked of their +experiences during the early days of September, 1914. Unfortunately, +there was no photographer at work those days along the Marne valley, +though no doubt the German denying office would instantly impugn the +evidence of a photograph of the act. Each one of us, however, has his +own inner instinctive tests of truth to which he puts the credibility +of a story, and I believe the abbe, the old woman, and many others +who suffered abominably at the hands of German soldiers. + +One fact only too evident to anybody who has followed in German +footsteps through the valley of the Marne is the part that mere +drunkenness had in this affair. The flower of the German army was +incredibly drunken throughout the advance into France. Pillage, rape, +incendiarism followed inevitably. They are common crimes to be expected +where an exhausted soldiery is inflamed with drink. But the cowardly +slaughter of non-combatants, the wanton destruction of monuments, the +brutal tyrannies toward conquered peoples--these are the blacker crimes +against the German name. + + * * * * * + +Self-control is not a Teutonic ideal. Of all the psychological surprises +that the war has revealed, the exhibition of the German temperament has +not been one of the least. Not its frank philosophic materialism, which +any one who had followed the drift of German thought and literature might +have expected, but its extraordinary lack of self-control. English and +Americans are taught that an individual who cannot master his own temper +is unfit to master others. Yet here is a people pretending to world rule +whose tempers individually are so little under control that they explode +in senseless passion on the least provocation. The German nation froths +with hate first against the English because they were neither as cowardly +nor selfish as had been expected, then against the Italians because they +would not listen to Prince von Buelow's song, latterly against Americans +because the United States dared to question the divine right of Germany +to do with neutrals what she pleased. Judging from the German press and +from the Germans whom I have met, the German nation is living in a +ferment of rage, all the more extraordinary as the fighting seems to +have gone their way thus far. What would happen to this uncontrolled +people should the war take an unfavorable turn and not supply them with +daily victories? Self-control is not included in that famous German +discipline. Uncontrolled tempers, drink, the ordinary fund of brutality +in the pit of human beings with the extraordinary conditions of war +will explain much of all this barbarism--but not all. + +The supreme evidence of German atrocities is to be found in the +infamous "Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege," a singular revelation of +national character in which the German general staff has summed +up for young officers the principles that should govern the conduct +of invading armies. One finds here,--"By steeping himself in military +history an officer will be able to guard himself against excessive +humanitarian notions; it will teach him that certain severities +are indispensable to war, nay, more, that the only true humanity +very often lies in a ruthless application of them." This convenient +generalization covers the multitude of Belgian crimes. This interesting +manual of conduct for officers further warns against "sentimentalism +and flabby emotion," such as are embodied in the Hague Conventions, +and after stating the generally accepted rule or custom of warfare +warns that exceptions are always permissible where the officer deems +exceptional severities are "indispensable." After perusing the +"Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege," need one seek more evidence of German +atrocities from the levying of confiscatory fines upon conquered +peoples to the use of noncombatants as human screens in military +operations? The germ of the barbarous system is there contained in +its entirety. + + * * * * * + +But the implication of all this is much deeper than might appear on the +surface. Such a theory of warfare as is set forth in the "War Book," as +has been exemplified throughout the war, having its climax to date in +the murder of Edith Cavell, is not the result of uncontrolled passions +wrought to ferocity. It is deliberate, preconceived, defended,--an +article of faith intimately bound up with the German ideal of the state. +There is the danger. That the precept of the higher military authorities +is accepted by the general public may be seen in the following passage +from the Hamburg "Fremdenblatt"--or is it but a press note inserted by +the high commandment? "Toxic gases are simply a new instrument of +warfare; they are condemned because they are not universally adopted.... +In warfare humanity does not exist and cannot exist. All the lucubrations +of the Hague Conferences on this subject are childish babbling. New +technical knowledge gives new arms to those who are not fools and know +how to use them.... Knowledge creates power, power creates law, law +creates humanity. All these are changing ideas and Germans are not +disposed to discuss them during the war." + +An Indian on the warpath scalps, burns, tortures, and we say it is +the Indian nature to do these things. So-called civilized white men +have gone on the loose in and out of war and have done many shameful +deeds: we blush for them and draw the veil. But what never before has +been accomplished is to have barbarism deliberately inculcated as +part of the policy of warfare by a so-called civilized state; also +warfare considered to be the flower of statecraft. Clausewitz lays +down the principle that war is the legitimate carrying-out of state +policy; the state relies upon war to execute its designs. The German +military authorities announce and print for the use of their officers +that in war deviation from any recognized principle of conduct is +permitted under the excuse of "indispensable severity"--for the sake +of terrorizing hostile peoples--and humanitarianism is condemned as +"sentimentalism and flabby emotion." + +There we have the gist of the whole affair--what makes the Frenchman +instinctively consider the German to be a barbarian, what makes modern +Germany the menace of the entire world. It is not its militaristic +ideals, its mechanical civilization, not even its brutality and +vulgarity, not even the ferocity of its warfare: it is the methodical +application of this underlying principle of conduct which has been +inculcated into the people so that they rejoice at the sinking of the +Lusitania, which has been employed in this war systematically from the +first day. This is the barbarian essence of the German character. + +It is not the raping of women, not the staff officers' drunken +orgies in chateaux, not the looting and burning of houses, not the +stupid treatment of Belgians and French "hostages," etc. All these +are distressing but not necessarily characteristic. It is the principle +of the legitimacy of evil provided only that evil works to the advantage +of the German state. That is the vicious term in the German syllogism. +The state can do no wrong: therefore the individual acting for the state +can do no wrong. The one supreme end sanctioned by divine authority is +the endurance and the magnification of the German state. Whatever a +German may do or cause to be done with this holy end in view is not +merely just and reasonable, but necessary and praiseworthy. Hence there +follows, naturally, the vile system of German espionage, of propaganda +in neutral countries, the indiscriminate use of the submarine weapon, +terrorization, military murders of civilians, and all the rest of the +long count against Germany. Assume the vital major premise and the rest +follows inevitably, provided her citizens are both docile and have a +natural fund of brutality. + + * * * * * + +"In warfare humanity does not exist and cannot exist. All the +lucubrations of the Hague Conferences on this subject are childish +babbling.... Knowledge creates power, power creates law, law creates +humanity. All these are changing ideas." + +The world has known the barbarian always; we are all acquainted with +him from personal experience. But the world has never before known a +reasoned, intellectual barbarism, a barbarian that has elevated into +a philosophy of human life with the sanctions of religion his instincts +and impulses. And that is the menace of the German, not his force nor +his brutality, but the risk that he can successfully impose upon the +world such an atrocious creed, intimidating into imitation those cowardly +souls whom he does not care to conquer. If Germany were to win this war, +it would not be her bumptious aggression that the world ought to fear +so much as the enormous impulse it would give to her detestable creed, +to the principle of evil in the world. The danger for us Americans is +greater than for others, not because of exposed coasts and an unprepared +army, but because we are already tainted with the same raw materialism +of belief. Too many individuals in America would find a sympathetic +echo in their own hearts to the German creed of collective selfishness +and barbarism. + + * * * * * + +One heard in Paris surprisingly little about German atrocities, less +than in Boston and New York, much less than in London. Not that the +French do not believe them: they know the bitter truth about German +inhumanity as none others. With that admirable stoicism and lucid +conservation of moral force displayed by the French from the beginning, +they do not waste their strength in denunciation: they have accepted +it as one of the terrible aspects of the evil they are fighting. They +probably understand the German character as now wholly revealed better +than the rest of the world and are not so much surprised by its +manifestations. They have examined the German, and have fortified +themselves against his cruel power. + +But they cannot forget these incredible outrages. There are too many +fresh examples--too many robbed and maltreated refugees, too many +fatherless and motherless children, still coming to Paris by the +trainload, whom they must provide for, too many relatives and friends +who have been abused and murdered or whose property has been looted +by German soldiers and officers. Also there are too many Frenchmen +who have seen the horrors with their own eyes, too many doctors and +stretcher-bearers shot down by those they were trying to aid, too many +hospitals bombarded, too many wounded prisoners killed. The German +atrocity is documented in France over and over, within the knowledge +of millions. It will prove to be Germany's great stumbling-block after +the war, when she looks about a shocked world for peoples to trade with. + + * * * * * + +In the dining-room of the military club at Commercy, where a corps +of the French army now has its headquarters, there is a wall painting +of the last century representing the heroic deeds of Jeanne d'Arc. +"That," said General C., pointing to the little figure on horseback, +"is French! And the French have fought this war chivalrously--not +against monuments, against women and children and old people, but +as soldiers against soldiers!" + +The Latin is sometimes cruel--he has within him the capacity for +cruelty--and the history of Latin peoples is stained here and there +with ferocity. But the Latin has never organized cruelty methodically, +has never elevated terrorization into a principle of warfare, a weapon +of statecraft. For one thing he is too intelligent: he knows that +cruelty begets reprisals, that brutality breeds hate. After Alsace +the German should have known too much to try the same method in harsher +forms upon Belgium and invaded France. But the barbarian learns no +spiritual lessons. Persian atrocity, Saracen atrocity, Indian atrocity, +Spanish atrocity--they have all failed. An enduring triumph was never +won on that principle of "indispensable severity." + +It is barbarism as well as the barbarian which France is fighting, +and the French know it, are profoundly conscious of it, from the +cool, dispassionate philosopher, like Bergson or Boutroux or Hovelaque, +to the girl conductor on the tram, the dirty _poilu_ in the trench. +For more than a generation the French world has suffered from the +fear of this new barbarian, and the time has come again, as it has +come so many times before in history, for the momentous decision with +the barbarian. Again as before it must come on the fields of France +where the ancient curse of barbarism has been met and destroyed. + + + + +IV + + +_The German Lesson_ + +The barbarian must be met on his own ground of force and efficiency,--"an +eye for an eye," not with arguments or apologies, not even with numbers +or wealth. The vital question for us all to-day is not how unprepared the +Allies were for the onslaught of barbarism, but how far they have overcome +their handicap, how thoroughly they have learned the barbarian's lesson. +The varying degrees in which the different allied nations have grasped +the meaning of the lesson and applied it tell us not merely their chance +of survival, but also the probable outcome of the world decision. What +that lesson is which Germany is teaching the world by blood and iron is +a byword on men's tongues to-day: the value of it is another question. + + * * * * * + +Long before the war, Germany had published far and wide her scorn +of her enemies. The Russians were an undisciplined barbarian horde; +the English, stupid idlers who spent on their sport the energy that +the industrious German devoted to preparing himself for world rule. +As for the French, they were an amiable and amusing people, but +degenerate--fickle, feeble, rotten with disease. Germany's hate +was reserved for the English, her most ignoble slurs for the French. +Needless to say, Germany has not found any one of her many enemies as +wholly despicable as she had imagined them to be. Her miscalculations +were greatest with France. That the French people are smaller in +stature than the German, that they eat less and breed less, that by +temperament they are cheerful and gay and witty convinced the dull +German mind that the race had become degenerate and trivial,--negligible. +This habit of contemptuously attributing to other peoples vileness and +degeneracy because their social ideals differ from her own is part of +that lack of imagination which is the Teuton's undoing. + +The courage, endurance, and high spirit displayed by the French have +compelled German admiration. The French have become the most tolerable +of all her enemies, and it is an open secret that for many months +Germany has desired to win France away from her allies by an honorable, +even advantageous peace. Meantime French prisoners are favored in the +German prison camps, being accorded a treatment altogether more humane +than that given the English prisoners or the Russians. But France has +replied to the dishonorable advances no more than to the calumnies. +One of the astonishing revelations of national psychology unfolded in +the war has been the taciturnity of the French, their silent tenacity. +For nearly two generations the nation has lived in expectation of an +ultimate struggle for existence with the barbarian: now that it has +come with more than the feared ferocity the French have no time or +energy to waste in comment. They must expel the barbarian from their +home and put a limit "for an hundred years" to the menace of his +barbarism. + +That is in part why the clear-headed Latin has learned the German +lesson faster than his allies. + + * * * * * + +What everybody knows by this time, and in America is repeating with +sickening fluency, is that Germany is "efficient," not only militarily +efficient, but socially and economically efficient--which these days +amounts to the same thing. Germany is "organized" both for peace and +war more efficiently than any other nation in the world. The two terms +that this war has driven into all men's consciousness are "efficiency" +and "organization." We in America, prone to admire the sheen of tin, +have bowed down in greater admiration than any other people to German +"efficiency." For efficiency values in the operations of life are just +the ones we are most capable of appreciating, although our government +and general social organization remain as lamentably inefficient as, +say, the English. But being a business people we are fitted to admire +business qualities above all others. The German army, the German state +are magnificently run businesses! To some of us, however, the term +"efficiency" has become nauseating because it has been associated with +so much else that we loathe from the bottom of our souls. If we cannot +have an "efficient" civilization without paying the price for it that +Germany has paid,--the price of humanity, of beauty, the price of her +soul,--let us return to the primitive inefficiency of a Sicilian +village! + +Germany under a highly autocratic system of government has created +a social machine of unexampled and formidable efficiency. The German +realized before his rivals that war had become, like all other human +activities, a matter of business on a huge scale. And he had prepared +not merely the special instruments of war, but also the tributary +business on this scale of modern magnitude: he had converted his state +into a powerful war machine. All this which is now commonplace has +become more glaringly evident to us onlookers because of the lamentable +failure of England and Russia especially to meet the requirements of +the new business. So incapable do they seem of learning the German +lesson that to some Americans the cause of the Allies is doomed already +to disaster. Certainly the English and the Russians have justified many +of those bitter German taunts. + +It has not been so with France. The French also were caught +unprepared--to their honor--like their allies. Can a real democracy +ever be prepared for war? France, suffering grievously from the first +blow dealt by the enemy, looked destruction in the face before the +stand at the Marne. The famous victory of the Marne, I believe, is +still unknown in Germany--I have been so informed by an American who +spent last winter in Germany. The battle of the Marne may not rank +in history as quite the greatest battle in the history of the world. +The French may exaggerate its importance as a military event. The +English have certainly exaggerated the part played by their little +expeditionary force of less than a hundred thousand in "saving France." +That is for others to dispute. But it was without any question a great +moral victory for the French of the utmost tonic value to the nation. +It saved France from despair, possibly from the annihilation that +follows despair. And ever since the Marne victory, French confidence +and _elan_ have been rapidly growing. During that bloody September week +they realized that the barbarian was not invincible, the machine was +not so perfect but that human will and human courage could resist it. +Moreover, the machine lacked that quality of spirit which the French +felt in themselves. As the months have dragged around an entire year +and more in the trenches, almost contempt has grown in the mind of +the French soldier for the formidable German machine. Strong as it +is, it yet lacks something--that something of human spirit without +which permanent victories cannot be achieved. Its strength can be +imitated. The spirit cannot be "organized." + +French confidence is more than an official phrase, a mere bluff! + + * * * * * + +But--and just here lies the profound significance of it all--the +French realized at once that in order to conquer the German machine +they must create an equally efficient and powerful machine, which +with that plus of human spirit and the inspiration of their cause +would carry them over into victory. So while the English were berating +the barbarian for his atrocious misconduct, advertising "business as +usual," and filching what German trade they could, bungling at this +and that, until they have become a spectacle to themselves, the French +nation concentrated all its energies upon preparing an organization +fit to meet the German organization. While General Joffre held the +Germans behind the four hundred miles of trenches, France made itself +over into a society organized for war--the new business kind of war +which is waged in factory and railway terminal, not by gallant charges. +"_Organiser_" has become in the Frenchman's vocabulary the next most +popular word to "_patrie_." One implies, these days, the other. + +It is said that when Germany invaded France, the French had not a +ton of their chief high explosive on hand. Some of its ingredients +they had been getting from Germany! France lost her coal and iron +mines and her largest factories the first weeks of the war and has +not regained them. Yet early in last April, according to the official +announcement, France was turning out six times as much ammunition as +was deemed, before the war, the maximum requirement, and would shortly +turn out ten times as much, which has ere this probably been greatly +exceeded. Meanwhile, by April the artillery had been increased +sevenfold. In attaining these results, France has accomplished a +greater marvel relatively speaking than the most boasted German +efficiency. She has had to get her coal from England, her ores from +Spain, her machines for making guns and shells from us. She has had +to improvise shell factories and gun plants from automobile factories, +electric plants, railway repair shops--from anything and everything. +I visited a small tile factory that was being utilized to make hand +grenades. Innumerable small shops in Paris are engaged in munition +work. The amount of ammunition bought in America by France has been +grossly exaggerated by the German press. Latterly, France has employed +American engineers to build large munition plants in France that will +become the property of the Government. + +Throughout the spring the Paris newspapers appeared every morning +with large headlines: "More guns! More ammunition!!" And they got +them, made them. The headlines are no longer needed, for the +superiority in shell and guns rests with the French, not with the +Germans, on the western front. + + * * * * * + +France, industrially crippled, has accomplished this marvel in +one short year. The country has become one vast workshop for war. +The Latin genius for organization on the small scale has met the +German genius for organization on the large scale. The industrial +transformation has been facilitated by the system of conscription +over which the English have wrangled so long and so futilely to the +mystery of their keener-witted allies. To the Frenchman conscription +means merely the most effective method of applying patriotism, of +cooeperation for the common cause. France has mobilized not only her +men, but her women and children, it might be said, so thoroughly have +the civilian elements worked into the shops and other non-military +labor. To sort out their labor and put it where it was most effective, +to substitute women workers for men wherever possible, were the first +steps in the huge work of social reorganization. There were no labor +troubles to contend with, thanks to the conscription system and to +the awakened patriotism of every element in society. France looked +on aghast when her necessary supplies of coal were threatened by the +strike of Welsh miners, averted only by the personal pleadings of a +popular minister! To the Latin, more disciplined and more alive to +the real dangers of the situation than the Anglo-Saxon, the English +attitude was simply incomprehensible. Also France has not had her +efficiency so seriously threatened by the liquor problem as has +England: the military authorities have taken stern measures against +this danger and have carried them out firmly. So far as the army +itself is concerned, the drink evil does not exist. + +The manufacture of ammunition and cannon is but one element in the new +warfare. France has had to feed, clothe, and maintain her armies under +the same handicap, to meet all the unexpected requirements in material +of the trench war. The French have rediscovered the hand grenade and +developed it into the characteristic weapon of the war, have unearthed +all their old mortars from the arsenals and adapted them to the trench, +and created the best aerial service of all the combatants. Incidentally +they have effectually protected Paris from air raids since the first +months of the war by their careful aerial patrol. All this is aside from +the task of putting the nation socially and economically on the war +basis--in providing for the wounded, the dependent women and children, +and also for a perpetual stream of refugees from Belgium and the invaded +provinces, a burden that Germany has not yet had to carry. + +Not all this huge work of reorganization could be done immediately +with equal success. The sanitary service suffered grievously, especially +at the beginning,--needed all the help that generous outsiders could +give,--still needs it. The percentage of death among the wounded is too +high, of those returned to the army too low. There have been wastes in +other directions due to haste, inexperience, political interference, but +nothing like the wastes that England has suffered from the same causes, +infinitely less than we should suffer judging from the ineptitudes we +displayed in our little Spanish War. + +Probably France is not as well organized to-day for the war business +as is Germany. Very possibly she never will be, which is not to the +discredit of her people. The nation has had to do in one short year, +grievously handicapped at the start, what Germany has done at her leisure +during forty years. Moreover, the Latin temperament is intolerant of the +mechanical, the routine, which is the glory of the German. Although the +French have realized with marvelous quickness the necessity of war +organization and have adapted themselves to it,--have learned the German +lesson,--they are spiritually above making it the supreme ideal of +national effort. Without argument they have accepted the conditions +imposed upon them, but they do not regard the modern war business as +the flower of human civilization. + + * * * * * + +Mere preparation, no matter how scientific and thorough, is by no +means the whole of the German lesson. The first months of the war +we heard too much about German preparedness, too little about German +character. By this time the world is realizing that military preparation +is but one manifestation of that German character, and the real danger +is German character itself. According to reports in her own newspapers +Germany found herself running short of war materials after the first +weeks of this extraordinarily prodigal war, which exceeded even her +prudent calculations. But Germany had the habit of preparation and the +social machinery ready to enlarge her war product. Without advertising +her situation to the world, she provided for the new requirements so +abundantly that she has not yet betrayed any deficiency in material. +And while she was sweeping victoriously across northern France toward +Paris, with the belief that the city must fall before her big guns, +nevertheless her engineers took pains to prepare the Aisne line of +defense, which saved her armies from disaster and enabled them to keep +their tenacious grip on Belgium and northern France. This is the real +strength of Germany, the real import of the bitter lesson she is +teaching the world--the habit of preparation, discipline, organization, +thrift. On the specifically military side the French seem to have learned +this lesson well. They have fortified the ground between the present +front and Paris with line after line of defensive works. The fields are +gray with barbed wire. A few miles outside of the suburbs of Paris may +be seen as complete a system of trenches as on the front, and the _kepi_ +of the territorial digging a trench is a familiar sight almost anywhere +in eastern France. It is inconceivable that any "drive" on the western +front could be successful. The confidence of the French rests in part +on these precautions. + +Whether the French can apply the inner meaning of the German lesson, +can incorporate it into their characters and transmit it to their +children, is a larger question for us as well as for them, for the +whole world. But their success in applying it in this war is all +the more noteworthy in contrast with the failure of their two great +allies, who were not invaded, not handicapped at the start, as was +France. The failure of Great Britain and of Russia to master the +lesson is so obvious, so lamentable, that it needs no emphasis here. +France, with the brunt of invasion only a few miles from the gates +of Paris, her factories and mines lost, has provided herself very +largely, has supplied Serbia with ammunition, Italy with artillery, +Russia, England, and Italy with aeroplanes. For many months the +thirty miles of the western front held by the English was defended +with the assistance of French artillery. + +The Slav one expected to fail in getting his German lesson, for +obvious reasons, especially because of his reactionary and corrupt +bureaucracy. But not the Anglo-Saxon! As a clever French staff +officer remarked,--"The two disappointments of the war have been +the Zeppelins and the English." Without making a _post mortem_ on +the English case, the Latin superiority is a phenomenon worth +pondering. For the Anglo-Saxon, cousin to the Teuton, would supposably +be the better fitted to receive the German lesson of organization +and discipline. But that ideal of individual liberty, which England +surely did not inherit from her Germanic ancestors, seems to have +degenerated into a license that threatens her very existence as a +great state. The English still talk of "muddling through somehow"! +If the end of autocracy is barbarism, the end of liberty is anarchy. + +The Latin has kept the mean between the two extremes. The French, +having fought more desperately in their great revolution for individual +freedom than any other people, seem able to recognize its necessary +limits and to subordinate the individual at necessity to the salvation +of the nation. In the Latin blood, however modified, there remains +always the tradition of the greatest empire the world has known, which +for centuries withstood the assaults of ancient barbarism. The wonderful +resistance and adaptability of the French to-day is of more than +sentimental importance to mankind. All the world, including their foes, +pay homage to the gallantry and greatness of the French spirit in their +dire struggle, but what has not been sufficiently recognized is the +significance to the future of the recovery by the Latin peoples of the +leadership of civilization. We Americans who have both traditions in our +blood, with many modifications, are as much concerned in this world +decision as the combatants themselves. + +So much has become involved in the titanic struggle, so many +subordinate issues have risen to cloud the one cardinal spiritual +issue at stake, that we are likely to forget it or deny that there +is any. Is the world to be barbarized again or not? + + * * * * * + +This reiterated use of the term "barbarism" is not merely rhetorical +nor cheap invective. It is exact. One of the Olympian jests of this +world tragedy has been the passionate verbal battles over the claims +of respective "_Kulturs_" to the favor of survival. Why deny that the +barbarian can have a very superior form of "_Kultur_" and yet remain +a barbarian in soul? These pages on the German lesson are a tribute +to Germany's special contribution to the world. Social and industrial +organization, systematic instead of loose ways of doing things, +prudence, thrift, obedience and subordination of the individual to +the state, discipline--in a word, an efficient society. It is a great +lesson! No one to-day can belittle its meaning. Possibly the remote, +hidden reason for all this seemingly useless bloody sacrifice in our +prosperous modern world is to teach the primary principles of the +lesson. God knows that we all need it--we in America most after the +Russian, and next to us the English. If the world can learn the lesson +which Germany is pounding in with ruin, slaughter, and misery,--can +discipline itself without becoming Teutonized,--the sacrifice is not +too great. If the non-Germanic peoples cannot learn the lesson +sufficiently well, then the Teuton must rule the world with "his old +German God." His boasted superiority will become fact, destiny. + +That is the momentous decision which is being wrought out these days +in Europe with blood and tears--the relative importance to mankind of +discipline and liberty. The ideal is to have both, as much of one as +is consistent with the other. In this country and in England may be +seen the evil of an individualism run into license--the waste, the +folly of it. And in Germany may be seen the monstrous result of an +idolatrous devotion to the other ideal--the man-made machine without +a soul. Between the two lies the fairest road into the future, and +that road, with an unerring instinct, the Latin follows. + + * * * * * + +The German lesson is not the whole truth: it is the poorer half of +the truth. An undisciplined world is more in God's image than a world +from which beauty, humanity, and chivalry have been exterminated. But +discipline is the primal condition of survival. Between these two poles, +between its body and its soul, mankind must struggle as it has always +struggled from the beginning of time.... + +When I looked on the sensitive, suffering faces of Frenchwomen in +their mourning, the wistful eyes of crippled youths, the limp forms +of wounded men, the tense, bent figures of dirty _poilus_ in their +muddy trenches, I knew that through their souls and bodies was +passing the full agony of this struggle. + + + + +V + + +_The Faith of the French_ + +I do not mean religious faith, although that too has been evoked, +reaffirmed by the trials and griefs of the war, but I mean faith in +themselves, in their cause, in life. The unshakable faith of the French +is the one most exhilarating, abiding impression that the visitor takes +from France these days. It is so universal, so pervasive, so contagious +that he too becomes irresistibly convinced, no matter how dark the present +may be, how many victories German arms may win, that the ultimate triumph +of the cause is merely deferred. + +There has never been the slightest panic in France, not during the +mobilization when white-faced men and women realized that the dreaded +hour had struck, not even in those days of suspense when the public +began to realize that the first reports of French victories in Alsace +were deceptive and that the enemy was almost at the gates of Paris. +A million or so people left the city with the Government in order to +escape the expected siege, but there was no panic, not even among the +wretched creatures driven from their homes in the provinces before the +blast of the German cyclone. + +Ever since the battle of the Marne the tide of confidence has been +steadily rising, in spite of the tedious disappointments of trench +warfare, the small gains of ground, the steady toll of lives, in +spite of reverses in Galicia and Poland and the mistakes in the +Dardanelles, in spite of English sluggishness and Russian weakness. +Each reverse has been courageously accepted, analyzed, and found not +decisive, merely temporary. Victory must come to the ones who can +endure to the end, and the French know now that they can endure. +"We can do it all alone, if we have to!" Again, "The Germans know +that they are beaten already: they know it in Berlin as well as we +do." This confidence is based on realities--first on the success with +which France has learned the German lesson and completely reorganized +her life for the business of war. "We were not ready last August--but +we are now." Her machine is growing stronger in spite of the daily +waste of life, while the German machine is weakening steadily. + + * * * * * + +The farther one gets into the military zone, the more fervent and +evident is this confidence, until on the front it is an irresistible +conviction that inspires men and officers alike. Even a novice like +myself began to understand why the army is sure of ultimate victory, +and the longer one stays at the front the more this faith of the +French seems justified. In the first place, they have so well got +that German lesson! The supply of shell and gun is so abundant, also +of fresh troops in reserve thanks to "Papa" Joffre's frugality with +human lives; the first, second, third lines--on _ad infinitum_ to +Paris--are so carefully fortified, so alertly held against any "drive"! +And the troops are so fit! They have made themselves at home in their +new camping life behind the lines of dugouts and caves; they have +become gnomes, woodsmen, cavemen, taking on the earth colors of the +primitive world to which they have been forced to return in order +to free the soil of their country. Then one sees the steady creeping +forward of the front itself, not much as it looks on a small-scale +map, but as the officers point out the blasted woods, or the brow of +a hill over which the trenches have been slowly pushed metre by metre +throughout the interminable weeks of constant struggle, one sees that +gradually the French have got the upper hand, the commanding positions +in long stretches of the trench wall. They are on the hills, their +artillery commands the level fields before them. It is like the struggle +between two titanic wrestlers who have swayed back and forth over the +same ground so long that the spectator can see no advance for either. +But one wrestler knows that the inches gained from his adversary count, +that the body in his grasp is growing weaker, that the collapse will +come soon--with a rush. He cannot tell fully why he feels this +superiority, but he knows that his adversary is weakening. + +Perhaps a colonel on the front will tell you with elation,--"We know +that the Boches across the way are discouraged, because our prisoners +say so,--we take prisoners more easily than we did,--and they are all +mixed up in their formations. We know that they have to drive their men +to the job, that the lines about here are stripped as bare as they dare +keep them. There used to be a lot of reserve troops behind their lines, +but our aviators say there aren't any in X----any more! And they aren't +as free with their _obus_ as they used to be, and they are 'old +nightingales,' not first quality." Perhaps the staff officers will smile, +knowing that the enemy is massing his forces elsewhere on the long front, +but this trick of rapid change is becoming harder to perform, and more +exhausting. At any rate, the plain _poilus_ in the front trenches are +instinctively sure: "We'll have 'em now soon!" They have watched that +grim gray wall opposite so long that, like animals, they can feel what +is going on there on the other side. + + * * * * * + +At staff headquarters in a more contained, reserved way there is +the same air of vital confidence. "Have you seen the new pump?" the +general asked me. "We are pumping good water all over this sector +into the front trenches, too.... Oh, we are _bien installe!_ ... It +may be another year, two, perhaps more, but the end is certain. There +is one man in the trenches, another just behind in reserve, still +another resting somewhere in the woods for his week off, and more, +all the men we want back in the _depots_!" And he turns the talk to +the good health of his men, their fine spirit. For one of the human, +lovable qualities of the officers whom I met is that they prefer to +talk about the comfort, the _morale_, the _esprit_, of their men to +discussing "operations." + +Just here I see where the French have risen above the machine idea +of the German lesson. There is a something plus, over and above +"preparation," "organization," "efficiency," which the Latin has +and on which his confidence in ultimate victory largely rests. That +is his belief in the individual, his reliance on the strength of the +individual's spirit. To the French officer this seems the all-important +factor in the army: military force depends ultimately upon the _esprit_ +of the individual which creates the _morale_ of the whole. Of course, +the army must be equipped in the modern way and fought in the modern +way with all the resources of science, with aeroplanes, bombs, motor +transport, and heavy artillery. But without the full devotion of the +individual, without the cooeperation of his _esprit_, the army would +be a dead machine, especially in this nerve-rending endurance contest +of the trenches. Here is the Latin idea, which is absolutely opposed +to the German machine theory of war. + +The German staff has done marvels with its machine. It hurls armies +over the map of Europe of initiative and devotion in the common soldier, +who in the Latin conception of the word remains a human being with a +soul. An officer remarked to me, "We cannot have our men come from the +trenches glum and downcast--a Frenchman must laugh and joke or something +is wrong with him. So we started these vaudevilles behind the lines, and +sports." Instead of more drill they give their men "shows," so that they +may laugh and forget the horrors of the trench. Good psychology! + + * * * * * + +The civilian shines through every French soldier--the civilian who is +a human being like you or me, with the same human needs. The officers +chat and joke familiarly with their men. Comradeship is substituted for +tyranny. France, one comprehends, is a real democracy, and still takes +the ideal of equality seriously. When I asked an officer at Rheims why +he had not had a day's leave in ten months while English officers went +home on leave, he said, with a shrug,--"France is a republic: our men +must get their leaves first." + +The machine system gives startling results--in a short campaign. But +when it comes to an endurance contest, to the long, long strains of +trench warfare, something other than drill and organization is necessary, +something that will rouse the human being to the last atom of effort +that he has in him. When men must stand up to their waists in icy water, +live in the inferno of constant bombardment, not for hours and days, but +for weeks and months, something other than discipline is needed to keep +them sufficiently alive to be of use. Doctors tell how willingly, +unquestioningly, the wounded go back to the hell they have escaped,--not +once, but twice, three times. To evoke the capacity for heroism in the +individual soldier has been the triumph of the Latin system. + +The faith of the French rests justly on their heroic resolution, their +ability to endure as individuals, more than on the lesson learned of +preparation and organization. + + * * * * * + +Faith is a belief in the evidence of things unseen. French faith +is of many kinds, not purely material, not military. They believe +so profoundly in the perfect justice and high importance of their +cause that it would seem as if they counted upon the cause alone to +win the victory. No nation, they say, ever spent itself in a better +cause. Victims of an unprovoked attack, unprepared, which is the best +evidence of peaceable will, witnesses of the outrage of a neighbor +people, bleeding from the wounds of their own country,--what better +cause for war could men have? And the Latin intelligence of the +French enables them from the humblest to the highest to perceive the +universality of the principles for which they are called upon to die. +It is no selfish, not even a merely national, cause--it is the cause +of nothing less than humanity in which they fight. + +The philosopher Bergson expressed this sublime confidence in the +cause thus (I give the substance of his words from memory): "Not all +wars can be avoided--perhaps nine out of ten can. But this one, no! +For it is a war of principles. It will be a long war because the enemy +is strong and we were unprepared. But we can wait the end confident in +the result. The Germans have created a false belief, a wrong idea, and +have carried that idea into action with extraordinary thoroughness. But +the belief rests upon error. When the day comes that they meet reverses, +when their idol of force no longer works miracles for them, then they +will collapse, from within. There will be a general breakdown of +personality from realizing the falsity of their idea. There lies our +victory." + +The philosopher's belief is based on the faith that the principles +of justice, of law, of humanity are stronger, more enduring than any +organization of force no matter how efficient, for this is a moral +world. And the individual or nation who relies upon might to enforce +wrong must in the end, perceiving the irrationality of his world, +collapse. The grinding of the mill may be heart-breakingly slow, but +the grist is as sure as life itself. + +Similarly, the statesman Hanotaux has expressed "The Moral Victory": +"It is the noblest, the highest of causes which has been submitted +to the arbitrament of arms. Its grandeur justifies the terrible extent +of the drama and the immense sacrifices it imposes. The material results +of victory will be immense, the moral results will be even greater.... +Moral forces are superior to physical forces, and in spite of all they +will have the last word.... Our youth has gone to the front in the +serene conviction that it was fighting not only for the _patrie_, but +for humanity, that this war was a sort of crusade, that they could +claim place beside St. Louis and Jeanne d'Arc." + +It is that heroic consciousness of a righteous martyrdom that I read +on the faces of the black-robed women in the street, too proud for +tears; in the silent figures on the hospital beds, suffering without +protest an agony too deep for words. And when I encountered a file +of soldiers in the muddy trenches, flattening themselves out against +the earth walls to let me pass, carrying pails of soup to the comrades +up front, or sitting motionless beside their burrows along the trench +wall, their hands clasping their rifles,--dirty, grimed, and bearded,--I +saw the same thing in their tired eyes, their drawn faces. Mute martyrs +in the cause of humanity, in _my_ cause, they were giving their lives +for others, for _me_, not merely that the German might be driven from +France, but that justice and honor and peace between men might prevail +in the world! + + * * * * * + +Because the French people are inspired with the grandeur and the +moral significance of their cause, they cannot understand a certain +cynical attitude of mind, well illustrated by a former Senator of +the United States, who has been high in the councils of the defunct +Progressive Party. After spending ten days in Paris last spring, he +remarked at a luncheon given him by some distinguished Frenchmen,--"Don't +tell me about the justice of your cause or about the atrocities. I am +not interested in that. What I want to know is, who is going to win!" +Who is going to win! There spoke the barbarian mind. The barbarian +mind cannot comprehend that the winning itself in a world cause is +inextricably involved in the justice and worth of the cause. + +For the same reason the French people have been puzzled by the sort +of neutrality preached and practiced at Washington since the outbreak +of the war. It is plain enough that neither France nor England desires +to have the United States go to war with Germany. We can help them +better as a huge supply house than as an ally, much as that might +offend our vanity. The French appreciate also our President's desire +to keep his country at peace. They are a peace-loving people and know +the frightful costs of war. But they cannot understand a neutrality +that avoids committing itself upon a moral issue such as was presented +to the world in Belgium, in the sinking of the Lusitania. And in spite +of the strict censorship, which for obvious reasons has muzzled the +French press in its comment upon our diplomacy with Germany, occasionally +flashes of a biting scorn of the Wilson neutrality have appeared in print, +as the following from Hanotaux: "We should be wanting truly in frankness +toward our great sister republic if we left her in the belief that this +series of documents, of a tone particularly friendly and affectionate, +addressed to the German Government after such acts as theirs, had not +occasioned in France a certain surprise.... Up to this time the Allies, +who have not, God be praised, compromised or even menaced the life of +any neutral, of any American, have not received the twentieth part of +these friendly terms that the German Government has brought forth by +its implacable acts.... What the world awaits from President Wilson is +not merely a note, it is a verdict. What do neutral peoples, what does +the American Government, what does President Wilson think of the German +doctrine,--'Necessity knows no law--the end justifies the means'?... +Every Government that acts or speaks at the present hour decides the +nature of the real peace, whether it will be an affirmation of those +eternal principles that are alone capable of directing humanity toward +its sacred end." + +To our eternal shame as a nation our Government has evaded, up to +this hour, pronouncing the expected verdict, has preferred to quibble +and define, in its vain attempt to hold the barbarian to a "strict +accountability"--whatever that may mean. France does not want our +army or our navy, not even our money and our factories, except on +business terms, but she has looked in vain for our affirmation as +a nation of our belief in her great cause, which should be our own +cause--the cause of all free peoples. + + * * * * * + +What a timid and verbal interpretation of neutrality has prevented +our Government from affirming, the American people, let us be +thankful, have done generously, abundantly. They have pronounced +a not uncertain verdict, and they have followed this moral verdict +with countless acts of sympathy. The cause of France, the faith of +the French, have roused the chivalry of the best Americans. Our youths +are fighting in the trenches, our doctors and nurses are giving their +services, our money is helping to stanch the wounds of France. As +a people we too have affirmed our faith in the cause and are doing +generously, spontaneously, as is our wont, what we can to win that +cause for the world. The splendid hospital of the American Ambulance +at Neuilly, equipped and operated on the generous American scale, +is the real monument to the beliefs, the hopes, the faith of the +American people. + +In that modification of the Anglo-Saxon tradition which America is +fast evolving, there is a subtle sympathy and likeness with the Latin, +which this crisis has brought into evidence. We are less English than +French in spirit, in our ideal of culture, of life. + + + + +VI + + +_The New France_ + +"This is a return for a new departure!" the Italian poet cried to +his people at Quarto when they were still hesitating between the +paths of a prudent neutrality and intervention in the world decision. +Probably in the poet's thought there was more of concrete ambition +for "national aspirations" than of spiritual rebirth. But for the +French nation it is the spiritual rebirth alone that has any meaning. +No material enlargement of France has ever been seriously contemplated. +The acquisition of Alsace can hardly be termed conquest, and whatever +hopes of indemnity or other material advantages the French may have +permitted themselves to dream of must fade as the financial burden of +all Europe mounts ever higher. Even the recovery of Alsace, according +to those best able to judge,--in spite of German assertions,--would +never have roused France to an aggressive war. Conquest, material +growth, is not an active principle in the French character. How often +I have heard this thought on French lips,--"We want to be let alone, +to be free to live our lives as we think best, to develop our own +institutions,--that is what we are fighting for!" For forty years +the nation has lived under the fear of invasion, a black cloud +always more or less threatening on the frontier, and when the day of +mobilization came every Frenchman knew instinctively what it meant--the +long-expected fight for national existence. And the hope that sustains +the people in their blackest moments is the hope of ending the thing +forever. "Our children and our children's children will not have to +endure what we suffer. It will be a better world because of our +sacrifice." + +The conquest that France will achieve is the conquest of herself, +and the fruits of that she has already attained in a marvelous measure. +The reality of a new France is felt to-day by every Frenchman and is +aboundingly obvious to the stranger visiting the country he once knew +in her soft hours of peace. To be sure, intelligent French people say +to you, when you comment on the fact, "But we were always really like +this at bottom, serious and moral and courageous, only you did not see +the real France." Pardonable pride! The French themselves did not know +it. As so often with individual souls, it took the fierce fire of +prolonged trial to evoke the true national character, to bring once +more to the surface ancient and forgotten racial virtues, to brighten +qualities that had become dim in the petty occupations of prosperity. + +After I had been in France a short time, nothing seemed falser +to me than the pessimistic assertions of certain German-Americans +and faint-hearted other Americans, that whatever the outcome of the +world war France was "done for," "exhausted," "ruined," must sink to +the level of a third-rate power, and so forth. Nor can I believe the +words of those saddened sympathizers and helpers in the ambulances +and hospitals, that "France is proudly bleeding to death." Her wounds +have been frightful, and through them is still gushing much of the +best blood of the nation. Her bereavement has been enormous, but not +irreparable. Once a real peace achieved, the triumph of the cause, +and I venture to predict that France will give an astonishing +spectacle of rapid recovery, materially and humanly. For the New +France is already a fact, not a faith. + + * * * * * + +Evidence of this rebirth is naturally difficult to make concrete +as with all spiritual quality. It is not merely the solidarity of +the nation, the fervent patriotism, the readiness for every sacrifice, +which are qualities more or less true of all the warring nations, +especially of Germany. It is more than the perpetual Sunday calm +along the rue de la Paix, the absence of that parasitic frivolity +with which Paris--a small part of Paris--entertained the world. +It is not simply that French people have become serious, silent, +determined, with set wills to endure and to win--for that moral +tenacity may relax after the crisis has passed. It is all these +and much more which I shall try to express that has revealed a +new France. + +To start with some prosaic proofs of the new life, I will take +the liquor question, a test of social vitality. It is significant +to examine how the different belligerent nations have treated this +problem, which becomes acute whenever it is necessary to call upon +all national reserves in a crisis. Turkey, Italy, and Germany +apparently have no liquor problem; at least the war has not called +attention to it. Russia, whose peasantry was notoriously cursed with +drunkenness, eradicated the evil, ostensibly, by one arbitrary ukase, +though, if persistent reports from the eastern war region are true, +her great reform has not yet reached her officers. England has played +feebly with the question from the beginning when the ravages of drink +among the working population--what every visitor to England had +known--became painfully evident to the Government in its efforts +to mobilize war industries and increase production. Various minor +restrictions on the liquor traffic have been imposed, but nothing +that has reached to the roots of the matter--probably because of +the powerful liquor interest in Parliament as much as from the +Englishman's fetish of individual liberty. Although the direct +handicap of drunken workmen did not affect France as it did England, +the French authorities quickly realized the indirect menace of +alcoholism and have taken real measures to combat it. Absinthe has +been abolished. For the army--and that includes practically all the +younger and abler men--the danger has been minimized by the strict +enforcement of regulations as to hours and the non-alcoholic nature +of drinks permitted, which are posted conspicuously in all cafes +and drinking-places and which are carefully observed, as any one who +tries to order liquor in company with a man in uniform will quickly +find out! I never saw a soldier or an officer in the least degree +under the influence of liquor while I was in France, either at +the front or outside the military zone, and very few workingmen. +Not content with the control of liquor in the army, the French have +seriously attacked the whole problem, which in France centers in the +right of the fruit-grower to distill brandy,--an ancient custom that +in certain provinces has resulted in great abuses. Legislation +against the _bouilleurs de crue_ is one inevitable outcome of the +awakened sense of social responsibility in France. + +Connected with the liquor evil is the birth-rate question, to which +since the war the attention of all serious-minded people has been +drawn. The French Academy of Sciences has undertaken an elaborate +series of investigations into the relations between the birth-rate +and the consumption of alcohol, which would seem to show that there +is cause and effect between the excessive use of alcohol and a +declining birth-rate. This will undoubtedly tend to create a popular +sentiment favorable to restrictive liquor legislation, specifically +to abolishing the right to distill spirits. But what is of more real +significance is the changing sentiment among the French in favor of +larger families. Due, no doubt, directly to the necessities of a +draining war, it is also an expression of those deeper experiences +that trial has brought. The French have always prized family life, +and French family life is, perhaps, the best type of the social bond +that the world knows. Under the stress of widespread bereavement the +French are realizing that the base of the family is not love between +the sexes, but the existence of children. They want children, not +only to take the place of their men sacrificed, but as symbols of +that greater love for the race that the war has evoked. Although +the crudity of the "war-bride" method of increasing the population +is not evident in France, every working-girl wears the medallion of +some "hero" on her breast. Girls say frankly that they want children. +The Latin will never accept the German principle of indiscriminate +breeding. As in every other aspect of life, the Latin emphasizes the +individual, the personal; but an awakened patriotism and pride of +race, a deepened sense of the real values of life will lead to a +greater devotion to the family ideal. + + * * * * * + +To shift to the political life of France, the history of the republic +has been tempestuous in the past. There has been a succession of +_coups d'etat_, plots, and scandals. One political _cause celebre_ +has followed another--the Boulanger, the Dreyfus, and quite lately +the Caillaux. The wide publicity which these political scandals have +had is due partly to the Latin love of excitement, also to the Latin +frankness about washing dirty political linen in public. To the +foreigner it has seemed strange that a republic could endure with +such abysses of intrigue and personal corruption beneath its political +life as have been shown in the Panama and Dreyfus scandals. The Germans +probably have been misled by them into considering the French nation +wholly despicable and degenerate. But France has not only endured in +spite of these rotten spots, but her republicanism has grown stronger. +Americans experienced in their own sordid politics should understand +how uncharacteristic of the real citizenship of a democracy politicians +can be. The real France has never taken with entire seriousness the +machinations of "those rats in the Chamber." These "rats" were quite +active during the first months of the war. Aside from the incompetence +of the first war ministry, which kept the public in ignorance of the +danger so completely that the enemy was at Soissons before Paris was +aware that the French army was being driven back, and all the blunders +of the raid into Alsace, France had its sinister political menace in +Joseph Caillaux, who it has been rumored plotted a disgraceful peace +with Germany before the battle of the Marne. Caillaux, when his +creature, the grafting paymaster-general, was exposed, found it wise +to go to South America. An able and on the whole a competent ministry +was placed in power. + +When Caillaux returned last spring, rumors of legislative unrest +and plotting against the Joffre-Millerand control of the army +began once more. Outwardly it was an attempt of party leaders in +the Chamber to gain greater legislative control of the conduct of +the war, ostensibly for the improvement of bureaucratic methods, +as in the sanitary service, which was notably deficient. But beneath +this agitation were the dangerous forces of political France seeking +to oust Joffre, and there lay the menace that a political clique might +get control of the army. This agitation, however, did not disturb +the public. As one Frenchman put it, "If those rats get too active, +Gallieni will take them out and shoot them. France is behind the +army, and the people will not tolerate legislative interference with +it." The political unrest has at last resulted in a new and larger +cabinet, admittedly the most representative body that France could +have. The danger of political interference has passed without resort +to summary methods. It is a triumph of democracy. France will fight +the war to an end under constitutional government, a much more +difficult task than Germany's. Obviously, as may be seen in England, +parliamentary government is a great hindrance to a nation in the +abnormal state of war. Free societies have this handicap to contend +with when they fight an autocratic machine. To maintain her republican +government without scandals throughout the war will be a political +triumph for France, indicative of the new spirit that has entered +into the nation. The seriousness of the present situation has sobered +all men and has suppressed the politicians by the mere weight of +responsibility. The New France emerging from the trial of war can +profit by this experience to purge her political life of the +scandalous elements in it. + +Italy has closed her Parliament and relapsed temporarily into autocracy. +England and France are struggling to maintain popular government as we +did through the Civil War. + + * * * * * + +Much has been said of the heroic spirit of the French nation under +the tragedy of the war. Too much could not be said. The war has +evoked patriotism among all the peoples engaged, but with the French +there is a peculiar idealistic passion of tenderness for the _patrie_ +which impresses every observer who has had the good fortune to see +the nation at war. I shall not linger long on these familiar, +inspiring aspects of love for country that the war has called forth +from all classes. The ideal spirit of French youth has been +illustrated in some letters given to the public by the novelist, +Henry Bordeaux, called "Two Heroes." They relate the personal +experiences of two youths, one twenty, the other twenty-one, whose +baptism of fire came in the battle of the Marne. They grew old fast +under the ordeal of battle and of responsibility for the lives of +their men; their letters home show a loftiness of spirit, a sense +of self-forgetfulness, of devotion to the cause, that is sublime, +poignant--and typical. In every rank of society the same immense +devotion, the same utter renouncement of selfish thought can be felt. +A spirit of ideal sacrifice has spread throughout the nation, making +France proud, heroic, confident. Such a spirit must be a benediction +for generations to come. + +The common effort, the universal grief, has drawn all French people +so close together that social and party differences have disappeared. +The French priest has become once more the heroic leader of his +people, fighting by their side in the trenches. The scholars, the +poets, the artists have all done their part,--the nuns, the +aristocrats, the working-people theirs. While England has been +harassed with strikes and class recriminations, France has never +known in her entire history such absolute social harmony and unity, +such universal and concentrated will. + +This spirit of "sacred union" embraces the women who are doing men's +tasks, the rich who are surrendering their good American securities +to the Government in exchange for national defense bonds, the poor +who are bringing their little hordes of gold to the Bank of France to +swell the gold reserve. I wish that every American might stand in the +court of the Bank of France and watch that file of women and old men +depositing their gold--the only absolute security against want they +have! That is faith made evident, and love. + + * * * * * + +In looking over the bulky file of French newspapers, illustrated +weeklies, and pamphlets on the war, which I brought back with me, I +am struck by the fact that the outstanding characteristic of all this +comment on the great war from journalist to statesman and publicist +is not denunciation of the barbarian. Denunciation plays a singularly +small part in the French reaction to their suffering. References to +Germans and Germany are usually of a psychological or humorous +character, illustrating the grotesque and antipathetic aspects in +which the Teuton presents himself to the Latin mind. That part which +grieving and denunciation have played in English comment, the gross +and apoplectic hate of the German press, is taken by lyrical +enthusiasm for heroism. The newspapers, sure pulse of popular +appetite, are filled daily with stories of sacrifice, gallantry, +heroism. This is the aspect of the sordid bloody war that the French +spirit feeds on. It is a fresh manifestation of an old national +trait--the love of chivalry. Some day, doubtless, these splendid +tales of individual heroism, of soldierly and civilian sacrifice, +will be gathered together to make the laurel wreath of the New +France. I could fill a volume with those I have read and heard. And I +like to think that while Germany went wild over the torpedoing of the +Lusitania,--even dared to celebrate it in America,--while the +Zeppelin raids arouse her patriotic enthusiasm, the French gloat over +the story of the private who crawled out of the trench and hunted for +two days without food or water for his wounded officer. The love of +the _beau geste_ is an ineradicable trait of French character. It has +had a bountiful satisfaction in this war. + +"We have fought a chivalrous war," General C. exclaimed, pointing to +the little figure of Jeanne d'Arc. The same general ordered that the +government dole of a franc and a half a day be paid to those Alsatian +women whose husbands were fighting in the German army. "They are +French women: it is not their fault that their husbands are fighting +against France!" And the deathless touch of all, which will be +remembered in the world long after the destruction wrought to the +cathedral of Rheims, is the picture of French saving German wounded +in the burning church--fired by German shells! + +The _beau geste_, the beautiful act, which ennobles all men, not +merely the doer of the deed,--that is what France is giving the +world. The image of men who are more than efficient and strong and +physically courageous, of men who are filled with a divine spirit of +sacrifice and devotion. Truly supermen. + +Chivalry was a trait of the Old France as it is of the New. It +has fallen somewhat into disrepute of late years with the rise +of the comfort and efficiency standards. Nowhere else on the broad +battlefields of Europe has it revived, to redeem the horror of war, +so shiningly as in the New France. + + * * * * * + +Another aspect of French character which is both old and new is +the quality of humorous "sportsmanship" the French have displayed. +When Germany's crack aviator made a daily visit to Paris, dropping +bombs, in the afternoon during the early weeks of the war, the +Parisians took his arrival as a spectacle and thronged the boulevards +to watch him and applaud. When at last he was shot through the head, +the French press lamented his loss with genuine appreciation of his +nerve and his skill. A young cavalry officer at the front told me +this story: One of the younger officers of his regiment, to encourage +his men, had offered rewards for German shoulder straps, that is, +prisoners. Two simple peasants, misunderstanding his words, proudly +brought in a couple of pairs of German ears strung on a string like +game. The officer, brooding over the incident, resolved to explain +and apologize to the enemy. Putting his handkerchief on the point of +his sword, he crawled out of the trench and advanced across the field +of death between the lines. + +Tales from the trenches by the hundreds prove that the French have +not lost the sparkle of wit even under the dreary conditions of +trench-fighting. When Italy joined the Allies, some soldiers of a +front-line trench hoisted the placard,--"Macaroni mit uns!" Again, +when boasting placards of German successes in Galicia were displayed, +the French _poilus_ retorted,--"You lie. You have taken ten thousand +officers and ten millions of troops." When in a German military +prison the keepers boasted of their recent successes on the western +front, the French prisoners began to sing the _Marseillaise_ to the +astonishment of their German guards, "because," as they explained, +"we know if you have killed all those French soldiers, you must have +lost at least four times as many!" + +The barbarian misread the Gallic love of wit and laughter. To joke +and quip seemed to him beneath the dignity of men. It is, rather, +the safety-valve of a highly intelligent people--the outlet for their +ironic perceptions of life. The most amusing songs of the war that I +have heard were given by the _poilus_ on a little stage near Commercy +while the cannon thundered a few miles away. This ability to turn +upon himself and see his life in a humorous light is an invaluable +quality of the French soldier. So, too, is his love of handicraft +which finds many ingenious expressions even in the trenches. The +French soldier is always a civilian, with a love of neatly arranged +gardens and terraces, and he lays out a _potager_ in the curve of a +shell-swept hillside, or a neat flower garden in the crumbled walls +of a village house. He makes rings from the aluminum found in German +shell-caps, carves the doorposts of his stone dugout, or likenesses +of his officers on beam-ends, as I saw in a colonel's quarters in +the Bois-le-Pretre. + +The French soldier remains, even in this bloodiest of wars, always +a civilian, a man, capable of laughter and tears, of heroic heights, +of chivalrous sacrifices,--with the soul's image of what manhood +requires, with the vision of a state of free individual men like +himself. + + * * * * * + +The New France is inspired with qualities of Old France, qualities +which I call Latin, which have emerged into high relief under grief +and suffering and effort. It is above all gallant and high-minded. +The wounded Frenchman never complains or whimpers. "_C'est la +guerre--que voulez-vous!_" To the surgeon who has operated on +him,--"_Merci, mon major_." And they lie legless or armless, perhaps +with running sores, a smile on the face in answer to the sympathetic +word, in long hospital rows.... + +The fundamental element in this New France is the gravity, the +seriousness of it. Of all the warring peoples the French seem to +realize most clearly what it all means, what it is for, and the deep +import of the decision not merely to them, but to the whole world. +They are fighting, not for territory, but for principles. Peace must +be not a rearrangement of maps, but of men's ideas, of men's wills. +They are the conscious protagonists of a long tradition of ideals +that have once more been put in jeopardy. It is the character of this +human world of ours which they are struggling to mould, and like +actors in a Greek tragedy they are suitably impressed with the +gravity of the issue in their hands. + +The New France has been born in the travail of the monstrous +desolation of trench-land that stretches, scabby with shell-holes, +leprous with gray wire, pitted with countless graves, scarred with +crumbled villages for four hundred miles across the fair fields of +_la douce France_. In this savage desert, inhumanly silent except +for the shrieking of shells, for now more than a year's time France +has struggled with the incarnated spirit of evil, rearing its head +again, armed with all the enginery of modern science. The little, +dirty-bearded soldiers squat there in their burrows, white-faced, +tense, silent, waiting, watching, month after month, or plunge over +their walls to give their lives on that death-field outside. They are +the simple martyrs of the New France. + + * * * * * + +France has learned her German lesson; has reorganized her life to +make it tell effectively for her task, has reorganized her inner +life, discarding frivolity and waste. She has found herself in the +fire. France is not "done for," as my German-American friends so +pityingly deem. Bleeding from her terrible wounds, she is stronger +today than ever before,--stronger in will, in spirit, in courage, the +things that count in the long, long run even in the winning of wars. +Technically minded soldiers may judge that "Germany can't be beaten." +But the French know in their souls that she can be, that she is beaten +today! In this greatest of world's decisions it is the spirit of the +Latin that triumphs again--the sanest, suavest, noblest tradition that +the earth has ever known, under which men may work out their mysterious +destiny. + + + + +Part Three--America + + +I + + +_What Does It Mean to Us?_ + +I went from the French front back to America. The steamer slipped +down the Gironde between green vineyards, past peaceful villages, +a whole universe distant from that grim, gray trench-land where the +French army was holding the invader in Titan grip, stole cautiously +into the Bay of Biscay at nightfall to escape prowling submarines, +and began to roll in the Atlantic surges, part of those "three +thousand miles of cool sea-water" on which our President so complacently +relies as a nonconductor of warfare. I was homeward bound to America, +the land of Peace, after four months spent in "war-ridden Europe"--to +that homeland stranger somehow than the war lands, where my countrymen +were protesting to both belligerents and making money, manufacturing +war supplies and blowing up factories, talking "peace" and "preparedness" +in the same breath; also--and God be thanked for that!--helping to feed +the starving Belgians, sending men, money, and sympathy to the French. +As the old steamer settled into her fourteen-knot gait, the submarines +ceased to be of more than conversational concern, and I began to ask +myself,--"What does it all mean to us, this bloody sacrifice of world +war,--to us, strong, rich, peaceful, confident Americans?" + +For in spite of a curious indifference among many Americans to the +outcome, so long as it did not get us into trouble with either party, +betrayed by personal letters and press articles which I had received, +I was profoundly convinced that the issues of the world tragedy were +momentous to us too. "This European butchery means nothing," said one +friend, who supplies editorial comment for a most widely read American +weekly, "except a lot of poverty, a lot of cripples, and a lot of +sodden hate in the hearts of the people engaged. Europe will not be +changed appreciably as a result of the war!" Our pacifist ex-Secretary +of State, I remember, wrote Baron d'Estournelles de Constant inquiring +what the French were fighting for, implying that to the reasonable +onlooker there was no clear issue involved in the whole business, +merely the passions of misguided patriotism. The well-meaning agitation +for peace, which as I write has been lifted into the grotesque by the +Ford peace ship, is based largely on this inability to realize the +reality of the issue between the belligerents. And there is our national +attitude of strict neutrality, which fairly represents the evasive mind +of many Americans. Happily, they seem to say to themselves, "This war is +not our affair." We were warned by Washington to keep clear of European +"quarrels," and wisely we covered our retreat at The Hague by inserting +that little clause which relieved us from all real responsibility for +the observance of the conventions. Excuse for cowardice and blindness +of vision! Such Americans like to think that as a nation we have no more +concern in the present war than a peaceable family in one house has with +the domestic upheavals of an unfortunate family in the next house. The +part of prudence is to ignore all evidences of unpleasantness, to profess +good offices, and to keep on friendly terms with all the belligerents. + +The impression that such an attitude makes on the American in +Europe is painful, whether it be expressed in personal letters, +in newspapers and magazines, or in diplomatic "notes." He becomes +impatient with the provincialism of his own people, ashamed of their +transparent selfishness, astonished that human values should have got +so fatally distorted in our fat, comfortable world. To the European, +American neutrality has become a matter of public indifference, of +private contempt. Inspired with the lofty ambition of playing the +role of mediator in the world war, President Wilson has lost his +chance of influencing the decision toward which Europe is bloodily +fighting its way. At that great peace conference which every European +has perpetually in mind, America will be ignored. Only those who have +shared the bloody sacrifice--at least have had the courage to declare +their beliefs--will penetrate its inner councils. We have had our +reward--money and safety. It is not fantastic even to expect that the +conquerors might under certain circumstances say to the conquered, +"Take your losses from the Americans: they alone have made money out +of our common woe!" + +No, ours has not been the _beau geste_ as a nation. Nor can the +American take comfort in the thought that Washington diplomacy does +not fairly represent the sentiment of our people. As the weeks slip +past, it is only too evident that our President has interpreted +exactly the national will. The farther west one travels the colder +is the American heart, and duller the American vision. The numerical +center of the United States is somewhere in the Mississippi Valley. +Europe gave Chicago, in her distress after the great fire, eighty +cents per person; Chicago has given Belgium and France seven cents +per Chicagoan. Not a single Chicago bank appears on the list of +subscribers to the Anglo-French loan,--very few banks anywhere west +of the Alleghanies. "It is not our quarrel; we are not concerned +except to get our money for the goods we sell them!" + + * * * * * + +But are we not concerned? I asked myself as the old steamer throbbed +wheezily westward. Beneath the deck in the ship's strong room there +were thick bundles of American bonds, millions of them, part of the +big American mortgage that Europe has been obliged to sell back to +us. They represent European savings, hopes of tranquil old age, girls' +_dots_, boys' education and start in life. The American mortgage is +being lifted rapidly. The stocks and bonds were going home to pay for +the heavy cargoes of foodstuffs and ammunition and clothes which we +had been shipping to Europe. The savings of the thrifty French were +going to us, who were too rich already. The French were bleeding their +thrift into our bulging pockets, selling their investments for shells +and guns and barbed wire which would not keep old age warm, marry their +girls, or start their boys in life. They were doing it freely, proudly, +for the salvation of their _patrie_, which they love as the supreme +part of themselves. And to us what did all this sacrifice mean? Oh, +that we were growing richer day by day while the war lasted; "dollar +exchange" was coming nearer; we were fast getting "rotten with money," +as a genial young coal merchant who had the deck chair next mine +remarked affably. Yes, the war meant that to us surely,--we were fast +raking in most of the gold that Europe has been forced to throw on the +table of international finance, the savings, the _dots_, the stakes of +her next generation. The number of lean-faced American business men, +war brokers, on the steamer was plain evidence of that. Already +Prosperity was flooding into America--that prosperity upon which our +President congratulated the country in his Thanksgiving address. + +But is that prosperity a good thing for the American people just +now? Aside from the speculation excited by the superabundance of gold +in our banks, there is the envy of hungry Europe to be reckoned with +a few months or years hence, after the close of the great war, an envy +that might readily be translated into predatory action under certain +circumstances, as some thoughtful Americans are beginning to perceive. +Eastern America, where the war money has largely settled, is already +fearful, desires to arm the nation to protect its prosperity. And +there is the more subtle, the more profound danger that this undigested +war bloat of ours will dull the American vision still further to the +real issue at stake--the kind of world we are willing, the kind of soul +we wish, to possess. Can we safely digest the prosperity that the happy +accident of our temporary isolation and the prudent policies of our +Government have given us? Are we not feeding a cancer that will take +another war to cut from our vitals? + + * * * * * + +Most of us on board were Americans going about our businesses on a +belligerent nation's ship in defiance of Mr. Bryan's advice. The man +next to me was building a new munitions plant for France, and beyond +him was the European manager for a large American corporation whose +factories have been taken over by the German Government. He was +returning to America to enter the munitions business in Pittsburg +or Connecticut. To these commercial travelers of war the European +struggle meant, naturally, first of all money, the opportunity of a +lifetime to make money quickly; it meant also less vividly helping +the Allies, who needed everything they could get from us and were +willing to pay almost any price for it. Sometimes they talked of the +long list of "accidents" that were happening daily in American factories +and genially cursed the hyphenated Germans. As for the other sort of +Germans they felt vaguely that some day America must reckon with them, +too. Evidently they put small faith in the "three thousand miles of +cool sea-water" as a nonconductor of warfare! So here was another +aspect of the war--the possible dangers to us, without a friend in +the world, as every one agreed. And we talked "preparedness" in the +usual desultory way. The munitions men seemed to think that they were +patriotically working for their own country in getting "the plant" of +war into being. "Some day we shall need guns and shells too!" Afterwards +I found in America that this vague fear of probable enemies had seized +hold of the country quite generally, and that the very Government which +had done nothing toward settling the present war rightly was planning +for "defense" with a prodigal hand. Peaceful America was getting +alarmed--of what? + +There were also in our number some young doctors and nurses who were +returning from the hospitals in France for a little needed rest. They +were of those young Americans who are giving themselves so generously +for the cause, eager, courageous, sympathetic. They seemed to me to +have gotten most from the war of all us Americans, much more than the +munitions men who were making money so fast. In Belgium, in Serbia, +behind the French lines, in the great hospital at Neuilly, they had +got comprehension and all the priceless rewards of pure giving. They +had seen horror, suffering, and waste indescribable; but they had +seen heroism and devotion and chivalry. And with them should be joined +all the tender-hearted and generous Americans at home who have aided +their efforts, who are working with the energy of the American character +"for the cause." Alas, already the word was coming of a relaxation in +the generosities, the devotions, the enthusiasms of these Americans. +Other interests were coming into our rapid activities to distract us +from last year's sympathies.... + + * * * * * + +So as we rolled on through the soft summer night while the passengers +discussed the latest Russian reverse of which news had been received +by wireless, I kept asking myself,--"What does it really mean to us? +To vast, rich, young America?" Surely not merely more money, more +power, even a loftier inspiration for the few who have given themselves +generously in sympathy and aid. After all, these were but incidental. +The threat we were beginning to feel to our own security, this campaign +for "preparedness," did not seem of prime, moving importance. Probably +in our bewildered state of mind we should wrangle politically about the +matter of how much defense we needed, then drop some more hundreds of +millions into the bottomless pit of governmental extravagance and waste. +We had already spent enough to equip another Germany! When peace was +finally made in Europe, we would forget our fears; our Congressmen and +their parasites would fatten on the new appropriations, which would be +as actually futile as all their predecessors had been. No; these were +hardly the significant aspects of the war to us as a people. + +No more was that acrobatic exhibition of diplomatic tight-rope +walking we had witnessed from Washington. Mere "words, words, words, +professor!" Our dialectic President had thus far failed to establish +any one of his contentions, either with Germany or Great Britain, nor +did it seem likely that he ever could. While he was still modifying +that awkward phrase, "strict accountability," Germany obviously would +murder whomsoever it suited her purpose to murder, and England would +hold up any ship that attempted to trade with Germany. All those +neutral rights for which Washington was paying big cable tolls had +not been advanced an atom. The time had gone by when our strong voice +could compel respect from the barbarian, could hearten the soul of +other weaker neutrals. Europe had taken our exact measure. We should +have saved some dignity had we not murmured more than a formal +protest.... + +And yet, returning from "war-ridden Europe" I was more convinced +than of anything else in life that what was being slowly settled +in that grim trench--land over there did mean something to us--more, +much more than money or neutral rights or sympathetic charities. Not +that I was apprehensive of an immediate German raid on New York, the +crumbling of her sky-scrapers and the exaction of colossal indemnities. +For it looked to me that Germany might well have other occupation +after peace was made in Europe, whichever way the war should go. The +German peril did not lie, I thought, in her big guns, her ships, her +"Prussianized machine." It lay deeper, in herself, in her image of +the world. If Germany could win even a partial victory under that +monstrous creed of applied materialism, illuminated as it had been +with every sort of cynical crime, with its reasoned defiance of contract, +its principle of "indispensable severities," its "military reasons," +_that_ must become inexorably the law of the world--the barbarians' +law. Germany would have made the morality of the world! And of all +the world's peoples to accept the victor's new reading of the +commandments, proud America would be the first. For we cannot resist +the fascination of success. The German aim, the German tyranny over +the individual, the German morality--one for you and me as individuals +and another utterly lawless one when we get together in a social +state--would be imitated more than the German lesson of thoroughness +in civil and military organization. Hypnotized by German success, we +should not discipline ourselves, which is the German lesson, so much +as we should riot in the moral license of the German creed. Americans +would worship at the altar of that queer "old German god," who +apparently encourages rape, murder, arson, and tyranny in his followers. +For in young America, with every social tradition in it seething blood, +there is already an insidious tendency to accept this new-old religion +of triumphant force. American "Big Business" can understand the Kaiser's +philosophy, can reverence his "old German god" when he brings victory, +more than any other people outside of Germany. For it, too, believes +in "putting things over" with a strong hand. There is not an argument +of the German militarist propaganda that would not find a sympathetic +echo somewhere in the headquarters of American corporations. + + * * * * * + +When the old fourteen-knot steamer finally dropped anchor off +quarantine in New York Harbor and the reporters came on board with +the dust of America on their shoes, the roar of America in their +voices, I was surer than ever that this greatest of world wars meant +a vast deal more to us than trade or charity or politics, which is +what we seem to be making of it for the most part. It means the form +which our national character is to take ultimately. The German peril, +which is held before the public in moving pictures and in alarmist +appeals for "preparedness," is already in our midst, not so much at +work blowing up our factories as insidiously at work in our hearts. +The German apologist--even of Anglo-Saxon blood--is suggesting the +reasonableness of a German verdict. "After all," one hears from his +lips, "there is much on the other side of the shield, which our +English prejudices have prevented us from seeing. Germany cannot be +the monster of barbarism that she has been painted. As for broken +treaties, the atrocities, the submarines, the murder of Edith Cavell, +and her rough work over here,--well, we must remember it is war, and +the Russian Cossacks have not been saints!... As to her military +autocracy, perhaps a little of it would not be a bad thing for +America. At any rate, Germany seems to have the power--it is useless +to think of putting her down.... The American public will forget all +about German crimes once Germany is victorious." "Nothing succeeds +like success." "There is always a reason for success," etc. Which +cynical acceptance proves that we have already "committed adultery in +our hearts." + +There are many voices in the air, too many. Americans have not yet +found themselves in this crisis of world tragedy, and the Government +at Washington has not helped them to an understanding. We are vastly +relieved at not finding ourselves "involved" and accept shabby verbal +subterfuges as a triumph of American diplomacy. Meanwhile the Lusitania +incident has been conveniently forgotten, with the awkward phrase +"strictly accountable." Along the eastern seaboard the anxious and the +timid are clamoring for "defense"--against what? The talkative pacifists, +who would make a grotesque farce of the bloody sacrifice by a futile +peace, are bringing further ridicule and contempt on their country +with their impertinent if well-meant efforts. Meantime, the money-makers +have taken this occasion to stage a spectacular bull market, grumbling +on the fruits of war! And there is the "good-time" side to American life. +For a few brief months after the outbreak of the war Americans were +staggered by the awfulness of the tragedy and moved under its shadow. +Their hearts went out in sympathy, in feeding the dispossessed, and +sending aid to the wounded. We spent less on ourselves, partly because +of financial fear, partly because of our desire to give, partly because +our hearts were too heavy to play. But already that serious mood is +passing, and to-day as a people we are hard at it again, chasing a good +time. We feel once more the same old lustful urge to get and enjoy.... +The other night as I looked out on the peopled sea of the New York +opera-house, with its women richly dressed and jeweled, its white-faced +men, leading the same life of easy prodigal expense, of sensual +gratification, I remembered another opera staged in the mysterious +twilight of Bayreuth where from the gloom emerged the hoarse bass of +Fafner's cry,--"I lie here possessing!" The voice of the great worm +proved to be the voice of Germany. Is it ours also? + + * * * * * + +Do we Americans desire to have our world Germanized? Not in art and +language and customs, though may Heaven preserve us from that fate +also! But Germanized in soul? Do we want the German image or the Latin +image of the world to prevail? And are we strong enough in our own +ideal to resist a "peaceful penetration" by triumphant Germany into +our minds and hearts? That is the urgent matter for us. No amount +spent on big guns, superdreadnoughts, submarines, and continental +guards--no amount of peace talk--can keep the German peril out of +America if we surrender our souls to her creed, now that Germany +seems to be imposing it successfully with her armies in Europe. Those +dirty _poilus_ in the front trenches are, indeed, fighting our battle +for us, if we did but know it! + + + + +II + + +_The Choice_ + +"We have all sinned, your people as well as mine, the English, +the French, the Germans, all, all of us,--but Germany has sinned +most." When M. Hanotaux spoke these words with a Hebraic fervor of +conviction, I did not have to be told what he meant. The people of +our time have sinned through their hot desire for material possession +of the earth and its riches--through commercialism, capitalism, call +it what you will. Each great nation has made its selfish race for +economic advancement at the expense of other peoples: commercial +rivalry has largely begotten this bloody war, which is essentially +a predatory raid by one barbarous tribe against the riches of its +neighbors. Whether England or Russia under similar circumstances +would have dared a similar attack on the liberties of the world is +open to speculation. To Germany alone, however, has been reserved the +distinction of elevating greed and the lust of power to the dignity +of a philosophic system, a creed with the religious sanction of that +"old German god" to smite the rivals of the Fatherland and take away +their wealth. It is because Germany has made a consistent monster out +of her materialistic interpretation of modern science that she is now +held up before the nations of the world as a spectacle and a warning. +"We have all sinned" in believing that the body is more than the +spirit, that food and pleasure and power are the primary ends of all +living; but Germany alone has had the effrontery to justify her +cynicism by conscious theory and to teach it systematically to all +her people. She has endowed with life a philosophical idea, given it +the personality of her people, created a national Frankenstein to be +feared and loathed. More, she is coming perilously nigh to imposing +her god upon the world! + +We have all worshiped at the shrine of material achievement--in +America with the riot of young strength. England, like old King +Amfortas, is now bleeding from the sins of her youth and calling in +vain for some Parsifal to deliver her from their penalty. She has +built her rich civilization on a morass of exploited millions, and +her Nemesis is that in her hour of peril her sodden millions strike +and drink and feel no imperative urge to give their lives for an +England that sucked her prosperity from their veins. In the race for +commercial supremacy the Latin nations--Italy, Spain, and France--have +been deemed inferior to Germany, England, and the United States, +because they were less tainted with the lust of possession, less +materialistic in their reading of life, less powerful in their grasp +upon economic opportunity than their rivals. In the Latin countries +industry yet remains largely on the small scale, which is economically +wasteful, but which does not build up fabulous wealth at the expense +of the individual worker. The great corporation designed for the rapid +creation of wealth has not found that congenial home on Latin soil +which it has on ours, or on German soil. And this fact accounts for +the touch of handicraft lingering in the product of Latin industry, +for the strength and health individually of their working classes, +for their fervor of devotion to the national tradition. The Latin +has never forgotten the claims of the individual life: democracy to +him is more than the right to vote. Therefore, pure art, pure science, +pure literature--also the world of ideas--has a larger part in the life +of Latin peoples than with us in the eternal struggle with the +materialistic forces of life. To the Latin living is not solely the +gratification of the body. He reckons on the intelligence and the +spirit of man as well. + + * * * * * + +It may seem to some that throughout these pages I have spoken +paradoxically of the world war as primarily a struggle between the +Latin and the Germanic ideal, ignoring the significance of Russia +and of England. In spite of the heroic resistance of the French and +the pertinacious thrust of the Italians against the steel wall in +which Austria has bound them, the Latin forces engaged are obviously +less than half of the Allied Powers. On the sea England is virtually +alone. Nevertheless, I see the struggle as a Latin-German one, the +great decision as essentially a decision between these two types of +ideals. All else is relative and accidental. Apart from the +surprising vitality developed by the two Latin peoples, their +astonishing force in the brutal struggle for survival,--which has +disagreeably put wrong the calculations of their enemy,--it is the +mental and spiritual leadership of the world which is being fought +for rather than the physical. The ideas and the ideals under which +the Allies are fighting, which can be simply summed up however +divergent their manifestations, are French, are Latin ideas and +ideals, not English, not Russian. The spirit of the cause to which +England has lent her imperial supremacy and Russia her undeveloped +strength is Latin, and since the war began the English have widely +borne testimony to this fact. + +The right of peoples, little as well as strong nations, to live their +own lives, to preserve their own political autonomy, to develop their +own traditions, is part of the Latin lesson learned in the throes of +the great Revolution. It is expressed passionately, wistfully in that +universal cry of the French people: "We must end this thing--it must +never happen again--we must win the right to live as we see fit, not +under the dictation of another!" To the Latin mind the world is +peopled