*Deep Distrust of Germany.*

Now, some of your readers may ask: "Why is it? How did this miracle, for it is little less, happen?" My answer is that it has been caused first by a supreme and glorious trust in the justice and generosity of England, which knows how to rule colonies as no other nation has done in the history of the earth, and secondly by a deep distrust of Germany. To my own knowledge, Germany has been intriguing in South Africa for the last quarter of a century. I remember, I suppose it must be almost twenty years ago, sending to the late Mr. Chamberlain, who was then Colonial Secretary, information to this effect which reached me from undoubted sources in South Africa. Again, not long ago, I was shown a document which was found among the papers of the Zulu Prince Dinizulu, son of King Cetewayo, who died the other day. It was concluded between himself and Germans, and under it the poor man had practically sold his country nominally to a German firm, but doubtless to more powerful persons behind. In short, there is no question that for many years Germany has had its eye upon South Africa as a desirable field of settlement for its subjects under the German and not the British flag. Now, the Boers are perfectly well acquainted with this fact and have no wish to exchange the beneficent rule of Britain for that of Potsdam, the King Log of George V. for the King Stork of Kaiser Wilhelm.

You ask me if I think that the Boers are likely to succeed in their attack on Southwest Africa, where it must be remembered that the Germans have a very formidable force; indeed, I have been told, I do not know with what accuracy, that they have accumulated there the vast arsenal of war material that was obviously intended to be used on some future occasion in the invasion of the Cape. I answer: "Certainly, they will succeed, though not easily." Remember what stock these Boers come from. They are descendants of the men who withstood and beat Alva in the sixteenth century.

*Botha of Huguenot Descent.*

I happen to be well acquainted with that period of history. I wrote a story called "Lysbeth" concerning it, and to do this I found it necessary not only to visit Holland on several occasions, but to read all the contemporary records. In the light of the information which I thus obtained, I state positively that the world has no record of a more glorious and heroic struggle than that made by the Dutch against all the power of Spain. Well, the Boers are descended from these men and women (for both fought). Also, they include a very large dash of some of the best blood of Europe, namely, that of the Huguenots. For instance, Botha himself is of Huguenot descent. It is impossible for a person like myself, who have that same blood in me, to talk with him for five minutes without becoming aware of his origin. Long before he told me so I knew that he was in part a Frenchman. Men so great are not easily conquered, as we know to our cost. Why, it took quite 250,000 soldiers and three years of strenuous guerrilla warfare to enable Britain to defeat 40,000 or 50,000 Dutch farmers. Therefore I have personally not the least fear of the ultimate result of the campaign against Southwest Africa.

I went as a lad as Secretary to the Governor of Natal. That was in 1875. Subsequently I accompanied Sir Theophilus Shepstone, one of the greatest men that ever lived in South Africa, on his famous mission to the Transvaal. I am now, I believe, the only survivor of that mission, and certainly the only man who knows all the inner political history of that event. Afterward I held office in the Transvaal, and was in the country during all the disastrous period of the first Boer war. For instance, I dined with Gen. Colley the night before he started on his ill-fated expedition. I think there were thirteen of us present at that historical dinner. Within a few weeks six or eight of these were dead, including Colley himself, killed in the fight of Majuba, of which I heard the guns. Of those present at that dinner party there now survive only Lady Colley, my wife, and myself.

*Felt Like Rip Van Winkle.*

After this I left Africa, and more than thirty years went by before I returned as a commissioner in the service of the Crown. It was a very extraordinary experience; indeed, I felt like a new Rip Van Winkle, for nearly all my old chiefs and colleagues were dead, and another generation had arisen. I can only say that I was deeply touched by the reception which I received throughout the country. It was with strange feelings that almost on the very spot where I helped to read the proclamation of annexation of the Transvaal, in 1877, and with my own hands hoisted the British flag over the land, I listened to my health being proposed by the Dutch Chief Justice of the Transvaal territory, once more a part of the British Empire. Such was my greeting everywhere. Three and thirty years before I had left the shores of Africa, believing that soon or late the British power was doomed to failure and probably to extinction there. When I left them again, six months ago, it was with the glad knowledge that, by the united wish of the inhabitants of South Africa, it was re-established, never again to pass away. It is a wonderful thing for a man in his own lifetime to see a country pass through so many vicissitudes, and in the end to appear in the face of the world no longer as England's enemy, but as a constituent part of the great British Empire, one of her best friends and supporters, glorying in her flag, which now floats from Cape Agalhas to the Zambesi, and soon will float over those contingent regions that have been seized by the mailed fist of Germany.



*Capt. Mark Haggard's Death in Battle*

To the Editor of The [London] Times:

Sir: In various papers throughout England has appeared a letter, or part of a letter, written by Private C. Derry of the Second Battalion, Welsh Regiment. It concerns the fall of my much-loved nephew, Capt. Mark Haggard, of the same regiment, on Sept. 13 in the battle of the Aisne.

Since this letter has been published and, vivid, pathetic, and pride-inspiring as it is, does not tell all the tale, I have been requested, on behalf of Mark's mother, young widow, and other members of our family, to give the rest of it as it was collected by them from the lips of Lieut. Somerset, who lay wounded by him when he died. Therefore I send this supplementary account to you in the hope that the other journals which have printed the first part of the story will copy it from your columns.

It seems that after he had given the order to fix bayonets, as told by Private Derry, my nephew charged the German Maxims at the head of his company, he and his soldier servant outrunning the other men. Arrived at the Maxim in front of him, with the rifle which he was using as Derry describes, he shot and killed



the three soldiers who were serving it, and then was seen "fighting and laying out" the Germans with the butt end of his empty gun, "laughing" as he did so, until he fell mortally wounded in the body and was carried away by his servant.

His patient and heroic end is told by Private Derry, and I imagine that the exhortation to "Stick it, Welsh!" which from time to time he uttered in his agony, will not soon be forgotten in his regiment. Of that end we who mourn him can only say in the simple words of Derry's letter, that he "died as he had lived—an officer and a gentleman."

Perhaps it would not be inappropriate to add as a thought of consolation to those throughout the land who day by day see their loved ones thus devoured by the waste of war, that of a truth these do not vainly die. Not only are they crowned with fame, but by the noble manner of their end they give the lie to Bernhardi and his school, who tell us that we English are an effete and worn-out people, befogged with mean ideals; lost in selfishness and the lust of wealth and comfort. Moreover, the history of these deeds of theirs will surely be as a beacon to those destined to carry on the traditions of our race in that new England which shall arise when the cause of freedom for which we must fight and die has prevailed—to fall no more.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

H. RIDER HAGGARD.

Ditchingham, Norfolk, Oct. 9.



*An Anti-Christian War*

*By Robert Bridges.*

To the Editor of The [London] Times:

Sir: Since the beginning of this war the meaning of it has in one respect considerably changed, and I hope that our people will see that it is primarily a holy war. It is manifestly a war declared between Christ and the devil.

The conduct of the German conscripts has demonstrated that they have been instructed to adopt in full practice the theories of their political philosophers, and that they have heartily consented to do this and freely commit every cruelty that they think will terrorize the people whom they intend to crush. The details of their actions are too beastly to mention.

Their philosophers, as I read them, teach openly that the law of love is silly and useless, but that brutal force and cruelty are the useful and proper means of attaining success in all things. Shortly, you are not to do to others as you wish they should do to you, but you should do exactly what you wish they should not do to you; that is, you should cut their throats and seize their property, and then you will get on.

As for these enlightened philosophers, their doctrines are plainly an apostasy from the Gospel—and this they do not scruple to avow; and their tenets are only a recrudescence or reassertion of the barbarism which we hoped we had grown out of; it is all merely damnable. But it seems to me that, judged only as utilitarian policy, it is stupid; and that they blundered in neglecting the moral force (for that is also a force) of the antagonism that they were bound to arouse in all gentle minds, whether simple or cultured. It was stupid of them not to perceive that their hellish principles would shock everything that is most beloved and living in modern thought, both the "humanitarian" tendency of the time and the respect which has grown up for the rights of minorities and nationalities. Now, not to reckon with such things was stupid, unless they can win temporary justification by immediate success.

What success is possible for those who thus openly outrage humanity remains to be seen; but they cannot be allowed the advantage of any doubt as to what they are about. Those who fight for them will fight for "the devil and all his works"; and those who fight against them will be fighting in the holy cause of humanity and the law of love. If the advocacy of their bad principles and their diabolical conduct do not set the whole world against them, then the world is worse than I think. My belief is that there are yet millions of their own countrymen who have not bowed the knee to Satan, and who will be as much shocked as we are; and that this internal moral disruption will much hamper them. This morning I have a legal notice sent me from a German resident in England announcing that he has changed his name, for shame (I suppose) of his Fatherland.

All their apology throughout has been a clumsy tissue of self-contradictory lies, and their occasional hypocrisy has been hastily pretended and ill-conceived. The particular contention against us—that we were betraying the cause of civilization by supporting the barbarous Slav—does not come very convincingly from them if their apostle is Nietzsche, while the Russian prophet is Tolstoy.

The infernal machine which has been scientifically preparing for the last twenty-five years is now on its wild career like one of Mr. Wells's inventions, and wherever it goes it will leave desolation behind it and put all material progress back for at least half a century. There was never anything in the world worthier of extermination, and it is the plain duty of all civilized nations to unite to drive it back into its home and exterminate it there. I am, &c.,

ROBERT BRIDGES.

Sept. 1.



*English Artists' Protest*

Art lovers in Great Britain have drawn up a protest against the vandalism of German soldiers. Copies of this protest have been sent to the Comte de Lalaing, Belgian Minister in London; the American Ambassador, with a humble request that it may be forwarded to the President of the United States; and Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove, Art Adviser to the Belgian Government. Those who have signed include well-known collectors, Trustees of the British Museum, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and the National Galleries of Scotland; the Director and Principal Librarian of the British Museum; the Directors of the National Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the National Galleries of Scotland and Ireland; the Keepers of the Wallace Collection and the National Gallery of British Art; Keepers in the British Museum; the Joint Honorary Secretaries of the National Art Collections Fund, and many critics and others prominent in the art world.

The whole civilized world has witnessed with horror the terrible effects of modern warfare on helpless inhabitants of Belgium and France, and on ancient buildings and other works of art which are the abiding monuments of the piety and culture of their ancestors.

Some of the acts of the invading German army against buildings may be defensible from the military standpoint; but it seems certain from present information that in some signal instances, notably at Louvain and Rheims, this defense cannot hold good against the mass of evidence to the contrary.

The signatories of this protest claim that they are in no sense a partisan body. Their contention in this matter is that the splendid monuments of the arts of the Middle Ages which have been destroyed or damaged are the inheritance of the whole world, and that it is the duty of all civilized communities to endeavor to preserve them for the benefit and instruction of posterity. While France and Belgium are individually the poorer from such wanton destruction, the world at large is no less impoverished.

On these grounds, therefore, we desire to express our strong indignation and abhorrence at the gratuitous destruction of ancient buildings that has marked the invasion of Belgium and France by the German Army, and we wish to enter a protest in the strongest terms against the continuance of so barbarous and reckless a policy. That it is the result of a policy, and not of an accident, is shown by the similarity of the fate of Louvain, Malines, Termonde, Senlis, and finally Rheims.

Many of us have had the opportunity of showing that our love and respect for art are not bounded by our nationality, but we feel compelled to publish to the world our horror and detestation of the barbarous acts committed by the army that represents a country which has done so much to promote and advance the study of art and its history.

The signatories are:

DEVONSHIRE. CHOLMONDELEY. LANSDOWNE. FEVERSHAM. MABEL FEVERSHAM. LEICESTER. LONSDALE. NORMANTON. NORTHBROOK. PLYMOUTH. DILLON. ALINGTON. D'ABERNON. ISABEL SOMERSET. FREDERICK L. COOK. AUDLEY D. NEELD. HERBERT RAPHAEL. SIDNEY COLVIN. MARTIN CONWAY. CHARLES HOLROYD. FREDERIC G. KENYON. HUGH LANE. FRANCIS BEAUFORT PALMER. C. HERCULES READ. CECIL HARCOURT SMITH. ISIDORE SPIELMANN. HERBERT B. TREE. WHITWORTH WALLIS. CHARLES AITKEN. OTTO BEIT. MAURICE W. BROCKWELL. A.H. BUTTERY. C.S. CARSTAIRS. JAMES L. CAW. HERBERT COOK. D.H.S. CRANAGE. LIONEL CUST. CAMPBELL DODGSON. CHARLES DOWDESWELL. DAVID ERSKINE. H.A.L. FISHER. J.L. GARVIN. PERCIVAL GASKELL. ALGERNON GRAVES. JAMES GREIG. O. GUTEKUNST. EDWARD HUTTON. G.B. CROFT-LYONS. D.S. MACCOLL. ERIC MACLAGAN. G. MAYER. MORTIMER MENPES. ALMERIC H. PAGET. J.S.R. PHILLIPS. G.N. COUNT PLUNKETT. JANET ROSS. ROBERT ROSS. M.E. SADLER. MARION SPIELMANN. A.J. SULLEY. D. CROAL THOMSON. T. HUMPHRY WARD. W.H. JAMES WEALE. FREDERICK A. WHITE. R.C. WITT.



*To Arms!*

*By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.*

Is it possible that there are still some of our people who do not understand the causes of this war, and are ignorant of the great stakes at issue which will speedily have so important a bearing upon the lives of each and all of them? It is hard to believe it, and yet it is so stated by some who profess to know. Let me try, in the shortest space and in the clearest words that I can command, to lay before them both the causes and the possible effects, and to implore them now, now, at this very moment, before it is too late, to make those efforts and sacrifices which the occasion demands. In Germany, every man from the ages of sixteen to fifty-five is with the colors. The last man has been called up. And yet we hear—we could not bear to see—that young athletic men in this country are playing football or cricket, while our streets are full of those who should be in our camps. All our lives have been but a preparation for this supreme moment. All our future lives will be determined by how we bear ourselves in these few months to come. Shame, shame on the man who fails his country in this its hour of need! I would not force him to serve. I could not think that the service of such a man was of any avail. Let the country be served by free men, and let them deal with the coward or the sluggard who flinches.

The causes of the war are only of moment to us, at this stage, in that we gain more strength in our arms and more iron in our souls by a knowledge that it is for all that is honorable and sacred for which we fight. What really concerns us is that we are in a fight for our national life, that we must fight through to the end, and that each and all of us must help, in his own fashion, to the last ounce of his strength, that this end may be victory. That is the essence of the situation. It is not words and phrases that we need, but men, men—and always more men. If words can bring the men then they are of avail. If not they may well wait for the times to mend. But if there is a doubt in the mind of any man as to the justice of his country's quarrel, then even a writer may find work ready to his hand.

* * * * *

Let us cast our minds back upon the events which have led up to this conflict. They may be divided into two separate classes, those which prepared the general situation, and those which caused the special quarrel. Each of these I will treat in its turn.