by individuals who cannot and should not be pressed in the +same political or economic mould, who must win their individual +salvation by an individual struggle and evolution. This is the ideal +of liberty the world over, which prompted France to send us help in +our struggle with England. It is a wasteful, an uneconomic ideal, as +we Americans have proved in our slovenly administration of our great +inheritance. Yet we would not have a machine-made, autocratic +organization, no matter how clean and thrifty and efficient it might +make our cities. We prefer the slow process of conversion to the +machine process of coercion. And that is one source of our sympathy +with French civilization. Let us have all liberty to its possible +limit short of license: the Latin intelligence has known how to +preserve liberty from becoming license. The result in the human being +of the principle of liberty is individual intelligence and spiritual +power; those are the high ideals toward which democracy aims. The +cost of them is efficiency, organization--immediate results which +German discipline obtains. But the cost of the German ideal is the +humanity of life, and that is too big a price to pay. That there +should be found many among us who are willing to exchange the +spiritual flower of our civilization for the sake of a more efficient +social organization is evidence of the extent to which the cancer of +a materialistic commercialism has already eaten into our life. + + * * * * * + +The Latin vision of life includes chivalry, as has been abundantly +revealed by the spirit of the French, sorely tried in their struggle +with the new barbarian. Chivalry means beauty of conduct, an +uneconomic, a sentimental ideal, but without which the life of man on +this earth would be forlorn, lacking in dignity, in meaning. Take +from mankind the shadowy dream of himself implied in his desire for a +chivalrous world, and you leave him a naked animal from the jungle, +more despicable the more skillful he becomes in gratifying his lusts. +The Latin vision of life includes also beauty of art, man's radiation +of his inner spiritual world, and closely woven with the love of art +is respect for tradition--reverence for the past which has been +bequeathed to him by his ancestors, which is incorporated in his +blood. + +We in America have striven for these beauties of chivalry, art, and +tradition. We have striven to put them into our lives often blindly, +crudely. We have borrowed and bought what we could not create; +instinctively we pay homage to what is beyond our industrial power +to make, confessing the inadequacy of our materialism to satisfy our +souls. We, too, demand a world in which beauty of conduct, beauty of +manners, and beauty of art shall be cultivated to give meaning to our +lives. The bombardment of Rheims, the murder of Edith Cavell are as +shameful to the American mind as to the French, and as incomprehensible. +These are not matters of reason, but of instinct--commands of the soul. + + * * * * * + +The Latin ideal is not predatory. Whatever they may have done in +their past, the Latin peoples to-day are not greedy of conquest. If +the Allies win, France will gain little territory. Both Italy and +France have limited their territorial ambitions to securing their +future safety by establishing frontiers on natural barriers. France +also expects indemnity for her huge losses and for outraged Belgium. +She must rebuild her home and be freed for generations to come from +the inhibiting fear of invasion. One does not feel so confident of +England: in the past she has had the pilfering hand. But from +prudence if not from shame England may content herself with a +reestablished prestige and a tranquil Europe. Russia has already +reconciled herself to relinquishing Poland, and except for her +natural ambition to enter the Mediterranean she seems without +predatory desires. Russia, it should not be forgotten, took up arms +to protect her own kin from the Austrians. The Slav and the Latin +have a spiritual sympathy that cannot exist between the Latin and the +Teuton, which gives their present union more than an accidental +significance. + +Whatever secret ambitions may be brewing in the chancelleries of +Europe, France has put herself on record against conquest too +emphatically to countenance at the peace conference any predatory +rearrangement of the map of Europe. She has made the great war a +struggle of principle--the principle of national liberty against the +principle of military conquest. It is this great principle which +gives significance to her cause and justifies the awful slaughter and +waste of bleeding Europe. If the pretensions of physical might, no +matter with what excuses, can be thoroughly defeated, proved to be an +impossible theory of life, so that never again in the history of the +world will a nation attempt to take with the sword what does not +belong to it, the bloody sacrifice will have been well worth making. +The issues of the great conflict have been obscured, especially in +America, but to the humblest soldier of France they are as clear as +blazing sunlight. "Never again!" Never the monstrous pretension that +power alone makes right, that the will to eat gives free license to +the eater, however great his appetite or his belief in himself. That +is the cause of all the world, for which the French are willing to +give all that they have. And I know no cause more important to be +settled for the future of the human race. + + * * * * * + +Are we not interested in the right decision of this cause? A +peaceable people, loving our own way, jealous of interference, +we should assuredly present a lamentable spectacle were we called +upon to defend ourselves against a predatory enemy. Possibly a more +lamentable spectacle of inefficiency combined with corruption than +England has given the world the past year! And at last we are becoming +aware that our policy of selfish isolation does not mean immunity from +attack. We are realizing that those "three thousand miles of cool +sea-water" no longer make an effectual barrier against the ingenuity +of modern men. + +But I would not put the matter on the selfish basis of our own +security. It is vastly larger than that. It is, vitally, what +manner of world we wish to have for ourselves and our children. +At the invasion of Belgium, America gave with splendid unanimity +the response: Americans did not want the German world! Since then, +alas, it would seem that the clear moral reaction of our people to +the demonstration of the world struggle has been gradually weakening: +we are becoming confused, permitting insidious reasoners to cloud the +issue, listening to the prompting of the beast in our own bellies, +hesitating, dividing, excusing, evading the great question--"seeing +both sides." As if there were two sides to such a plain issue stripped +of all its fallacies and subterfuges and lies! Do we wish to have +American life take on the moral and intellectual and artistic color +of German ideals? Do we prefer the "old German god" to the culture +and humanities we have inherited from the Latin tradition?... "We, +too, have sinned." In our blood is all the crude materialism of a +triumphant Germany without her discipline and her organization. We, +too, are ready to enter the fierce war of commercial rivalry with +England and Germany. We, too, believe in the good of economic expansion, +though dubious about our own imperialism. Surely no people that ever +lived stood hesitating so dangerously at the crossroads as America at +this hour. Prudence has prevented us as a nation from pronouncing +that moral verdict on the cause which might have had decisive weight +in hastening the world decision. But a selfish timidity cannot prevent +us individually from realizing the immense importance to us of the +decision that is being ground out in the tears and blood of Europe. +And no ideal of diplomatic neutrality can prevent Americans who care +for anything but their own selfish well-being from doing all in their +power to make ours a Latin rather than a Teutonic world. + +Every soldier who dies in the trenches of France, who bears a maimed +and disfigured body through life, is giving himself for us, so that +we may live in a world where individual rights and liberties are +respected, where beauty of conduct and beauty of art may endure, +where life means more than the satisfaction of bodily appetites. + + + + +III + + +_Peace_ + +The real cynics of the war are the pacifists. They see nothing more +serious in the European agony than what can be disposed of easily at +any time in a peace conference--by talk and adjustment. So obsessed +are some of them by the slaughter of men, by the woe and travail of +Europe, that they would turn the immense sacrifice into a grotesque +farce by any sort of compromise--a peace that could be no peace, +merely the armistice for further war. Their eyes are so blinded by +the economic waste of the war and its suffering that they are incapable +of seeing the great underlying principle that must be decided. Americans, +having evaded the responsibility of pronouncing a decisive moral +judgment on the rape of Belgium, the sinking of the Lusitania, and +the extermination of the Armenians, play the buffoon with women's +peace conferences, peace ships, and endless impertinent peace talk. +We, who have forfeited our right to sit at the peace conference, who +are busily making money off the war, having prudently kept our own +skins out of danger, are officiously ready with proposals of peace. +What a peace! The only peace that could be made to-day would be a +dastardly treason to every one of the millions whose blood has watered +Europe, to every woman who has given a son or a father or a husband +to the settlement of the cause. The parochialism of the American +intelligence has never been more humiliatingly displayed than in +the activities of our busy peacemakers. + + * * * * * + +No sane person believes in war. The sordidness and the horror of war +have never been so fully revealed as during this past year. War has +been stripped of its every romantic feature. Modern war is worse than +hell--it is pure insanity. We do not need peace foundations, peace +conferences, peace ships to demonstrate the awfulness of war. But +crying peace, thinking peace, willing peace will not bring peace +unless conditions that make peace exist. Here in America we use the +word peace too loosely, as if it meant some absolute state of being +which we had achieved through our innate wisdom rather than from the +happy accident of our world position. But peace is an entirely +relative term, as any one who has given heed to the social conditions +we have created should realize. We have enjoyed a certain kind of +peace, the value of which is debatable. And now, alarmed at the +exposed condition of our eastern seaboard, we are agitatedly +preparing to arm to protect ourselves--from what? From Germany? Or is +it from England? And still we recommend an instant peace to Europe! + +Awful as are the waste and suffering caused by war, hideous as modern +warfare is, there are worse evils for humanity. To my thinking the +perpetuation of the lawless, materialistic creed of the new Germany +would be infinitely worse for the world than any war could be. When +the German tide broke into Belgium and poured out over northern +France, sweeping all before it, killing, burning, raping, the +pacifists no doubt would have accepted the conqueror as the will of +God and have made peace then!... There are none more eager for peace +than the soldiers in the trenches who are giving their lives to press +back the barbarian flood. But no peace until their "work has been +done, the cause won." I have heard Americans express the fear that +European civilization is in danger of annihilation from the prolonged +conflict. Even that were preferable to submission to the wrong ideal. +But I see, rather, the possibility of a higher civilization through +the settlement of fundamental principles, the reaffirmation of +necessary laws. It is surely with this abiding faith that the +enormous sacrifices are being freely made by the allied nations. "It +is of little importance what happens to us," a Frenchman said to me +in Rheims, whose home had been destroyed that morning, whose son had +already been killed in the trenches. "There will be a better world +for the generations to come because of what we have endured." That is +what the American pacifist cannot seem to understand--the necessity +of present sacrifice for a better future, the cost in blood and agony +of ultimate principles. + + * * * * * + +This war is leading us all back to the basic commonplaces of +thinking. Is life under any and all conditions worth the having? Our +reason says not. It tells us that the diseased and the weak-minded +should not be permitted to breed, that an anaemic existence under +degenerating influences is not worth calling life. We shudder in our +armchairs at the thought of "cannon food," but why not shudder +equally at the words "factory food," "mine food," and "sweat-shop +food"? We are inclined to sentimentalize over those brave lives that +have been spent by the hundreds of thousands on the battlefields of +France and Poland, but for the most part we live placidly unconscious +of the lives ground out in industrial competition all about us. +Between the two methods of eating up, of maiming, of suppressing +human lives, the battle method may be the more humane--I should +prefer it for myself, for my child. What our pacifists desire is not +so much peace as bloodlessness. We should be honest enough to +recognize that for many human beings,--possibly a majority even in +our prosperous, war-free society,--a violent death may not be by any +means the worst event. And it may be the happiest if the individual +is convinced that the sacrifice of his existence will help others to +realize a better life. That is the hope, the faith of every loyal +soldier who dies for his country, of every soldier's father and +mother who pays with a son for the endurance of those ideals more +precious than life itself. + +The higher one rises in consciousness, the more nearly free and +self-determined life becomes, the greater are the rewards of complete +sacrifice. There are many who have "fallen on the field of honor" +whose lives, if lived out under normal peace conditions, might have +meant much to themselves, possibly to humanity. They have given +themselves freely, without question, for what seems to them of more +importance than life. Wounded, mutilated past all usefulness, dying, +they have not rebelled. Doctors and nurses in the hospitals tell the +story of their endurance without complaint of their bitter fate. Much +as we must feel the awful price which they have felt obliged to pay, +it is not sentimental to say that the finer spirits among them have +lived more fully in the few crowded weeks of their struggle than if +they had been permitted to live out their lives in all the +gratifications of our comfortable civilization. Letters from them +give an extraordinary revelation of priceless qualities gained by +these soldiers through complete renunciation and sacrifice. War, it +must not be denied, is a great developer as well as a destroyer of +life. Nothing else, it would seem, in our present state of evolution +presses the cup of human experience so full of realization and +understanding as battle and death. The men who are paying for their +beliefs with their lives are living more in moments and hours than we +who escape the ordeal can ever live. For life cannot be measured by +time or comfort or enjoyment. It is too subtle for that! A supreme +effort, even a supreme agony, may have more real living worth than +years of "normal" existence. The youths whose graves now dot so +plentifully the pleasant fields of France have drunk deeper than we +can fathom of the mystery of life. + +As for the nation, that greater mother for whose existence they have +given their individual lives, there is even less question of the +benefit of this war. We Americans are fond of measuring loss and gain +in figures: we reckon up the huge war debts, the toll of killed and +wounded, and against this heavy account we set down--nothing. It is +all dead loss. Yet even to-day, in the crisis of their struggle, +there is not a Frenchman who will not admit the immense good that has +already come to his people, that will come increasingly out of the +bloody sacrifice. The war has united all individuals, swept aside the +trivial and the base, revealed the nation to itself. The French have +discovered within their souls and shown before the world qualities, +unsuspected or forgotten, of chivalry, steadfastness, seriousness, +and they have renewed their familiar virtues of bravery and good +humor and intelligence. The French soldier, the French citizen, and +the French woman are to-day marvelously moulded in the heroic type +of their best tradition: in the full sense of the word they are +gallant--chivalrous, self-forgetful, devoted. Is there any price +too great to pay for such a resurrection of human nobility? + +The pacifist is fain to babble of the "disciplines of peace." No +one denies them. But how can humanity be compelled to embrace these +disciplines of peace? The German lesson of thoroughness and social +organization and responsibility was as necessary before the war as it +is to-day, but neither England nor France, neither Russia nor our own +America gave heed to it until the terrible menace of extermination +in this war ground the lesson into their unwilling souls. It may be +lamentable that humanity should still be held so firmly in the grip +of biologic law that it must kill and be killed in order to save +itself, but there are things worse than death. Until humanity learns +the secret of self-discipline it will create diseases that can be +eradicated only with the knife; it is merely blind to assume that +the insanity of war can be prevented by any system of parliamenting, +or litigation, or paper schemes of international arbitration. Some +issues are of a primary importance, unarguable, fundamental. No +man--and no nation--is worthy of life who is not ready to lay it down +in their settlement. I know that some Americans are still unable to +perceive that any such fundamental principle is at stake in Europe +to-day. Extraordinary as it seems to me I hear intelligent men refer +to the great war as if it were a local quarrel of no real consequence +to us. Even the humblest _poilu_ in the trenches, the simplest +working-woman in France, know that they are giving themselves not +merely in the righteous cause of self-defense, but in the world's +cause in defense of its best tradition, its highest ideals. Their +cause is big enough to consecrate them. + + * * * * * + +Therefore a new, a larger, a more vital life has already begun for +invaded and unconquered France! In order to reap the blessings of +war, a nation must have an irreproachable cause, and aside from +Belgium, France has the clearest record of all the belligerents in +this world war. She will gain most from it, not in land or wealth, +but in honor and moral strength, in dignity and pride. She is ready +to pay the great price for her soul. This is the one supreme +inspiration that the French are giving an admiring world--their +readiness to give all rather than yield to the evil that threatens +them. With the light of such nobility in one's eyes, it is difficult, +indeed, to be patient with the cynical clamor of comfortable neutrals +for peace at any price. If there is anything of dignity and meaning +in human life, it lies in selfless devotion to beliefs, to +principles; it is readiness to sacrifice happiness, life, all, in +their defense. + +And that is patriotism in its larger aspect. Our intellectuals +discuss coldly the primitive quality of patriotism and its unexpected +recrudescence in this world war. They talk of it in the jargon of +social science as "group consciousness." Before I felt its fervor +in the crisis of Italy's decision, in the sublime endurance of the +French, I did not realize what patriotism might mean. It is not +merely the instinctive love for the land of birth, loyalty to the +known and familiar. Much more than that! The natal soil is but the +symbol. Patriotism is human loyalty to the deeper, better part of +one's own being, to the loves and the ideals and the beliefs of one's +race. It is the love of family, of land, of tongue, of religion, of +the woman who bore you and of the woman you get with child, of the +God you reverence. It is loyalty to life as it has been poured into +you by your forefathers, to those ideals which your race has conceived +and given to the world. "_Viva Italia!_" "_Vive la France!_" is a +prayer of the deepest, purest sort that the Italian or the Frenchman +can breathe. Without these subconscious devotions and loyalties the +human animal would be a forlorn complex of mind and sense. Those +amorphous beings who, thanks to our modern economic wealth, have become +"citizens of the world," who wander physically and intellectually from +land to land, who taste of this and that without incorporating any +supreme devotion in their blood, our cosmopolites and expatriates and +intellectuals, froth of a too comfortable existence, give forth a +hollow sound at the savage touch of war. They become pacifists. They +can see neither good nor evil: all is a vague blur of "humanity." + +Patriotism is the supreme loyalty to life of the individual. Wherever +this loyalty is instinctive, vivid, there some precious tradition has +been bequeathed to a people that still burns in their blood. Latin +patriotism is ardent like man's one great love for woman, ennobling +the giver as well as the loved one; it is tender like the son's love +for the mother, with the sanctity of acknowledgment of the debt of +life. Can any vision of "internationalism" take the place of these +powerful personal loyalties to racial ideals?... "Mere boys led to +the slaughter" is the sentimentality one hears of the marching +conscripts of European armies. Better even so than the curse of no +supreme allegiance, or devotion, or readiness to sacrifice--than the +aimless selfishness in which our American youth are brought up! + + * * * * * + +For every boy in Europe knows, as soon as he knows anything, that he +owes one certain fixed debt, and that is service to his country, to +that larger whole that has given him the best part of his own being. +If need be, he owes it his life itself. It is an obligation he must +fulfill before all other obligations, at no matter what inconvenience +or sacrifice to himself, unquestioningly, immediately. + +What takes the place for the American youth of this primary +obligation? Himself! He is expensively nurtured, schooled, put +forward into life--for what? To help himself as best he can at the +general table of society. He can never forget himself, subordinate +his personal ambition to any transcendent loyalty. He becomes from +his cradle the egotist. + +To-day under the shadow of world war we are taking thought of +national protection, projecting schemes of defense including the +enrollment of citizens who may be called upon to fight for their +country. It is less important to teach our youth the military lessons +of self-protection than it is to teach them the greater lesson of +self-forgetfulness, of devotion to a national ideal--so that they may +be ready to give their lives for that national ideal as the youth of +Europe have given their lives to settle this world cause. Not a few +hundreds of thousands of national guards, then, in order to secure +ourselves from invasion are what we need, but that every man or woman +born into the nation or adopting it as home should be made to feel +the obligation of national service. It matters less what form that +service should take, whether purely military or partly military and +partly social. It is the service, the sense of obligation that counts +for the individual and for the nation. The responsibility of service +teaches the importance of ideas, the necessity of sacrifice. And he +who is ready to sacrifice himself, to forget himself and become +absorbed in the life that surrounds him, of which he is but an +infinitesimal unit, to which he owes the best in him, has already +achieved a larger peace than the pacifist dreams of. + + * * * * * + +Consider what happened to the youth of France a little more than +a year ago. Suddenly with no preparation or warning they were called +to defend their country from invasion. It was no longer possible to +argue the rights of that diplomatic tangle into which European +statesmen had muddled. Whatever the ultimate truth, the ultimate +right of the controversy, the state--that larger self which was their +home, their mesh of loves and interests and beliefs--demanded their +service. The youth of France had been brought up with the knowledge +that any day such a sacrifice might be required, with the +consciousness deeply rooted in their beings that one of the necessary +conditions of their living was to give their all at the call of the +state. They conceived of no honorable alternative: it was as +inevitable to pay this obligation as it is for decently minded +citizens to pay their legal debts. They hurried to their mobilization +posts, donned uniforms and equipment, and were shipped away in +regiments to the front. Most of them did not worry about the +possibility of death, but acted like all healthy human beings, +ignoring what they could not affect, caught up in the novelty and the +requirements of the new life. Yet deep in the consciousness of the +most careless must have lain some thought that he might never return, +that the cross-marked grave on the hillside, the pit, or the hospital +might be waiting for him. + +This consciousness that he can no longer dispose of himself, at +least for the finer spirit, must act as a great release. Having +accepted his fate, and therefore willed it as the only possible +choice for him, he becomes another person, a largely selfless person, +a strangely older, calmer being capable of thinking and acting +clearly, nobly. Once the great personal decision made, the resolve +to forego life and happiness and personal achievement, a clogging +burden of selfish considerations drop from within. So one can read +the experience of those two young officers preserved in Henry +Bordeaux's "Two Heroes." They were free as never before to do what +lay before them,--their officers' duty,--simply, directly. Many things +that they had previously valued seemed to have lost color, to have +become trivial. They thought solely of acquitting themselves with, +honor in what it was their fate to do. They were ready to obey +because before death they were humble. They had begun to glimpse +the blind mystery that is life, in which every one must needs act +his part without questioning, with faith in its ultimate meaning, +with the will to trust its end. They were brave because they were +simple and single-hearted, selfless. They were strong because they +disdained to be weak, having renounced all. If it were to be their +fate to die unnoted, they were content with the satisfaction of having +done what was expected of them. And if they died in glory, they were +unaware of their honor, believing that they had done no more than +any of their fellows would have done in the same opportunity. + +Thus, having laid down their lives for the cause that commanded +their faith and loyalty, they found their real lives--larger, more +beautiful, stronger.... Not once, but many thousands of times, has +this miracle happened! Their graves are strewn, singly and in groups, +over every field of eastern France. They paid the debt, did their +part little or great, unknown or glorified by men. Literally they +have given their blood for the soil of their fathers' land. + + * * * * * + +We know that they have given much more than their blood to that soil. +Just as at the call to arms, the selfish, the mean, the vicious +qualities of these lives dropped from them in the freedom of +sacrifice accepted, and in place of egotistic preoccupations rose +once more to the surface of their natures the ancient virtues of +their race, so in their going they left for the others who lived, who +were to be born, a tremendous legacy of honor and noble +responsibility. By watering the soil with their blood they have made +it infinitely more precious for every human being that treads upon +it. They have helped to make mere life more significant for those who +remain to mourn them. It can never again be quite the same +commonplace affair, so lightly, cheaply spent, as it had been before. +They have not left behind them joy, but faith. And that is why the +faces of the earnest living who are able to realize this sacrifice of +youth have a grave sternness in them which touches even the most +careless stranger. Something of the glory created by the dead and the +wounded radiates out even to us in a distant, peaceful land.... + +But why, we ask, all this sacrifice, this cruel, agonizing sacrifice +of war? That is a mystery too deep for any to fathom. It is better +not to probe too insistently, to accept it as the man in Rheims,--"It +must be better for the others afterward because of what we have +endured." That is the expression of faith in life which is the better +part of any religion. For what we suffer now, for what we give now of +our most precious, it will be repaid to those who are to come. Life +will be freer, grander, more significant: it will be a better world. +Nobody who has seen or felt the heavy tragedy of this world war could +endure its horror if he were not sustained by that faith. But with +that faith the losses seem not too vast. One by one the world's great +decisions must be made, in suffering, in blood and tears. Peace comes +not through evasion or compromise, either for the individual or for +the state. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The World Decision, by Robert Herrick + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORLD DECISION *** + +***** This file should be named 8529.txt or 8529.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/5/2/8529/ + +Produced by Eric Eldred, Anne Reshnyk, Charles Franks, and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The World Decision + +Author: Robert Herrick + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8529] +[This file was first posted on July 20, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE WORLD DECISION *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Eric Eldred, Anne Reshnyk, Charles Franks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE WORLD DECISION + +BY + +ROBERT HERRICK + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +_PART ONE--ITALY_ + + I. ITALY HESITATES + + II. THE POLITICIAN SPEAKS + +III. THE POET SPEAKS + + IV. THE PIAZZA SPEAKS + + V. ITALY DECIDES + + VI. THE EVE OF THE WAR + + +_PART TWO--FRANCE_ + + I. THE FACE OF PARIS + + II. THE WOUNDS OF FRANCE + +III. THE BARBARIAN + + IV. THE GERMAN LESSON + + V. THE FAITH OF THE FRENCH + + VI. THE NEW FRANCE + + +_PART THREE--AMERICA_ + + I. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO US? + + II. THE CHOICE + +III. PEACE + + + + +THE WORLD DECISION + + +PART ONE--ITALY + + +I + + +_Italy Hesitates_ + +Last April, when I left New York for Europe, Italy was "on the verge" +of entering the great war. According to the meager reports that a strict +censorship permitted to reach the world, Italy had been hesitating for +many months between a continuance of her precarious neutrality and joining +with the Allies, with an intermittent war fever in her pulses. It was +known that she was buying supplies for her ill-equipped army--boots and +food and arms. Nevertheless, American opinion had come to the somewhat +cynical belief that Italy would never get further than the verge of war; +that her Austrian ally would be induced by the pressure of necessity to +concede enough of those "national aspirations," of which we had heard +much, to keep her southern neighbor at least lukewarmly neutral until +the conclusion of the war. An American diplomat in Italy, with the best +opportunity for close observation, said, as late as the middle of May: +"I shall believe that Italy will go into the war only when I see it!" + +The process of squeezing her Austrian ally when the latter was in a +tight place--as Italy's negotiating was interpreted commonly in +America--naturally aroused little enthusiasm for the nation, and when +suddenly, during the stormy weeks of mid-May, Italy made her decision +and broke with Austria, Americans inferred, erroneously, that her +"sordid" bargaining having met with a stubborn resistance from Vienna, +there was nothing left for a government that had spent millions in war +preparation but to declare war. The affair had that surface appearance, +which was noisily proclaimed by Germany to the world. Chancellor +Bethmann-Hollweg's sneer concerning the "voice of the piazza having +prevailed" revealed not merely pique, but also a complete +misunderstanding, a Teutonic misapprehension of the underlying motives +that led to an inevitable step. No one who witnessed, as I did at close +range, the swift unfolding of the drama which ended on May 23 in a +declaration of war, can accept such a base or trivial reading of the +matter. Like all things human the psychology of Italy's action was +complex, woven in an intricate pattern, nevertheless at its base simple +and inevitable, granted the fundamental racial postulates. Old impulses +stirred in the Italians as well as new. Italy repeated according to the +modern formula the ancient defiance by her Roman forefathers of the +Teutonic danger. _"Fuori i barbari"_--out with the barbarians--has lain +in the blood of Italy for two thousand years, to be roused to a fresh +heat of hate by outraged Belgium, by invaded France, by the Lusitania +murders. Less conscious, perhaps, but not less mighty as a moving force +than this personal antagonism was the spiritual antagonism between the +Latin and the German, between the two visions of the world which the +German and the Latin imagine and seek to perpetuate. That in a large and +very real sense this world agony of war is the supreme struggle between +these two opposed traditions of civilization--a decision between two +competing forms of life--seems to me so obvious as to need no argument. +In such a struggle Italy must, by compulsion of historical tradition as +well as of political situation, take her part on the side of those who +from one angle or another are upholding with their lives the inheritance +of Rome against the pretensions of force--law, justice, mercy, beauty +against the dead weight of physical and material strength. + + * * * * * + +One had no more than put foot on the quay at Naples before the atmosphere +of fateful hesitation in which Italy had lived for eight months became +evident to the senses of the traveler. Naples was less strident, less +vocal than ever before. That mob of hungry Neapolitans, which usually +seizes violent hold of the stranger and his effects, was thin and +spiritless. Naples was almost quiet. The Santa Lucia was deserted; the +line of pretentious hotels with drawn shutters had the air of a summer +resort out of season. The war had cut off Italy's greatest source of ready +money--the idler. Naples was living to itself a subdued, zestless life. +Cook's was an empty inutility. The sunny slopes of Sorrento, where during +the last generation the German has established himself in all favorable +sites, were thick with signs of sale. + +In other respects there were indications of prosperity--more building, +cleaner streets, better shops. In the dozen years since I had been there, +Italy had undoubtedly prospered, and even this beggar's paradise of sun +and tourists had bettered itself after the modern way. I saw abundant +signs of the new Italy of industrial expansion, which under German +tutelage had begun to manufacture, to own ships, and to exploit itself. +And there were also signs of war-time bloat--the immense cotton business. +Naples as well as Genoa was stuffed with American cotton, the quays piled +with the bales that could not be got into warehouses. It took a large +credulity to believe that all this cotton was to satisfy Italian wants. +Cotton, as everybody knew, was going across the Alps by the trainload. +Nevertheless, our ship, which had a goodly amount of the stuff, was held +at Gibraltar only a day until the English Government decided to accept +the guarantees of consul and Italian Ambassador that it was legitimately +destined for Italian factories--a straw indicating England's perplexity +in the cotton business, especially with a nation that might any day become +an ally! It would be wiser to let a little more cotton leak into Germany +through Switzerland than to agitate the question of contraband at this +delicate moment. + +The cotton brokers, the grain merchants, and a few others were making +money out of Italy's neutrality, and _neutralista_ sentiment was +naturally strong among these classes and their satellites. No doubt +they did their best to give an impression of nationalism to the creed +of their pockets. But a serious-minded merchant from Milan who dined +opposite me on the way to Rome expressed the prevailing beliefs of his +class as well as any one,--"War, yes, in time.... It must come.... But +first we must be ready--we are not quite ready yet"; and he predicted +almost to a day when Italy, finding herself ready, would enter the great +conflict. He showed no enthusiasm either for or against war: his was a +curiously fatalistic attitude of mind, an acceptance of the inevitable, +which the American finds so hard to understand. + + * * * * * + +And this was the prevailing note of Rome those early days of May--a +dull, passive acceptance of the dreaded fate which had been threatening +for so many months on the national horizon, ever since Austria plumped +her brutal ultimatum upon little Serbia. There were no vivid debates, +no pronounced current of opinion one way or the other, not much public +interest in the prolonged discussions at the Consulta; just a lethargic +iteration of the belief that sooner or later war must come with its +terrible risks, its dubious victories. Given the Italian temperament +and the nearness of the brink toward which the country was drifting, +one looked for flashes of fire. But Rome, if more normal in its daily +life than Naples in spite of the absence of those tourists who gather +here at this season by the tens of thousands, was equally acquiescent +and on the surface uninterested in the event. + +The explanation of this outward apathy in the public is simple: nobody +knew anything definite enough as yet to rouse passions. The Italian +newspaper is probably the emptiest receptacle of news published +anywhere. The journals are all personal "organs," and anybody can know +whose "views" they are voicing. There was the "Messagero," subsidized by +the French and the English embassies, which emitted cheerful pro-Ally +paragraphs of gossip. There was the "Vittorio," founded by the German +party, patently the mouthpiece of Teutonic diplomacy. There was the +"Giornale d'Italia" that spoke for the Vatican, and the "Idea Nazionale" +which voiced radical young Italy. And so on down the list. But there was +a perfectly applied censorship which suppressed all diplomatic leaks. So +one read with perfect confidence that Prince von Buelow had driven to the +Consulta at eleven-fifteen yesterday, and having been closeted with Baron +Sonnino, the Italian Foreign Minister, or with the Premier, Signor +Salandra, or with both, for forty-seven minutes, had emerged upon the +street smiling. And shortly after this event Baron Macchio, the Austrian +Envoy, arrived at the Consulta in his motor-car and had spent within the +mystery of the Foreign Office twenty or more minutes. The reader might +insert any fatal interpretation he liked between the lines of this +chronicle. That was quite all the reality the Roman public, the people +of Italy, had to speculate upon during weeks of waiting, and for the most +part they waited quietly, patiently. For whatever the American prejudice +against the dangers of secret diplomacy may be, the European, especially +the Italian, idea is that all grave negotiations should be conducted +privately--that the diplomatic cake should be composed by experts in +retirement until it is ready for the baking. And the European public +is well trained in controlling its curiosities. + +It was sufficiently astonishing to the American onlooker, however, +accustomed to flaming extras and the plethoric discussion in public of the +most intimate affairs, state and personal, to witness the acquiescence of +emotional Italians in this complete obscurity about their fate and that of +their children and their nation, which was being sorted behind the closed +doors of the Consulta. Every one seemed to go about his personal business +with an apparent calm, a shrug of expressive shoulders at the most, +signifying belief in the sureness of war--soon. There was little animation +in the cafes, practically none on the streets. Arragno's, usually buzzing +with political prophecy, had a depressing, provincial calm. Unoccupied +deputies sat in gloomy silence over their thin _consommations_. Even the +1st of May passed without that demonstration by the Socialists against war +so widely expected. To be sure, the Government had prudently packed Rome +and the northern cities with troops: soldiers were lurking in every old +courtyard, up all the narrow alleys, waiting for some hardy Socialist to +"demonstrate." But it was not the plentiful troops, not even a lively +thunderstorm that swept Rome all the afternoon, which discouraged the +Socialists: they too were in doubt and apathy. They were hesitating, +passing resolutions, defining themselves into fine segments of political +opinion--and waiting for Somebody to act! They too awaited the completion +of those endless discussions among the diplomats at the Consulta, at the +Ballplatz in Vienna, and wherever diplomacy is made in Berlin. The first +of May came and went, and the _carabinieri_, the secret police, the +infantry, the cavalry with their fierce hairy helmets filed off to their +barracks in a dripping dusk, dispirited, as if disappointed themselves +that nothing definite, even violence, had yet come out of the business. So +one caught a belated cab and scurried through the deserted streets to an +empty hotel on the Pincian, more than half convinced that the Government +meant really to do nothing except "negotiate" until the spirit of war had +died from the hearts of the people. + +Yet much was going on beneath the surface. There were flashes to be +seen in broad daylight. The King and his ministers at the eleventh hour +decided not to attend the ceremonies at Quarto of the unveiling of the +monument to the Garibaldian "Thousand." Now, what could that mean? Did +it indicate that the King was not yet ready to choose his road and feared +to compromise himself by appearing in company with the Francophile poet +D'Annunzio, who was to give the address? It would be a hard matter to +explain to Berlin, to whose nostrils the poet was anathema. Or did it +mean literally that the negotiations with reluctant Austria had reached +that acute point which might not permit the absence of authority from Rome +even for twenty-four hours? The drifting, if it were drifting, was more +rapid, day by day. + +There was a constant troop movement all over Italy, which could not be +disguised from anybody who went to a railroad station. Italy was not +"mobilizing," but that term in this year of war has come to have a +diplomatic insignificance. Every one knew that a large army had already +gone north toward the disputed frontier. More soldiers were going every +day, and more men of the younger sort were silently disappearing from +their ordinary occupations, as the way is in conscript countries. It was +all being done admirably, swiftly, quietly--no placards. The _carabinieri_ +went from house to house and delivered verbal orders. But all this might +be a mere "preparation," an argument that could not be used diplomatically +at the Consulta, yet of vital force. + +There was the sudden twenty-four-hour visit of the Italian Ambassador +at Paris to Rome. Why had he taken that long journey home for such a +brief visit, consumed in conferences with the ministers? And Prince von +Buelow had rallied to his assistance the Catholic Deputy Erzburger. Rome +was seething with rumor. + + * * * * * + +The remarkable passivity of the Italian public during these anxious +moments was due in good part, no doubt, to its thorough confidence in +the men who were directing the state, specifically in the Prime Minister +Salandra and his Minister of Foreign Affairs Baron Sonnino, who were the +Government. They were honest,--that everybody admitted,--and they were +experienced. In less troubled times the nation might prefer the popular +politician Giolitti, who had a large majority of the deputies in the +Parliament in his party, and who had presented Italy a couple of years +earlier with its newest plaything, Libya,--and concealed the bills. But +Giolitti had prudently retired to his little Piedmont home in Cavour. All +the winter he had kept out of Rome, leaving the Salandra Government to +work out a solution of the knotty tangle in which he had helped to involve +his country. Nobody knew precisely what Giolitti's views were, but it was +generally accepted that he preserved the tradition of the Crispi +statesmanship, which had made the abortion of the Triple Alliance. If he +could not openly champion an active fulfillment of the alliance, at least +he was avowedly _neutralista_, the best that Berlin and Vienna had come to +hope from their southern ally. He was the great unknown factor politically, +with his majority in the Chamber, his personal prestige. A clever American, +long resident in Rome in sufficient intimacy with the political powers to +make his words significant, told me,--"The country does not know what it +wants. But Giolitti will tell them. When he comes we shall know whether +there will be war!" That was May 9--a Sunday. Giolitti arrived in Rome +the same week--and we knew, but not as the political prophet thought.... + +Meanwhile, there were mutterings of the thunder to come out of this +stagnant hesitation. One day I went out to the little town of Genzano +in the Alban Hills, with an Italian mother who wished to see her son +in garrison there. The regiment of Sardinian _Granatieri_, ordinarily +stationed near the King in Rome, had been sent to this dirty little +hill town to keep order. The populace were so threatening in their +attitude that the soldiers were confined in their quarters to prevent +street rows. We could see their heads at the windows of the old houses +and convents where they were billeted, like schoolboys in durance vile. +I read the word "_Socilismo_" scrawled in chalk over the walls and +half-effaced by the hand of authority. The hard faces of the townsfolk +scowled at us while we talked with a young captain. The Genzanans were +against the war, the officer said, and stoned the soldiers. They did not +want another African jaunt, with more taxes and fewer men to till the +fields. + +Elsewhere one heard that the "populace" generally was opposed to war. +"We shall have to shoot up some hundreds of the rats in Florence before +the troops leave," the youthful son of a prefect told me. That in the +North. As for the South, a shrug of the shoulders expressed the national +doubt of Calabria, Sicily,--the weaker, less certain members of the +family. Remembering the dire destruction of the earthquake in the Abruzzi, +which wrought more ruin to more people than the Messina catastrophe, also +the floods that had destroyed crops in the fertile river bottoms a few +weeks before, one could understand popular opposition to more dangers and +more taxes. These were some of the perplexities that beset the Government. +No wonder that the diplomats were weighing their words cautiously at the +Consulta, also weighing with extreme fineness the _quid pro quo_ they +would accept as "compensation" from Austria for upsetting the Balkan +situation. It was, indeed, a delicate matter to decide how many of those +national aspirations might be sacrificed for the sake of present security +without jeopardizing the nation's future. Italy needed the wisdom of +patriots if ever in her history. + +The Salandra Government kept admirable order during these dangerous +days, suppressing the slightest popular movement, pro or con. That was +the wise way, until they knew themselves which road to take and had +prepared the public mind. And they had plenty of troops to be occupied +somehow. The exercise of the firm hand of authority against popular +ebullitions is always a marvel to the American. To the European mind +government means power, and power is exercised practically, concretely, +not by writs of courts and sheriffs, but by armed troops. The Salandra +Government had the power, and apparently did not mean to have its hand +forced by the populace.... + +The young officer at Genzano had no doubt that war was coming, nor +had the handsome boy whom we at last ran to ground in an old Franciscan +convent. He talked eagerly of the "promise" his regiment had received "to +go first." His mother's face contracted with a spasm of pain as he spoke, +but like a Latin mother she made no protest. If his country needed him, +if war had to be.... On our way back to Rome across the Campagna we saw a +huge silver fish swimming lazily in the misty blue sky--one of Italy's new +dirigibles exercising. There were soldiers everywhere in their new gray +linen clothes--tanned, boyish faces, many of them fine large fellows, +scooped up from villages and towns all over Italy. The night was broken +by the sound of marching feet, for troop movements were usually made at +night. The soldiers were going north by the trainload. Each day one saw +more of them in the streets, coming and going. Yet Baron Macchio and +Prince von Buelow were as busy as ever at the Consulta on the Quirinal +Hill, and rumor said that at last they were offering real "compensations." + + * * * * * + +The shops of Rome, as those of every city and town in Europe, were +hung with war maps, of course. In Rome the prevailing map was that highly +colored, imaginative rearrangement of southern Europe to fit the national +aspirations. The new frontier ran along the summits of the Alps and took +a wide swath down the Adriatic coast. It was a most flattering prospect +and lured many loiterers to the shop windows. At the office of the +"Giornale d'Italia" in the Corso there was displayed beside an irredentist +map an approximate sketch of what Austria was willing to give, under +German persuasion. The discrepancy between the two maps was obvious and +vast. On the bulletin boards there were many news items emanating from the +"unredeemed" in Trent and Trieste, chronicling riots and the severely +repressive measures taken by the Austrian masters. The little piazza in +front of the newspaper office was thronged from morning to night, and the +old woman in the kiosk beside the door did a large business in maps. + +And yet this aspect of the Italian situation seems to me to have been +much exaggerated. There was, so far as I could see, no great popular +fervor over the disinherited Italians in Austrian lands, in spite of the +hectic items about Austrian tyranny appearing daily in the newspapers--no +great popular agony of mind over these "unredeemed." Also it was obvious +that Italy in her new frontier proposed to include quite as many +unredeemed Austrians and other folk as redeemed Italians! No; it was +rather a high point of propaganda--as we should say commercially, a good +talking proposition. Deeper, it represented the urge of nationalism, +which is one of the extraordinary phenomena of this remarkable war. The +American, vague in his feeling of nationalism, refuses to take quite +seriously agitation for the "unredeemed." Why, he asks with naivete, go +to war for a few thousands of Italians in Trent and Trieste? + +I am not attempting to write history. I am guessing like another, +seeking causes in a complex state of mind. We shall have to go back. +Secret diplomacy may be the inveterate habit of Europe, especially of +Italy. The new arrangement with the Allies has never been published, +probably never will be. One suspects that it was made, essentially, before +Italy had broken with Austria, before, perhaps, she had denounced her old +alliance on the 5th of May at Vienna. And yet, although inveterately +habituated to the mediaevalism of secret international arrangements, Italy +is enough filled with the spirit of modern democracy to break any treaty +that does not fulfill the will of the people. The Triple Alliance was +really doomed at its conception, because it was a trade made by a few +politicians and diplomats in secret and never known in its terms to the +people who were bound by it. Any strain would break such a bond. The +strain was always latent, but it became acute of late years, especially +when Austria thwarted Italy's move on Turkey--as Salandra revealed later +under the sting of Bethmann-Hollweg's taunts. It was badly strained, +virtually broken, when Austria without warning to Italy stabbed at Serbia. +Austria made a grave blunder there, in not observing the first term of the +Triple Alliance, by which she was bound to take her allies into +consultation. The insolence of the Austrian attitude was betrayed in the +disregard of this obligation: Italy evidently was too unimportant a factor +to be precise with. Italy might, then and there, the 1st of August, 1914, +very well have denounced the Alliance, and perhaps would have done so had +she been prepared for the consequences, had the Salandra Government been +then at the helm. + +There is another coil to the affair, not generally recognized in America. +Austria in striking at Serbia was potentially aiming at a closer +envelopment of Italy along the Adriatic, provision for which had been made +in a special article of the Triple Alliance,--the seventh,--under which +she had bound herself to grant compensations to Italy for any disturbance +of the Balkan situation. Austria, when she was brought to recognize this +commission of fault,--which was not until December, 1914, not seriously +until the close of January, 1915,--pretended that her blow at Serbia was +chastisement, not occupation. But it is absurd to assume that having +chastised the little Balkan state she would leave it free and independent. +It is true that in January Austrian troops were no longer in Balkan +territory, but that was not due to intention or desire! They had been +there, they are there now, and they will be there as long as the Teutonic +arms prevail. It is a game of chess: Italy knew the gambit as soon as +Austria moved against Serbia. The response she must have known also, but +she had not the power to move then. So she insisted pertinaciously on her +right under the seventh clause of the Triple Alliance to open negotiations +for "compensations" for Austria's aggression in the Balkans, and finally +with the assistance of Berlin compelled the reluctant Emperor to admit her +right. + +These complexities of international chess, which the American mind +never seems able to grasp, are instinctively known by the man in the +street in Europe. Every one has learned the gambits: they do not have +to be explained, nor their importance demonstrated. The American can +profitably study those maps so liberally displayed in shop windows, +as I studied them for hours in default of anything better to do in +the drifting days of early May. The maps will show at a glance that +Italy's northern frontiers are so ingeniously drawn--by her hereditary +enemy--that her head is virtually in chancery, as every Italian knows +and as the whole world has now realized after four months of patient +picking by Italian troops at the outer set of Austrian locks. And there +is the Adriatic. When Austria made the frontier, the sea-power question +was not as important as it has since become. The east coast of the +Adriatic was a wild hinterland that might be left to the rude peoples +of Montenegro and Albania. But it has come into the world since then. +Add to this that the Italian shore of the Adriatic is notably without +good harbors and indefensible, and one has all the elements of the +strategic situation. All fears would be superfluous if Austria, the old +bully at the north, would keep quiet: the Triple Alliance served well +enough for over thirty years. But would Austria play fair with an +unsympathetic ally that she had not taken into her confidence when +she determined to violate the first term of the Triple Alliance? + +All this may now be pondered in the "Green Book," more briefly and +cogently in the admirable statement which Italy made to the Powers when +she declared war on Austria. That the Italian Government was not only +within its treaty rights in demanding those "compensations" from Austria, +but would have been craven to pass the incident of the attack on Serbia +without notice, seems to me clear. That it was a real necessity, not a +mere trading question, for Italy to secure a stronger frontier and control +of the Adriatic, seems to me equally obvious. These, I take it, were the +vital considerations, not the situation of the "unredeemed" Italians in +Trent and Trieste. But Austria, in that grudging maximum of concession +which she finally offered to Italy's minimum of demand, insisted upon +taking the sentimental or knavish view of the Italian attitude: she would +yield the more Italianated parts of the territory in dispute, not the +vitally strategic places. Nor would she deliver her concessions until +after the conclusion of the war--if ever!--after she had got what use +there was from the Italians enrolled in her armies fighting Russia. For +Vienna to regard the tender principle of nationalism is a good enough +joke, as we say. Her persistence in considering Italy's demands as either +greed or sentiment is proof of Teutonic lack of imagination. The Italians +are sentimental, but they are even more practical. It was not the woes of +the "unredeemed" that led the Salandra Government to reject the final +offering of Austria, and to accept the risks of war instead. It was rather +the very practical consideration of that indefensible frontier, which +Austria stubbornly refused to make safe for Italy--after she had given +cause, by her attack upon Serbia, to render all her neighbors uneasy in +their minds for their safety. + +So much for the sentimental and the strategical threads in the Consulta +negotiations. It was neither for sentiment nor for strategical advantage +solely that Italy finally entered the war. Nevertheless, if the German +Powers had frankly and freely from the start recognized Italy's position, +and surrendered to her _immediate_ possession--as they were ready to do +at the last moment--sufficient of those national aspirations to safeguard +national security, with hands off in the Adriatic, Italy most probably +would have preferred to remain neutral. I cannot believe that Salandra +or the King really wanted war. They were sincerely struggling to keep +their nation out of the European melting-pot as long as they could. But +they were both shrewd and patriotic enough not to content themselves with +present security at the price of ultimate danger. And if they had been as +weak as the King of Greece, as subservient as the King of Bulgaria, they +would have had to reckon with a very different people from the Bulgars and +the Greeks--a nation that might quite conceivably have turned Italy into a +republic and ranged her beside her Latin sister on the north in the world +struggle. The path of peace was in no way the path of prudence for the +House of Savoy. + + * * * * * + +Lack of imagination is surely one of the prominent characteristics of +the modern German, at least in statecraft. Imagination applied to the +practical matters of daily living is nothing more than the ability to +project one's own personality beneath the skin of another, to look +around at the world through that other person's eyes and to realize +what values the world holds for him. The Prince von Buelow, able diplomat +though they call him, could not look upon the world through Italian +eyes in spite of his Italian wife, his long residence in Rome, his +professed love for Italy. It must have been with his consent if not +by his suggestion that Erzburger, the leader of the Catholic party in +the Reichstag, was sent to Rome at this critical juncture. The German +mind probably said,--"Here is a notable Catholic, political leader of +German Catholics, and so he must be especially agreeable to Italians, +who, as all the world knows, are Catholics." The reasoning of a stupid +child! Outwardly Italy is Catholic, but modern Italy has shown herself +very restive at any papal meddling in national affairs. To have an +alien--one of the "_barbari_"--seat himself at the Vatican and try to +use the papal power in determining the policy of the nation in a matter +of such magnitude, was a fatal blunder of tactless diplomacy. Nor could +Herr Erzburger's presence at the Vatican these tense days be kept secret +from the curious journalists, who lived on such meager items of news. No +more tactful was it for Prince von Buelow to meet the Italian politician +Giolitti at the Palace Hotel on the Pincian. There is no harm in one +gentleman's meeting another in the rooms of a public hotel so respectable +as the Palace, but when the two are playing the international chess +game and one is regarded as an enemy and the other as a possible traitor, +the popular mind is likely to take a heated and prejudiced view of the +small incident. Less obvious to the public, but none the less untactful, +was the manner in which the German Ambassador tried to use his social +connection in Rome, his family relationships in the aristocracy of Italy, +to influence the King and his ministers. He might have taken warning from +the royal speech attributed to the Queen Mother in reply to the Kaiser: +"The House of Savoy rules one at a time." He should have kept away from +the back stairs. He should have known Italy well enough to realize that +the elements of Roman society with which he was affiliated do not +represent either power or public opinion in Italy any more than good +society does in most modern states. Roman aristocracy, like all +aristocracies, whether of blood or of money, is international in its +sympathies, skeptic in its soul. And its influence, in a decisive question +of life and death to the nation, is nil. The Prince von Buelow was wasting +his time with people who could not decide anything. As Salandra said, with +dignified restraint in answer to the vulgar attack upon him made by the +German Chancellor,--"The Prince was a sincere lover of Italy, but he was +ill-advised by persons who no longer had any weight in the nation"--as +his colleague in London seems to have been ill-advised when he assured +his master that Englishmen would not fight under any circumstances! The +trouble with diplomacy would seem to be that its ranks are still recruited +from "the upper classes," whose gifts are social and whose sympathies +reflect the views and the prejudices of a very small element in the +state. Good society in Rome was still out on the Pincian for the afternoon +promenade, was still exchanging calls and dinners these golden spring +days, but its views and sympathies could not count in the enormous complex +of beliefs and emotions that make the mind of a nation in a crisis. Prince +von Buelow's motor was busily running about the narrow streets of old Rome, +the gates of the pretty Villa Malta were hospitably open,--guarded by +_carabinieri_,--but if the German Ambassador had put on an old coat and +strolled through the Trastevere, or had sat at a little marble-topped +table in some obscure cafe, or had traveled second or third class between +Rome and Naples, he might have heard things that would have brought the +negotiations at the Consulta to an abrupter close one way or the other. +For Italy was making up its mind against his master. + + * * * * * + +Rome was very still these hesitant days of early May, Rome was very +beautiful--I have never known her so beautiful! The Pincian, in spite +of its afternoon parade, had the sad air of forced retirement of some +well-to-do family. The Piazza di Spagna basked in its wonted flood +of sunshine with a curious Sabbatical calm. A stray _forestieri_ might +occasionally cross its blazing pavements and dive into Piale's or Cook's, +and a few flower girls brought their irises and big white roses to the +steps, more from habit than for profit surely. The Forum was like a wild, +empty garden, and the Palatine, a melancholy waste of fragments of the +past where an old Garibaldian guard slunk after the stranger, out of +lonesomeness, babbling strangely of that other war in which he had part +and mixing his memories with the tags of history he had been taught to +recite anent the Roman monuments. As I wandered there in the drowse of +bees among the spring blossoms and looked out upon the silent field that +once was the heart of Rome, it was hard to realize that again on this +richly human soil of Italy the fate of its people was to be tested in +the agony of a merciless war, that even now the die was being cast less +than a mile away across the roofs. The soil of Rome is the most deeply +laden in the world with human memories, which somehow exhale a subtle +fragrance that even the most casual stranger cannot escape, that condition +the children of the soil. The roots of the modern Italian run far down +into the mould of ancient things: his distant ancestors have done much +of his political thinking for him, have established in his soul the +conditions of his present dilemma.... I wonder if Prince von Buelow ever +spent a meditative hour looking down on the fragments of the Forum from +the ilex of the Palatine, over the steep ascent of the Capitoline that +leads to the Campidolgio, as far as the grandiose marble pile that fronts +the newer city? Probably not. + + * * * * * + +Germany wanted her place in the sun. She had always wanted it from the +day, two thousand years and more ago, when the first Teuton tribes came +over the Alpine barrier and spread through the sun-kissed fields of +northern Italy. The Italian knows that in his blood. There are two ways +in which to deal with this German lust of another's lands--to kill the +invader or to absorb him. Italy has tried both. It takes a long time to +absorb a race,--hundreds of years,--and precious sacrifices must be made +in the process. No wonder that Italy does not wish to become Germany's +place in the sun! Nor to swallow the modern German. + +When the Teuton first crossed the Alpine barrier and poured himself +lustfully out over the fertile plains of northern Italy, it was literally +a place in the sun which he coveted. In the ages since then his lust has +changed its form: now it is economic privilege that he seeks for his +people. In order to maintain that level of industrial superiority, of +material prosperity, to which he has raised himself, he must "expand" +in trade and influence. He must have more markets to exploit and always +more. It is the same lust with a new name. "Thou shalt not covet" surely +was written for nations as well as for individuals. But our modern +economic theory, the modern Teutonic state, is based on the belief: "Thou +shalt covet, and the race that covets most and by power gets most, that +race shall survive!" And here is the central knot of the whole dark +tangle. The German coveting greater economic opportunities, knowing +himself strong to survive, believes in his divine right to possess. It +is conscious Darwinism--the survival of the fittest, materially, which +he is applying to the world--Darwinism accelerated by an intelligent will. +And the non-Germanic world--the Latin world, for it _is_ a Latin world in +varying degrees of saturation outside of Germany--rejects the theory and +the practice with loathing--when it sees what it means. + + * * * * * + +What makes for the happiness of a nation? I asked myself in the mellow +silence of ancient Rome. Is it true that economic conquest makes for +strength, happiness, survival for the nation or for the individual? + +This Italy has always been poor, at least within modern memory--a literal, +actual poverty when often there has not been enough to eat in the family +pot to go around. She has had a difficult time in the economic race for +bread and butter for her children. There is neither sufficient land easily +cultivable nor manufacturing resources to make her rich, to support her +growing population according to the modern standards of comfort. The +Germans despise the Italians for their little having. + +Yet the Italian peasant--man, woman, or child--is a strong human being, +inured to meager living and hardship, loving the soil from which he digs +his living with an intense, fiery love. And poverty has not killed the +joy of living in the Italian. Far from it! In spite of the exceedingly +laborious lives which the majority lead, the privations in food, clothing, +housing, the narrowness,--in the modern view,--of their lives, no one +could consider the Italian people unhappy. Their characters, like their +hillside farms, are the result of an intensive cultivation--of making +the most out of very little naturally given. + +A healthy, high-tempered, vital people these, not to be despised in the +_kaiserliche_ fashion even as soldiers. Surely not as human beings, as a +human society. And their poverty has had much influence in making the +Italians the sturdy people they are to-day. Poverty has some depressing +aspects, but in the main her very lack of economic opportunity--the want +of coal and factories and other sources of wealth--has kept most of these +people close to the soil, where one feels the majority of any healthy, +enduring race should be. Poverty has made the Italians hard, content with +little, and able to wring the most out of that little. It has cultivated +them intensively as a people, just as they have been forced to cultivate +their rock-bound fields foot by foot. + +There are qualities in human living more precious than prosperity, and +in these Italians have shared abundantly--beauty, sentiment, tradition, +all that give color and meaning to life. These are the treasures of Latin +civilization in behalf of which the allied nations of Europe are now +fighting.... + + * * * * * + +I am well enough aware that all this is contrary to the premises of the +economic and social polity that controls modern statecraft. I know that +our great nations, notably Germany, are based on exactly the opposite +premise--that the strength of a state depends on the economic +development of its people, on its wealth-producing power. Germany has +been the most convinced, the most conscious, the most relentless exponent +of the pernicious belief that the ultimate welfare of the state depends +primarily on the wealth-getting power of its citizens. She has exalted +an economic theory into a religion of nationality with mystical appeals. +She has taught her children to go singing into the jaws of death in order +that the Fatherland may extend her markets and thus enrich her citizens +at the expense of the citizens of other states, who are her inferiors in +the science of slaughter. A queer religion, and all the more abhorrent +when dressed out with the phrases of Christianity! + +All modern states are more or less tainted with the same +delusion--ourselves most, perhaps, after Germany. "We have all sinned," +as an eminent Frenchman said, "your people and mine, as well as England +and Germany." It is time to revise some of the fundamental assumptions +of political philosophers and statesmen. Let us admit that peoples may +be strong and happy and contented without seeking to control increasingly +those sources of wealth still left undeveloped on the earth's surface, +without cutting one another's throats in an effort for national expansion. +The psychology of states cannot be fundamentally different from that of +the individuals in them. And the happiness of the individual has never +been found to consist wholly, even largely, in his economic prosperity. + +Because the Latin soul divines this axiomatic belief, because the +Latin world admits a larger, finer interpretation of life than +economic success, all civilization waits upon the great decision of +this war. + + * * * * * + +Suddenly in the calm of these drifting, hesitant days, when nobody +knew what the nation desired, there came a bolt of lightning. I have +said that the German people lack imagination by which to understand +the world outside themselves. They do not cooerdinate their activities. +Otherwise, why commit the barbarism of sinking the Lusitania, just at +the moment when they were straining to keep Italy from breaking +completely the frayed bonds of the Triple Alliance? Probably it never +entered any German head in the "high commandment" that the prosecution +of his undersea warfare might have a very real connection with the +Italian situation. He could not credit any nation with such "soft +sentimentality," as he calls it. Yet I am not alone in ascribing a +large significance to the sinking of the Lusitania in Italy's decision +to make war. Every observer of these events whom I have talked with or +whose report I have read gives the same testimony, that Italy first +woke to her own mind at the shock of the Lusitania murders.... + +The news came to me in my peaceful room above the Barberini Gardens. +The fountain was softly dripping below, the spring air was full of the +song of birds as another perfect day opened. The warm sunshine reached +lovingly up the yellowed walls of the old palace opposite. All the +little, old, familiar things of a long past, which pull so strongly +here in Rome at the human heart, were moving in the new day. The life +of men, so troubled, so sad, seemed beautiful this May morning, with +the suave beauty of ideals that for centuries have coursed through the +blood of Italy.... Luigi, the black-haired, black-eyed lad who brought +the morning coffee and newspapers, was telling me of the horrid crime. +With his outstretched fist clenched and shaking with rage he said the +words, then, dropping the paper with its heavy headlines, cursed it as +if it too symbolically represented the hideous thing that Germany had +become. "Now," he cried, "there'll be war! We shall fight them, the +swine!" A few days afterward Luigi departed to fight the "swine" on +some Alpine pass. + +Luigi's reaction to the sinking of the Lusitania was typical of all +Rome, all Italy. The same burst of execration and horror was in every +mouth. "Fuori i Barbari" was the title of a little anti-German sheet +that was appearing in Rome: it got a new significance as it hung in +the kiosks or was scanned by scowling men. It became the muttered cry +of the street. I am not simple enough to believe that the sinking of +the Lusitania of itself "drove Italy into the war." Nations no more +than individuals, alas, are idealistic enough to sacrifice themselves +simply for their moral resentments. But this fresh example of cynical +indifference to the opinion of civilization, just at the critical point +of decision for the Italian people, had much to do with the rousing of +that war fury without which no government can push a nation into war. +First there must be the spirit of hate, a personal emotion in the hearts +of many. It must be remembered also that Italy had felt with the entire +civilized world the outrage of Belgium. It has even been rumored that +one of the hard passages between Italy and her German allies was the +condition that Germany wished to attach to any Austrian concessions, +by which Italy at the peace conference should uphold Germany's "claims" +to Belgium. No one knows the truth about this, but if true it is in +itself an adequate explanation of the failure of the negotiations. And +now the Lusitania came with a fresh shock as an iterated example of +German state policy. It proclaimed glaringly to the eyes of all men +what the Teutonic thing is, what it means to the world. The Latin has +been cruel and bloody in his deeds, like all men, but he has never made +a cult of inhumanity, never justified it as a principle of statecraft. +Italians, prone to hate as to love, prone especially to hate the Teuton, +those aliens who have lusted after their richness and beauty all these +centuries, felt the Lusitania murders to the depths of their souls. It +was like a red writing on the wall, serving notice that in due season +Germany and Austria would tear Italy limb from limb because of her +"treachery" in not abetting them in their attack upon the peace of +the world. + +Prince von Buelow and Baron Macchio might as well have discontinued +their daily visits to the Consulta after the 7th of May. Whatever +they might have hoped to accomplish with their diplomacy to keep Italy +neutral had been irretrievably ruined by the diplomacy of Grand Admiral +von Tirpitz. The smallest match, the scratch of a boot-heel on stone, +can set off a powder magazine. The Lusitania was a goodly sized match. +If the King and his ministers were waiting for the country to declare +itself, if they wanted the excuse of national emotion before taking +the final irrevocable steps into war, they had their desire. From the +hour when the news of the sinking of the Lusitania came over the wires, +Italy began to mutter and shout. The months of hesitation were ended. +There were elements enough of hate, and Germany had given them all +focus. "Fuori i Barbari!" I bought a sheet from the old woman who +went hurrying up the street shouting hoarsely,--"Fuori i Barbari!" ... +"Fuori i Barbari!" ... "Barbari!".... + + + + +II + + +_The Politician Speaks_ + +Giovanni Giolitti came to Rome, a few days after the Lusitania affair. +Ostensibly he had come to town from his home in little Cavour, where he +had been in retirement all the winter, to visit a sick wife at Frascati. +Montecitorio, home of politicians, began to hum. Rome quivering with the +emotions of its great decision muttered. What did Giolitti's presence at +this eleventh hour signify? Remember what the shrewd American observer +had said the week before,--"Giolitti will tell the Italians what they +want." + +The master politician, the ex-Premier, the heir to Crispian policies, +was received at the railroad station by a few faithful friends, much +as Boss Barnes or Boss Penrose, returning from a voluntary exile in +New York or Pennsylvania, might be received by a few of the "boys." +They were Deputies from Montecitorio frock-coated and silk-hatted, +like politicians all the world over, not a popular throng of a hundred +thousand Romans singing and shouting, such as a few days later was to +gather in the piazza before the same station to greet the poet, +D'Annunzio. It is well to understand the significance of this +unobtrusive coming of the political leader at the moment, to realize +what sinister meaning it had for the existing Government, for the +Italian nation, for the Allies--for the world. + +The Italian Deputies who had been elected two years before, long before +even the astutest politician had any suspicion of the black cloud that +was to rise over Europe, were Giolittian by a great majority. Giolitti +was then the chief figure in Italian politics and controlled the Chamber +of Deputies. The Giolitti "machine," as we should say, was the only +machine worth mention in Italy. Rumor says that it was buttressed with +patronage as American machines are, and, more specifically, that Giolitti +when in power had diverted funds which should have gone into national +defense to political ends, also had deferred the bills of the Libyan +expedition so that at the outbreak of the war Italy found herself badly +in debt and with an army in need of everything. Soldiers drilled in the +autumn of 1914 in patent leathers or barefooted and dressed as they could, +while the Giolittian clubs and interests flourished. Also it was said +that the prefects of the provinces, who in the Italian system have large +powers, especially in influencing elections, were henchmen of the +politician. I do not know how just these accusations may be, nor how +true the more serious accusation shortly to be hurled abroad that +Giolitti had sold himself for German gold. The latter is easy to say +and hard to prove; the former is hard to prove and easy to believe--it +being the way of politicians the world over. + +However dull or bright Giolitti's personal honor may have been, +the Parliamentary situation was difficult in the extreme--one of +those absurd paradoxes of representative government liable to happen +any time. Here were five hundred-odd elected representatives of the +people owing allegiance, really, not to the King, not to the nation, +not to the responsible ministers in charge of the state, but to the +politician Giolitti. If they had been elected under the stress of +the war, after the 1st of August, 1914, they might not have been the +same personal representatives of Giovanni Giolitti. We cannot say. +Democracies are prone to be deceived in their chosen representatives: +they discover them mortgaged to a leader, secret or open. The Salandra +Government knew, of course, Giolitti's prejudices in favor of Italy's +old allies, disguised as patriotically _neutralista_ sympathies. He +had discreetly retired to little Cavour in Piedmont all the winter, +maintaining a disinterested aloofness throughout the prolonged +negotiations. Yet he knew, the Salandra Government and the King knew, +the people knew, that Giovanni Giolitti must be reckoned with before +Parliament could be opened to ratify the acts of the ministers, to +support them in whatever measures they had prepared to take. It would +be simple political insanity to open the Chamber before Giolitti had +been dealt with, leading to acrid discussions, scandal, the inevitable +downfall of the ministry, and political chaos. The nation must be united +and express itself unitedly by its legal mouthpieces before the world. + + * * * * * + +It has been said, I do not know with what truth, that Prince von Buelow had +informed the ex-Premier of Austria's ultimate concessions even before they +were presented to Salandra and Sonnino, and consequently that Giolitti was +precisely aware of the situation when he reached Rome. It is easy to +believe almost anything of a diplomacy that dealt with Giolitti in the +private rooms of a hotel after the downfall of the Salandra Government.... +At any rate, Giolitti went through the forms correctly: he called on the +Premier Salandra, the Foreign Minister Sonnino, who laid before the +ex-Premier the situation as it had shaped itself. Even the King received +him in private audience. So much was due to the leading politician of +Italy, who controlled, supposedly, a majority of the existing Parliament. +In a sense he held the Salandra Government in his hand, after the opening +of the Chamber, which could not be long delayed. + +Then the politician spoke. Rather, to be precise, he wrote a little note +to a faithful intimate, which was meant for the newspapers and got into +them at once. It was a very innocent little note of a few lines in which +he confided to "Caro Carlo" his opinion on the tense national situation: +better stay with the old allies--the Austrian offers seemed sufficiently +satisfactory. This may well have been a sincere, a patriotic judgment, as +sincere and patriotic as Bryan's resignation from the American Cabinet a +few weeks later. But Italians did not think so. Almost universally they +gave it other, sinister interpretations. Giolitti had been "bought," was +nothing more than the knavish mouthpiece of German intrigue. Giolitti +became overnight _traditore_, the arch-conspirator, the enemy of his +country! It must have staggered the politician, this sudden fury which +his innocent advice had roused. And, to condemn him, it is not necessary +to believe him to have been a knave bought by German gold. + +It is important to realize what happened overnight. Giolitti had +become the most hated, most denounced man in all Italy, and in so far +as he represented honest _neutralista_ sentiment the cause was dead. +If that was what the Salandra Government wanted to achieve, they had +got their desire. If, as the politicians say, they were "feeling out" +popular sentiment, they need no longer doubt what it was. Columns of +vituperation appeared in the anti-German newspapers, crowds began to +form and shout in the streets. "_Traditore_," hissed with every accent +of hate and scorn, filled the air. Giolitti's life was seriously in +danger--or the Government preferred to think so. The great apartment +house on the Via Cavour in which he lived was cordoned off by double +lines of troops. Cavalry kept guard, all day and half the night, before +the steps of Santa Maria Maggiore, ready to sweep through the crowded +streets in case the mob got out of hand. Other troops poured out of the +barracks over the city, doing _piquet a mato_ on all the main streets +and squares of the city. + +Giolitti had, indeed, swayed events,--"told the people what they +wanted,"--but not in the expected manner. He had revealed the nation +to itself, drifting on the verge of war, and they knew now that they +wanted nothing of Giolitti or neutrality or German compromises. They +wanted war with Austria. The remarkable fact is that a nation which had +submitted in passivity to absolute ignorance of the diplomatic exchanges, +waiting dumbly the decision that should determine its fate,--of which it +could be said that a large number, perhaps a majority, were neutral at +heart,--suddenly overnight awoke to a realization of the political +situation and rejected the prudent advice of their popular politician, +denounced him, and inferentially proclaimed themselves for war. At last +they had seen: they saw that the Salandra Government in which they had +confidence had come to the parting of the ways with Austria, and they +saw the hand of Giolitti trying to play the game of their ancient enemy. + +Then the Salandra Government did a bold, a dramatic thing: it resigned +in a body, leaving the King free to choose ministers who could obtain +the support of the Giolitti following in Parliament. It was inevitable, +it was simple, it was sincere, and it was masterly politics. The public +was aghast. At the eleventh hour the state was left thus leaderless +because its real desires were to be thwarted by a politician who took +his orders from the German Embassy. + +Thereupon the "demonstrations" against Giolitti, against Austria and +Germany, began in earnest. + + * * * * * + +The first popular "demonstration" which I saw in Rome was a harmless +enough affair, and for that matter none of them were really serious. +The Government always had the situation firmly in hand, with many +regiments of infantry, also cavalry, to reinforce the police, the secret +service, and the _carabinieri_, who alone might very well have handled +all the disorder that occurred. Never, I suspect, was there any more +demonstrating than the Government thought wise. The first occasion was +a little crowd of boys and youths,--not precisely riff-raff, rather like +our own college boys,--and they did less mischief than a few hundred +freshmen or sophomores would have done. They marched down the street from +the Piazza Tritone, shouting and carrying a couple of banners inscribed +with "Abasso Giolitti." They stoned a few signs, notably the one over the +empty office of the Austrian-Lloyd company, then, being turned from the +Corso and the Austrian Embassy by the police, they rushed back up the +hill to the Salandra residence, to hang about and yell themselves hoarse +in the hope of evoking something from the former Premier. The two poles +of the following "demonstrations" were the Salandra and the Giolitti +residences with occasional futile dashes into the Corso.... + +For the better part of a week these street excitements kept up, not +merely in Rome, but all over Italy: for that one week, while the King +sent for various public men and offered them the task of forming a +new ministry, which in every case was respectfully declined--as was +expected. + + * * * * * + +Why did the King not send for Giovanni Giolitti, the one statesman +who under ordinary circumstances might have expected a summons? +Neither Giolitti nor any of his intimates was invited to form a cabinet +and reestablish constitutional government. Nothing would appear to be +more natural than that the leader of the Opposition, controlling a +majority of the Deputies, who avowedly represented a policy opposed +to that of the ministers who had resigned, should be asked himself to +take charge. But Giolitti was never asked, and daily the shouting in +the streets grew louder, more menacing, and the mood of the public more +tense. Nothing was plainer than that if Giolitti had a majority of the +Deputies, the people were not for him and his policies. The House of +Savoy, as the King so well put it, rules by expressing the will of the +people. Each day it was more evident what that will was. Giolitti, the +master politician, was being outplayed by mere honest men. They had used +him--as Germany had used him--to try out the temper of the nation. With +him they drew the _neutralista_ and pro-German fire beforehand, prudently, +not to be defeated by hostile party criticism in the Chamber. And when +they got through with the politician, they threw him out: literally they +intimated through the Minister of Public Safety that they would not be +responsible any longer for his personal safety. There was nothing for +him but to go--before Parliament had assembled! + +As Italy seethed and boiled, threatening to break into revolutionary +violence, while the King received one respectable nonentity after +another, who each time after a very brief consideration declined the +proffered responsibility, Giolitti must have thought that the life of +the politician is not an easy one. He was stoned when he appeared on +the streets in his motor. He had to sneak out of the city at dawn that +last day. Where was all the _neutralista_ sentiment so evident the first +months of the war? And where was the German influence supposed to be so +strong in the upper commercial classes? Germans as well as Austrians +were scurrying out of Italy as fast as they could. Their insinuating +multiplicity was proved by the numbers of shuttered shops. More hotels +along the Pincian, whose "Swiss" managers found it prudent to retire +over the Alps, were closed. Angry crowds swarmed about the Austrian +and German consulates, also the embassies when they could get through +the cordons of troops on the Piazza Colonna. Noisy Rome these days might +very well give rise to pessimistic reflections on the folly of popular +government to politicians like Giolitti and the Prince von Buelow, whose +obviously prudent policies were thus being upset by the "voice of the +piazza" led by a very literary poet! No doubt at this moment they would +point to Ferdinand of Bulgaria and the King of Greece as enlightened +monarchs who know how to secure their own safety by ignoring the will +of their peoples. But the end for Ferdinand and Constantine is not yet. + + * * * * * + +The trouble with the politician as with the trained diplomat is that +he never goes beneath the surface. He takes appearances for realities. +He has often lost that instinct of race which should enable him to +understand his own humanity. To a Giolitti, adept in the trading game +of political management, it must seem insane for Italy to plunge into +the war against powerful allies, who at just this time were triumphing +in West and East alike--all the more when the sentimental and trading +instincts of the populace might be partly satisfied with the concessions +so grudgingly wrung from Austria. It was not only rash: it was bad +politics! + +But what Giolitti and men of his stripe the world over cannot +understand is that the people are never as crafty and wise and mean as +their politicians. The people are still capable of honest emotions, of +heroic desires, of immense sacrifices. They love and hate and loathe +with simple hearts. The politician like the popular novelist makes the +fatal mistake of underrating his audience. And his audience will leave +him in the lurch at the crisis, as Italy left Giolitti. Italy was never +enthusiastic, as its enemies have charged, for a war of mere aggression, +for realizing the "aspirations" because Austria was in a tight place, +even for redeeming a million and a half more or less of expatriated +Italians in Austrian territory. Politicians and statesmen talked of +these matters, perforce; the people repeated them. For they were tangible +"causes." But what Italians hated was Austrian and German leadership--were +the "_barbari_" themselves, their ancient foe; and when told that they +had better continue to make their bed with the "_barbari_," they revolted. + +There are many men in every nation,--some of the politician type, some +of the aristocratic type, some of the business type,--who by interest +and temperament are timid and fundamentally cynical. They are pacifists +for profit. About them gather the uncourageous "intellectuals," who +believe in the potency of all established and dominating power whatever +it may be. But these "leading citizens" fortunately are a minority in +any democracy. They do most of the negotiating, much of the talking, but +when the crisis comes,--and the issue is out in the open for every one +to see,--they have to reckon with the instinctive majority, whose +emotional nature has not been dwarfed. That majority is not necessarily +the "rabble," the irresponsible and ignorant mob of the piazza as the +German Chancellor sees them: it is the great human army of "little +people," normal, simple, for the most part honest, whose selfish stake +in the community is not large enough to stifle their deepest instincts. +In them, I believe, lies the real idealism of any nation, also its plain +virtues and its abiding strength. + +The Italian situation was a difficult one, obviously. Public opinion +had been perplexed. There were the classes I have just mentioned, by +interest and temperament either pro-German or honestly neutral. There +was the radical mob that the year before had temporarily turned Italy +into republics. There was the unreliable South. And the hard-ground +peasants who feared, justly, heavier taxes and the further hardships +of war. And there were the millions of honest but undecided Italians +who hated Teutonism and all its deeds, who were intelligent enough to +realize the exposed situation of Italy, who felt the call of blood for +the "unredeemed," and the vaguer but none the less powerful call of +civilization from their northern kin--above all who responded to the +fervid historical idealism of the poet voicing the longing of their +souls to become once more the mighty nation they had been. These were +the people whose change of hearts and minds surprised Giolitti and the +Germans. + +What had been going on in those hearts of the plain people all these +months of the great war, Giolitti could not understand. It was another +Italy from the one he had charmed that rose at his prudent advice and +threw the bitter word "_traditore_" in his teeth and howled him out of +Rome. Traitor, yes! traitor to the loftier, bolder, finer longings of +their hearts to take their stand at all cost with their natural allies +in this last titanic struggle with the barbarians. It was this sort of +public that spoke in the piazza and whose voice prevailed. + + * * * * * + +The diplomat deals too exclusively with conventional persons, with the +sophisticated. The politician deals too exclusively with the successful, +with the commercial and exploiting classes. Giolitti's associations +were of this class. Like any other _bourgeoisie_ of finance and trade, +"big business" in Italy was on the side of the big German battalions, +who at this juncture were winning victories. Italy was peculiarly under +the influence of German and Austrian finance. One of its leading lending +banks--the Banca Commerciale--was a German concern. Most of its newer +developments had been accomplished with German capital, were run by German +engineers, equipped with German machines. Germany has bitterly reproached +her former ally for the "ingratitude" of siding against the people who had +brought her prosperity. Gratitude and ingratitude in business transactions +are meaningless terms. The lender gets his profit as well as the borrower, +usually before the borrower. If Italy has needed German capital, Germany +has needed the Italian markets and Italian industries for her capital. The +Germans surely have used Italy as their commercial colony. Italy bought +her bathtubs, her electric machines, her coal, and her engines from +Germany. For the past generation the German commercial traveler has been +as common in Italy as the German tourist. In fact, was there ever a German +tourist who was not in some sense a commercial agent for the Fatherland? + +To the international financier all this is simply intelligible--a matter +of mutually desirable exchange. No debtor nation should feel aggrieved +with a creditor nation: rather it should rejoice that it has attracted +the services of foreign capital. Is the international economist right +in his reasoning? Why does the delusion persist among plain people that +the creditor is not always a benefactor? It is a very old and persistent +delusion, so strong in the Middle Ages that interest was considered +illegal and the despised Jews were the only people who dared finance +the world. Abstractly the economists are undoubtedly right, yet I am +fain to believe that the popular notion has some ground of truth in it +too. Obviously, according to modern notions a country rich in natural +resources, but poor in capital, inherited savings, must borrow money to +"develop" itself. But granting for the moment that material exploitation +of a country is as desirable as our modern notions assume it to be, even +then there are reasons for grave suspicion of foreign lenders. Take abused +Mexico. Its woes are in good part traceable to the pernicious influence +upon its domestic politics of the foreign capital which its riches have +attracted. One might instance the United States as an example of +beneficial exploitation by foreign capital, but with us it must be +remembered the lender has had neither industrial nor political power. +We have always been strong enough to manage our affairs ourselves and +satisfy our creditors with their interest--if need be with their +principal. We have drawn on the European horde as upon an international +bank, but we have absolutely controlled the disposition of the moneys +borrowed. A weak country can hardly do that. Mexico could not. It had +to suffer the foreign exploiter, with his selfish intrigues, in person. +Italy has never been as weak as Mexico: it has maintained its own +government, its own civilization. But the increasing amount of foreign +investment, the increasing number of foreign "interests" in Italy, has +been evident to every Italian. The hotels, the factories, the shops all +testify patently to the presence of the stranger within the gates looking +after his own interests, breeding his money on Italian soil. + +But why not? the dispassionate internationalist may ask. Why should not +the Italian hotels be in the hands of Austrians, Germans, and Swiss; the +new electrical developments be installed and run by Germans; the shops +for tourists and Italians be owned by foreigners? There we cross the +unconscious instinct of nationality, which cannot be ignored. Assuming +that there is something precious, to be guarded as a chief treasure in +the instinct of nationality, as I assume, there are grave dangers in too +much friendly commercial "infiltration" from the outside. The indirect +influences of commercial exploitation with foreign capital are the +insidious, the dangerous ones. The dislike of the foreign trader, the +foreign creditor, may voice itself crudely as mere envy, know-nothingism, +but it has a healthy root in national self-preservation. For an Italian +the German article should be undesirable, especially if its possession +means accepting the German and his way of life along with his goods. The +small merchant and the peasant express their resentments of foreign +competition rawly, no doubt. Consciously it is half envy of the more +efficient stranger. Unconsciously they are voicing the deep traditions +of their ancestors, vindicating their race ideals, cherishing what is +most enduring in themselves. They would not see their country given over +to the stranger, whose life is not their life. + +One unpleasant aspect of the commercial invasion of Italy by the Teuton +was his liking to live there, and consequently the amount of real estate +which he was collecting on the Latin peninsula--so much that the lovely +environs of Naples were fast becoming a German principality! These +invaders were not traders, nor workers, but capitalists and exploiters. +The process is known now as "infiltration." The German had filtered into +Italy in every possible way, was supplanting its own native life with the +Teutonic thing, as it had in France so largely. Italy could well profit +from that experience of its sister nation. The Germans who filtered into +French life, commercial, industrial, social, were German first and last. +When the crisis came they turned from their adopted land, where they had +lived on terms of cordial hospitality for ten, twenty, thirty years, and +took themselves back to Germany, in many cases to reappear as the invader +at the head of armed troops. The experience of France proved that the +peaceful German resident was a German all the years of his life, not a +loyal, vital factor in his adopted country--too often something of a spy +as well. Therefore Italy might well be disturbed over the presence of so +much Teutonic "infiltration" in her own beloved land. And why should +Germany call her ungrateful when she sought to rid herself of her +unwelcome creditors? German capital had made its five per cent on its +investments, and better: it should not expect to absorb the life of the +nation also. + + * * * * * + +In every debtor nation there must be an element which profits directly +from the creditor relation. It assumes, naturally, the aspects of +"progress," and consists of the richer trading class and bankers, +sustainers of politicians. Such, I take it, were the followers of +Giolitti, and such was Giolitti himself, a sincere admirer of Teutonic +success and believer in the economic help which Germany could render +to his kind of Italian. Such men as Giolitti are easily impressed by +evidences of German superiority: they identify progress with the rapid +introduction of German plumbing, German hotel-keeping, German electric +devices, German banks. All these, they believe, help a "backward country" +to come forward. They do not understand the finer spiritual risks that +such material benefits may involve. They are not as sensitive as the +humble peasant, as simpler citizens, to the gradual sapping of the +precious national roots, of the internal debasement that may be going +on through the process of "infiltration." They are too prosperous, too +cosmopolitan to feel losses in national individuality. They realize +merely the better hotels, the better railways, the improved plumbing +in their country. Their souls are already half-Teutonized. + +In his dignified answer to the German Chancellor's vulgar attack on him +in the Reichstag, Salandra referred to the long history of the Italian +people, who "were civilized and leaders of the world" when the Teuton +hordes were still savage. It was the spirit of that ancient civilization +which did not consist primarily of industrial development that stirred +in the souls of true Italians and made them scorn the advice of the +Teutonized politician. He was "_traditore_" to all that nobler Italians +hold dear--to the Latin tradition. + + + + +III + + +_The Poet Speaks_ + +The poet prophet has so long abdicated his rights among us moderns +that we are incredulous when told that he has again exercised his +function. That is the reason why the story of a poet's part in leading +the Italian people toward their decision is received by Americans with +such skeptical humor. And Gabriele d' Annunzio in the role! A poet who +is popularly supposed to be decadent, if not degenerate, gossipingly +known for his celebrated affair with a famous actress, whose novels and +plays, when not denounced for their eroticism, are very much caviar to +the "wholesome" man, so full are they of a remote symbolism, so purely +"literary." "Exotic" is the chosen word for the more tolerant American +minds with which to describe the author of "Il Fuoco" and "San Sebastian." + +In recent years the Italian poet has abandoned his native land, living +in Paris, writing his last work in French, having apparently exiled +himself for the rest of his life and renounced his former Italianism. +Circumstances were stronger than the poet. The war came, and D'Annunzio +turned back to his native land. + + * * * * * + +He came to Italy at a critical moment and characteristically he filled +the moment with all the drama of which it was capable. His reappearance +in Italy, as every one knows, was due to the ceremonies in connection +with the unveiling of a monument to the famous Garibaldian band,--the +Thousand,--in the little village of Quarto outside of Genoa, from which +Garibaldi and his Thousand set forth on their march of liberation +fifty-five years ago. The monument had been long in the making. The +opportunity for patriotic instigation was heightened by the crisis of +the great war. The King and his ministers had indicated, previously, +their intention of participating in this national commemoration, but +as the day grew near and the political situation became more acute, +it was announced that the urgency of public affairs would not permit +the Government to leave Rome. It may have been the literal fact that +the situation precipitated by the presence of Giolitti demanded their +constant watchfulness. Or it may well have been that the King and the +Salandra Government had no intention of allowing their hand in this +dangerous game to be forced by any reckless fervor of the poet. They +were not ready, yet, to countenance his inflammation. At any rate, +they left the occasion solely to the poet. + +How he improved it may best be gathered from his address. To the +American reader, accustomed to a blunter appeal, the famous _Sagra_ +will seem singularly uninflammatory--intensely vague, and literary. +One wonders how it could fire that, vast throng which poured out along +the Genoa road and filled the little Garibaldian town. But one must +remember that nine months of hesitation had prepared Italian minds for +the poet's theme--the future of Italy. He linked the present crisis of +choice with the heroic memories of that first making of a nation, "_Oggi +sta sulla patria un giorno di porpora; e questo e un ritorno per una +nova dipartita, o gente d'Italia!