*Teuton Intoxication.*

It is a matter of common knowledge, one which a man must be blind and deaf not to understand, that for many years Germany, intoxicated by her success in war and by her increase of wealth, has regarded the British Empire with eyes of jealousy and hatred. It has never been alleged by those who gave expression to this almost universal national passion that Great Britain had in any way, either historically or commercially, done Germany a mischief. Even our most bitter traducers, when asked to give any definite historical reasons for their dislike, were compelled to put forward such ludicrous excuses as that the British had abandoned the Prussian King in the year 1761, quite oblivious of the fact that the same Prussian King had abandoned his own allies in the same war under far more damaging circumstances, acting up to his own motto that no promises are binding where the vital interests of a State are in question. With all their malevolence they could give no examples of any ill turn done by us until their deliberate policy had forced us into antagonism. On the other hand, a long list of occasions could very easily be compiled on which we had helped them in some common cause, from the days of Marlborough to those of Blucher. Until the twentieth century had turned they had no possible cause for political hatred against us. In commerce our record was even more clear. Never in any way had we interfered with that great development of trade which has turned them from one of the poorest to one of the richest of European States. Our markets were open to them untaxed, while our own manufactures paid 20 per cent. in Germany. The markets of India, of Egypt, and of every portion of the empire which had no self-appointed tariff, were as open to German goods as to British ones. Nothing could possibly have been more generous than our commercial treatment. No doubt there was some grumbling when cheap imitations of our own goods were occasionally found to oust the originals from their markets. Such a feeling was but natural and human. But in all matters of commerce, as in all matters political before the dawn of this century, they have no shadow of a grievance against us.

* * * * *

And yet they hated us with a most bitter hatred, a hatred which long antedates the days when we were compelled to take a definite stand against them. In all sorts of ways this hatred showed itself, in the diatribes of professors, in the pages of books, in the columns of the press. Usually it was a sullen, silent dislike. Sometimes it would flame up suddenly into bitter utterance, as at the time of the unseemly dispute around the deathbed of the Emperor's father, or on the occasion of the Jameson Raid. And yet this bitter antagonism was in no way reciprocated in this country. If a poll had been taken at any time up to the end of the century as to which European country was our natural ally, the vote would have gone overwhelmingly for Germany. "America first and then Germany" would have been the verdict of nine men out of ten. But then occurred two events which steadied the easy-going Briton, and made him look more intently and with a more questioning gaze at his distant cousin over the water. Those two events were the Boer war and the building of the German fleet. The first showed us, to our amazement, the bitter desire which Germany had to do us some mischief, the second made us realize that she was forging a weapon with which that desire might be fulfilled.

The Boer War and Germany.

We are most of us old enough to remember the torrent of calumny and insult which was showered upon us in the day of our temporary distress by the nation to whom we had so often been a friend and an ally. It is true that other nations treated us little better, and yet their treatment hurt us less. The difference as it struck men at the time may be summarized in this passage from a British writer of the period.

"But it was very different with Germany," he says. "Again and again in the world's history we have been the friends and the allies of these people. It was so in the days of Marlborough, in those of the Great Frederick, and in those of Napoleon. When we could not help them with men we helped them with money. Our fleet has crushed their enemies. And now, for the first time in history, we have had a chance of seeing who were our friends in Europe, and nowhere have we met more hatred and more slander than from the German press and the German people. Their most respectable journals have not hesitated to represent the British troops—troops every bit as humane and as highly disciplined as their own—not only as committing outrages on person and property, but even as murdering women and children.

"At first this unexpected phenomenon merely surprised the British people, then it pained them, and finally, after two years of it, it has roused a deep, enduring anger in their minds."

He goes on to say: "The continued attacks upon us have left an enduring feeling of resentment, which will not and should not die away in this generation. It is not too much to say that five years ago a complete defeat of Germany in a European war would have certainly caused British intervention. Public sentiment and racial affinity would never have allowed us to see her really go to the wall. And now it is certain that in our lifetime no British guinea and no soldier's life would under any circumstances be spent for such an end. That is one strange result of the Boer war, and in the long run it is possible that it may prove not the least important."

* * * * *

Such was the prevailing mood of the nation when they perceived Germany, under the lead of her Emperor, following up her expressions of enmity by starting with restless energy to build up a formidable fleet, adding programme to programme, out of all possible proportion to the German commerce to be defended or to the German coastline exposed to attack. Already vainglorious boasts were made that Germany was the successor to Britain upon the seas. "The Admiral of the Atlantic greets the Admiral of the Pacific," said the Kaiser later in a message to the Czar. What was Britain to do under this growing menace? So long as she was isolated the diplomacy of Germany might form some naval coalition against her. She took the steps which were necessary for her own safety, and without forming an alliance she composed her differences with France and Russia and drew closer the friendship which united her with her old rival across the Channel. The first fruit of the new German fleet was the entente cordiale. We had found our enemy. It was necessary that we should find our friends. Thus we were driven into our present combination.

* * * * *

And now we had to justify our friendship. For the first time we were compelled to openly oppose Germany in the deep and dangerous game of world politics. They wished to see if our understanding was a reality or a sham. Could they drive a wedge between us by showing that we were a fair-weather friend whom any stress would alienate? Twice they tried it, once in 1906 when they bullied France into a conference at Algeciras but found that Britain was firm at her side, and again in 1911 when in a time of profound peace they stirred up trouble by sending a gunboat to Agadir, and pushed matters to the very edge of war. But no threats induced Britain to be false to her mutual insurance with France. Now for the third and most fatal time they have demanded that we forswear ourselves and break our own bond lest a worse thing befall us. Blind and foolish, did they not know by past experience that we would keep our promise given? In their madness they have wrought an irremediable evil to themselves, to us, and to all Europe.

I have shown that we have in very truth never injured nor desired to injure Germany in commerce nor have we opposed her politically until her own deliberate actions drove us into the camp of her opponents. But it may well be asked why then did they dislike us, and why did they weave hostile plots against us? It was that, as it seemed to them, and as indeed it actually may have been, we, independently of our own wills, stood between Germany and that world empire of which she dreamed. This was caused by circumstances over which we had no control and which we could not modify if we had wished to do so. Britain, through her maritime power and the energy of her merchants and people, had become a great world power when Germany was still unformed. Thus, when she had grown to her full stature, she found that the choice places of the world and those most fitted for the spread of a transplanted European race were already filled up. It was not a matter which we could help nor could we alter it, since Canada, Australia, and South Africa would not, even if we could be imagined to have wished it, be transferred to German rule. And yet the Germans chafed, and if we can put ourselves in their places we may admit that it was galling that the surplus of their manhood should go to build up the strength of an alien and possibly a rival State. So far we could see their grievance, or, rather their misfortune, since no one was in truth to blame in the matter. Had their needs been openly and reasonably expressed, and had the two States moved in concord in the matter, it is difficult to think that no helpful solution of any kind could have been found.

*As Germans See England.*

But the German method of approaching the problem has never been to ask sympathy and co-operation, but to picture us as a degenerate race from whom anything might be gained by playing upon our imagined weakness and cowardice. A nation which attends quietly to its own sober business must, according to their mediaeval notions, be a nation of decadent poltroons. If we fight our battles by means of free volunteers instead of enforced conscripts then the military spirit must be dead among us. Perhaps, even in this short campaign, they have added this delusion also to the dust-bin of their many errors. But such was their absurd self-deception about the most virile of European races. Did we propose disarmament, then it was not humanitarianism but cowardice that prompted us, and their answer was to enlarge their programme. Did we suggest a navy-building holiday, it was but a cloak for our weakness and an incitement that they should redouble their efforts. Our decay had become a part of their national faith. At first the wish may have been the father to the thought, but soon under the reiterated assertions of their crazy professors the proposition became indisputable. Bernhardi in his book upon the next war cannot conceal the contempt in which he has learned to hold us. Neibuhr long ago had prophesied the coming fall of Britain, and every year was believed to bring it nearer and to make it more certain. To these jaundiced eyes all seemed yellow, when the yellowness lay only in themselves. Our army, our navy, our colonies, all were equally rotten. "Old England, old, indeed, and corrupt, rotten through and through." One blow and the vast sham would fly to pieces, and from those pieces the victor could choose his reward. Listen to Prof. Treitschke, a man who, above all others, has been the evil genius of his country, and has done most to push it toward this abyss: "A thing that is wholly a sham," he cried, in allusion to our empire, "cannot, in this universe of ours, endure forever. It may endure for a day, but its doom is certain." Were ever words more true when applied to the narrow bureaucracy and swaggering Junkerdom of Prussia, the most artificial and ossified sham that ever our days have seen? See which will crack first, our democracy or this, now that both have been plunged into the furnace together. The day of God's testing has come, and we shall see which can best abide it.