_"--A purple day is dawning for the +Fatherland and this is a return for a new departure, O people of Italy! +The return for the new departure--to make a larger, greater Italy, just +as the Thousand had departed from this spot to gather the fragments of +a nation into one. "All that you are, all that you have, and yourselves, +give it to the flame-bearing Italy!" And in conclusion he invoked in a +new beatitude the strong youth of Italy who must bear their country to +these new triumphs: "O happy those who have more because they can give +more, can burn more.... Happy those youths who are famished for glory, +because they will be appeased.... Happy the pure in heart, happy those +who return with victory, because they will see the new face of Rome, +the recrowned brow of Dante, the triumphal beauty of Italy." + +The youth of Italy avidly seized upon the poet's appeal. The _Sagra_ +was read in the wineshops of little villages, on the streets of the +cities. The voice of the poet reached to that fount of racial idealism, +of patriotism, that glows in the hearts of all real Italians. He tied +their heroic past with the heroic opportunity of the present. And he +did not speak of the "unredeemed" or of the "aspirations." Instead, +"This is a return for a new departure, O people of Italy!" + +The politician, awaiting in Rome the effect of his advice to choose +the safe path, must have wondered, as too many Americans wondered, +how this poet fellow could stir such mad passion by his fine figures +of birds and sea! But there was a spirit abroad in Italy that would +not be appeased with "compensations": the poet had the following of +all "young Italy." + + * * * * * + +D'Annunzio came to Rome. Not at once. A whole week elapsed after the +_Sagra_ at Quarto, the 5th of May, before he reached Rome--a week of +growing tumult, of anti-Giolitti demonstrations, in which his glowing +words could sink like hot wine into the hearts of the people. The delay +was well considered. If the poet had seized the occasion of Quarto, he +made his appearance on the larger scene after the interest of the whole +nation had been heightened by reading his address. + +I was one of the immense throng that awaited the arrival of the train +bringing D'Annunzio to the capital. The great bare place before the +terminal station was packed with a patient crowd. The windows of the +massive buildings flanking the square were filled with faces. There +were faces everywhere, as far as the recesses of the National Museum, +around the flamboyant fountain, up the avenues. There were soldiers +also, many of them, inside and outside of the station, to prevent any +excessive disturbance, part of the remarkable precaution with which +the Government was hedging every act. But the soldiers were not needed. +The huge throng that waited hour after hour to greet the poet was not +rabble: it was a quiet, respectable, orderly concourse of Romans. There +was a preponderance of men over women, of youth over middle age, as was +natural, but so far as their behavior went, they were as self-contained +a "mob" as one might find in Berlin. + +The train arrived about dusk, as the great electric lamps began to +shine above the sea of white faces. To most the arrival was evident +merely from the swaying of the dense human mass, from the cadence +of the Garibaldian Hymn that rose into the air from thousands of +throats. As room was made for the motor-car, one could see a slight +figure, a gray face, swallowed up in the surging mass. Then the crowd +broke on the run to follow the motor-car to the hotel on the Pincian +where the poet was to stay. The newspapers said there were a hundred +and fifty thousand people before the Regina Hotel in the Via Veneto +and the adjacent streets. I cannot say. All the way from the Piazza +Tritone to the Borghese Gardens, even to the Villa Malta where Prince +von Buelow lived, the crowd packed, in the hope of hearing some words +from the poet. The words of Mameli's "L'Inno" rose in the twilight +air. At last the little gray figure appeared on the balcony above the +throng.... + +It is impossible to give an adequate idea of the effect of what D'Annunzio +said. His words fell like moulded bronze into the stillness, one by one, +with an extraordinary distinctness, an intensity that made them vibrate +through the mass of humanity. They were filled with historical allusions +that any stranger must miss in part, but that touched the fibers of his +hearers. He seized, as he had at Quarto, on the triumphant advance of the +liberating Thousand and recounted the inspiring incidents of that day +fifty years and more ago. As I stood in that huge crowd listening to the +poet's words as they fell into the thirsty hearts of the people,--who +were weary with too much negotiation,--I realized as never before that +speech is given to man for more than reason. The words were not merely +beautiful in themselves: they flamed with passion and they touched into +flame that something of heroic passion in the hearts of all men which +makes them transcend themselves. The crowd sighed as if it saw visions, +and there rose instinctively in response the familiar strains of the +Garibaldian Hymn. + +Italy had found its voice! The poet did not speak of "compensations," +a little more of Trent and Trieste, of a more strategic frontier. He +stirred them with visions of their past and their future. He voiced +their scorns. "We are not, we will not be a museum, an inn, a picnic +ground, an horizon in Prussian blue for international honeymoons!... +Our genius calls us to put our imprint on the molten matter of the new +world.... Let there breathe once more in our heaven that air which flames +in the prodigious song of Dante in which he describes the flight of the +Roman eagle, of your eagle, citizens!... Italy is arming, not for the +burlesque, but for a serious combat.... _Viva, viva Roma_, without shame, +_viva_ the great and pure Italy!" + +That was the voice which called Italy into the war: the will that +Italy should live "ever grander, ever purer, without shame." The poet +spoke to the Latin in the souls of his hearers. + + * * * * * + +He spoke again a number of times. In those feverish days when the +nation was in a ferment, the restless youth of Rome would rush in +crowds to the hotel on the Pincian and wait there patiently for their +poet to counsel them. He gratified their desire, not often, and each +time that he spoke he stung them to a fuller consciousness of will. +He spoke of the larger Italy to be, and they knew that he did not mean +an enlargement of boundaries. He spoke clearly, briefly, intensely. +It was once more the indubitable voice of the poet and prophet raised +in the land of great poetry. + +D'Annunzio grew bolder. He recognized openly his antagonist--the traitor. +The most dramatic of his little speeches was at the Costanzi Theater +where a trivial operetta was being given, which was quickly swept into +the wings. After the uproar on his entrance had been somewhat stilled, +he spoke of Von Buelow and Giolitti and their efforts to thwart the will +of the nation. + +"This betrayal is inspired, instigated, abetted by a foreigner. It is +committed by an Italian statesman, a member of the Italian Parliament +in collusion with this foreigner to debase, to enslave, to dishonor +Italy.".... _Traditore!_ I never thought to hear the word off the +operatic stage. From D'Annunzio's lips it fell like a wave of fire +upon that inflammable audience. A grizzled, well-dressed citizen +suddenly leaped to his feet, yelling,--"I will drink his blood, the +traitor.... Death to Giolitti!".... + +While the big theater rocked and stormed with passion, outside on +the Via Viminale barricades were being hastily thrown up. The cavalry, +that had been sitting their mounts all day before Santa Maria Maggiore +guarding the unwelcome Giolitti from the angry mob, had charged the +packed street, sweeping it clear with the ugly sound of horses' hoofs +on pavement and cries of hunted men and women. That was the end. The +next morning, be it remembered, the politician sneaked away, and two +days afterwards the Salandra Government returned to power. Rome, all +Italy, became suddenly calm, purged of its passion, awaiting confidently +the reopening of Parliament. + +The Government had won. The people had won. The poet had beaten the +politician. For his was the voice to which the great mass of his +countrymen responded. + + * * * * * + +D'Annunzio spoke again admirably at those great gatherings of concord +when the citizens of Rome assembled in the Piazza del Popolo and in the +Campidolgio. The poet had made himself the spokesman of the new Italy +which had found itself in the storm of the past agonizing weeks, and as +such he was recognized by the Government. The King and the ministers +accorded him audiences; he was given a commission in the army and +attached to the general staff. Wherever he appeared he was received +with acclamations, with all the honor that is accorded the one who can +interpret nobly the soul of a nation. And the poet deserved all the +recognition which he received--the throngs, the flowers, the _vivas_, +the adoration of Italian youths. For he alone, one might say, raised +the crisis from the wallow of sordid bargaining, from the tawdriness +of sentiment, to a purer passion of Latin ambition and patriotism. He +loftily recalled to his countrymen the finer ideals of their past. He +made them feel themselves Latin, guardians of civilization, not traders +for safety and profit. + + * * * * * + +Germans, naturally, have had bitter things to say about D'Annunzio. +German sympathizers in America as well as the German Chancellor have +sneered at the influence wielded in Italy's crisis by a "decadent" +poet. Even among American lovers of Italy there has been skepticism +of the sincerity of a national mind so easily swayed by a man who "is +not nice to women." A peculiarly American view that hardly needs +comment! + +Is it not wiser to assume that the case of D'Annunzio was really +the case of Italy itself--conversion? The deepest passion in the +poet's life came to him when, a voluntary exile in France, he witnessed +the splendid reawakening of French spirit in face of awful danger. +Living in Paris during the early months of the cataclysm, witness of +the mobilization, the rape of Belgium, and the turn at the Marne, the +heroic struggle for national existence in the winter trenches, he saw +with a poet's vision what France was at death-grips with, what the +Allies were fighting for, was not territorial gains or glory or even +altogether selfish self-preservation, but rather, more deeply, for +the existence of a certain humanity. This world war he realized is no +local quarrel: it is the greatest of world decisions in the making. +And the man himself was transfigured by it: he found himself in his +greatest passion as Italy found herself at her greatest crisis. Latin +that he is, he divined the inner meaning of the confused issues presented +to the puzzled world. He was fired with the desire to light from his +inspiration his own hesitant, confused people, to voice for them the +call to the Latin soul that he had heard. For Italy, most Latin of all +the heirs of Rome, with her tragic and heroic past, the war must be not +a winning of a little Austrian territory, the redeeming of a few lost +Italians, but a fight for the world's best tradition against the forces +of death. Once more it was "_Fuori i barbari_," as it had been with her +Latin ancestors. + +It seems to me no great mystery. + +In the poet's writing there are passages of a large historical +understanding. Of all modern writers he is foremost Latin, in +knowledge, in instinct for beauty and form, in love of tradition. +Even in his erotic and mystical passages this vein of purest gold +may be seen, this understanding of the potential greatness of the +tradition into which he was born. What wonder, then, that the first +fundamental passion of the mature man's soul should be his desire to +proclaim once more the cause of Latin civilization, should be the +ardor of fighting in his own manner with his weapon of inspired words +the world battle? So it seemed to me as I listened to his voice in +the stillness of that May night. The voice of Roman glory, of ancient +ideals awoke an answering passion in the hearts of the thousands who +had gathered there. "_Una grande e pura Italia ... sensa onta_." And +it would be a lasting shame for Italy to keep out of the struggle +that the allied nations were making, to take her "compensations" +prudently and shrink back within a cowardly neutrality. Better any +other fate. + +So it seemed to that throng of eager, soul-hungry Italians who stood +beneath the balcony of the hotel on the Pincian and drank the poet's +fiery message like a full-bodied wine. At last they had found +themselves. + + + + +IV + + +_The Piazza Speaks_ + +"The voice of the piazza prevailed," the German Chancellor sneered +in his denunciation of Italy at the conclusion. It can easily be +imagined, the picture he made to himself, in his ugly northern office +on Friedrichstrasse, of the influence that upset all German pressure +and sent Italy into the war on the side of the Allies; that defeated +the industry of the skilled ambassador, the will of the wily politician. +The Chancellor saw one of those large public squares in which Latin +countries abound, open centers in their close-built cities, where so +much of the common life of the people goes on, now as it has for hundreds +of years. For the piazza, descending in direct tradition from the ancient +Forum, is the public hall of citizens, where they trade, gossip, quarrel, +plot, love, and hate, from the crone sunning herself in a sheltered nook +over her bag of chestnuts to the grandee whose palace windows open above +the noisy commonalty. The Chancellor saw this common meeting-ground, this +glorified street, filled with a ragged mob of "the baser quality," as on +the operatic stage, emptily vocal or evilly skulking for mischief, like +the _mafia_, the _apache_. He saw this loose gathering of irresponsibles +suddenly stirred to evanescent passion against the real benefactors of +their country by the secret agents of the Allies, "corrupted by English +gold," in the mechanical melodrama of the German imagination, marching +to and fro, attacking the shops and homes of worthy Germans, howling and +stoning, by mere noise drowning the sober protests of reflecting citizens, +intimidating a weak king, connived at by a bought government, pushing a +whole nation into the bloody sacrifice of war out of mere recklessness of +rioting--a piazza filled with the rabble minority who have nothing to lose +because they neither fight nor pay. + + * * * * * + +Such a picture, reflected in Bethmann-Hollweg's splenetic phrase, +is a complete delusion of the German mind. I was in Rome and saw the +real piazza at work. I was on the streets all hours of day and night, +and what I saw was nothing like the trite imaginings of the German +Chancellor. As I have said in a previous chapter, the "demonstrations" +did not begin in any perceptible form until the bungling hand of Prince +von Buelow betrayed his intrigue with Giolitti and the politician's +intention of defeating the Salandra Government in its preparations for +war became evident. At no time did the rioting in the streets equal the +violence of what a third-class strike in an American mill town can +produce. Such as it was the Government showed the determination and +ability to keep it strictly within bounds. Rome was filled with troops. +Alleyways and courtyards oozed troops at the first shouts from the +piazza: the danger points of the Corso, especially the Piazza Colonna +on which the Chigi Palace, the residence of the Austrian Ambassador, +fronts, were kept almost constantly empty by cordons of troops. All +told, the destruction done by the mobs could not have amounted to +several hundred dollars--a few signs and shop windows smashed, a few +pavements torn up in the Via Viminale. It is true that after war was +declared upon Austria there was some pillage of Austrian and German +shops in Milan, which has been greatly exaggerated by the German and +pro-German press; it was nothing worse than what happened in Berlin +to English residents in August, 1914. And the Italian Government +immediately took severe measures with the officials who had permitted +the disorders--removing the prefect and the military commander of +Milan. + +There is no saying, of course, what might have happened had the King +offered the premiership to Giolitti, and had that astute politician +been rash enough to accept the responsibility of forming a government +in accord with his own _neutralista_ sympathies. It is more than +likely that revolution would have ensued: possibly Italy would have +entered the war as a republic. For the Italians are not Greeks, as +has been amply proved. But the King of Italy, whatever his own +sympathies may have been, showed plainly that he had enough political +understanding not to run counter to the expressed will of his people, +to deal with the "traitor." After a week of tempestuous inter-regnum, +in which the piazza expressed itself passionately, the Salandra +Government returned to power with all which that implied in foreign +policy. Then the piazza became quiet. If the piazza must shoulder the +responsibility of Italy's decision, it must be credited with knowing +marvelously well its own mind. + + * * * * * + +The constitution of this "mob" is worth attention. I saw it at +many angles. I followed its first erratic flights through the streets +when Salandra resigned and a gaping void opened before the nation. I +waited for the poet's arrival at the Roman station, for hours, while +the dense throng of men and women pressed into the great square and +swelled like a dark pool into the adjoining streets. And I followed +with the "piazza" in its instinctive rush to the hotel on the Pincian +Hill to hear the voice of its spokesman. Again I was in the Corso when +the plumed cavalry cleared the surging mass from the Piazza Venezia to +the Piazza Colonna. I heard the people yell, "Death to the traitor +Giolitti!" and "_Fuori i barbari!_" and sing Mameli's "L'Inno." I saw +the uproar melt away in the soft darkness of the Roman nights, leaving +the cavalry at their vigil before Santa Maria Maggiore, guarding the +repose of Giovanni Giolitti. + +I can testify that the "piazza" was composed very largely of perfectly +respectable folk like myself. It varied more or less as chance gatherings +of men will vary. Sometimes there were more workingmen in dirty clothes, +sometimes more youths and boys with their banners, sometimes more +shouters and fewer actors. But the core of it was always that same mass +of common citizenship that gathered anciently in the Forum, that to-day +goes orderly enough to the polls in New York or Chicago,--plain men, +rather young than old, who are so distinctly left on the outside of +affairs, who must perforce turn to the newspaper for information and +to the open street for expression, who relieve themselves of uncomplex +emotions by shouting, and who symbolize the things they hate to the +depth of their souls with personalities like Giolitti and occasionally +shy bricks at the guarded home of authority. All this, yes, but not +"riff-raff," not anarchist, nor _mafia_, nor _apache_. Nothing of that +did I see those days and nights. + +The greeting to D'Annunzio was made by men of the professional and +intellectual classes I should say, having wormed my way in and out +of that vast piazza gathering. The daily crowds before the poet's +hotel were composed chiefly of youths, at school or college, others +in working dress. The noisiest, most inflammable of all these mobs +was that in the Costanzi Theater the evening of D'Annunzio's appearance +there. They were citizens--and their wives--who could afford to pay +the not inconsiderable price charged--and seats were at a premium. +The men around me in evening dress, who were by no means silent, came +from the "classes" rather than the masses. The crowds that hung about +the Corso and the adjacent squares were more mixed, but they held a +goodly proportion of the frequenters of the Cafe Arragno. The worst +that could be said against these casual gatherings was their youth. +It is the way of youth to vent its passion in speech, to move and not +to stand. Middle age stood on the sidewalks and watched, sympathetically. +Old age looked down from the windows, contemplatively. But both old +age and middle age consorted with youth in the great meetings of +consecration in the Piazza del Popolo and the Campidolgio, after the +will of the people had prevailed. And after all, youth must fight the +wars, and pay for them for long years afterwards--why should it not +have its say in the making of them as well as middle age and old age? +The youths in the ranks of the patient, good-natured soldiers who did +_piquet a mato_ all day and half the night in the Roman streets during +that vocal week while the piazza spoke, were openly sympathetic with +the mobs they were holding down. I knew some of the gray-clad boys. +I strolled along the lines and saw the smiles, heard the chaffing +give-and-take of citizen and soldier as the mob tried to rush through +the double ranks that cordoned the streets. There was no hatred there, +no violent conflict with authority. Each understood the other. The young +officers seemed to say to the crowd,--"You may howl all you like, you +fellows, but you mustn't throw stones or make a mess.... What's the +good! War is coming anyway in a few days--they can't talk it away!" +And the crowd replied heartily,--"You are all right. We understand +each other. You are doing your duty. Soon you will be doing something +better worth while than policing streets and saving that traitor +Giolitti's skin from us. You will be chasing the Austrians out of +Italian territory, and many of us will be with you then!" And the +young officers looked the other way when the members of the "mob" +offered the tired soldiers cigarettes and chocolate, and sometimes +slipped through the cordon on private business within the forbidden +area. Only once, once only in all the excitement did the long-haired +horsemen clatter through the streets in a serious charge, scattering +the shrieking pedestrians. That was by way of warning, possibly as +much to the Government as to the populace. + +Then the decision was made, and after the Salandra Ministry, in +whom the people had confidence, had returned to power, the ministry +that had broken with Austria and refused her grudging compromises, +the piazza purred like doves and listened to long patriotic speeches +from "representative citizens." No soldiers were needed to keep order +in these immense gatherings. For all were citizens, then, piazza and +palace alike in the face of war. + + * * * * * + +One easily understands the German Chancellor's scorn over any irregular +expression of public opinion, his disgust that the loose public in the +streets dares to vent any emotion or will other than that suggested to +it by a strong government, above all daring to voice it passionately. +In a nation such as Germany, where the franchise is so hedged about +that even those who have it cannot effectively express their wills, +where political opinion is supplied from a central fount of authority, +where the nation goes into war at the command of the Kaiser and his +military advisers, where a war of "defense" and all other national +interests are controlled by the "high commandment," consisting at the +most of forty or fifty men, while the remaining sixty-five millions of +the people are obedient puppets, nourished on falsehoods, where the +popular emotion can be turned on like an electric current at the order +of the "high commandment,"--now against this enemy, now against that +one,--first hate of English, then hate of Italians, now hate of +Americans--it is natural that a high government functionary should +despise all popular effervescence and misread its manifestations as +merely the meretricious, bought noise of the mob, quickly roused in +the Southern temperament and badly controlled by a weak, and probably +corrupt, government. The elements in the piazza have no power in the +close organization of Germany, no political expression whatever: all +good citizens are instructed by a carefully controlled press how to +think and feel and speak. To my thinking it is rather to the glory of +the Latin temperament that it cannot be throttled and guided like the +more docile Teuton nature, that when it feels vividly it will express +itself, and that it can feel vividly, unselfishly in international +concerns. The Latin cannot be made to march in blind obedience into +the jaws of death. The piazza merely shouted what Italy had come to +feel, that Teutonic domination would be intolerable, that at all cost +the Austro-German ambitions must be checked, and the Latin tradition +vindicated and made to endure. It was proved by the marvelous content, +the fervid unanimity of patriotism that spread over Italy, once the +great decision had been made. + + * * * * * + +Since those full May weeks the world has had an example of what no +doubt the Imperial Chancellor considers the suitable method of dealing +with popular sentiment. The sympathies of Greeks and Rumanians have +been, since the opening of the war, with the allied nations, yet +their Teutonized sovereigns have kept both countries from declaring +themselves in favor of the Allies. The King of Greece has stretched +the constitution to preserve a distasteful neutrality, which, if it +were not for the failure of the Allies to make impressive gains in +the first year of the war, would have doubtless cost him his crown. +The Balkan States are near enough the actual theater of war to suffer +acutely from fear, and a natural timidity worked upon by many German +agents, more successfully than Prince von Buelow, has thus far kept the +people of Rumania and Greece passive in a false neutrality. Bulgaria +is a fine example of the perfect working of the German method. The +piazza certainly had no hand in the intrigues of King Ferdinand of +Bulgaria. The representatives of his people urged him to maintain at +least neutrality, not to put the nation at war with its blood kin, +against its best interest. But the thing had all been "arranged" +between the German King of Bulgaria and the German Government through +"negotiation." Germany had been successful in buying the cooeperation +of Bulgaria as it tried to buy Italy's neutrality, at the expense of +Austria. There were other factors in the case of Bulgaria that worked +to the German advantage, but the method is clear. Not the voice of the +piazza, but the secret agreement of "responsible government," in other +words, the control of despotic, German rulers. Italy may well be proud +that she has a sovereign who faithfully interprets his responsibility of +rule in a constitutional state and executes the will of his people--who +listens also to the voice of the piazza, not merely to the arguments of +the foreign diplomat. And Italy may also be proud that the piazza spoke +at a dark hour in the Allies' cause, if not the darkest, when German +arms were prevailing in the East; if the dangers of German conquest were +not as close to Italy as with the Balkan States, they were not remote, +as German threats too plainly showed. + +The Venezelos-Zaimis situation was impossible in Italy, though the +circumstances were almost parallel, with Salandra and Giolitti. The +piazza knew the deep Biblical truth, "He who is not for me is against +me," and execrated the professed _neutralista_ Giolitti. But the Greeks, +it seems, are more easily managed by a "strong" government and a German +king. The end, however, is not yet in sight. It remains to be seen +whether the path of prudent passivity is the safe one, even selfishly. + + * * * * * + +Why, after all, should we feel so apologetic for the voice of the piazza? +All popular government, even in the limited form of a constitutional +monarchy such as Italy, is a rough, uncertain affair. "The House of Savoy +rules by executing the will of the Italian people." Good! But how is that +popular will to be determined? Not, surely, by taking a poll of the five +hundred-odd Deputies of the Italian Parliament elected two years before +the world was upset by the Teuton desire to rule. Those Deputies were +chosen, as we Americans know only too well how, by mean intrigues of party +machines, by clever manipulation of trained politicians like Giovanni +Giolitti, who by their control of appointed servants--the prefects of the +provinces--can throw the elections as they will, can even disfranchise +unfriendly elements of the population. Manhood suffrage is not a precise, +a scientific method of getting at public opinion. It is possibly the least +accurate method of gauging the will of a people. Something other than the +poll is needed to resolve the will of a nation. And when that will is +determined it makes little odds what instrumentality expresses it. Even +the Giolittian Deputies, when brought to the urn for a secret vote on the +Salandra measures a week after the lively expression of popular will in +the piazza, voted--secretly--against their neutral leader, in favor of +war! They had been converted by the voice of the piazza--by other things +also in all likelihood. If their votes had been taken ten days before, +when Giolitti first arrived in Rome, the result would have been far +different: as Salandra and his colleagues knew. In the end the Italian +Parliament merely registered the will of the people, both men and women, +which expressed itself, as it always must, in diverse ways, through the +press, by the voice of the piazza, in public and private discussion, +flightily, weightily, passionately, timidly. + + * * * * * + +Will, individual or collective, is a mysterious force. What enters into +that act of decision which results in will is never wholly apparent, from +the least to the gravest matters. And no scheme of government, which +admits the right of the individual citizen, plain and exalted alike, +to be heard and obeyed, has discovered a perfect way of polling this +collective will of the nation. Our electoral representative method and +majority vote is surely rough, though better than the Bulgarian way. That +right to vote, for which our women are so eagerly striving, as thinking +men realize only too well, is an empty privilege. The will of a people is +inaccurately registered, not made, by the vote. The voice of the piazza +when deep enough and strong enough is as good as any other way, perhaps, +of determining the collective will of a nation in a crisis; surely far +better than the secret way of Ferdinand of Bulgaria. Further, the reason +of the piazza on any vital fundamental matter, such as war, which means +life or death, is as sure as your intelligence or mine, possibly surer, +because the piazza, having less to lose or gain, feels and believes and +acts more simply, basically. The Roman piazza, the people of Italy, +reacted to the crime against Belgium, to the atrocities committed on +priests and women and children, to the murders of the Lusitania,--all +deeds of that ancient enemy whose barbarism had now reappeared, after +centuries, under an intellectual and sophisticated mask with a blasphemous +perversion of religious sanction. They reacted also, it might be, to their +own sense of personal danger from an unprotected frontier dividing them +from this unscrupulous enemy, to the wrongs of some thousands of Italians +condemned to live under Austrian rule and fight her battles against their +friends. They responded also to the glory of Garibaldi's Thousand, who had +liberated their fathers from foreign domination and made a nation out of +Italy, and they responded to the great past of their people from whom the +essential elements of what men know to-day as civilization has spread over +the world. All these emotions were hidden in that one cry,--"Out with the +barbarians!" + +The voice of the piazza, with its simple unanimity, its childlike +psychology, came nearer to expressing the soul of Italy than the German +Chancellor can comprehend, than any sophisticated diplomat, who has +associated only with "thinking" and "leading" people, can believe. The +Latin soul of Italy which cursed its politician and thrilled at the words +of its poet! That soul of a people which is greater than any individual, +which somehow expresses itself more authoritatively through the simple +people who must suffer for their faiths than through the intellectuals +and the protected members of a society.... + +"_Viva Italia!_" the tanned conscript leaning from the car window at +Subiaco shouted back to his friends and home. And the old men and girls +left in the fields raised their hats as the train passed and shouted in +reply,--"_Viva Italia!_" It was not English gold, nor the desire for +Trent and Trieste, that brought that cry to the boy's lips! + + + + +V + + +_Italy Decides_ + +Whatever one may think of the piazza voice, whether the disposition is +to sneer with the German or to trust with the democrat in its spontaneous +expression, it is a matter of history now that Italy's decision had been +made before the question came to a vote in the Chamber of Deputies, a +fortnight or more before the reluctant ambassadors of the ex-Alliance +backed into their waiting trains and departed homeward across the Alps. +It is a significant fact of personal psychology that the crisis of a +decision takes place before action results to calm the disturbed mind. So +it was with Italy. Her decision had really been taken when the Lusitania +sank, when the politician, in face of this fresh outrage, advised the +safer course of neutrality, which would amount to a connivance with her +former associates in their predatory programme. _Traditore!_ meant but +one thing--a betrayal of the nation's soul. In the light of more recent +events, since Italy entered the war, there are probably many Italians who +secretly wish that the safer counsel had prevailed, that, like Greece and +Rumania, Italy had "preserved a benevolent neutrality" in the great war, +even possibly that she had concluded to make her bed in the Teutonic camp. +If the world is to be Teutonized, they would argue, why put one's head in +the wolf's jaw! There are prudent people of that stripe in every nation, +but since the end of May they have kept silence in Italy. And it should be +forever remembered to her honor that Italy made her decision in face of +Teutonic successes. If the military situation did not look so black for +the Allies at the end of May as it does this December, it looked black +enough with the crumbling Russian resistance before Mackensen's phalanx. +Neuve Chapelle had been a costly and empty victory. There had been no +successful drive in Champagne and Artois to encourage those who bet only +on winning cards. There were heavy clouds in the east, merely a sad +silence along the western wall. It was long past Easter, when England +had boastfully expected to open the Dardanelles and the truth was +beginning to appear that Constantinople might never be reached by the +allied operations in Gallipoli. Italy threw in her lot with the Allies +in a dark hour, if not the darkest. + +The great decision which had lain in solution in the hearts of the +people was evoked by events and made vocal by the flaming words of +D'Annunzio, interpreted by a faithful king, who resisted the temptation +to dethrone himself by calling Germany's hired man to power, and finally +registered by the Deputies at Montecitorio on May 19. It was virtually +made, I say, the tumultuous week that came on the resignation of the +Salandra Government. What followed the return of the ministry to power +was merely automatic, as peaceful as any day's routine. Parliament was +called to meet on Wednesday, the 19th. The Sunday afternoon before, the +piazza, and the palace and all other elements of Roman citizenship met +in a great gathering of content and consecration at the foot of the +Pincian Hill in the Piazza del Popolo, again the day after in the +Campidolgio above the Forum. How fortunate a people are to have such +hallowed places of meeting, steeped in associations of great events! + +It was a warm, brilliant, sunny day, that Sunday, and in the afternoon +every one in Rome, it seemed, was as near the Piazza del Popolo as he +could get. The meeting was addressed by a number of well-known Romans +of varied political affiliations. But the high note of all the speeches +was a fervid patriotism and harmony. Rome was calm, believing that it had +chosen nobly if not wisely. On the Campidolgio, D'Annunzio again sounded +the tocsin of the heroic Thousand, and lauded the army which had been +belittled by the followers of Giolitti. Already the troops were leaving +Rome.... Then Parliament opened. The meeting of the Deputies if memorable +was short. The square and streets about Montecitorio had been carefully +cleared and held empty by cordons of troops. There was to be no shouting, +no demonstration within hearing of Parliament. Long before midday the +Chamber was crowded with all the notables who could gain admission. The +proceedings were extremely brief, formal. All knew that the die had been +cast: what remained was for the army to accomplish. The Premier Salandra +made a brief statement summarizing the diplomatic efforts that his +Government had undertaken to reach a satisfactory understanding with +Austria, the record of which could be followed in the "Green Book," +which was then given to the public. He informed the Chamber, what was +generally known, that the Triple Alliance had already been denounced on +the 5th of May, and he offered a "project of law," which was tantamount +to a vote of confidence in the Government and which also gave the King +and his ministers power to make war and to govern the country during the +period of war without the intervention of Parliament. It thus authorized +both the past acts of the Salandra Ministry and its future course. The +measure, undebated, was voted on secretly. And it is significant that of +more than five hundred Deputies present only seventy-two voted in the +negative. Of these seventy-two who voted against the Government, some +were out-and-out _neutralistas_, and some few were Socialists who had +the courage of their convictions. The great majority of the Giolittians +must have voted for war. Had they seen a great light since the piazza +raised its voice, since their leader had fallen from his high place? +Possibly they had never been with Giolitti on this vital national +question. At least, the fact illustrates how representative government +does roughly perform the will of its people when that will is clear +enough and passionate enough: the will registers itself even through +unwilling instruments. + +After the vote had been taken, the Chamber adjourned, and when the +following day the Senate ratified, unanimously, the action of the +Chamber of Deputies, Parliament was dissolved. Many of the members +enlisted and went to the front. Since the end of May Italy has been +autocratically governed. The decrees of the King and his ministers +are law--an efficient method of governing a country at war, avoiding +those legislative intrigues that latterly have threatened the concord +of France. + +It is noteworthy that the Italian Senate voted unanimously for war. +The Senate is not an elective body. It is composed of dignitaries, old, +conservative men from the successful classes of the nation, who are not +easily swayed by the emotions of the piazza. From this unrepresentative +body might have been expected a show of resistance to the Government's +measure, if, as Giolitti and the German party asserted, there was a +serious sentiment in the country in favor of neutrality which had been +howled down by the mobs. It is inconceivable that such a body could have +been completely cowed by rioting in the streets. The unanimous vote of +the Italian Senators is sufficient refutation of the Bethmann-Hollweg +slur. + + * * * * * + +As I crossed the Piazza Colonna the morning Parliament opened, my +attention was caught by a small crowd before a billboard. First one, +then another passer-by stopped, read something affixed there, and, +smiling or laughing, passed on his way. In the center of the board was +a small black-bordered sheet of paper, with all the mourning emblems, +precisely resembling those mortuary announcements which Latin countries +employ. It read: "Giovanni Giolitti, this day taken to himself by the +Devil, lamented by his faithful friends"; and there followed a list of +noted Giolittians, some of whom even then were voting for war with +Austria. A bit of Roman ribaldry, specimen of that ebullition of the +piazza disdained by the German Chancellor; nevertheless, it must have +bit through the hide of the politician, who for the sake of his safety +was not among the Deputies voting at Montecitorio. Later I read in a +Paris newspaper that Giolitti was to spend the summer as far away from +the disturbance of war as he could get, in the Pyrenees, but it was +rumored in Paris that the French Government, having intimated to its +new ally that it did not wish to harbor Giolitti, the Italian politician +was forced to remain at home. I believe that once since the "Caro Carlo" +letter he has spoken to his countrymen, a patriotic interview in which +he announced that he had been converted to the necessity of the war with +Austria! Thus even the politician comes to see light. But Giovanni +Giolitti, as the black-bordered card said, is dead politically. + + * * * * * + +With the votes of Parliament the Roman part in the drama, the +civil part, was ended. Rome began to empty fast of soldiers, officers, +officials. The scene had shifted to the north, where the hearts of all +Italians were centered. There was a singular calm in the city. One +other memorable meeting should be recorded, on the Saturday afternoon +following the Parliamentary decision. If popular manifestations count +for anything, the dense throng in the Campidolgio and later the same +afternoon before the Quirinal Palace demonstrated the enthusiasm with +which the certainty of war with Austria was accepted. + +There are few lovelier spots on earth than the little square of the +Campidolgio on the Capitoline Hill and none more laden with memories +of a long past. Led by a sure instinct the people of Rome crowded up +the steep passages that led to the crest of the hill, by tens of +thousands. In this hour of the New Resurrection of Italy, the people +sought the hearthstone of ancient Rome on the Capitoline. About the +pillars of the Cancelleria, which stands on Roman foundations, up the +long flight of steps leading to the Aracoeli, even under the belly of +the bronze horse in the center of the square, Italians thrust themselves. +Rome was never more beautiful than that afternoon. Little fleecy clouds +were floating across the deep blue sky. The vivid green of the cypresses +on the slope below were stained with the red and white of blooming roses. +In the distance swam the dome of St. Peter's, across the bend of the +Tiber, and through the rift between the crowded palaces one might look +down upon the peaceful Forum. The birthplace of the nation! Here it was +that the people, the decision having been made to play their part in the +destiny of the new world now in the making, came to rejoice. The spirit +of the throng was entirely festal. And these were the people, working-men +and their wives and mothers from the dark corners of old Rome, neither +hoodlums nor aristocracy, the people whose men for the most part were +already joining the colors. + +The flags of the unredeemed provinces together with the Italian +flag were borne through the crowd up the steps of the municipal palace +to wave beside Prince Colonna, as he appeared from within the palace. +Mayor of Rome, he had that afternoon resigned his position in order to +join the army with his sons. Handsome, with a Roman face that reminded +one of the portrait busts of his ancestors in the Capitoline Museum +close by, he stood silent above the great multitude. The time for oratory +had passed. He raised his hands and shouted with a full voice--"_Viva +Italia!_" and was silent. It was as if one of the conscript fathers had +returned to his city to pronounce a benediction upon the act of his +descendants. The people repeated the cry again and again, then broke +into the beautiful words of Mameli's "L'Inno,"--"_Fratelli d' Italia._" + +Then the gathering turned to cross the city to the Quirinal, where the +King had promised to meet them. The way led past one of the two Austrian +embassies in the Piazza Venezia--a danger spot throughout the agitation; +but this afternoon the crowd streamed by without swerving, intent on +better things. On the Quirinal Hill, between the royal palace and the +Consulta, where the diplomatic conferences are held, the people packed +in again. The roofs of the neighboring palaces were lined with spectators +and every window except those of the royal palace was filled with faces. +On the balcony above the palace gate some footmen were arranging a red +velvet hanging. Then the royal family stepped out from the room behind. +The King, with his little son at his side, stood bareheaded while the +crowd cheered. On his other side were the Queen and her two daughters. +King Victor, whose face was very grave, bowed repeatedly to the cheering +people, but said no word. The little prince stared out into the crowd +with serious intensity, as if he already knew that what was being done +these days might well cost him his father's throne. The people cried +again and again,--_"Viva Italia, viva il re"_; also more rarely, _"Imperio +Romano!"_ At the end the King spoke, merely,--_"Viva Italia, mi!"_ + +Perhaps the presence of the German and the Austrian Ambassadors, +who that very hour were at the Consulta vainly trying to arrange a +bargain, restrained the King from saying more to his people then. +Possibly he felt that the occasion was beyond any words. His face was +set and worn. The full passion of the decision had passed through him. +His people had desired war, and he had faithfully followed their will. +Yet he more than any one in that crowd must know the terrible risk, the +awful cost of this war. Those national aspirations for which his country +was to strive,--Trent and Trieste, Istraia and the Dalmatian coast, in +all a few hundred miles of territory, a few millions of people,--the +well informed were saying would cost one hundred and fifty thousand +Italian soldiers a month, to pick the locks that Austria had put along +her Alpine frontier! No wonder the King of Italy met his people after +the great decision in solemn mood. + + * * * * * + +The crowd melted from the Quirinal Square in every direction, content. +Some stopped to cheer in front of the Ministry of War, which these days +and nights was busy as a factory working overtime and night shifts. +People were reading the newspapers, which in default of more vivid news +contained copious extracts from the "Libro Verde." Yet the "Green Book" +was not even now completed! + +The politician had spoken, the poet had said his fiery word to the +people, the piazza had hurled its will, Parliament had acted and gone +its way, the army staff was hastening north. Yet the Austrian Ambassador +and his German colleague had not taken the trains waiting for them outside +the Porta Pia with steam up. It was a mystery why they were lingering on +in a country on the verge of hostilities, where they were so obviously +not wanted any longer. Daily since Parliament had voted they had been at +the Consulta--were there now in this solemn hour of understanding between +the King and his people! Singly and together they were conferring with +Baron Sonnino and the Premier. What were they offering? We know now that +at this last moment of the eleventh hour Austria had wakened to the real +gravity of the situation, and with Teutonic pertinacity and Teutonic +dullness of perception made her first real offer--the immediate cession +and occupation of the ceded territories she had set as her maximum, a +thing she had refused all along to consider, insisting that the transfer +be deferred to the vague settlement time of the "Peace." I do not know +that if she had frankly started the negotiations with this essential +concession, it would have made any real difference. I think not. Her +maximum was insufficient: it nowhere provided for that defensible +frontier, and it was but a meager satisfaction of those other aspirations +of nationality which she despised. It still left a good many Italians +outside of the national fold, and it still left Italy exposed to whatever +strong hand might gain control on the east shores of the Adriatic. At all +events, in this last moment of the eleventh hour, if the ambassadors had +been authorized to yield all that Baron Sonnino had begun by asking, it +would not have kept Italy from the war--now. + +Elsewhere I have dealt with the legal and strategic questions involved +in the "Green Book." These diplomatic briefs, White or Yellow or Orange +or Green, seem more important at the moment than in perspective. They +are all we observers have of definite reason to think upon. But nations +do not go to war for the reasons assigned in them--nothing is clearer +than that. Like the lengthy briefs in some famous law case, they are +but the intellectual counters that men use to mask their passions, their +instincts, their faiths. According to the briefs both sides should win +and neither. And the blanks between the lines of these diplomatic briefs +are often more significant than the printed words. + +While Baron Macchio and Prince von Buelow, the Ballplatz and +Friedrichstrasse, Baron Sonnino and his colleagues were making the +substance of the "Green Book," the people of Italy were deciding the +momentous question on their own grounds. The spirit of all Italy was +roused. Italian patriotism gave the answer. + + * * * * * + +"_Viva Italia!_" the boy conscript shouted, leaning far out of the +car window in a last look at the familiar fields and roof of his +native village. "_Viva Italia!_" the King of Italy cried, and his +people responded with a mighty shout,--"_Viva Italia!_" What do they +mean? In the simplest, the most primitive sense they mean literally +the earth, the trees, the homes they have always known--the physical +body of the mother country. And this primal love of the earth that +has borne you and your ancestors seems to me infinitely stronger, +more passionate with the European than with the American. We roam: +our frontiers are still horizons.... But even for the simple peasant +lad, joining the colors to fight for his country, patriotism is +something more complex than love of native soil. It is love of life +as he has known it, its tongue, its customs, its aspects. It is love +of the religion he has known, of the black or brown or yellow-haired +mother he knows--of the women of his race, of the men of his race, +and their kind. + +Deeper yet, scarce conscious to the simple instinctive man, patriotism +is belief in the tradition that has made you what you are, in the ideal +that your ancestors have seeded in you of what life should be. Therefore, +patriotism is the better part of man, his ideal of life woven in with +his tissue. Men have always fought for these things,--for their own +earth, for their own kind, for their own ideal,--and they will continue +to give their blood for them as long as they are men, until wrong and +unreason and aggression are effaced from the earth. The pale concept +of internationalism, whether a class interest of the worker or an +intellectual ideal of total humanity, cannot maintain itself before +the passion of patriotism, as this year of fierce war has proved beyond +discussion. + +Italian patriotism, which in the last analysis Italy evinced in +making war against Austria, was composed of all three elements. Italian +patriotism is loyalty to the Italian tradition, hence to the Latin ideal +which is fighting a death battle with the Teutonic tradition and ideal. +Teutonism--militaristic, efficient, materialistic, unimaginative, +unindividual--has challenged openly the world. Italy responded nobly +to that challenge. + + + + +VI + + +_The Eve of the War_ + +Rome became still, so still as to be oppressive. Her heart was +elsewhere,--in the north whither the King was about to go. Rome, like +all the war capitals, having played her part must relapse more and more +into a state of waiting and watching, stirred occasionally by rumors and +rejoicings. The streets were empty, for all men of military age had gone +and others had returned to their normal occupations. Officers hurried +toward the station in cabs with their boxes piled before them. And the +sound of marching troops also on the way to the station did not cease at +once. + +Saturday, the 22d of May, I took the night express for Venice. The +train of first- and second-class coaches was longer than usual, filled +with officers rejoining their regiments which had already gone north +in the slower troop trains. There were also certain swarthy persons +in civilian garb, whom it took no great divination to recognize as +secret police agents. The spy mania had begun. Theirs was the hopeless +task of sorting out civilian enemies from nationals, which, thanks to +the complexity of modern international relations, is like picking +needles from a haystack. My papers, however, were all in order, and +so far there had been no restrictions on travel; in fact no military +zone had been declared, because as yet there was no war! When would +the declaration come? In another week? I settled myself comfortably +in my corner opposite a stout captain who rolled himself in his gray +cloak and went to sleep. Other officers wandered restlessly to and fro +in the corridor outside, discussing the coming war. It was a heavenly +summer night. The Umbrian Hills swam before us in the clear moonlight +as the train passed north over the familiar, beautiful route. If +Germany should strike from behind at Milan, exposing the north of +Italy? One shuddered. After Belgium Germany was capable of any attack, +and Germany was expected then to go with her ally. + +One thing was evident over and above the beauty of the moonlit country +through which we were rushing at a good pace, and that was the remarkable +improvement in Italian railroading since my last visit to Italy a dozen +years before. This was a modern rock-ballasted, double-tracked roadbed, +which accounted in part for the rapidity and ease of the troop movements +these last months. The ordinary passenger traffic had scarcely been +interrupted even now on the eve of war. The terrors of the mobilization +period, thanks to Italy's efficient preparation, were unfounded. It spoke +well for Italy at war. It was a sign of her economic development, her +modernization. Even Germany had not gone into the business of war more +methodically, more efficiently. Italy, to be sure, had nine months for +her preparation, but to one who remembered the country during the +Abyssinian expedition, time alone would not explain the improvement. + +The railroad stations at Florence and Bologna were under military +control, the quays patrolled, the exits guarded, the buildings stuffed +with soldiers. I could see their sleeping forms huddled in the straw +of the cattle cars on the sidings, also long trains of artillery and +supplies. Shortly after daylight the guards pulled down our shutters +and warned us against looking out of the windows for the remainder of +the journey. A childish precaution, it seemed, which the officers +constantly disregarded. But when I peeped at the sunny fields of the +flat Lombard plain, one of the swarthy men in civilian black leaned +over and firmly pulled down the shade. Italy was taking her war +seriously. + +At Mestre we lost the officers: they were going north to Udine +and--beyond. The almost empty train rolled into the Venetian station +only an hour late. The quay outside the station was strangely silent, +with none of that noisy crew of boatmen trying to capture arriving +_forestieri._ They had gone to the war. One old man, the figure of +Charon on his dingy poop, sole survivor of the gay tribe, took me +aboard and ferried me through the network of silent canals toward the +piazza. Dismantled boats lay up along the waterways, the windows of the +palaces were tightly shuttered, and many bore paper signs of renting. +"The Austrians," Charon laconically informed me. It would seem that +Venice had been almost an Austrian possession, so much emptiness was +left at her flight. But within the little squares and along the winding +stony lanes between the ancient palaces, Venice was alive with citizens +and soldiers--and very much herself for the first time in many centuries. +The famous piazza recalled the processional pictures of Guardi. Only the +companies of soldiers that marched through it on their way to the station +were not gorgeously robed: they were in dirty gray with heavy kits on +their backs. The bronze horses were being lowered from St. Mark's, one +of them poised in midair with his ramping legs in a sling. Inside the +church a heavy wooden truss had been put in place to strengthen the arch +of gleaming mosaics. There was a tall hoarding of fresh boards along the +water side of the Ducal Palace, and the masons were fast filling in the +arches with brick supports. Venice was putting herself in readiness for +the enemy. Even the golden angel on the new Campanile had been shrouded +in black in order that she might not attract a winged monster by her +gleam. From many a palace roof aerial guns were pointed to the sky, and +squads of soldiers patrolled the platforms that had been hastily built +to hold them. + +Out at San Niccolo da Lido, where I supped at a little _osteria_ +beneath the trees, a number of gray torpedo boats rushed to and fro +in the harbor entrance, restless as hunting dogs straining at the +leash. That night Venice was dark, so black that one stumbled from +wall to wall along the narrow lanes in the search for his own doorway. +War was close at hand: the menace of it, a few miles, a few hours +only away, across the blue Adriatic, at Pola. In order to understand +the significance of frontiers an American should be in Venice on the +eve of war. + + * * * * * + +Some hours later I awoke startled from a heavy sleep, the +reverberation of a dream ringing in my ears. It was not yet dawn. +In the gray-blue light outside the birds were wheeling in frightened +circles above the garden below my balcony. Mingled in my dreams with +the disturbing noise was the song of a nightingale--and then there came +another dull, thunderous explosion, followed immediately by the long +whine and shriek of sirens at the arsenal, also the crackle of machine +guns from all sides. Now I realized what it meant. It was war. The +Austrians had taken this way to acknowledge Italy's defiance. The enemy +had threatened to destroy Venice, and this was their first attempt. Above +the sputter of the machine guns and the occasional explosions of shrapnel +could be distinguished the buzz of an aeroplane that moment by moment +approached nearer. Soon the machine itself became visible, flying oddly +enough from the land direction, not from the Adriatic. It flew high and +directly, across Venice, aiming apparently for the arsenal, the Lido, +the open sea. + +It was an unreality, that little winged object aloft like a large +aerial beetle buzzing busily through the still gray morning sky, heading +straight with human intelligence in a set line, bent on destruction. The +bombs could not be seen as they fell, of course, but while I gazed into +the heavens another thunderous explosion came from near by, which I took +to be the aviator's bomb, distinguished by the sharpness of its explosion +from the anti-aircraft bombardment. Other guns along the route of the +enemy took up the attack, then gradually all became silent once more. +Only the cries of the frightened birds circling above the garden and the +voices of the awakened inhabitants could be heard. From every window and +balcony half-dressed people watched the flight of the monoplane until it +had disappeared in the vague dawn beyond St. Mark's. + +In another half-hour the sirens shrieked again and the machine gun +on the roof of the Papadopoli Palace just below on the Grand Canal +began to sputter. This time every one knew what it meant and there +was a large gathering on the balconies and in the little squares to +witness the arrival of the hostile aeroplane. It was another monoplane +coming from the same land direction, flying much lower than the first +one, so low that its hooded aviator could be distinguished and the +bands of color across the belly of the car. It skirted the city toward +the Adriatic more cautiously. Later it was rumored that the second +aeroplane had been brought down in the lagoons and its men captured. + +Thereafter no one tried to sleep: the little Venetian bridges and +passages were filled with talking people, and rumors of the damage +done began to come in. Eleven bombs in all were dropped on this first +attack, killing nobody and doing no serious harm, except possibly at +the arsenal where one fell. I was at the local police station when +one of the unexploded bombs was brought in. It was of the incendiary +type containing petroleum. Also there had been picked up somewhere in +the canals the half of a Munich newspaper, which seemed to indicate, +although there was nothing of special significance in the sheet, that +the monoplane was German rather than Austrian. Yet Germany had not yet +declared war on Italy. But was it not the German Kaiser who had threatened +to destroy Italy's art treasures? Were not the German armies in Flanders +and France making war against defenceless, unmilitary monuments? + + * * * * * + +I realized now the necessity of those preparations to guard the +treasures of Venice, priceless and irreplaceable--why the Belle Arti +had been emptied, and the Colleoni trussed with an ugly wooden framework. +But little at the best could be done to protect Venice herself, which lies +exposed in all her fragile loveliness to the attacks of the new Vandals. +The delicate palaces,--already crumbling from age,--the marvelous facade +of the Ducal Palace with its lustrous color, the leaning _campanili_, the +little churches filled with noble monuments to its great ones,--all were +helpless before an aerial attack, or shelling from warships. Nothing could +save Venice from even a slight bombardment, quite apart from such pounding +as the Germans have given Rheims, or Arras, or Ypres. At the first hostile +blow Venice would sink into the sea, a mass of ruins, returning thus +bereaved to her ancient bridegroom. + +Italy is aware of the vengeful warfare she must expect. Great +preparations for the defense of Venice have been made. The city might +be ruined; it could not be taken. The gray destroyers moving in and +out past the Zattere contrasted strangely with the tiny gondolas shaped +like pygmy triremes. It was the mingling of two worlds,--the world of +the gondola, the marble palace of the doges, of the jeweled church of +St. Mark's, and the world of the torpedo boat and the aerial bomb,--the +world as man is making it to-day. The old Venetians were good fighters, +to be sure, not to say quarrelsome. War was never long absent, as may +easily be realized from the great battle-pieces in the Ducal Palace. +But war then was more the rough play of boisterous children than the +slaughterous, purely destructive thing that modern men have made it. And +when those old Venetians were not fighting, they were building greatly, +beautifully, lovingly: they were making life resplendent. + +That awakening in the early dawn into the modern world of distant +enemies and secret deadly missiles was unforgettable. Some one showed +me a steel arrow which had been dropped within the arsenal, a small, +sharpened, nail-like thing that would transfix a body from head to feet. +These arrows are dumped over by the thousands to fall where they will. +That little machine a mile and more aloft in the sky, busily buzzing +its way across the heavens, is the true symbol of war today, not face +to face except on rare occasions, but hellish in its impersonal will +to destroy. + + * * * * * + +A wonderful day dawned on Venice after the departure of the hostile +aeroplanes, a day among days, and all the Venetians were abroad. The +attack which brought home the actual dangers to them did not seem to +dull their lively spirits. They were busy in the quaint aquatic manner +of Venice. The little shops were full of people, the boatmen reviled +one another in the narrow canals as they squeezed past, the _vaporetti_ +and the motor-boats snorted up and down the Grand Canal. + +Venice seemingly had accepted her liability to night attack as a new +condition of her peculiar life. + +There were more soldiers than ever moving in the narrow, winding +footpaths, the restaurants were full of officers in fresh uniforms. +On the water-front beyond the Salute there was much movement among +the destroyers. One of these gray seabirds went out at midnight, when +war was declared, and took a small Austrian station on the Adriatic. +They brought back some prisoners and booty which seemed to interest +the Venetians more than the hostile aeroplanes. + +Yet with all this warlike activity it was hard to realize the fact +of war in Italy, to remember that just over the low line of the Lido +the hostile fleets were looking for each other in the Adriatic, that +a few miles to the north the attack had begun all along the twisting +frontier, that the first caravan of the wounded had started for Padua. +As I floated that afternoon over the lagoons past the Giudecca, and +the blue Euganean Hills rose out of the gray mist that seems ever to +hang on the Venetian horizon, it was impossible to believe in the fact, +to realize that all this human beauty around me, the slow accumulation +of the ages of the finest work of man, was in danger of eternal +destruction. Venice rose from the green sea water like the city of +enchantment that Turner so often painted. Venice was never so lovely, +so wholly the palace of enchantment as she was then, stripped of all +the tourist triviality and vulgarity that she usually endures at this +season. It was Venice left to her ancient self in this hour of her +danger. She was like a marvelous, fragile, still beautiful great lady, +so delicate that the least violence might kill her! In this dying light +of the day she was already something unearthly, on the extreme marge +of our modern world.... + +That evening the restaurant windows were covered tight with shutters +and heavy screens before the doors. The waiter put a candle in a saucer +before your plate and you ate your food in this wavering light. There +was not the usual temptation to linger in the piazza after dinner, for +the cafes were all sealed against a betraying gleam of light and the +Venetian public had taken to heart the posted advice to stay within +doors and draw their wooden shutters. As I entered my room, the moon +was rising behind the Salute, throwing its light across the Canal on to +the walls of the palaces opposite. The soft night was full of murmuring +voices, for Venice is the most vocal of cities. The people were exchanging +views across their waterways from darkened house to house, speculating on +the chances of another aerial raid tonight. They were making salty jokes +about their enemies in the Venetian manner. The moonlight illuminated the +broad waterway beneath my window with its shuttered palaces as if it were +already day. A solitary gondola came around the bend of the Canal and its +boatman began to sing one of the familiar songs that once was bawled from +illuminated barges on spring nights like this, for the benefit of the +tourists in the hotels. To-night he was singing it for himself, because +of the soft radiance of the night, because of Venice. His song rose from +the silver ripple of the waves below, and in the little garden behind the +nightingale began to sing. Had he also forgotten the disturber of this +morning and opened his heart in the old way to the moonlight May night +and to Venice? + + * * * * * + +The enemy did not return that night, the moon gave too clear a light. +But a few evenings later, when the sky was covered with soft clouds, +there was an alarm and the guns mounted on the palace roofs began again +bombarding the heavens. This time the darkness was shot by comet-like +flashes of light, and the exploding shells gave a strange pyrotechnic +aspect to the battle in the air. Again the enemy fled across the Adriatic +without having done any special damage. Only a few old houses in the +poorer quarter near the arsenal were crumbled to dust. + +Since that first week of the war the aeroplane attacks upon Venice +have been repeated a number of times, and though the bombs have fallen +perilously near precious things, until the Tiepolo frescoes in the +Scalsi church were ruined, no great harm had been done. The military +excuse--if after Rheims and Arras the Teuton needed an excuse--is the +great arsenal in Venice. The real reason, of course, is that Venice is +the most easily touched, most precious of all Italian treasure cities, +and the Teuton, as a French general said to me, wages war not merely +upon soldiers, but also upon women and children and monuments. It is +vengefulness, lust of destruction, that tempts the Austrian aeroplanes +across the Adriatic--the essential spirit of the barbarian which the +Latin abhors. + + * * * * * + +There are some things in this world that can never be replaced once +destroyed, and Venice is one of them. And there are some things greater +than power, efficiency, and all _kaiserliche Kultur_. Such is Italy +with its ever-renewed, inexhaustible youth, its treasure of deathless +beauty. As I passed through the fertile fields on my way from Venice +to Milan and the north, I understood as never before the inner reason +for Italy's entering the war. The heritage of beauty, of humane +civilization,--the love of freedom for the individual, the golden mean +between liberty and license that is the Latin inheritance,--all this +compelled young Italy to fight, not merely for her own preservation, +but also for the preservation of these things in the world against the +force that would destroy. The spirit that created the Latin has not +died. "We would not be an Inn, a Museum," the poet said, and at the +risk of all her jewels Italy bravely defied the enemy across the Alps. +This war on which she had embarked after nine long months of preparation +is no mere adventure after stolen land, as the Germans would have it: it +is a fight unto death between two opposed principles of life. + +"He who is not for me is against me." There is no possible neutrality +on the greater issues of life. + + + + +PART TWO--FRANCE + + +I + + +_The Face of Paris_ + +I shall never forget the poignant impression that Paris made on me that +first morning in early June when I descended from the train at the Gare +de Lyon. After a time I came to accept the new aspect of things as normal, +to forget what Paris had been before the war, but as with persons so with +places the first impression often gives a deeper, keener insight into +character than repeated contacts. I knew that the German invasion, which +had swept so close to the city in the first weeks of the war, and which +after all the anxious winter months was still no farther than an hour's +motor ride from Paris, must have wrought a profound change in this, the +most personal of cities. One read of the scarcity of men on the streets, +of the lack of cabs, of shuttered shops, of women and girls performing +the ordinary tasks of men, of the ever-rising tide of convalescent +wounded, etc. But no written words are able to convey the whole meaning +of things: one must see with one's own eyes, must feel subconsciously +the many details that go to make truth. + +When the long train from Switzerland pulled into the station there +were enough old men and boys to take the travelers' bags, which is +not always the case these war times when every sort of worker has +much more than two hands can do. There were men waiters in the station +restaurant where I took my morning coffee. It is odd how quickly one +scanned these protected workers with the instinctive question--"Why +are you too not fighting for your country?" But if not old or decrepit, +it was safe to say that these civilian workers were either women or +foreigners--Greeks, Balkans, or Spanish, attracted to Paris by +opportunities for employment. For the entire French nation was +practically mobilized, including women and children, so much of the +daily labor was done by them. The little cafe was full of men,--almost +every one in some sort of uniform,--drinking their coffee and scanning +the morning papers. Everybody in Paris seemed to read newspapers all +day long,--the cabmen as they drove, the passers-by as they walked +hastily on their errands, the waiters in the cafes,--and yet they +told so little of what was going on _la-bas!_.... The silence in the +restaurant seemed peculiarly dead. A gathering of Parisians no matter +where, as I remembered, was rarely silent, a French cafe never. But I +soon realized that one of the significant aspects of the new France +since the war was its taciturnity, its silence. Almost all faces were +gravely preoccupied with the national task, and whatever their own +small part in it might be, it was too serious a matter to encourage +chattering, gesticulating, or disputing in the pleasant Latin way. + +Will the French ever recover wholly their habit of free, careless, +expressive speech? Of all the peoples under the trials of this war +they have become by general report the most sternly, grimly silent. +Compared with them the English, deemed by nature taciturn, have +become almost hysterically voluble. They complain, apologize, accuse, +recriminate. Each new manifestation of Teutonic strategy has evoked +from the English a flood of outraged comment. But from the beginning +the French have wasted no time on such _betise_ as they would call +it: they have put all their energies into their business, which as +every French creature knows is to fight this war through to a triumphant +end--and not talk. An extraordinary reversal of national temperaments +that! From the mobilization hour it was the same thing: every Frenchman +knew what it meant, the hour of supreme trial for his country, and he +went about his part in it with set face, without the beating of drums, +and he has kept that mood since. Henri Lavedan, in a little sketch of +the reunion between a _poilu_, on leave after nine months' absence in +the trenches, and his wife, has caught this significant note. The good +woman has gently reproached her husband for not being more talkative, +not telling her any of his experiences. The soldier says,--"One doesn't +talk about it, little one, one does it. And he who talks war doesn't +fight.... Later, I'll tell you, after, when _it_ is signed!" + + * * * * * + +There were plenty of cabs and taxis on the streets by the time I +reached Paris, rather dangerously driven by strangers ignorant of the +ramifications of the great city and of the complexities of motor engines. +Most of the tram-lines were running, and the metro gave full service +until eleven at night, employing many young women as conductors--and +they made neat, capable workers. Many of the shops, especially along +the boulevards, were open for a listless business, although the shutters +were often up, with the little sign on them announcing that the place was +closed because the _patron_ was mobilized. And there was a steady stream +of people on the sidewalks of all main thoroughfares,--at least while +daylight lasted, for the streets emptied rapidly after dark when a dim +lamp at the intersection of streets gave all the light there was--quite +brilliant to me after the total obscurity of Venice at night! But my +French and American friends, who had lived in Paris all through the +crisis before the battle of the Marne,--with the exodus of a million +or so inhabitants streaming out along the southern routes, the dark, +empty, winter streets,--found Paris almost normal. The restaurants were +going, the hotels were almost all open, except the large ones on the +Champs Elysees that had been transformed into hospitals. At noon one +would find something like the old frivol in the Ritz Restaurant,--large +parties of much-dressed and much-eating women. For the parasites were +fluttering back or resting on their way to and from the Riviera, +Switzerland, New York, and London. The Opera Comique gave several +performances of familiar operas each week, rendered patriotic by the +recitation of the _Marseillaise_ by Madame Chenal clothed in the national +colors with a mighty Roman sword with which to emphasize "_Aux armes, +citoyens!_" The Francaise also was open several times a week and some +of the smaller theaters as well as the omnipresent cinema shows, +advertising reels fresh from the front by special permission of the +general staff. + +The cafes along the boulevards did a fair business every afternoon, +but there was a striking absence of uniforms in them owing to the strict +enforcement of the posted regulations against selling liquor to soldiers. +That and the peremptory closing of cafes and restaurants at ten-thirty +reminded the stranger that Paris was still an "entrenched camp" under +military law with General Gallieni as governor.... The number of women +one saw at the cafes, sitting listlessly about the little tables, usually +without male companions, indicated one of the minor miseries of the great +war. For the _midinette_ and the _femme galante_ there seemed nothing to +do. A paternal government had found occupation and pay for all other +classes of women, also a franc and a half a day for the soldier's wife +or mother, but the daughter of joy was left very joyless indeed, with the +cold misery of a room from which she could not be evicted "_pendant la +guerre._" They haunted the cafes, the boulevards,--ominous, pitiful +specters of the manless world the war was making. + +Hucksters' carts lined the side streets about the Marche Saint-Honore +as usual, and I could not see that prices of food had risen abnormally +in spite of complaints in the newspapers and the discussion about +cold storage in the Chamber of Deputies. Restaurant portions were +parsimonious and prices high as usual, but the hotels made specially +low rates, "_pendant la guerre,_" which the English took advantage of +in large numbers. The Latin Quarter seemed harder hit by the war than +other quarters, emptier, as at the end of a long vacation; around the +Arch there was a subdued movement as between seasons. The people were +there, but did not show themselves. One went to a simple dinner _a la +guerre_ at an early hour. All, even purely fashionable persons, were +too much occupied by grave realities and duties to make an effort for +forms and ceremonies. Life suddenly had become terribly uncomplex, even +for the sophisticated. In these surface ways living in Paris was like +going back a century or so to a society much less highly geared than +the one we are accustomed to. I liked it. + + * * * * * + +Even at its busiest hours Paris gave a peculiar sense of emptiness, +hard to account for when all about men and women and vehicles were +moving, when it was best to look carefully before crossing the streets. +It could not be due wholly to the absence of men and the diminution of +business--there was at least half of the ordinary volume of movement. +Nor was it altogether a cessation of that soft roar of traffic which +ordinarily enveloped Paris day and night. It was not exactly like Paris +on Sunday--except in the rue de la Paix--as I remembered Paris Sundays. +No, it was something quite new--the physical expression of that inner +silence, of that tenacity of mute will which I read in all the faces +that passed me. Paris was living within, or beyond--_la-bas_, all along +those hundreds of miles of earth walls from Flanders to the Vosges, +where for nine months their men had faced the invader. + +Most of the women one met were in black, almost every one wearing some +sort of mourning, for there was scarcely a family in France that had +not already paid its toll of life, many several times over. But the +faces of these women in black were calm and dry-eyed: there were few +outward signs of grief other than the mourning clothes, just an enduring +silence. "The time for our mourning is not yet," a Frenchman said whose +immediate family circle had given seven of its members. With some, one +felt, the time for weeping would never come: they had transmuted their +personal woe into devotion to others.... + +There was little loitering and gazing in at shop windows, few shoppers +in the empty stores these days. Everybody seemed to have something +important that must be done at once and had best be done in sober +silence. Even the wounded had lost the habit of telling their troubles. +Doctors and nurses related as one of the interesting phenomena in the +hospitals this dislike of talking about what they had been through, +even among the common soldiers. Most likely their experiences had been +too horrible for gossip. There was a conspiracy of silence, a tacit +recognition of the futility of words, and almost never a complaint! +One day a soldier walked a block to give me a direction, and in reply +to my inquiry pointed to his lower jaw where a deep wound was hidden +in a thick beard. "A ball," he said simply. It was the second wound +he had received, and that night he was going back to his _depot_. For +they went back again and again into that hell so close to this peaceful +Paris, and what happened there was too bad for words. It must be +endured in silence. + +There were not many troops on the streets,--at least French soldiers +and officers; there was a surprising number of English of all branches +of the service and a few Belgians. The French were either at the front +or in their _depots_ outside the city. On the Fourteenth of July, when +the remains of Rouget de Lisle, the author of the _Marseillaise_, were +brought to the Invalides, a few companies of city guards on horseback +and of colonial troops in soiled uniforms formed the escort down the +Champs Elysees behind the ancient gun carriage that bore the poet's ashes. +There were many wounded soldiers, hopelessly crippled or convalescing, in +the theaters, at the cafes, and on the streets. As the weeks passed they +seemed to become more numerous, though the authorities had taken pains to +keep Paris comparatively empty of the wounded. One met them hobbling down +the Elysees under the shade of the chestnut trees, in the metro, at the +cafes, the legless and armless, also the more horrible ones whose faces +had been shot awry. They were so young, so white-faced, with life's long +road ahead to be traveled, thus handicapped! There was something wistful +often in their silent eyes. + +To cope with the grist of wounded, the mass of refugees and destitute, +Paris was filled with relief organizations. The sign of some "_oeuvre_" +decorated every other building of any size, it seemed. Apart from the +numerous hospitals, there were hostels for the refugee women and +children, who earlier in the war had poured into Paris from the north +and east, workrooms for making garments, distributing agencies, etc. +All civilian Paris had turned itself into one vast relief organization +to do what it could to stanch the wounds of France. Of the relief and +hospital side of Paris I have the space to say little: much has been +written of it by those more competent than I. But in passing I cannot +refrain from my word of gratitude to those generous Americans who by +their acts and their gifts have put in splendid relief the timid +inanities of our official diplomacy. While the President has been +exchanging futile words with the Barbarian over the murders on the +Lusitania, to the bewilderment and contempt of the French nation, +the American Ambulance at Neuilly has offered splendid testimony +to the real feelings of the vast majority of true Americans, also +an excellent example of the generous American way of doing things. +That great hospital, as well as the American Clearing-House and the +individual efforts of many American men and women working in numberless +organizations, encourage a citizen from our rich republic to hold up +his head in spite of German-American disloyalty, gambling in munitions +stocks, and official timidity. + + * * * * * + +Already the French had realized the necessity of creating agencies +for bringing back into a life of activity and service the large +numbers of seriously wounded--to find for them suitable labor and +to reeducate their crippled faculties so that they could support +themselves and take heart once more. Schools were started for the +blind and the deaf, of whom the war has made a fearful number. I +remember meeting one of these pupils, a young officer, blind, with +one arm gone, and wounded in the face. On his breast was the Service +Cross and the cross of the Legion of Honor. He was led into the room +by his wife, a young school teacher from Algeria, who had given up +her position and come to Paris to nurse her fiance back to life and +hope. He was being taught telegraphy by an American teacher of the +blind. + +In such ways the people of Paris kept themselves from eating their +hearts out in grief and anxiety. + + * * * * * + +At three o'clock in the afternoons, when the day's _communique_ was +given out from the War Office, little groups gathered in front of +the windows of certain shops where the official report was posted. +They would scan the usually colorless lines in silence and turn away, +as though saying to themselves,--"Not to-day--then to-morrow!" The +newsless newspapers abounded in something perhaps more heartening +than favorable reports from the front--an endless chronicle of bravery +and devotion, of valor, heroism, and chivalry in the trench. That is +what fed the anxious hearts of the waiting people, details of the large, +heroic picture that France was creating so near at hand, _la-bas_. + +There were few occasions for popular gatherings. The taste for +"demonstrations" of any sort had gone out of the people. Sympathetic +crowds met the trains from Switzerland that contained the first of +the "_grands blesses_" the militarily useless wounded whom Germany at +last concluded to give back to their homes. And I recall one pathetic +sight which I witnessed by accident--the arrival of one of the long +trains from the front bringing back the first "_permissionnaires_" +those soldiers who had been given a three or four days' leave after +nine months in the trenches. In front of the Gare de l'Est a great +throng of women and children were kept back by rope and police, until +at the appearance of the uniformed men at the exit they surged forward +and sought out each her own man. There were little laughs and sobs and +kisses under the flaring gas lamps of the station yard until the last +_poilu_ had been claimed, and the crowd melted away into Paris. + + * * * * * + +Across the street from my hotel there was an elementary school; several +times each day a buzz of children's voices rose from the leafy yard +into which they were let out for their recess. Again the thin chorus of +children's voices came from the schoolroom. It seemed the one completely +natural thing in Paris, the one living thing unconscious of the war. Yet +even the school children were learning history in a way they will never +forget. In one of the provincial schools visited by an inspector, all +the pupils rose as a crippled child hobbled into the schoolroom. "He +suffered from the Germans," the teacher explained. "His mates always +rise when he appears." A French mother walking with her little boy in +one of the parks met a legless soldier, and turning to her child she +said sternly, as if to teach an unforgettable lesson,--"Do you see that +legless man? The _Boches_ did that--remember it!" In these ways the new +generation is learning its history, and it is not likely to forget it +for many years to come. + + * * * * * + +At dawn and dusk in Paris one was likely to hear the familiar buzz +of the aeroplane, and looking aloft could detect a dark spot in the +clear June sky--one of the aerial guard that keeps perpetual watch +over Paris. Sometimes when I came home at night through the dark +streets I could see the silver beams of their searchlights sweeping +like a friendly comet through the heavens, or watch the dimmed lamp +glowing like a red Mars among the lower stars, rising and falling +from space to space. Often I was awakened in the gray dawn by the +persistent hum of this winged sentry and looked down from my balcony +into the misty city beneath, securely sleeping, thanks to the incessant +watchfulness of these "eyes of Paris." The aviator would make wide +circles above the silent city, then swiftly turn back toward Issy and +breakfast. Thanks to the activity of the aerial guard the Zeppelins +have done very little damage in Paris and latterly have made no +attempts to sneak down on the city. It is too risky. They have succeeded +in killing some peaceable folk near the Gare du Nord, in dropping one +bomb on Notre Dame, I believe,--for which they have less excuse than +even for Louvain or Rheims,--and in making a big hole close to the +Trocadero. This after all the vaunted terrors of the Zeppelins! What +they have done, what they could do at the best is of the nature of +petty damage and occasional murder. Instead of terrorizing the Parisians +the Zeppelin raids have merely roused a vivid sense of sportsmanship +and curiosity among them--at first they had a real _reclame!