*The Blame Not England's.*

I have tried to show that we are in no way to blame for the hostility which has grown up between us. So far as it had any solid cause at all it has arisen from fixed factors, which could no more be changed by us than the geographical position which has laid us right across their exit to the oceans of the world. That this deeply rooted national sentiment, which forever regarded us as the Carthage to which they were destined to play the part of Rome, would, sooner or later, have brought about war between us, is, in my opinion, beyond all doubt. But it was planned to come at the moment which was least favorable for Britain. "Even English attempts at a rapprochement must not blind us to the real situation," says Bernhardi. "We may, at most, use them to delay the necessary and inevitable war until we may fairly imagine we have some prospect of success." A more shameless sentence was never penned, and one stands marveling which is the more grotesque—the cynicism of the sentiment or the folly which gave such a warning to the victim. For be it remembered that Bernhardi's words are to be taken very seriously, for they are not the ravings of some Pan-German monomaniac, but the considered views of the foremost military writer of Germany, one who is in touch with those inner circles whose opinions are the springs of national policy. "Our last and greatest reckoning is to be with Great Britain," said the bitter Treitschke. Sooner or later the shock was to come. Germany sat brooding over the chessboard of the world waiting for the opening which should assure a winning game.

* * * * *

It was clear that she should take her enemies separately rather than together. If Britain were attacked it was almost certain that France and Russia would stand by her side. But if, on the contrary, the quarrel could be made with these two powers, and especially with Russia, in the first instance, then it was by no means so certain that Great Britain would be drawn into the struggle. Public opinion has to be strongly moved before our country can fight, and public opinion under a Liberal Government might well be divided upon the subject of Russia. Therefore, if the quarrel could be so arranged as to seem to be entirely one between Teuton and Slav there was a good chance that Britain would remain undecided until the swift German sword had done its work. Then, with the grim acquiescence of our deserted allies, the still bloody sword would be turned upon ourselves, and that great final reckoning would have come.

* * * * *

Such was the plan, and fortune favored it. A brutal murder had, not for the first time, put Servia into a position where a State may be blamed for the sins of individuals. An ultimatum was launched so phrased that it was impossible for any State to accept it as it stood and yet remain an independent State. At the first sign of argument or remonstrance the Austrian Army marched upon Belgrade. Russia, which had been already humiliated in 1908 by the forcible annexation of Bosnia, could not possibly submit a second time to the Caudine Forks. She laid her hand upon her sword hilt. Germany sprang to the side of her ally. France ranged herself with Russia. Like a thunderclap the war of the nations had begun.

* * * * *

So far all had worked well for German plans. Those of the British public who were familiar with the past and could look into the future might be well aware that our interests were firmly bound with those of France, and that if our faggots were not tied together they would assuredly be snapped each in its turn. But the unsavory assassination which had been so cleverly chosen as the starting point of the war bulked large in the eyes of our people, and, setting self-interest to one side, the greater part of the public might well have hesitated to enter into a quarrel where the cause seemed remote and the issues ill-defined. What was it to us if a Slav or a Teuton collected the harbor due of Saloniki! So the question might have presented itself to the average man who in the long run is the ruler of this country and the autocrat of its destinies. In spite of all the wisdom of our statesmen, it is doubtful if on such a quarrel we could have gained that national momentum which might carry us to victory. But at that very moment Germany took a step which removed the last doubt from the most cautious of us and left us in a position where we must either draw our sword or stand forever dishonored and humiliated before the world. The action demanded of us was such a compound of cowardice and treachery that we ask ourselves in dismay what can we ever have done that could make others for one instant imagine us to be capable of so dastardly a course. Yet that it was really supposed that we could do it, and that it was not merely put forward as an excuse for drawing us into war, is shown by the anger and consternation of the Kaiser and his Chancellor when we drew back from what the British Prime Minister had described as "an infamous proposal." One has only to read our Ambassador's description of his interview with the German Chancellor after our decision was announced, "so evidently overcome by the news of our action," to see that through some extraordinary mental aberration the German rulers did actually believe that a vital treaty with Britain's signature upon it could be regarded by this country as a mere "scrap of paper."

*The Treaty of 1839.*

What was this treaty which it was proposed so lightly to set aside? It was the guarantee of the neutrality of Belgium signed in 1839 (confirmed verbally and in writing by Bismarck in 1870) by Prussia, France, and Britain, each of whom pledged their word to observe and to enforce it. On the strength of it Belgium had relied for her security amid her formidable neighbors. On the strength of it also France had lavished all her defenses upon her eastern frontier, and left her northern exposed to attack. Britain had guaranteed the treaty, and Britain could be relied upon. Now, on the first occasion of testing the value of her word it was supposed that she would regard the treaty as a worthless scrap of paper, and stand by unmoved while the little State which had trusted her was flooded by the armies of the invader. It was unthinkable, and yet the wisest brains of Germany seem to have persuaded themselves that we had sunk to such depths of cowardly indolence that even this might go through. Surely they also have been hypnotized by those foolish dreams of Britain's degeneration, from which they will have so terrible an awakening.

* * * * *

As a matter of fact the General Staff had got ahead of the diplomatists, and the German columns were already over the border while the point was being debated at Berlin. There was no retreat from the position which had been taken up. "It is to us a vital matter of strategy and is beyond argument," said the German soldier. "It is to us a vital matter of honor and, is beyond argument," answered the British statesman. The die was cast. No compromise was possible. Would Britain keep her word or would she not? That was the sole question at issue. And what answer save one could any Briton give to it? "I do not believe," said our Prime Minister, "that any nation ever entered into a great controversy with a clearer conscience and stronger conviction that it is fighting, not for aggression, not for the maintenance of its own selfish interest, but in defense of principles the maintenance of which is vital to the civilization of the world." So he spoke, and history will indorse his words, for we surely have our quarrel just.

* * * * *

So much for the events which have led us to war. Now for a moment let us glance at what we may have to hope for, what we may have to fear, and, above all, what we must each of us do that we win through to a lasting peace.

What have we to gain if we win? That we have nothing material to gain, no colonies which we covet, no possessions of any sort that we desire, is the final proof that the war has not been provoked by us. No nation would deliberately go out of its way to wage so hazardous and costly a struggle when there is no prize for victory. But one enormous indirect benefit we will gain if we can make Germany a peaceful and harmless State. We will surely break her naval power and take such steps that it shall not be a menace to us any more. It was this naval power, with its rapid increase and the need that we should ever, as Mr. Churchill has so well expressed it, be ready at our average moment to meet an attack at their chosen moment—it was this which has piled up our war estimates during the last ten years until they have bowed us down. With such enormous sums spent upon ships and guns, great masses of capital were diverted from the ordinary channels of trade, while an even more serious result was that our programmes of social reform had to be curtailed from want of the money which could finance them. Let the menace of that lurking fleet be withdrawn—the nightmare of those thousand hammers working day and night in forging engines for our destruction—and our estimates will once again be those of a civilized Christian country, while our vast capital will be turned from measures of self-protection to those of self-improvement. Should our victory be complete, there is little which Germany can yield to us save the removal of that shadow which has darkened us so long. But our children and our children's children will never, if we do our work well now, look across the North Sea with the sombre thoughts which have so long been ours, while their lives will be brightened and elevated by money which we, in our darker days, have had to spend upon our ships and our guns.

Consider, on the other hand, what we should suffer if we were to lose. All the troubles of the last ten years would be with us still, but in a greatly exaggerated form. A larger and stronger Germany would dominate Europe and would overshadow our lives. Her coast line would be increased, her ports would face our own, her coaling stations would be in every sea, and her great army, greater then than ever, would be within striking distance of our shores. To avoid sinking forever into the condition of a dependant, we should be compelled to have recourse to rigid compulsory service, and our diminished revenues would be all turned to the needs of self-defense. Such would be the miserable condition in which we should hand on to our children that free and glorious empire which we inherited in all the fullness of its richness and its splendor from those strong fathers who have built it up. What peace of mind, what self-respect could be left for us in the remainder of our lives! The weight of dishonor would lie always upon our hearts. And yet this will be surely our fate and our future if we do not nerve our souls and brace our arms for victory. No regrets will avail, no excuses will help, no after-thoughts can profit us. It is now—now—even in these weeks and months that are passing that the final reckoning is being taken, and when once the sum is made up no further effort can change it. What are our lives or our labors, our fortunes or even our families, when compared with the life or death of the great mother of us all? We are but the leaves of the tree. What matter if we flutter down today or tomorrow, so long as the great trunk stands and the burrowing roots are firm. Happy the man who can die with the thought that in this greatest crisis of all he has served his country to the uttermost, but who would bear the thoughts of him who lives on with the memory that he had shirked his duty and failed his country at the moment of her need?

There is a settled and assured future if we win. There is darkness and trouble if we lose. But if we take a broader sweep and trace the meanings of this contest as they affect others than ourselves, then ever greater, more glorious are the issues for which we fight. For the whole world stands at a turning point of its history, and one or other of two opposite principles, the rule of the soldier or the rule of the citizen, must now prevail. In this sense we fight for the masses of the German people, as some day they will understand, to free them from that formidable military caste which has used and abused them, spending their bodies in an unjust war and poisoning their minds by every device which could inflame them against those who wish nothing save to live at peace with them. We fight for the strong, deep Germany of old, the Germany of music and of philosophy, against this monstrous modern aberration the Germany of blood and of iron, the Germany from which, instead of the old things of beauty, there come to us only the rant of scolding professors with their final reckonings, their Weltpolitik, and their Godless theories of the Superman who stands above morality and to whom all humanity shall be subservient. Instead of the world-inspiring phrases of a Goethe or a Schiller, what are the words in the last decade which have been quoted across the sea? Are they not always the ever-recurring words of wrath from one ill-balanced man? "Strike them with the mailed fist." "Leave such a name behind you as Attila and his Huns." "Turn your weapons even upon your own flesh and blood at my command." These are the messages which have come from this perversion of a nation's soul.

*A Mighty Despotism.*

But the matter lies deep. The Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs have used their peoples as a great landowner might use the serfs upon his estate. It was, and is, their openly expressed theory that they were in their position by the grace of God, that they owed no reckoning to any man, and that kingdom and folk were committed for better or worse to their charge. Round this theory of the Dark Ages there gathered all the forces of the many courts of the empire, all the nobility who make so huge a class in Germanic countries, all the vast army to whom strict discipline and obedience were the breath of life, all the office-holders of the State, all the purveyors of warlike stores. These and their like were the natural setting to such a central idea. Court influence largely controlled the teaching at school and universities, and so the growing twig could be bent. But all these forces together could not have upheld so dangerous and unnatural a theory had it not been for the influence of a servile press. How that press was managed, how the thoughts of the people could be turned to the right or the left with the same precision as a platoon of grenadiers, has been shown clearly enough in the memoirs of Bismarck. Public opinion was poisoned at its very roots. The average citizen lived in a false atmosphere where everything was distorted to his vision. He saw his Kaiser, not as an essentially weak and impetuous man with a dangerous entourage who were ever at his ear, but as Germany personified, an angel with a flaming sword, beating back envious assailants from the beloved Fatherland. He saw his neighbors not as peaceful nations who had no possible desire to attack him, but on the contrary lived in constant fear of him, but as a band, of envious and truculent conspirators who could only be kept in order by the sudden stamp of the jackboot and the menacing clatter of the sabre. He insensibly imbibed the Nietzsche doctrine that the immorality of the Superman may be as colossal as his strength and that the slave-evangel of Christianity was superseded by a sterner law. Thus, when he saw acts which his reason must have told him were indefensible he was still narcotized by this conception of some new standard of right. He saw his Kaiser at the time of a petty humiliation to Great Britain sending a telegram of congratulation to the man who had inflicted this rebuff. Could that be approved by reason? At a time when all Europe was shuddering over the Armenian massacres he saw this same Kaiser paying a complimentary visit to the Sultan whose hands were still wet with the blood of murdered Christians. Could that be reconciled with what is right? A little later he saw the Kaiser once again pushing himself into Mediterranean politics, where no direct German interest lay, and endeavoring to tangle up the French developments in Northern Africa by provocative personal appearances at Morocco, and, later, by sending a gunboat to intrude upon a scene of action which had already by the Treaty of Algeciras been allotted to France. How could an honest German whose mind was undebauched by a controlled press justify such an interference as that? He is or should be aware that, in annexing Bosnia, Austria was tearing up a treaty without the consent of the other signatories, and that his own country was supporting and probably inciting her ally to this public breach of faith. Could he honestly think that this was right? And, finally, he must know, for his own Chancellor has publicly proclaimed it, that the invasion of Belgium was a breach of international right, and that Germany, or, rather, Prussia, had perjured herself upon the day that the first of her soldiers passed over the frontier. How can he explain all this to himself save on a theory that might is right, that no moral law applies to the Superman, and that so long as one hews one's way through, the rest can matter little? To such a point of degradation have public morals been brought by the infernal teachings of Prussian military philosophy, dating back as far as Frederick II., but intensified by the exhortations of press and professors during our own times. The mind of the average kindly German citizen has been debauched and yet again debauched until it needed just such a world crisis as this to startle him at last from his obsession and to see his position and that of his country in its true relation with humanity and progress.

*The Final Stakes.*

Thus I say, that for the German who stands outside the ruling classes, our victory would bring a lasting relief, and some hope that in future his destiny should be controlled by his own judgment and not by the passions or interests of those against whom he has at present no appeal. A system which has brought disaster to Germany and chaos to all Europe can never, one would think, be resumed, and amid the debris of his empire the German may pick up that precious jewel of personal freedom which is above the splendor of foreign conquest. A Hapsburg or a Hohenzollern may find his true place as the servant rather than the master of a nation. But apart from Germany, look at the effects which our victory must have over the whole wide world. Everywhere it will mean the triumph of reasoned democracy, of public debate, of ordered freedom in which every man is an active unit in the system of his own Government, while our defeat would stand for a victory to a priviliged class, the thrusting down of the civilian by the arrogance and intolerance of militarism, and the subjection of all that is human and progressive to all that is cruel, narrow, and reactionary. This is the stake for which we play, and the world will lose or gain as well as we. You may well come, you democratic oversea men of our blood, to rally round us now, for all that you cherish, all that is bred in your very bones, is that for which we fight. And you, lovers of freedom in every land, we claim at least your prayers and your wishes, for if our sword be broken you will be the poorer. But fear not, for our sword will not be broken, nor shall it ever drop from our hands until this matter is forever set in order. If every ally we have upon earth were to go down in blood and ruin, still would we fight through to the appointed end. Defeat shall not daunt us. Inconclusive victory shall not turn us from our purpose. The grind of poverty and the weariness of hopes deferred shall not blunt the edge of our resolve. With God's help we shall go to the end, and when that goal is reached it is our prayer that a new era shall come as our reward, an era in which, by common action of State with State, mutual hatreds and strivings shall be appeased, land shall no longer be estranged from land, and huge armies and fleets will be nightmares of the past. Thus, as ever, the throes of evil may give birth to good. Till then our task stands clear before us—a task that will ask for all we have in strength and resolution. Have you who read this played your part to the highest? If not, do it now, or stand forever shamed.