_ + +Day by day as I lived in Paris the city took on more of its ordinary +activities and aspects. More people flowed by along the boulevards or +sat at the tables in front of the cafes, more shops opened--even the +great dressmaking establishments began to operate in an attempt to +restore commercial circulation. More transients flitted through the +city. There were more people of a Sunday in the Bois and at Vincennes. +Considering that less than a year before the national government had +left Paris, together with a million of its people, also that the +battle-line had remained all these months almost within hearing, it +was marvelous how quietly much of the ordinary machinery of life had +been set running again. Yet Paris was not the same. It was a Paris +almost wholly stripped to the outward eye of that parasitic luxury with +which it has catered to the self-indulgent of the world. Paris--as had +been the case with Italy--had returned under the stress of its tragedy +to its best self--a suffering, tense, deeply earnest self. If the nation +conquers--and there is not a Frenchman who believes any other solution +possible--victory will be of the highest significance to the race. It +will fix in the French people another character wrought in suffering--a +deeper, nobler, purer character than her enemies, or her friends for that +matter, have believed her to possess. Paris will never again become so +totally submerged in the business of providing international frivolities. +She has lived too long in the face of death. + + + + +II + + +_The Wounds of France_ + +The wounds of France are still bleeding. The trench wall still lies +for four hundred miles across the fair face of the country from the +Vosges to the North Sea, and the invader rules some of her richest +provinces, in all an area equal to something less than a tenth of +the whole. + +The wounds have already begun to heal in the marvelous manner of +nature: already life has begun again in the valley of the Marne; +the vineyards and grainfields run close up to the front trenches. +Yet even where the scar has covered the wound it is plain enough to +see how deep that wound has been. The scorched and bruised valley of +the Marne, the ruined villages of Champagne and Artois, have been +described many times by visiting journalists, yet it is worth while +to record once more some of the outstanding features of this rape +of France. + + * * * * * + +To begin with Senlis, which is one of the nearest points to Paris +reached by the German cyclone in September, 1914. There are fewer +older towns in France than Senlis, thirty miles or so northeast of +Paris, the center of the old "Island of France." Once a Roman camp +whose stout masonry walls can still be seen for considerable distances, +it had a mediaeval castle, and, until the greater grandeur of Beauvais +stole the honor, was a bishopric with a lovely small Gothic cathedral. +Its lofty gray spire dominates the green fields and thick woods in the +midst of which Senlis sleeps away the modern day. There are other +curious and beautiful examples of Gothic building in Senlis: indeed, +just here, the experts find the first workings of the principles of +pure Gothic architecture, transforming the round-arched, thick-walled +Norman building. If for nothing more Senlis would have amply earned its +right to live always as the birthplace of French Gothic. + +What happened to Senlis when the German troops visited it can be +seen at a glance to-day. From the railroad station at one end of +the town to the green fields beyond the hospital on the Chantilly +road at the other end, a black swath of burned and ruined buildings +is the memento. These houses and stores were not shelled: they were +burned methodically. The Germans arrived late in the afternoon of +the 2d of September, in that state of nervous excitement and hysterical +fear of _francs-tirailleurs_ that characterized them from the time +they passed Liege. The Mayor of Senlis, an old man over seventy, was +made to understand that he would be held responsible for the conduct +of the citizens, and was ordered to have water and lights turned on +in the town and a dinner for the German staff prepared at the chief +hotel. While he was busy with these commands,--most of the inhabitants +had fled that morning,--shots were exchanged in the lower end of the +town between the Germans and the retreating French. Thereupon the usual +order to burn and destroy was given, and the buildings along the main +thoroughfare were set on fire. The mayor and six other citizens, +gathered haphazard on the streets, were taken to a field outside the +town and shot. There were other moving and significant incidents in +the occupation of Senlis which are well authenticated, characteristic +of the German method, but need not be repeated here. + +The older part of the town, the cathedral, the Roman wall fortunately +escaped with only a few chance shell holes here and there. The black +scar runs through the place from end to end, incontrovertible instance +of the German thing, which has been visited by thousands of French and +foreigners the past year. The wounds of Senlis are not deep: by +comparison with much else done by the Germans they are almost trivial. +The murder of the Mayor of Senlis was not a large crime in the German +scale. But the whole is nicely typical: Senlis is the kindergarten +lesson in the German method of making war. + + * * * * * + +As every one knows, the Germans breaking into France at Namur and +Mons came on with unexampled rapidity from the north and east toward +the south and west, circled somewhat to the west as they neared Paris, +and then the 5th of September recoiled under the shock of the French +offensive. For the better part of a week two millions of men struggled +on a thousand different battlefields from Nancy and Verdun on the east +to Coulommiers, Meaux, and Amiens on the south and west. This was the +great battle of the Marne, which checked the German invasion. The +pressure of this human cyclone, in general from northeast to southwest, +was more intense in some places than others. One of the bloodiest storm +centers lay east and west from the town of Vitry-le-Francois--from +Sermaize-les-Bains on the east to Fere-le-Champenoise, Montmirail, and +Esternay on the west. For fifty miles there in the heart of Champagne +the path of the cyclone can be traced by the blackened villages, the +gutted churches, the countless crosses in the midst of green fields. + +One thinks of Champagne as a land of vineyards, but here in the +center and south of the fertile province there are few vines, mostly +fields of ripening wheat, green alfalfa, or beets--long undulating +swales of rich fields, cut by little copses of thick woods and by +white poplar-lined highways as everywhere in France. It has peculiarly +that smiling and gracious air of _la douce France_--gently sloping +fields and woods and little gray stone villages each with its small +church ornamented by the square tower and spire of Champenoise Gothic. +And it was here that the blast struck hardest, along the little streams, +in the thick copses, up and down the straight roads whose deep ditches +lent themselves to entrenchment, and in almost every village and +crossroads hamlet. + +It is a country of few towns, of many small villages, farm and manor +houses. The buildings cluster in the hollows or about the crossroads, +and sometimes they escaped the storm because the shells exchanged +from hill to hill went quite over their roofs; again, as was the +case with Huiron just outside Vitry or with Maurupt near by, they +could not escape because they were perched on hills, and they were +almost completely razed by the fierce fire that raked them for days. +Sometimes they escaped shell and machine gun to be burned to the +ground vengefully with incendiary bombs, as at Sermaize-les-Bains, +where of nine hundred buildings less than forty were left standing +after the Germans retreated. These instances are the saddest of all +because so wanton! There was scarcely a single collection of houses +in that fifty miles which I traversed which did not bear its ugly +scar of fire and shell, scarcely a farmhouse that was not crumbled +or peppered with machine-gun bullets. Miles of desolation may be +seen in a couple of hours' drive around Vitry-le-Francois,--Favresse, +Blesmes, Ecrinnes, Thieblemont, Maurupt, Vauclerc,--with acre upon +acre of ruined buildings, a chimney standing here and there, heaps +of twisted iron that once were farm machines, withered trees--and +graves, everywhere soldiers' graves. + +The churches suffered most, probably because they were used for +temporary defense. At Huiron the upper half of the thirteenth-century +Gothic church had been shaved off--in the ten-foot deep mass of debris +lay the richly carved capitals of the massive pillars. At Ecrinnes near +by the apse of the exquisite little church had been blown off, leaving +the front and spire intact. At Maurupt the whole edifice, which commanded +the rolling countryside for miles, was riddled from end to end. Again, +I would enter an apparently sound building to find a pile of rubbish in +the nave, a gaping hole in the roof. And the same thing was true about +Bar-le-Duc to the east and Meaux to the west. It is safe to say that in +a fifty-mile wide stretch from Nancy to the English Channel not one +village in ten has escaped the scourge. + + * * * * * + +I speak of the churches because of their irreplaceable +beauty, the human tenderness of their relation with the earth. +But even more poignant, perhaps, were the wrecks of little country +homes--the stacks of ruined farm machinery, the gutted barns, the +burned houses. In many cases not a habitable building was left after +the cyclone passed. In one hamlet of thirty houses near Esternay I +remember, all but seven had been devastated--by incendiary fire. +Indeed, it was clearly distinguishable--the "legitimate" wrack of +war, from the deliberate spite of incendiarism. Maurupt was the one +case, Sermaize-les-Bains (where there was no fighting) the other. If +it had been simple war, shell and machine gun, probably fifty per cent +or more of the devastation would have been saved. But the German makes +war against an entire country, inanimate as well as animate. + +The inhabitants of these ruins had come back in many instances--where +else had they to go? Swept up before the blast of the cyclone, they had +fled south over the fields and hard white roads, then crept back a few +days after the cyclone had passed to find their homes pillaged, burned, +their villages blackened scars on the earth. But they stayed there! The +English Society of Friends has given some money with which to put up +wooden huts, on which old men and Belgian refugees were working when I +passed that way. There is a French charity that tries to outfit these +new homes in the devastated districts, one of the numberless efforts of +the French to put their national house in order. But for all that charity +can do, the lot of these villagers is a bitter one: their strong men have +gone to the front; old men, women, and children are left to scratch the +fields, and exist miserably in the cellars, underneath bits of corrugated +iron roof, in tiny wooden huts. But they have planted their potatoes, in +the ruins in some cases, and have taken up sturdily the struggle of +existence in the wreck of their old homes. The children play among the +crumbling walls, the women go barefoot to the public well for water. The +fields have been sown and harvested somehow. Until the Germans can kill +off the French peasant women, they can never hope to conquer France. + +Compared with the burning of homes, the razing of villages, mere +pilfering and looting seem commonplace, unreprehensible crimes. Yet +the loss of property by plain theft is no inconsiderable item in that +bill which France expects to present some day. The old chateaux that +were fouled and gutted by the invader, the trainloads of plunder that +went back to German cities, the emptied cellars and ransacked houses +have fed the fire of disgust and loathing which the French feel for +their foe. Yet they should not begrudge the invader the extraordinary +quantity of good wine which he consumed on his raid, because the +victory of the Marne was doubtless won in part by the aid of the +champagne bottle! + + * * * * * + +When I passed through the Marne valley the fields were being harvested +for the first time since those fatal days in September. Among the +harvesters were a number of middle-aged men with the soldiers' _kepi_, +who had been given leave to make the crop, which was unusually abundant. +The fields of old Champagne, watered with the best blood of France, had +yielded their richest returns. Outside the charred and crumbled ruins +of the villages one might have forgotten the fact of war were it not for +the graves. Here and there the corner of some wood where a battery had +been placed was mowed as if cut by a giant reaper. The tall poplars +along the roadsides had been ripped and torn as by a violent storm. Some +hillsides were scarred with ripples from burrowing shells, and hastily +made trenches had not yet been ploughed completely under. But over the +undulating golden fields it would be difficult to trace the course of +the tempest were it not for the crosses above the graves, thousands upon +thousands of them,--singly, in clumps, in long lines where the dead +bodies had been brought out of the copses and buried side by side in +trenches, or where at a crossroads a little cemetery had been made to +receive the dead of the vicinity. + +Often as you crawled along in a train you could follow the battle by +the bare spots left in the fields around the graves. They will never +be ploughed under and sown, not even the graves of Germans, not in +the richest land. Generally they were carefully fenced off, almost +always with a simple cross on the point of which hung the soldier's +_kepi_ whenever it was found with the body. It is remarkable, considering +the scarcity of hands, the desolation of the country, the difficulty of +existence, what tender care has been given these graves of the unknown +dead. Many of them were decorated with fresh flowers or those metal +wreaths that the Europeans use, and where a company lay together a +little monument had been erected with a simple inscription. It would +seem that these Champenoise peasants still retain some of that pagan +reverence for the dead which their Latin ancestors had cultivated, +mingled with passionate love for those who gave themselves in defense +of _la patrie._ + +So for years to come the beautiful fields of France will be strewn +with these little spots of sanctuary where Frenchmen died fighting +the invader. The fields are already green again: Nature is doing her +best to remove the scars of battle from this land where so often in +the past ages she has been called upon to heal the wounds inflicted +by men. Nature will have completed her task long before the ruined +villages can be restored, long, long before the scars in men's hearts +made by this ruthless invasion can be healed. Another generation, +that of the little children playing in the ruins of their fathers' +homes, must grow up with hate in their hearts and die before the +wounds can be forgotten. + + * * * * * + +The Germans were shelling Rheims the day I was there. From the +little Mountain of Rheims, five miles away on the Epernay road, I +could see the gray and black clouds from bursting shells rise in the +mist around the massive cathedral. An observation balloon was floating +calmly over the hill beyond, directing the fire on the desolated city. +It was necessary to wait outside the town until a lull came in the +bombardment, and when our motor at last entered, it was like speeding +through a city of the dead, with crushed walls, weed-grown streets, +and empty silence everywhere save for the low whine of the big shells. +With the five or six hundred large shells hurled into Rheims that one +day, the Germans killed three civilians, wounded eighteen more, and +knocked over some hollow houses already gutted in previous bombardments. +They did not damage the cathedral that day, though several explosions +occurred within a few feet of the building. + +There were no soldiers, no artillery in Rheims--there have not been +any for many months. Of its one hundred and thirty thousand people, +only twenty thousand were left hiding in cellars, skulking along the +walls, clinging to their homes in the immense desolation of the city +with that tenacity which is peculiarly French. In the afternoon when +the fire ceased the boys were playing in the streets and women sat in +front of their cellar homes sewing. They have adapted themselves to +sudden death. They move about from hole to hole in the wilderness of +shattered buildings. For the city had been gutted by the acre: street +after street was nothing but an empty shell of walls that crumpled up +from time to time and tottered over. Within lay an indescribable mass +of household articles, merchandise, all that once had been homes and +stores and factories. Around the cathedral there was a peculiar silence, +for this quarter of the city which received most of the shells is +absolutely deserted. The grass grew high between the stones in the +pavement all about. The sun was throwing golden cross-lights over the +battered walls as I came into the deserted square and stood beside the +little figure of Jeanne d'Arc before the great portal. As seen from +afar, now in the full nearer view, the amazing thing was the majesty +of the windowless, roofless, defaced cathedral. Acres of other buildings +have crumbled utterly, but not even the German guns have succeeded in +smashing the dignity out of this ancient altar of French royalty. It +still stands firm and mighty, dominating its ruined city, as if too old, +too deeply rooted in the soil of France to be crushed by her enemies. +After a year of bombardment it still raised its mutilated face in dumb +protest above the crumbling dwellings of its people, whom it could no +longer protect from the barbarian. + +Not that the Germans have spared the cathedral in their senseless +bombardment of Rheims! From that first day, when their own wounded +lay within its walls and were carried out of the burning building +by the French, until the morning I was there, when a shell tore at +the ground beneath the buttresses hitherto untouched, the Germans +seem to have taken a special malignant delight in shelling the +cathedral. They have already damaged it beyond the possibility of +complete repair, even should their hearts at this late day be +miraculously touched by shame for what they have done and their guns +should cease from further desecration. The glorious glass has already +been broken into a million fragments; many of the finely executed +mouldings and figures--irreplaceable specimens of a forgotten art--have +been crushed; great wall spaces pounded and marred. It is as if a huge, +fat German hand had ground itself across a delicately moulded face, +smearing and smudging with vindictive energy its glorious beauty. +Rheims Cathedral must bear these brutal German scars forever, even +should the vandal hand be stayed now. It can never again be what it +was--the full, marvelous flowering of Gothic art, precious heritage +from dim centuries long past. Like a woman at the full flower of her +life who has been raped and defiled, all the perfection of her ripened +being defaced in a moment of lust, she will live on afterward with a +certain grandeur of horror in her eyes, of tragic dignity that can +never utterly be erased from her outraged person.... + +A French officer, speculating on the German intentions with that +admirably dispassionate intelligence with which the French consider +these brutal manifestations of the German mind, remarked, "At present +they seem engaged in ringing the cathedral with their fire, as if to +see how close they can come without hitting the building itself, but +of course from that distance they must sometimes miss." One theory +why the enemy pursues this unmilitary monument with such peculiarly +relentless ferocity is that they enjoy the outcry which their vandalism +creates. Moreover, it is a way of boasting to the world that they have +not yet been expelled from their positions behind Rheims, are not being +driven back. If any special explanation were needed, I should find it +rather in the fact that Rheims is peculiarly associated with French +history,--minster of her kings,--and its destruction would be especially +bruising to French pride. William the Second probably swells with +magnitude at the thought of destroying with his big guns this sanctuary +of French kings. Some of the graven kings still cling to their niches +in the lofty facade. Two have been taken to the ground for safety and +look out with horror in their blind eyes at the ruin all about them. +The little figure of Jeanne d'Arc, rescuer of a French king, still +stands untouched before the great portal, astride her prancing horse, +bravely waving her bronze flag. Around her were heaped garlands of +fresh flowers, touching evidence that the city of Rheims still holds +stout souls with faith in the ultimate salvation of their great church, +who lay their tribute at the feet of the virgin warrior. Once she +protected their ancestors from a less barbarous enemy. + +What use to enumerate the wounds and outrages in minute detail? For +by to-day more of this unique beauty has gone to that everlasting +grave from which no German skill can resurrect it.... Within, the +cathedral has been less spoiled, but is even sadder. One walked over +the stone pavement crunching fragments of the purple glass that had +fallen from the gorgeous windows, now sightless. Once at this hour +it was all aglow with color, radiating a mysterious splendor into +the vaults of transept and nave. A shell had blasted its way into +one corner, another had rent the roof vaulting near the crossing of +transept and nave. The columns and arches were blackened by the smoke +of that fire which caught in the straw on which the German wounded +lay. There was something peculiarly forlorn, ghostly within the dim +ruins of what was once so great, and I was glad to escape to the old +hospital in the close, now turned into a hospital for the cathedral +itself. Here on benches and in piles about the floor of the low-vaulted +room had been gathered those fragments of statue and moulding that a +pious search could rescue from the debris around the cathedral. In this +room, while the German guns were still raining shells upon Rheims, an +old man in workman's apron was already moulding casts of the faces and +lines of the shattered stones so that in some happier day an effort to +reproduce them might be made. I saw between his trembling old fingers +the fine features of a stone angel which he was covering with clay. I +know of nothing more beautifully eloquent of the French spirit than +this labor of preservation. Within range of shell fire this old man +was calmly working to save what he might of the beauty that had been +so prodigally murdered. If spiritual laws are still operative in this +mad world of ours, the Latin must endure and conquer because of his +unshakable faith.... + +At the hill on the Epernay road I looked back for a last view of the +cathedral. The evening mist was already creeping over its scarred +walls. With the two towers lifting the great portal to the sky, it +dominated the valley, the ruined city at its feet, a monument of men's +aspirations raising its head high into the sky in spite of the unseen +missiles that even then were beginning once more their attack. I would +that these words might go to swell that cry which has gone up from all +civilized peoples at the sacrilege to Rheims! Even now something of its +majesty and its glory might be saved if the German guns were silenced--if +within the German nation there were left any respect for the ancient +decencies and traditions of man. But I know too well with what contempt +the Germans view such pleas for beauty, for old memories and loves. They +are but "sentimental weakness," in the words of the "War Book," along +with respect for defenseless women and children. The people who gloried +in the sinking of the Lusitania will hardly be moved to refrain from the +destruction of a cathedral. Rheims--unless saved by a miracle--is doomed. +And it is because neither beauty nor humanity, neither ancient tradition +nor common pity can touch the modern German, that this war must be fought +to a real finish. There is not room in this world for the German ideal +and the Latin ideal: one must die. + + * * * * * + +The tragedy of Rheims has been repeated again and again--at Soissons, +at Arras, at Ypres, in every town and village throughout that blackened +band of invaded France from the Vosges to the sea. Also the tragedy of +exiled and imprisoned country folk, of ruined farms and houses, of mere +destruction. + +The wounds of France are so many, the outward physical bleeding of +the land is so vast, that volumes have been written already as the +record. Very little can be said or written about another wound,--the +lives of those in the invaded provinces behind the German lines,--for +almost nothing is known as to what has happened there, what is going +on now. A word now and then comes from that dead, no man's land; a +rare fugitive escapes from the conqueror's hand. The military rule +forbids any correspondence through neutrals, as is permitted prisoners +of war, to those held "behind the lines." The inhabitants are kept as +prisoners. Worse, they have been used at certain places along the front +as bucklers against the fire of their countrymen--in a quarry near +Soissons, at Saint-Mihiel. It is known that heavy imposts are laid upon +them, as at Lille, and that the invader is exploiting this richest part +of France's industrial territory. This last wound is, perhaps, the most +serious of all for France, in this modern, machine war. Latterly rumor +has it that the treatment of the inhabitants imprisoned behind the +German lines has become less rigorous, because, as a French general +explained,--"They hope to make peace with us--_quelle sale race!_" + +These wounds are still bleeding. They cannot be ignored. They, as +well as the death, suffering, and agony of the long trench combat, +make the faces of the French tense, silent. "To think that they are +still here after a whole year since this happened!" a young Frenchman +exclaimed in bitterness of soul as we looked out over the thickly +scattered graves in the fields around Bercy. To him it was as if a +crazed and drunken marauder had taken possession of his house, burned +a part of it, and still caroused in another wing. The unforgettable, +unforgivable wounds of France! + +The French, so clear-seeing, so reasonable even about their own +tragedies, are bitter to the soul when they think of the brutality +done to their _"douce France."_ To the French, quite as much as to +the Bryanited American, war is a senseless, inhuman thing; but it +becomes direfully necessary when the home has been burned and laid +waste. The Gallic spirit cannot understand that spirit of malevolent +destruction which vengefully wreaks its spite against defenseless and +inanimate works of age to be reverenced, of art to be loved. There are +certain scrupulosities of soul in the Latin that divide him from his +enemy, more effectually than a thousand years of life and an entire +world of space. + + + + +III + + +_The Barbarian_ + +The barbarian, as the Greeks used the word, was not necessarily a +person or a people without civilization. Indeed, certain ancient +peoples known as barbarians had a high degree of luxury, civilization. +The Persians under the barbarian Xerxes were probably quite the equals +in the mechanics of civilization of the Greeks, and the Egyptians could +lay claim to a large amount of what even the Greeks considered culture. +The barbarian was a person or a nation without a spiritual sense in his +values. The barbarian was often strong, able, intelligent, "organized" +as we say, but he was incapable of self-government: the barbarian nations +were ruled despotically. Their position in the world depended upon the +force and the ability of the particular despot who got control of their +destinies. The barbarian peoples were often crude in what is called +fine art. They neither believed in nor practiced those amenities of daily +life which express themselves superficially in manners, more deeply in +sensitive inhibitions, nor those amenities of the soul which are known +as honor, justice, mercy. The barbarian despised as soft and degenerate +such persons as permitted themselves to be trammeled in their conduct by +non-utilitarian considerations. In his primitive state the barbarian's +instinct was to destroy what he could not understand; as he became more +sophisticated, his instinct was to imitate what he could not create. + +What, above all, the barbarian cannot appreciate is the suave mean +of life, the ideal of individual human excellence, of a tempered +social control, the liberty of the individual within the fewest +possible restrictions to work out his own scheme of existence, his +own civilization. For the barbarian mind recognizes only two sorts +of beings--the master and the slave. One is a tyrant and the other +is a docile imitation of manhood. The barbarian never totally dies +from the world. In every race, in every nation, in every community +fine examples of the barbarian instinct, the barbarian philosophy +of existence can be found. I have known personally a great many +barbarians,--American life is full of them,--and my knowledge of +them, of their strengths and their limitations, has given me my +understanding of the modern German as manifested in this world war. + + * * * * * + +Real truth often underlies popular nomenclature. It is neither accident +nor a desire to abuse that has given the German the name of barbarian +in the Latin nations. Just as the Latin peoples are the inheritors of +Greek ideals, so the German peoples seem to be the active modern +protagonists of all that the Greeks meant by their term "barbarian." +The French before the war regarded the Germans as not wholly well-bred +persons, lacking in some of those niceties of feeling and conduct which +seemed to them important--"_parvenus_" as a French officer characterized +his feeling about the race, and added the descriptive adjective +"_sale_"--dirty. Since the war there has been ground into the French the +more awful inhumanities of which these _parvenus_ are capable. Therefore, +when they think of the German, there comes instinctively to their lips +the ancient term of complete distinction,--_les barbares_,--by which is +meant a person and a nation who are not governed by ideals of taste, +honor, humanity, what to the non-barbarian are summed up in the one +word "decency." The adjective that the officer used--"_sale_"--does +not imply necessarily literal physical dirt, but a moral callousness +and unrefinement of soul which in the spiritual realm corresponds with +the term "dirty" in the physical. He sees the soul of the German as a +dirty soul, unclean, unsqueamish. And this conception of the enemy has +given to the French soldier something of that crusader spirit which has +sustained him through his terrible conflict. As M. Emile Hovelaque has +expressed it,--"France is fighting the battle of humanity, of the world, +of America, of every nation, man, and child who are resolved to live +their own life in their own way, under the dictates of their conscience, +within the limits of the laws they have accepted." The battle of the +world to push back once more the pest of barbarism! It is that which +has roused French chivalry, French heroism, not merely the love of +the _patrie_. Indeed, for the higher spirits the _patrie_ is closely +identified with the non-barbaric ideals of humanity. + + * * * * * + +The whole conscious world has had the manifestations of the new +barbarism before its eyes for an entire year and more. It has recoiled +in disgust from the invasion of Belgium, the sinking of the Lusitania, +the shooting of Edith Cavell, from the wanton destruction of monuments. +All these barbarities are indisputable facts, which may be explained +and extenuated, but cannot be denied. There is another class of +barbarities,--the so-called "atrocities,"--which are more easily denied, +but which most people who have taken the trouble to examine the charges +know to be equally true. The record of these multiplied atrocities is +so enormous and so well authenticated that it would seem to me useless +to add any words to the theme were it not for an amazing attitude of +indifference to the subject on the part of many Americans. "We don't +want to hear any more atrocity stories," they say. "Perhaps the +atrocities have been exaggerated, probably there's truth on both sides. +Anyway, war is brutal as every one knows." Some newspapers will not +publish the atrocity charges, whether because of our popular prejudice +against anything "unpleasant" unless freshly sensational or because of +more sinister reasons, the reader may judge. + +This attitude is both evasive and cowardly. It is essential to +understand the atrocity for a proper realization of the war and of +the German menace. It is false to say that all war is barbarous, and +that in every war similar atrocities have occurred. As Mr. Hilaire +Belloc has well said,--"Men have often talked during this war ... as +though the crime accompanying Prussian activities in the field were +normal to warfare.... It is of the very first importance to appreciate +the truth that Prussia in this campaign has postulated in one point +after another new doctrines which repudiate everything her neighbors +have held sacred from the time when a common Christianity first began +to influence the states of Europe. The violation of the Belgian +territory is on a par with the murder of civilians in cold blood, and +after admission of their innocence, with the massacre of priests and +the sinking without warning of unarmed ships with their passengers and +crews. To regard these things as something normal to warfare in the past +is as monstrous an historical error as it would be to regard the Reign +of Terror during the French Revolution as normal to civil disputes +within the states." + +It is the business of every person who is concerned about anything +more than his own selfish fate to examine into the atrocity charges +and to convince himself, not only of the truth, but of the more serious +implications in their premeditated and persistent character. The record +has been well made, fortunately, often in judicial form. It is already +voluminous and being added to constantly. Best of all the evidence, +perhaps, are the German diaries of soldiers and officers, extracts of +which have been edited by Professor Bedier, of the College de France, +with facsimile photographs of the texts. Next I should place in evidence +the so-called German "War Book" ("Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege"), where +under the convenient title of "Indispensable Severities" may be found +the text for many of the worst atrocities committed in Belgium and +France. + +If the atrocity charge against the Germans is false or exaggerated, +it is surely time to know it, but no mere denial or general argument +can be accepted in rebuttal. The world must convince itself of the +truth. The German crimes have been too many and too public, too well +authenticated by witnesses to be disproved by mere denial. The best +public opinion of the world has condemned military Germany as a +barbarous outlaw. The crimes committed with the connivance of the +supreme military authorities, authorized by their instructions to +their officers, have fouled the name German for eternity: it will +be coupled with Vandal, Tartar, Barbarian. + + * * * * * + +I believe the atrocity charges to be substantially true in a vast +majority of cases. Moreover, I do not believe that half the truth of +them has been told or ever will be. My reasons for this belief in the +atrocity charge are the following: First, undisputed crimes, such as +the Lusitania and Cavell cases. A government that would sanction these +murders would sanction all other atrocities. Second, the witness of +persons in whose credibility I have confidence, such as French officers +and civilians, nurses and doctors, whose occupations have thrown +first-hand evidence in their way, who have personal knowledge of +specific outrages. Third, from what I myself gathered while I was in +France from the lips of abused persons. Although I did not look for +atrocities, I could not avoid getting reports from such people as I +met in the devastated territory of the Marne, weighing their stories, +and estimating the validity of them. + +I believe in the truthfulness of that abbe of Esternay, who was one +of the unfortunates that the Germans used as a screen before the +operations of a body of troops. I believe in the truthfulness of the +keen old peasant woman at Chatillon, whose home had been riddled by +German bullets and who had been fired at when she took refuge in the +cellar of her house, and of many others with whom I talked of their +experiences during the early days of September, 1914. Unfortunately, +there was no photographer at work those days along the Marne valley, +though no doubt the German denying office would instantly impugn the +evidence of a photograph of the act. Each one of us, however, has his +own inner instinctive tests of truth to which he puts the credibility +of a story, and I believe the abbe, the old woman, and many others +who suffered abominably at the hands of German soldiers. + +One fact only too evident to anybody who has followed in German +footsteps through the valley of the Marne is the part that mere +drunkenness had in this affair. The flower of the German army was +incredibly drunken throughout the advance into France. Pillage, rape, +incendiarism followed inevitably. They are common crimes to be expected +where an exhausted soldiery is inflamed with drink. But the cowardly +slaughter of non-combatants, the wanton destruction of monuments, the +brutal tyrannies toward conquered peoples--these are the blacker crimes +against the German name. + + * * * * * + +Self-control is not a Teutonic ideal. Of all the psychological surprises +that the war has revealed, the exhibition of the German temperament has +not been one of the least. Not its frank philosophic materialism, which +any one who had followed the drift of German thought and literature might +have expected, but its extraordinary lack of self-control. English and +Americans are taught that an individual who cannot master his own temper +is unfit to master others. Yet here is a people pretending to world rule +whose tempers individually are so little under control that they explode +in senseless passion on the least provocation. The German nation froths +with hate first against the English because they were neither as cowardly +nor selfish as had been expected, then against the Italians because they +would not listen to Prince von Buelow's song, latterly against Americans +because the United States dared to question the divine right of Germany +to do with neutrals what she pleased. Judging from the German press and +from the Germans whom I have met, the German nation is living in a +ferment of rage, all the more extraordinary as the fighting seems to +have gone their way thus far. What would happen to this uncontrolled +people should the war take an unfavorable turn and not supply them with +daily victories? Self-control is not included in that famous German +discipline. Uncontrolled tempers, drink, the ordinary fund of brutality +in the pit of human beings with the extraordinary conditions of war +will explain much of all this barbarism--but not all. + +The supreme evidence of German atrocities is to be found in the +infamous "Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege," a singular revelation of +national character in which the German general staff has summed +up for young officers the principles that should govern the conduct +of invading armies. One finds here,--"By steeping himself in military +history an officer will be able to guard himself against excessive +humanitarian notions; it will teach him that certain severities +are indispensable to war, nay, more, that the only true humanity +very often lies in a ruthless application of them." This convenient +generalization covers the multitude of Belgian crimes. This interesting +manual of conduct for officers further warns against "sentimentalism +and flabby emotion," such as are embodied in the Hague Conventions, +and after stating the generally accepted rule or custom of warfare +warns that exceptions are always permissible where the officer deems +exceptional severities are "indispensable." After perusing the +"Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege," need one seek more evidence of German +atrocities from the levying of confiscatory fines upon conquered +peoples to the use of noncombatants as human screens in military +operations? The germ of the barbarous system is there contained in +its entirety. + + * * * * * + +But the implication of all this is much deeper than might appear on the +surface. Such a theory of warfare as is set forth in the "War Book," as +has been exemplified throughout the war, having its climax to date in +the murder of Edith Cavell, is not the result of uncontrolled passions +wrought to ferocity. It is deliberate, preconceived, defended,--an +article of faith intimately bound up with the German ideal of the state. +There is the danger. That the precept of the higher military authorities +is accepted by the general public may be seen in the following passage +from the Hamburg "Fremdenblatt"--or is it but a press note inserted by +the high commandment? "Toxic gases are simply a new instrument of +warfare; they are condemned because they are not universally adopted.... +In warfare humanity does not exist and cannot exist. All the lucubrations +of the Hague Conferences on this subject are childish babbling. New +technical knowledge gives new arms to those who are not fools and know +how to use them.... Knowledge creates power, power creates law, law +creates humanity. All these are changing ideas and Germans are not +disposed to discuss them during the war." + +An Indian on the warpath scalps, burns, tortures, and we say it is +the Indian nature to do these things. So-called civilized white men +have gone on the loose in and out of war and have done many shameful +deeds: we blush for them and draw the veil. But what never before has +been accomplished is to have barbarism deliberately inculcated as +part of the policy of warfare by a so-called civilized state; also +warfare considered to be the flower of statecraft. Clausewitz lays +down the principle that war is the legitimate carrying-out of state +policy; the state relies upon war to execute its designs. The German +military authorities announce and print for the use of their officers +that in war deviation from any recognized principle of conduct is +permitted under the excuse of "indispensable severity"--for the sake +of terrorizing hostile peoples--and humanitarianism is condemned as +"sentimentalism and flabby emotion." + +There we have the gist of the whole affair--what makes the Frenchman +instinctively consider the German to be a barbarian, what makes modern +Germany the menace of the entire world. It is not its militaristic +ideals, its mechanical civilization, not even its brutality and +vulgarity, not even the ferocity of its warfare: it is the methodical +application of this underlying principle of conduct which has been +inculcated into the people so that they rejoice at the sinking of the +Lusitania, which has been employed in this war systematically from the +first day. This is the barbarian essence of the German character. + +It is not the raping of women, not the staff officers' drunken +orgies in chateaux, not the looting and burning of houses, not the +stupid treatment of Belgians and French "hostages," etc. All these +are distressing but not necessarily characteristic. It is the principle +of the legitimacy of evil provided only that evil works to the advantage +of the German state. That is the vicious term in the German syllogism. +The state can do no wrong: therefore the individual acting for the state +can do no wrong. The one supreme end sanctioned by divine authority is +the endurance and the magnification of the German state. Whatever a +German may do or cause to be done with this holy end in view is not +merely just and reasonable, but necessary and praiseworthy. Hence there +follows, naturally, the vile system of German espionage, of propaganda +in neutral countries, the indiscriminate use of the submarine weapon, +terrorization, military murders of civilians, and all the rest of the +long count against Germany. Assume the vital major premise and the rest +follows inevitably, provided her citizens are both docile and have a +natural fund of brutality. + + * * * * * + +"In warfare humanity does not exist and cannot exist. All the +lucubrations of the Hague Conferences on this subject are childish +babbling.... Knowledge creates power, power creates law, law creates +humanity. All these are changing ideas." + +The world has known the barbarian always; we are all acquainted with +him from personal experience. But the world has never before known a +reasoned, intellectual barbarism, a barbarian that has elevated into +a philosophy of human life with the sanctions of religion his instincts +and impulses. And that is the menace of the German, not his force nor +his brutality, but the risk that he can successfully impose upon the +world such an atrocious creed, intimidating into imitation those cowardly +souls whom he does not care to conquer. If Germany were to win this war, +it would not be her bumptious aggression that the world ought to fear +so much as the enormous impulse it would give to her detestable creed, +to the principle of evil in the world. The danger for us Americans is +greater than for others, not because of exposed coasts and an unprepared +army, but because we are already tainted with the same raw materialism +of belief. Too many individuals in America would find a sympathetic +echo in their own hearts to the German creed of collective selfishness +and barbarism. + + * * * * * + +One heard in Paris surprisingly little about German atrocities, less +than in Boston and New York, much less than in London. Not that the +French do not believe them: they know the bitter truth about German +inhumanity as none others. With that admirable stoicism and lucid +conservation of moral force displayed by the French from the beginning, +they do not waste their strength in denunciation: they have accepted +it as one of the terrible aspects of the evil they are fighting. They +probably understand the German character as now wholly revealed better +than the rest of the world and are not so much surprised by its +manifestations. They have examined the German, and have fortified +themselves against his cruel power. + +But they cannot forget these incredible outrages. There are too many +fresh examples--too many robbed and maltreated refugees, too many +fatherless and motherless children, still coming to Paris by the +trainload, whom they must provide for, too many relatives and friends +who have been abused and murdered or whose property has been looted +by German soldiers and officers. Also there are too many Frenchmen +who have seen the horrors with their own eyes, too many doctors and +stretcher-bearers shot down by those they were trying to aid, too many +hospitals bombarded, too many wounded prisoners killed. The German +atrocity is documented in France over and over, within the knowledge +of millions. It will prove to be Germany's great stumbling-block after +the war, when she looks about a shocked world for peoples to trade with. + + * * * * * + +In the dining-room of the military club at Commercy, where a corps +of the French army now has its headquarters, there is a wall painting +of the last century representing the heroic deeds of Jeanne d'Arc. +"That," said General C., pointing to the little figure on horseback, +"is French! And the French have fought this war chivalrously--not +against monuments, against women and children and old people, but +as soldiers against soldiers!" + +The Latin is sometimes cruel--he has within him the capacity for +cruelty--and the history of Latin peoples is stained here and there +with ferocity. But the Latin has never organized cruelty methodically, +has never elevated terrorization into a principle of warfare, a weapon +of statecraft. For one thing he is too intelligent: he knows that +cruelty begets reprisals, that brutality breeds hate. After Alsace +the German should have known too much to try the same method in harsher +forms upon Belgium and invaded France. But the barbarian learns no +spiritual lessons. Persian atrocity, Saracen atrocity, Indian atrocity, +Spanish atrocity--they have all failed. An enduring triumph was never +won on that principle of "indispensable severity." + +It is barbarism as well as the barbarian which France is fighting, +and the French know it, are profoundly conscious of it, from the +cool, dispassionate philosopher, like Bergson or Boutroux or Hovelaque, +to the girl conductor on the tram, the dirty _poilu_ in the trench. +For more than a generation the French world has suffered from the +fear of this new barbarian, and the time has come again, as it has +come so many times before in history, for the momentous decision with +the barbarian. Again as before it must come on the fields of France +where the ancient curse of barbarism has been met and destroyed. + + + + +IV + + +_The German Lesson_ + +The barbarian must be met on his own ground of force and efficiency,--"an +eye for an eye," not with arguments or apologies, not even with numbers +or wealth. The vital question for us all to-day is not how unprepared the +Allies were for the onslaught of barbarism, but how far they have overcome +their handicap, how thoroughly they have learned the barbarian's lesson. +The varying degrees in which the different allied nations have grasped +the meaning of the lesson and applied it tell us not merely their chance +of survival, but also the probable outcome of the world decision. What +that lesson is which Germany is teaching the world by blood and iron is +a byword on men's tongues to-day: the value of it is another question. + + * * * * * + +Long before the war, Germany had published far and wide her scorn +of her enemies. The Russians were an undisciplined barbarian horde; +the English, stupid idlers who spent on their sport the energy that +the industrious German devoted to preparing himself for world rule. +As for the French, they were an amiable and amusing people, but +degenerate--fickle, feeble, rotten with disease. Germany's hate +was reserved for the English, her most ignoble slurs for the French. +Needless to say, Germany has not found any one of her many enemies as +wholly despicable as she had imagined them to be. Her miscalculations +were greatest with France. That the French people are smaller in +stature than the German, that they eat less and breed less, that by +temperament they are cheerful and gay and witty convinced the dull +German mind that the race had become degenerate and trivial,--negligible. +This habit of contemptuously attributing to other peoples vileness and +degeneracy because their social ideals differ from her own is part of +that lack of imagination which is the Teuton's undoing. + +The courage, endurance, and high spirit displayed by the French have +compelled German admiration. The French have become the most tolerable +of all her enemies, and it is an open secret that for many months +Germany has desired to win France away from her allies by an honorable, +even advantageous peace. Meantime French prisoners are favored in the +German prison camps, being accorded a treatment altogether more humane +than that given the English prisoners or the Russians. But France has +replied to the dishonorable advances no more than to the calumnies. +One of the astonishing revelations of national psychology unfolded in +the war has been the taciturnity of the French, their silent tenacity. +For nearly two generations the nation has lived in expectation of an +ultimate struggle for existence with the barbarian: now that it has +come with more than the feared ferocity the French have no time or +energy to waste in comment. They must expel the barbarian from their +home and put a limit "for an hundred years" to the menace of his +barbarism. + +That is in part why the clear-headed Latin has learned the German +lesson faster than his allies. + + * * * * * + +What everybody knows by this time, and in America is repeating with +sickening fluency, is that Germany is "efficient," not only militarily +efficient, but socially and economically efficient--which these days +amounts to the same thing. Germany is "organized" both for peace and +war more efficiently than any other nation in the world. The two terms +that this war has driven into all men's consciousness are "efficiency" +and "organization." We in America, prone to admire the sheen of tin, +have bowed down in greater admiration than any other people to German +"efficiency." For efficiency values in the operations of life are just +the ones we are most capable of appreciating, although our government +and general social organization remain as lamentably inefficient as, +say, the English. But being a business people we are fitted to admire +business qualities above all others. The German army, the German state +are magnificently run businesses! To some of us, however, the term +"efficiency" has become nauseating because it has been associated with +so much else that we loathe from the bottom of our souls. If we cannot +have an "efficient" civilization without paying the price for it that +Germany has paid,--the price of humanity, of beauty, the price of her +soul,--let us return to the primitive inefficiency of a Sicilian +village! + +Germany under a highly autocratic system of government has created +a social machine of unexampled and formidable efficiency. The German +realized before his rivals that war had become, like all other human +activities, a matter of business on a huge scale. And he had prepared +not merely the special instruments of war, but also the tributary +business on this scale of modern magnitude: he had converted his state +into a powerful war machine. All this which is now commonplace has +become more glaringly evident to us onlookers because of the lamentable +failure of England and Russia especially to meet the requirements of +the new business. So incapable do they seem of learning the German +lesson that to some Americans the cause of the Allies is doomed already +to disaster. Certainly the English and the Russians have justified many +of those bitter German taunts. + +It has not been so with France. The French also were caught +unprepared--to their honor--like their allies. Can a real democracy +ever be prepared for war? France, suffering grievously from the first +blow dealt by the enemy, looked destruction in the face before the +stand at the Marne. The famous victory of the Marne, I believe, is +still unknown in Germany--I have been so informed by an American who +spent last winter in Germany. The battle of the Marne may not rank +in history as quite the greatest battle in the history of the world. +The French may exaggerate its importance as a military event. The +English have certainly exaggerated the part played by their little +expeditionary force of less than a hundred thousand in "saving France." +That is for others to dispute. But it was without any question a great +moral victory for the French of the utmost tonic value to the nation. +It saved France from despair, possibly from the annihilation that +follows despair. And ever since the Marne victory, French confidence +and _elan_ have been rapidly growing. During that bloody September week +they realized that the barbarian was not invincible, the machine was +not so perfect but that human will and human courage could resist it. +Moreover, the machine lacked that quality of spirit which the French +felt in themselves. As the months have dragged around an entire year +and more in the trenches, almost contempt has grown in the mind of +the French soldier for the formidable German machine. Strong as it +is, it yet lacks something--that something of human spirit without +which permanent victories cannot be achieved. Its strength can be +imitated. The spirit cannot be "organized." + +French confidence is more than an official phrase, a mere bluff! + + * * * * * + +But--and just here lies the profound significance of it all--the +French realized at once that in order to conquer the German machine +they must create an equally efficient and powerful machine, which +with that plus of human spirit and the inspiration of their cause +would carry them over into victory. So while the English were berating +the barbarian for his atrocious misconduct, advertising "business as +usual," and filching what German trade they could, bungling at this +and that, until they have become a spectacle to themselves, the French +nation concentrated all its energies upon preparing an organization +fit to meet the German organization. While General Joffre held the +Germans behind the four hundred miles of trenches, France made itself +over into a society organized for war--the new business kind of war +which is waged in factory and railway terminal, not by gallant charges. +"_Organiser_" has become in the Frenchman's vocabulary the next most +popular word to "_patrie_." One implies, these days, the other. + +It is said that when Germany invaded France, the French had not a +ton of their chief high explosive on hand. Some of its ingredients +they had been getting from Germany! France lost her coal and iron +mines and her largest factories the first weeks of the war and has +not regained them. Yet early in last April, according to the official +announcement, France was turning out six times as much ammunition as +was deemed, before the war, the maximum requirement, and would shortly +turn out ten times as much, which has ere this probably been greatly +exceeded. Meanwhile, by April the artillery had been increased +sevenfold. In attaining these results, France has accomplished a +greater marvel relatively speaking than the most boasted German +efficiency. She has had to get her coal from England, her ores from +Spain, her machines for making guns and shells from us. She has had +to improvise shell factories and gun plants from automobile factories, +electric plants, railway repair shops--from anything and everything. +I visited a small tile factory that was being utilized to make hand +grenades. Innumerable small shops in Paris are engaged in munition +work. The amount of ammunition bought in America by France has been +grossly exaggerated by the German press. Latterly, France has employed +American engineers to build large munition plants in France that will +become the property of the Government. + +Throughout the spring the Paris newspapers appeared every morning +with large headlines: "More guns! More ammunition!!" And they got +them, made them. The headlines are no longer needed, for the +superiority in shell and guns rests with the French, not with the +Germans, on the western front. + + * * * * * + +France, industrially crippled, has accomplished this marvel in +one short year. The country has become one vast workshop for war. +The Latin genius for organization on the small scale has met the +German genius for organization on the large scale. The industrial +transformation has been facilitated by the system of conscription +over which the English have wrangled so long and so futilely to the +mystery of their keener-witted allies. To the Frenchman conscription +means merely the most effective method of applying patriotism, of +cooeperation for the common cause. France has mobilized not only her +men, but her women and children, it might be said, so thoroughly have +the civilian elements worked into the shops and other non-military +labor. To sort out their labor and put it where it was most effective, +to substitute women workers for men wherever possible, were the first +steps in the huge work of social reorganization. There were no labor +troubles to contend with, thanks to the conscription system and to +the awakened patriotism of every element in society. France looked +on aghast when her necessary supplies of coal were threatened by the +strike of Welsh miners, averted only by the personal pleadings of a +popular minister! To the Latin, more disciplined and more alive to +the real dangers of the situation than the Anglo-Saxon, the English +attitude was simply incomprehensible. Also France has not had her +efficiency so seriously threatened by the liquor problem as has +England: the military authorities have taken stern measures against +this danger and have carried them out firmly. So far as the army +itself is concerned, the drink evil does not exist. + +The manufacture of ammunition and cannon is but one element in the new +warfare. France has had to feed, clothe, and maintain her armies under +the same handicap, to meet all the unexpected requirements in material +of the trench war. The French have rediscovered the hand grenade and +developed it into the characteristic weapon of the war, have unearthed +all their old mortars from the arsenals and adapted them to the trench, +and created the best aerial service of all the combatants. Incidentally +they have effectually protected Paris from air raids since the first +months of the war by their careful aerial patrol. All this is aside from +the task of putting the nation socially and economically on the war +basis--in providing for the wounded, the dependent women and children, +and also for a perpetual stream of refugees from Belgium and the invaded +provinces, a burden that Germany has not yet had to carry. + +Not all this huge work of reorganization could be done immediately +with equal success. The sanitary service suffered grievously, especially +at the beginning,--needed all the help that generous outsiders could +give,--still needs it. The percentage of death among the wounded is too +high, of those returned to the army too low. There have been wastes in +other directions due to haste, inexperience, political interference, but +nothing like the wastes that England has suffered from the same causes, +infinitely less than we should suffer judging from the ineptitudes we +displayed in our little Spanish War. + +Probably France is not as well organized to-day for the war business +as is Germany. Very possibly she never will be, which is not to the +discredit of her people. The nation has had to do in one short year, +grievously handicapped at the start, what Germany has done at her leisure +during forty years. Moreover, the Latin temperament is intolerant of the +mechanical, the routine, which is the glory of the German. Although the +French have realized with marvelous quickness the necessity of war +organization and have adapted themselves to it,--have learned the German +lesson,--they are spiritually above making it the supreme ideal of +national effort. Without argument they have accepted the conditions +imposed upon them, but they do not regard the modern war business as +the flower of human civilization. + + * * * * * + +Mere preparation, no matter how scientific and thorough, is by no +means the whole of the German lesson. The first months of the war +we heard too much about German preparedness, too little about German +character. By this time the world is realizing that military preparation +is but one manifestation of that German character, and the real danger +is German character itself. According to reports in her own newspapers +Germany found herself running short of war materials after the first +weeks of this extraordinarily prodigal war, which exceeded even her +prudent calculations. But Germany had the habit of preparation and the +social machinery ready to enlarge her war product. Without advertising +her situation to the world, she provided for the new requirements so +abundantly that she has not yet betrayed any deficiency in material. +And while she was sweeping victoriously across northern France toward +Paris, with the belief that the city must fall before her big guns, +nevertheless her engineers took pains to prepare the Aisne line of +defense, which saved her armies from disaster and enabled them to keep +their tenacious grip on Belgium and northern France. This is the real +strength of Germany, the real import of the bitter lesson she is +teaching the world--the habit of preparation, discipline, organization, +thrift. On the specifically military side the French seem to have learned +this lesson well. They have fortified the ground between the present +front and Paris with line after line of defensive works. The fields are +gray with barbed wire. A few miles outside of the suburbs of Paris may +be seen as complete a system of trenches as on the front, and the _kepi_ +of the territorial digging a trench is a familiar sight almost anywhere +in eastern France. It is inconceivable that any "drive" on the western +front could be successful. The confidence of the French rests in part +on these precautions. + +Whether the French can apply the inner meaning of the German lesson, +can incorporate it into their characters and transmit it to their +children, is a larger question for us as well as for them, for the +whole world. But their success in applying it in this war is all +the more noteworthy in contrast with the failure of their two great +allies, who were not invaded, not handicapped at the start, as was +France. The failure of Great Britain and of Russia to master the +lesson is so obvious, so lamentable, that it needs no emphasis here. +France, with the brunt of invasion only a few miles from the gates +of Paris, her factories and mines lost, has provided herself very +largely, has supplied Serbia with ammunition, Italy with artillery, +Russia, England, and Italy with aeroplanes. For many months the +thirty miles of the western front held by the English was defended +with the assistance of French artillery. + +The Slav one expected to fail in getting his German lesson, for +obvious reasons, especially because of his reactionary and corrupt +bureaucracy. But not the Anglo-Saxon! As a clever French staff +officer remarked,--"The two disappointments of the war have been +the Zeppelins and the English." Without making a _post mortem_ on +the English case, the Latin superiority is a phenomenon worth +pondering. For the Anglo-Saxon, cousin to the Teuton, would supposably +be the better fitted to receive the German lesson of organization +and discipline. But that ideal of individual liberty, which England +surely did not inherit from her Germanic ancestors, seems to have +degenerated into a license that threatens her very existence as a +great state. The English still talk of "muddling through somehow"! +If the end of autocracy is barbarism, the end of liberty is anarchy. + +The Latin has kept the mean between the two extremes. The French, +having fought more desperately in their great revolution for individual +freedom than any other people, seem able to recognize its necessary +limits and to subordinate the individual at necessity to the salvation +of the nation. In the Latin blood, however modified, there remains +always the tradition of the greatest empire the world has known, which +for centuries withstood the assaults of ancient barbarism. The wonderful +resistance and adaptability of the French to-day is of more than +sentimental importance to mankind. All the world, including their foes, +pay homage to the gallantry and greatness of the French spirit in their +dire struggle, but what has not been sufficiently recognized is the +significance to the future of the recovery by the Latin peoples of the +leadership of civilization. We Americans who have both traditions in our +blood, with many modifications, are as much concerned in this world +decision as the combatants themselves. + +So much has become involved in the titanic struggle, so many +subordinate issues have risen to cloud the one cardinal spiritual +issue at stake, that we are likely to forget it or deny that there +is any. Is the world to be barbarized again or not? + + * * * * * + +This reiterated use of the term "barbarism" is not merely rhetorical +nor cheap invective. It is exact. One of the Olympian jests of this +world tragedy has been the passionate verbal battles over the claims +of respective "_Kulturs_" to the favor of survival. Why deny that the +barbarian can have a very superior form of "_Kultur_" and yet remain +a barbarian in soul? These pages on the German lesson are a tribute +to Germany's special contribution to the world. Social and industrial +organization, systematic instead of loose ways of doing things, +prudence, thrift, obedience and subordination of the individual to +the state, discipline--in a word, an efficient society. It is a great +lesson! No one to-day can belittle its meaning. Possibly the remote, +hidden reason for all this seemingly useless bloody sacrifice in our +prosperous modern world is to teach the primary principles of the +lesson. God knows that we all need it--we in America most after the +Russian, and next to us the English. If the world can learn the lesson +which Germany is pounding in with ruin, slaughter, and misery,--can +discipline itself without becoming Teutonized,--the sacrifice is not +too great. If the non-Germanic peoples cannot learn the lesson +sufficiently well, then the Teuton must rule the world with "his old +German God." His boasted superiority will become fact, destiny. + +That is the momentous decision which is being wrought out these days +in Europe with blood and tears--the relative importance to mankind of +discipline and liberty. The ideal is to have both, as much of one as +is consistent with the other. In this country and in England may be +seen the evil of an individualism run into license--the waste, the +folly of it. And in Germany may be seen the monstrous result of an +idolatrous devotion to the other ideal--the man-made machine without +a soul. Between the two lies the fairest road into the future, and +that road, with an unerring instinct, the Latin follows. + + * * * * * + +The German lesson is not the whole truth: it is the poorer half of +the truth. An undisciplined world is more in God's image than a world +from which beauty, humanity, and chivalry have been exterminated. But +discipline is the primal condition of survival. Between these two poles, +between its body and its soul, mankind must struggle as it has always +struggled from the beginning of time.... + +When I looked on the sensitive, suffering faces of Frenchwomen in +their mourning, the wistful eyes of crippled youths, the limp forms +of wounded men, the tense, bent figures of dirty _poilus_ in their +muddy trenches, I knew that through their souls and bodies was +passing the full agony of this struggle. + + + + +V + + +_The Faith of the French_ + +I do not mean religious faith, although that too has been evoked, +reaffirmed by the trials and griefs of the war, but I mean faith in +themselves, in their cause, in life. The unshakable faith of the French +is the one most exhilarating, abiding impression that the visitor takes +from France these days. It is so universal, so pervasive, so contagious +that he too becomes irresistibly convinced, no matter how dark the present +may be, how many victories German arms may win, that the ultimate triumph +of the cause is merely deferred. + +There has never been the slightest panic in France, not during the +mobilization when white-faced men and women realized that the dreaded +hour had struck, not even in those days of suspense when the public +began to realize that the first reports of French victories in Alsace +were deceptive and that the enemy was almost at the gates of Paris. +A million or so people left the city with the Government in order to +escape the expected siege, but there was no panic, not even among the +wretched creatures driven from their homes in the provinces before the +blast of the German cyclone. + +Ever since the battle of the Marne the tide of confidence has been +steadily rising, in spite of the tedious disappointments of trench +warfare, the small gains of ground, the steady toll of lives, in +spite of reverses in Galicia and Poland and the mistakes in the +Dardanelles, in spite of English sluggishness and Russian weakness. +Each reverse has been courageously accepted, analyzed, and found not +decisive, merely temporary. Victory must come to the ones who can +endure to the end, and the French know now that they can endure. +"We can do it all alone, if we have to!" Again, "The Germans know +that they are beaten already: they know it in Berlin as well as we +do." This confidence is based on realities--first on the success with +which France has learned the German lesson and completely reorganized +her life for the business of war. "We were not ready last August--but +we are now." Her machine is growing stronger in spite of the daily +waste of life, while the German machine is weakening steadily. + + * * * * * + +The farther one gets into the military zone, the more fervent and +evident is this confidence, until on the front it is an irresistible +conviction that inspires men and officers alike. Even a novice like +myself began to understand why the army is sure of ultimate victory, +and the longer one stays at the front the more this faith of the +French seems justified. In the first place, they have so well got +that German lesson! The supply of shell and gun is so abundant, also +of fresh troops in reserve thanks to "Papa" Joffre's frugality with +human lives; the first, second, third lines--on _ad infinitum_ to +Paris--are so carefully fortified, so alertly held against any "drive"! +And the troops are so fit! They have made themselves at home in their +new camping life behind the lines of dugouts and caves; they have +become gnomes, woodsmen, cavemen, taking on the earth colors of the +primitive world to which they have been forced to return in order +to free the soil of their country. Then one sees the steady creeping +forward of the front itself, not much as it looks on a small-scale +map, but as the officers point out the blasted woods, or the brow of +a hill over which the trenches have been slowly pushed metre by metre +throughout the interminable weeks of constant struggle, one sees that +gradually the French have got the upper hand, the commanding positions +in long stretches of the trench wall. They are on the hills, their +artillery commands the level fields before them. It is like the struggle +between two titanic wrestlers who have swayed back and forth over the +same ground so long that the spectator can see no advance for either. +But one wrestler knows that the inches gained from his adversary count, +that the body in his grasp is growing weaker, that the collapse will +come soon--with a rush. He cannot tell fully why he feels this +superiority, but he knows that his adversary is weakening. + +Perhaps a colonel on the front will tell you with elation,--"We know +that the Boches across the way are discouraged, because our prisoners +say so,--we take prisoners more easily than we did,--and they are all +mixed up in their formations. We know that they have to drive their men +to the job, that the lines about here are stripped as bare as they dare +keep them. There used to be a lot of reserve troops behind their lines, +but our aviators say there aren't any in X----any more! And they aren't +as free with their _obus_ as they used to be, and they are 'old +nightingales,' not first quality." Perhaps the staff officers will smile, +knowing that the enemy is massing his forces elsewhere on the long front, +but this trick of rapid change is becoming harder to perform, and more +exhausting. At any rate, the plain _poilus_ in the front trenches are +instinctively sure: "We'll have 'em now soon!" They have watched that +grim gray wall opposite so long that, like animals, they can feel what +is going on there on the other side. + + * * * * * + +At staff headquarters in a more contained, reserved way there is +the same air of vital confidence. "Have you seen the new pump?" the +general asked me. "We are pumping good water all over this sector +into the front trenches, too.... Oh, we are _bien installe!_ ... It +may be another year, two, perhaps more, but the end is certain. There +is one man in the trenches, another just behind in reserve, still +another resting somewhere in the woods for his week off, and more, +all the men we want back in the _depots_!" And he turns the talk to +the good health of his men, their fine spirit. For one of the human, +lovable qualities of the officers whom I met is that they prefer to +talk about the comfort, the _morale_, the _esprit_, of their men to +discussing "operations." + +Just here I see where the French have risen above the machine idea +of the German lesson. There is a something plus, over and above +"preparation," "organization," "efficiency," which the Latin has +and on which his confidence in ultimate victory largely rests. That +is his belief in the individual, his reliance on the strength of the +individual's spirit. To the French officer this seems the all-important +factor in the army: military force depends ultimately upon the _esprit_ +of the individual which creates the _morale_ of the whole. Of course, +the army must be equipped in the modern way and fought in the modern +way with all the resources of science, with aeroplanes, bombs, motor +transport, and heavy artillery. But without the full devotion of the +individual, without the cooeperation of his _esprit_, the army would +be a dead machine, especially in this nerve-rending endurance contest +of the trenches. Here is the Latin idea, which is absolutely opposed +to the German machine theory of war. + +The German staff has done marvels with its machine. It hurls armies +over the map of Europe of initiative and devotion in the common soldier, +who in the Latin conception of the word remains a human being with a +soul. An officer remarked to me, "We cannot have our men come from the +trenches glum and downcast--a Frenchman must laugh and joke or something +is wrong with him. So we started these vaudevilles behind the lines, and +sports." Instead of more drill they give their men "shows," so that they +may laugh and forget the horrors of the trench. Good psychology! + + * * * * * + +The civilian shines through every French soldier--the civilian who is +a human being like you or me, with the same human needs. The officers +chat and joke familiarly with their men. Comradeship is substituted for +tyranny. France, one comprehends, is a real democracy, and still takes +the ideal of equality seriously. When I asked an officer at Rheims why +he had not had a day's leave in ten months while English officers went +home on leave, he said, with a shrug,--"France is a republic: our men +must get their leaves first." + +The machine system gives startling results--in a short campaign. But +when it comes to an endurance contest, to the long, long strains of +trench warfare, something other than drill and organization is necessary, +something that will rouse the human being to the last atom of effort +that he has in him. When men must stand up to their waists in icy water, +live in the inferno of constant bombardment, not for hours and days, but +for weeks and months, something other than discipline is needed to keep +them sufficiently alive to be of use. Doctors tell how willingly, +unquestioningly, the wounded go back to the hell they have escaped,--not +once, but twice, three times. To evoke the capacity for heroism in the +individual soldier has been the triumph of the Latin system. + +The faith of the French rests justly on their heroic resolution, their +ability to endure as individuals, more than on the lesson learned of +preparation and organization. + + * * * * * + +Faith is a belief in the evidence of things unseen. French faith +is of many kinds, not purely material, not military. They believe +so profoundly in the perfect justice and high importance of their +cause that it would seem as if they counted upon the cause alone to +win the victory. No nation, they say, ever spent itself in a better +cause. Victims of an unprovoked attack, unprepared, which is the best +evidence of peaceable will, witnesses of the outrage of a neighbor +people, bleeding from the wounds of their own country,--what better +cause for war could men have? And the Latin intelligence of the +French enables them from the humblest to the highest to perceive the +universality of the principles for which they are called upon to die. +It is no selfish, not even a merely national, cause--it is the cause +of nothing less than humanity in which they fight. + +The philosopher Bergson expressed this sublime confidence in the +cause thus (I give the substance of his words from memory): "Not all +wars can be avoided--perhaps nine out of ten can. But this one, no! +For it is a war of principles. It will be a long war because the enemy +is strong and we were unprepared. But we can wait the end confident in +the result. The Germans have created a false belief, a wrong idea, and +have carried that idea into action with extraordinary thoroughness. But +the belief rests upon error. When the day comes that they meet reverses, +when their idol of force no longer works miracles for them, then they +will collapse, from within. There will be a general breakdown of +personality from realizing the falsity of their idea. There lies our +victory." + +The philosopher's belief is based on the faith that the principles +of justice, of law, of humanity are stronger, more enduring than any +organization of force no matter how efficient, for this is a moral +world. And the individual or nation who relies upon might to enforce +wrong must in the end, perceiving the irrationality of his world, +collapse. The grinding of the mill may be heart-breakingly slow, but +the grist is as sure as life itself. + +Similarly, the statesman Hanotaux has expressed "The Moral Victory": +"It is the noblest, the highest of causes which has been submitted +to the arbitrament of arms. Its grandeur justifies the terrible extent +of the drama and the immense sacrifices it imposes. The material results +of victory will be immense, the moral results will be even greater.... +Moral forces are superior to physical forces, and in spite of all they +will have the last word.... Our youth has gone to the front in the +serene conviction that it was fighting not only for the _patrie_, but +for humanity, that this war was a sort of crusade, that they could +claim place beside St. Louis and Jeanne d'Arc." + +It is that heroic consciousness of a righteous martyrdom that I read +on the faces of the black-robed women in the street, too proud for +tears; in the silent figures on the hospital beds, suffering without +protest an agony too deep for words. And when I encountered a file +of soldiers in the muddy trenches, flattening themselves out against +the earth walls to let me pass, carrying pails of soup to the comrades +up front, or sitting motionless beside their burrows along the trench +wall, their hands clasping their rifles,--dirty, grimed, and bearded,--I +saw the same thing in their tired eyes, their drawn faces. Mute martyrs +in the cause of humanity, in _my_ cause, they were giving their lives +for others, for _me_, not merely that the German might be driven from +France, but that justice and honor and peace between men might prevail +in the world! + + * * * * * + +Because the French people are inspired with the grandeur and the +moral significance of their cause, they cannot understand a certain +cynical attitude of mind, well illustrated by a former Senator of +the United States, who has been high in the councils of the defunct +Progressive Party. After spending ten days in Paris last spring, he +remarked at a luncheon given him by some distinguished Frenchmen,--"Don't +tell me about the justice of your cause or about the atrocities. I am +not interested in that. What I want to know is, who is going to win!" +Who is going to win! There spoke the barbarian mind. The barbarian +mind cannot comprehend that the winning itself in a world cause is +inextricably involved in the justice and worth of the cause. + +For the same reason the French people have been puzzled by the sort +of neutrality preached and practiced at Washington since the outbreak +of the war. It is plain enough that neither France nor England desires +to have the United States go to war with Germany. We can help them +better as a huge supply house than as an ally, much as that might +offend our vanity. The French appreciate also our President's desire +to keep his country at peace. They are a peace-loving people and know +the frightful costs of war. But they cannot understand a neutrality +that avoids committing itself upon a moral issue such as was presented +to the world in Belgium, in the sinking of the Lusitania. And in spite +of the strict censorship, which for obvious reasons has muzzled the +French press in its comment upon our diplomacy with Germany, occasionally +flashes of a biting scorn of the Wilson neutrality have appeared in print, +as the following from Hanotaux: "We should be wanting truly in frankness +toward our great sister republic if we left her in the belief that this +series of documents, of a tone particularly friendly and affectionate, +addressed to the German Government after such acts as theirs, had not +occasioned in France a certain surprise.... Up to this time the Allies, +who have not, God be praised, compromised or even menaced the life of +any neutral, of any American, have not received the twentieth part of +these friendly terms that the German Government has brought forth by +its implacable acts.... What the world awaits from President Wilson is +not merely a note, it is a verdict. What do neutral peoples, what does +the American Government, what does President Wilson think of the German +doctrine,--'Necessity knows no law--the end justifies the means'?... +Every Government that acts or speaks at the present hour decides the +nature of the real peace, whether it will be an affirmation of those +eternal principles that are alone capable of directing humanity toward +its sacred end." + +To our eternal shame as a nation our Government has evaded, up to +this hour, pronouncing the expected verdict, has preferred to quibble +and define, in its vain attempt to hold the barbarian to a "strict +accountability"--whatever that may mean. France does not want our +army or our navy, not even our money and our factories, except on +business terms, but she has looked in vain for our affirmation as +a nation of our belief in her great cause, which should be our own +cause--the cause of all free peoples. + + * * * * * + +What a timid and verbal interpretation of neutrality has prevented +our Government from affirming, the American people, let us be +thankful, have done generously, abundantly. They have pronounced +a not uncertain verdict, and they have followed this moral verdict +with countless acts of sympathy. The cause of France, the faith of +the French, have roused the chivalry of the best Americans. Our youths +are fighting in the trenches, our doctors and nurses are giving their +services, our money is helping to stanch the wounds of France. As +a people we too have affirmed our faith in the cause and are doing +generously, spontaneously, as is our wont, what we can to win that +cause for the world. The splendid hospital of the American Ambulance +at Neuilly, equipped and operated on the generous American scale, +is the real monument to the beliefs, the hopes, the faith of the +American people. + +In that modification of the Anglo-Saxon tradition which America is +fast evolving, there is a subtle sympathy and likeness with the Latin, +which this crisis has brought into evidence. We are less English than +French in spirit, in our ideal of culture, of life. + + + + +VI + + +_The New France_ + +"This is a return for a new departure!" the Italian poet cried to +his people at Quarto when they were still hesitating between the +paths of a prudent neutrality and intervention in the world decision. +Probably in the poet's thought there was more of concrete ambition +for "national aspirations" than of spiritual rebirth. But for the +French nation it is the spiritual rebirth alone that has any meaning. +No material enlargement of France has ever been seriously contemplated. +The acquisition of Alsace can hardly be termed conquest, and whatever +hopes of indemnity or other material advantages the French may have +permitted themselves to dream of must fade as the financial burden of +all Europe mounts ever higher. Even the recovery of Alsace, according +to those best able to judge,--in spite of German assertions,--would +never have roused France to an aggressive war. Conquest, material +growth, is not an active principle in the French character. How often +I have heard this thought on French lips,--"We want to be let alone, +to be free to live our lives as we think best, to develop our own +institutions,--that is what we are fighting for!" For forty years +the nation has lived under the fear of invasion, a black cloud +always more or less threatening on the frontier, and when the day of +mobilization came every Frenchman knew instinctively what it meant--the +long-expected fight for national existence. And the hope that sustains +the people in their blackest moments is the hope of ending the thing +forever. "Our children and our children's children will not have to +endure what we suffer. It will be a better world because of our +sacrifice." + +The conquest that France will achieve is the conquest of herself, +and the fruits of that she has already attained in a marvelous measure. +The reality of a new France is felt to-day by every Frenchman and is +aboundingly obvious to the stranger visiting the country he once knew +in her soft hours of peace. To be sure, intelligent French people say +to you, when you comment on the fact, "But we were always really like +this at bottom, serious and moral and courageous, only you did not see +the real France." Pardonable pride! The French themselves did not know +it. As so often with individual souls, it took the fierce fire of +prolonged trial to evoke the true national character, to bring once +more to the surface ancient and forgotten racial virtues, to brighten +qualities that had become dim in the petty occupations of prosperity. + +After I had been in France a short time, nothing seemed falser +to me than the pessimistic assertions of certain German-Americans +and faint-hearted other Americans, that whatever the outcome of the +world war France was "done for," "exhausted," "ruined," must sink to +the level of a third-rate power, and so forth. Nor can I believe the +words of those saddened sympathizers and helpers in the ambulances +and hospitals, that "France is proudly bleeding to death." Her wounds +have been frightful, and through them is still gushing much of the +best blood of the nation. Her bereavement has been enormous, but not +irreparable. Once a real peace achieved, the triumph of the cause, +and I venture to predict that France will give an astonishing +spectacle of rapid recovery, materially and humanly. For the New +France is already a fact, not a faith. + + * * * * * + +Evidence of this rebirth is naturally difficult to make concrete +as with all spiritual quality. It is not merely the solidarity of +the nation, the fervent patriotism, the readiness for every sacrifice, +which are qualities more or less true of all the warring nations, +especially of Germany. It is more than the perpetual Sunday calm +along the rue de la Paix, the absence of that parasitic frivolity +with which Paris--a small part of Paris--entertained the world. +It is not simply that French people have become serious, silent, +determined, with set wills to endure and to win--for that moral +tenacity may relax after the crisis has passed. It is all these +and much more which I shall try to express that has revealed a +new France. + +To start with some prosaic proofs of the new life, I will take +the liquor question, a test of social vitality. It is significant +to examine how the different belligerent nations have treated this +problem, which becomes acute whenever it is necessary to call upon +all national reserves in a crisis. Turkey, Italy, and Germany +apparently have no liquor problem; at least the war has not called +attention to it. Russia, whose peasantry was notoriously cursed with +drunkenness, eradicated the evil, ostensibly, by one arbitrary ukase, +though, if persistent reports from the eastern war region are true, +her great reform has not yet reached her officers. England has played +feebly with the question from the beginning when the ravages of drink +among the working population--what every visitor to England had +known--became painfully evident to the Government in its efforts +to mobilize war industries and increase production. Various minor +restrictions on the liquor traffic have been imposed, but nothing +that has reached to the roots of the matter--probably because of +the powerful liquor interest in Parliament as much as from the +Englishman's fetish of individual liberty. Although the direct +handicap of drunken workmen did not affect France as it did England, +the French authorities quickly realized the indirect menace of +alcoholism and have taken real measures to combat it. Absinthe has +been abolished. For the army--and that includes practically all the +younger and abler men--the danger has been minimized by the strict +enforcement of regulations as to hours and the non-alcoholic nature +of drinks permitted, which are posted conspicuously in all cafes +and drinking-places and which are carefully observed, as any one who +tries to order liquor in company with a man in uniform will quickly +find out! I never saw a soldier or an officer in the least degree +under the influence of liquor while I was in France, either at +the front or outside the military zone, and very few workingmen. +Not content with the control of liquor in the army, the French have +seriously attacked the whole problem, which in France centers in the +right of the fruit-grower to distill brandy,--an ancient custom that +in certain provinces has resulted in great abuses. Legislation +against the _bouilleurs de crue_ is one inevitable outcome of the +awakened sense of social responsibility in France. + +Connected with the liquor evil is the birth-rate question, to which +since the war the attention of all serious-minded people has been +drawn. The French Academy of Sciences has undertaken an elaborate +series of investigations into the relations between the birth-rate +and the consumption of alcohol, which would seem to show that there +is cause and effect between the excessive use of alcohol and a +declining birth-rate. This will undoubtedly tend to create a popular +sentiment favorable to restrictive liquor legislation, specifically +to abolishing the right to distill spirits. But what is of more real +significance is the changing sentiment among the French in favor of +larger families. Due, no doubt, directly to the necessities of a +draining war, it is also an expression of those deeper experiences +that trial has brought. The French have always prized family life, +and French family life is, perhaps, the best type of the social bond +that the world knows. Under the stress of widespread bereavement the +French are realizing that the base of the family is not love between +the sexes, but the existence of children. They want children, not +only to take the place of their men sacrificed, but as symbols of +that greater love for the race that the war has evoked. Although +the crudity of the "war-bride" method of increasing the population +is not evident in France, every working-girl wears the medallion of +some "hero" on her breast. Girls say frankly that they want children. +The Latin will never accept the German principle of indiscriminate +breeding. As in every other aspect of life, the Latin emphasizes the +individual, the personal; but an awakened patriotism and pride of +race, a deepened sense of the real values of life will lead to a +greater devotion to the family ideal. + + * * * * * + +To shift to the political life of France, the history of the republic +has been tempestuous in the past. There has been a succession of +_coups d'etat_, plots, and scandals. One political _cause celebre_ +has followed another--the Boulanger, the Dreyfus, and quite lately +the Caillaux. The wide publicity which these political scandals have +had is due partly to the Latin love of excitement, also to the Latin +frankness about washing dirty political linen in public. To the +foreigner it has seemed strange that a republic could endure with +such abysses of intrigue and personal corruption beneath its political +life as have been shown in the Panama and Dreyfus scandals. The Germans +probably have been misled by them into considering the French nation +wholly despicable and degenerate. But France has not only endured in +spite of these rotten spots, but her republicanism has grown stronger. +Americans experienced in their own sordid politics should understand +how uncharacteristic of the real citizenship of a democracy politicians +can be. The real France has never taken with entire seriousness the +machinations of "those rats in the Chamber." These "rats" were quite +active during the first months of the war. Aside from the incompetence +of the first war ministry, which kept the public in ignorance of the +danger so completely that the enemy was at Soissons before Paris was +aware that the French army was being driven back, and all the blunders +of the raid into Alsace, France had its sinister political menace in +Joseph Caillaux, who it has been rumored plotted a disgraceful peace +with Germany before the battle of the Marne. Caillaux, when his +creature, the grafting paymaster-general, was exposed, found it wise +to go to South America. An able and on the whole a competent ministry +was placed in power. + +When Caillaux returned last spring, rumors of legislative unrest +and plotting against the Joffre-Millerand control of the army +began once more. Outwardly it was an attempt of party leaders in +the Chamber to gain greater legislative control of the conduct of +the war, ostensibly for the improvement of bureaucratic methods, +as in the sanitary service, which was notably deficient. But beneath +this agitation were the dangerous forces of political France seeking +to oust Joffre, and there lay the menace that a political clique might +get control of the army. This agitation, however, did not disturb +the public. As one Frenchman put it, "If those rats get too active, +Gallieni will take them out and shoot them. France is behind the +army, and the people will not tolerate legislative interference with +it." The political unrest has at last resulted in a new and larger +cabinet, admittedly the most representative body that France could +have. The danger of political interference has passed without resort +to summary methods. It is a triumph of democracy. France will fight +the war to an end under constitutional government, a much more +difficult task than Germany's. Obviously, as may be seen in England, +parliamentary government is a great hindrance to a nation in the +abnormal state of war. Free societies have this handicap to contend +with when they fight an autocratic machine. To maintain her republican +government without scandals throughout the war will be a political +triumph for France, indicative of the new spirit that has entered +into the nation. The seriousness of the present situation has sobered +all men and has suppressed the politicians by the mere weight of +responsibility. The New France emerging from the trial of war can +profit by this experience to purge her political life of the +scandalous elements in it. + +Italy has closed her Parliament and relapsed temporarily into autocracy. +England and France are struggling to maintain popular government as we +did through the Civil War. + + * * * * * + +Much has been said of the heroic spirit of the French nation under +the tragedy of the war. Too much could not be said. The war has +evoked patriotism among all the peoples engaged, but with the French +there is a peculiar idealistic passion of tenderness for the _patrie_ +which impresses every observer who has had the good fortune to see +the nation at war. I shall not linger long on these familiar, +inspiring aspects of love for country that the war has called forth +from all classes. The ideal spirit of French youth has been +illustrated in some letters given to the public by the novelist, +Henry Bordeaux, called "Two Heroes." They relate the personal +experiences of two youths, one twenty, the other twenty-one, whose +baptism of fire came in the battle of the Marne. They grew old fast +under the ordeal of battle and of responsibility for the lives of +their men; their letters home show a loftiness of spirit, a sense +of self-forgetfulness, of devotion to the cause, that is sublime, +poignant--and typical. In every rank of society the same immense +devotion, the same utter renouncement of selfish thought can be felt. +A spirit of ideal sacrifice has spread throughout the nation, making +France proud, heroic, confident. Such a spirit must be a benediction +for generations to come. + +The common effort, the universal grief, has drawn all French people +so close together that social and party differences have disappeared. +The French priest has become once more the heroic leader of his +people, fighting by their side in the trenches. The scholars, the +poets, the artists have all done their part,--the nuns, the +aristocrats, the working-people theirs. While England has been +harassed with strikes and class recriminations, France has never +known in her entire history such absolute social harmony and unity, +such universal and concentrated will. + +This spirit of "sacred union" embraces the women who are doing men's +tasks, the rich who are surrendering their good American securities +to the Government in exchange for national defense bonds, the poor +who are bringing their little hordes of gold to the Bank of France to +swell the gold reserve. I wish that every American might stand in the +court of the Bank of France and watch that file of women and old men +depositing their gold--the only absolute security against want they +have! That is faith made evident, and love. + + * * * * * + +In looking over the bulky file of French newspapers, illustrated +weeklies, and pamphlets on the war, which I brought back with me, I +am struck by the fact that the outstanding characteristic of all this +comment on the great war from journalist to statesman and publicist +is not denunciation of the barbarian. Denunciation plays a singularly +small part in the French reaction to their suffering. References to +Germans and Germany are usually of a psychological or humorous +character, illustrating the grotesque and antipathetic aspects in +which the Teuton presents himself to the Latin mind. That part which +grieving and denunciation have played in English comment, the gross +and apoplectic hate of the German press, is taken by lyrical +enthusiasm for heroism. The newspapers, sure pulse of popular +appetite, are filled daily with stories of sacrifice, gallantry, +heroism. This is the aspect of the sordid bloody war that the French +spirit feeds on. It is a fresh manifestation of an old national +trait--the love of chivalry. Some day, doubtless, these splendid +tales of individual heroism, of soldierly and civilian sacrifice, +will be gathered together to make the laurel wreath of the New +France. I could fill a volume with those I have read and heard. And I +like to think that while Germany went wild over the torpedoing of the +Lusitania,--even dared to celebrate it in America,--while the +Zeppelin raids arouse her patriotic enthusiasm, the French gloat over +the story of the private who crawled out of the trench and hunted for +two days without food or water for his wounded officer. The love of +the _beau geste_ is an ineradicable trait of French character. It has +had a bountiful satisfaction in this war. + +"We have fought a chivalrous war," General C. exclaimed, pointing to +the little figure of Jeanne d'Arc. The same general ordered that the +government dole of a franc and a half a day be paid to those Alsatian +women whose husbands were fighting in the German army. "They are +French women: it is not their fault that their husbands are fighting +against France!" And the deathless touch of all, which will be +remembered in the world long after the destruction wrought to the +cathedral of Rheims, is the picture of French saving German wounded +in the burning church--fired by German shells! + +The _beau geste_, the beautiful act, which ennobles all men, not +merely the doer of the deed,--that is what France is giving the +world. The image of men who are more than efficient and strong and +physically courageous, of men who are filled with a divine spirit of +sacrifice and devotion. Truly supermen. + +Chivalry was a trait of the Old France as it is of the New. It +has fallen somewhat into disrepute of late years with the rise +of the comfort and efficiency standards. Nowhere else on the broad +battlefields of Europe has it revived, to redeem the horror of war, +so shiningly as in the New France. + + * * * * * + +Another aspect of French character which is both old and new is +the quality of humorous "sportsmanship" the French have displayed. +When Germany's crack aviator made a daily visit to Paris, dropping +bombs, in the afternoon during the early weeks of the war, the +Parisians took his arrival as a spectacle and thronged the boulevards +to watch him and applaud. When at last he was shot through the head, +the French press lamented his loss with genuine appreciation of his +nerve and his skill. A young cavalry officer at the front told me +this story: One of the younger officers of his regiment, to encourage +his men, had offered rewards for German shoulder straps, that is, +prisoners. Two simple peasants, misunderstanding his words, proudly +brought in a couple of pairs of German ears strung on a string like +game. The officer, brooding over the incident, resolved to explain +and apologize to the enemy. Putting his handkerchief on the point of +his sword, he crawled out of the trench and advanced across the field +of death between the lines. + +Tales from the trenches by the hundreds prove that the French have +not lost the sparkle of wit even under the dreary conditions of +trench-fighting. When Italy joined the Allies, some soldiers of a +front-line trench hoisted the placard,--"Macaroni mit uns!" Again, +when boasting placards of German successes in Galicia were displayed, +the French _poilus_ retorted,--"You lie. You have taken ten thousand +officers and ten millions of troops." When in a German military +prison the keepers boasted of their recent successes on the western +front, the French prisoners began to sing the _Marseillaise_ to the +astonishment of their German guards, "because," as they explained, +"we know if you have killed all those French soldiers, you must have +lost at least four times as many!" + +The barbarian misread the Gallic love of wit and laughter. To joke +and quip seemed to him beneath the dignity of men. It is, rather, +the safety-valve of a highly intelligent people--the outlet for their +ironic perceptions of life. The most amusing songs of the war that I +have heard were given by the _poilus_ on a little stage near Commercy +while the cannon thundered a few miles away. This ability to turn +upon himself and see his life in a humorous light is an invaluable +quality of the French soldier. So, too, is his love of handicraft +which finds many ingenious expressions even in the trenches. The +French soldier is always a civilian, with a love of neatly arranged +gardens and terraces, and he lays out a _potager_ in the curve of a +shell-swept hillside, or a neat flower garden in the crumbled walls +of a village house. He makes rings from the aluminum found in German +shell-caps, carves the doorposts of his stone dugout, or likenesses +of his officers on beam-ends, as I saw in a colonel's quarters in +the Bois-le-Pretre. + +The French soldier remains, even in this bloodiest of wars, always +a civilian, a man, capable of laughter and tears, of heroic heights, +of chivalrous sacrifices,--with the soul's image of what manhood +requires, with the vision of a state of free individual men like +himself. + + * * * * * + +The New France is inspired with qualities of Old France, qualities +which I call Latin, which have emerged into high relief under grief +and suffering and effort. It is above all gallant and high-minded. +The wounded Frenchman never complains or whimpers. "_C'est la +guerre--que voulez-vous!_" To the surgeon who has operated on +him,--"_Merci, mon major_." And they lie legless or armless, perhaps +with running sores, a smile on the face in answer to the sympathetic +word, in long hospital rows.... + +The fundamental element in this New France is the gravity, the +seriousness of it. Of all the warring peoples the French seem to +realize most clearly what it all means, what it is for, and the deep +import of the decision not merely to them, but to the whole world. +They are fighting, not for territory, but for principles. Peace must +be not a rearrangement of maps, but of men's ideas, of men's wills. +They are the conscious protagonists of a long tradition of ideals +that have once more been put in jeopardy. It is the character of this +human world of ours which they are struggling to mould, and like +actors in a Greek tragedy they are suitably impressed with the +gravity of the issue in their hands. + +The New France has been born in the travail of the monstrous +desolation of trench-land that stretches, scabby with shell-holes, +leprous with gray wire, pitted with countless graves, scarred with +crumbled villages for four hundred miles across the fair fields of +_la douce France_. In this savage desert, inhumanly silent except +for the shrieking of shells, for now more than a year's time France +has struggled with the incarnated spirit of evil, rearing its head +again, armed with all the enginery of modern science. The little, +dirty-bearded soldiers squat there in their burrows, white-faced, +tense, silent, waiting, watching, month after month, or plunge over +their walls to give their lives on that death-field outside. They are +the simple martyrs of the New France. + + * * * * * + +France has learned her German lesson; has reorganized her life to +make it tell effectively for her task, has reorganized her inner +life, discarding frivolity and waste. She has found herself in the +fire. France is not "done for," as my German-American friends so +pityingly deem. Bleeding from her terrible wounds, she is stronger +today than ever before,--stronger in will, in spirit, in courage, the +things that count in the long, long run even in the winning of wars. +Technically minded soldiers may judge that "Germany can't be beaten." +But the French know in their souls that she can be, that she is beaten +today! In this greatest of world's decisions it is the spirit of the +Latin that triumphs again--the sanest, suavest, noblest tradition that +the earth has ever known, under which men may work out their mysterious +destiny. + + + + +Part Three--America + + +I + + +_What Does It Mean to Us?_ + +I went from the French front back to America. The steamer slipped +down the Gironde between green vineyards, past peaceful villages, +a whole universe distant from that grim, gray trench-land where the +French army was holding the invader in Titan grip, stole cautiously +into the Bay of Biscay at nightfall to escape prowling submarines, +and began to roll in the Atlantic surges, part of those "three +thousand miles of cool sea-water" on which our President so complacently +relies as a nonconductor of warfare. I was homeward bound to America, +the land of Peace, after four months spent in "war-ridden Europe"--to +that homeland stranger somehow than the war lands, where my countrymen +were protesting to both belligerents and making money, manufacturing +war supplies and blowing up factories, talking "peace" and "preparedness" +in the same breath; also--and God be thanked for that!--helping to feed +the starving Belgians, sending men, money, and sympathy to the French. +As the old steamer settled into her fourteen-knot gait, the submarines +ceased to be of more than conversational concern, and I began to ask +myself,--"What does it all mean to us, this bloody sacrifice of world +war,--to us, strong, rich, peaceful, confident Americans?" + +For in spite of a curious indifference among many Americans to the +outcome, so long as it did not get us into trouble with either party, +betrayed by personal letters and press articles which I had received, +I was profoundly convinced that the issues of the world tragedy were +momentous to us too. "This European butchery means nothing," said one +friend, who supplies editorial comment for a most widely read American +weekly, "except a lot of poverty, a lot of cripples, and a lot of +sodden hate in the hearts of the people engaged. Europe will not be +changed appreciably as a result of the war!" Our pacifist ex-Secretary +of State, I remember, wrote Baron d'Estournelles de Constant inquiring +what the French were fighting for, implying that to the reasonable +onlooker there was no clear issue involved in the whole business, +merely the passions of misguided patriotism. The well-meaning agitation +for peace, which as I write has been lifted into the grotesque by the +Ford peace ship, is based largely on this inability to realize the +reality of the issue between the belligerents. And there is our national +attitude of strict neutrality, which fairly represents the evasive mind +of many Americans. Happily, they seem to say to themselves, "This war is +not our affair." We were warned by Washington to keep clear of European +"quarrels," and wisely we covered our retreat at The Hague by inserting +that little clause which relieved us from all real responsibility for +the observance of the conventions. Excuse for cowardice and blindness +of vision! Such Americans like to think that as a nation we have no more +concern in the present war than a peaceable family in one house has with +the domestic upheavals of an unfortunate family in the next house. The +part of prudence is to ignore all evidences of unpleasantness, to profess +good offices, and to keep on friendly terms with all the belligerents. + +The impression that such an attitude makes on the American in +Europe is painful, whether it be expressed in personal letters, +in newspapers and magazines, or in diplomatic "notes." He becomes +impatient with the provincialism of his own people, ashamed of their +transparent selfishness, astonished that human values should have got +so fatally distorted in our fat, comfortable world. To the European, +American neutrality has become a matter of public indifference, of +private contempt. Inspired with the lofty ambition of playing the +role of mediator in the world war, President Wilson has lost his +chance of influencing the decision toward which Europe is bloodily +fighting its way. At that great peace conference which every European +has perpetually in mind, America will be ignored. Only those who have +shared the bloody sacrifice--at least have had the courage to declare +their beliefs--will penetrate its inner councils. We have had our +reward--money and safety. It is not fantastic even to expect that the +conquerors might under certain circumstances say to the conquered, +"Take your losses from the Americans: they alone have made money out +of our common woe!" + +No, ours has not been the _beau geste_ as a nation. Nor can the +American take comfort in the thought that Washington diplomacy does +not fairly represent the sentiment of our people. As the weeks slip +past, it is only too evident that our President has interpreted +exactly the national will. The farther west one travels the colder +is the American heart, and duller the American vision. The numerical +center of the United States is somewhere in the Mississippi Valley. +Europe gave Chicago, in her distress after the great fire, eighty +cents per person; Chicago has given Belgium and France seven cents +per Chicagoan. Not a single Chicago bank appears on the list of +subscribers to the Anglo-French loan,--very few banks anywhere west +of the Alleghanies. "It is not our quarrel; we are not concerned +except to get our money for the goods we sell them!" + + * * * * * + +But are we not concerned? I asked myself as the old steamer throbbed +wheezily westward. Beneath the deck in the ship's strong room there +were thick bundles of American bonds, millions of them, part of the +big American mortgage that Europe has been obliged to sell back to +us. They represent European savings, hopes of tranquil old age, girls' +_dots_, boys' education and start in life. The American mortgage is +being lifted rapidly. The stocks and bonds were going home to pay for +the heavy cargoes of foodstuffs and ammunition and clothes which we +had been shipping to Europe. The savings of the thrifty French were +going to us, who were too rich already. The French were bleeding their +thrift into our bulging pockets, selling their investments for shells +and guns and barbed wire which would not keep old age warm, marry their +girls, or start their boys in life. They were doing it freely, proudly, +for the salvation of their _patrie_, which they love as the supreme +part of themselves. And to us what did all this sacrifice mean? Oh, +that we were growing richer day by day while the war lasted; "dollar +exchange" was coming nearer; we were fast getting "rotten with money," +as a genial young coal merchant who had the deck chair next mine +remarked affably. Yes, the war meant that to us surely,--we were fast +raking in most of the gold that Europe has been forced to throw on the +table of international finance, the savings, the _dots_, the stakes of +her next generation. The number of lean-faced American business men, +war brokers, on the steamer was plain evidence of that. Already +Prosperity was flooding into America--that prosperity upon which our +President congratulated the country in his Thanksgiving address. + +But is that prosperity a good thing for the American people just +now? Aside from the speculation excited by the superabundance of gold +in our banks, there is the envy of hungry Europe to be reckoned with +a few months or years hence, after the close of the great war, an envy +that might readily be translated into predatory action under certain +circumstances, as some thoughtful Americans are beginning to perceive. +Eastern America, where the war money has largely settled, is already +fearful, desires to arm the nation to protect its prosperity. And +there is the more subtle, the more profound danger that this undigested +war bloat of ours will dull the American vision still further to the +real issue at stake--the kind of world we are willing, the kind of soul +we wish, to possess. Can we safely digest the prosperity that the happy +accident of our temporary isolation and the prudent policies of our +Government have given us? Are we not feeding a cancer that will take +another war to cut from our vitals? + + * * * * * + +Most of us on board were Americans going about our businesses on a +belligerent nation's ship in defiance of Mr. Bryan's advice. The man +next to me was building a new munitions plant for France, and beyond +him was the European manager for a large American corporation whose +factories have been taken over by the German Government. He was +returning to America to enter the munitions business in Pittsburg +or Connecticut. To these commercial travelers of war the European +struggle meant, naturally, first of all money, the opportunity of a +lifetime to make money quickly; it meant also less vividly helping +the Allies, who needed everything they could get from us and were +willing to pay almost any price for it. Sometimes they talked of the +long list of "accidents" that were happening daily in American factories +and genially cursed the hyphenated Germans. As for the other sort of +Germans they felt vaguely that some day America must reckon with them, +too. Evidently they put small faith in the "three thousand miles of +cool sea-water" as a nonconductor of warfare! So here was another +aspect of the war--the possible dangers to us, without a friend in +the world, as every one agreed. And we talked "preparedness" in the +usual desultory way. The munitions men seemed to think that they were +patriotically working for their own country in getting "the plant" of +war into being. "Some day we shall need guns and shells too!" Afterwards +I found in America that this vague fear of probable enemies had seized +hold of the country quite generally, and that the very Government which +had done nothing toward settling the present war rightly was planning +for "defense" with a prodigal hand. Peaceful America was getting +alarmed--of what? + +There were also in our number some young doctors and nurses who were +returning from the hospitals in France for a little needed rest. They +were of those young Americans who are giving themselves so generously +for the cause, eager, courageous, sympathetic. They seemed to me to +have gotten most from the war of all us Americans, much more than the +munitions men who were making money so fast. In Belgium, in Serbia, +behind the French lines, in the great hospital at Neuilly, they had +got comprehension and all the priceless rewards of pure giving. They +had seen horror, suffering, and waste indescribable; but they had +seen heroism and devotion and chivalry. And with them should be joined +all the tender-hearted and generous Americans at home who have aided +their efforts, who are working with the energy of the American character +"for the cause." Alas, already the word was coming of a relaxation in +the generosities, the devotions, the enthusiasms of these Americans. +Other interests were coming into our rapid activities to distract us +from last year's sympathies.... + + * * * * * + +So as we rolled on through the soft summer night while the passengers +discussed the latest Russian reverse of which news had been received +by wireless, I kept asking myself,--"What does it really mean to us? +To vast, rich, young America?" Surely not merely more money, more +power, even a loftier inspiration for the few who have given themselves +generously in sympathy and aid. After all, these were but incidental. +The threat we were beginning to feel to our own security, this campaign +for "preparedness," did not seem of prime, moving importance. Probably +in our bewildered state of mind we should wrangle politically about the +matter of how much defense we needed, then drop some more hundreds of +millions into the bottomless pit of governmental extravagance and waste. +We had already spent enough to equip another Germany! When peace was +finally made in Europe, we would forget our fears; our Congressmen and +their parasites would fatten on the new appropriations, which would be +as actually futile as all their predecessors had been. No; these were +hardly the significant aspects of the war to us as a people. + +No more was that acrobatic exhibition of diplomatic tight-rope +walking we had witnessed from Washington. Mere "words, words, words, +professor!" Our dialectic President had thus far failed to establish +any one of his contentions, either with Germany or Great Britain, nor +did it seem likely that he ever could. While he was still modifying +that awkward phrase, "strict accountability," Germany obviously would +murder whomsoever it suited her purpose to murder, and England would +hold up any ship that attempted to trade with Germany. All those +neutral rights for which Washington was paying big cable tolls had +not been advanced an atom. The time had gone by when our strong voice +could compel respect from the barbarian, could hearten the soul of +other weaker neutrals. Europe had taken our exact measure. We should +have saved some dignity had we not murmured more than a formal +protest.... + +And yet, returning from "war-ridden Europe" I was more convinced +than of anything else in life that what was being slowly settled +in that grim trench--land over there did mean something to us--more, +much more than money or neutral rights or sympathetic charities. Not +that I was apprehensive of an immediate German raid on New York, the +crumbling of her sky-scrapers and the exaction of colossal indemnities. +For it looked to me that Germany might well have other occupation +after peace was made in Europe, whichever way the war should go. The +German peril did not lie, I thought, in her big guns, her ships, her +"Prussianized machine." It lay deeper, in herself, in her image of +the world. If Germany could win even a partial victory under that +monstrous creed of applied materialism, illuminated as it had been +with every sort of cynical crime, with its reasoned defiance of contract, +its principle of "indispensable severities," its "military reasons," +_that_ must become inexorably the law of the world--the barbarians' +law. Germany would have made the morality of the world! And of all +the world's peoples to accept the victor's new reading of the +commandments, proud America would be the first. For we cannot resist +the fascination of success. The German aim, the German tyranny over +the individual, the German morality--one for you and me as individuals +and another utterly lawless one when we get together in a social +state--would be imitated more than the German lesson of thoroughness +in civil and military organization. Hypnotized by German success, we +should not discipline ourselves, which is the German lesson, so much +as we should riot in the moral license of the German creed. Americans +would worship at the altar of that queer "old German god," who +apparently encourages rape, murder, arson, and tyranny in his followers. +For in young America, with every social tradition in it seething blood, +there is already an insidious tendency to accept this new-old religion +of triumphant force. American "Big Business" can understand the Kaiser's +philosophy, can reverence his "old German god" when he brings victory, +more than any other people outside of Germany. For it, too, believes +in "putting things over" with a strong hand. There is not an argument +of the German militarist propaganda that would not find a sympathetic +echo somewhere in the headquarters of American corporations. + + * * * * * + +When the old fourteen-knot steamer finally dropped anchor off +quarantine in New York Harbor and the reporters came on board with +the dust of America on their shoes, the roar of America in their +voices, I was surer than ever that this greatest of world wars meant +a vast deal more to us than trade or charity or politics, which is +what we seem to be making of it for the most part. It means the form +which our national character is to take ultimately. The German peril, +which is held before the public in moving pictures and in alarmist +appeals for "preparedness," is already in our midst, not so much at +work blowing up our factories as insidiously at work in our hearts. +The German apologist--even of Anglo-Saxon blood--is suggesting the +reasonableness of a German verdict. "After all," one hears from his +lips, "there is much on the other side of the shield, which our +English prejudices have prevented us from seeing. Germany cannot be +the monster of barbarism that she has been painted. As for broken +treaties, the atrocities, the submarines, the murder of Edith Cavell, +and her rough work over here,--well, we must remember it is war, and +the Russian Cossacks have not been saints!... As to her military +autocracy, perhaps a little of it would not be a bad thing for +America. At any rate, Germany seems to have the power--it is useless +to think of putting her down.... The American public will forget all +about German crimes once Germany is victorious." "Nothing succeeds +like success." "There is always a reason for success," etc. Which +cynical acceptance proves that we have already "committed adultery in +our hearts." + +There are many voices in the air, too many. Americans have not yet +found themselves in this crisis of world tragedy, and the Government +at Washington has not helped them to an understanding. We are vastly +relieved at not finding ourselves "involved" and accept shabby verbal +subterfuges as a triumph of American diplomacy. Meanwhile the Lusitania +incident has been conveniently forgotten, with the awkward phrase +"strictly accountable." Along the eastern seaboard the anxious and the +timid are clamoring for "defense"--against what? The talkative pacifists, +who would make a grotesque farce of the bloody sacrifice by a futile +peace, are bringing further ridicule and contempt on their country +with their impertinent if well-meant efforts. Meantime, the money-makers +have taken this occasion to stage a spectacular bull market, grumbling +on the fruits of war! And there is the "good-time" side to American life. +For a few brief months after the outbreak of the war Americans were +staggered by the awfulness of the tragedy and moved under its shadow. +Their hearts went out in sympathy, in feeding the dispossessed, and +sending aid to the wounded. We spent less on ourselves, partly because +of financial fear, partly because of our desire to give, partly because +our hearts were too heavy to play. But already that serious mood is +passing, and to-day as a people we are hard at it again, chasing a good +time. We feel once more the same old lustful urge to get and enjoy.... +The other night as I looked out on the peopled sea of the New York +opera-house, with its women richly dressed and jeweled, its white-faced +men, leading the same life of easy prodigal expense, of sensual +gratification, I remembered another opera staged in the mysterious +twilight of Bayreuth where from the gloom emerged the hoarse bass of +Fafner's cry,--"I lie here possessing!" The voice of the great worm +proved to be the voice of Germany. Is it ours also? + + * * * * * + +Do we Americans desire to have our world Germanized? Not in art and +language and customs, though may Heaven preserve us from that fate +also! But Germanized in soul? Do we want the German image or the Latin +image of the world to prevail? And are we strong enough in our own +ideal to resist a "peaceful penetration" by triumphant Germany into +our minds and hearts? That is the urgent matter for us. No amount +spent on big guns, superdreadnoughts, submarines, and continental +guards--no amount of peace talk--can keep the German peril out of +America if we surrender our souls to her creed, now that Germany +seems to be imposing it successfully with her armies in Europe. Those +dirty _poilus_ in the front trenches are, indeed, fighting our battle +for us, if we did but know it! + + + + +II + + +_The Choice_ + +"We have all sinned, your people as well as mine, the English, +the French, the Germans, all, all of us,--but Germany has sinned +most." When M. Hanotaux spoke these words with a Hebraic fervor of +conviction, I did not have to be told what he meant. The people of +our time have sinned through their hot desire for material possession +of the earth and its riches--through commercialism, capitalism, call +it what you will. Each great nation has made its selfish race for +economic advancement at the expense of other peoples: commercial +rivalry has largely begotten this bloody war, which is essentially +a predatory raid by one barbarous tribe against the riches of its +neighbors. Whether England or Russia under similar circumstances +would have dared a similar attack on the liberties of the world is +open to speculation. To Germany alone, however, has been reserved the +distinction of elevating greed and the lust of power to the dignity +of a philosophic system, a creed with the religious sanction of that +"old German god" to smite the rivals of the Fatherland and take away +their wealth. It is because Germany has made a consistent monster out +of her materialistic interpretation of modern science that she is now +held up before the nations of the world as a spectacle and a warning. +"We have all sinned" in believing that the body is more than the +spirit, that food and pleasure and power are the primary ends of all +living; but Germany alone has had the effrontery to justify her +cynicism by conscious theory and to teach it systematically to all +her people. She has endowed with life a philosophical idea, given it +the personality of her people, created a national Frankenstein to be +feared and loathed. More, she is coming perilously nigh to imposing +her god upon the world! + +We have all worshiped at the shrine of material achievement--in +America with the riot of young strength. England, like old King +Amfortas, is now bleeding from the sins of her youth and calling in +vain for some Parsifal to deliver her from their penalty. She has +built her rich civilization on a morass of exploited millions, and +her Nemesis is that in her hour of peril her sodden millions strike +and drink and feel no imperative urge to give their lives for an +England that sucked her prosperity from their veins. In the race for +commercial supremacy the Latin nations--Italy, Spain, and France--have +been deemed inferior to Germany, England, and the United States, +because they were less tainted with the lust of possession, less +materialistic in their reading of life, less powerful in their grasp +upon economic opportunity than their rivals. In the Latin countries +industry yet remains largely on the small scale, which is economically +wasteful, but which does not build up fabulous wealth at the expense +of the individual worker. The great corporation designed for the rapid +creation of wealth has not found that congenial home on Latin soil +which it has on ours, or on German soil. And this fact accounts for +the touch of handicraft lingering in the product of Latin industry, +for the strength and health individually of their working classes, +for their fervor of devotion to the national tradition. The Latin +has never forgotten the claims of the individual life: democracy to +him is more than the right to vote. Therefore, pure art, pure science, +pure literature--also the world of ideas--has a larger part in the life +of Latin peoples than with us in the eternal struggle with the +materialistic forces of life. To the Latin living is not solely the +gratification of the body. He reckons on the intelligence and the +spirit of man as well. + + * * * * * + +It may seem to some that throughout these pages I have spoken +paradoxically of the world war as primarily a struggle between the +Latin and the Germanic ideal, ignoring the significance of Russia +and of England. In spite of the heroic resistance of the French and +the pertinacious thrust of the Italians against the steel wall in +which Austria has bound them, the Latin forces engaged are obviously +less than half of the Allied Powers. On the sea England is virtually +alone. Nevertheless, I see the struggle as a Latin-German one, the +great decision as essentially a decision between these two types of +ideals. All else is relative and accidental. Apart from the +surprising vitality developed by the two Latin peoples, their +astonishing force in the brutal struggle for survival,--which has +disagreeably put wrong the calculations of their enemy,--it is the +mental and spiritual leadership of the world which is being fought +for rather than the physical. The ideas and the ideals under which +the Allies are fighting, which can be simply summed up however +divergent their manifestations, are French, are Latin ideas and +ideals, not English, not Russian. The spirit of the cause to which +England has lent her imperial supremacy and Russia her undeveloped +strength is Latin, and since the war began the English have widely +borne testimony to this fact. + +The right of peoples, little as well as strong nations, to live their +own lives, to preserve their own political autonomy, to develop their +own traditions, is part of the Latin lesson learned in the throes of +the great Revolution. It is expressed passionately, wistfully in that +universal cry of the French people: "We must end this thing--it must +never happen again--we must win the right to live as we see fit, not +under the dictation of another!" To the Latin mind the world is +peopled by individuals who cannot and should not be pressed in the +same political or economic mould, who must win their individual +salvation by an individual struggle and evolution. This is the ideal +of liberty the world over, which prompted France to send us help in +our struggle with England. It is a wasteful, an uneconomic ideal, as +we Americans have proved in our slovenly administration of our great +inheritance. Yet we would not have a machine-made, autocratic +organization, no matter how clean and thrifty and efficient it might +make our cities. We prefer the slow process of conversion to the +machine process of coercion. And that is one source of our sympathy +with French civilization. Let us have all liberty to its possible +limit short of license: the Latin intelligence has known how to +preserve liberty from becoming license. The result in the human being +of the principle of liberty is individual intelligence and spiritual +power; those are the high ideals toward which democracy aims. The +cost of them is efficiency, organization--immediate results which +German discipline obtains. But the cost of the German ideal is the +humanity of life, and that is too big a price to pay. That there +should be found many among us who are willing to exchange the +spiritual flower of our civilization for the sake of a more efficient +social organization is evidence of the extent to which the cancer of +a materialistic commercialism has already eaten into our life. + + * * * * * + +The Latin vision of life includes chivalry, as has been abundantly +revealed by the spirit of the French, sorely tried in their struggle +with the new barbarian. Chivalry means beauty of conduct, an +uneconomic, a sentimental ideal, but without which the life of man on +this earth would be forlorn, lacking in dignity, in meaning. Take +from mankind the shadowy dream of himself implied in his desire for a +chivalrous world, and you leave him a naked animal from the jungle, +more despicable the more skillful he becomes in gratifying his lusts. +The Latin vision of life includes also beauty of art, man's radiation +of his inner spiritual world, and closely woven with the love of art +is respect for tradition--reverence for the past which has been +bequeathed to him by his ancestors, which is incorporated in his +blood. + +We in America have striven for these beauties of chivalry, art, and +tradition. We have striven to put them into our lives often blindly, +crudely. We have borrowed and bought what we could not create; +instinctively we pay homage to what is beyond our industrial power +to make, confessing the inadequacy of our materialism to satisfy our +souls. We, too, demand a world in which beauty of conduct, beauty of +manners, and beauty of art shall be cultivated to give meaning to our +lives. The bombardment of Rheims, the murder of Edith Cavell are as +shameful to the American mind as to the French, and as incomprehensible. +These are not matters of reason, but of instinct--commands of the soul. + + * * * * * + +The Latin ideal is not predatory. Whatever they may have done in +their past, the Latin peoples to-day are not greedy of conquest. If +the Allies win, France will gain little territory. Both Italy and +France have limited their territorial ambitions to securing their +future safety by establishing frontiers on natural barriers. France +also expects indemnity for her huge losses and for outraged Belgium. +She must rebuild her home and be freed for generations to come from +the inhibiting fear of invasion. One does not feel so confident of +England: in the past she has had the pilfering hand. But from +prudence if not from shame England may content herself with a +reestablished prestige and a tranquil Europe. Russia has already +reconciled herself to relinquishing Poland, and except for her +natural ambition to enter the Mediterranean she seems without +predatory desires. Russia, it should not be forgotten, took up arms +to protect her own kin from the Austrians. The Slav and the Latin +have a spiritual sympathy that cannot exist between the Latin and the +Teuton, which gives their present union more than an accidental +significance. + +Whatever secret ambitions may be brewing in the chancelleries of +Europe, France has put herself on record against conquest too +emphatically to countenance at the peace conference any predatory +rearrangement of the map of Europe. She has made the great war a +struggle of principle--the principle of national liberty against the +principle of military conquest. It is this great principle which +gives significance to her cause and justifies the awful slaughter and +waste of bleeding Europe. If the pretensions of physical might, no +matter with what excuses, can be thoroughly defeated, proved to be an +impossible theory of life, so that never again in the history of the +world will a nation attempt to take with the sword what does not +belong to it, the bloody sacrifice will have been well worth making. +The issues of the great conflict have been obscured, especially in +America, but to the humblest soldier of France they are as clear as +blazing sunlight. "Never again!" Never the monstrous pretension that +power alone makes right, that the will to eat gives free license to +the eater, however great his appetite or his belief in himself. That +is the cause of all the world, for which the French are willing to +give all that they have. And I know no cause more important to be +settled for the future of the human race. + + * * * * * + +Are we not interested in the right decision of this cause? A +peaceable people, loving our own way, jealous of interference, +we should assuredly present a lamentable spectacle were we called +upon to defend ourselves against a predatory enemy. Possibly a more +lamentable spectacle of inefficiency combined with corruption than +England has given the world the past year! And at last we are becoming +aware that our policy of selfish isolation does not mean immunity from +attack. We are realizing that those "three thousand miles of cool +sea-water" no longer make an effectual barrier against the ingenuity +of modern men. + +But I would not put the matter on the selfish basis of our own +security. It is vastly larger than that. It is, vitally, what +manner of world we wish to have for ourselves and our children. +At the invasion of Belgium, America gave with splendid unanimity +the response: Americans did not want the German world! Since then, +alas, it would seem that the clear moral reaction of our people to +the demonstration of the world struggle has been gradually weakening: +we are becoming confused, permitting insidious reasoners to cloud the +issue, listening to the prompting of the beast in our own bellies, +hesitating, dividing, excusing, evading the great question--"seeing +both sides." As if there were two sides to such a plain issue stripped +of all its fallacies and subterfuges and lies! Do we wish to have +American life take on the moral and intellectual and artistic color +of German ideals? Do we prefer the "old German god" to the culture +and humanities we have inherited from the Latin tradition?... "We, +too, have sinned." In our blood is all the crude materialism of a +triumphant Germany without her discipline and her organization. We, +too, are ready to enter the fierce war of commercial rivalry with +England and Germany. We, too, believe in the good of economic expansion, +though dubious about our own imperialism. Surely no people that ever +lived stood hesitating so dangerously at the crossroads as America at +this hour. Prudence has prevented us as a nation from pronouncing +that moral verdict on the cause which might have had decisive weight +in hastening the world decision. But a selfish timidity cannot prevent +us individually from realizing the immense importance to us of the +decision that is being ground out in the tears and blood of Europe. +And no ideal of diplomatic neutrality can prevent Americans who care +for anything but their own selfish well-being from doing all in their +power to make ours a Latin rather than a Teutonic world. + +Every soldier who dies in the trenches of France, who bears a maimed +and disfigured body through life, is giving himself for us, so that +we may live in a world where individual rights and liberties are +respected, where beauty of conduct and beauty of art may endure, +where life means more than the satisfaction of bodily appetites. + + + + +III + + +_Peace_ + +The real cynics of the war are the pacifists. They see nothing more +serious in the European agony than what can be disposed of easily at +any time in a peace conference--by talk and adjustment. So obsessed +are some of them by the slaughter of men, by the woe and travail of +Europe, that they would turn the immense sacrifice into a grotesque +farce by any sort of compromise--a peace that could be no peace, +merely the armistice for further war. Their eyes are so blinded by +the economic waste of the war and its suffering that they are incapable +of seeing the great underlying principle that must be decided. Americans, +having evaded the responsibility of pronouncing a decisive moral +judgment on the rape of Belgium, the sinking of the Lusitania, and +the extermination of the Armenians, play the buffoon with women's +peace conferences, peace ships, and endless impertinent peace talk. +We, who have forfeited our right to sit at the peace conference, who +are busily making money off the war, having prudently kept our own +skins out of danger, are officiously ready with proposals of peace. +What a peace! The only peace that could be made to-day would be a +dastardly treason to every one of the millions whose blood has watered +Europe, to every woman who has given a son or a father or a husband +to the settlement of the cause. The parochialism of the American +intelligence has never been more humiliatingly displayed than in +the activities of our busy peacemakers. + + * * * * * + +No sane person believes in war. The sordidness and the horror of war +have never been so fully revealed as during this past year. War has +been stripped of its every romantic feature. Modern war is worse than +hell--it is pure insanity. We do not need peace foundations, peace +conferences, peace ships to demonstrate the awfulness of war. But +crying peace, thinking peace, willing peace will not bring peace +unless conditions that make peace exist. Here in America we use the +word peace too loosely, as if it meant some absolute state of being +which we had achieved through our innate wisdom rather than from the +happy accident of our world position. But peace is an entirely +relative term, as any one who has given heed to the social conditions +we have created should realize. We have enjoyed a certain kind of +peace, the value of which is debatable. And now, alarmed at the +exposed condition of our eastern seaboard, we are agitatedly +preparing to arm to protect ourselves--from what? From Germany? Or is +it from England? And still we recommend an instant peace to Europe! + +Awful as are the waste and suffering caused by war, hideous as modern +warfare is, there are worse evils for humanity. To my thinking the +perpetuation of the lawless, materialistic creed of the new Germany +would be infinitely worse for the world than any war could be. When +the German tide broke into Belgium and poured out over northern +France, sweeping all before it, killing, burning, raping, the +pacifists no doubt would have accepted the conqueror as the will of +God and have made peace then!... There are none more eager for peace +than the soldiers in the trenches who are giving their lives to press +back the barbarian flood. But no peace until their "work has been +done, the cause won." I have heard Americans express the fear that +European civilization is in danger of annihilation from the prolonged +conflict. Even that were preferable to submission to the wrong ideal. +But I see, rather, the possibility of a higher civilization through +the settlement of fundamental principles, the reaffirmation of +necessary laws. It is surely with this abiding faith that the +enormous sacrifices are being freely made by the allied nations. "It +is of little importance what happens to us," a Frenchman said to me +in Rheims, whose home had been destroyed that morning, whose son had +already been killed in the trenches. "There will be a better world +for the generations to come because of what we have endured." That is +what the American pacifist cannot seem to understand--the necessity +of present sacrifice for a better future, the cost in blood and agony +of ultimate principles. + + * * * * * + +This war is leading us all back to the basic commonplaces of +thinking. Is life under any and all conditions worth the having? Our +reason says not. It tells us that the diseased and the weak-minded +should not be permitted to breed, that an anaemic existence under +degenerating influences is not worth calling life. We shudder in our +armchairs at the thought of "cannon food," but why not shudder +equally at the words "factory food," "mine food," and "sweat-shop +food"? We are inclined to sentimentalize over those brave lives that +have been spent by the hundreds of thousands on the battlefields of +France and Poland, but for the most part we live placidly unconscious +of the lives ground out in industrial competition all about us. +Between the two methods of eating up, of maiming, of suppressing +human lives, the battle method may be the more humane--I should +prefer it for myself, for my child. What our pacifists desire is not +so much peace as bloodlessness. We should be honest enough to +recognize that for many human beings,--possibly a majority even in +our prosperous, war-free society,--a violent death may not be by any +means the worst event. And it may be the happiest if the individual +is convinced that the sacrifice of his existence will help others to +realize a better life. That is the hope, the faith of every loyal +soldier who dies for his country, of every soldier's father and +mother who pays with a son for the endurance of those ideals more +precious than life itself. + +The higher one rises in consciousness, the more nearly free and +self-determined life becomes, the greater are the rewards of complete +sacrifice. There are many who have "fallen on the field of honor" +whose lives, if lived out under normal peace conditions, might have +meant much to themselves, possibly to humanity. They have given +themselves freely, without question, for what seems to them of more +importance than life. Wounded, mutilated past all usefulness, dying, +they have not rebelled. Doctors and nurses in the hospitals tell the +story of their endurance without complaint of their bitter fate. Much +as we must feel the awful price which they have felt obliged to pay, +it is not sentimental to say that the finer spirits among them have +lived more fully in the few crowded weeks of their struggle than if +they had been permitted to live out their lives in all the +gratifications of our comfortable civilization. Letters from them +give an extraordinary revelation of priceless qualities gained by +these soldiers through complete renunciation and sacrifice. War, it +must not be denied, is a great developer as well as a destroyer of +life. Nothing else, it would seem, in our present state of evolution +presses the cup of human experience so full of realization and +understanding as battle and death. The men who are paying for their +beliefs with their lives are living more in moments and hours than we +who escape the ordeal can ever live. For life cannot be measured by +time or comfort or enjoyment. It is too subtle for that! A supreme +effort, even a supreme agony, may have more real living worth than +years of "normal" existence. The youths whose graves now dot so +plentifully the pleasant fields of France have drunk deeper than we +can fathom of the mystery of life. + +As for the nation, that greater mother for whose existence they have +given their individual lives, there is even less question of the +benefit of this war. We Americans are fond of measuring loss and gain +in figures: we reckon up the huge war debts, the toll of killed and +wounded, and against this heavy account we set down--nothing. It is +all dead loss. Yet even to-day, in the crisis of their struggle, +there is not a Frenchman who will not admit the immense good that has +already come to his people, that will come increasingly out of the +bloody sacrifice. The war has united all individuals, swept aside the +trivial and the base, revealed the nation to itself. The French have +discovered within their souls and shown before the world qualities, +unsuspected or forgotten, of chivalry, steadfastness, seriousness, +and they have renewed their familiar virtues of bravery and good +humor and intelligence. The French soldier, the French citizen, and +the French woman are to-day marvelously moulded in the heroic type +of their best tradition: in the full sense of the word they are +gallant--chivalrous, self-forgetful, devoted. Is there any price +too great to pay for such a resurrection of human nobility? + +The pacifist is fain to babble of the "disciplines of peace." No +one denies them. But how can humanity be compelled to embrace these +disciplines of peace? The German lesson of thoroughness and social +organization and responsibility was as necessary before the war as it +is to-day, but neither England nor France, neither Russia nor our own +America gave heed to it until the terrible menace of extermination +in this war ground the lesson into their unwilling souls. It may be +lamentable that humanity should still be held so firmly in the grip +of biologic law that it must kill and be killed in order to save +itself, but there are things worse than death. Until humanity learns +the secret of self-discipline it will create diseases that can be +eradicated only with the knife; it is merely blind to assume that +the insanity of war can be prevented by any system of parliamenting, +or litigation, or paper schemes of international arbitration. Some +issues are of a primary importance, unarguable, fundamental. No +man--and no nation--is worthy of life who is not ready to lay it down +in their settlement. I know that some Americans are still unable to +perceive that any such fundamental principle is at stake in Europe +to-day. Extraordinary as it seems to me I hear intelligent men refer +to the great war as if it were a local quarrel of no real consequence +to us. Even the humblest _poilu_ in the trenches, the simplest +working-woman in France, know that they are giving themselves not +merely in the righteous cause of self-defense, but in the world's +cause in defense of its best tradition, its highest ideals. Their +cause is big enough to consecrate them. + + * * * * * + +Therefore a new, a larger, a more vital life has already begun for +invaded and unconquered France! In order to reap the blessings of +war, a nation must have an irreproachable cause, and aside from +Belgium, France has the clearest record of all the belligerents in +this world war. She will gain most from it, not in land or wealth, +but in honor and moral strength, in dignity and pride. She is ready +to pay the great price for her soul. This is the one supreme +inspiration that the French are giving an admiring world--their +readiness to give all rather than yield to the evil that threatens +them. With the light of such nobility in one's eyes, it is difficult, +indeed, to be patient with the cynical clamor of comfortable neutrals +for peace at any price. If there is anything of dignity and meaning +in human life, it lies in selfless devotion to beliefs, to +principles; it is readiness to sacrifice happiness, life, all, in +their defense. + +And that is patriotism in its larger aspect. Our intellectuals +discuss coldly the primitive quality of patriotism and its unexpected +recrudescence in this world war. They talk of it in the jargon of +social science as "group consciousness." Before I felt its fervor +in the crisis of Italy's decision, in the sublime endurance of the +French, I did not realize what patriotism might mean. It is not +merely the instinctive love for the land of birth, loyalty to the +known and familiar. Much more than that! The natal soil is but the +symbol. Patriotism is human loyalty to the deeper, better part of +one's own being, to the loves and the ideals and the beliefs of one's +race. It is the love of family, of land, of tongue, of religion, of +the woman who bore you and of the woman you get with child, of the +God you reverence. It is loyalty to life as it has been poured into +you by your forefathers, to those ideals which your race has conceived +and given to the world. "_Viva Italia!_" "_Vive la France!_" is a +prayer of the deepest, purest sort that the Italian or the Frenchman +can breathe. Without these subconscious devotions and loyalties the +human animal would be a forlorn complex of mind and sense. Those +amorphous beings who, thanks to our modern economic wealth, have become +"citizens of the world," who wander physically and intellectually from +land to land, who taste of this and that without incorporating any +supreme devotion in their blood, our cosmopolites and expatriates and +intellectuals, froth of a too comfortable existence, give forth a +hollow sound at the savage touch of war. They become pacifists. They +can see neither good nor evil: all is a vague blur of "humanity." + +Patriotism is the supreme loyalty to life of the individual. Wherever +this loyalty is instinctive, vivid, there some precious tradition has +been bequeathed to a people that still burns in their blood. Latin +patriotism is ardent like man's one great love for woman, ennobling +the giver as well as the loved one; it is tender like the son's love +for the mother, with the sanctity of acknowledgment of the debt of +life. Can any vision of "internationalism" take the place of these +powerful personal loyalties to racial ideals?... "Mere boys led to +the slaughter" is the sentimentality one hears of the marching +conscripts of European armies. Better even so than the curse of no +supreme allegiance, or devotion, or readiness to sacrifice--than the +aimless selfishness in which our American youth are brought up! + + * * * * * + +For every boy in Europe knows, as soon as he knows anything, that he +owes one certain fixed debt, and that is service to his country, to +that larger whole that has given him the best part of his own being. +If need be, he owes it his life itself. It is an obligation he must +fulfill before all other obligations, at no matter what inconvenience +or sacrifice to himself, unquestioningly, immediately. + +What takes the place for the American youth of this primary +obligation? Himself! He is expensively nurtured, schooled, put +forward into life--for what? To help himself as best he can at the +general table of society. He can never forget himself, subordinate +his personal ambition to any transcendent loyalty. He becomes from +his cradle the egotist. + +To-day under the shadow of world war we are taking thought of +national protection, projecting schemes of defense including the +enrollment of citizens who may be called upon to fight for their +country. It is less important to teach our youth the military lessons +of self-protection than it is to teach them the greater lesson of +self-forgetfulness, of devotion to a national ideal--so that they may +be ready to give their lives for that national ideal as the youth of +Europe have given their lives to settle this world cause. Not a few +hundreds of thousands of national guards, then, in order to secure +ourselves from invasion are what we need, but that every man or woman +born into the nation or adopting it as home should be made to feel +the obligation of national service. It matters less what form that +service should take, whether purely military or partly military and +partly social. It is the service, the sense of obligation that counts +for the individual and for the nation. The responsibility of service +teaches the importance of ideas, the necessity of sacrifice. And he +who is ready to sacrifice himself, to forget himself and become +absorbed in the life that surrounds him, of which he is but an +infinitesimal unit, to which he owes the best in him, has already +achieved a larger peace than the pacifist dreams of. + + * * * * * + +Consider what happened to the youth of France a little more than +a year ago. Suddenly with no preparation or warning they were called +to defend their country from invasion. It was no longer possible to +argue the rights of that diplomatic tangle into which European +statesmen had muddled. Whatever the ultimate truth, the ultimate +right of the controversy, the state--that larger self which was their +home, their mesh of loves and interests and beliefs--demanded their +service. The youth of France had been brought up with the knowledge +that any day such a sacrifice might be required, with the +consciousness deeply rooted in their beings that one of the necessary +conditions of their living was to give their all at the call of the +state. They conceived of no honorable alternative: it was as +inevitable to pay this obligation as it is for decently minded +citizens to pay their legal debts. They hurried to their mobilization +posts, donned uniforms and equipment, and were shipped away in +regiments to the front. Most of them did not worry about the +possibility of death, but acted like all healthy human beings, +ignoring what they could not affect, caught up in the novelty and the +requirements of the new life. Yet deep in the consciousness of the +most careless must have lain some thought that he might never return, +that the cross-marked grave on the hillside, the pit, or the hospital +might be waiting for him. + +This consciousness that he can no longer dispose of himself, at +least for the finer spirit, must act as a great release. Having +accepted his fate, and therefore willed it as the only possible +choice for him, he becomes another person, a largely selfless person, +a strangely older, calmer being capable of thinking and acting +clearly, nobly. Once the great personal decision made, the resolve +to forego life and happiness and personal achievement, a clogging +burden of selfish considerations drop from within. So one can read +the experience of those two young officers preserved in Henry +Bordeaux's "Two Heroes." They were free as never before to do what +lay before them,--their officers' duty,--simply, directly. Many things +that they had previously valued seemed to have lost color, to have +become trivial. They thought solely of acquitting themselves with, +honor in what it was their fate to do. They were ready to obey +because before death they were humble. They had begun to glimpse +the blind mystery that is life, in which every one must needs act +his part without questioning, with faith in its ultimate meaning, +with the will to trust its end. They were brave because they were +simple and single-hearted, selfless. They were strong because they +disdained to be weak, having renounced all. If it were to be their +fate to die unnoted, they were content with the satisfaction of having +done what was expected of them. And if they died in glory, they were +unaware of their honor, believing that they had done no more than +any of their fellows would have done in the same opportunity. + +Thus, having laid down their lives for the cause that commanded +their faith and loyalty, they found their real lives--larger, more +beautiful, stronger.... Not once, but many thousands of times, has +this miracle happened! Their graves are strewn, singly and in groups, +over every field of eastern France. They paid the debt, did their +part little or great, unknown or glorified by men. Literally they +have given their blood for the soil of their fathers' land. + + * * * * * + +We know that they have given much more than their blood to that soil. +Just as at the call to arms, the selfish, the mean, the vicious +qualities of these lives dropped from them in the freedom of +sacrifice accepted, and in place of egotistic preoccupations rose +once more to the surface of their natures the ancient virtues of +their race, so in their going they left for the others who lived, who +were to be born, a tremendous legacy of honor and noble +responsibility. By watering the soil with their blood they have made +it infinitely more precious for every human being that treads upon +it. They have helped to make mere life more significant for those who +remain to mourn them. It can never again be quite the same +commonplace affair, so lightly, cheaply spent, as it had been before. +They have not left behind them joy, but faith. And that is why the +faces of the earnest living who are able to realize this sacrifice of +youth have a grave sternness in them which touches even the most +careless stranger. Something of the glory created by the dead and the +wounded radiates out even to us in a distant, peaceful land.... + +But why, we ask, all this sacrifice, this cruel, agonizing sacrifice +of war? That is a mystery too deep for any to fathom. It is better +not to probe too insistently, to accept it as the man in Rheims,--"It +must be better for the others afterward because of what we have +endured." That is the expression of faith in life which is the better +part of any religion. For what we suffer now, for what we give now of +our most precious, it will be repaid to those who are to come. Life +will be freer, grander, more significant: it will be a better world. +Nobody who has seen or felt the heavy tragedy of this world war could +endure its horror if he were not sustained by that faith. But with +that faith the losses seem not too vast. One by one the world's great +decisions must be made, in suffering, in blood and tears. Peace comes +not through evasion or compromise, either for the individual or for +the state. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE WORLD DECISION *** + +This file should be named 7wdcs10.txt or 7wdcs10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7wdcs11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7wdcs10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The World Decision + +Author: Robert Herrick + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8529] +[This file was first posted on July 20, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE WORLD DECISION *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Eric Eldred, Anne Reshnyk, Charles Franks, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +THE WORLD DECISION + +BY + +ROBERT HERRICK + + + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +_PART ONE--ITALY_ + + I. ITALY HESITATES + + II. THE POLITICIAN SPEAKS + +III. THE POET SPEAKS + + IV. THE PIAZZA SPEAKS + + V. ITALY DECIDES + + VI. THE EVE OF THE WAR + + +_PART TWO--FRANCE_ + + I. THE FACE OF PARIS + + II. THE WOUNDS OF FRANCE + +III. THE BARBARIAN + + IV. THE GERMAN LESSON + + V. THE FAITH OF THE FRENCH + + VI. THE NEW FRANCE + + +_PART THREE--AMERICA_ + + I. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO US? + + II. THE CHOICE + +III. PEACE + + + + +THE WORLD DECISION + + +PART ONE--ITALY + + +I + + +_Italy Hesitates_ + +Last April, when I left New York for Europe, Italy was "on the verge" +of entering the great war. According to the meager reports that a strict +censorship permitted to reach the world, Italy had been hesitating for +many months between a continuance of her precarious neutrality and joining +with the Allies, with an intermittent war fever in her pulses. It was +known that she was buying supplies for her ill-equipped army--boots and +food and arms. Nevertheless, American opinion had come to the somewhat +cynical belief that Italy would never get further than the verge of war; +that her Austrian ally would be induced by the pressure of necessity to +concede enough of those "national aspirations," of which we had heard +much, to keep her southern neighbor at least lukewarmly neutral until +the conclusion of the war. An American diplomat in Italy, with the best +opportunity for close observation, said, as late as the middle of May: +"I shall believe that Italy will go into the war only when I see it!" + +The process of squeezing her Austrian ally when the latter was in a +tight place--as Italy's negotiating was interpreted commonly in +America--naturally aroused little enthusiasm for the nation, and when +suddenly, during the stormy weeks of mid-May, Italy made her decision +and broke with Austria, Americans inferred, erroneously, that her +"sordid" bargaining having met with a stubborn resistance from Vienna, +there was nothing left for a government that had spent millions in war +preparation but to declare war. The affair had that surface appearance, +which was noisily proclaimed by Germany to the world. Chancellor +Bethmann-Hollweg's sneer concerning the "voice of the piazza having +prevailed" revealed not merely pique, but also a complete +misunderstanding, a Teutonic misapprehension of the underlying motives +that led to an inevitable step. No one who witnessed, as I did at close +range, the swift unfolding of the drama which ended on May 23 in a +declaration of war, can accept such a base or trivial reading of the +matter. Like all things human the psychology of Italy's action was +complex, woven in an intricate pattern, nevertheless at its base simple +and inevitable, granted the fundamental racial postulates. Old impulses +stirred in the Italians as well as new. Italy repeated according to the +modern formula the ancient defiance by her Roman forefathers of the +Teutonic danger. _"Fuori i barbari"_--out with the barbarians--has lain +in the blood of Italy for two thousand years, to be roused to a fresh +heat of hate by outraged Belgium, by invaded France, by the Lusitania +murders. Less conscious, perhaps, but not less mighty as a moving force +than this personal antagonism was the spiritual antagonism between the +Latin and the German, between the two visions of the world which the +German and the Latin imagine and seek to perpetuate. That in a large and +very real sense this world agony of war is the supreme struggle between +these two opposed traditions of civilization--a decision between two +competing forms of life--seems to me so obvious as to need no argument. +In such a struggle Italy must, by compulsion of historical tradition as +well as of political situation, take her part on the side of those who +from one angle or another are upholding with their lives the inheritance +of Rome against the pretensions of force--law, justice, mercy, beauty +against the dead weight of physical and material strength. + + * * * * * + +One had no more than put foot on the quay at Naples before the atmosphere +of fateful hesitation in which Italy had lived for eight months became +evident to the senses of the traveler. Naples was less strident, less +vocal than ever before. That mob of hungry Neapolitans, which usually +seizes violent hold of the stranger and his effects, was thin and +spiritless. Naples was almost quiet. The Santa Lucia was deserted; the +line of pretentious hotels with drawn shutters had the air of a summer +resort out of season. The war had cut off Italy's greatest source of ready +money--the idler. Naples was living to itself a subdued, zestless life. +Cook's was an empty inutility. The sunny slopes of Sorrento, where during +the last generation the German has established himself in all favorable +sites, were thick with signs of sale. + +In other respects there were indications of prosperity--more building, +cleaner streets, better shops. In the dozen years since I had been there, +Italy had undoubtedly prospered, and even this beggar's paradise of sun +and tourists had bettered itself after the modern way. I saw abundant +signs of the new Italy of industrial expansion, which under German +tutelage had begun to manufacture, to own ships, and to exploit itself. +And there were also signs of war-time bloat--the immense cotton business. +Naples as well as Genoa was stuffed with American cotton, the quays piled +with the bales that could not be got into warehouses. It took a large +credulity to believe that all this cotton was to satisfy Italian wants. +Cotton, as everybody knew, was going across the Alps by the trainload. +Nevertheless, our ship, which had a goodly amount of the stuff, was held +at Gibraltar only a day until the English Government decided to accept +the guarantees of consul and Italian Ambassador that it was legitimately +destined for Italian factories--a straw indicating England's perplexity +in the cotton business, especially with a nation that might any day become +an ally! It would be wiser to let a little more cotton leak into Germany +through Switzerland than to agitate the question of contraband at this +delicate moment. + +The cotton brokers, the grain merchants, and a few others were making +money out of Italy's neutrality, and _neutralista_ sentiment was +naturally strong among these classes and their satellites. No doubt +they did their best to give an impression of nationalism to the creed +of their pockets. But a serious-minded merchant from Milan who dined +opposite me on the way to Rome expressed the prevailing beliefs of his +class as well as any one,--"War, yes, in time.... It must come.... But +first we must be ready--we are not quite ready yet"; and he predicted +almost to a day when Italy, finding herself ready, would enter the great +conflict. He showed no enthusiasm either for or against war: his was a +curiously fatalistic attitude of mind, an acceptance of the inevitable, +which the American finds so hard to understand. + + * * * * * + +And this was the prevailing note of Rome those early days of May--a +dull, passive acceptance of the dreaded fate which had been threatening +for so many months on the national horizon, ever since Austria plumped +her brutal ultimatum upon little Serbia. There were no vivid debates, +no pronounced current of opinion one way or the other, not much public +interest in the prolonged discussions at the Consulta; just a lethargic +iteration of the belief that sooner or later war must come with its +terrible risks, its dubious victories. Given the Italian temperament +and the nearness of the brink toward which the country was drifting, +one looked for flashes of fire. But Rome, if more normal in its daily +life than Naples in spite of the absence of those tourists who gather +here at this season by the tens of thousands, was equally acquiescent +and on the surface uninterested in the event. + +The explanation of this outward apathy in the public is simple: nobody +knew anything definite enough as yet to rouse passions. The Italian +newspaper is probably the emptiest receptacle of news published +anywhere. The journals are all personal "organs," and anybody can know +whose "views" they are voicing. There was the "Messagero," subsidized by +the French and the English embassies, which emitted cheerful pro-Ally +paragraphs of gossip. There was the "Vittorio," founded by the German +party, patently the mouthpiece of Teutonic diplomacy. There was the +"Giornale d'Italia" that spoke for the Vatican, and the "Idea Nazionale" +which voiced radical young Italy. And so on down the list. But there was +a perfectly applied censorship which suppressed all diplomatic leaks. So +one read with perfect confidence that Prince von Bülow had driven to the +Consulta at eleven-fifteen yesterday, and having been closeted with Baron +Sonnino, the Italian Foreign Minister, or with the Premier, Signor +Salandra, or with both, for forty-seven minutes, had emerged upon the +street smiling. And shortly after this event Baron Macchio, the Austrian +Envoy, arrived at the Consulta in his motor-car and had spent within the +mystery of the Foreign Office twenty or more minutes. The reader might +insert any fatal interpretation he liked between the lines of this +chronicle. That was quite all the reality the Roman public, the people +of Italy, had to speculate upon during weeks of waiting, and for the most +part they waited quietly, patiently. For whatever the American prejudice +against the dangers of secret diplomacy may be, the European, especially +the Italian, idea is that all grave negotiations should be conducted +privately--that the diplomatic cake should be composed by experts in +retirement until it is ready for the baking. And the European public +is well trained in controlling its curiosities. + +It was sufficiently astonishing to the American onlooker, however, +accustomed to flaming extras and the plethoric discussion in public of the +most intimate affairs, state and personal, to witness the acquiescence of +emotional Italians in this complete obscurity about their fate and that of +their children and their nation, which was being sorted behind the closed +doors of the Consulta. Every one seemed to go about his personal business +with an apparent calm, a shrug of expressive shoulders at the most, +signifying belief in the sureness of war--soon. There was little animation +in the cafés, practically none on the streets. Arragno's, usually buzzing +with political prophecy, had a depressing, provincial calm. Unoccupied +deputies sat in gloomy silence over their thin _consommations_. Even the +1st of May passed without that demonstration by the Socialists against war +so widely expected. To be sure, the Government had prudently packed Rome +and the northern cities with troops: soldiers were lurking in every old +courtyard, up all the narrow alleys, waiting for some hardy Socialist to +"demonstrate." But it was not the plentiful troops, not even a lively +thunderstorm that swept Rome all the afternoon, which discouraged the +Socialists: they too were in doubt and apathy. They were hesitating, +passing resolutions, defining themselves into fine segments of political +opinion--and waiting for Somebody to act! They too awaited the completion +of those endless discussions among the diplomats at the Consulta, at the +Ballplatz in Vienna, and wherever diplomacy is made in Berlin. The first +of May came and went, and the _carabinieri_, the secret police, the +infantry, the cavalry with their fierce hairy helmets filed off to their +barracks in a dripping dusk, dispirited, as if disappointed themselves +that nothing definite, even violence, had yet come out of the business. So +one caught a belated cab and scurried through the deserted streets to an +empty hotel on the Pincian, more than half convinced that the Government +meant really to do nothing except "negotiate" until the spirit of war had +died from the hearts of the people. + +Yet much was going on beneath the surface. There were flashes to be +seen in broad daylight. The King and his ministers at the eleventh hour +decided not to attend the ceremonies at Quarto of the unveiling of the +monument to the Garibaldian "Thousand." Now, what could that mean? Did +it indicate that the King was not yet ready to choose his road and feared +to compromise himself by appearing in company with the Francophile poet +D'Annunzio, who was to give the address? It would be a hard matter to +explain to Berlin, to whose nostrils the poet was anathema. Or did it +mean literally that the negotiations with reluctant Austria had reached +that acute point which might not permit the absence of authority from Rome +even for twenty-four hours? The drifting, if it were drifting, was more +rapid, day by day. + +There was a constant troop movement all over Italy, which could not be +disguised from anybody who went to a railroad station. Italy was not +"mobilizing," but that term in this year of war has come to have a +diplomatic insignificance. Every one knew that a large army had already +gone north toward the disputed frontier. More soldiers were going every +day, and more men of the younger sort were silently disappearing from +their ordinary occupations, as the way is in conscript countries. It was +all being done admirably, swiftly, quietly--no placards. The _carabinieri_ +went from house to house and delivered verbal orders. But all this might +be a mere "preparation," an argument that could not be used diplomatically +at the Consulta, yet of vital force. + +There was the sudden twenty-four-hour visit of the Italian Ambassador +at Paris to Rome. Why had he taken that long journey home for such a +brief visit, consumed in conferences with the ministers? And Prince von +Bülow had rallied to his assistance the Catholic Deputy Erzburger. Rome +was seething with rumor. + + * * * * * + +The remarkable passivity of the Italian public during these anxious +moments was due in good part, no doubt, to its thorough confidence in +the men who were directing the state, specifically in the Prime Minister +Salandra and his Minister of Foreign Affairs Baron Sonnino, who were the +Government. They were honest,--that everybody admitted,--and they were +experienced. In less troubled times the nation might prefer the popular +politician Giolitti, who had a large majority of the deputies in the +Parliament in his party, and who had presented Italy a couple of years +earlier with its newest plaything, Libya,--and concealed the bills. But +Giolitti had prudently retired to his little Piedmont home in Cavour. All +the winter he had kept out of Rome, leaving the Salandra Government to +work out a solution of the knotty tangle in which he had helped to involve +his country. Nobody knew precisely what Giolitti's views were, but it was +generally accepted that he preserved the tradition of the Crispi +statesmanship, which had made the abortion of the Triple Alliance. If he +could not openly champion an active fulfillment of the alliance, at least +he was avowedly _neutralista_, the best that Berlin and Vienna had come to +hope from their southern ally. He was the great unknown factor politically, +with his majority in the Chamber, his personal prestige. A clever American, +long resident in Rome in sufficient intimacy with the political powers to +make his words significant, told me,--"The country does not know what it +wants. But Giolitti will tell them. When he comes we shall know whether +there will be war!" That was May 9--a Sunday. Giolitti arrived in Rome +the same week--and we knew, but not as the political prophet thought.... + +Meanwhile, there were mutterings of the thunder to come out of this +stagnant hesitation. One day I went out to the little town of Genzano +in the Alban Hills, with an Italian mother who wished to see her son +in garrison there. The regiment of Sardinian _Granatieri_, ordinarily +stationed near the King in Rome, had been sent to this dirty little +hill town to keep order. The populace were so threatening in their +attitude that the soldiers were confined in their quarters to prevent +street rows. We could see their heads at the windows of the old houses +and convents where they were billeted, like schoolboys in durance vile. +I read the word "_Socilismo_" scrawled in chalk over the walls and +half-effaced by the hand of authority. The hard faces of the townsfolk +scowled at us while we talked with a young captain. The Genzanans were +against the war, the officer said, and stoned the soldiers. They did not +want another African jaunt, with more taxes and fewer men to till the +fields. + +Elsewhere one heard that the "populace" generally was opposed to war. +"We shall have to shoot up some hundreds of the rats in Florence before +the troops leave," the youthful son of a prefect told me. That in the +North. As for the South, a shrug of the shoulders expressed the national +doubt of Calabria, Sicily,--the weaker, less certain members of the +family. Remembering the dire destruction of the earthquake in the Abruzzi, +which wrought more ruin to more people than the Messina catastrophe, also +the floods that had destroyed crops in the fertile river bottoms a few +weeks before, one could understand popular opposition to more dangers and +more taxes. These were some of the perplexities that beset the Government. +No wonder that the diplomats were weighing their words cautiously at the +Consulta, also weighing with extreme fineness the _quid pro quo_ they +would accept as "compensation" from Austria for upsetting the Balkan +situation. It was, indeed, a delicate matter to decide how many of those +national aspirations might be sacrificed for the sake of present security +without jeopardizing the nation's future. Italy needed the wisdom of +patriots if ever in her history. + +The Salandra Government kept admirable order during these dangerous +days, suppressing the slightest popular movement, pro or con. That was +the wise way, until they knew themselves which road to take and had +prepared the public mind. And they had plenty of troops to be occupied +somehow. The exercise of the firm hand of authority against popular +ebullitions is always a marvel to the American. To the European mind +government means power, and power is exercised practically, concretely, +not by writs of courts and sheriffs, but by armed troops. The Salandra +Government had the power, and apparently did not mean to have its hand +forced by the populace.... + +The young officer at Genzano had no doubt that war was coming, nor +had the handsome boy whom we at last ran to ground in an old Franciscan +convent. He talked eagerly of the "promise" his regiment had received "to +go first." His mother's face contracted with a spasm of pain as he spoke, +but like a Latin mother she made no protest. If his country needed him, +if war had to be.... On our way back to Rome across the Campagna we saw a +huge silver fish swimming lazily in the misty blue sky--one of Italy's new +dirigibles exercising. There were soldiers everywhere in their new gray +linen clothes--tanned, boyish faces, many of them fine large fellows, +scooped up from villages and towns all over Italy. The night was broken +by the sound of marching feet, for troop movements were usually made at +night. The soldiers were going north by the trainload. Each day one saw +more of them in the streets, coming and going. Yet Baron Macchio and +Prince von Bülow were as busy as ever at the Consulta on the Quirinal +Hill, and rumor said that at last they were offering real "compensations." + + * * * * * + +The shops of Rome, as those of every city and town in Europe, were +hung with war maps, of course. In Rome the prevailing map was that highly +colored, imaginative rearrangement of southern Europe to fit the national +aspirations. The new frontier ran along the summits of the Alps and took +a wide swath down the Adriatic coast. It was a most flattering prospect +and lured many loiterers to the shop windows. At the office of the +"Giornale d'Italia" in the Corso there was displayed beside an irredentist +map an approximate sketch of what Austria was willing to give, under +German persuasion. The discrepancy between the two maps was obvious and +vast. On the bulletin boards there were many news items emanating from the +"unredeemed" in Trent and Trieste, chronicling riots and the severely +repressive measures taken by the Austrian masters. The little piazza in +front of the newspaper office was thronged from morning to night, and the +old woman in the kiosk beside the door did a large business in maps. + +And yet this aspect of the Italian situation seems to me to have been +much exaggerated. There was, so far as I could see, no great popular +fervor over the disinherited Italians in Austrian lands, in spite of the +hectic items about Austrian tyranny appearing daily in the newspapers--no +great popular agony of mind over these "unredeemed." Also it was obvious +that Italy in her new frontier proposed to include quite as many +unredeemed Austrians and other folk as redeemed Italians! No; it was +rather a high point of propaganda--as we should say commercially, a good +talking proposition. Deeper, it represented the urge of nationalism, +which is one of the extraordinary phenomena of this remarkable war. The +American, vague in his feeling of nationalism, refuses to take quite +seriously agitation for the "unredeemed." Why, he asks with naïveté, go +to war for a few thousands of Italians in Trent and Trieste? + +I am not attempting to write history. I am guessing like another, +seeking causes in a complex state of mind. We shall have to go back. +Secret diplomacy may be the inveterate habit of Europe, especially of +Italy. The new arrangement with the Allies has never been published, +probably never will be. One suspects that it was made, essentially, before +Italy had broken with Austria, before, perhaps, she had denounced her old +alliance on the 5th of May at Vienna. And yet, although inveterately +habituated to the mediaevalism of secret international arrangements, Italy +is enough filled with the spirit of modern democracy to break any treaty +that does not fulfill the will of the people. The Triple Alliance was +really doomed at its conception, because it was a trade made by a few +politicians and diplomats in secret and never known in its terms to the +people who were bound by it. Any strain would break such a bond. The +strain was always latent, but it became acute of late years, especially +when Austria thwarted Italy's move on Turkey--as Salandra revealed later +under the sting of Bethmann-Hollweg's taunts. It was badly strained, +virtually broken, when Austria without warning to Italy stabbed at Serbia. +Austria made a grave blunder there, in not observing the first term of the +Triple Alliance, by which she was bound to take her allies into +consultation. The insolence of the Austrian attitude was betrayed in the +disregard of this obligation: Italy evidently was too unimportant a factor +to be precise with. Italy might, then and there, the 1st of August, 1914, +very well have denounced the Alliance, and perhaps would have done so had +she been prepared for the consequences, had the Salandra Government been +then at the helm. + +There is another coil to the affair, not generally recognized in America. +Austria in striking at Serbia was potentially aiming at a closer +envelopment of Italy along the Adriatic, provision for which had been made +in a special article of the Triple Alliance,--the seventh,--under which +she had bound herself to grant compensations to Italy for any disturbance +of the Balkan situation. Austria, when she was brought to recognize this +commission of fault,--which was not until December, 1914, not seriously +until the close of January, 1915,--pretended that her blow at Serbia was +chastisement, not occupation. But it is absurd to assume that having +chastised the little Balkan state she would leave it free and independent. +It is true that in January Austrian troops were no longer in Balkan +territory, but that was not due to intention or desire! They had been +there, they are there now, and they will be there as long as the Teutonic +arms prevail. It is a game of chess: Italy knew the gambit as soon as +Austria moved against Serbia. The response she must have known also, but +she had not the power to move then. So she insisted pertinaciously on her +right under the seventh clause of the Triple Alliance to open negotiations +for "compensations" for Austria's aggression in the Balkans, and finally +with the assistance of Berlin compelled the reluctant Emperor to admit her +right. + +These complexities of international chess, which the American mind +never seems able to grasp, are instinctively known by the man in the +street in Europe. Every one has learned the gambits: they do not have +to be explained, nor their importance demonstrated. The American can +profitably study those maps so liberally displayed in shop windows, +as I studied them for hours in default of anything better to do in +the drifting days of early May. The maps will show at a glance that +Italy's northern frontiers are so ingeniously drawn--by her hereditary +enemy--that her head is virtually in chancery, as every Italian knows +and as the whole world has now realized after four months of patient +picking by Italian troops at the outer set of Austrian locks. And there +is the Adriatic. When Austria made the frontier, the sea-power question +was not as important as it has since become. The east coast of the +Adriatic was a wild hinterland that might be left to the rude peoples +of Montenegro and Albania. But it has come into the world since then. +Add to this that the Italian shore of the Adriatic is notably without +good harbors and indefensible, and one has all the elements of the +strategic situation. All fears would be superfluous if Austria, the old +bully at the north, would keep quiet: the Triple Alliance served well +enough for over thirty years. But would Austria play fair with an +unsympathetic ally that she had not taken into her confidence when +she determined to violate the first term of the Triple Alliance? + +All this may now be pondered in the "Green Book," more briefly and +cogently in the admirable statement which Italy made to the Powers when +she declared war on Austria. That the Italian Government was not only +within its treaty rights in demanding those "compensations" from Austria, +but would have been craven to pass the incident of the attack on Serbia +without notice, seems to me clear. That it was a real necessity, not a +mere trading question, for Italy to secure a stronger frontier and control +of the Adriatic, seems to me equally obvious. These, I take it, were the +vital considerations, not the situation of the "unredeemed" Italians in +Trent and Trieste. But Austria, in that grudging maximum of concession +which she finally offered to Italy's minimum of demand, insisted upon +taking the sentimental or knavish view of the Italian attitude: she would +yield the more Italianated parts of the territory in dispute, not the +vitally strategic places. Nor would she deliver her concessions until +after the conclusion of the war--if ever!