*Conan Doyle on British Militarism*

Early last year, in the course of some comments which I made upon the slighting remarks about our army by Gen. von Bernhardi, I observed: "It may be noted that Gen. von Bernhardi has a poor opinion of our troops. This need not trouble us. We are what we are, and words will not alter it. From very early days our soldiers have left their mark upon Continental warfare, and we have no reason to think that we have declined from the manhood of our forefathers." Since then he has returned to the attack.

With that curious power of coming after deep study to the absolutely diametrically wrong conclusion which the German expert, political or military, appears to possess, he says in his "War of Today": "The English Army, trained more for purposes of show than for modern war," adding in the same sentence a sneer at our "inferior colonial levies."

He will have an opportunity of reconsidering his views presently upon the fighting value of our oversea troops, and surely, so far as our own are concerned, he must already be making some interesting notes for his next edition, or, rather, for the learned volume upon "Germany and the Last War," which will, no doubt, come from his pen. He is a man to whom we might well raise a statue, for I am convinced that his frank confession of German policy has been worth at least an army corps to this country. We may address to him John Davidson's lines to his enemy:

Unwilling friend, let not your spite abate. Spur us with scorn and strengthen us with hate.

There is another German gentleman who must be thinking rather furiously. He is a certain Col. Gadke, who appeared officially at Aldershot some years ago, was hospitably entertained, being shown all that he desired to see, and on his return to Berlin published a most deprecatory description of our forces. He found no good thing in them. I have some recollection that Gen. French alluded in a public speech to this critic's remarks, and expressed a modest hope that he and his men would some day have the opportunity of showing how far they were deserved. Well, he has had his opportunity, and Col. Gadke, like so many other Germans, seems to have made a miscalculation.

*Germans Untried in War.*

An army which has preserved the absurd parade schritt, an exercise which is painful to the bystander, as he feels that it is making fools of brave men, must have a tendency to throw back to earlier types. These Germans have been trained in peace and upon the theory of books. In all that vast host there is hardly a man who has stood at the wrong end of a loaded gun. They live on traditions of close formations, vast cavalry charges, and other things which will not fit into modern warfare. Braver men do not exist, but it is the bravery of men who have been taught to lean upon each other, and not the cold, self-contained, resourceful bravery of the man who has learned to fight for his own hand. The British have had the teachings of two recent campaigns fought with modern weapons—that of the Tirah and of South Africa. Now that the reserves have joined the colors there are few regiments which have not a fair sprinkling of veterans from these wars in their ranks. The Pathan and the Boer have been their instructors in something more practical than those imperial grand manoeuvres where the all-highest played with his puppets in such a fashion that one of his Generals remarked that the chief practical difficulty of a campaign so conducted would be the disposal of the dead.

Boers and Pathans have been hard masters and have given many a slap to their admiring pupils, but the lesson has been learned. It was not show troops, General, who, with two corps, held five of your best day after day from Mons to Compiegne. It is no reproach to your valor, but you were up against men who were equally brave and knew a great deal more of the game. This must begin to break upon you, and will surely grow clearer as the days go by. We shall often in the future take the knock as well as give it, but you will not say that we are a slow army if you live to chronicle this war, nor will your imperial master be proud of the adjective which he has demeaned himself in using before his troops had learned their lesson.

*The South African Lesson.*

The fact is that the German Army, with all its great traditions, has been petrifying for many years back. They never learned the lesson of South Africa. It was not for want of having it expounded to them, for their military attache—"'im with the spatchcock on 'is 'elmet,'" as I heard him described by a British orderly—missed nothing of what occurred, as is evident from their official history of the war. And yet they missed it, and with all those ideas of individual efficiency and elastic independent formation which are the essence of modern soldiering. Their own more liberal thinkers were aware of it. Here are the words which were put into the mouth of Guentz, the representative of the younger school, in Beverlein's famous novel:

"The organization of the German Army rested upon foundations which had been laid a hundred years ago. Since the great war they had never seriously been put to the proof, and during the last three decades they had only been altered in the most trifling details. In three long decades! And in one of those decades the world at large had advanced as much as in the previous century.

"Instead of turning this highly developed intelligence to good account, they bound it hand and foot on the rack of an everlasting drill which could not have been more soullessly mechanical in the days of Frederick. It held them together as an iron hoop holds together a cask, the dry staves of which would fall asunder at the first kick."

Lord Roberts has said that if ten points represent the complete soldier, eight should stand for his efficiency as a shot. The German maxim has rather been that eight should stand for his efficiency as a drilled marionette. It has been reckoned that about two hundred books a year appear in Germany upon military affairs, against about twenty in Britain. And yet, after all this expert debate, the essential point of all seems to have been missed—that in the end everything depends upon the man behind the gun, upon his hitting his opponent and upon his taking cover so as to avoid being hit himself.

After all the efforts of the General Staff, the result when shown upon the field of battle has filled our men with a mixture of admiration and contempt—contempt for the absurd tactics and admiration for the poor devils who struggle on in spite of them. Listen to the voices of the men who are the real experts. Says a Lincolnshire Sergeant: "They were in solid square blocks, and we couldn't help hitting them." Says Private Tait (Second Essex): "Their rifle shooting is rotten. I don't believe they could hit a haystack at 100 yards." "They are rotten shots with their rifles," says an Oldham private. "They advance in close column, and you simply can't help hitting them," writes a Gordon Highlander. "You would have thought it was a big crowd streaming out from a cup tie," says Private Whitaker of the Guards. "It was like a farmer's machine cutting grass," so it seemed to Private Hawkins of the Coldstreams. "No damned good as riflemen," says a Connemara boy. "You couldn't help hitting them. As to their rifle fire, it was useless." "They shoot from the hip, and don't seem to aim at anything in particular."

*Not Books That Count.*

These are the opinions of the practical men upon the field of battle. Surely a poor result from the 200 volumes a year and all the weighty labors of the General Staff! "Artillery nearly as good as our own, rifle fire beneath contempt." That is the verdict. How will the well-taught parade schritt avail them when it comes to a stricken field?

But let it not seem as if this were meant for disparagement. We should be sinking to the Kaiser's level if we answer his "contemptible little army" by pretending that his own troops are anything but a very formidable and big army. They are formidable in numbers, formidable, too, in their patriotic devotion, in their native courage, and in the possession of such material, such great cannon, aircraft, machine guns, and armored cars as none of the Allies can match. They have every advantage which a nation would be expected to have when it has known that war was a certainty, while others have only treated it as a possibility. There is a minuteness and earnestness of preparation which are only possible for an assured event. But the fact remains, and it will only be brought out more clearly by the Emperor's unchivalrous phrase, that in every arm the British have already shown themselves to be the better troops. Had he the Froissart spirit within him he would rather have said: "You have today a task which is worthy of you. You are faced by an army which has a high repute and a great history. There is real glory to be won today." Had he said this then, win or lose, he would not have needed to be ashamed of his own words—the words of ungenerous spirit.

It is a very strange thing how German critics have taken for granted that the British Army had deteriorated, while the opinion of all those who were in close touch with it was that it was never so good. Even some of the French experts made the same mistake, and Gen. Bonnat counseled his countrymen not to rely upon it, since "it would take refuge amid its islands at the first reverse." One would think that the cause which makes for its predominance were obvious. Apart from any question of national spirit there is the all-important fact that the men are there of their own free will, an advantage which I trust that we shall never be compelled to surrender. Again, the men are of longer service in every arm, and they have far more opportunities of actual fighting than come to any other force. Finally they are divided into regiments with centuries of military glories streaming from their banners, which carry on a mighty tradition. The very words the Guards, the Rifles, the Connaught Rangers, the Buffs, the Scots Greys, the Gordons, sound like bugle calls. How could an army be anything but dangerous which had such units in its line of battle?"