--after she had got what use +there was from the Italians enrolled in her armies fighting Russia. For +Vienna to regard the tender principle of nationalism is a good enough +joke, as we say. Her persistence in considering Italy's demands as either +greed or sentiment is proof of Teutonic lack of imagination. The Italians +are sentimental, but they are even more practical. It was not the woes of +the "unredeemed" that led the Salandra Government to reject the final +offering of Austria, and to accept the risks of war instead. It was rather +the very practical consideration of that indefensible frontier, which +Austria stubbornly refused to make safe for Italy--after she had given +cause, by her attack upon Serbia, to render all her neighbors uneasy in +their minds for their safety. + +So much for the sentimental and the strategical threads in the Consulta +negotiations. It was neither for sentiment nor for strategical advantage +solely that Italy finally entered the war. Nevertheless, if the German +Powers had frankly and freely from the start recognized Italy's position, +and surrendered to her _immediate_ possession--as they were ready to do +at the last moment--sufficient of those national aspirations to safeguard +national security, with hands off in the Adriatic, Italy most probably +would have preferred to remain neutral. I cannot believe that Salandra +or the King really wanted war. They were sincerely struggling to keep +their nation out of the European melting-pot as long as they could. But +they were both shrewd and patriotic enough not to content themselves with +present security at the price of ultimate danger. And if they had been as +weak as the King of Greece, as subservient as the King of Bulgaria, they +would have had to reckon with a very different people from the Bulgars and +the Greeks--a nation that might quite conceivably have turned Italy into a +republic and ranged her beside her Latin sister on the north in the world +struggle. The path of peace was in no way the path of prudence for the +House of Savoy. + + * * * * * + +Lack of imagination is surely one of the prominent characteristics of +the modern German, at least in statecraft. Imagination applied to the +practical matters of daily living is nothing more than the ability to +project one's own personality beneath the skin of another, to look +around at the world through that other person's eyes and to realize +what values the world holds for him. The Prince von Bülow, able diplomat +though they call him, could not look upon the world through Italian +eyes in spite of his Italian wife, his long residence in Rome, his +professed love for Italy. It must have been with his consent if not +by his suggestion that Erzburger, the leader of the Catholic party in +the Reichstag, was sent to Rome at this critical juncture. The German +mind probably said,--"Here is a notable Catholic, political leader of +German Catholics, and so he must be especially agreeable to Italians, +who, as all the world knows, are Catholics." The reasoning of a stupid +child! Outwardly Italy is Catholic, but modern Italy has shown herself +very restive at any papal meddling in national affairs. To have an +alien--one of the "_barbari_"--seat himself at the Vatican and try to +use the papal power in determining the policy of the nation in a matter +of such magnitude, was a fatal blunder of tactless diplomacy. Nor could +Herr Erzburger's presence at the Vatican these tense days be kept secret +from the curious journalists, who lived on such meager items of news. No +more tactful was it for Prince von Bülow to meet the Italian politician +Giolitti at the Palace Hotel on the Pincian. There is no harm in one +gentleman's meeting another in the rooms of a public hotel so respectable +as the Palace, but when the two are playing the international chess +game and one is regarded as an enemy and the other as a possible traitor, +the popular mind is likely to take a heated and prejudiced view of the +small incident. Less obvious to the public, but none the less untactful, +was the manner in which the German Ambassador tried to use his social +connection in Rome, his family relationships in the aristocracy of Italy, +to influence the King and his ministers. He might have taken warning from +the royal speech attributed to the Queen Mother in reply to the Kaiser: +"The House of Savoy rules one at a time." He should have kept away from +the back stairs. He should have known Italy well enough to realize that +the elements of Roman society with which he was affiliated do not +represent either power or public opinion in Italy any more than good +society does in most modern states. Roman aristocracy, like all +aristocracies, whether of blood or of money, is international in its +sympathies, skeptic in its soul. And its influence, in a decisive question +of life and death to the nation, is nil. The Prince von Bülow was wasting +his time with people who could not decide anything. As Salandra said, with +dignified restraint in answer to the vulgar attack upon him made by the +German Chancellor,--"The Prince was a sincere lover of Italy, but he was +ill-advised by persons who no longer had any weight in the nation"--as +his colleague in London seems to have been ill-advised when he assured +his master that Englishmen would not fight under any circumstances! The +trouble with diplomacy would seem to be that its ranks are still recruited +from "the upper classes," whose gifts are social and whose sympathies +reflect the views and the prejudices of a very small element in the +state. Good society in Rome was still out on the Pincian for the afternoon +promenade, was still exchanging calls and dinners these golden spring +days, but its views and sympathies could not count in the enormous complex +of beliefs and emotions that make the mind of a nation in a crisis. Prince +von Bülow's motor was busily running about the narrow streets of old Rome, +the gates of the pretty Villa Malta were hospitably open,--guarded by +_carabinieri_,--but if the German Ambassador had put on an old coat and +strolled through the Trastevere, or had sat at a little marble-topped +table in some obscure café, or had traveled second or third class between +Rome and Naples, he might have heard things that would have brought the +negotiations at the Consulta to an abrupter close one way or the other. +For Italy was making up its mind against his master. + + * * * * * + +Rome was very still these hesitant days of early May, Rome was very +beautiful--I have never known her so beautiful! The Pincian, in spite +of its afternoon parade, had the sad air of forced retirement of some +well-to-do family. The Piazza di Spagna basked in its wonted flood +of sunshine with a curious Sabbatical calm. A stray _forestieri_ might +occasionally cross its blazing pavements and dive into Piale's or Cook's, +and a few flower girls brought their irises and big white roses to the +steps, more from habit than for profit surely. The Forum was like a wild, +empty garden, and the Palatine, a melancholy waste of fragments of the +past where an old Garibaldian guard slunk after the stranger, out of +lonesomeness, babbling strangely of that other war in which he had part +and mixing his memories with the tags of history he had been taught to +recite anent the Roman monuments. As I wandered there in the drowse of +bees among the spring blossoms and looked out upon the silent field that +once was the heart of Rome, it was hard to realize that again on this +richly human soil of Italy the fate of its people was to be tested in +the agony of a merciless war, that even now the die was being cast less +than a mile away across the roofs. The soil of Rome is the most deeply +laden in the world with human memories, which somehow exhale a subtle +fragrance that even the most casual stranger cannot escape, that condition +the children of the soil. The roots of the modern Italian run far down +into the mould of ancient things: his distant ancestors have done much +of his political thinking for him, have established in his soul the +conditions of his present dilemma.... I wonder if Prince von Bülow ever +spent a meditative hour looking down on the fragments of the Forum from +the ilex of the Palatine, over the steep ascent of the Capitoline that +leads to the Campidolgio, as far as the grandiose marble pile that fronts +the newer city? Probably not. + + * * * * * + +Germany wanted her place in the sun. She had always wanted it from the +day, two thousand years and more ago, when the first Teuton tribes came +over the Alpine barrier and spread through the sun-kissed fields of +northern Italy. The Italian knows that in his blood. There are two ways +in which to deal with this German lust of another's lands--to kill the +invader or to absorb him. Italy has tried both. It takes a long time to +absorb a race,--hundreds of years,--and precious sacrifices must be made +in the process. No wonder that Italy does not wish to become Germany's +place in the sun! Nor to swallow the modern German. + +When the Teuton first crossed the Alpine barrier and poured himself +lustfully out over the fertile plains of northern Italy, it was literally +a place in the sun which he coveted. In the ages since then his lust has +changed its form: now it is economic privilege that he seeks for his +people. In order to maintain that level of industrial superiority, of +material prosperity, to which he has raised himself, he must "expand" +in trade and influence. He must have more markets to exploit and always +more. It is the same lust with a new name. "Thou shalt not covet" surely +was written for nations as well as for individuals. But our modern +economic theory, the modern Teutonic state, is based on the belief: "Thou +shalt covet, and the race that covets most and by power gets most, that +race shall survive!" And here is the central knot of the whole dark +tangle. The German coveting greater economic opportunities, knowing +himself strong to survive, believes in his divine right to possess. It +is conscious Darwinism--the survival of the fittest, materially, which +he is applying to the world--Darwinism accelerated by an intelligent will. +And the non-Germanic world--the Latin world, for it _is_ a Latin world in +varying degrees of saturation outside of Germany--rejects the theory and +the practice with loathing--when it sees what it means. + + * * * * * + +What makes for the happiness of a nation? I asked myself in the mellow +silence of ancient Rome. Is it true that economic conquest makes for +strength, happiness, survival for the nation or for the individual? + +This Italy has always been poor, at least within modern memory--a literal, +actual poverty when often there has not been enough to eat in the family +pot to go around. She has had a difficult time in the economic race for +bread and butter for her children. There is neither sufficient land easily +cultivable nor manufacturing resources to make her rich, to support her +growing population according to the modern standards of comfort. The +Germans despise the Italians for their little having. + +Yet the Italian peasant--man, woman, or child--is a strong human being, +inured to meager living and hardship, loving the soil from which he digs +his living with an intense, fiery love. And poverty has not killed the +joy of living in the Italian. Far from it! In spite of the exceedingly +laborious lives which the majority lead, the privations in food, clothing, +housing, the narrowness,--in the modern view,--of their lives, no one +could consider the Italian people unhappy. Their characters, like their +hillside farms, are the result of an intensive cultivation--of making +the most out of very little naturally given. + +A healthy, high-tempered, vital people these, not to be despised in the +_kaiserliche_ fashion even as soldiers. Surely not as human beings, as a +human society. And their poverty has had much influence in making the +Italians the sturdy people they are to-day. Poverty has some depressing +aspects, but in the main her very lack of economic opportunity--the want +of coal and factories and other sources of wealth--has kept most of these +people close to the soil, where one feels the majority of any healthy, +enduring race should be. Poverty has made the Italians hard, content with +little, and able to wring the most out of that little. It has cultivated +them intensively as a people, just as they have been forced to cultivate +their rock-bound fields foot by foot. + +There are qualities in human living more precious than prosperity, and +in these Italians have shared abundantly--beauty, sentiment, tradition, +all that give color and meaning to life. These are the treasures of Latin +civilization in behalf of which the allied nations of Europe are now +fighting.... + + * * * * * + +I am well enough aware that all this is contrary to the premises of the +economic and social polity that controls modern statecraft. I know that +our great nations, notably Germany, are based on exactly the opposite +premise--that the strength of a state depends on the economic +development of its people, on its wealth-producing power. Germany has +been the most convinced, the most conscious, the most relentless exponent +of the pernicious belief that the ultimate welfare of the state depends +primarily on the wealth-getting power of its citizens. She has exalted +an economic theory into a religion of nationality with mystical appeals. +She has taught her children to go singing into the jaws of death in order +that the Fatherland may extend her markets and thus enrich her citizens +at the expense of the citizens of other states, who are her inferiors in +the science of slaughter. A queer religion, and all the more abhorrent +when dressed out with the phrases of Christianity! + +All modern states are more or less tainted with the same +delusion--ourselves most, perhaps, after Germany. "We have all sinned," +as an eminent Frenchman said, "your people and mine, as well as England +and Germany." It is time to revise some of the fundamental assumptions +of political philosophers and statesmen. Let us admit that peoples may +be strong and happy and contented without seeking to control increasingly +those sources of wealth still left undeveloped on the earth's surface, +without cutting one another's throats in an effort for national expansion. +The psychology of states cannot be fundamentally different from that of +the individuals in them. And the happiness of the individual has never +been found to consist wholly, even largely, in his economic prosperity. + +Because the Latin soul divines this axiomatic belief, because the +Latin world admits a larger, finer interpretation of life than +economic success, all civilization waits upon the great decision of +this war. + + * * * * * + +Suddenly in the calm of these drifting, hesitant days, when nobody +knew what the nation desired, there came a bolt of lightning. I have +said that the German people lack imagination by which to understand +the world outside themselves. They do not coördinate their activities. +Otherwise, why commit the barbarism of sinking the Lusitania, just at +the moment when they were straining to keep Italy from breaking +completely the frayed bonds of the Triple Alliance? Probably it never +entered any German head in the "high commandment" that the prosecution +of his undersea warfare might have a very real connection with the +Italian situation. He could not credit any nation with such "soft +sentimentality," as he calls it. Yet I am not alone in ascribing a +large significance to the sinking of the Lusitania in Italy's decision +to make war. Every observer of these events whom I have talked with or +whose report I have read gives the same testimony, that Italy first +woke to her own mind at the shock of the Lusitania murders.... + +The news came to me in my peaceful room above the Barberini Gardens. +The fountain was softly dripping below, the spring air was full of the +song of birds as another perfect day opened. The warm sunshine reached +lovingly up the yellowed walls of the old palace opposite. All the +little, old, familiar things of a long past, which pull so strongly +here in Rome at the human heart, were moving in the new day. The life +of men, so troubled, so sad, seemed beautiful this May morning, with +the suave beauty of ideals that for centuries have coursed through the +blood of Italy.... Luigi, the black-haired, black-eyed lad who brought +the morning coffee and newspapers, was telling me of the horrid crime. +With his outstretched fist clenched and shaking with rage he said the +words, then, dropping the paper with its heavy headlines, cursed it as +if it too symbolically represented the hideous thing that Germany had +become. "Now," he cried, "there'll be war! We shall fight them, the +swine!" A few days afterward Luigi departed to fight the "swine" on +some Alpine pass. + +Luigi's reaction to the sinking of the Lusitania was typical of all +Rome, all Italy. The same burst of execration and horror was in every +mouth. "Fuori i Barbari" was the title of a little anti-German sheet +that was appearing in Rome: it got a new significance as it hung in +the kiosks or was scanned by scowling men. It became the muttered cry +of the street. I am not simple enough to believe that the sinking of +the Lusitania of itself "drove Italy into the war." Nations no more +than individuals, alas, are idealistic enough to sacrifice themselves +simply for their moral resentments. But this fresh example of cynical +indifference to the opinion of civilization, just at the critical point +of decision for the Italian people, had much to do with the rousing of +that war fury without which no government can push a nation into war. +First there must be the spirit of hate, a personal emotion in the hearts +of many. It must be remembered also that Italy had felt with the entire +civilized world the outrage of Belgium. It has even been rumored that +one of the hard passages between Italy and her German allies was the +condition that Germany wished to attach to any Austrian concessions, +by which Italy at the peace conference should uphold Germany's "claims" +to Belgium. No one knows the truth about this, but if true it is in +itself an adequate explanation of the failure of the negotiations. And +now the Lusitania came with a fresh shock as an iterated example of +German state policy. It proclaimed glaringly to the eyes of all men +what the Teutonic thing is, what it means to the world. The Latin has +been cruel and bloody in his deeds, like all men, but he has never made +a cult of inhumanity, never justified it as a principle of statecraft. +Italians, prone to hate as to love, prone especially to hate the Teuton, +those aliens who have lusted after their richness and beauty all these +centuries, felt the Lusitania murders to the depths of their souls. It +was like a red writing on the wall, serving notice that in due season +Germany and Austria would tear Italy limb from limb because of her +"treachery" in not abetting them in their attack upon the peace of +the world. + +Prince von Bülow and Baron Macchio might as well have discontinued +their daily visits to the Consulta after the 7th of May. Whatever +they might have hoped to accomplish with their diplomacy to keep Italy +neutral had been irretrievably ruined by the diplomacy of Grand Admiral +von Tirpitz. The smallest match, the scratch of a boot-heel on stone, +can set off a powder magazine. The Lusitania was a goodly sized match. +If the King and his ministers were waiting for the country to declare +itself, if they wanted the excuse of national emotion before taking +the final irrevocable steps into war, they had their desire. From the +hour when the news of the sinking of the Lusitania came over the wires, +Italy began to mutter and shout. The months of hesitation were ended. +There were elements enough of hate, and Germany had given them all +focus. "Fuori i Barbari!" I bought a sheet from the old woman who +went hurrying up the street shouting hoarsely,--"Fuori i Barbari!" ... +"Fuori i Barbari!" ... "Barbari!".... + + + + +II + + +_The Politician Speaks_ + +Giovanni Giolitti came to Rome, a few days after the Lusitania affair. +Ostensibly he had come to town from his home in little Cavour, where he +had been in retirement all the winter, to visit a sick wife at Frascati. +Montecitorio, home of politicians, began to hum. Rome quivering with the +emotions of its great decision muttered. What did Giolitti's presence at +this eleventh hour signify? Remember what the shrewd American observer +had said the week before,--"Giolitti will tell the Italians what they +want." + +The master politician, the ex-Premier, the heir to Crispian policies, +was received at the railroad station by a few faithful friends, much +as Boss Barnes or Boss Penrose, returning from a voluntary exile in +New York or Pennsylvania, might be received by a few of the "boys." +They were Deputies from Montecitorio frock-coated and silk-hatted, +like politicians all the world over, not a popular throng of a hundred +thousand Romans singing and shouting, such as a few days later was to +gather in the piazza before the same station to greet the poet, +D'Annunzio. It is well to understand the significance of this +unobtrusive coming of the political leader at the moment, to realize +what sinister meaning it had for the existing Government, for the +Italian nation, for the Allies--for the world. + +The Italian Deputies who had been elected two years before, long before +even the astutest politician had any suspicion of the black cloud that +was to rise over Europe, were Giolittian by a great majority. Giolitti +was then the chief figure in Italian politics and controlled the Chamber +of Deputies. The Giolitti "machine," as we should say, was the only +machine worth mention in Italy. Rumor says that it was buttressed with +patronage as American machines are, and, more specifically, that Giolitti +when in power had diverted funds which should have gone into national +defense to political ends, also had deferred the bills of the Libyan +expedition so that at the outbreak of the war Italy found herself badly +in debt and with an army in need of everything. Soldiers drilled in the +autumn of 1914 in patent leathers or barefooted and dressed as they could, +while the Giolittian clubs and interests flourished. Also it was said +that the prefects of the provinces, who in the Italian system have large +powers, especially in influencing elections, were henchmen of the +politician. I do not know how just these accusations may be, nor how +true the more serious accusation shortly to be hurled abroad that +Giolitti had sold himself for German gold. The latter is easy to say +and hard to prove; the former is hard to prove and easy to believe--it +being the way of politicians the world over. + +However dull or bright Giolitti's personal honor may have been, +the Parliamentary situation was difficult in the extreme--one of +those absurd paradoxes of representative government liable to happen +any time. Here were five hundred-odd elected representatives of the +people owing allegiance, really, not to the King, not to the nation, +not to the responsible ministers in charge of the state, but to the +politician Giolitti. If they had been elected under the stress of +the war, after the 1st of August, 1914, they might not have been the +same personal representatives of Giovanni Giolitti. We cannot say. +Democracies are prone to be deceived in their chosen representatives: +they discover them mortgaged to a leader, secret or open. The Salandra +Government knew, of course, Giolitti's prejudices in favor of Italy's +old allies, disguised as patriotically _neutralista_ sympathies. He +had discreetly retired to little Cavour in Piedmont all the winter, +maintaining a disinterested aloofness throughout the prolonged +negotiations. Yet he knew, the Salandra Government and the King knew, +the people knew, that Giovanni Giolitti must be reckoned with before +Parliament could be opened to ratify the acts of the ministers, to +support them in whatever measures they had prepared to take. It would +be simple political insanity to open the Chamber before Giolitti had +been dealt with, leading to acrid discussions, scandal, the inevitable +downfall of the ministry, and political chaos. The nation must be united +and express itself unitedly by its legal mouthpieces before the world. + + * * * * * + +It has been said, I do not know with what truth, that Prince von Bülow had +informed the ex-Premier of Austria's ultimate concessions even before they +were presented to Salandra and Sonnino, and consequently that Giolitti was +precisely aware of the situation when he reached Rome. It is easy to +believe almost anything of a diplomacy that dealt with Giolitti in the +private rooms of a hotel after the downfall of the Salandra Government.... +At any rate, Giolitti went through the forms correctly: he called on the +Premier Salandra, the Foreign Minister Sonnino, who laid before the +ex-Premier the situation as it had shaped itself. Even the King received +him in private audience. So much was due to the leading politician of +Italy, who controlled, supposedly, a majority of the existing Parliament. +In a sense he held the Salandra Government in his hand, after the opening +of the Chamber, which could not be long delayed. + +Then the politician spoke. Rather, to be precise, he wrote a little note +to a faithful intimate, which was meant for the newspapers and got into +them at once. It was a very innocent little note of a few lines in which +he confided to "Caro Carlo" his opinion on the tense national situation: +better stay with the old allies--the Austrian offers seemed sufficiently +satisfactory. This may well have been a sincere, a patriotic judgment, as +sincere and patriotic as Bryan's resignation from the American Cabinet a +few weeks later. But Italians did not think so. Almost universally they +gave it other, sinister interpretations. Giolitti had been "bought," was +nothing more than the knavish mouthpiece of German intrigue. Giolitti +became overnight _traditore_, the arch-conspirator, the enemy of his +country! It must have staggered the politician, this sudden fury which +his innocent advice had roused. And, to condemn him, it is not necessary +to believe him to have been a knave bought by German gold. + +It is important to realize what happened overnight. Giolitti had +become the most hated, most denounced man in all Italy, and in so far +as he represented honest _neutralista_ sentiment the cause was dead. +If that was what the Salandra Government wanted to achieve, they had +got their desire. If, as the politicians say, they were "feeling out" +popular sentiment, they need no longer doubt what it was. Columns of +vituperation appeared in the anti-German newspapers, crowds began to +form and shout in the streets. "_Traditore_," hissed with every accent +of hate and scorn, filled the air. Giolitti's life was seriously in +danger--or the Government preferred to think so. The great apartment +house on the Via Cavour in which he lived was cordoned off by double +lines of troops. Cavalry kept guard, all day and half the night, before +the steps of Santa Maria Maggiore, ready to sweep through the crowded +streets in case the mob got out of hand. Other troops poured out of the +barracks over the city, doing _piquet a mato_ on all the main streets +and squares of the city. + +Giolitti had, indeed, swayed events,--"told the people what they +wanted,"--but not in the expected manner. He had revealed the nation +to itself, drifting on the verge of war, and they knew now that they +wanted nothing of Giolitti or neutrality or German compromises. They +wanted war with Austria. The remarkable fact is that a nation which had +submitted in passivity to absolute ignorance of the diplomatic exchanges, +waiting dumbly the decision that should determine its fate,--of which it +could be said that a large number, perhaps a majority, were neutral at +heart,--suddenly overnight awoke to a realization of the political +situation and rejected the prudent advice of their popular politician, +denounced him, and inferentially proclaimed themselves for war. At last +they had seen: they saw that the Salandra Government in which they had +confidence had come to the parting of the ways with Austria, and they +saw the hand of Giolitti trying to play the game of their ancient enemy. + +Then the Salandra Government did a bold, a dramatic thing: it resigned +in a body, leaving the King free to choose ministers who could obtain +the support of the Giolitti following in Parliament. It was inevitable, +it was simple, it was sincere, and it was masterly politics. The public +was aghast. At the eleventh hour the state was left thus leaderless +because its real desires were to be thwarted by a politician who took +his orders from the German Embassy. + +Thereupon the "demonstrations" against Giolitti, against Austria and +Germany, began in earnest. + + * * * * * + +The first popular "demonstration" which I saw in Rome was a harmless +enough affair, and for that matter none of them were really serious. +The Government always had the situation firmly in hand, with many +regiments of infantry, also cavalry, to reinforce the police, the secret +service, and the _carabinieri_, who alone might very well have handled +all the disorder that occurred. Never, I suspect, was there any more +demonstrating than the Government thought wise. The first occasion was +a little crowd of boys and youths,--not precisely riff-raff, rather like +our own college boys,--and they did less mischief than a few hundred +freshmen or sophomores would have done. They marched down the street from +the Piazza Tritone, shouting and carrying a couple of banners inscribed +with "Abasso Giolitti." They stoned a few signs, notably the one over the +empty office of the Austrian-Lloyd company, then, being turned from the +Corso and the Austrian Embassy by the police, they rushed back up the +hill to the Salandra residence, to hang about and yell themselves hoarse +in the hope of evoking something from the former Premier. The two poles +of the following "demonstrations" were the Salandra and the Giolitti +residences with occasional futile dashes into the Corso.... + +For the better part of a week these street excitements kept up, not +merely in Rome, but all over Italy: for that one week, while the King +sent for various public men and offered them the task of forming a +new ministry, which in every case was respectfully declined--as was +expected. + + * * * * * + +Why did the King not send for Giovanni Giolitti, the one statesman +who under ordinary circumstances might have expected a summons? +Neither Giolitti nor any of his intimates was invited to form a cabinet +and reëstablish constitutional government. Nothing would appear to be +more natural than that the leader of the Opposition, controlling a +majority of the Deputies, who avowedly represented a policy opposed +to that of the ministers who had resigned, should be asked himself to +take charge. But Giolitti was never asked, and daily the shouting in +the streets grew louder, more menacing, and the mood of the public more +tense. Nothing was plainer than that if Giolitti had a majority of the +Deputies, the people were not for him and his policies. The House of +Savoy, as the King so well put it, rules by expressing the will of the +people. Each day it was more evident what that will was. Giolitti, the +master politician, was being outplayed by mere honest men. They had used +him--as Germany had used him--to try out the temper of the nation. With +him they drew the _neutralista_ and pro-German fire beforehand, prudently, +not to be defeated by hostile party criticism in the Chamber. And when +they got through with the politician, they threw him out: literally they +intimated through the Minister of Public Safety that they would not be +responsible any longer for his personal safety. There was nothing for +him but to go--before Parliament had assembled! + +As Italy seethed and boiled, threatening to break into revolutionary +violence, while the King received one respectable nonentity after +another, who each time after a very brief consideration declined the +proffered responsibility, Giolitti must have thought that the life of +the politician is not an easy one. He was stoned when he appeared on +the streets in his motor. He had to sneak out of the city at dawn that +last day. Where was all the _neutralista_ sentiment so evident the first +months of the war? And where was the German influence supposed to be so +strong in the upper commercial classes? Germans as well as Austrians +were scurrying out of Italy as fast as they could. Their insinuating +multiplicity was proved by the numbers of shuttered shops. More hotels +along the Pincian, whose "Swiss" managers found it prudent to retire +over the Alps, were closed. Angry crowds swarmed about the Austrian +and German consulates, also the embassies when they could get through +the cordons of troops on the Piazza Colonna. Noisy Rome these days might +very well give rise to pessimistic reflections on the folly of popular +government to politicians like Giolitti and the Prince von Bülow, whose +obviously prudent policies were thus being upset by the "voice of the +piazza" led by a very literary poet! No doubt at this moment they would +point to Ferdinand of Bulgaria and the King of Greece as enlightened +monarchs who know how to secure their own safety by ignoring the will +of their peoples. But the end for Ferdinand and Constantine is not yet. + + * * * * * + +The trouble with the politician as with the trained diplomat is that +he never goes beneath the surface. He takes appearances for realities. +He has often lost that instinct of race which should enable him to +understand his own humanity. To a Giolitti, adept in the trading game +of political management, it must seem insane for Italy to plunge into +the war against powerful allies, who at just this time were triumphing +in West and East alike--all the more when the sentimental and trading +instincts of the populace might be partly satisfied with the concessions +so grudgingly wrung from Austria. It was not only rash: it was bad +politics! + +But what Giolitti and men of his stripe the world over cannot +understand is that the people are never as crafty and wise and mean as +their politicians. The people are still capable of honest emotions, of +heroic desires, of immense sacrifices. They love and hate and loathe +with simple hearts. The politician like the popular novelist makes the +fatal mistake of underrating his audience. And his audience will leave +him in the lurch at the crisis, as Italy left Giolitti. Italy was never +enthusiastic, as its enemies have charged, for a war of mere aggression, +for realizing the "aspirations" because Austria was in a tight place, +even for redeeming a million and a half more or less of expatriated +Italians in Austrian territory. Politicians and statesmen talked of +these matters, perforce; the people repeated them. For they were tangible +"causes." But what Italians hated was Austrian and German leadership--were +the "_barbari_" themselves, their ancient foe; and when told that they +had better continue to make their bed with the "_barbari_," they revolted. + +There are many men in every nation,--some of the politician type, some +of the aristocratic type, some of the business type,--who by interest +and temperament are timid and fundamentally cynical. They are pacifists +for profit. About them gather the uncourageous "intellectuals," who +believe in the potency of all established and dominating power whatever +it may be. But these "leading citizens" fortunately are a minority in +any democracy. They do most of the negotiating, much of the talking, but +when the crisis comes,--and the issue is out in the open for every one +to see,--they have to reckon with the instinctive majority, whose +emotional nature has not been dwarfed. That majority is not necessarily +the "rabble," the irresponsible and ignorant mob of the piazza as the +German Chancellor sees them: it is the great human army of "little +people," normal, simple, for the most part honest, whose selfish stake +in the community is not large enough to stifle their deepest instincts. +In them, I believe, lies the real idealism of any nation, also its plain +virtues and its abiding strength. + +The Italian situation was a difficult one, obviously. Public opinion +had been perplexed. There were the classes I have just mentioned, by +interest and temperament either pro-German or honestly neutral. There +was the radical mob that the year before had temporarily turned Italy +into republics. There was the unreliable South. And the hard-ground +peasants who feared, justly, heavier taxes and the further hardships +of war. And there were the millions of honest but undecided Italians +who hated Teutonism and all its deeds, who were intelligent enough to +realize the exposed situation of Italy, who felt the call of blood for +the "unredeemed," and the vaguer but none the less powerful call of +civilization from their northern kin--above all who responded to the +fervid historical idealism of the poet voicing the longing of their +souls to become once more the mighty nation they had been. These were +the people whose change of hearts and minds surprised Giolitti and the +Germans. + +What had been going on in those hearts of the plain people all these +months of the great war, Giolitti could not understand. It was another +Italy from the one he had charmed that rose at his prudent advice and +threw the bitter word "_traditore_" in his teeth and howled him out of +Rome. Traitor, yes! traitor to the loftier, bolder, finer longings of +their hearts to take their stand at all cost with their natural allies +in this last titanic struggle with the barbarians. It was this sort of +public that spoke in the piazza and whose voice prevailed. + + * * * * * + +The diplomat deals too exclusively with conventional persons, with the +sophisticated. The politician deals too exclusively with the successful, +with the commercial and exploiting classes. Giolitti's associations +were of this class. Like any other _bourgeoisie_ of finance and trade, +"big business" in Italy was on the side of the big German battalions, +who at this juncture were winning victories. Italy was peculiarly under +the influence of German and Austrian finance. One of its leading lending +banks--the Banca Commerciale--was a German concern. Most of its newer +developments had been accomplished with German capital, were run by German +engineers, equipped with German machines. Germany has bitterly reproached +her former ally for the "ingratitude" of siding against the people who had +brought her prosperity. Gratitude and ingratitude in business transactions +are meaningless terms. The lender gets his profit as well as the borrower, +usually before the borrower. If Italy has needed German capital, Germany +has needed the Italian markets and Italian industries for her capital. The +Germans surely have used Italy as their commercial colony. Italy bought +her bathtubs, her electric machines, her coal, and her engines from +Germany. For the past generation the German commercial traveler has been +as common in Italy as the German tourist. In fact, was there ever a German +tourist who was not in some sense a commercial agent for the Fatherland? + +To the international financier all this is simply intelligible--a matter +of mutually desirable exchange. No debtor nation should feel aggrieved +with a creditor nation: rather it should rejoice that it has attracted +the services of foreign capital. Is the international economist right +in his reasoning? Why does the delusion persist among plain people that +the creditor is not always a benefactor? It is a very old and persistent +delusion, so strong in the Middle Ages that interest was considered +illegal and the despised Jews were the only people who dared finance +the world. Abstractly the economists are undoubtedly right, yet I am +fain to believe that the popular notion has some ground of truth in it +too. Obviously, according to modern notions a country rich in natural +resources, but poor in capital, inherited savings, must borrow money to +"develop" itself. But granting for the moment that material exploitation +of a country is as desirable as our modern notions assume it to be, even +then there are reasons for grave suspicion of foreign lenders. Take abused +Mexico. Its woes are in good part traceable to the pernicious influence +upon its domestic politics of the foreign capital which its riches have +attracted. One might instance the United States as an example of +beneficial exploitation by foreign capital, but with us it must be +remembered the lender has had neither industrial nor political power. +We have always been strong enough to manage our affairs ourselves and +satisfy our creditors with their interest--if need be with their +principal. We have drawn on the European horde as upon an international +bank, but we have absolutely controlled the disposition of the moneys +borrowed. A weak country can hardly do that. Mexico could not. It had +to suffer the foreign exploiter, with his selfish intrigues, in person. +Italy has never been as weak as Mexico: it has maintained its own +government, its own civilization. But the increasing amount of foreign +investment, the increasing number of foreign "interests" in Italy, has +been evident to every Italian. The hotels, the factories, the shops all +testify patently to the presence of the stranger within the gates looking +after his own interests, breeding his money on Italian soil. + +But why not? the dispassionate internationalist may ask. Why should not +the Italian hotels be in the hands of Austrians, Germans, and Swiss; the +new electrical developments be installed and run by Germans; the shops +for tourists and Italians be owned by foreigners? There we cross the +unconscious instinct of nationality, which cannot be ignored. Assuming +that there is something precious, to be guarded as a chief treasure in +the instinct of nationality, as I assume, there are grave dangers in too +much friendly commercial "infiltration" from the outside. The indirect +influences of commercial exploitation with foreign capital are the +insidious, the dangerous ones. The dislike of the foreign trader, the +foreign creditor, may voice itself crudely as mere envy, know-nothingism, +but it has a healthy root in national self-preservation. For an Italian +the German article should be undesirable, especially if its possession +means accepting the German and his way of life along with his goods. The +small merchant and the peasant express their resentments of foreign +competition rawly, no doubt. Consciously it is half envy of the more +efficient stranger. Unconsciously they are voicing the deep traditions +of their ancestors, vindicating their race ideals, cherishing what is +most enduring in themselves. They would not see their country given over +to the stranger, whose life is not their life. + +One unpleasant aspect of the commercial invasion of Italy by the Teuton +was his liking to live there, and consequently the amount of real estate +which he was collecting on the Latin peninsula--so much that the lovely +environs of Naples were fast becoming a German principality! These +invaders were not traders, nor workers, but capitalists and exploiters. +The process is known now as "infiltration." The German had filtered into +Italy in every possible way, was supplanting its own native life with the +Teutonic thing, as it had in France so largely. Italy could well profit +from that experience of its sister nation. The Germans who filtered into +French life, commercial, industrial, social, were German first and last. +When the crisis came they turned from their adopted land, where they had +lived on terms of cordial hospitality for ten, twenty, thirty years, and +took themselves back to Germany, in many cases to reappear as the invader +at the head of armed troops. The experience of France proved that the +peaceful German resident was a German all the years of his life, not a +loyal, vital factor in his adopted country--too often something of a spy +as well. Therefore Italy might well be disturbed over the presence of so +much Teutonic "infiltration" in her own beloved land. And why should +Germany call her ungrateful when she sought to rid herself of her +unwelcome creditors? German capital had made its five per cent on its +investments, and better: it should not expect to absorb the life of the +nation also. + + * * * * * + +In every debtor nation there must be an element which profits directly +from the creditor relation. It assumes, naturally, the aspects of +"progress," and consists of the richer trading class and bankers, +sustainers of politicians. Such, I take it, were the followers of +Giolitti, and such was Giolitti himself, a sincere admirer of Teutonic +success and believer in the economic help which Germany could render +to his kind of Italian. Such men as Giolitti are easily impressed by +evidences of German superiority: they identify progress with the rapid +introduction of German plumbing, German hotel-keeping, German electric +devices, German banks. All these, they believe, help a "backward country" +to come forward. They do not understand the finer spiritual risks that +such material benefits may involve. They are not as sensitive as the +humble peasant, as simpler citizens, to the gradual sapping of the +precious national roots, of the internal debasement that may be going +on through the process of "infiltration." They are too prosperous, too +cosmopolitan to feel losses in national individuality. They realize +merely the better hotels, the better railways, the improved plumbing +in their country. Their souls are already half-Teutonized. + +In his dignified answer to the German Chancellor's vulgar attack on him +in the Reichstag, Salandra referred to the long history of the Italian +people, who "were civilized and leaders of the world" when the Teuton +hordes were still savage. It was the spirit of that ancient civilization +which did not consist primarily of industrial development that stirred +in the souls of true Italians and made them scorn the advice of the +Teutonized politician. He was "_traditore_" to all that nobler Italians +hold dear--to the Latin tradition. + + + + +III + + +_The Poet Speaks_ + +The poet prophet has so long abdicated his rights among us moderns +that we are incredulous when told that he has again exercised his +function. That is the reason why the story of a poet's part in leading +the Italian people toward their decision is received by Americans with +such skeptical humor. And Gabriele d' Annunzio in the rôle! A poet who +is popularly supposed to be decadent, if not degenerate, gossipingly +known for his celebrated affair with a famous actress, whose novels and +plays, when not denounced for their eroticism, are very much caviar to +the "wholesome" man, so full are they of a remote symbolism, so purely +"literary." "Exotic" is the chosen word for the more tolerant American +minds with which to describe the author of "Il Fuoco" and "San Sebastian." + +In recent years the Italian poet has abandoned his native land, living +in Paris, writing his last work in French, having apparently exiled +himself for the rest of his life and renounced his former Italianism. +Circumstances were stronger than the poet. The war came, and D'Annunzio +turned back to his native land. + + * * * * * + +He came to Italy at a critical moment and characteristically he filled +the moment with all the drama of which it was capable. His reappearance +in Italy, as every one knows, was due to the ceremonies in connection +with the unveiling of a monument to the famous Garibaldian band,--the +Thousand,--in the little village of Quarto outside of Genoa, from which +Garibaldi and his Thousand set forth on their march of liberation +fifty-five years ago. The monument had been long in the making. The +opportunity for patriotic instigation was heightened by the crisis of +the great war. The King and his ministers had indicated, previously, +their intention of participating in this national commemoration, but +as the day grew near and the political situation became more acute, +it was announced that the urgency of public affairs would not permit +the Government to leave Rome. It may have been the literal fact that +the situation precipitated by the presence of Giolitti demanded their +constant watchfulness. Or it may well have been that the King and the +Salandra Government had no intention of allowing their hand in this +dangerous game to be forced by any reckless fervor of the poet. They +were not ready, yet, to countenance his inflammation. At any rate, +they left the occasion solely to the poet. + +How he improved it may best be gathered from his address. To the +American reader, accustomed to a blunter appeal, the famous _Sagra_ +will seem singularly uninflammatory--intensely vague, and literary. +One wonders how it could fire that, vast throng which poured out along +the Genoa road and filled the little Garibaldian town. But one must +remember that nine months of hesitation had prepared Italian minds for +the poet's theme--the future of Italy. He linked the present crisis of +choice with the heroic memories of that first making of a nation, "_Oggi +sta sulla patria un giorno di porpora; e questo é un ritorno per una +nova dipartita, o gente d'Italia!_"--A purple day is dawning for the +Fatherland and this is a return for a new departure, O people of Italy! +The return for the new departure--to make a larger, greater Italy, just +as the Thousand had departed from this spot to gather the fragments of +a nation into one. "All that you are, all that you have, and yourselves, +give it to the flame-bearing Italy!" And in conclusion he invoked in a +new beatitude the strong youth of Italy who must bear their country to +these new triumphs: "O happy those who have more because they can give +more, can burn more.... Happy those youths who are famished for glory, +because they will be appeased.... Happy the pure in heart, happy those +who return with victory, because they will see the new face of Rome, +the recrowned brow of Dante, the triumphal beauty of Italy." + +The youth of Italy avidly seized upon the poet's appeal. The _Sagra_ +was read in the wineshops of little villages, on the streets of the +cities. The voice of the poet reached to that fount of racial idealism, +of patriotism, that glows in the hearts of all real Italians. He tied +their heroic past with the heroic opportunity of the present. And he +did not speak of the "unredeemed" or of the "aspirations." Instead, +"This is a return for a new departure, O people of Italy!" + +The politician, awaiting in Rome the effect of his advice to choose +the safe path, must have wondered, as too many Americans wondered, +how this poet fellow could stir such mad passion by his fine figures +of birds and sea! But there was a spirit abroad in Italy that would +not be appeased with "compensations": the poet had the following of +all "young Italy." + + * * * * * + +D'Annunzio came to Rome. Not at once. A whole week elapsed after the +_Sagra_ at Quarto, the 5th of May, before he reached Rome--a week of +growing tumult, of anti-Giolitti demonstrations, in which his glowing +words could sink like hot wine into the hearts of the people. The delay +was well considered. If the poet had seized the occasion of Quarto, he +made his appearance on the larger scene after the interest of the whole +nation had been heightened by reading his address. + +I was one of the immense throng that awaited the arrival of the train +bringing D'Annunzio to the capital. The great bare place before the +terminal station was packed with a patient crowd. The windows of the +massive buildings flanking the square were filled with faces. There +were faces everywhere, as far as the recesses of the National Museum, +around the flamboyant fountain, up the avenues. There were soldiers +also, many of them, inside and outside of the station, to prevent any +excessive disturbance, part of the remarkable precaution with which +the Government was hedging every act. But the soldiers were not needed. +The huge throng that waited hour after hour to greet the poet was not +rabble: it was a quiet, respectable, orderly concourse of Romans. There +was a preponderance of men over women, of youth over middle age, as was +natural, but so far as their behavior went, they were as self-contained +a "mob" as one might find in Berlin. + +The train arrived about dusk, as the great electric lamps began to +shine above the sea of white faces. To most the arrival was evident +merely from the swaying of the dense human mass, from the cadence +of the Garibaldian Hymn that rose into the air from thousands of +throats. As room was made for the motor-car, one could see a slight +figure, a gray face, swallowed up in the surging mass. Then the crowd +broke on the run to follow the motor-car to the hotel on the Pincian +where the poet was to stay. The newspapers said there were a hundred +and fifty thousand people before the Regina Hotel in the Via Veneto +and the adjacent streets. I cannot say. All the way from the Piazza +Tritone to the Borghese Gardens, even to the Villa Malta where Prince +von Bülow lived, the crowd packed, in the hope of hearing some words +from the poet. The words of Mameli's "L'Inno" rose in the twilight +air. At last the little gray figure appeared on the balcony above the +throng.... + +It is impossible to give an adequate idea of the effect of what D'Annunzio +said. His words fell like moulded bronze into the stillness, one by one, +with an extraordinary distinctness, an intensity that made them vibrate +through the mass of humanity. They were filled with historical allusions +that any stranger must miss in part, but that touched the fibers of his +hearers. He seized, as he had at Quarto, on the triumphant advance of the +liberating Thousand and recounted the inspiring incidents of that day +fifty years and more ago. As I stood in that huge crowd listening to the +poet's words as they fell into the thirsty hearts of the people,--who +were weary with too much negotiation,--I realized as never before that +speech is given to man for more than reason. The words were not merely +beautiful in themselves: they flamed with passion and they touched into +flame that something of heroic passion in the hearts of all men which +makes them transcend themselves. The crowd sighed as if it saw visions, +and there rose instinctively in response the familiar strains of the +Garibaldian Hymn. + +Italy had found its voice! The poet did not speak of "compensations," +a little more of Trent and Trieste, of a more strategic frontier. He +stirred them with visions of their past and their future. He voiced +their scorns. "We are not, we will not be a museum, an inn, a picnic +ground, an horizon in Prussian blue for international honeymoons!... +Our genius calls us to put our imprint on the molten matter of the new +world.... Let there breathe once more in our heaven that air which flames +in the prodigious song of Dante in which he describes the flight of the +Roman eagle, of your eagle, citizens!... Italy is arming, not for the +burlesque, but for a serious combat.... _Viva, viva Roma_, without shame, +_viva_ the great and pure Italy!" + +That was the voice which called Italy into the war: the will that +Italy should live "ever grander, ever purer, without shame." The poet +spoke to the Latin in the souls of his hearers. + + * * * * * + +He spoke again a number of times. In those feverish days when the +nation was in a ferment, the restless youth of Rome would rush in +crowds to the hotel on the Pincian and wait there patiently for their +poet to counsel them. He gratified their desire, not often, and each +time that he spoke he stung them to a fuller consciousness of will. +He spoke of the larger Italy to be, and they knew that he did not mean +an enlargement of boundaries. He spoke clearly, briefly, intensely. +It was once more the indubitable voice of the poet and prophet raised +in the land of great poetry. + +D'Annunzio grew bolder. He recognized openly his antagonist--the traitor. +The most dramatic of his little speeches was at the Costanzi Theater +where a trivial operetta was being given, which was quickly swept into +the wings. After the uproar on his entrance had been somewhat stilled, +he spoke of Von Bülow and Giolitti and their efforts to thwart the will +of the nation. + +"This betrayal is inspired, instigated, abetted by a foreigner. It is +committed by an Italian statesman, a member of the Italian Parliament +in collusion with this foreigner to debase, to enslave, to dishonor +Italy.".... _Traditore!_ I never thought to hear the word off the +operatic stage. From D'Annunzio's lips it fell like a wave of fire +upon that inflammable audience. A grizzled, well-dressed citizen +suddenly leaped to his feet, yelling,--"I will drink his blood, the +traitor.... Death to Giolitti!".... + +While the big theater rocked and stormed with passion, outside on +the Via Viminale barricades were being hastily thrown up. The cavalry, +that had been sitting their mounts all day before Santa Maria Maggiore +guarding the unwelcome Giolitti from the angry mob, had charged the +packed street, sweeping it clear with the ugly sound of horses' hoofs +on pavement and cries of hunted men and women. That was the end. The +next morning, be it remembered, the politician sneaked away, and two +days afterwards the Salandra Government returned to power. Rome, all +Italy, became suddenly calm, purged of its passion, awaiting confidently +the reopening of Parliament. + +The Government had won. The people had won. The poet had beaten the +politician. For his was the voice to which the great mass of his +countrymen responded. + + * * * * * + +D'Annunzio spoke again admirably at those great gatherings of concord +when the citizens of Rome assembled in the Piazza del Popolo and in the +Campidolgio. The poet had made himself the spokesman of the new Italy +which had found itself in the storm of the past agonizing weeks, and as +such he was recognized by the Government. The King and the ministers +accorded him audiences; he was given a commission in the army and +attached to the general staff. Wherever he appeared he was received +with acclamations, with all the honor that is accorded the one who can +interpret nobly the soul of a nation. And the poet deserved all the +recognition which he received--the throngs, the flowers, the _vivas_, +the adoration of Italian youths. For he alone, one might say, raised +the crisis from the wallow of sordid bargaining, from the tawdriness +of sentiment, to a purer passion of Latin ambition and patriotism. He +loftily recalled to his countrymen the finer ideals of their past. He +made them feel themselves Latin, guardians of civilization, not traders +for safety and profit. + + * * * * * + +Germans, naturally, have had bitter things to say about D'Annunzio. +German sympathizers in America as well as the German Chancellor have +sneered at the influence wielded in Italy's crisis by a "decadent" +poet. Even among American lovers of Italy there has been skepticism +of the sincerity of a national mind so easily swayed by a man who "is +not nice to women." A peculiarly American view that hardly needs +comment! + +Is it not wiser to assume that the case of D'Annunzio was really +the case of Italy itself--conversion? The deepest passion in the +poet's life came to him when, a voluntary exile in France, he witnessed +the splendid reawakening of French spirit in face of awful danger. +Living in Paris during the early months of the cataclysm, witness of +the mobilization, the rape of Belgium, and the turn at the Marne, the +heroic struggle for national existence in the winter trenches, he saw +with a poet's vision what France was at death-grips with, what the +Allies were fighting for, was not territorial gains or glory or even +altogether selfish self-preservation, but rather, more deeply, for +the existence of a certain humanity. This world war he realized is no +local quarrel: it is the greatest of world decisions in the making. +And the man himself was transfigured by it: he found himself in his +greatest passion as Italy found herself at her greatest crisis. Latin +that he is, he divined the inner meaning of the confused issues presented +to the puzzled world. He was fired with the desire to light from his +inspiration his own hesitant, confused people, to voice for them the +call to the Latin soul that he had heard. For Italy, most Latin of all +the heirs of Rome, with her tragic and heroic past, the war must be not +a winning of a little Austrian territory, the redeeming of a few lost +Italians, but a fight for the world's best tradition against the forces +of death. Once more it was "_Fuori i barbari_," as it had been with her +Latin ancestors. + +It seems to me no great mystery. + +In the poet's writing there are passages of a large historical +understanding. Of all modern writers he is foremost Latin, in +knowledge, in instinct for beauty and form, in love of tradition. +Even in his erotic and mystical passages this vein of purest gold +may be seen, this understanding of the potential greatness of the +tradition into which he was born. What wonder, then, that the first +fundamental passion of the mature man's soul should be his desire to +proclaim once more the cause of Latin civilization, should be the +ardor of fighting in his own manner with his weapon of inspired words +the world battle? So it seemed to me as I listened to his voice in +the stillness of that May night. The voice of Roman glory, of ancient +ideals awoke an answering passion in the hearts of the thousands who +had gathered there. "_Una grande e pura Italia ... sensa onta_." And +it would be a lasting shame for Italy to keep out of the struggle +that the allied nations were making, to take her "compensations" +prudently and shrink back within a cowardly neutrality. Better any +other fate. + +So it seemed to that throng of eager, soul-hungry Italians who stood +beneath the balcony of the hotel on the Pincian and drank the poet's +fiery message like a full-bodied wine. At last they had found +themselves. + + + + +IV + + +_The Piazza Speaks_ + +"The voice of the piazza prevailed," the German Chancellor sneered +in his denunciation of Italy at the conclusion. It can easily be +imagined, the picture he made to himself, in his ugly northern office +on Friedrichstrasse, of the influence that upset all German pressure +and sent Italy into the war on the side of the Allies; that defeated +the industry of the skilled ambassador, the will of the wily politician. +The Chancellor saw one of those large public squares in which Latin +countries abound, open centers in their close-built cities, where so +much of the common life of the people goes on, now as it has for hundreds +of years. For the piazza, descending in direct tradition from the ancient +Forum, is the public hall of citizens, where they trade, gossip, quarrel, +plot, love, and hate, from the crone sunning herself in a sheltered nook +over her bag of chestnuts to the grandee whose palace windows open above +the noisy commonalty. The Chancellor saw this common meeting-ground, this +glorified street, filled with a ragged mob of "the baser quality," as on +the operatic stage, emptily vocal or evilly skulking for mischief, like +the _mafia_, the _apache_. He saw this loose gathering of irresponsibles +suddenly stirred to evanescent passion against the real benefactors of +their country by the secret agents of the Allies, "corrupted by English +gold," in the mechanical melodrama of the German imagination, marching +to and fro, attacking the shops and homes of worthy Germans, howling and +stoning, by mere noise drowning the sober protests of reflecting citizens, +intimidating a weak king, connived at by a bought government, pushing a +whole nation into the bloody sacrifice of war out of mere recklessness of +rioting--a piazza filled with the rabble minority who have nothing to lose +because they neither fight nor pay. + + * * * * * + +Such a picture, reflected in Bethmann-Hollweg's splenetic phrase, +is a complete delusion of the German mind. I was in Rome and saw the +real piazza at work. I was on the streets all hours of day and night, +and what I saw was nothing like the trite imaginings of the German +Chancellor. As I have said in a previous chapter, the "demonstrations" +did not begin in any perceptible form until the bungling hand of Prince +von Bülow betrayed his intrigue with Giolitti and the politician's +intention of defeating the Salandra Government in its preparations for +war became evident. At no time did the rioting in the streets equal the +violence of what a third-class strike in an American mill town can +produce. Such as it was the Government showed the determination and +ability to keep it strictly within bounds. Rome was filled with troops. +Alleyways and courtyards oozed troops at the first shouts from the +piazza: the danger points of the Corso, especially the Piazza Colonna +on which the Chigi Palace, the residence of the Austrian Ambassador, +fronts, were kept almost constantly empty by cordons of troops. All +told, the destruction done by the mobs could not have amounted to +several hundred dollars--a few signs and shop windows smashed, a few +pavements torn up in the Via Viminale. It is true that after war was +declared upon Austria there was some pillage of Austrian and German +shops in Milan, which has been greatly exaggerated by the German and +pro-German press; it was nothing worse than what happened in Berlin +to English residents in August, 1914. And the Italian Government +immediately took severe measures with the officials who had permitted +the disorders--removing the prefect and the military commander of +Milan. + +There is no saying, of course, what might have happened had the King +offered the premiership to Giolitti, and had that astute politician +been rash enough to accept the responsibility of forming a government +in accord with his own _neutralista_ sympathies. It is more than +likely that revolution would have ensued: possibly Italy would have +entered the war as a republic. For the Italians are not Greeks, as +has been amply proved. But the King of Italy, whatever his own +sympathies may have been, showed plainly that he had enough political +understanding not to run counter to the expressed will of his people, +to deal with the "traitor." After a week of tempestuous inter-regnum, +in which the piazza expressed itself passionately, the Salandra +Government returned to power with all which that implied in foreign +policy. Then the piazza became quiet. If the piazza must shoulder the +responsibility of Italy's decision, it must be credited with knowing +marvelously well its own mind. + + * * * * * + +The constitution of this "mob" is worth attention. I saw it at +many angles. I followed its first erratic flights through the streets +when Salandra resigned and a gaping void opened before the nation. I +waited for the poet's arrival at the Roman station, for hours, while +the dense throng of men and women pressed into the great square and +swelled like a dark pool into the adjoining streets. And I followed +with the "piazza" in its instinctive rush to the hotel on the Pincian +Hill to hear the voice of its spokesman. Again I was in the Corso when +the plumed cavalry cleared the surging mass from the Piazza Venezia to +the Piazza Colonna. I heard the people yell, "Death to the traitor +Giolitti!" and "_Fuori i barbari!_" and sing Mameli's "L'Inno." I saw +the uproar melt away in the soft darkness of the Roman nights, leaving +the cavalry at their vigil before Santa Maria Maggiore, guarding the +repose of Giovanni Giolitti. + +I can testify that the "piazza" was composed very largely of perfectly +respectable folk like myself. It varied more or less as chance gatherings +of men will vary. Sometimes there were more workingmen in dirty clothes, +sometimes more youths and boys with their banners, sometimes more +shouters and fewer actors. But the core of it was always that same mass +of common citizenship that gathered anciently in the Forum, that to-day +goes orderly enough to the polls in New York or Chicago,--plain men, +rather young than old, who are so distinctly left on the outside of +affairs, who must perforce turn to the newspaper for information and +to the open street for expression, who relieve themselves of uncomplex +emotions by shouting, and who symbolize the things they hate to the +depth of their souls with personalities like Giolitti and occasionally +shy bricks at the guarded home of authority. All this, yes, but not +"riff-raff," not anarchist, nor _mafia_, nor _apache_. Nothing of that +did I see those days and nights. + +The greeting to D'Annunzio was made by men of the professional and +intellectual classes I should say, having wormed my way in and out +of that vast piazza gathering. The daily crowds before the poet's +hotel were composed chiefly of youths, at school or college, others +in working dress. The noisiest, most inflammable of all these mobs +was that in the Costanzi Theater the evening of D'Annunzio's appearance +there. They were citizens--and their wives--who could afford to pay +the not inconsiderable price charged--and seats were at a premium. +The men around me in evening dress, who were by no means silent, came +from the "classes" rather than the masses. The crowds that hung about +the Corso and the adjacent squares were more mixed, but they held a +goodly proportion of the frequenters of the Café Arragno. The worst +that could be said against these casual gatherings was their youth. +It is the way of youth to vent its passion in speech, to move and not +to stand. Middle age stood on the sidewalks and watched, sympathetically. +Old age looked down from the windows, contemplatively. But both old +age and middle age consorted with youth in the great meetings of +consecration in the Piazza del Popolo and the Campidolgio, after the +will of the people had prevailed. And after all, youth must fight the +wars, and pay for them for long years afterwards--why should it not +have its say in the making of them as well as middle age and old age? +The youths in the ranks of the patient, good-natured soldiers who did +_piquet a mato_ all day and half the night in the Roman streets during +that vocal week while the piazza spoke, were openly sympathetic with +the mobs they were holding down. I knew some of the gray-clad boys. +I strolled along the lines and saw the smiles, heard the chaffing +give-and-take of citizen and soldier as the mob tried to rush through +the double ranks that cordoned the streets. There was no hatred there, +no violent conflict with authority. Each understood the other. The young +officers seemed to say to the crowd,--"You may howl all you like, you +fellows, but you mustn't throw stones or make a mess.... What's the +good! War is coming anyway in a few days--they can't talk it away!" +And the crowd replied heartily,--"You are all right. We understand +each other. You are doing your duty. Soon you will be doing something +better worth while than policing streets and saving that traitor +Giolitti's skin from us. You will be chasing the Austrians out of +Italian territory, and many of us will be with you then!" And the +young officers looked the other way when the members of the "mob" +offered the tired soldiers cigarettes and chocolate, and sometimes +slipped through the cordon on private business within the forbidden +area. Only once, once only in all the excitement did the long-haired +horsemen clatter through the streets in a serious charge, scattering +the shrieking pedestrians. That was by way of warning, possibly as +much to the Government as to the populace. + +Then the decision was made, and after the Salandra Ministry, in +whom the people had confidence, had returned to power, the ministry +that had broken with Austria and refused her grudging compromises, +the piazza purred like doves and listened to long patriotic speeches +from "representative citizens." No soldiers were needed to keep order +in these immense gatherings. For all were citizens, then, piazza and +palace alike in the face of war. + + * * * * * + +One easily understands the German Chancellor's scorn over any irregular +expression of public opinion, his disgust that the loose public in the +streets dares to vent any emotion or will other than that suggested to +it by a strong government, above all daring to voice it passionately. +In a nation such as Germany, where the franchise is so hedged about +that even those who have it cannot effectively express their wills, +where political opinion is supplied from a central fount of authority, +where the nation goes into war at the command of the Kaiser and his +military advisers, where a war of "defense" and all other national +interests are controlled by the "high commandment," consisting at the +most of forty or fifty men, while the remaining sixty-five millions of +the people are obedient puppets, nourished on falsehoods, where the +popular emotion can be turned on like an electric current at the order +of the "high commandment,"--now against this enemy, now against that +one,--first hate of English, then hate of Italians, now hate of +Americans--it is natural that a high government functionary should +despise all popular effervescence and misread its manifestations as +merely the meretricious, bought noise of the mob, quickly roused in +the Southern temperament and badly controlled by a weak, and probably +corrupt, government. The elements in the piazza have no power in the +close organization of Germany, no political expression whatever: all +good citizens are instructed by a carefully controlled press how to +think and feel and speak. To my thinking it is rather to the glory of +the Latin temperament that it cannot be throttled and guided like the +more docile Teuton nature, that when it feels vividly it will express +itself, and that it can feel vividly, unselfishly in international +concerns. The Latin cannot be made to march in blind obedience into +the jaws of death. The piazza merely shouted what Italy had come to +feel, that Teutonic domination would be intolerable, that at all cost +the Austro-German ambitions must be checked, and the Latin tradition +vindicated and made to endure. It was proved by the marvelous content, +the fervid unanimity of patriotism that spread over Italy, once the +great decision had been made. + + * * * * * + +Since those full May weeks the world has had an example of what no +doubt the Imperial Chancellor considers the suitable method of dealing +with popular sentiment. The sympathies of Greeks and Rumanians have +been, since the opening of the war, with the allied nations, yet +their Teutonized sovereigns have kept both countries from declaring +themselves in favor of the Allies. The King of Greece has stretched +the constitution to preserve a distasteful neutrality, which, if it +were not for the failure of the Allies to make impressive gains in +the first year of the war, would have doubtless cost him his crown. +The Balkan States are near enough the actual theater of war to suffer +acutely from fear, and a natural timidity worked upon by many German +agents, more successfully than Prince von Bülow, has thus far kept the +people of Rumania and Greece passive in a false neutrality. Bulgaria +is a fine example of the perfect working of the German method. The +piazza certainly had no hand in the intrigues of King Ferdinand of +Bulgaria. The representatives of his people urged him to maintain at +least neutrality, not to put the nation at war with its blood kin, +against its best interest. But the thing had all been "arranged" +between the German King of Bulgaria and the German Government through +"negotiation." Germany had been successful in buying the coöperation +of Bulgaria as it tried to buy Italy's neutrality, at the expense of +Austria. There were other factors in the case of Bulgaria that worked +to the German advantage, but the method is clear. Not the voice of the +piazza, but the secret agreement of "responsible government," in other +words, the control of despotic, German rulers. Italy may well be proud +that she has a sovereign who faithfully interprets his responsibility of +rule in a constitutional state and executes the will of his people--who +listens also to the voice of the piazza, not merely to the arguments of +the foreign diplomat. And Italy may also be proud that the piazza spoke +at a dark hour in the Allies' cause, if not the darkest, when German +arms were prevailing in the East; if the dangers of German conquest were +not as close to Italy as with the Balkan States, they were not remote, +as German threats too plainly showed. + +The Venezelos-Zaimis situation was impossible in Italy, though the +circumstances were almost parallel, with Salandra and Giolitti. The +piazza knew the deep Biblical truth, "He who is not for me is against +me," and execrated the professed _neutralista_ Giolitti. But the Greeks, +it seems, are more easily managed by a "strong" government and a German +king. The end, however, is not yet in sight. It remains to be seen +whether the path of prudent passivity is the safe one, even selfishly. + + * * * * * + +Why, after all, should we feel so apologetic for the voice of the piazza? +All popular government, even in the limited form of a constitutional +monarchy such as Italy, is a rough, uncertain affair. "The House of Savoy +rules by executing the will of the Italian people." Good! But how is that +popular will to be determined? Not, surely, by taking a poll of the five +hundred-odd Deputies of the Italian Parliament elected two years before +the world was upset by the Teuton desire to rule. Those Deputies were +chosen, as we Americans know only too well how, by mean intrigues of party +machines, by clever manipulation of trained politicians like Giovanni +Giolitti, who by their control of appointed servants--the prefects of the +provinces--can throw the elections as they will, can even disfranchise +unfriendly elements of the population. Manhood suffrage is not a precise, +a scientific method of getting at public opinion. It is possibly the least +accurate method of gauging the will of a people. Something other than the +poll is needed to resolve the will of a nation. And when that will is +determined it makes little odds what instrumentality expresses it. Even +the Giolittian Deputies, when brought to the urn for a secret vote on the +Salandra measures a week after the lively expression of popular will in +the piazza, voted--secretly--against their neutral leader, in favor of +war! They had been converted by the voice of the piazza--by other things +also in all likelihood. If their votes had been taken ten days before, +when Giolitti first arrived in Rome, the result would have been far +different: as Salandra and his colleagues knew. In the end the Italian +Parliament merely registered the will of the people, both men and women, +which expressed itself, as it always must, in diverse ways, through the +press, by the voice of the piazza, in public and private discussion, +flightily, weightily, passionately, timidly. + + * * * * * + +Will, individual or collective, is a mysterious force. What enters into +that act of decision which results in will is never wholly apparent, from +the least to the gravest matters. And no scheme of government, which +admits the right of the individual citizen, plain and exalted alike, +to be heard and obeyed, has discovered a perfect way of polling this +collective will of the nation. Our electoral representative method and +majority vote is surely rough, though better than the Bulgarian way. That +right to vote, for which our women are so eagerly striving, as thinking +men realize only too well, is an empty privilege. The will of a people is +inaccurately registered, not made, by the vote. The voice of the piazza +when deep enough and strong enough is as good as any other way, perhaps, +of determining the collective will of a nation in a crisis; surely far +better than the secret way of Ferdinand of Bulgaria. Further, the reason +of the piazza on any vital fundamental matter, such as war, which means +life or death, is as sure as your intelligence or mine, possibly surer, +because the piazza, having less to lose or gain, feels and believes and +acts more simply, basically. The Roman piazza, the people of Italy, +reacted to the crime against Belgium, to the atrocities committed on +priests and women and children, to the murders of the Lusitania,--all +deeds of that ancient enemy whose barbarism had now reappeared, after +centuries, under an intellectual and sophisticated mask with a blasphemous +perversion of religious sanction. They reacted also, it might be, to their +own sense of personal danger from an unprotected frontier dividing them +from this unscrupulous enemy, to the wrongs of some thousands of Italians +condemned to live under Austrian rule and fight her battles against their +friends. They responded also to the glory of Garibaldi's Thousand, who had +liberated their fathers from foreign domination and made a nation out of +Italy, and they responded to the great past of their people from whom the +essential elements of what men know to-day as civilization has spread over +the world. All these emotions were hidden in that one cry,--"Out with the +barbarians!" + +The voice of the piazza, with its simple unanimity, its childlike +psychology, came nearer to expressing the soul of Italy than the German +Chancellor can comprehend, than any sophisticated diplomat, who has +associated only with "thinking" and "leading" people, can believe. The +Latin soul of Italy which cursed its politician and thrilled at the words +of its poet! That soul of a people which is greater than any individual, +which somehow expresses itself more authoritatively through the simple +people who must suffer for their faiths than through the intellectuals +and the protected members of a society.... + +"_Viva Italia!_" the tanned conscript leaning from the car window at +Subiaco shouted back to his friends and home. And the old men and girls +left in the fields raised their hats as the train passed and shouted in +reply,--"_Viva Italia!_" It was not English gold, nor the desire for +Trent and Trieste, that brought that cry to the boy's lips! + + + + +V + + +_Italy Decides_ + +Whatever one may think of the piazza voice, whether the disposition is +to sneer with the German or to trust with the democrat in its spontaneous +expression, it is a matter of history now that Italy's decision had been +made before the question came to a vote in the Chamber of Deputies, a +fortnight or more before the reluctant ambassadors of the ex-Alliance +backed into their waiting trains and departed homeward across the Alps. +It is a significant fact of personal psychology that the crisis of a +decision takes place before action results to calm the disturbed mind. So +it was with Italy. Her decision had really been taken when the Lusitania +sank, when the politician, in face of this fresh outrage, advised the +safer course of neutrality, which would amount to a connivance with her +former associates in their predatory programme. _Traditore!_ meant but +one thing--a betrayal of the nation's soul. In the light of more recent +events, since Italy entered the war, there are probably many Italians who +secretly wish that the safer counsel had prevailed, that, like Greece and +Rumania, Italy had "preserved a benevolent neutrality" in the great war, +even possibly that she had concluded to make her bed in the Teutonic camp. +If the world is to be Teutonized, they would argue, why put one's head in +the wolf's jaw! There are prudent people of that stripe in every nation, +but since the end of May they have kept silence in Italy. And it should be +forever remembered to her honor that Italy made her decision in face of +Teutonic successes. If the military situation did not look so black for +the Allies at the end of May as it does this December, it looked black +enough with the crumbling Russian resistance before Mackensen's phalanx. +Neuve Chapelle had been a costly and empty victory. There had been no +successful drive in Champagne and Artois to encourage those who bet only +on winning cards. There were heavy clouds in the east, merely a sad +silence along the western wall. It was long past Easter, when England +had boastfully expected to open the Dardanelles and the truth was +beginning to appear that Constantinople might never be reached by the +allied operations in Gallipoli. Italy threw in her lot with the Allies +in a dark hour, if not the darkest. + +The great decision which had lain in solution in the hearts of the +people was evoked by events and made vocal by the flaming words of +D'Annunzio, interpreted by a faithful king, who resisted the temptation +to dethrone himself by calling Germany's hired man to power, and finally +registered by the Deputies at Montecitorio on May 19. It was virtually +made, I say, the tumultuous week that came on the resignation of the +Salandra Government. What followed the return of the ministry to power +was merely automatic, as peaceful as any day's routine. Parliament was +called to meet on Wednesday, the 19th. The Sunday afternoon before, the +piazza, and the palace and all other elements of Roman citizenship met +in a great gathering of content and consecration at the foot of the +Pincian Hill in the Piazza del Popolo, again the day after in the +Campidolgio above the Forum. How fortunate a people are to have such +hallowed places of meeting, steeped in associations of great events! + +It was a warm, brilliant, sunny day, that Sunday, and in the afternoon +every one in Rome, it seemed, was as near the Piazza del Popolo as he +could get. The meeting was addressed by a number of well-known Romans +of varied political affiliations. But the high note of all the speeches +was a fervid patriotism and harmony. Rome was calm, believing that it had +chosen nobly if not wisely. On the Campidolgio, D'Annunzio again sounded +the tocsin of the heroic Thousand, and lauded the army which had been +belittled by the followers of Giolitti. Already the troops were leaving +Rome.... Then Parliament opened. The meeting of the Deputies if memorable +was short. The square and streets about Montecitorio had been carefully +cleared and held empty by cordons of troops. There was to be no shouting, +no demonstration within hearing of Parliament. Long before midday the +Chamber was crowded with all the notables who could gain admission. The +proceedings were extremely brief, formal. All knew that the die had been +cast: what remained was for the army to accomplish. The Premier Salandra +made a brief statement summarizing the diplomatic efforts that his +Government had undertaken to reach a satisfactory understanding with +Austria, the record of which could be followed in the "Green Book," +which was then given to the public. He informed the Chamber, what was +generally known, that the Triple Alliance had already been denounced on +the 5th of May, and he offered a "project of law," which was tantamount +to a vote of confidence in the Government and which also gave the King +and his ministers power to make war and to govern the country during the +period of war without the intervention of Parliament. It thus authorized +both the past acts of the Salandra Ministry and its future course. The +measure, undebated, was voted on secretly. And it is significant that of +more than five hundred Deputies present only seventy-two voted in the +negative. Of these seventy-two who voted against the Government, some +were out-and-out _neutralistas_, and some few were Socialists who had +the courage of their convictions. The great majority of the Giolittians +must have voted for war. Had they seen a great light since the piazza +raised its voice, since their leader had fallen from his high place? +Possibly they had never been with Giolitti on this vital national +question. At least, the fact illustrates how representative government +does roughly perform the will of its people when that will is clear +enough and passionate enough: the will registers itself even through +unwilling instruments. + +After the vote had been taken, the Chamber adjourned, and when the +following day the Senate ratified, unanimously, the action of the +Chamber of Deputies, Parliament was dissolved. Many of the members +enlisted and went to the front. Since the end of May Italy has been +autocratically governed. The decrees of the King and his ministers +are law--an efficient method of governing a country at war, avoiding +those legislative intrigues that latterly have threatened the concord +of France. + +It is noteworthy that the Italian Senate voted unanimously for war. +The Senate is not an elective body. It is composed of dignitaries, old, +conservative men from the successful classes of the nation, who are not +easily swayed by the emotions of the piazza. From this unrepresentative +body might have been expected a show of resistance to the Government's +measure, if, as Giolitti and the German party asserted, there was a +serious sentiment in the country in favor of neutrality which had been +howled down by the mobs. It is inconceivable that such a body could have +been completely cowed by rioting in the streets. The unanimous vote of +the Italian Senators is sufficient refutation of the Bethmann-Hollweg +slur. + + * * * * * + +As I crossed the Piazza Colonna the morning Parliament opened, my +attention was caught by a small crowd before a billboard. First one, +then another passer-by stopped, read something affixed there, and, +smiling or laughing, passed on his way. In the center of the board was +a small black-bordered sheet of paper, with all the mourning emblems, +precisely resembling those mortuary announcements which Latin countries +employ. It read: "Giovanni Giolitti, this day taken to himself by the +Devil, lamented by his faithful friends"; and there followed a list of +noted Giolittians, some of whom even then were voting for war with +Austria. A bit of Roman ribaldry, specimen of that ebullition of the +piazza disdained by the German Chancellor; nevertheless, it must have +bit through the hide of the politician, who for the sake of his safety +was not among the Deputies voting at Montecitorio. Later I read in a +Paris newspaper that Giolitti was to spend the summer as far away from +the disturbance of war as he could get, in the Pyrenees, but it was +rumored in Paris that the French Government, having intimated to its +new ally that it did not wish to harbor Giolitti, the Italian politician +was forced to remain at home. I believe that once since the "Caro Carlo" +letter he has spoken to his countrymen, a patriotic interview in which +he announced that he had been converted to the necessity of the war with +Austria! Thus even the politician comes to see light. But Giovanni +Giolitti, as the black-bordered card said, is dead politically. + + * * * * * + +With the votes of Parliament the Roman part in the drama, the +civil part, was ended. Rome began to empty fast of soldiers, officers, +officials. The scene had shifted to the north, where the hearts of all +Italians were centered. There was a singular calm in the city. One +other memorable meeting should be recorded, on the Saturday afternoon +following the Parliamentary decision. If popular manifestations count +for anything, the dense throng in the Campidolgio and later the same +afternoon before the Quirinal Palace demonstrated the enthusiasm with +which the certainty of war with Austria was accepted. + +There are few lovelier spots on earth than the little square of the +Campidolgio on the Capitoline Hill and none more laden with memories +of a long past. Led by a sure instinct the people of Rome crowded up +the steep passages that led to the crest of the hill, by tens of +thousands. In this hour of the New Resurrection of Italy, the people +sought the hearthstone of ancient Rome on the Capitoline. About the +pillars of the Cancelleria, which stands on Roman foundations, up the +long flight of steps leading to the Aracoeli, even under the belly of +the bronze horse in the center of the square, Italians thrust themselves. +Rome was never more beautiful than that afternoon. Little fleecy clouds +were floating across the deep blue sky. The vivid green of the cypresses +on the slope below were stained with the red and white of blooming roses. +In the distance swam the dome of St. Peter's, across the bend of the +Tiber, and through the rift between the crowded palaces one might look +down upon the peaceful Forum. The birthplace of the nation! Here it was +that the people, the decision having been made to play their part in the +destiny of the new world now in the making, came to rejoice. The spirit +of the throng was entirely festal. And these were the people, working-men +and their wives and mothers from the dark corners of old Rome, neither +hoodlums nor aristocracy, the people whose men for the most part were +already joining the colors. + +The flags of the unredeemed provinces together with the Italian +flag were borne through the crowd up the steps of the municipal palace +to wave beside Prince Colonna, as he appeared from within the palace. +Mayor of Rome, he had that afternoon resigned his position in order to +join the army with his sons. Handsome, with a Roman face that reminded +one of the portrait busts of his ancestors in the Capitoline Museum +close by, he stood silent above the great multitude. The time for oratory +had passed. He raised his hands and shouted with a full voice--"_Viva +Italia!_" and was silent. It was as if one of the conscript fathers had +returned to his city to pronounce a benediction upon the act of his +descendants. The people repeated the cry again and again, then broke +into the beautiful words of Mameli's "L'Inno,"--"_Fratelli d' Italia._" + +Then the gathering turned to cross the city to the Quirinal, where the +King had promised to meet them. The way led past one of the two Austrian +embassies in the Piazza Venezia--a danger spot throughout the agitation; +but this afternoon the crowd streamed by without swerving, intent on +better things. On the Quirinal Hill, between the royal palace and the +Consulta, where the diplomatic conferences are held, the people packed +in again. The roofs of the neighboring palaces were lined with spectators +and every window except those of the royal palace was filled with faces. +On the balcony above the palace gate some footmen were arranging a red +velvet hanging. Then the royal family stepped out from the room behind. +The King, with his little son at his side, stood bareheaded while the +crowd cheered. On his other side were the Queen and her two daughters. +King Victor, whose face was very grave, bowed repeatedly to the cheering +people, but said no word. The little prince stared out into the crowd +with serious intensity, as if he already knew that what was being done +these days might well cost him his father's throne. The people cried +again and again,--_"Viva Italia, viva il re"_; also more rarely, _"Imperio +Romano!"_ At the end the King spoke, merely,--_"Viva Italia, mi!"_ + +Perhaps the presence of the German and the Austrian Ambassadors, +who that very hour were at the Consulta vainly trying to arrange a +bargain, restrained the King from saying more to his people then. +Possibly he felt that the occasion was beyond any words. His face was +set and worn. The full passion of the decision had passed through him. +His people had desired war, and he had faithfully followed their will. +Yet he more than any one in that crowd must know the terrible risk, the +awful cost of this war. Those national aspirations for which his country +was to strive,--Trent and Trieste, Istraia and the Dalmatian coast, in +all a few hundred miles of territory, a few millions of people,--the +well informed were saying would cost one hundred and fifty thousand +Italian soldiers a month, to pick the locks that Austria had put along +her Alpine frontier! No wonder the King of Italy met his people after +the great decision in solemn mood. + + * * * * * + +The crowd melted from the Quirinal Square in every direction, content. +Some stopped to cheer in front of the Ministry of War, which these days +and nights was busy as a factory working overtime and night shifts. +People were reading the newspapers, which in default of more vivid news +contained copious extracts from the "Libro Verde." Yet the "Green Book" +was not even now completed! + +The politician had spoken, the poet had said his fiery word to the +people, the piazza had hurled its will, Parliament had acted and gone +its way, the army staff was hastening north. Yet the Austrian Ambassador +and his German colleague had not taken the trains waiting for them outside +the Porta Pia with steam up. It was a mystery why they were lingering on +in a country on the verge of hostilities, where they were so obviously +not wanted any longer. Daily since Parliament had voted they had been at +the Consulta--were there now in this solemn hour of understanding between +the King and his people! Singly and together they were conferring with +Baron Sonnino and the Premier. What were they offering? We know now that +at this last moment of the eleventh hour Austria had wakened to the real +gravity of the situation, and with Teutonic pertinacity and Teutonic +dullness of perception made her first real offer--the immediate cession +and occupation of the ceded territories she had set as her maximum, a +thing she had refused all along to consider, insisting that the transfer +be deferred to the vague settlement time of the "Peace." I do not know +that if she had frankly started the negotiations with this essential +concession, it would have made any real difference. I think not. Her +maximum was insufficient: it nowhere provided for that defensible +frontier, and it was but a meager satisfaction of those other aspirations +of nationality which she despised. It still left a good many Italians +outside of the national fold, and it still left Italy exposed to whatever +strong hand might gain control on the east shores of the Adriatic. At all +events, in this last moment of the eleventh hour, if the ambassadors had +been authorized to yield all that Baron Sonnino had begun by asking, it +would not have kept Italy from the war--now. + +Elsewhere I have dealt with the legal and strategic questions involved +in the "Green Book." These diplomatic briefs, White or Yellow or Orange +or Green, seem more important at the moment than in perspective. They +are all we observers have of definite reason to think upon. But nations +do not go to war for the reasons assigned in them--nothing is clearer +than that. Like the lengthy briefs in some famous law case, they are +but the intellectual counters that men use to mask their passions, their +instincts, their faiths. According to the briefs both sides should win +and neither. And the blanks between the lines of these diplomatic briefs +are often more significant than the printed words. + +While Baron Macchio and Prince von Bülow, the Ballplatz and +Friedrichstrasse, Baron Sonnino and his colleagues were making the +substance of the "Green Book," the people of Italy were deciding the +momentous question on their own grounds. The spirit of all Italy was +roused. Italian patriotism gave the answer. + + * * * * * + +"_Viva Italia!_" the boy conscript shouted, leaning far out of the +car window in a last look at the familiar fields and roof of his +native village. "_Viva Italia!_" the King of Italy cried, and his +people responded with a mighty shout,--"_Viva Italia!