*History Repeating Itself*.

And yet there remains the fact that both enemies and friends are surprised at our efficiency. This is no new phenomenon. Again and again in the course of history the British armies have had to win once more the reputation which had been forgotten. Continentals have always begun by refusing to take them seriously. Napoleon, who had never met them in battle, imagined that their unbroken success was due to some weakness in his Marshals rather than in any excellence of the troops. "At last I have them, these English," he exclaimed as he gazed at the thin, red line at Waterloo. "At last they have me, these English," may have been his thought that evening as he spurred his horse out of the debacle. Foy warned him of the truth. "The British infantry is the devil," said he. "You think so because you were beaten by them," cried Napoleon. Like von Kluck or von Kluck's master, he had something to learn.

Why this continual depreciation? It may be that the world pays so much attention to our excellent right arm that it cannot give us credit for having a very serviceable left as well. Or it may be that they take seriously those jeremiads over our decay which are characteristic of our people, and very especially of many of our military thinkers. I have never been able to understand why they should be of so pessimistic a turn of mind, unless it be a sort of exaltation of that grumbling which has always been the privilege of the old soldier. Croker narrates how he met Wellington in his later years, and how the Iron Duke told him that he was glad he was so old, as he would not live to see the dreadful military misfortunes which were about to come to his country. Looking back, we can see no reason for such pessimism as this. Above all, the old soldier can never make any allowance for the latent powers which lie in civilian patriotism and valor. Only a year ago I had a long conversation with a well-known British General, in which he asserted with great warmth that in case of an Anglo-German war with France involved the British public would never allow a trained soldier to leave these islands. He is at the front himself and doing such good work that he has little time for reminiscence, but when he has he must admit that he underrated the nerve of his countrymen.

*Assurance Beneath Pessimism.*

And yet under the pessimism of such men as he there is a curious contradictory assurance that there are no troops like our own. The late Lord Goschen used to tell a story of a letter that he had from a Captain in the navy at the time when he was First Lord. This Captain's ship was lying alongside a foreign cruiser in some port, and he compared in his report the powers of the two vessels. Lord Goschen said that his heart sank as he read the long catalogue of points in which the British ship was inferior—guns, armor, speed—until he came to the postscript, which was: "I think I could take her in twenty minutes."

With all the grumbling of our old soldiers, there is always some reservation of the sort at the end of it. Of course, those who are familiar with our ways of getting things done would understand that a good deal of the croaking is a means of getting our little army increased, or at least preventing its being diminished. But whatever the cause, the result has been the impression abroad of a "contemptible little army." Whatever surprise in the shape of 17-inch howitzers or 900-foot Zeppelins the Kaiser may have for us, it is a safe prophecy that it will be a small matter compared to that which Sir John French and his men will be to him.

But above all I look forward to the development of our mounted riflemen. This I say in no disparagement of our cavalry, who have done so magnificently. But the mounted rifleman is a peculiarly British product—British and American—with a fresh edge upon it from South Africa. I am most curious to see what a division of these fellows will make of the Uhlans. It is good to see that already the old banners are in the wind, Lovat's Horse, Scottish Horse, King Edward's Horse, and the rest. All that cavalry can do will surely be done by our cavalry. But I have always held, and I still very strongly hold, that the mounted rifleman has it in him to alter our whole conception of warfare, as the mounted archer did in his day; and now in this very war will be his first great chance upon a large scale. Ten thousand well-mounted, well-trained riflemen, young officers to lead them, all broad Germany, with its towns, its railways and its magazines before them—there lies one more surprise for the doctrinaires of Berlin.



*The Need of Being Merciless*

*By Maurice Maeterlinck.*

*From The London Daily Mail.*

At these moments of tragedy none should be allowed to speak who cannot shoulder a rifle, for the written word seems so monstrously useless and so overwhelmingly trivial in face of this mighty drama that will for a long time and maybe forever free mankind from the scourge of war—the one scourge among all that cannot be excused and that cannot be explained, since alone among all scourges it issues entirely from the hands of man.

But it is while this scourge is upon us—while we have our being in its very centre—that we shall do well to weigh the guilt of those who committed this inexpiable crime. It is now, when we are in the awful horror, undergoing and feeling it, that we have the energy and clearsightedness needed to judge it. From the depths of the most fearful injustice justice is best perceived. When the hour shall have come for settling accounts—it will not be long delayed—we shall have forgotten much of what we have suffered and a censurable pity will creep over us and cloud our eyes.

*Will Seek Sympathy.*

This is the moment, therefore, for us to frame our inexorable resolution. After the final victory, when the enemy is crushed—as crushed as he will be—efforts will be made to enlist our sympathy. We shall be told that the unfortunate German people are merely the victims of their monarch and their feudal caste; that no blame attaches to the Germany we know that is so sympathetic and cordial—the Germany of quaint old houses and open-hearted greetings; the Germany that sits under its lime trees beneath the clear light of the moon—but only to Prussia, hateful, arrogant Prussia; that homely, peace-loving Bavaria, the genial, hospitable dwellers on the banks of the Rhine, the Silesian and Saxon—I know not who besides—have merely obeyed and been compelled to obey orders they detested, but were unable to resist.

We are in the face of reality now. Let us look at it well and pronounce our sentence, for this is the moment when we hold the proofs in our hands; when the elements of the crime are hot before us and should out—the truth that will soon fade from our memory. Let us tell ourselves now therefore that all we shall be told hereafter will be false. Let us unflinchingly adhere to what we decide at this moment when the glare of the horror is on us.

*No Degrees of Guilt.*

It is not true that in this gigantic crime there are innocent and guilty or degrees of guilt. They stand on one level, all who have taken part. The German from the north has no more especial craving for blood than the German from the south has especial tenderness and pity. It is very simple. It is the German from one end of the country to the other who stands revealed as a beast of prey that the firm will of our planet finally repudiates. We have here no wretched slaves dragged along by a tyrant King who alone is responsible. Nations have the Government they deserve, or rather the Government they have is truly no more than a magnified public projection of the private morality and mentality of the nation.

If eighty million innocent people merely expose the inherent falseness and superficiality of their innocence—and it is a monster they maintain at their head who stands for all that is true in their nature, because it is he who represents the eternal aspirations of their race, which lie far deeper than their apparent transient virtues—let there be no suggestion of error, of intelligent people having been tricked and misled. No nation can be deceived that does not wish to be deceived. It is not intelligence that Germany lacks. In the sphere of intellect such things are not possible, nor in the region of the enlightened, reflecting will. No nation permits herself to be coerced into the one crime man cannot pardon. It is of her own accord she hastens toward it. Her chief has no need to persuade. It is she who urges him on.

We have forces here quite different from those on the surface—forces that are secret, irresistible, profound. It is these we must judge, must crush under heel once for all, for they are the only ones that will not be improved, softened or brought into line by experience, progress, or even the bitterest lesson. They are unalterable, immovable. Their springs lie far beneath hope or influence. They must be destroyed as we destroy a nest of wasps, since we know these never can change into a nest of bees.

Even though individually and singly Germans are all innocent and merely led astray, they are none the less guilty in mass. This is the guilt that counts—that alone is actual and real, because it lays bare underneath their superficial innocence, the subconscious criminality of all. No influence can prevail on the unconscious or subconscious. It never evolves. Let there come a thousand years of civilization, a thousand years of peace, with all possible refinements, art, and education, the German spirit which is its underlying element will remain absolutely the same as today and would declare itself when the opportunity came under the same aspect with the same infamy.