_" What do they +mean? In the simplest, the most primitive sense they mean literally +the earth, the trees, the homes they have always known--the physical +body of the mother country. And this primal love of the earth that +has borne you and your ancestors seems to me infinitely stronger, +more passionate with the European than with the American. We roam: +our frontiers are still horizons.... But even for the simple peasant +lad, joining the colors to fight for his country, patriotism is +something more complex than love of native soil. It is love of life +as he has known it, its tongue, its customs, its aspects. It is love +of the religion he has known, of the black or brown or yellow-haired +mother he knows--of the women of his race, of the men of his race, +and their kind. + +Deeper yet, scarce conscious to the simple instinctive man, patriotism +is belief in the tradition that has made you what you are, in the ideal +that your ancestors have seeded in you of what life should be. Therefore, +patriotism is the better part of man, his ideal of life woven in with +his tissue. Men have always fought for these things,--for their own +earth, for their own kind, for their own ideal,--and they will continue +to give their blood for them as long as they are men, until wrong and +unreason and aggression are effaced from the earth. The pale concept +of internationalism, whether a class interest of the worker or an +intellectual ideal of total humanity, cannot maintain itself before +the passion of patriotism, as this year of fierce war has proved beyond +discussion. + +Italian patriotism, which in the last analysis Italy evinced in +making war against Austria, was composed of all three elements. Italian +patriotism is loyalty to the Italian tradition, hence to the Latin ideal +which is fighting a death battle with the Teutonic tradition and ideal. +Teutonism--militaristic, efficient, materialistic, unimaginative, +unindividual--has challenged openly the world. Italy responded nobly +to that challenge. + + + + +VI + + +_The Eve of the War_ + +Rome became still, so still as to be oppressive. Her heart was +elsewhere,--in the north whither the King was about to go. Rome, like +all the war capitals, having played her part must relapse more and more +into a state of waiting and watching, stirred occasionally by rumors and +rejoicings. The streets were empty, for all men of military age had gone +and others had returned to their normal occupations. Officers hurried +toward the station in cabs with their boxes piled before them. And the +sound of marching troops also on the way to the station did not cease at +once. + +Saturday, the 22d of May, I took the night express for Venice. The +train of first- and second-class coaches was longer than usual, filled +with officers rejoining their regiments which had already gone north +in the slower troop trains. There were also certain swarthy persons +in civilian garb, whom it took no great divination to recognize as +secret police agents. The spy mania had begun. Theirs was the hopeless +task of sorting out civilian enemies from nationals, which, thanks to +the complexity of modern international relations, is like picking +needles from a haystack. My papers, however, were all in order, and +so far there had been no restrictions on travel; in fact no military +zone had been declared, because as yet there was no war! When would +the declaration come? In another week? I settled myself comfortably +in my corner opposite a stout captain who rolled himself in his gray +cloak and went to sleep. Other officers wandered restlessly to and fro +in the corridor outside, discussing the coming war. It was a heavenly +summer night. The Umbrian Hills swam before us in the clear moonlight +as the train passed north over the familiar, beautiful route. If +Germany should strike from behind at Milan, exposing the north of +Italy? One shuddered. After Belgium Germany was capable of any attack, +and Germany was expected then to go with her ally. + +One thing was evident over and above the beauty of the moonlit country +through which we were rushing at a good pace, and that was the remarkable +improvement in Italian railroading since my last visit to Italy a dozen +years before. This was a modern rock-ballasted, double-tracked roadbed, +which accounted in part for the rapidity and ease of the troop movements +these last months. The ordinary passenger traffic had scarcely been +interrupted even now on the eve of war. The terrors of the mobilization +period, thanks to Italy's efficient preparation, were unfounded. It spoke +well for Italy at war. It was a sign of her economic development, her +modernization. Even Germany had not gone into the business of war more +methodically, more efficiently. Italy, to be sure, had nine months for +her preparation, but to one who remembered the country during the +Abyssinian expedition, time alone would not explain the improvement. + +The railroad stations at Florence and Bologna were under military +control, the quays patrolled, the exits guarded, the buildings stuffed +with soldiers. I could see their sleeping forms huddled in the straw +of the cattle cars on the sidings, also long trains of artillery and +supplies. Shortly after daylight the guards pulled down our shutters +and warned us against looking out of the windows for the remainder of +the journey. A childish precaution, it seemed, which the officers +constantly disregarded. But when I peeped at the sunny fields of the +flat Lombard plain, one of the swarthy men in civilian black leaned +over and firmly pulled down the shade. Italy was taking her war +seriously. + +At Mestre we lost the officers: they were going north to Udine +and--beyond. The almost empty train rolled into the Venetian station +only an hour late. The quay outside the station was strangely silent, +with none of that noisy crew of boatmen trying to capture arriving +_forestieri._ They had gone to the war. One old man, the figure of +Charon on his dingy poop, sole survivor of the gay tribe, took me +aboard and ferried me through the network of silent canals toward the +piazza. Dismantled boats lay up along the waterways, the windows of the +palaces were tightly shuttered, and many bore paper signs of renting. +"The Austrians," Charon laconically informed me. It would seem that +Venice had been almost an Austrian possession, so much emptiness was +left at her flight. But within the little squares and along the winding +stony lanes between the ancient palaces, Venice was alive with citizens +and soldiers--and very much herself for the first time in many centuries. +The famous piazza recalled the processional pictures of Guardi. Only the +companies of soldiers that marched through it on their way to the station +were not gorgeously robed: they were in dirty gray with heavy kits on +their backs. The bronze horses were being lowered from St. Mark's, one +of them poised in midair with his ramping legs in a sling. Inside the +church a heavy wooden truss had been put in place to strengthen the arch +of gleaming mosaics. There was a tall hoarding of fresh boards along the +water side of the Ducal Palace, and the masons were fast filling in the +arches with brick supports. Venice was putting herself in readiness for +the enemy. Even the golden angel on the new Campanile had been shrouded +in black in order that she might not attract a winged monster by her +gleam. From many a palace roof aerial guns were pointed to the sky, and +squads of soldiers patrolled the platforms that had been hastily built +to hold them. + +Out at San Niccolo da Lido, where I supped at a little _osteria_ +beneath the trees, a number of gray torpedo boats rushed to and fro +in the harbor entrance, restless as hunting dogs straining at the +leash. That night Venice was dark, so black that one stumbled from +wall to wall along the narrow lanes in the search for his own doorway. +War was close at hand: the menace of it, a few miles, a few hours +only away, across the blue Adriatic, at Pola. In order to understand +the significance of frontiers an American should be in Venice on the +eve of war. + + * * * * * + +Some hours later I awoke startled from a heavy sleep, the +reverberation of a dream ringing in my ears. It was not yet dawn. +In the gray-blue light outside the birds were wheeling in frightened +circles above the garden below my balcony. Mingled in my dreams with +the disturbing noise was the song of a nightingale--and then there came +another dull, thunderous explosion, followed immediately by the long +whine and shriek of sirens at the arsenal, also the crackle of machine +guns from all sides. Now I realized what it meant. It was war. The +Austrians had taken this way to acknowledge Italy's defiance. The enemy +had threatened to destroy Venice, and this was their first attempt. Above +the sputter of the machine guns and the occasional explosions of shrapnel +could be distinguished the buzz of an aeroplane that moment by moment +approached nearer. Soon the machine itself became visible, flying oddly +enough from the land direction, not from the Adriatic. It flew high and +directly, across Venice, aiming apparently for the arsenal, the Lido, +the open sea. + +It was an unreality, that little winged object aloft like a large +aerial beetle buzzing busily through the still gray morning sky, heading +straight with human intelligence in a set line, bent on destruction. The +bombs could not be seen as they fell, of course, but while I gazed into +the heavens another thunderous explosion came from near by, which I took +to be the aviator's bomb, distinguished by the sharpness of its explosion +from the anti-aircraft bombardment. Other guns along the route of the +enemy took up the attack, then gradually all became silent once more. +Only the cries of the frightened birds circling above the garden and the +voices of the awakened inhabitants could be heard. From every window and +balcony half-dressed people watched the flight of the monoplane until it +had disappeared in the vague dawn beyond St. Mark's. + +In another half-hour the sirens shrieked again and the machine gun +on the roof of the Papadopoli Palace just below on the Grand Canal +began to sputter. This time every one knew what it meant and there +was a large gathering on the balconies and in the little squares to +witness the arrival of the hostile aeroplane. It was another monoplane +coming from the same land direction, flying much lower than the first +one, so low that its hooded aviator could be distinguished and the +bands of color across the belly of the car. It skirted the city toward +the Adriatic more cautiously. Later it was rumored that the second +aeroplane had been brought down in the lagoons and its men captured. + +Thereafter no one tried to sleep: the little Venetian bridges and +passages were filled with talking people, and rumors of the damage +done began to come in. Eleven bombs in all were dropped on this first +attack, killing nobody and doing no serious harm, except possibly at +the arsenal where one fell. I was at the local police station when +one of the unexploded bombs was brought in. It was of the incendiary +type containing petroleum. Also there had been picked up somewhere in +the canals the half of a Munich newspaper, which seemed to indicate, +although there was nothing of special significance in the sheet, that +the monoplane was German rather than Austrian. Yet Germany had not yet +declared war on Italy. But was it not the German Kaiser who had threatened +to destroy Italy's art treasures? Were not the German armies in Flanders +and France making war against defenceless, unmilitary monuments? + + * * * * * + +I realized now the necessity of those preparations to guard the +treasures of Venice, priceless and irreplaceable--why the Belle Arti +had been emptied, and the Colleoni trussed with an ugly wooden framework. +But little at the best could be done to protect Venice herself, which lies +exposed in all her fragile loveliness to the attacks of the new Vandals. +The delicate palaces,--already crumbling from age,--the marvelous façade +of the Ducal Palace with its lustrous color, the leaning _campanili_, the +little churches filled with noble monuments to its great ones,--all were +helpless before an aerial attack, or shelling from warships. Nothing could +save Venice from even a slight bombardment, quite apart from such pounding +as the Germans have given Rheims, or Arras, or Ypres. At the first hostile +blow Venice would sink into the sea, a mass of ruins, returning thus +bereaved to her ancient bridegroom. + +Italy is aware of the vengeful warfare she must expect. Great +preparations for the defense of Venice have been made. The city might +be ruined; it could not be taken. The gray destroyers moving in and +out past the Zattere contrasted strangely with the tiny gondolas shaped +like pygmy triremes. It was the mingling of two worlds,--the world of +the gondola, the marble palace of the doges, of the jeweled church of +St. Mark's, and the world of the torpedo boat and the aerial bomb,--the +world as man is making it to-day. The old Venetians were good fighters, +to be sure, not to say quarrelsome. War was never long absent, as may +easily be realized from the great battle-pieces in the Ducal Palace. +But war then was more the rough play of boisterous children than the +slaughterous, purely destructive thing that modern men have made it. And +when those old Venetians were not fighting, they were building greatly, +beautifully, lovingly: they were making life resplendent. + +That awakening in the early dawn into the modern world of distant +enemies and secret deadly missiles was unforgettable. Some one showed +me a steel arrow which had been dropped within the arsenal, a small, +sharpened, nail-like thing that would transfix a body from head to feet. +These arrows are dumped over by the thousands to fall where they will. +That little machine a mile and more aloft in the sky, busily buzzing +its way across the heavens, is the true symbol of war today, not face +to face except on rare occasions, but hellish in its impersonal will +to destroy. + + * * * * * + +A wonderful day dawned on Venice after the departure of the hostile +aeroplanes, a day among days, and all the Venetians were abroad. The +attack which brought home the actual dangers to them did not seem to +dull their lively spirits. They were busy in the quaint aquatic manner +of Venice. The little shops were full of people, the boatmen reviled +one another in the narrow canals as they squeezed past, the _vaporetti_ +and the motor-boats snorted up and down the Grand Canal. + +Venice seemingly had accepted her liability to night attack as a new +condition of her peculiar life. + +There were more soldiers than ever moving in the narrow, winding +footpaths, the restaurants were full of officers in fresh uniforms. +On the water-front beyond the Salute there was much movement among +the destroyers. One of these gray seabirds went out at midnight, when +war was declared, and took a small Austrian station on the Adriatic. +They brought back some prisoners and booty which seemed to interest +the Venetians more than the hostile aeroplanes. + +Yet with all this warlike activity it was hard to realize the fact +of war in Italy, to remember that just over the low line of the Lido +the hostile fleets were looking for each other in the Adriatic, that +a few miles to the north the attack had begun all along the twisting +frontier, that the first caravan of the wounded had started for Padua. +As I floated that afternoon over the lagoons past the Giudecca, and +the blue Euganean Hills rose out of the gray mist that seems ever to +hang on the Venetian horizon, it was impossible to believe in the fact, +to realize that all this human beauty around me, the slow accumulation +of the ages of the finest work of man, was in danger of eternal +destruction. Venice rose from the green sea water like the city of +enchantment that Turner so often painted. Venice was never so lovely, +so wholly the palace of enchantment as she was then, stripped of all +the tourist triviality and vulgarity that she usually endures at this +season. It was Venice left to her ancient self in this hour of her +danger. She was like a marvelous, fragile, still beautiful great lady, +so delicate that the least violence might kill her! In this dying light +of the day she was already something unearthly, on the extreme marge +of our modern world.... + +That evening the restaurant windows were covered tight with shutters +and heavy screens before the doors. The waiter put a candle in a saucer +before your plate and you ate your food in this wavering light. There +was not the usual temptation to linger in the piazza after dinner, for +the cafés were all sealed against a betraying gleam of light and the +Venetian public had taken to heart the posted advice to stay within +doors and draw their wooden shutters. As I entered my room, the moon +was rising behind the Salute, throwing its light across the Canal on to +the walls of the palaces opposite. The soft night was full of murmuring +voices, for Venice is the most vocal of cities. The people were exchanging +views across their waterways from darkened house to house, speculating on +the chances of another aerial raid tonight. They were making salty jokes +about their enemies in the Venetian manner. The moonlight illuminated the +broad waterway beneath my window with its shuttered palaces as if it were +already day. A solitary gondola came around the bend of the Canal and its +boatman began to sing one of the familiar songs that once was bawled from +illuminated barges on spring nights like this, for the benefit of the +tourists in the hotels. To-night he was singing it for himself, because +of the soft radiance of the night, because of Venice. His song rose from +the silver ripple of the waves below, and in the little garden behind the +nightingale began to sing. Had he also forgotten the disturber of this +morning and opened his heart in the old way to the moonlight May night +and to Venice? + + * * * * * + +The enemy did not return that night, the moon gave too clear a light. +But a few evenings later, when the sky was covered with soft clouds, +there was an alarm and the guns mounted on the palace roofs began again +bombarding the heavens. This time the darkness was shot by comet-like +flashes of light, and the exploding shells gave a strange pyrotechnic +aspect to the battle in the air. Again the enemy fled across the Adriatic +without having done any special damage. Only a few old houses in the +poorer quarter near the arsenal were crumbled to dust. + +Since that first week of the war the aeroplane attacks upon Venice +have been repeated a number of times, and though the bombs have fallen +perilously near precious things, until the Tiepolo frescoes in the +Scalsi church were ruined, no great harm had been done. The military +excuse--if after Rheims and Arras the Teuton needed an excuse--is the +great arsenal in Venice. The real reason, of course, is that Venice is +the most easily touched, most precious of all Italian treasure cities, +and the Teuton, as a French general said to me, wages war not merely +upon soldiers, but also upon women and children and monuments. It is +vengefulness, lust of destruction, that tempts the Austrian aeroplanes +across the Adriatic--the essential spirit of the barbarian which the +Latin abhors. + + * * * * * + +There are some things in this world that can never be replaced once +destroyed, and Venice is one of them. And there are some things greater +than power, efficiency, and all _kaiserliche Kultur_. Such is Italy +with its ever-renewed, inexhaustible youth, its treasure of deathless +beauty. As I passed through the fertile fields on my way from Venice +to Milan and the north, I understood as never before the inner reason +for Italy's entering the war. The heritage of beauty, of humane +civilization,--the love of freedom for the individual, the golden mean +between liberty and license that is the Latin inheritance,--all this +compelled young Italy to fight, not merely for her own preservation, +but also for the preservation of these things in the world against the +force that would destroy. The spirit that created the Latin has not +died. "We would not be an Inn, a Museum," the poet said, and at the +risk of all her jewels Italy bravely defied the enemy across the Alps. +This war on which she had embarked after nine long months of preparation +is no mere adventure after stolen land, as the Germans would have it: it +is a fight unto death between two opposed principles of life. + +"He who is not for me is against me." There is no possible neutrality +on the greater issues of life. + + + + +PART TWO--FRANCE + + +I + + +_The Face of Paris_ + +I shall never forget the poignant impression that Paris made on me that +first morning in early June when I descended from the train at the Gare +de Lyon. After a time I came to accept the new aspect of things as normal, +to forget what Paris had been before the war, but as with persons so with +places the first impression often gives a deeper, keener insight into +character than repeated contacts. I knew that the German invasion, which +had swept so close to the city in the first weeks of the war, and which +after all the anxious winter months was still no farther than an hour's +motor ride from Paris, must have wrought a profound change in this, the +most personal of cities. One read of the scarcity of men on the streets, +of the lack of cabs, of shuttered shops, of women and girls performing +the ordinary tasks of men, of the ever-rising tide of convalescent +wounded, etc. But no written words are able to convey the whole meaning +of things: one must see with one's own eyes, must feel subconsciously +the many details that go to make truth. + +When the long train from Switzerland pulled into the station there +were enough old men and boys to take the travelers' bags, which is +not always the case these war times when every sort of worker has +much more than two hands can do. There were men waiters in the station +restaurant where I took my morning coffee. It is odd how quickly one +scanned these protected workers with the instinctive question--"Why +are you too not fighting for your country?" But if not old or decrepit, +it was safe to say that these civilian workers were either women or +foreigners--Greeks, Balkans, or Spanish, attracted to Paris by +opportunities for employment. For the entire French nation was +practically mobilized, including women and children, so much of the +daily labor was done by them. The little café was full of men,--almost +every one in some sort of uniform,--drinking their coffee and scanning +the morning papers. Everybody in Paris seemed to read newspapers all +day long,--the cabmen as they drove, the passers-by as they walked +hastily on their errands, the waiters in the cafés,--and yet they +told so little of what was going on _là-bas!_.... The silence in the +restaurant seemed peculiarly dead. A gathering of Parisians no matter +where, as I remembered, was rarely silent, a French café never. But I +soon realized that one of the significant aspects of the new France +since the war was its taciturnity, its silence. Almost all faces were +gravely preoccupied with the national task, and whatever their own +small part in it might be, it was too serious a matter to encourage +chattering, gesticulating, or disputing in the pleasant Latin way. + +Will the French ever recover wholly their habit of free, careless, +expressive speech? Of all the peoples under the trials of this war +they have become by general report the most sternly, grimly silent. +Compared with them the English, deemed by nature taciturn, have +become almost hysterically voluble. They complain, apologize, accuse, +recriminate. Each new manifestation of Teutonic strategy has evoked +from the English a flood of outraged comment. But from the beginning +the French have wasted no time on such _bêtise_ as they would call +it: they have put all their energies into their business, which as +every French creature knows is to fight this war through to a triumphant +end--and not talk. An extraordinary reversal of national temperaments +that! From the mobilization hour it was the same thing: every Frenchman +knew what it meant, the hour of supreme trial for his country, and he +went about his part in it with set face, without the beating of drums, +and he has kept that mood since. Henri Lavedan, in a little sketch of +the reunion between a _poilu_, on leave after nine months' absence in +the trenches, and his wife, has caught this significant note. The good +woman has gently reproached her husband for not being more talkative, +not telling her any of his experiences. The soldier says,--"One doesn't +talk about it, little one, one does it. And he who talks war doesn't +fight.... Later, I'll tell you, after, when _it_ is signed!" + + * * * * * + +There were plenty of cabs and taxis on the streets by the time I +reached Paris, rather dangerously driven by strangers ignorant of the +ramifications of the great city and of the complexities of motor engines. +Most of the tram-lines were running, and the metro gave full service +until eleven at night, employing many young women as conductors--and +they made neat, capable workers. Many of the shops, especially along +the boulevards, were open for a listless business, although the shutters +were often up, with the little sign on them announcing that the place was +closed because the _patron_ was mobilized. And there was a steady stream +of people on the sidewalks of all main thoroughfares,--at least while +daylight lasted, for the streets emptied rapidly after dark when a dim +lamp at the intersection of streets gave all the light there was--quite +brilliant to me after the total obscurity of Venice at night! But my +French and American friends, who had lived in Paris all through the +crisis before the battle of the Marne,--with the exodus of a million +or so inhabitants streaming out along the southern routes, the dark, +empty, winter streets,--found Paris almost normal. The restaurants were +going, the hotels were almost all open, except the large ones on the +Champs Élysées that had been transformed into hospitals. At noon one +would find something like the old frivol in the Ritz Restaurant,--large +parties of much-dressed and much-eating women. For the parasites were +fluttering back or resting on their way to and from the Riviera, +Switzerland, New York, and London. The Opéra Comique gave several +performances of familiar operas each week, rendered patriotic by the +recitation of the _Marseillaise_ by Madame Chenal clothed in the national +colors with a mighty Roman sword with which to emphasize "_Aux armes, +citoyens!_" The Française also was open several times a week and some +of the smaller theaters as well as the omnipresent cinema shows, +advertising reels fresh from the front by special permission of the +general staff. + +The cafés along the boulevards did a fair business every afternoon, +but there was a striking absence of uniforms in them owing to the strict +enforcement of the posted regulations against selling liquor to soldiers. +That and the peremptory closing of cafés and restaurants at ten-thirty +reminded the stranger that Paris was still an "entrenched camp" under +military law with General Gallieni as governor.... The number of women +one saw at the cafés, sitting listlessly about the little tables, usually +without male companions, indicated one of the minor miseries of the great +war. For the _midinette_ and the _femme galante_ there seemed nothing to +do. A paternal government had found occupation and pay for all other +classes of women, also a franc and a half a day for the soldier's wife +or mother, but the daughter of joy was left very joyless indeed, with the +cold misery of a room from which she could not be evicted "_pendant la +guerre._" They haunted the cafés, the boulevards,--ominous, pitiful +specters of the manless world the war was making. + +Hucksters' carts lined the side streets about the Marché Saint-Honoré +as usual, and I could not see that prices of food had risen abnormally +in spite of complaints in the newspapers and the discussion about +cold storage in the Chamber of Deputies. Restaurant portions were +parsimonious and prices high as usual, but the hotels made specially +low rates, "_pendant la guerre,_" which the English took advantage of +in large numbers. The Latin Quarter seemed harder hit by the war than +other quarters, emptier, as at the end of a long vacation; around the +Arch there was a subdued movement as between seasons. The people were +there, but did not show themselves. One went to a simple dinner _à la +guerre_ at an early hour. All, even purely fashionable persons, were +too much occupied by grave realities and duties to make an effort for +forms and ceremonies. Life suddenly had become terribly uncomplex, even +for the sophisticated. In these surface ways living in Paris was like +going back a century or so to a society much less highly geared than +the one we are accustomed to. I liked it. + + * * * * * + +Even at its busiest hours Paris gave a peculiar sense of emptiness, +hard to account for when all about men and women and vehicles were +moving, when it was best to look carefully before crossing the streets. +It could not be due wholly to the absence of men and the diminution of +business--there was at least half of the ordinary volume of movement. +Nor was it altogether a cessation of that soft roar of traffic which +ordinarily enveloped Paris day and night. It was not exactly like Paris +on Sunday--except in the rue de la Paix--as I remembered Paris Sundays. +No, it was something quite new--the physical expression of that inner +silence, of that tenacity of mute will which I read in all the faces +that passed me. Paris was living within, or beyond--_là-bas_, all along +those hundreds of miles of earth walls from Flanders to the Vosges, +where for nine months their men had faced the invader. + +Most of the women one met were in black, almost every one wearing some +sort of mourning, for there was scarcely a family in France that had +not already paid its toll of life, many several times over. But the +faces of these women in black were calm and dry-eyed: there were few +outward signs of grief other than the mourning clothes, just an enduring +silence. "The time for our mourning is not yet," a Frenchman said whose +immediate family circle had given seven of its members. With some, one +felt, the time for weeping would never come: they had transmuted their +personal woe into devotion to others.... + +There was little loitering and gazing in at shop windows, few shoppers +in the empty stores these days. Everybody seemed to have something +important that must be done at once and had best be done in sober +silence. Even the wounded had lost the habit of telling their troubles. +Doctors and nurses related as one of the interesting phenomena in the +hospitals this dislike of talking about what they had been through, +even among the common soldiers. Most likely their experiences had been +too horrible for gossip. There was a conspiracy of silence, a tacit +recognition of the futility of words, and almost never a complaint! +One day a soldier walked a block to give me a direction, and in reply +to my inquiry pointed to his lower jaw where a deep wound was hidden +in a thick beard. "A ball," he said simply. It was the second wound +he had received, and that night he was going back to his _dépôt_. For +they went back again and again into that hell so close to this peaceful +Paris, and what happened there was too bad for words. It must be +endured in silence. + +There were not many troops on the streets,--at least French soldiers +and officers; there was a surprising number of English of all branches +of the service and a few Belgians. The French were either at the front +or in their _dépôts_ outside the city. On the Fourteenth of July, when +the remains of Rouget de Lisle, the author of the _Marseillaise_, were +brought to the Invalides, a few companies of city guards on horseback +and of colonial troops in soiled uniforms formed the escort down the +Champs Élysées behind the ancient gun carriage that bore the poet's ashes. +There were many wounded soldiers, hopelessly crippled or convalescing, in +the theaters, at the cafés, and on the streets. As the weeks passed they +seemed to become more numerous, though the authorities had taken pains to +keep Paris comparatively empty of the wounded. One met them hobbling down +the Élysées under the shade of the chestnut trees, in the metro, at the +cafés, the legless and armless, also the more horrible ones whose faces +had been shot awry. They were so young, so white-faced, with life's long +road ahead to be traveled, thus handicapped! There was something wistful +often in their silent eyes. + +To cope with the grist of wounded, the mass of refugees and destitute, +Paris was filled with relief organizations. The sign of some "_oeuvre_" +decorated every other building of any size, it seemed. Apart from the +numerous hospitals, there were hostels for the refugee women and +children, who earlier in the war had poured into Paris from the north +and east, workrooms for making garments, distributing agencies, etc. +All civilian Paris had turned itself into one vast relief organization +to do what it could to stanch the wounds of France. Of the relief and +hospital side of Paris I have the space to say little: much has been +written of it by those more competent than I. But in passing I cannot +refrain from my word of gratitude to those generous Americans who by +their acts and their gifts have put in splendid relief the timid +inanities of our official diplomacy. While the President has been +exchanging futile words with the Barbarian over the murders on the +Lusitania, to the bewilderment and contempt of the French nation, +the American Ambulance at Neuilly has offered splendid testimony +to the real feelings of the vast majority of true Americans, also +an excellent example of the generous American way of doing things. +That great hospital, as well as the American Clearing-House and the +individual efforts of many American men and women working in numberless +organizations, encourage a citizen from our rich republic to hold up +his head in spite of German-American disloyalty, gambling in munitions +stocks, and official timidity. + + * * * * * + +Already the French had realized the necessity of creating agencies +for bringing back into a life of activity and service the large +numbers of seriously wounded--to find for them suitable labor and +to reëducate their crippled faculties so that they could support +themselves and take heart once more. Schools were started for the +blind and the deaf, of whom the war has made a fearful number. I +remember meeting one of these pupils, a young officer, blind, with +one arm gone, and wounded in the face. On his breast was the Service +Cross and the cross of the Legion of Honor. He was led into the room +by his wife, a young school teacher from Algeria, who had given up +her position and come to Paris to nurse her fiancé back to life and +hope. He was being taught telegraphy by an American teacher of the +blind. + +In such ways the people of Paris kept themselves from eating their +hearts out in grief and anxiety. + + * * * * * + +At three o'clock in the afternoons, when the day's _communiqué_ was +given out from the War Office, little groups gathered in front of +the windows of certain shops where the official report was posted. +They would scan the usually colorless lines in silence and turn away, +as though saying to themselves,--"Not to-day--then to-morrow!" The +newsless newspapers abounded in something perhaps more heartening +than favorable reports from the front--an endless chronicle of bravery +and devotion, of valor, heroism, and chivalry in the trench. That is +what fed the anxious hearts of the waiting people, details of the large, +heroic picture that France was creating so near at hand, _là-bas_. + +There were few occasions for popular gatherings. The taste for +"demonstrations" of any sort had gone out of the people. Sympathetic +crowds met the trains from Switzerland that contained the first of +the "_grands blessés_" the militarily useless wounded whom Germany at +last concluded to give back to their homes. And I recall one pathetic +sight which I witnessed by accident--the arrival of one of the long +trains from the front bringing back the first "_permissionnaires_" +those soldiers who had been given a three or four days' leave after +nine months in the trenches. In front of the Gare de l'Est a great +throng of women and children were kept back by rope and police, until +at the appearance of the uniformed men at the exit they surged forward +and sought out each her own man. There were little laughs and sobs and +kisses under the flaring gas lamps of the station yard until the last +_poilu_ had been claimed, and the crowd melted away into Paris. + + * * * * * + +Across the street from my hotel there was an elementary school; several +times each day a buzz of children's voices rose from the leafy yard +into which they were let out for their recess. Again the thin chorus of +children's voices came from the schoolroom. It seemed the one completely +natural thing in Paris, the one living thing unconscious of the war. Yet +even the school children were learning history in a way they will never +forget. In one of the provincial schools visited by an inspector, all +the pupils rose as a crippled child hobbled into the schoolroom. "He +suffered from the Germans," the teacher explained. "His mates always +rise when he appears." A French mother walking with her little boy in +one of the parks met a legless soldier, and turning to her child she +said sternly, as if to teach an unforgettable lesson,--"Do you see that +legless man? The _Boches_ did that--remember it!" In these ways the new +generation is learning its history, and it is not likely to forget it +for many years to come. + + * * * * * + +At dawn and dusk in Paris one was likely to hear the familiar buzz +of the aeroplane, and looking aloft could detect a dark spot in the +clear June sky--one of the aerial guard that keeps perpetual watch +over Paris. Sometimes when I came home at night through the dark +streets I could see the silver beams of their searchlights sweeping +like a friendly comet through the heavens, or watch the dimmed lamp +glowing like a red Mars among the lower stars, rising and falling +from space to space. Often I was awakened in the gray dawn by the +persistent hum of this winged sentry and looked down from my balcony +into the misty city beneath, securely sleeping, thanks to the incessant +watchfulness of these "eyes of Paris." The aviator would make wide +circles above the silent city, then swiftly turn back toward Issy and +breakfast. Thanks to the activity of the aerial guard the Zeppelins +have done very little damage in Paris and latterly have made no +attempts to sneak down on the city. It is too risky. They have succeeded +in killing some peaceable folk near the Gare du Nord, in dropping one +bomb on Notre Dame, I believe,--for which they have less excuse than +even for Louvain or Rheims,--and in making a big hole close to the +Trocadero. This after all the vaunted terrors of the Zeppelins! What +they have done, what they could do at the best is of the nature of +petty damage and occasional murder. Instead of terrorizing the Parisians +the Zeppelin raids have merely roused a vivid sense of sportsmanship +and curiosity among them--at first they had a real _réclame!_ + +Day by day as I lived in Paris the city took on more of its ordinary +activities and aspects. More people flowed by along the boulevards or +sat at the tables in front of the cafés, more shops opened--even the +great dressmaking establishments began to operate in an attempt to +restore commercial circulation. More transients flitted through the +city. There were more people of a Sunday in the Bois and at Vincennes. +Considering that less than a year before the national government had +left Paris, together with a million of its people, also that the +battle-line had remained all these months almost within hearing, it +was marvelous how quietly much of the ordinary machinery of life had +been set running again. Yet Paris was not the same. It was a Paris +almost wholly stripped to the outward eye of that parasitic luxury with +which it has catered to the self-indulgent of the world. Paris--as had +been the case with Italy--had returned under the stress of its tragedy +to its best self--a suffering, tense, deeply earnest self. If the nation +conquers--and there is not a Frenchman who believes any other solution +possible--victory will be of the highest significance to the race. It +will fix in the French people another character wrought in suffering--a +deeper, nobler, purer character than her enemies, or her friends for that +matter, have believed her to possess. Paris will never again become so +totally submerged in the business of providing international frivolities. +She has lived too long in the face of death. + + + + +II + + +_The Wounds of France_ + +The wounds of France are still bleeding. The trench wall still lies +for four hundred miles across the fair face of the country from the +Vosges to the North Sea, and the invader rules some of her richest +provinces, in all an area equal to something less than a tenth of +the whole. + +The wounds have already begun to heal in the marvelous manner of +nature: already life has begun again in the valley of the Marne; +the vineyards and grainfields run close up to the front trenches. +Yet even where the scar has covered the wound it is plain enough to +see how deep that wound has been. The scorched and bruised valley of +the Marne, the ruined villages of Champagne and Artois, have been +described many times by visiting journalists, yet it is worth while +to record once more some of the outstanding features of this rape +of France. + + * * * * * + +To begin with Senlis, which is one of the nearest points to Paris +reached by the German cyclone in September, 1914. There are fewer +older towns in France than Senlis, thirty miles or so northeast of +Paris, the center of the old "Island of France." Once a Roman camp +whose stout masonry walls can still be seen for considerable distances, +it had a mediaeval castle, and, until the greater grandeur of Beauvais +stole the honor, was a bishopric with a lovely small Gothic cathedral. +Its lofty gray spire dominates the green fields and thick woods in the +midst of which Senlis sleeps away the modern day. There are other +curious and beautiful examples of Gothic building in Senlis: indeed, +just here, the experts find the first workings of the principles of +pure Gothic architecture, transforming the round-arched, thick-walled +Norman building. If for nothing more Senlis would have amply earned its +right to live always as the birthplace of French Gothic. + +What happened to Senlis when the German troops visited it can be +seen at a glance to-day. From the railroad station at one end of +the town to the green fields beyond the hospital on the Chantilly +road at the other end, a black swath of burned and ruined buildings +is the memento. These houses and stores were not shelled: they were +burned methodically. The Germans arrived late in the afternoon of +the 2d of September, in that state of nervous excitement and hysterical +fear of _francs-tirailleurs_ that characterized them from the time +they passed Liége. The Mayor of Senlis, an old man over seventy, was +made to understand that he would be held responsible for the conduct +of the citizens, and was ordered to have water and lights turned on +in the town and a dinner for the German staff prepared at the chief +hotel. While he was busy with these commands,--most of the inhabitants +had fled that morning,--shots were exchanged in the lower end of the +town between the Germans and the retreating French. Thereupon the usual +order to burn and destroy was given, and the buildings along the main +thoroughfare were set on fire. The mayor and six other citizens, +gathered haphazard on the streets, were taken to a field outside the +town and shot. There were other moving and significant incidents in +the occupation of Senlis which are well authenticated, characteristic +of the German method, but need not be repeated here. + +The older part of the town, the cathedral, the Roman wall fortunately +escaped with only a few chance shell holes here and there. The black +scar runs through the place from end to end, incontrovertible instance +of the German thing, which has been visited by thousands of French and +foreigners the past year. The wounds of Senlis are not deep: by +comparison with much else done by the Germans they are almost trivial. +The murder of the Mayor of Senlis was not a large crime in the German +scale. But the whole is nicely typical: Senlis is the kindergarten +lesson in the German method of making war. + + * * * * * + +As every one knows, the Germans breaking into France at Namur and +Mons came on with unexampled rapidity from the north and east toward +the south and west, circled somewhat to the west as they neared Paris, +and then the 5th of September recoiled under the shock of the French +offensive. For the better part of a week two millions of men struggled +on a thousand different battlefields from Nancy and Verdun on the east +to Coulommiers, Meaux, and Amiens on the south and west. This was the +great battle of the Marne, which checked the German invasion. The +pressure of this human cyclone, in general from northeast to southwest, +was more intense in some places than others. One of the bloodiest storm +centers lay east and west from the town of Vitry-le-François--from +Sermaize-les-Bains on the east to Fère-le-Champenoise, Montmirail, and +Esternay on the west. For fifty miles there in the heart of Champagne +the path of the cyclone can be traced by the blackened villages, the +gutted churches, the countless crosses in the midst of green fields. + +One thinks of Champagne as a land of vineyards, but here in the +center and south of the fertile province there are few vines, mostly +fields of ripening wheat, green alfalfa, or beets--long undulating +swales of rich fields, cut by little copses of thick woods and by +white poplar-lined highways as everywhere in France. It has peculiarly +that smiling and gracious air of _la douce France_--gently sloping +fields and woods and little gray stone villages each with its small +church ornamented by the square tower and spire of Champenoise Gothic. +And it was here that the blast struck hardest, along the little streams, +in the thick copses, up and down the straight roads whose deep ditches +lent themselves to entrenchment, and in almost every village and +crossroads hamlet. + +It is a country of few towns, of many small villages, farm and manor +houses. The buildings cluster in the hollows or about the crossroads, +and sometimes they escaped the storm because the shells exchanged +from hill to hill went quite over their roofs; again, as was the +case with Huiron just outside Vitry or with Maurupt near by, they +could not escape because they were perched on hills, and they were +almost completely razed by the fierce fire that raked them for days. +Sometimes they escaped shell and machine gun to be burned to the +ground vengefully with incendiary bombs, as at Sermaize-les-Bains, +where of nine hundred buildings less than forty were left standing +after the Germans retreated. These instances are the saddest of all +because so wanton! There was scarcely a single collection of houses +in that fifty miles which I traversed which did not bear its ugly +scar of fire and shell, scarcely a farmhouse that was not crumbled +or peppered with machine-gun bullets. Miles of desolation may be +seen in a couple of hours' drive around Vitry-le-François,--Favresse, +Blesmes, Écrinnes, Thiéblemont, Maurupt, Vauclerc,--with acre upon +acre of ruined buildings, a chimney standing here and there, heaps +of twisted iron that once were farm machines, withered trees--and +graves, everywhere soldiers' graves. + +The churches suffered most, probably because they were used for +temporary defense. At Huiron the upper half of the thirteenth-century +Gothic church had been shaved off--in the ten-foot deep mass of débris +lay the richly carved capitals of the massive pillars. At Écrinnes near +by the apse of the exquisite little church had been blown off, leaving +the front and spire intact. At Maurupt the whole edifice, which commanded +the rolling countryside for miles, was riddled from end to end. Again, +I would enter an apparently sound building to find a pile of rubbish in +the nave, a gaping hole in the roof. And the same thing was true about +Bar-le-Duc to the east and Meaux to the west. It is safe to say that in +a fifty-mile wide stretch from Nancy to the English Channel not one +village in ten has escaped the scourge. + + * * * * * + +I speak of the churches because of their irreplaceable +beauty, the human tenderness of their relation with the earth. +But even more poignant, perhaps, were the wrecks of little country +homes--the stacks of ruined farm machinery, the gutted barns, the +burned houses. In many cases not a habitable building was left after +the cyclone passed. In one hamlet of thirty houses near Esternay I +remember, all but seven had been devastated--by incendiary fire. +Indeed, it was clearly distinguishable--the "legitimate" wrack of +war, from the deliberate spite of incendiarism. Maurupt was the one +case, Sermaize-les-Bains (where there was no fighting) the other. If +it had been simple war, shell and machine gun, probably fifty per cent +or more of the devastation would have been saved. But the German makes +war against an entire country, inanimate as well as animate. + +The inhabitants of these ruins had come back in many instances--where +else had they to go? Swept up before the blast of the cyclone, they had +fled south over the fields and hard white roads, then crept back a few +days after the cyclone had passed to find their homes pillaged, burned, +their villages blackened scars on the earth. But they stayed there! The +English Society of Friends has given some money with which to put up +wooden huts, on which old men and Belgian refugees were working when I +passed that way. There is a French charity that tries to outfit these +new homes in the devastated districts, one of the numberless efforts of +the French to put their national house in order. But for all that charity +can do, the lot of these villagers is a bitter one: their strong men have +gone to the front; old men, women, and children are left to scratch the +fields, and exist miserably in the cellars, underneath bits of corrugated +iron roof, in tiny wooden huts. But they have planted their potatoes, in +the ruins in some cases, and have taken up sturdily the struggle of +existence in the wreck of their old homes. The children play among the +crumbling walls, the women go barefoot to the public well for water. The +fields have been sown and harvested somehow. Until the Germans can kill +off the French peasant women, they can never hope to conquer France. + +Compared with the burning of homes, the razing of villages, mere +pilfering and looting seem commonplace, unreprehensible crimes. Yet +the loss of property by plain theft is no inconsiderable item in that +bill which France expects to present some day. The old châteaux that +were fouled and gutted by the invader, the trainloads of plunder that +went back to German cities, the emptied cellars and ransacked houses +have fed the fire of disgust and loathing which the French feel for +their foe. Yet they should not begrudge the invader the extraordinary +quantity of good wine which he consumed on his raid, because the +victory of the Marne was doubtless won in part by the aid of the +champagne bottle! + + * * * * * + +When I passed through the Marne valley the fields were being harvested +for the first time since those fatal days in September. Among the +harvesters were a number of middle-aged men with the soldiers' _képi_, +who had been given leave to make the crop, which was unusually abundant. +The fields of old Champagne, watered with the best blood of France, had +yielded their richest returns. Outside the charred and crumbled ruins +of the villages one might have forgotten the fact of war were it not for +the graves. Here and there the corner of some wood where a battery had +been placed was mowed as if cut by a giant reaper. The tall poplars +along the roadsides had been ripped and torn as by a violent storm. Some +hillsides were scarred with ripples from burrowing shells, and hastily +made trenches had not yet been ploughed completely under. But over the +undulating golden fields it would be difficult to trace the course of +the tempest were it not for the crosses above the graves, thousands upon +thousands of them,--singly, in clumps, in long lines where the dead +bodies had been brought out of the copses and buried side by side in +trenches, or where at a crossroads a little cemetery had been made to +receive the dead of the vicinity. + +Often as you crawled along in a train you could follow the battle by +the bare spots left in the fields around the graves. They will never +be ploughed under and sown, not even the graves of Germans, not in +the richest land. Generally they were carefully fenced off, almost +always with a simple cross on the point of which hung the soldier's +_képi_ whenever it was found with the body. It is remarkable, considering +the scarcity of hands, the desolation of the country, the difficulty of +existence, what tender care has been given these graves of the unknown +dead. Many of them were decorated with fresh flowers or those metal +wreaths that the Europeans use, and where a company lay together a +little monument had been erected with a simple inscription. It would +seem that these Champenoise peasants still retain some of that pagan +reverence for the dead which their Latin ancestors had cultivated, +mingled with passionate love for those who gave themselves in defense +of _la patrie._ + +So for years to come the beautiful fields of France will be strewn +with these little spots of sanctuary where Frenchmen died fighting +the invader. The fields are already green again: Nature is doing her +best to remove the scars of battle from this land where so often in +the past ages she has been called upon to heal the wounds inflicted +by men. Nature will have completed her task long before the ruined +villages can be restored, long, long before the scars in men's hearts +made by this ruthless invasion can be healed. Another generation, +that of the little children playing in the ruins of their fathers' +homes, must grow up with hate in their hearts and die before the +wounds can be forgotten. + + * * * * * + +The Germans were shelling Rheims the day I was there. From the +little Mountain of Rheims, five miles away on the Épernay road, I +could see the gray and black clouds from bursting shells rise in the +mist around the massive cathedral. An observation balloon was floating +calmly over the hill beyond, directing the fire on the desolated city. +It was necessary to wait outside the town until a lull came in the +bombardment, and when our motor at last entered, it was like speeding +through a city of the dead, with crushed walls, weed-grown streets, +and empty silence everywhere save for the low whine of the big shells. +With the five or six hundred large shells hurled into Rheims that one +day, the Germans killed three civilians, wounded eighteen more, and +knocked over some hollow houses already gutted in previous bombardments. +They did not damage the cathedral that day, though several explosions +occurred within a few feet of the building. + +There were no soldiers, no artillery in Rheims--there have not been +any for many months. Of its one hundred and thirty thousand people, +only twenty thousand were left hiding in cellars, skulking along the +walls, clinging to their homes in the immense desolation of the city +with that tenacity which is peculiarly French. In the afternoon when +the fire ceased the boys were playing in the streets and women sat in +front of their cellar homes sewing. They have adapted themselves to +sudden death. They move about from hole to hole in the wilderness of +shattered buildings. For the city had been gutted by the acre: street +after street was nothing but an empty shell of walls that crumpled up +from time to time and tottered over. Within lay an indescribable mass +of household articles, merchandise, all that once had been homes and +stores and factories. Around the cathedral there was a peculiar silence, +for this quarter of the city which received most of the shells is +absolutely deserted. The grass grew high between the stones in the +pavement all about. The sun was throwing golden cross-lights over the +battered walls as I came into the deserted square and stood beside the +little figure of Jeanne d'Arc before the great portal. As seen from +afar, now in the full nearer view, the amazing thing was the majesty +of the windowless, roofless, defaced cathedral. Acres of other buildings +have crumbled utterly, but not even the German guns have succeeded in +smashing the dignity out of this ancient altar of French royalty. It +still stands firm and mighty, dominating its ruined city, as if too old, +too deeply rooted in the soil of France to be crushed by her enemies. +After a year of bombardment it still raised its mutilated face in dumb +protest above the crumbling dwellings of its people, whom it could no +longer protect from the barbarian. + +Not that the Germans have spared the cathedral in their senseless +bombardment of Rheims! From that first day, when their own wounded +lay within its walls and were carried out of the burning building +by the French, until the morning I was there, when a shell tore at +the ground beneath the buttresses hitherto untouched, the Germans +seem to have taken a special malignant delight in shelling the +cathedral. They have already damaged it beyond the possibility of +complete repair, even should their hearts at this late day be +miraculously touched by shame for what they have done and their guns +should cease from further desecration. The glorious glass has already +been broken into a million fragments; many of the finely executed +mouldings and figures--irreplaceable specimens of a forgotten art--have +been crushed; great wall spaces pounded and marred. It is as if a huge, +fat German hand had ground itself across a delicately moulded face, +smearing and smudging with vindictive energy its glorious beauty. +Rheims Cathedral must bear these brutal German scars forever, even +should the vandal hand be stayed now. It can never again be what it +was--the full, marvelous flowering of Gothic art, precious heritage +from dim centuries long past. Like a woman at the full flower of her +life who has been raped and defiled, all the perfection of her ripened +being defaced in a moment of lust, she will live on afterward with a +certain grandeur of horror in her eyes, of tragic dignity that can +never utterly be erased from her outraged person.... + +A French officer, speculating on the German intentions with that +admirably dispassionate intelligence with which the French consider +these brutal manifestations of the German mind, remarked, "At present +they seem engaged in ringing the cathedral with their fire, as if to +see how close they can come without hitting the building itself, but +of course from that distance they must sometimes miss." One theory +why the enemy pursues this unmilitary monument with such peculiarly +relentless ferocity is that they enjoy the outcry which their vandalism +creates. Moreover, it is a way of boasting to the world that they have +not yet been expelled from their positions behind Rheims, are not being +driven back. If any special explanation were needed, I should find it +rather in the fact that Rheims is peculiarly associated with French +history,--minster of her kings,--and its destruction would be especially +bruising to French pride. William the Second probably swells with +magnitude at the thought of destroying with his big guns this sanctuary +of French kings. Some of the graven kings still cling to their niches +in the lofty façade. Two have been taken to the ground for safety and +look out with horror in their blind eyes at the ruin all about them. +The little figure of Jeanne d'Arc, rescuer of a French king, still +stands untouched before the great portal, astride her prancing horse, +bravely waving her bronze flag. Around her were heaped garlands of +fresh flowers, touching evidence that the city of Rheims still holds +stout souls with faith in the ultimate salvation of their great church, +who lay their tribute at the feet of the virgin warrior. Once she +protected their ancestors from a less barbarous enemy. + +What use to enumerate the wounds and outrages in minute detail? For +by to-day more of this unique beauty has gone to that everlasting +grave from which no German skill can resurrect it.... Within, the +cathedral has been less spoiled, but is even sadder. One walked over +the stone pavement crunching fragments of the purple glass that had +fallen from the gorgeous windows, now sightless. Once at this hour +it was all aglow with color, radiating a mysterious splendor into +the vaults of transept and nave. A shell had blasted its way into +one corner, another had rent the roof vaulting near the crossing of +transept and nave. The columns and arches were blackened by the smoke +of that fire which caught in the straw on which the German wounded +lay. There was something peculiarly forlorn, ghostly within the dim +ruins of what was once so great, and I was glad to escape to the old +hospital in the close, now turned into a hospital for the cathedral +itself. Here on benches and in piles about the floor of the low-vaulted +room had been gathered those fragments of statue and moulding that a +pious search could rescue from the débris around the cathedral. In this +room, while the German guns were still raining shells upon Rheims, an +old man in workman's apron was already moulding casts of the faces and +lines of the shattered stones so that in some happier day an effort to +reproduce them might be made. I saw between his trembling old fingers +the fine features of a stone angel which he was covering with clay. I +know of nothing more beautifully eloquent of the French spirit than +this labor of preservation. Within range of shell fire this old man +was calmly working to save what he might of the beauty that had been +so prodigally murdered. If spiritual laws are still operative in this +mad world of ours, the Latin must endure and conquer because of his +unshakable faith.... + +At the hill on the Épernay road I looked back for a last view of the +cathedral. The evening mist was already creeping over its scarred +walls. With the two towers lifting the great portal to the sky, it +dominated the valley, the ruined city at its feet, a monument of men's +aspirations raising its head high into the sky in spite of the unseen +missiles that even then were beginning once more their attack. I would +that these words might go to swell that cry which has gone up from all +civilized peoples at the sacrilege to Rheims! Even now something of its +majesty and its glory might be saved if the German guns were silenced--if +within the German nation there were left any respect for the ancient +decencies and traditions of man. But I know too well with what contempt +the Germans view such pleas for beauty, for old memories and loves. They +are but "sentimental weakness," in the words of the "War Book," along +with respect for defenseless women and children. The people who gloried +in the sinking of the Lusitania will hardly be moved to refrain from the +destruction of a cathedral. Rheims--unless saved by a miracle--is doomed. +And it is because neither beauty nor humanity, neither ancient tradition +nor common pity can touch the modern German, that this war must be fought +to a real finish. There is not room in this world for the German ideal +and the Latin ideal: one must die. + + * * * * * + +The tragedy of Rheims has been repeated again and again--at Soissons, +at Arras, at Ypres, in every town and village throughout that blackened +band of invaded France from the Vosges to the sea. Also the tragedy of +exiled and imprisoned country folk, of ruined farms and houses, of mere +destruction. + +The wounds of France are so many, the outward physical bleeding of +the land is so vast, that volumes have been written already as the +record. Very little can be said or written about another wound,--the +lives of those in the invaded provinces behind the German lines,--for +almost nothing is known as to what has happened there, what is going +on now. A word now and then comes from that dead, no man's land; a +rare fugitive escapes from the conqueror's hand. The military rule +forbids any correspondence through neutrals, as is permitted prisoners +of war, to those held "behind the lines." The inhabitants are kept as +prisoners. Worse, they have been used at certain places along the front +as bucklers against the fire of their countrymen--in a quarry near +Soissons, at Saint-Mihiel. It is known that heavy imposts are laid upon +them, as at Lille, and that the invader is exploiting this richest part +of France's industrial territory. This last wound is, perhaps, the most +serious of all for France, in this modern, machine war. Latterly rumor +has it that the treatment of the inhabitants imprisoned behind the +German lines has become less rigorous, because, as a French general +explained,--"They hope to make peace with us--_quelle sale race!_" + +These wounds are still bleeding. They cannot be ignored. They, as +well as the death, suffering, and agony of the long trench combat, +make the faces of the French tense, silent. "To think that they are +still here after a whole year since this happened!" a young Frenchman +exclaimed in bitterness of soul as we looked out over the thickly +scattered graves in the fields around Bercy. To him it was as if a +crazed and drunken marauder had taken possession of his house, burned +a part of it, and still caroused in another wing. The unforgettable, +unforgivable wounds of France! + +The French, so clear-seeing, so reasonable even about their own +tragedies, are bitter to the soul when they think of the brutality +done to their _"douce France."_ To the French, quite as much as to +the Bryanited American, war is a senseless, inhuman thing; but it +becomes direfully necessary when the home has been burned and laid +waste. The Gallic spirit cannot understand that spirit of malevolent +destruction which vengefully wreaks its spite against defenseless and +inanimate works of age to be reverenced, of art to be loved. There are +certain scrupulosities of soul in the Latin that divide him from his +enemy, more effectually than a thousand years of life and an entire +world of space. + + + + +III + + +_The Barbarian_ + +The barbarian, as the Greeks used the word, was not necessarily a +person or a people without civilization. Indeed, certain ancient +peoples known as barbarians had a high degree of luxury, civilization. +The Persians under the barbarian Xerxes were probably quite the equals +in the mechanics of civilization of the Greeks, and the Egyptians could +lay claim to a large amount of what even the Greeks considered culture. +The barbarian was a person or a nation without a spiritual sense in his +values. The barbarian was often strong, able, intelligent, "organized" +as we say, but he was incapable of self-government: the barbarian nations +were ruled despotically. Their position in the world depended upon the +force and the ability of the particular despot who got control of their +destinies. The barbarian peoples were often crude in what is called +fine art. They neither believed in nor practiced those amenities of daily +life which express themselves superficially in manners, more deeply in +sensitive inhibitions, nor those amenities of the soul which are known +as honor, justice, mercy. The barbarian despised as soft and degenerate +such persons as permitted themselves to be trammeled in their conduct by +non-utilitarian considerations. In his primitive state the barbarian's +instinct was to destroy what he could not understand; as he became more +sophisticated, his instinct was to imitate what he could not create. + +What, above all, the barbarian cannot appreciate is the suave mean +of life, the ideal of individual human excellence, of a tempered +social control, the liberty of the individual within the fewest +possible restrictions to work out his own scheme of existence, his +own civilization. For the barbarian mind recognizes only two sorts +of beings--the master and the slave. One is a tyrant and the other +is a docile imitation of manhood. The barbarian never totally dies +from the world. In every race, in every nation, in every community +fine examples of the barbarian instinct, the barbarian philosophy +of existence can be found. I have known personally a great many +barbarians,--American life is full of them,--and my knowledge of +them, of their strengths and their limitations, has given me my +understanding of the modern German as manifested in this world war. + + * * * * * + +Real truth often underlies popular nomenclature. It is neither accident +nor a desire to abuse that has given the German the name of barbarian +in the Latin nations. Just as the Latin peoples are the inheritors of +Greek ideals, so the German peoples seem to be the active modern +protagonists of all that the Greeks meant by their term "barbarian." +The French before the war regarded the Germans as not wholly well-bred +persons, lacking in some of those niceties of feeling and conduct which +seemed to them important--"_parvenus_" as a French officer characterized +his feeling about the race, and added the descriptive adjective +"_sale_"--dirty. Since the war there has been ground into the French the +more awful inhumanities of which these _parvenus_ are capable. Therefore, +when they think of the German, there comes instinctively to their lips +the ancient term of complete distinction,--_les barbares_,--by which is +meant a person and a nation who are not governed by ideals of taste, +honor, humanity, what to the non-barbarian are summed up in the one +word "decency." The adjective that the officer used--"_sale_"--does +not imply necessarily literal physical dirt, but a moral callousness +and unrefinement of soul which in the spiritual realm corresponds with +the term "dirty" in the physical. He sees the soul of the German as a +dirty soul, unclean, unsqueamish. And this conception of the enemy has +given to the French soldier something of that crusader spirit which has +sustained him through his terrible conflict. As M. Émile Hovelaque has +expressed it,--"France is fighting the battle of humanity, of the world, +of America, of every nation, man, and child who are resolved to live +their own life in their own way, under the dictates of their conscience, +within the limits of the laws they have accepted." The battle of the +world to push back once more the pest of barbarism! It is that which +has roused French chivalry, French heroism, not merely the love of +the _patrie_. Indeed, for the higher spirits the _patrie_ is closely +identified with the non-barbaric ideals of humanity. + + * * * * * + +The whole conscious world has had the manifestations of the new +barbarism before its eyes for an entire year and more. It has recoiled +in disgust from the invasion of Belgium, the sinking of the Lusitania, +the shooting of Edith Cavell, from the wanton destruction of monuments. +All these barbarities are indisputable facts, which may be explained +and extenuated, but cannot be denied. There is another class of +barbarities,--the so-called "atrocities,"--which are more easily denied, +but which most people who have taken the trouble to examine the charges +know to be equally true. The record of these multiplied atrocities is +so enormous and so well authenticated that it would seem to me useless +to add any words to the theme were it not for an amazing attitude of +indifference to the subject on the part of many Americans. "We don't +want to hear any more atrocity stories," they say. "Perhaps the +atrocities have been exaggerated, probably there's truth on both sides. +Anyway, war is brutal as every one knows." Some newspapers will not +publish the atrocity charges, whether because of our popular prejudice +against anything "unpleasant" unless freshly sensational or because of +more sinister reasons, the reader may judge. + +This attitude is both evasive and cowardly. It is essential to +understand the atrocity for a proper realization of the war and of +the German menace. It is false to say that all war is barbarous, and +that in every war similar atrocities have occurred. As Mr. Hilaire +Belloc has well said,--"Men have often talked during this war ... as +though the crime accompanying Prussian activities in the field were +normal to warfare.... It is of the very first importance to appreciate +the truth that Prussia in this campaign has postulated in one point +after another new doctrines which repudiate everything her neighbors +have held sacred from the time when a common Christianity first began +to influence the states of Europe. The violation of the Belgian +territory is on a par with the murder of civilians in cold blood, and +after admission of their innocence, with the massacre of priests and +the sinking without warning of unarmed ships with their passengers and +crews. To regard these things as something normal to warfare in the past +is as monstrous an historical error as it would be to regard the Reign +of Terror during the French Revolution as normal to civil disputes +within the states." + +It is the business of every person who is concerned about anything +more than his own selfish fate to examine into the atrocity charges +and to convince himself, not only of the truth, but of the more serious +implications in their premeditated and persistent character. The record +has been well made, fortunately, often in judicial form. It is already +voluminous and being added to constantly. Best of all the evidence, +perhaps, are the German diaries of soldiers and officers, extracts of +which have been edited by Professor Bédier, of the Collège de France, +with facsimile photographs of the texts. Next I should place in evidence +the so-called German "War Book" ("Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege"), where +under the convenient title of "Indispensable Severities" may be found +the text for many of the worst atrocities committed in Belgium and +France. + +If the atrocity charge against the Germans is false or exaggerated, +it is surely time to know it, but no mere denial or general argument +can be accepted in rebuttal. The world must convince itself of the +truth. The German crimes have been too many and too public, too well +authenticated by witnesses to be disproved by mere denial. The best +public opinion of the world has condemned military Germany as a +barbarous outlaw. The crimes committed with the connivance of the +supreme military authorities, authorized by their instructions to +their officers, have fouled the name German for eternity: it will +be coupled with Vandal, Tartar, Barbarian. + + * * * * * + +I believe the atrocity charges to be substantially true in a vast +majority of cases. Moreover, I do not believe that half the truth of +them has been told or ever will be. My reasons for this belief in the +atrocity charge are the following: First, undisputed crimes, such as +the Lusitania and Cavell cases. A government that would sanction these +murders would sanction all other atrocities. Second, the witness of +persons in whose credibility I have confidence, such as French officers +and civilians, nurses and doctors, whose occupations have thrown +first-hand evidence in their way, who have personal knowledge of +specific outrages. Third, from what I myself gathered while I was in +France from the lips of abused persons. Although I did not look for +atrocities, I could not avoid getting reports from such people as I +met in the devastated territory of the Marne, weighing their stories, +and estimating the validity of them. + +I believe in the truthfulness of that abbé of Esternay, who was one +of the unfortunates that the Germans used as a screen before the +operations of a body of troops. I believe in the truthfulness of the +keen old peasant woman at Châtillon, whose home had been riddled by +German bullets and who had been fired at when she took refuge in the +cellar of her house, and of many others with whom I talked of their +experiences during the early days of September, 1914. Unfortunately, +there was no photographer at work those days along the Marne valley, +though no doubt the German denying office would instantly impugn the +evidence of a photograph of the act. Each one of us, however, has his +own inner instinctive tests of truth to which he puts the credibility +of a story, and I believe the abbé, the old woman, and many others +who suffered abominably at the hands of German soldiers. + +One fact only too evident to anybody who has followed in German +footsteps through the valley of the Marne is the part that mere +drunkenness had in this affair. The flower of the German army was +incredibly drunken throughout the advance into France. Pillage, rape, +incendiarism followed inevitably. They are common crimes to be expected +where an exhausted soldiery is inflamed with drink. But the cowardly +slaughter of non-combatants, the wanton destruction of monuments, the +brutal tyrannies toward conquered peoples--these are the blacker crimes +against the German name. + + * * * * * + +Self-control is not a Teutonic ideal. Of all the psychological surprises +that the war has revealed, the exhibition of the German temperament has +not been one of the least. Not its frank philosophic materialism, which +any one who had followed the drift of German thought and literature might +have expected, but its extraordinary lack of self-control. English and +Americans are taught that an individual who cannot master his own temper +is unfit to master others. Yet here is a people pretending to world rule +whose tempers individually are so little under control that they explode +in senseless passion on the least provocation. The German nation froths +with hate first against the English because they were neither as cowardly +nor selfish as had been expected, then against the Italians because they +would not listen to Prince von Bülow's song, latterly against Americans +because the United States dared to question the divine right of Germany +to do with neutrals what she pleased. Judging from the German press and +from the Germans whom I have met, the German nation is living in a +ferment of rage, all the more extraordinary as the fighting seems to +have gone their way thus far. What would happen to this uncontrolled +people should the war take an unfavorable turn and not supply them with +daily victories? Self-control is not included in that famous German +discipline. Uncontrolled tempers, drink, the ordinary fund of brutality +in the pit of human beings with the extraordinary conditions of war +will explain much of all this barbarism--but not all. + +The supreme evidence of German atrocities is to be found in the +infamous "Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege," a singular revelation of +national character in which the German general staff has summed +up for young officers the principles that should govern the conduct +of invading armies. One finds here,--"By steeping himself in military +history an officer will be able to guard himself against excessive +humanitarian notions; it will teach him that certain severities +are indispensable to war, nay, more, that the only true humanity +very often lies in a ruthless application of them." This convenient +generalization covers the multitude of Belgian crimes. This interesting +manual of conduct for officers further warns against "sentimentalism +and flabby emotion," such as are embodied in the Hague Conventions, +and after stating the generally accepted rule or custom of warfare +warns that exceptions are always permissible where the officer deems +exceptional severities are "indispensable." After perusing the +"Kriegsbrauch im Landkriege," need one seek more evidence of German +atrocities from the levying of confiscatory fines upon conquered +peoples to the use of noncombatants as human screens in military +operations? The germ of the barbarous system is there contained in +its entirety. + + * * * * * + +But the implication of all this is much deeper than might appear on the +surface. Such a theory of warfare as is set forth in the "War Book," as +has been exemplified throughout the war, having its climax to date in +the murder of Edith Cavell, is not the result of uncontrolled passions +wrought to ferocity. It is deliberate, preconceived, defended,--an +article of faith intimately bound up with the German ideal of the state. +There is the danger. That the precept of the higher military authorities +is accepted by the general public may be seen in the following passage +from the Hamburg "Fremdenblatt"--or is it but a press note inserted by +the high commandment? "Toxic gases are simply a new instrument of +warfare; they are condemned because they are not universally adopted.... +In warfare humanity does not exist and cannot exist. All the lucubrations +of the Hague Conferences on this subject are childish babbling. New +technical knowledge gives new arms to those who are not fools and know +how to use them.... Knowledge creates power, power creates law, law +creates humanity. All these are changing ideas and Germans are not +disposed to discuss them during the war." + +An Indian on the warpath scalps, burns, tortures, and we say it is +the Indian nature to do these things. So-called civilized white men +have gone on the loose in and out of war and have done many shameful +deeds: we blush for them and draw the veil. But what never before has +been accomplished is to have barbarism deliberately inculcated as +part of the policy of warfare by a so-called civilized state; also +warfare considered to be the flower of statecraft. Clausewitz lays +down the principle that war is the legitimate carrying-out of state +policy; the state relies upon war to execute its designs. The German +military authorities announce and print for the use of their officers +that in war deviation from any recognized principle of conduct is +permitted under the excuse of "indispensable severity"--for the sake +of terrorizing hostile peoples--and humanitarianism is condemned as +"sentimentalism and flabby emotion." + +There we have the gist of the whole affair--what makes the Frenchman +instinctively consider the German to be a barbarian, what makes modern +Germany the menace of the entire world. It is not its militaristic +ideals, its mechanical civilization, not even its brutality and +vulgarity, not even the ferocity of its warfare: it is the methodical +application of this underlying principle of conduct which has been +inculcated into the people so that they rejoice at the sinking of the +Lusitania, which has been employed in this war systematically from the +first day. This is the barbarian essence of the German character. + +It is not the raping of women, not the staff officers' drunken +orgies in châteaux, not the looting and burning of houses, not the +stupid treatment of Belgians and French "hostages," etc. All these +are distressing but not necessarily characteristic. It is the principle +of the legitimacy of evil provided only that evil works to the advantage +of the German state. That is the vicious term in the German syllogism. +The state can do no wrong: therefore the individual acting for the state +can do no wrong. The one supreme end sanctioned by divine authority is +the endurance and the magnification of the German state. Whatever a +German may do or cause to be done with this holy end in view is not +merely just and reasonable, but necessary and praiseworthy. Hence there +follows, naturally, the vile system of German espionage, of propaganda +in neutral countries, the indiscriminate use of the submarine weapon, +terrorization, military murders of civilians, and all the rest of the +long count against Germany. Assume the vital major premise and the rest +follows inevitably, provided her citizens are both docile and have a +natural fund of brutality. + + * * * * * + +"In warfare humanity does not exist and cannot exist. All the +lucubrations of the Hague Conferences on this subject are childish +babbling.... Knowledge creates power, power creates law, law creates +humanity. All these are changing ideas." + +The world has known the barbarian always; we are all acquainted with +him from personal experience. But the world has never before known a +reasoned, intellectual barbarism, a barbarian that has elevated into +a philosophy of human life with the sanctions of religion his instincts +and impulses. And that is the menace of the German, not his force nor +his brutality, but the risk that he can successfully impose upon the +world such an atrocious creed, intimidating into imitation those cowardly +souls whom he does not care to conquer. If Germany were to win this war, +it would not be her bumptious aggression that the world ought to fear +so much as the enormous impulse it would give to her detestable creed, +to the principle of evil in the world. The danger for us Americans is +greater than for others, not because of exposed coasts and an unprepared +army, but because we are already tainted with the same raw materialism +of belief. Too many individuals in America would find a sympathetic +echo in their own hearts to the German creed of collective selfishness +and barbarism. + + * * * * * + +One heard in Paris surprisingly little about German atrocities, less +than in Boston and New York, much less than in London. Not that the +French do not believe them: they know the bitter truth about German +inhumanity as none others. With that admirable stoicism and lucid +conservation of moral force displayed by the French from the beginning, +they do not waste their strength in denunciation: they have accepted +it as one of the terrible aspects of the evil they are fighting. They +probably understand the German character as now wholly revealed better +than the rest of the world and are not so much surprised by its +manifestations. They have examined the German, and have fortified +themselves against his cruel power. + +But they cannot forget these incredible outrages. There are too many +fresh examples--too many robbed and maltreated refugees, too many +fatherless and motherless children, still coming to Paris by the +trainload, whom they must provide for, too many relatives and friends +who have been abused and murdered or whose property has been looted +by German soldiers and officers. Also there are too many Frenchmen +who have seen the horrors with their own eyes, too many doctors and +stretcher-bearers shot down by those they were trying to aid, too many +hospitals bombarded, too many wounded prisoners killed. The German +atrocity is documented in France over and over, within the knowledge +of millions. It will prove to be Germany's great stumbling-block after +the war, when she looks about a shocked world for peoples to trade with. + + * * * * * + +In the dining-room of the military club at Commercy, where a corps +of the French army now has its headquarters, there is a wall painting +of the last century representing the heroic deeds of Jeanne d'Arc. +"That," said General C., pointing to the little figure on horseback, +"is French! And the French have fought this war chivalrously--not +against monuments, against women and children and old people, but +as soldiers against soldiers!" + +The Latin is sometimes cruel--he has within him the capacity for +cruelty--and the history of Latin peoples is stained here and there +with ferocity. But the Latin has never organized cruelty methodically, +has never elevated terrorization into a principle of warfare, a weapon +of statecraft. For one thing he is too intelligent: he knows that +cruelty begets reprisals, that brutality breeds hate. After Alsace +the German should have known too much to try the same method in harsher +forms upon Belgium and invaded France. But the barbarian learns no +spiritual lessons. Persian atrocity, Saracen atrocity, Indian atrocity, +Spanish atrocity--they have all failed. An enduring triumph was never +won on that principle of "indispensable severity." + +It is barbarism as well as the barbarian which France is fighting, +and the French know it, are profoundly conscious of it, from the +cool, dispassionate philosopher, like Bergson or Boutroux or Hovelaque, +to the girl conductor on the tram, the dirty _poilu_ in the trench. +For more than a generation the French world has suffered from the +fear of this new barbarian, and the time has come again, as it has +come so many times before in history, for the momentous decision with +the barbarian. Again as before it must come on the fields of France +where the ancient curse of barbarism has been met and destroyed. + + + + +IV + + +_The German Lesson_ + +The barbarian must be met on his own ground of force and efficiency,--"an +eye for an eye," not with arguments or apologies, not even with numbers +or wealth. The vital question for us all to-day is not how unprepared the +Allies were for the onslaught of barbarism, but how far they have overcome +their handicap, how thoroughly they have learned the barbarian's lesson. +The varying degrees in which the different allied nations have grasped +the meaning of the lesson and applied it tell us not merely their chance +of survival, but also the probable outcome of the world decision. What +that lesson is which Germany is teaching the world by blood and iron is +a byword on men's tongues to-day: the value of it is another question. + + * * * * * + +Long before the war, Germany had published far and wide her scorn +of her enemies. The Russians were an undisciplined barbarian horde; +the English, stupid idlers who spent on their sport the energy that +the industrious German devoted to preparing himself for world rule. +As for the French, they were an amiable and amusing people, but +degenerate--fickle, feeble, rotten with disease. Germany's hate +was reserved for the English, her most ignoble slurs for the French. +Needless to say, Germany has not found any one of her many enemies as +wholly despicable as she had imagined them to be. Her miscalculations +were greatest with France. That the French people are smaller in +stature than the German, that they eat less and breed less, that by +temperament they are cheerful and gay and witty convinced the dull +German mind that the race had become degenerate and trivial,--negligible. +This habit of contemptuously attributing to other peoples vileness and +degeneracy because their social ideals differ from her own is part of +that lack of imagination which is the Teuton's undoing. + +The courage, endurance, and high spirit displayed by the French have +compelled German admiration. The French have become the most tolerable +of all her enemies, and it is an open secret that for many months +Germany has desired to win France away from her allies by an honorable, +even advantageous peace. Meantime French prisoners are favored in the +German prison camps, being accorded a treatment altogether more humane +than that given the English prisoners or the Russians. But France has +replied to the dishonorable advances no more than to the calumnies. +One of the astonishing revelations of national psychology unfolded in +the war has been the taciturnity of the French, their silent tenacity. +For nearly two generations the nation has lived in expectation of an +ultimate struggle for existence with the barbarian: now that it has +come with more than the feared ferocity the French have no time or +energy to waste in comment. They must expel the barbarian from their +home and put a limit "for an hundred years" to the menace of his +barbarism. + +That is in part why the clear-headed Latin has learned the German +lesson faster than his allies. + + * * * * * + +What everybody knows by this time, and in America is repeating with +sickening fluency, is that Germany is "efficient," not only militarily +efficient, but socially and economically efficient--which these days +amounts to the same thing. Germany is "organized" both for peace and +war more efficiently than any other nation in the world. The two terms +that this war has driven into all men's consciousness are "efficiency" +and "organization." We in America, prone to admire the sheen of tin, +have bowed down in greater admiration than any other people to German +"efficiency." For efficiency values in the operations of life are just +the ones we are most capable of appreciating, although our government +and general social organization remain as lamentably inefficient as, +say, the English. But being a business people we are fitted to admire +business qualities above all others. The German army, the German state +are magnificently run businesses! To some of us, however, the term +"efficiency" has become nauseating because it has been associated with +so much else that we loathe from the bottom of our souls. If we cannot +have an "efficient" civilization without paying the price for it that +Germany has paid,--the price of humanity, of beauty, the price of her +soul,--let us return to the primitive inefficiency of a Sicilian +village! + +Germany under a highly autocratic system of government has created +a social machine of unexampled and formidable efficiency. The German +realized before his rivals that war had become, like all other human +activities, a matter of business on a huge scale. And he had prepared +not merely the special instruments of war, but also the tributary +business on this scale of modern magnitude: he had converted his state +into a powerful war machine. All this which is now commonplace has +become more glaringly evident to us onlookers because of the lamentable +failure of England and Russia especially to meet the requirements of +the new business. So incapable do they seem of learning the German +lesson that to some Americans the cause of the Allies is doomed already +to disaster. Certainly the English and the Russians have justified many +of those bitter German taunts. + +It has not been so with France. The French also were caught +unprepared--to their honor--like their allies. Can a real democracy +ever be prepared for war? France, suffering grievously from the first +blow dealt by the enemy, looked destruction in the face before the +stand at the Marne. The famous victory of the Marne, I believe, is +still unknown in Germany--I have been so informed by an American who +spent last winter in Germany. The battle of the Marne may not rank +in history as quite the greatest battle in the history of the world. +The French may exaggerate its importance as a military event. The +English have certainly exaggerated the part played by their little +expeditionary force of less than a hundred thousand in "saving France." +That is for others to dispute. But it was without any question a great +moral victory for the French of the utmost tonic value to the nation. +It saved France from despair, possibly from the annihilation that +follows despair. And ever since the Marne victory, French confidence +and _élan_ have been rapidly growing. During that bloody September week +they realized that the barbarian was not invincible, the machine was +not so perfect but that human will and human courage could resist it. +Moreover, the machine lacked that quality of spirit which the French +felt in themselves. As the months have dragged around an entire year +and more in the trenches, almost contempt has grown in the mind of +the French soldier for the formidable German machine. Strong as it +is, it yet lacks something--that something of human spirit without +which permanent victories cannot be achieved. Its strength can be +imitated. The spirit cannot be "organized." + +French confidence is more than an official phrase, a mere bluff! + + * * * * * + +But--and just here lies the profound significance of it all--the +French realized at once that in order to conquer the German machine +they must create an equally efficient and powerful machine, which +with that plus of human spirit and the inspiration of their cause +would carry them over into victory. So while the English were berating +the barbarian for his atrocious misconduct, advertising "business as +usual," and filching what German trade they could, bungling at this +and that, until they have become a spectacle to themselves, the French +nation concentrated all its energies upon preparing an organization +fit to meet the German organization. While General Joffre held the +Germans behind the four hundred miles of trenches, France made itself +over into a society organized for war--the new business kind of war +which is waged in factory and railway terminal, not by gallant charges. +"_Organiser_" has become in the Frenchman's vocabulary the next most +popular word to "_patrie_." One implies, these days, the other. + +It is said that when Germany invaded France, the French had not a +ton of their chief high explosive on hand. Some of its ingredients +they had been getting from Germany! France lost her coal and iron +mines and her largest factories the first weeks of the war and has +not regained them. Yet early in last April, according to the official +announcement, France was turning out six times as much ammunition as +was deemed, before the war, the maximum requirement, and would shortly +turn out ten times as much, which has ere this probably been greatly +exceeded. Meanwhile, by April the artillery had been increased +sevenfold. In attaining these results, France has accomplished a +greater marvel relatively speaking than the most boasted German +efficiency. She has had to get her coal from England, her ores from +Spain, her machines for making guns and shells from us. She has had +to improvise shell factories and gun plants from automobile factories, +electric plants, railway repair shops--from anything and everything. +I visited a small tile factory that was being utilized to make hand +grenades. Innumerable small shops in Paris are engaged in munition +work. The amount of ammunition bought in America by France has been +grossly exaggerated by the German press. Latterly, France has employed +American engineers to build large munition plants in France that will +become the property of the Government. + +Throughout the spring the Paris newspapers appeared every morning +with large headlines: "More guns! More ammunition!!" And they got +them, made them. The headlines are no longer needed, for the +superiority in shell and guns rests with the French, not with the +Germans, on the western front. + + * * * * * + +France, industrially crippled, has accomplished this marvel in +one short year. The country has become one vast workshop for war. +The Latin genius for organization on the small scale has met the +German genius for organization on the large scale. The industrial +transformation has been facilitated by the system of conscription +over which the English have wrangled so long and so futilely to the +mystery of their keener-witted allies. To the Frenchman conscription +means merely the most effective method of applying patriotism, of +coöperation for the common cause. France has mobilized not only her +men, but her women and children, it might be said, so thoroughly have +the civilian elements worked into the shops and other non-military +labor. To sort out their labor and put it where it was most effective, +to substitute women workers for men wherever possible, were the first +steps in the huge work of social reorganization. There were no labor +troubles to contend with, thanks to the conscription system and to +the awakened patriotism of every element in society. France looked +on aghast when her necessary supplies of coal were threatened by the +strike of Welsh miners, averted only by the personal pleadings of a +popular minister! To the Latin, more disciplined and more alive to +the real dangers of the situation than the Anglo-Saxon, the English +attitude was simply incomprehensible. Also France has not had her +efficiency so seriously threatened by the liquor problem as has +England: the military authorities have taken stern measures against +this danger and have carried them out firmly. So far as the army +itself is concerned, the drink evil does not exist. + +The manufacture of ammunition and cannon is but one element in the new +warfare. France has had to feed, clothe, and maintain her armies under +the same handicap, to meet all the unexpected requirements in material +of the trench war. The French have rediscovered the hand grenade and +developed it into the characteristic weapon of the war, have unearthed +all their old mortars from the arsenals and adapted them to the trench, +and created the best aerial service of all the combatants. Incidentally +they have effectually protected Paris from air raids since the first +months of the war by their careful aerial patrol. All this is aside from +the task of putting the nation socially and economically on the war +basis--in providing for the wounded, the dependent women and children, +and also for a perpetual stream of refugees from Belgium and the invaded +provinces, a burden that Germany has not yet had to carry. + +Not all this huge work of reorganization could be done immediately +with equal success. The sanitary service suffered grievously, especially +at the beginning,--needed all the help that generous outsiders could +give,--still needs it. The percentage of death among the wounded is too +high, of those returned to the army too low. There have been wastes in +other directions due to haste, inexperience, political interference, but +nothing like the wastes that England has suffered from the same causes, +infinitely less than we should suffer judging from the ineptitudes we +displayed in our little Spanish War. + +Probably France is not as well organized to-day for the war business +as is Germany. Very possibly she never will be, which is not to the +discredit of her people. The nation has had to do in one short year, +grievously handicapped at the start, what Germany has done at her leisure +during forty years. Moreover, the Latin temperament is intolerant of the +mechanical, the routine, which is the glory of the German. Although the +French have realized with marvelous quickness the necessity of war +organization and have adapted themselves to it,--have learned the German +lesson,--they are spiritually above making it the supreme ideal of +national effort. Without argument they have accepted the conditions +imposed upon them, but they do not regard the modern war business as +the flower of human civilization. + + * * * * * + +Mere preparation, no matter how scientific and thorough, is by no +means the whole of the German lesson. The first months of the war +we heard too much about German preparedness, too little about German +character. By this time the world is realizing that military preparation +is but one manifestation of that German character, and the real danger +is German character itself. According to reports in her own newspapers +Germany found herself running short of war materials after the first +weeks of this extraordinarily prodigal war, which exceeded even her +prudent calculations. But Germany had the habit of preparation and the +social machinery ready to enlarge her war product. Without advertising +her situation to the world, she provided for the new requirements so +abundantly that she has not yet betrayed any deficiency in material. +And while she was sweeping victoriously across northern France toward +Paris, with the belief that the city must fall before her big guns, +nevertheless her engineers took pains to prepare the Aisne line of +defense, which saved her armies from disaster and enabled them to keep +their tenacious grip on Belgium and northern France. This is the real +strength of Germany, the real import of the bitter lesson she is +teaching the world--the habit of preparation, discipline, organization, +thrift. On the specifically military side the French seem to have learned +this lesson well. They have fortified the ground between the present +front and Paris with line after line of defensive works. The fields are +gray with barbed wire. A few miles outside of the suburbs of Paris may +be seen as complete a system of trenches as on the front, and the _képi_ +of the territorial digging a trench is a familiar sight almost anywhere +in eastern France. It is inconceivable that any "drive" on the western +front could be successful. The confidence of the French rests in part +on these precautions. + +Whether the French can apply the inner meaning of the German lesson, +can incorporate it into their characters and transmit it to their +children, is a larger question for us as well as for them, for the +whole world. But their success in applying it in this war is all +the more noteworthy in contrast with the failure of their two great +allies, who were not invaded, not handicapped at the start, as was +France. The failure of Great Britain and of Russia to master the +lesson is so obvious, so lamentable, that it needs no emphasis here. +France, with the brunt of invasion only a few miles from the gates +of Paris, her factories and mines lost, has provided herself very +largely, has supplied Serbia with ammunition, Italy with artillery, +Russia, England, and Italy with aeroplanes. For many months the +thirty miles of the western front held by the English was defended +with the assistance of French artillery. + +The Slav one expected to fail in getting his German lesson, for +obvious reasons, especially because of his reactionary and corrupt +bureaucracy. But not the Anglo-Saxon! As a clever French staff +officer remarked,--"The two disappointments of the war have been +the Zeppelins and the English." Without making a _post mortem_ on +the English case, the Latin superiority is a phenomenon worth +pondering. For the Anglo-Saxon, cousin to the Teuton, would supposably +be the better fitted to receive the German lesson of organization +and discipline. But that ideal of individual liberty, which England +surely did not inherit from her Germanic ancestors, seems to have +degenerated into a license that threatens her very existence as a +great state. The English still talk of "muddling through somehow"! +If the end of autocracy is barbarism, the end of liberty is anarchy. + +The Latin has kept the mean between the two extremes. The French, +having fought more desperately in their great revolution for individual +freedom than any other people, seem able to recognize its necessary +limits and to subordinate the individual at necessity to the salvation +of the nation. In the Latin blood, however modified, there remains +always the tradition of the greatest empire the world has known, which +for centuries withstood the assaults of ancient barbarism. The wonderful +resistance and adaptability of the French to-day is of more than +sentimental importance to mankind. All the world, including their foes, +pay homage to the gallantry and greatness of the French spirit in their +dire struggle, but what has not been sufficiently recognized is the +significance to the future of the recovery by the Latin peoples of the +leadership of civilization. We Americans who have both traditions in our +blood, with many modifications, are as much concerned in this world +decision as the combatants themselves. + +So much has become involved in the titanic struggle, so many +subordinate issues have risen to cloud the one cardinal spiritual +issue at stake, that we are likely to forget it or deny that there +is any. Is the world to be barbarized again or not? + + * * * * * + +This reiterated use of the term "barbarism" is not merely rhetorical +nor cheap invective. It is exact. One of the Olympian jests of this +world tragedy has been the passionate verbal battles over the claims +of respective "_Kulturs_" to the favor of survival. Why deny that the +barbarian can have a very superior form of "_Kultur_" and yet remain +a barbarian in soul? These pages on the German lesson are a tribute +to Germany's special contribution to the world. Social and industrial +organization, systematic instead of loose ways of doing things, +prudence, thrift, obedience and subordination of the individual to +the state, discipline--in a word, an efficient society. It is a great +lesson! No one to-day can belittle its meaning. Possibly the remote, +hidden reason for all this seemingly useless bloody sacrifice in our +prosperous modern world is to teach the primary principles of the +lesson. God knows that we all need it--we in America most after the +Russian, and next to us the English. If the world can learn the lesson +which Germany is pounding in with ruin, slaughter, and misery,--can +discipline itself without becoming Teutonized,--the sacrifice is not +too great. If the non-Germanic peoples cannot learn the lesson +sufficiently well, then the Teuton must rule the world with "his old +German God." His boasted superiority will become fact, destiny. + +That is the momentous decision which is being wrought out these days +in Europe with blood and tears--the relative importance to mankind of +discipline and liberty. The ideal is to have both, as much of one as +is consistent with the other. In this country and in England may be +seen the evil of an individualism run into license--the waste, the +folly of it. And in Germany may be seen the monstrous result of an +idolatrous devotion to the other ideal--the man-made machine without +a soul. Between the two lies the fairest road into the future, and +that road, with an unerring instinct, the Latin follows. + + * * * * * + +The German lesson is not the whole truth: it is the poorer half of +the truth. An undisciplined world is more in God's image than a world +from which beauty, humanity, and chivalry have been exterminated. But +discipline is the primal condition of survival. Between these two poles, +between its body and its soul, mankind must struggle as it has always +struggled from the beginning of time.... + +When I looked on the sensitive, suffering faces of Frenchwomen in +their mourning, the wistful eyes of crippled youths, the limp forms +of wounded men, the tense, bent figures of dirty _poilus_ in their +muddy trenches, I knew that through their souls and bodies was +passing the full agony of this struggle. + + + + +V + + +_The Faith of the French_ + +I do not mean religious faith, although that too has been evoked, +reaffirmed by the trials and griefs of the war, but I mean faith in +themselves, in their cause, in life. The unshakable faith of the French +is the one most exhilarating, abiding impression that the visitor takes +from France these days. It is so universal, so pervasive, so contagious +that he too becomes irresistibly convinced, no matter how dark the present +may be, how many victories German arms may win, that the ultimate triumph +of the cause is merely deferred. + +There has never been the slightest panic in France, not during the +mobilization when white-faced men and women realized that the dreaded +hour had struck, not even in those days of suspense when the public +began to realize that the first reports of French victories in Alsace +were deceptive and that the enemy was almost at the gates of Paris. +A million or so people left the city with the Government in order to +escape the expected siege, but there was no panic, not even among the +wretched creatures driven from their homes in the provinces before the +blast of the German cyclone. + +Ever since the battle of the Marne the tide of confidence has been +steadily rising, in spite of the tedious disappointments of trench +warfare, the small gains of ground, the steady toll of lives, in +spite of reverses in Galicia and Poland and the mistakes in the +Dardanelles, in spite of English sluggishness and Russian weakness. +Each reverse has been courageously accepted, analyzed, and found not +decisive, merely temporary. Victory must come to the ones who can +endure to the end, and the French know now that they can endure. +"We can do it all alone, if we have to!" Again, "The Germans know +that they are beaten already: they know it in Berlin as well as we +do." This confidence is based on realities--first on the success with +which France has learned the German lesson and completely reorganized +her life for the business of war. "We were not ready last August--but +we are now." Her machine is growing stronger in spite of the daily +waste of life, while the German machine is weakening steadily. + + * * * * * + +The farther one gets into the military zone, the more fervent and +evident is this confidence, until on the front it is an irresistible +conviction that inspires men and officers alike. Even a novice like +myself began to understand why the army is sure of ultimate victory, +and the longer one stays at the front the more this faith of the +French seems justified. In the first place, they have so well got +that German lesson! The supply of shell and gun is so abundant, also +of fresh troops in reserve thanks to "Papa" Joffre's frugality with +human lives; the first, second, third lines--on _ad infinitum_ to +Paris--are so carefully fortified, so alertly held against any "drive"! +And the troops are so fit! They have made themselves at home in their +new camping life behind the lines of dugouts and caves; they have +become gnomes, woodsmen, cavemen, taking on the earth colors of the +primitive world to which they have been forced to return in order +to free the soil of their country. Then one sees the steady creeping +forward of the front itself, not much as it looks on a small-scale +map, but as the officers point out the blasted woods, or the brow of +a hill over which the trenches have been slowly pushed metre by metre +throughout the interminable weeks of constant struggle, one sees that +gradually the French have got the upper hand, the commanding positions +in long stretches of the trench wall. They are on the hills, their +artillery commands the level fields before them. It is like the struggle +between two titanic wrestlers who have swayed back and forth over the +same ground so long that the spectator can see no advance for either. +But one wrestler knows that the inches gained from his adversary count, +that the body in his grasp is growing weaker, that the collapse will +come soon--with a rush. He cannot tell fully why he feels this +superiority, but he knows that his adversary is weakening. + +Perhaps a colonel on the front will tell you with elation,--"We know +that the Boches across the way are discouraged, because our prisoners +say so,--we take prisoners more easily than we did,--and they are all +mixed up in their formations. We know that they have to drive their men +to the job, that the lines about here are stripped as bare as they dare +keep them. There used to be a lot of reserve troops behind their lines, +but our aviators say there aren't any in X----any more! And they aren't +as free with their _obus_ as they used to be, and they are 'old +nightingales,' not first quality." Perhaps the staff officers will smile, +knowing that the enemy is massing his forces elsewhere on the long front, +but this trick of rapid change is becoming harder to perform, and more +exhausting. At any rate, the plain _poilus_ in the front trenches are +instinctively sure: "We'll have 'em now soon!" They have watched that +grim gray wall opposite so long that, like animals, they can feel what +is going on there on the other side. + + * * * * * + +At staff headquarters in a more contained, reserved way there is +the same air of vital confidence. "Have you seen the new pump?" the +general asked me. "We are pumping good water all over this sector +into the front trenches, too.... Oh, we are _bien installé!_ ... It +may be another year, two, perhaps more, but the end is certain. There +is one man in the trenches, another just behind in reserve, still +another resting somewhere in the woods for his week off, and more, +all the men we want back in the _dépôts_!" And he turns the talk to +the good health of his men, their fine spirit. For one of the human, +lovable qualities of the officers whom I met is that they prefer to +talk about the comfort, the _morale_, the _esprit_, of their men to +discussing "operations." + +Just here I see where the French have risen above the machine idea +of the German lesson. There is a something plus, over and above +"preparation," "organization," "efficiency," which the Latin has +and on which his confidence in ultimate victory largely rests. That +is his belief in the individual, his reliance on the strength of the +individual's spirit. To the French officer this seems the all-important +factor in the army: military force depends ultimately upon the _esprit_ +of the individual which creates the _morale_ of the whole. Of course, +the army must be equipped in the modern way and fought in the modern +way with all the resources of science, with aeroplanes, bombs, motor +transport, and heavy artillery. But without the full devotion of the +individual, without the coöperation of his _esprit_, the army would +be a dead machine, especially in this nerve-rending endurance contest +of the trenches. Here is the Latin idea, which is absolutely opposed +to the German machine theory of war. + +The German staff has done marvels with its machine. It hurls armies +over the map of Europe of initiative and devotion in the common soldier, +who in the Latin conception of the word remains a human being with a +soul. An officer remarked to me, "We cannot have our men come from the +trenches glum and downcast--a Frenchman must laugh and joke or something +is wrong with him. So we started these vaudevilles behind the lines, and +sports." Instead of more drill they give their men "shows," so that they +may laugh and forget the horrors of the trench. Good psychology! + + * * * * * + +The civilian shines through every French soldier--the civilian who is +a human being like you or me, with the same human needs. The officers +chat and joke familiarly with their men. Comradeship is substituted for +tyranny. France, one comprehends, is a real democracy, and still takes +the ideal of equality seriously. When I asked an officer at Rheims why +he had not had a day's leave in ten months while English officers went +home on leave, he said, with a shrug,--"France is a republic: our men +must get their leaves first." + +The machine system gives startling results--in a short campaign. But +when it comes to an endurance contest, to the long, long strains of +trench warfare, something other than drill and organization is necessary, +something that will rouse the human being to the last atom of effort +that he has in him. When men must stand up to their waists in icy water, +live in the inferno of constant bombardment, not for hours and days, but +for weeks and months, something other than discipline is needed to keep +them sufficiently alive to be of use. Doctors tell how willingly, +unquestioningly, the wounded go back to the hell they have escaped,--not +once, but twice, three times. To evoke the capacity for heroism in the +individual soldier has been the triumph of the Latin system. + +The faith of the French rests justly on their heroic resolution, their +ability to endure as individuals, more than on the lesson learned of +preparation and organization. + + * * * * * + +Faith is a belief in the evidence of things unseen. French faith +is of many kinds, not purely material, not military. They believe +so profoundly in the perfect justice and high importance of their +cause that it would seem as if they counted upon the cause alone to +win the victory. No nation, they say, ever spent itself in a better +cause. Victims of an unprovoked attack, unprepared, which is the best +evidence of peaceable will, witnesses of the outrage of a neighbor +people, bleeding from the wounds of their own country,--what better +cause for war could men have? And the Latin intelligence of the +French enables them from the humblest to the highest to perceive the +universality of the principles for which they are called upon to die. +It is no selfish, not even a merely national, cause--it is the cause +of nothing less than humanity in which they fight. + +The philosopher Bergson expressed this sublime confidence in the +cause thus (I give the substance of his words from memory): "Not all +wars can be avoided--perhaps nine out of ten can. But this one, no! +For it is a war of principles. It will be a long war because the enemy +is strong and we were unprepared. But we can wait the end confident in +the result. The Germans have created a false belief, a wrong idea, and +have carried that idea into action with extraordinary thoroughness. But +the belief rests upon error. When the day comes that they meet reverses, +when their idol of force no longer works miracles for them, then they +will collapse, from within. There will be a general breakdown of +personality from realizing the falsity of their idea. There lies our +victory." + +The philosopher's belief is based on the faith that the principles +of justice, of law, of humanity are stronger, more enduring than any +organization of force no matter how efficient, for this is a moral +world. And the individual or nation who relies upon might to enforce +wrong must in the end, perceiving the irrationality of his world, +collapse. The grinding of the mill may be heart-breakingly slow, but +the grist is as sure as life itself. + +Similarly, the statesman Hanotaux has expressed "The Moral Victory": +"It is the noblest, the highest of causes which has been submitted +to the arbitrament of arms. Its grandeur justifies the terrible extent +of the drama and the immense sacrifices it imposes. The material results +of victory will be immense, the moral results will be even greater.... +Moral forces are superior to physical forces, and in spite of all they +will have the last word.... Our youth has gone to the front in the +serene conviction that it was fighting not only for the _patrie_, but +for humanity, that this war was a sort of crusade, that they could +claim place beside St. Louis and Jeanne d'Arc." + +It is that heroic consciousness of a righteous martyrdom that I read +on the faces of the black-robed women in the street, too proud for +tears; in the silent figures on the hospital beds, suffering without +protest an agony too deep for words. And when I encountered a file +of soldiers in the muddy trenches, flattening themselves out against +the earth walls to let me pass, carrying pails of soup to the comrades +up front, or sitting motionless beside their burrows along the trench +wall, their hands clasping their rifles,--dirty, grimed, and bearded,--I +saw the same thing in their tired eyes, their drawn faces. Mute martyrs +in the cause of humanity, in _my_ cause, they were giving their lives +for others, for _me_, not merely that the German might be driven from +France, but that justice and honor and peace between men might prevail +in the world! + + * * * * * + +Because the French people are inspired with the grandeur and the +moral significance of their cause, they cannot understand a certain +cynical attitude of mind, well illustrated by a former Senator of +the United States, who has been high in the councils of the defunct +Progressive Party. After spending ten days in Paris last spring, he +remarked at a luncheon given him by some distinguished Frenchmen,--"Don't +tell me about the justice of your cause or about the atrocities. I am +not interested in that. What I want to know is, who is going to win!" +Who is going to win! There spoke the barbarian mind. The barbarian +mind cannot comprehend that the winning itself in a world cause is +inextricably involved in the justice and worth of the cause. + +For the same reason the French people have been puzzled by the sort +of neutrality preached and practiced at Washington since the outbreak +of the war. It is plain enough that neither France nor England desires +to have the United States go to war with Germany. We can help them +better as a huge supply house than as an ally, much as that might +offend our vanity. The French appreciate also our President's desire +to keep his country at peace. They are a peace-loving people and know +the frightful costs of war. But they cannot understand a neutrality +that avoids committing itself upon a moral issue such as was presented +to the world in Belgium, in the sinking of the Lusitania. And in spite +of the strict censorship, which for obvious reasons has muzzled the +French press in its comment upon our diplomacy with Germany, occasionally +flashes of a biting scorn of the Wilson neutrality have appeared in print, +as the following from Hanotaux: "We should be wanting truly in frankness +toward our great sister republic if we left her in the belief that this +series of documents, of a tone particularly friendly and affectionate, +addressed to the German Government after such acts as theirs, had not +occasioned in France a certain surprise.... Up to this time the Allies, +who have not, God be praised, compromised or even menaced the life of +any neutral, of any American, have not received the twentieth part of +these friendly terms that the German Government has brought forth by +its implacable acts.... What the world awaits from President Wilson is +not merely a note, it is a verdict. What do neutral peoples, what does +the American Government, what does President Wilson think of the German +doctrine,--'Necessity knows no law--the end justifies the means'?... +Every Government that acts or speaks at the present hour decides the +nature of the real peace, whether it will be an affirmation of those +eternal principles that are alone capable of directing humanity toward +its sacred end." + +To our eternal shame as a nation our Government has evaded, up to +this hour, pronouncing the expected verdict, has preferred to quibble +and define, in its vain attempt to hold the barbarian to a "strict +accountability"--whatever that may mean. France does not want our +army or our navy, not even our money and our factories, except on +business terms, but she has looked in vain for our affirmation as +a nation of our belief in her great cause, which should be our own +cause--the cause of all free peoples. + + * * * * * + +What a timid and verbal interpretation of neutrality has prevented +our Government from affirming, the American people, let us be +thankful, have done generously, abundantly. They have pronounced +a not uncertain verdict, and they have followed this moral verdict +with countless acts of sympathy. The cause of France, the faith of +the French, have roused the chivalry of the best Americans. Our youths +are fighting in the trenches, our doctors and nurses are giving their +services, our money is helping to stanch the wounds of France. As +a people we too have affirmed our faith in the cause and are doing +generously, spontaneously, as is our wont, what we can to win that +cause for the world. The splendid hospital of the American Ambulance +at Neuilly, equipped and operated on the generous American scale, +is the real monument to the beliefs, the hopes, the faith of the +American people. + +In that modification of the Anglo-Saxon tradition which America is +fast evolving, there is a subtle sympathy and likeness with the Latin, +which this crisis has brought into evidence. We are less English than +French in spirit, in our ideal of culture, of life. + + + + +VI + + +_The New France_ + +"This is a return for a new departure!" the Italian poet cried to +his people at Quarto when they were still hesitating between the +paths of a prudent neutrality and intervention in the world decision. +Probably in the poet's thought there was more of concrete ambition +for "national aspirations" than of spiritual rebirth. But for the +French nation it is the spiritual rebirth alone that has any meaning. +No material enlargement of France has ever been seriously contemplated. +The acquisition of Alsace can hardly be termed conquest, and whatever +hopes of indemnity or other material advantages the French may have +permitted themselves to dream of must fade as the financial burden of +all Europe mounts ever higher. Even the recovery of Alsace, according +to those best able to judge,--in spite of German assertions,--would +never have roused France to an aggressive war. Conquest, material +growth, is not an active principle in the French character. How often +I have heard this thought on French lips,--"We want to be let alone, +to be free to live our lives as we think best, to develop our own +institutions,--that is what we are fighting for!" For forty years +the nation has lived under the fear of invasion, a black cloud +always more or less threatening on the frontier, and when the day of +mobilization came every Frenchman knew instinctively what it meant--the +long-expected fight for national existence. And the hope that sustains +the people in their blackest moments is the hope of ending the thing +forever. "Our children and our children's children will not have to +endure what we suffer. It will be a better world because of our +sacrifice." + +The conquest that France will achieve is the conquest of herself, +and the fruits of that she has already attained in a marvelous measure. +The reality of a new France is felt to-day by every Frenchman and is +aboundingly obvious to the stranger visiting the country he once knew +in her soft hours of peace. To be sure, intelligent French people say +to you, when you comment on the fact, "But we were always really like +this at bottom, serious and moral and courageous, only you did not see +the real France." Pardonable pride! The French themselves did not know +it. As so often with individual souls, it took the fierce fire of +prolonged trial to evoke the true national character, to bring once +more to the surface ancient and forgotten racial virtues, to brighten +qualities that had become dim in the petty occupations of prosperity. + +After I had been in France a short time, nothing seemed falser +to me than the pessimistic assertions of certain German-Americans +and faint-hearted other Americans, that whatever the outcome of the +world war France was "done for," "exhausted," "ruined," must sink to +the level of a third-rate power, and so forth. Nor can I believe the +words of those saddened sympathizers and helpers in the ambulances +and hospitals, that "France is proudly bleeding to death." Her wounds +have been frightful, and through them is still gushing much of the +best blood of the nation. Her bereavement has been enormous, but not +irreparable. Once a real peace achieved, the triumph of the cause, +and I venture to predict that France will give an astonishing +spectacle of rapid recovery, materially and humanly. For the New +France is already a fact, not a faith. + + * * * * * + +Evidence of this rebirth is naturally difficult to make concrete +as with all spiritual quality. It is not merely the solidarity of +the nation, the fervent patriotism, the readiness for every sacrifice, +which are qualities more or less true of all the warring nations, +especially of Germany. It is more than the perpetual Sunday calm +along the rue de la Paix, the absence of that parasitic frivolity +with which Paris--a small part of Paris--entertained the world. +It is not simply that French people have become serious, silent, +determined, with set wills to endure and to win--for that moral +tenacity may relax after the crisis has passed. It is all these +and much more which I shall try to express that has revealed a +new France. + +To start with some prosaic proofs of the new life, I will take +the liquor question, a test of social vitality. It is significant +to examine how the different belligerent nations have treated this +problem, which becomes acute whenever it is necessary to call upon +all national reserves in a crisis. Turkey, Italy, and Germany +apparently have no liquor problem; at least the war has not called +attention to it. Russia, whose peasantry was notoriously cursed with +drunkenness, eradicated the evil, ostensibly, by one arbitrary ukase, +though, if persistent reports from the eastern war region are true, +her great reform has not yet reached her officers. England has played +feebly with the question from the beginning when the ravages of drink +among the working population--what every visitor to England had +known--became painfully evident to the Government in its efforts +to mobilize war industries and increase production. Various minor +restrictions on the liquor traffic have been imposed, but nothing +that has reached to the roots of the matter--probably because of +the powerful liquor interest in Parliament as much as from the +Englishman's fetish of individual liberty. Although the direct +handicap of drunken workmen did not affect France as it did England, +the French authorities quickly realized the indirect menace of +alcoholism and have taken real measures to combat it. Absinthe has +been abolished. For the army--and that includes practically all the +younger and abler men--the danger has been minimized by the strict +enforcement of regulations as to hours and the non-alcoholic nature +of drinks permitted, which are posted conspicuously in all cafés +and drinking-places and which are carefully observed, as any one who +tries to order liquor in company with a man in uniform will quickly +find out! I never saw a soldier or an officer in the least degree +under the influence of liquor while I was in France, either at +the front or outside the military zone, and very few workingmen. +Not content with the control of liquor in the army, the French have +seriously attacked the whole problem, which in France centers in the +right of the fruit-grower to distill brandy,--an ancient custom that +in certain provinces has resulted in great abuses. Legislation +against the _bouilleurs de crue_ is one inevitable outcome of the +awakened sense of social responsibility in France. + +Connected with the liquor evil is the birth-rate question, to which +since the war the attention of all serious-minded people has been +drawn. The French Academy of Sciences has undertaken an elaborate +series of investigations into the relations between the birth-rate +and the consumption of alcohol, which would seem to show that there +is cause and effect between the excessive use of alcohol and a +declining birth-rate. This will undoubtedly tend to create a popular +sentiment favorable to restrictive liquor legislation, specifically +to abolishing the right to distill spirits. But what is of more real +significance is the changing sentiment among the French in favor of +larger families. Due, no doubt, directly to the necessities of a +draining war, it is also an expression of those deeper experiences +that trial has brought. The French have always prized family life, +and French family life is, perhaps, the best type of the social bond +that the world knows. Under the stress of widespread bereavement the +French are realizing that the base of the family is not love between +the sexes, but the existence of children. They want children, not +only to take the place of their men sacrificed, but as symbols of +that greater love for the race that the war has evoked. Although +the crudity of the "war-bride" method of increasing the population +is not evident in France, every working-girl wears the medallion of +some "hero" on her breast. Girls say frankly that they want children. +The Latin will never accept the German principle of indiscriminate +breeding. As in every other aspect of life, the Latin emphasizes the +individual, the personal; but an awakened patriotism and pride of +race, a deepened sense of the real values of life will lead to a +greater devotion to the family ideal. + + * * * * * + +To shift to the political life of France, the history of the republic +has been tempestuous in the past. There has been a succession of +_coups d'état_, plots, and scandals. One political _cause célèbre_ +has followed another--the Boulanger, the Dreyfus, and quite lately +the Caillaux. The wide publicity which these political scandals have +had is due partly to the Latin love of excitement, also to the Latin +frankness about washing dirty political linen in public. To the +foreigner it has seemed strange that a republic could endure with +such abysses of intrigue and personal corruption beneath its political +life as have been shown in the Panama and Dreyfus scandals. The Germans +probably have been misled by them into considering the French nation +wholly despicable and degenerate. But France has not only endured in +spite of these rotten spots, but her republicanism has grown stronger. +Americans experienced in their own sordid politics should understand +how uncharacteristic of the real citizenship of a democracy politicians +can be. The real France has never taken with entire seriousness the +machinations of "those rats in the Chamber." These "rats" were quite +active during the first months of the war. Aside from the incompetence +of the first war ministry, which kept the public in ignorance of the +danger so completely that the enemy was at Soissons before Paris was +aware that the French army was being driven back, and all the blunders +of the raid into Alsace, France had its sinister political menace in +Joseph Caillaux, who it has been rumored plotted a disgraceful peace +with Germany before the battle of the Marne. Caillaux, when his +creature, the grafting paymaster-general, was exposed, found it wise +to go to South America. An able and on the whole a competent ministry +was placed in power. + +When Caillaux returned last spring, rumors of legislative unrest +and plotting against the Joffre-Millerand control of the army +began once more. Outwardly it was an attempt of party leaders in +the Chamber to gain greater legislative control of the conduct of +the war, ostensibly for the improvement of bureaucratic methods, +as in the sanitary service, which was notably deficient. But beneath +this agitation were the dangerous forces of political France seeking +to oust Joffre, and there lay the menace that a political clique might +get control of the army. This agitation, however, did not disturb +the public. As one Frenchman put it, "If those rats get too active, +Gallieni will take them out and shoot them. France is behind the +army, and the people will not tolerate legislative interference with +it." The political unrest has at last resulted in a new and larger +cabinet, admittedly the most representative body that France could +have. The danger of political interference has passed without resort +to summary methods. It is a triumph of democracy. France will fight +the war to an end under constitutional government, a much more +difficult task than Germany's. Obviously, as may be seen in England, +parliamentary government is a great hindrance to a nation in the +abnormal state of war. Free societies have this handicap to contend +with when they fight an autocratic machine. To maintain her republican +government without scandals throughout the war will be a political +triumph for France, indicative of the new spirit that has entered +into the nation. The seriousness of the present situation has sobered +all men and has suppressed the politicians by the mere weight of +responsibility. The New France emerging from the trial of war can +profit by this experience to purge her political life of the +scandalous elements in it. + +Italy has closed her Parliament and relapsed temporarily into autocracy. +England and France are struggling to maintain popular government as we +did through the Civil War. + + * * * * * + +Much has been said of the heroic spirit of the French nation under +the tragedy of the war. Too much could not be said. The war has +evoked patriotism among all the peoples engaged, but with the French +there is a peculiar idealistic passion of tenderness for the _patrie_ +which impresses every observer who has had the good fortune to see +the nation at war. I shall not linger long on these familiar, +inspiring aspects of love for country that the war has called forth +from all classes. The ideal spirit of French youth has been +illustrated in some letters given to the public by the novelist, +Henry Bordeaux, called "Two Heroes." They relate the personal +experiences of two youths, one twenty, the other twenty-one, whose +baptism of fire came in the battle of the Marne. They grew old fast +under the ordeal of battle and of responsibility for the lives of +their men; their letters home show a loftiness of spirit, a sense +of self-forgetfulness, of devotion to the cause, that is sublime, +poignant--and typical. In every rank of society the same immense +devotion, the same utter renouncement of selfish thought can be felt. +A spirit of ideal sacrifice has spread throughout the nation, making +France proud, heroic, confident. Such a spirit must be a benediction +for generations to come. + +The common effort, the universal grief, has drawn all French people +so close together that social and party differences have disappeared. +The French priest has become once more the heroic leader of his +people, fighting by their side in the trenches. The scholars, the +poets, the artists have all done their part,--the nuns, the +aristocrats, the working-people theirs. While England has been +harassed with strikes and class recriminations, France has never +known in her entire history such absolute social harmony and unity, +such universal and concentrated will. + +This spirit of "sacred union" embraces the women who are doing men's +tasks, the rich who are surrendering their good American securities +to the Government in exchange for national defense bonds, the poor +who are bringing their little hordes of gold to the Bank of France to +swell the gold reserve. I wish that every American might stand in the +court of the Bank of France and watch that file of women and old men +depositing their gold--the only absolute security against want they +have! That is faith made evident, and love. + + * * * * * + +In looking over the bulky file of French newspapers, illustrated +weeklies, and pamphlets on the war, which I brought back with me, I +am struck by the fact that the outstanding characteristic of all this +comment on the great war from journalist to statesman and publicist +is not denunciation of the barbarian. Denunciation plays a singularly +small part in the French reaction to their suffering. References to +Germans and Germany are usually of a psychological or humorous +character, illustrating the grotesque and antipathetic aspects in +which the Teuton presents himself to the Latin mind. That part which +grieving and denunciation have played in English comment, the gross +and apoplectic hate of the German press, is taken by lyrical +enthusiasm for heroism. The newspapers, sure pulse of popular +appetite, are filled daily with stories of sacrifice, gallantry, +heroism. This is the aspect of the sordid bloody war that the French +spirit feeds on. It is a fresh manifestation of an old national +trait--the love of chivalry. Some day, doubtless, these splendid +tales of individual heroism, of soldierly and civilian sacrifice, +will be gathered together to make the laurel wreath of the New +France. I could fill a volume with those I have read and heard. And I +like to think that while Germany went wild over the torpedoing of the +Lusitania,--even dared to celebrate it in America,--while the +Zeppelin raids arouse her patriotic enthusiasm, the French gloat over +the story of the private who crawled out of the trench and hunted for +two days without food or water for his wounded officer. The love of +the _beau geste_ is an ineradicable trait of French character. It has +had a bountiful satisfaction in this war. + +"We have fought a chivalrous war," General C. exclaimed, pointing to +the little figure of Jeanne d'Arc. The same general ordered that the +government dole of a franc and a half a day be paid to those Alsatian +women whose husbands were fighting in the German army. "They are +French women: it is not their fault that their husbands are fighting +against France!" And the deathless touch of all, which will be +remembered in the world long after the destruction wrought to the +cathedral of Rheims, is the picture of French saving German wounded +in the burning church--fired by German shells! + +The _beau geste_, the beautiful act, which ennobles all men, not +merely the doer of the deed,--that is what France is giving the +world. The image of men who are more than efficient and strong and +physically courageous, of men who are filled with a divine spirit of +sacrifice and devotion. Truly supermen. + +Chivalry was a trait of the Old France as it is of the New. It +has fallen somewhat into disrepute of late years with the rise +of the comfort and efficiency standards. Nowhere else on the broad +battlefields of Europe has it revived, to redeem the horror of war, +so shiningly as in the New France. + + * * * * * + +Another aspect of French character which is both old and new is +the quality of humorous "sportsmanship" the French have displayed. +When Germany's crack aviator made a daily visit to Paris, dropping +bombs, in the afternoon during the early weeks of the war, the +Parisians took his arrival as a spectacle and thronged the boulevards +to watch him and applaud. When at last he was shot through the head, +the French press lamented his loss with genuine appreciation of his +nerve and his skill. A young cavalry officer at the front told me +this story: One of the younger officers of his regiment, to encourage +his men, had offered rewards for German shoulder straps, that is, +prisoners. Two simple peasants, misunderstanding his words, proudly +brought in a couple of pairs of German ears strung on a string like +game. The officer, brooding over the incident, resolved to explain +and apologize to the enemy. Putting his handkerchief on the point of +his sword, he crawled out of the trench and advanced across the field +of death between the lines. + +Tales from the trenches by the hundreds prove that the French have +not lost the sparkle of wit even under the dreary conditions of +trench-fighting. When Italy joined the Allies, some soldiers of a +front-line trench hoisted the placard,--"Macaroni mit uns!" Again, +when boasting placards of German successes in Galicia were displayed, +the French _poilus_ retorted,--"You lie. You have taken ten thousand +officers and ten millions of troops." When in a German military +prison the keepers boasted of their recent successes on the western +front, the French prisoners began to sing the _Marseillaise_ to the +astonishment of their German guards, "because," as they explained, +"we know if you have killed all those French soldiers, you must have +lost at least four times as many!" + +The barbarian misread the Gallic love of wit and laughter. To joke +and quip seemed to him beneath the dignity of men. It is, rather, +the safety-valve of a highly intelligent people--the outlet for their +ironic perceptions of life. The most amusing songs of the war that I +have heard were given by the _poilus_ on a little stage near Commercy +while the cannon thundered a few miles away. This ability to turn +upon himself and see his life in a humorous light is an invaluable +quality of the French soldier. So, too, is his love of handicraft +which finds many ingenious expressions even in the trenches. The +French soldier is always a civilian, with a love of neatly arranged +gardens and terraces, and he lays out a _potager_ in the curve of a +shell-swept hillside, or a neat flower garden in the crumbled walls +of a village house. He makes rings from the aluminum found in German +shell-caps, carves the doorposts of his stone dugout, or likenesses +of his officers on beam-ends, as I saw in a colonel's quarters in +the Bois-le-Prêtre. + +The French soldier remains, even in this bloodiest of wars, always +a civilian, a man, capable of laughter and tears, of heroic heights, +of chivalrous sacrifices,--with the soul's image of what manhood +requires, with the vision of a state of free individual men like +himself. + + * * * * * + +The New France is inspired with qualities of Old France, qualities +which I call Latin, which have emerged into high relief under grief +and suffering and effort. It is above all gallant and high-minded. +The wounded Frenchman never complains or whimpers. "_C'est la +guerre--que voulez-vous!_" To the surgeon who has operated on +him,--"_Merci, mon major_." And they lie legless or armless, perhaps +with running sores, a smile on the face in answer to the sympathetic +word, in long hospital rows.... + +The fundamental element in this New France is the gravity, the +seriousness of it. Of all the warring peoples the French seem to +realize most clearly what it all means, what it is for, and the deep +import of the decision not merely to them, but to the whole world. +They are fighting, not for territory, but for principles. Peace must +be not a rearrangement of maps, but of men's ideas, of men's wills. +They are the conscious protagonists of a long tradition of ideals +that have once more been put in jeopardy. It is the character of this +human world of ours which they are struggling to mould, and like +actors in a Greek tragedy they are suitably impressed with the +gravity of the issue in their hands. + +The New France has been born in the travail of the monstrous +desolation of trench-land that stretches, scabby with shell-holes, +leprous with gray wire, pitted with countless graves, scarred with +crumbled villages for four hundred miles across the fair fields of +_la douce France_. In this savage desert, inhumanly silent except +for the shrieking of shells, for now more than a year's time France +has struggled with the incarnated spirit of evil, rearing its head +again, armed with all the enginery of modern science. The little, +dirty-bearded soldiers squat there in their burrows, white-faced, +tense, silent, waiting, watching, month after month, or plunge over +their walls to give their lives on that death-field outside. They are +the simple martyrs of the New France. + + * * * * * + +France has learned her German lesson; has reorganized her life to +make it tell effectively for her task, has reorganized her inner +life, discarding frivolity and waste. She has found herself in the +fire. France is not "done for," as my German-American friends so +pityingly deem. Bleeding from her terrible wounds, she is stronger +today than ever before,--stronger in will, in spirit, in courage, the +things that count in the long, long run even in the winning of wars. +Technically minded soldiers may judge that "Germany can't be beaten." +But the French know in their souls that she can be, that she is beaten +today! In this greatest of world's decisions it is the spirit of the +Latin that triumphs again--the sanest, suavest, noblest tradition that +the earth has ever known, under which men may work out their mysterious +destiny. + + + + +Part Three--America + + +I + + +_What Does It Mean to Us?_ + +I went from the French front back to America. The steamer slipped +down the Gironde between green vineyards, past peaceful villages, +a whole universe distant from that grim, gray trench-land where the +French army was holding the invader in Titan grip, stole cautiously +into the Bay of Biscay at nightfall to escape prowling submarines, +and began to roll in the Atlantic surges, part of those "three +thousand miles of cool sea-water" on which our President so complacently +relies as a nonconductor of warfare. I was homeward bound to America, +the land of Peace, after four months spent in "war-ridden Europe"--to +that homeland stranger somehow than the war lands, where my countrymen +were protesting to both belligerents and making money, manufacturing +war supplies and blowing up factories, talking "peace" and "preparedness" +in the same breath; also--and God be thanked for that!--helping to feed +the starving Belgians, sending men, money, and sympathy to the French. +As the old steamer settled into her fourteen-knot gait, the submarines +ceased to be of more than conversational concern, and I began to ask +myself,--"What does it all mean to us, this bloody sacrifice of world +war,--to us, strong, rich, peaceful, confident Americans?" + +For in spite of a curious indifference among many Americans to the +outcome, so long as it did not get us into trouble with either party, +betrayed by personal letters and press articles which I had received, +I was profoundly convinced that the issues of the world tragedy were +momentous to us too. "This European butchery means nothing," said one +friend, who supplies editorial comment for a most widely read American +weekly, "except a lot of poverty, a lot of cripples, and a lot of +sodden hate in the hearts of the people engaged. Europe will not be +changed appreciably as a result of the war!" Our pacifist ex-Secretary +of State, I remember, wrote Baron d'Estournelles de Constant inquiring +what the French were fighting for, implying that to the reasonable +onlooker there was no clear issue involved in the whole business, +merely the passions of misguided patriotism. The well-meaning agitation +for peace, which as I write has been lifted into the grotesque by the +Ford peace ship, is based largely on this inability to realize the +reality of the issue between the belligerents. And there is our national +attitude of strict neutrality, which fairly represents the evasive mind +of many Americans. Happily, they seem to say to themselves, "This war is +not our affair." We were warned by Washington to keep clear of European +"quarrels," and wisely we covered our retreat at The Hague by inserting +that little clause which relieved us from all real responsibility for +the observance of the conventions. Excuse for cowardice and blindness +of vision! Such Americans like to think that as a nation we have no more +concern in the present war than a peaceable family in one house has with +the domestic upheavals of an unfortunate family in the next house. The +part of prudence is to ignore all evidences of unpleasantness, to profess +good offices, and to keep on friendly terms with all the belligerents. + +The impression that such an attitude makes on the American in +Europe is painful, whether it be expressed in personal letters, +in newspapers and magazines, or in diplomatic "notes." He becomes +impatient with the provincialism of his own people, ashamed of their +transparent selfishness, astonished that human values should have got +so fatally distorted in our fat, comfortable world. To the European, +American neutrality has become a matter of public indifference, of +private contempt. Inspired with the lofty ambition of playing the +rôle of mediator in the world war, President Wilson has lost his +chance of influencing the decision toward which Europe is bloodily +fighting its way. At that great peace conference which every European +has perpetually in mind, America will be ignored. Only those who have +shared the bloody sacrifice--at least have had the courage to declare +their beliefs--will penetrate its inner councils. We have had our +reward--money and safety. It is not fantastic even to expect that the +conquerors might under certain circumstances say to the conquered, +"Take your losses from the Americans: they alone have made money out +of our common woe!" + +No, ours has not been the _beau geste_ as a nation. Nor can the +American take comfort in the thought that Washington diplomacy does +not fairly represent the sentiment of our people. As the weeks slip +past, it is only too evident that our President has interpreted +exactly the national will. The farther west one travels the colder +is the American heart, and duller the American vision. The numerical +center of the United States is somewhere in the Mississippi Valley. +Europe gave Chicago, in her distress after the great fire, eighty +cents per person; Chicago has given Belgium and France seven cents +per Chicagoan. Not a single Chicago bank appears on the list of +subscribers to the Anglo-French loan,--very few banks anywhere west +of the Alleghanies. "It is not our quarrel; we are not concerned +except to get our money for the goods we sell them!" + + * * * * * + +But are we not concerned? I asked myself as the old steamer throbbed +wheezily westward. Beneath the deck in the ship's strong room there +were thick bundles of American bonds, millions of them, part of the +big American mortgage that Europe has been obliged to sell back to +us. They represent European savings, hopes of tranquil old age, girls' +_dots_, boys' education and start in life. The American mortgage is +being lifted rapidly. The stocks and bonds were going home to pay for +the heavy cargoes of foodstuffs and ammunition and clothes which we +had been shipping to Europe. The savings of the thrifty French were +going to us, who were too rich already. The French were bleeding their +thrift into our bulging pockets, selling their investments for shells +and guns and barbed wire which would not keep old age warm, marry their +girls, or start their boys in life. They were doing it freely, proudly, +for the salvation of their _patrie_, which they love as the supreme +part of themselves. And to us what did all this sacrifice mean? Oh, +that we were growing richer day by day while the war lasted; "dollar +exchange" was coming nearer; we were fast getting "rotten with money," +as a genial young coal merchant who had the deck chair next mine +remarked affably. Yes, the war meant that to us surely,--we were fast +raking in most of the gold that Europe has been forced to throw on the +table of international finance, the savings, the _dots_, the stakes of +her next generation. The number of lean-faced American business men, +war brokers, on the steamer was plain evidence of that. Already +Prosperity was flooding into America--that prosperity upon which our +President congratulated the country in his Thanksgiving address. + +But is that prosperity a good thing for the American people just +now? Aside from the speculation excited by the superabundance of gold +in our banks, there is the envy of hungry Europe to be reckoned with +a few months or years hence, after the close of the great war, an envy +that might readily be translated into predatory action under certain +circumstances, as some thoughtful Americans are beginning to perceive. +Eastern America, where the war money has largely settled, is already +fearful, desires to arm the nation to protect its prosperity. And +there is the more subtle, the more profound danger that this undigested +war bloat of ours will dull the American vision still further to the +real issue at stake--the kind of world we are willing, the kind of soul +we wish, to possess. Can we safely digest the prosperity that the happy +accident of our temporary isolation and the prudent policies of our +Government have given us? Are we not feeding a cancer that will take +another war to cut from our vitals? + + * * * * * + +Most of us on board were Americans going about our businesses on a +belligerent nation's ship in defiance of Mr. Bryan's advice. The man +next to me was building a new munitions plant for France, and beyond +him was the European manager for a large American corporation whose +factories have been taken over by the German Government. He was +returning to America to enter the munitions business in Pittsburg +or Connecticut. To these commercial travelers of war the European +struggle meant, naturally, first of all money, the opportunity of a +lifetime to make money quickly; it meant also less vividly helping +the Allies, who needed everything they could get from us and were +willing to pay almost any price for it. Sometimes they talked of the +long list of "accidents" that were happening daily in American factories +and genially cursed the hyphenated Germans. As for the other sort of +Germans they felt vaguely that some day America must reckon with them, +too. Evidently they put small faith in the "three thousand miles of +cool sea-water" as a nonconductor of warfare! So here was another +aspect of the war--the possible dangers to us, without a friend in +the world, as every one agreed. And we talked "preparedness" in the +usual desultory way. The munitions men seemed to think that they were +patriotically working for their own country in getting "the plant" of +war into being. "Some day we shall need guns and shells too!" Afterwards +I found in America that this vague fear of probable enemies had seized +hold of the country quite generally, and that the very Government which +had done nothing toward settling the present war rightly was planning +for "defense" with a prodigal hand. Peaceful America was getting +alarmed--of what? + +There were also in our number some young doctors and nurses who were +returning from the hospitals in France for a little needed rest. They +were of those young Americans who are giving themselves so generously +for the cause, eager, courageous, sympathetic. They seemed to me to +have gotten most from the war of all us Americans, much more than the +munitions men who were making money so fast. In Belgium, in Serbia, +behind the French lines, in the great hospital at Neuilly, they had +got comprehension and all the priceless rewards of pure giving. They +had seen horror, suffering, and waste indescribable; but they had +seen heroism and devotion and chivalry. And with them should be joined +all the tender-hearted and generous Americans at home who have aided +their efforts, who are working with the energy of the American character +"for the cause." Alas, already the word was coming of a relaxation in +the generosities, the devotions, the enthusiasms of these Americans. +Other interests were coming into our rapid activities to distract us +from last year's sympathies.... + + * * * * * + +So as we rolled on through the soft summer night while the passengers +discussed the latest Russian reverse of which news had been received +by wireless, I kept asking myself,--"What does it really mean to us? +To vast, rich, young America?" Surely not merely more money, more +power, even a loftier inspiration for the few who have given themselves +generously in sympathy and aid. After all, these were but incidental. +The threat we were beginning to feel to our own security, this campaign +for "preparedness," did not seem of prime, moving importance. Probably +in our bewildered state of mind we should wrangle politically about the +matter of how much defense we needed, then drop some more hundreds of +millions into the bottomless pit of governmental extravagance and waste. +We had already spent enough to equip another Germany! When peace was +finally made in Europe, we would forget our fears; our Congressmen and +their parasites would fatten on the new appropriations, which would be +as actually futile as all their predecessors had been. No; these were +hardly the significant aspects of the war to us as a people. + +No more was that acrobatic exhibition of diplomatic tight-rope +walking we had witnessed from Washington. Mere "words, words, words, +professor!" Our dialectic President had thus far failed to establish +any one of his contentions, either with Germany or Great Britain, nor +did it seem likely that he ever could. While he was still modifying +that awkward phrase, "strict accountability," Germany obviously would +murder whomsoever it suited her purpose to murder, and England would +hold up any ship that attempted to trade with Germany. All those +neutral rights for which Washington was paying big cable tolls had +not been advanced an atom. The time had gone by when our strong voice +could compel respect from the barbarian, could hearten the soul of +other weaker neutrals. Europe had taken our exact measure. We should +have saved some dignity had we not murmured more than a formal +protest.... + +And yet, returning from "war-ridden Europe" I was more convinced +than of anything else in life that what was being slowly settled +in that grim trench--land over there did mean something to us--more, +much more than money or neutral rights or sympathetic charities. Not +that I was apprehensive of an immediate German raid on New York, the +crumbling of her sky-scrapers and the exaction of colossal indemnities. +For it looked to me that Germany might well have other occupation +after peace was made in Europe, whichever way the war should go. The +German peril did not lie, I thought, in her big guns, her ships, her +"Prussianized machine." It lay deeper, in herself, in her image of +the world. If Germany could win even a partial victory under that +monstrous creed of applied materialism, illuminated as it had been +with every sort of cynical crime, with its reasoned defiance of contract, +its principle of "indispensable severities," its "military reasons," +_that_ must become inexorably the law of the world--the barbarians' +law. Germany would have made the morality of the world! And of all +the world's peoples to accept the victor's new reading of the +commandments, proud America would be the first. For we cannot resist +the fascination of success. The German aim, the German tyranny over +the individual, the German morality--one for you and me as individuals +and another utterly lawless one when we get together in a social +state--would be imitated more than the German lesson of thoroughness +in civil and military organization. Hypnotized by German success, we +should not discipline ourselves, which is the German lesson, so much +as we should riot in the moral license of the German creed. Americans +would worship at the altar of that queer "old German god," who +apparently encourages rape, murder, arson, and tyranny in his followers. +For in young America, with every social tradition in it seething blood, +there is already an insidious tendency to accept this new-old religion +of triumphant force. American "Big Business" can understand the Kaiser's +philosophy, can reverence his "old German god" when he brings victory, +more than any other people outside of Germany. For it, too, believes +in "putting things over" with a strong hand. There is not an argument +of the German militarist propaganda that would not find a sympathetic +echo somewhere in the headquarters of American corporations. + + * * * * * + +When the old fourteen-knot steamer finally dropped anchor off +quarantine in New York Harbor and the reporters came on board with +the dust of America on their shoes, the roar of America in their +voices, I was surer than ever that this greatest of world wars meant +a vast deal more to us than trade or charity or politics, which is +what we seem to be making of it for the most part. It means the form +which our national character is to take ultimately. The German peril, +which is held before the public in moving pictures and in alarmist +appeals for "preparedness," is already in our midst, not so much at +work blowing up our factories as insidiously at work in our hearts. +The German apologist--even of Anglo-Saxon blood--is suggesting the +reasonableness of a German verdict. "After all," one hears from his +lips, "there is much on the other side of the shield, which our +English prejudices have prevented us from seeing. Germany cannot be +the monster of barbarism that she has been painted. As for broken +treaties, the atrocities, the submarines, the murder of Edith Cavell, +and her rough work over here,--well, we must remember it is war, and +the Russian Cossacks have not been saints!... As to her military +autocracy, perhaps a little of it would not be a bad thing for +America. At any rate, Germany seems to have the power--it is useless +to think of putting her down.... The American public will forget all +about German crimes once Germany is victorious." "Nothing succeeds +like success." "There is always a reason for success," etc. Which +cynical acceptance proves that we have already "committed adultery in +our hearts." + +There are many voices in the air, too many. Americans have not yet +found themselves in this crisis of world tragedy, and the Government +at Washington has not helped them to an understanding. We are vastly +relieved at not finding ourselves "involved" and accept shabby verbal +subterfuges as a triumph of American diplomacy. Meanwhile the Lusitania +incident has been conveniently forgotten, with the awkward phrase +"strictly accountable." Along the eastern seaboard the anxious and the +timid are clamoring for "defense"--against what? The talkative pacifists, +who would make a grotesque farce of the bloody sacrifice by a futile +peace, are bringing further ridicule and contempt on their country +with their impertinent if well-meant efforts. Meantime, the money-makers +have taken this occasion to stage a spectacular bull market, grumbling +on the fruits of war! And there is the "good-time" side to American life. +For a few brief months after the outbreak of the war Americans were +staggered by the awfulness of the tragedy and moved under its shadow. +Their hearts went out in sympathy, in feeding the dispossessed, and +sending aid to the wounded. We spent less on ourselves, partly because +of financial fear, partly because of our desire to give, partly because +our hearts were too heavy to play. But already that serious mood is +passing, and to-day as a people we are hard at it again, chasing a good +time. We feel once more the same old lustful urge to get and enjoy.... +The other night as I looked out on the peopled sea of the New York +opera-house, with its women richly dressed and jeweled, its white-faced +men, leading the same life of easy prodigal expense, of sensual +gratification, I remembered another opera staged in the mysterious +twilight of Bayreuth where from the gloom emerged the hoarse bass of +Fafner's cry,--"I lie here possessing!" The voice of the great worm +proved to be the voice of Germany. Is it ours also? + + * * * * * + +Do we Americans desire to have our world Germanized? Not in art and +language and customs, though may Heaven preserve us from that fate +also! But Germanized in soul? Do we want the German image or the Latin +image of the world to prevail? And are we strong enough in our own +ideal to resist a "peaceful penetration" by triumphant Germany into +our minds and hearts? That is the urgent matter for us. No amount +spent on big guns, superdreadnoughts, submarines, and continental +guards--no amount of peace talk--can keep the German peril out of +America if we surrender our souls to her creed, now that Germany +seems to be imposing it successfully with her armies in Europe. Those +dirty _poilus_ in the front trenches are, indeed, fighting our battle +for us, if we did but know it! + + + + +II + + +_The Choice_ + +"We have all sinned, your people as well as mine, the English, +the French, the Germans, all, all of us,--but Germany has sinned +most." When M. Hanotaux spoke these words with a Hebraic fervor of +conviction, I did not have to be told what he meant. The people of +our time have sinned through their hot desire for material possession +of the earth and its riches--through commercialism, capitalism, call +it what you will. Each great nation has made its selfish race for +economic advancement at the expense of other peoples: commercial +rivalry has largely begotten this bloody war, which is essentially +a predatory raid by one barbarous tribe against the riches of its +neighbors. Whether England or Russia under similar circumstances +would have dared a similar attack on the liberties of the world is +open to speculation. To Germany alone, however, has been reserved the +distinction of elevating greed and the lust of power to the dignity +of a philosophic system, a creed with the religious sanction of that +"old German god" to smite the rivals of the Fatherland and take away +their wealth. It is because Germany has made a consistent monster out +of her materialistic interpretation of modern science that she is now +held up before the nations of the world as a spectacle and a warning. +"We have all sinned" in believing that the body is more than the +spirit, that food and pleasure and power are the primary ends of all +living; but Germany alone has had the effrontery to justify her +cynicism by conscious theory and to teach it systematically to all +her people. She has endowed with life a philosophical idea, given it +the personality of her people, created a national Frankenstein to be +feared and loathed. More, she is coming perilously nigh to imposing +her god upon the world! + +We have all worshiped at the shrine of material achievement--in +America with the riot of young strength. England, like old King +Amfortas, is now bleeding from the sins of her youth and calling in +vain for some Parsifal to deliver her from their penalty. She has +built her rich civilization on a morass of exploited millions, and +her Nemesis is that in her hour of peril her sodden millions strike +and drink and feel no imperative urge to give their lives for an +England that sucked her prosperity from their veins. In the race for +commercial supremacy the Latin nations--Italy, Spain, and France--have +been deemed inferior to Germany, England, and the United States, +because they were less tainted with the lust of possession, less +materialistic in their reading of life, less powerful in their grasp +upon economic opportunity than their rivals. In the Latin countries +industry yet remains largely on the small scale, which is economically +wasteful, but which does not build up fabulous wealth at the expense +of the individual worker. The great corporation designed for the rapid +creation of wealth has not found that congenial home on Latin soil +which it has on ours, or on German soil. And this fact accounts for +the touch of handicraft lingering in the product of Latin industry, +for the strength and health individually of their working classes, +for their fervor of devotion to the national tradition. The Latin +has never forgotten the claims of the individual life: democracy to +him is more than the right to vote. Therefore, pure art, pure science, +pure literature--also the world of ideas--has a larger part in the life +of Latin peoples than with us in the eternal struggle with the +materialistic forces of life. To the Latin living is not solely the +gratification of the body. He reckons on the intelligence and the +spirit of man as well. + + * * * * * + +It may seem to some that throughout these pages I have spoken +paradoxically of the world war as primarily a struggle between the +Latin and the Germanic ideal, ignoring the significance of Russia +and of England. In spite of the heroic resistance of the French and +the pertinacious thrust of the Italians against the steel wall in +which Austria has bound them, the Latin forces engaged are obviously +less than half of the Allied Powers. On the sea England is virtually +alone. Nevertheless, I see the struggle as a Latin-German one, the +great decision as essentially a decision between these two types of +ideals. All else is relative and accidental. Apart from the +surprising vitality developed by the two Latin peoples, their +astonishing force in the brutal struggle for survival,--which has +disagreeably put wrong the calculations of their enemy,--it is the +mental and spiritual leadership of the world which is being fought +for rather than the physical. The ideas and the ideals under which +the Allies are fighting, which can be simply summed up however +divergent their manifestations, are French, are Latin ideas and +ideals, not English, not Russian. The spirit of the cause to which +England has lent her imperial supremacy and Russia her undeveloped +strength is Latin, and since the war began the English have widely +borne testimony to this fact. + +The right of peoples, little as well as strong nations, to live their +own lives, to preserve their own political autonomy, to develop their +own traditions, is part of the Latin lesson learned in the throes of +the great Revolution. It is expressed passionately, wistfully in that +universal cry of the French people: "We must end this thing--it must +never happen again--we must win the right to live as we see fit, not +under the dictation of another!" To the Latin mind the world is +peopled by individuals who cannot and should not be pressed in the +same political or economic mould, who must win their individual +salvation by an individual struggle and evolution. This is the ideal +of liberty the world over, which prompted France to send us help in +our struggle with England. It is a wasteful, an uneconomic ideal, as +we Americans have proved in our slovenly administration of our great +inheritance. Yet we would not have a machine-made, autocratic +organization, no matter how clean and thrifty and efficient it might +make our cities. We prefer the slow process of conversion to the +machine process of coercion. And that is one source of our sympathy +with French civilization. Let us have all liberty to its possible +limit short of license: the Latin intelligence has known how to +preserve liberty from becoming license. The result in the human being +of the principle of liberty is individual intelligence and spiritual +power; those are the high ideals toward which democracy aims. The +cost of them is efficiency, organization--immediate results which +German discipline obtains. But the cost of the German ideal is the +humanity of life, and that is too big a price to pay. That there +should be found many among us who are willing to exchange the +spiritual flower of our civilization for the sake of a more efficient +social organization is evidence of the extent to which the cancer of +a materialistic commercialism has already eaten into our life. + + * * * * * + +The Latin vision of life includes chivalry, as has been abundantly +revealed by the spirit of the French, sorely tried in their struggle +with the new barbarian. Chivalry means beauty of conduct, an +uneconomic, a sentimental ideal, but without which the life of man on +this earth would be forlorn, lacking in dignity, in meaning. Take +from mankind the shadowy dream of himself implied in his desire for a +chivalrous world, and you leave him a naked animal from the jungle, +more despicable the more skillful he becomes in gratifying his lusts. +The Latin vision of life includes also beauty of art, man's radiation +of his inner spiritual world, and closely woven with the love of art +is respect for tradition--reverence for the past which has been +bequeathed to him by his ancestors, which is incorporated in his +blood. + +We in America have striven for these beauties of chivalry, art, and +tradition. We have striven to put them into our lives often blindly, +crudely. We have borrowed and bought what we could not create; +instinctively we pay homage to what is beyond our industrial power +to make, confessing the inadequacy of our materialism to satisfy our +souls. We, too, demand a world in which beauty of conduct, beauty of +manners, and beauty of art shall be cultivated to give meaning to our +lives. The bombardment of Rheims, the murder of Edith Cavell are as +shameful to the American mind as to the French, and as incomprehensible. +These are not matters of reason, but of instinct--commands of the soul. + + * * * * * + +The Latin ideal is not predatory. Whatever they may have done in +their past, the Latin peoples to-day are not greedy of conquest. If +the Allies win, France will gain little territory. Both Italy and +France have limited their territorial ambitions to securing their +future safety by establishing frontiers on natural barriers. France +also expects indemnity for her huge losses and for outraged Belgium. +She must rebuild her home and be freed for generations to come from +the inhibiting fear of invasion. One does not feel so confident of +England: in the past she has had the pilfering hand. But from +prudence if not from shame England may content herself with a +reestablished prestige and a tranquil Europe. Russia has already +reconciled herself to relinquishing Poland, and except for her +natural ambition to enter the Mediterranean she seems without +predatory desires. Russia, it should not be forgotten, took up arms +to protect her own kin from the Austrians. The Slav and the Latin +have a spiritual sympathy that cannot exist between the Latin and the +Teuton, which gives their present union more than an accidental +significance. + +Whatever secret ambitions may be brewing in the chancelleries of +Europe, France has put herself on record against conquest too +emphatically to countenance at the peace conference any predatory +rearrangement of the map of Europe. She has made the great war a +struggle of principle--the principle of national liberty against the +principle of military conquest. It is this great principle which +gives significance to her cause and justifies the awful slaughter and +waste of bleeding Europe. If the pretensions of physical might, no +matter with what excuses, can be thoroughly defeated, proved to be an +impossible theory of life, so that never again in the history of the +world will a nation attempt to take with the sword what does not +belong to it, the bloody sacrifice will have been well worth making. +The issues of the great conflict have been obscured, especially in +America, but to the humblest soldier of France they are as clear as +blazing sunlight. "Never again!" Never the monstrous pretension that +power alone makes right, that the will to eat gives free license to +the eater, however great his appetite or his belief in himself. That +is the cause of all the world, for which the French are willing to +give all that they have. And I know no cause more important to be +settled for the future of the human race. + + * * * * * + +Are we not interested in the right decision of this cause? A +peaceable people, loving our own way, jealous of interference, +we should assuredly present a lamentable spectacle were we called +upon to defend ourselves against a predatory enemy. Possibly a more +lamentable spectacle of inefficiency combined with corruption than +England has given the world the past year! And at last we are becoming +aware that our policy of selfish isolation does not mean immunity from +attack. We are realizing that those "three thousand miles of cool +sea-water" no longer make an effectual barrier against the ingenuity +of modern men. + +But I would not put the matter on the selfish basis of our own +security. It is vastly larger than that. It is, vitally, what +manner of world we wish to have for ourselves and our children. +At the invasion of Belgium, America gave with splendid unanimity +the response: Americans did not want the German world! Since then, +alas, it would seem that the clear moral reaction of our people to +the demonstration of the world struggle has been gradually weakening: +we are becoming confused, permitting insidious reasoners to cloud the +issue, listening to the prompting of the beast in our own bellies, +hesitating, dividing, excusing, evading the great question--"seeing +both sides." As if there were two sides to such a plain issue stripped +of all its fallacies and subterfuges and lies! Do we wish to have +American life take on the moral and intellectual and artistic color +of German ideals? Do we prefer the "old German god" to the culture +and humanities we have inherited from the Latin tradition?... "We, +too, have sinned." In our blood is all the crude materialism of a +triumphant Germany without her discipline and her organization. We, +too, are ready to enter the fierce war of commercial rivalry with +England and Germany. We, too, believe in the good of economic expansion, +though dubious about our own imperialism. Surely no people that ever +lived stood hesitating so dangerously at the crossroads as America at +this hour. Prudence has prevented us as a nation from pronouncing +that moral verdict on the cause which might have had decisive weight +in hastening the world decision. But a selfish timidity cannot prevent +us individually from realizing the immense importance to us of the +decision that is being ground out in the tears and blood of Europe. +And no ideal of diplomatic neutrality can prevent Americans who care +for anything but their own selfish well-being from doing all in their +power to make ours a Latin rather than a Teutonic world. + +Every soldier who dies in the trenches of France, who bears a maimed +and disfigured body through life, is giving himself for us, so that +we may live in a world where individual rights and liberties are +respected, where beauty of conduct and beauty of art may endure, +where life means more than the satisfaction of bodily appetites. + + + + +III + + +_Peace_ + +The real cynics of the war are the pacifists. They see nothing more +serious in the European agony than what can be disposed of easily at +any time in a peace conference--by talk and adjustment. So obsessed +are some of them by the slaughter of men, by the woe and travail of +Europe, that they would turn the immense sacrifice into a grotesque +farce by any sort of compromise--a peace that could be no peace, +merely the armistice for further war. Their eyes are so blinded by +the economic waste of the war and its suffering that they are incapable +of seeing the great underlying principle that must be decided. Americans, +having evaded the responsibility of pronouncing a decisive moral +judgment on the rape of Belgium, the sinking of the Lusitania, and +the extermination of the Armenians, play the buffoon with women's +peace conferences, peace ships, and endless impertinent peace talk. +We, who have forfeited our right to sit at the peace conference, who +are busily making money off the war, having prudently kept our own +skins out of danger, are officiously ready with proposals of peace. +What a peace! The only peace that could be made to-day would be a +dastardly treason to every one of the millions whose blood has watered +Europe, to every woman who has given a son or a father or a husband +to the settlement of the cause. The parochialism of the American +intelligence has never been more humiliatingly displayed than in +the activities of our busy peacemakers. + + * * * * * + +No sane person believes in war. The sordidness and the horror of war +have never been so fully revealed as during this past year. War has +been stripped of its every romantic feature. Modern war is worse than +hell--it is pure insanity. We do not need peace foundations, peace +conferences, peace ships to demonstrate the awfulness of war. But +crying peace, thinking peace, willing peace will not bring peace +unless conditions that make peace exist. Here in America we use the +word peace too loosely, as if it meant some absolute state of being +which we had achieved through our innate wisdom rather than from the +happy accident of our world position. But peace is an entirely +relative term, as any one who has given heed to the social conditions +we have created should realize. We have enjoyed a certain kind of +peace, the value of which is debatable. And now, alarmed at the +exposed condition of our eastern seaboard, we are agitatedly +preparing to arm to protect ourselves--from what? From Germany? Or is +it from England? And still we recommend an instant peace to Europe! + +Awful as are the waste and suffering caused by war, hideous as modern +warfare is, there are worse evils for humanity. To my thinking the +perpetuation of the lawless, materialistic creed of the new Germany +would be infinitely worse for the world than any war could be. When +the German tide broke into Belgium and poured out over northern +France, sweeping all before it, killing, burning, raping, the +pacifists no doubt would have accepted the conqueror as the will of +God and have made peace then!... There are none more eager for peace +than the soldiers in the trenches who are giving their lives to press +back the barbarian flood. But no peace until their "work has been +done, the cause won." I have heard Americans express the fear that +European civilization is in danger of annihilation from the prolonged +conflict. Even that were preferable to submission to the wrong ideal. +But I see, rather, the possibility of a higher civilization through +the settlement of fundamental principles, the reaffirmation of +necessary laws. It is surely with this abiding faith that the +enormous sacrifices are being freely made by the allied nations. "It +is of little importance what happens to us," a Frenchman said to me +in Rheims, whose home had been destroyed that morning, whose son had +already been killed in the trenches. "There will be a better world +for the generations to come because of what we have endured." That is +what the American pacifist cannot seem to understand--the necessity +of present sacrifice for a better future, the cost in blood and agony +of ultimate principles. + + * * * * * + +This war is leading us all back to the basic commonplaces of +thinking. Is life under any and all conditions worth the having? Our +reason says not. It tells us that the diseased and the weak-minded +should not be permitted to breed, that an anaemic existence under +degenerating influences is not worth calling life. We shudder in our +armchairs at the thought of "cannon food," but why not shudder +equally at the words "factory food," "mine food," and "sweat-shop +food"? We are inclined to sentimentalize over those brave lives that +have been spent by the hundreds of thousands on the battlefields of +France and Poland, but for the most part we live placidly unconscious +of the lives ground out in industrial competition all about us. +Between the two methods of eating up, of maiming, of suppressing +human lives, the battle method may be the more humane--I should +prefer it for myself, for my child. What our pacifists desire is not +so much peace as bloodlessness. We should be honest enough to +recognize that for many human beings,--possibly a majority even in +our prosperous, war-free society,--a violent death may not be by any +means the worst event. And it may be the happiest if the individual +is convinced that the sacrifice of his existence will help others to +realize a better life. That is the hope, the faith of every loyal +soldier who dies for his country, of every soldier's father and +mother who pays with a son for the endurance of those ideals more +precious than life itself. + +The higher one rises in consciousness, the more nearly free and +self-determined life becomes, the greater are the rewards of complete +sacrifice. There are many who have "fallen on the field of honor" +whose lives, if lived out under normal peace conditions, might have +meant much to themselves, possibly to humanity. They have given +themselves freely, without question, for what seems to them of more +importance than life. Wounded, mutilated past all usefulness, dying, +they have not rebelled. Doctors and nurses in the hospitals tell the +story of their endurance without complaint of their bitter fate. Much +as we must feel the awful price which they have felt obliged to pay, +it is not sentimental to say that the finer spirits among them have +lived more fully in the few crowded weeks of their struggle than if +they had been permitted to live out their lives in all the +gratifications of our comfortable civilization. Letters from them +give an extraordinary revelation of priceless qualities gained by +these soldiers through complete renunciation and sacrifice. War, it +must not be denied, is a great developer as well as a destroyer of +life. Nothing else, it would seem, in our present state of evolution +presses the cup of human experience so full of realization and +understanding as battle and death. The men who are paying for their +beliefs with their lives are living more in moments and hours than we +who escape the ordeal can ever live. For life cannot be measured by +time or comfort or enjoyment. It is too subtle for that! A supreme +effort, even a supreme agony, may have more real living worth than +years of "normal" existence. The youths whose graves now dot so +plentifully the pleasant fields of France have drunk deeper than we +can fathom of the mystery of life. + +As for the nation, that greater mother for whose existence they have +given their individual lives, there is even less question of the +benefit of this war. We Americans are fond of measuring loss and gain +in figures: we reckon up the huge war debts, the toll of killed and +wounded, and against this heavy account we set down--nothing. It is +all dead loss. Yet even to-day, in the crisis of their struggle, +there is not a Frenchman who will not admit the immense good that has +already come to his people, that will come increasingly out of the +bloody sacrifice. The war has united all individuals, swept aside the +trivial and the base, revealed the nation to itself. The French have +discovered within their souls and shown before the world qualities, +unsuspected or forgotten, of chivalry, steadfastness, seriousness, +and they have renewed their familiar virtues of bravery and good +humor and intelligence. The French soldier, the French citizen, and +the French woman are to-day marvelously moulded in the heroic type +of their best tradition: in the full sense of the word they are +gallant--chivalrous, self-forgetful, devoted. Is there any price +too great to pay for such a resurrection of human nobility? + +The pacifist is fain to babble of the "disciplines of peace." No +one denies them. But how can humanity be compelled to embrace these +disciplines of peace? The German lesson of thoroughness and social +organization and responsibility was as necessary before the war as it +is to-day, but neither England nor France, neither Russia nor our own +America gave heed to it until the terrible menace of extermination +in this war ground the lesson into their unwilling souls. It may be +lamentable that humanity should still be held so firmly in the grip +of biologic law that it must kill and be killed in order to save +itself, but there are things worse than death. Until humanity learns +the secret of self-discipline it will create diseases that can be +eradicated only with the knife; it is merely blind to assume that +the insanity of war can be prevented by any system of parliamenting, +or litigation, or paper schemes of international arbitration. Some +issues are of a primary importance, unarguable, fundamental. No +man--and no nation--is worthy of life who is not ready to lay it down +in their settlement. I know that some Americans are still unable to +perceive that any such fundamental principle is at stake in Europe +to-day. Extraordinary as it seems to me I hear intelligent men refer +to the great war as if it were a local quarrel of no real consequence +to us. Even the humblest _poilu_ in the trenches, the simplest +working-woman in France, know that they are giving themselves not +merely in the righteous cause of self-defense, but in the world's +cause in defense of its best tradition, its highest ideals. Their +cause is big enough to consecrate them. + + * * * * * + +Therefore a new, a larger, a more vital life has already begun for +invaded and unconquered France! In order to reap the blessings of +war, a nation must have an irreproachable cause, and aside from +Belgium, France has the clearest record of all the belligerents in +this world war. She will gain most from it, not in land or wealth, +but in honor and moral strength, in dignity and pride. She is ready +to pay the great price for her soul. This is the one supreme +inspiration that the French are giving an admiring world--their +readiness to give all rather than yield to the evil that threatens +them. With the light of such nobility in one's eyes, it is difficult, +indeed, to be patient with the cynical clamor of comfortable neutrals +for peace at any price. If there is anything of dignity and meaning +in human life, it lies in selfless devotion to beliefs, to +principles; it is readiness to sacrifice happiness, life, all, in +their defense. + +And that is patriotism in its larger aspect. Our intellectuals +discuss coldly the primitive quality of patriotism and its unexpected +recrudescence in this world war. They talk of it in the jargon of +social science as "group consciousness." Before I felt its fervor +in the crisis of Italy's decision, in the sublime endurance of the +French, I did not realize what patriotism might mean. It is not +merely the instinctive love for the land of birth, loyalty to the +known and familiar. Much more than that! The natal soil is but the +symbol. Patriotism is human loyalty to the deeper, better part of +one's own being, to the loves and the ideals and the beliefs of one's +race. It is the love of family, of land, of tongue, of religion, of +the woman who bore you and of the woman you get with child, of the +God you reverence. It is loyalty to life as it has been poured into +you by your forefathers, to those ideals which your race has conceived +and given to the world. "_Viva Italia!_" "_Vive la France!_" is a +prayer of the deepest, purest sort that the Italian or the Frenchman +can breathe. Without these subconscious devotions and loyalties the +human animal would be a forlorn complex of mind and sense. Those +amorphous beings who, thanks to our modern economic wealth, have become +"citizens of the world," who wander physically and intellectually from +land to land, who taste of this and that without incorporating any +supreme devotion in their blood, our cosmopolites and expatriates and +intellectuals, froth of a too comfortable existence, give forth a +hollow sound at the savage touch of war. They become pacifists. They +can see neither good nor evil: all is a vague blur of "humanity." + +Patriotism is the supreme loyalty to life of the individual. Wherever +this loyalty is instinctive, vivid, there some precious tradition has +been bequeathed to a people that still burns in their blood. Latin +patriotism is ardent like man's one great love for woman, ennobling +the giver as well as the loved one; it is tender like the son's love +for the mother, with the sanctity of acknowledgment of the debt of +life. Can any vision of "internationalism" take the place of these +powerful personal loyalties to racial ideals?... "Mere boys led to +the slaughter" is the sentimentality one hears of the marching +conscripts of European armies. Better even so than the curse of no +supreme allegiance, or devotion, or readiness to sacrifice--than the +aimless selfishness in which our American youth are brought up! + + * * * * * + +For every boy in Europe knows, as soon as he knows anything, that he +owes one certain fixed debt, and that is service to his country, to +that larger whole that has given him the best part of his own being. +If need be, he owes it his life itself. It is an obligation he must +fulfill before all other obligations, at no matter what inconvenience +or sacrifice to himself, unquestioningly, immediately. + +What takes the place for the American youth of this primary +obligation? Himself! He is expensively nurtured, schooled, put +forward into life--for what? To help himself as best he can at the +general table of society. He can never forget himself, subordinate +his personal ambition to any transcendent loyalty. He becomes from +his cradle the egotist. + +To-day under the shadow of world war we are taking thought of +national protection, projecting schemes of defense including the +enrollment of citizens who may be called upon to fight for their +country. It is less important to teach our youth the military lessons +of self-protection than it is to teach them the greater lesson of +self-forgetfulness, of devotion to a national ideal--so that they may +be ready to give their lives for that national ideal as the youth of +Europe have given their lives to settle this world cause. Not a few +hundreds of thousands of national guards, then, in order to secure +ourselves from invasion are what we need, but that every man or woman +born into the nation or adopting it as home should be made to feel +the obligation of national service. It matters less what form that +service should take, whether purely military or partly military and +partly social. It is the service, the sense of obligation that counts +for the individual and for the nation. The responsibility of service +teaches the importance of ideas, the necessity of sacrifice. And he +who is ready to sacrifice himself, to forget himself and become +absorbed in the life that surrounds him, of which he is but an +infinitesimal unit, to which he owes the best in him, has already +achieved a larger peace than the pacifist dreams of. + + * * * * * + +Consider what happened to the youth of France a little more than +a year ago. Suddenly with no preparation or warning they were called +to defend their country from invasion. It was no longer possible to +argue the rights of that diplomatic tangle into which European +statesmen had muddled. Whatever the ultimate truth, the ultimate +right of the controversy, the state--that larger self which was their +home, their mesh of loves and interests and beliefs--demanded their +service. The youth of France had been brought up with the knowledge +that any day such a sacrifice might be required, with the +consciousness deeply rooted in their beings that one of the necessary +conditions of their living was to give their all at the call of the +state. They conceived of no honorable alternative: it was as +inevitable to pay this obligation as it is for decently minded +citizens to pay their legal debts. They hurried to their mobilization +posts, donned uniforms and equipment, and were shipped away in +regiments to the front. Most of them did not worry about the +possibility of death, but acted like all healthy human beings, +ignoring what they could not affect, caught up in the novelty and the +requirements of the new life. Yet deep in the consciousness of the +most careless must have lain some thought that he might never return, +that the cross-marked grave on the hillside, the pit, or the hospital +might be waiting for him. + +This consciousness that he can no longer dispose of himself, at +least for the finer spirit, must act as a great release. Having +accepted his fate, and therefore willed it as the only possible +choice for him, he becomes another person, a largely selfless person, +a strangely older, calmer being capable of thinking and acting +clearly, nobly. Once the great personal decision made, the resolve +to forego life and happiness and personal achievement, a clogging +burden of selfish considerations drop from within. So one can read +the experience of those two young officers preserved in Henry +Bordeaux's "Two Heroes." They were free as never before to do what +lay before them,--their officers' duty,--simply, directly. Many things +that they had previously valued seemed to have lost color, to have +become trivial. They thought solely of acquitting themselves with, +honor in what it was their fate to do. They were ready to obey +because before death they were humble. They had begun to glimpse +the blind mystery that is life, in which every one must needs act +his part without questioning, with faith in its ultimate meaning, +with the will to trust its end. They were brave because they were +simple and single-hearted, selfless. They were strong because they +disdained to be weak, having renounced all. If it were to be their +fate to die unnoted, they were content with the satisfaction of having +done what was expected of them. And if they died in glory, they were +unaware of their honor, believing that they had done no more than +any of their fellows would have done in the same opportunity. + +Thus, having laid down their lives for the cause that commanded +their faith and loyalty, they found their real lives--larger, more +beautiful, stronger.... Not once, but many thousands of times, has +this miracle happened! Their graves are strewn, singly and in groups, +over every field of eastern France. They paid the debt, did their +part little or great, unknown or glorified by men. Literally they +have given their blood for the soil of their fathers' land. + + * * * * * + +We know that they have given much more than their blood to that soil. +Just as at the call to arms, the selfish, the mean, the vicious +qualities of these lives dropped from them in the freedom of +sacrifice accepted, and in place of egotistic preoccupations rose +once more to the surface of their natures the ancient virtues of +their race, so in their going they left for the others who lived, who +were to be born, a tremendous legacy of honor and noble +responsibility. By watering the soil with their blood they have made +it infinitely more precious for every human being that treads upon +it. They have helped to make mere life more significant for those who +remain to mourn them. It can never again be quite the same +commonplace affair, so lightly, cheaply spent, as it had been before. +They have not left behind them joy, but faith. And that is why the +faces of the earnest living who are able to realize this sacrifice of +youth have a grave sternness in them which touches even the most +careless stranger. Something of the glory created by the dead and the +wounded radiates out even to us in a distant, peaceful land.... + +But why, we ask, all this sacrifice, this cruel, agonizing sacrifice +of war? That is a mystery too deep for any to fathom. It is better +not to probe too insistently, to accept it as the man in Rheims,--"It +must be better for the others afterward because of what we have +endured." That is the expression of faith in life which is the better +part of any religion. For what we suffer now, for what we give now of +our most precious, it will be repaid to those who are to come. Life +will be freer, grander, more significant: it will be a better world. +Nobody who has seen or felt the heavy tragedy of this world war could +endure its horror if he were not sustained by that faith. But with +that faith the losses seem not too vast. One by one the world's great +decisions must be made, in suffering, in blood and tears. Peace comes +not through evasion or compromise, either for the individual or for +the state. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE WORLD DECISION *** + +This file should be named 8wdcs10.txt or 8wdcs10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8wdcs11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8wdcs10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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