Through the whole course of history two distinct will-powers have been noticed that would seem to be the opposing elemental manifestations of the spirit of our globe, one seeking only evil, injustice, tyranny, suffering, the other strives for liberty, right, radiance, joy. These two powers stand once again face to face. Our opportunity is to annihilate the one that comes from below. Let us know how to be pitiless that we have no more need for pity. It is the measures of organic defense—it is essential that the modern world should stamp out Prussian militarism as it would stamp out a poisonous fungus that for half a century had poisoned its days. The health of our planet is the question. Tomorrow the United States and Europe will have to take measures for the convalescence of the earth.



*Letters to Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler*

*By Baron d'Estournelles de Constant.*

Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University, has permitted THE NEW YORK TIMES to have the extracts printed herewith from letters sent to him since the beginning of the war by Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, Senator of France, and Member of the International Court at The Hague.

*First Letter.*

PARIS, Aug. 15, 1914.—* * * Today I am full of grief to feel myself impotent before the murderous conflicts now going on in Belgium and at a number of points on our northern and eastern frontiers, while awaiting the great battles and hecatombs which will follow; my thought is full of these terrible calamities willfully brought about; so many precious lives already wiped out or soon to be; so much avoidable mourning which one neither can nor wishes now to avoid!

In France there is not a single family which has not given without hesitation all its children of military age to fight for the repulse of the invader. All the men from Creans, of ages 20 to 48 years, have gone, with one exception, and he is now going; and meanwhile no work has ceased because of their absence. In all the communes, in all the hamlets of the whole of France, the women, the children, and the men over 48 have assumed all duties, in particular the gathering of the harvests, which I see already finished as in normal times. * * *

When one thinks that Servia alone, even though exhausted by two atrocious wars, is sufficient to hold in check imperial Austria; when one sees Italy remain neutral, and in reality hostile to Austria, and Russia open slowly, inexorably, her reservoir of men, resources, and infinite energy on the eastern frontier of Germany, one asks truly if the Pan-Germanists have not been the veritable plague of God for their country; the Fatherland, which men like Goethe, Kant, and Beethoven had made so cultured, so glorious, and which asked only to live and to prosper, the Pan-Germanists have isolated only to deliver it to the execration of the world. It was the same in France formerly, when she ceded to chauvinistic influences.

*Second Letter.*

PARIS, Sept. 3, 1914.

* * * May you never witness such calamities as have fallen upon Europe. The visions of horror, which formerly we evoked in order to terrify the world and to try to conjure them away, are now surpassed; and we are only at the commencement of the war! The trains, thronged with youth and enthusiasm, which I saw leave are now returning crowded with the wounded. They have filled all the hospitals, the barracks which had been left empty, the lyceums, and the schools throughout France. In but a few days they have arrived everywhere in the south, the west and the centre of the country. At La Fleche alone we have five improvised hospitals with 1,200 beds. Creans is a hospital annex, and so it is in all the villages and in the dwellings which can provide one or more beds. The wounded who occupy these beds are happy, very happy. One of them, who has only a broken leg, but who thinks of the thousands of his comrades who remain wounded upon the fields of battle, said to me, "I am in heaven." * * *

The worst of all, (I have always said it, but it is even worse than I had thought,) the worst is that each of the combatants, for the most part incapable of cruelty under ordinary conditions, is now devoted to the horrible work of hatred and of reprisal; and even more than the combatants, their children, their orphans, all those who are to remain in mourning. * * *

As far as France is concerned, our first reverses have served to exalt the national spirit and to fortify the unanimous resolution to conquer or to die. It is important that this be well understood in the United States and that it be given due consideration if it is desired to intervene without irritating the most noble scruples. * * *

It is the Prussian military system of domination with its contagion which has done the harm and which ought to disappear, and that system itself is the fruit of Napoleonic imperialism. The struggle is always, and more now than ever, between imperialism and liberty, between force and right. May you in the United States profit by this lesson, so that you may avoid falling into the European error. * * * It is barbarity triumphant. But that triumph will be only momentary, and all agree at the conclusion of this terrible drama on having a United States of Europe with disarmament, or at least with armaments limited to a collective police force.

*Third Letter.*

PARIS, Sept. 8, 1914.

* * * You have comprehended that France is struggling for justice and peace. Be sure that she will resist even to the last man, with the certainty that she is defending not herself alone but also civilization. Never have I suspected to what degree of savagery man can be degraded by unrestrained violence. I had believed that the world could never again see the time of the Massacre of the Innocents; I deceived myself; we have returned to barbarity, and the Prussian Army leaves us no alternative between victory and extermination; should she become mistress of Paris, which I doubt, and of the half of France, she will find the other half which will bury her under its ruins. * * *

The English troops march on our roads, stop at Clermont-Creans! Oh, miracle! I see among my compatriots the worst chauvinists, those who openly desire for me the fate of Jaures, those who fought me in 1902 with cries of "Fashoda" or "Chicago," hasten to meet the English soldiers in order to aid and acclaim them, in this country still full of the memories and the ruins of the hundred years' war! It is because the English troops are also defending the land of liberty, theirs as ours and as yours. Every one except the Prussians comprehend this, and this it is which exalts their souls! * * *

The whole misfortune, I repeat, is the result of the crime committed forty-three years ago, the crime which we accepted to avoid recommencing the war. Our resignation has not sufficed; it has not caused the trouble to disappear; the German Government has none the less been obliged to confirm it each day. The misfortune has been the forcible annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. For that the Germans are paying today; for that they will pay until they have made atonement for their fault. In this regard France is irreproachable; she has resisted the chauvinists; our general elections, the conferences of Berne and of Basle, have proved that, far from seeking revenge, she wished by mutual concessions to arrive worthily at reconciliation in peace.

The Germans are paying today for their fault of 1870-71, because that fault has corrupted and poisoned them. I have said it a thousand times. In order to keep those two unfortunate provinces under their domination it has been necessary for them to use force, to institute a regime of force. * * * It has been necessary to prevent revolts by repressive measures, as at Saverne, which have disgusted, and even disquieted, the whole world; that ignominious brutality become sovereign mistress, by the force of circumstances, even against the will of the Kaiser and against the protestation of all the elite of Germany, of such men as Zorn, Foerster, Nippold, and Bebel, has ended by being a menace and a danger to Germany itself. All this is connected, and, whatever happens, Germany cannot emerge victorious from a war which is itself but the logical result of the abuse of her victories. She cannot conquer civilization; it is impossible. * * *

Comprehend this well, repeat it, publish it if you wish; France, Belgium, and England may suffer check after check; they are prepared for this, they expect it, but they will not be discouraged. The German armies may exhaust themselves uselessly in killing, burning, and destroying. They will destroy themselves in the end. Our national policy is to take them in their own trap and to wear them out.

The day of reckoning is coming, when the inexorable advance of the Slavic race, always increasing in numbers—it little matters whether it is well or badly organized—will come from the rear to attack the Germans at the time when they are confident of victory and to drown them in the floods of blood which they have caused to flow; terrible punishment for a war which we and our friends have done everything to prevent. The victims of this punishment will be at least a half million of French, Belgians, and Englishmen, together with a whole nation which desired peace as we did, but which has allowed herself to be misled by a Government mad enough to wish to reconcile the irreconcilable, namely, the maintenance of peace and the spirit of conquest. May this punishment at least begin an era of new peace! Alas! how may we hope for this when we see the human beast awakening in a delirium of fury and getting beyond our control to destroy the masterpieces of human genius.

*Fourth Letter.*

PARIS, Sept. 11, 1914.

The Germans appear to have comprehended that the atrocities which have bitterly aggravated the remorseless violation of Belgian neutrality have only aroused general indignation, and have at the same time exasperated the opposing nations and armies. Contrary to the tales which appear in the sensational journals, which are naturally as eager today to embitter the war as they were formerly to bring it about, I am assured that the German armies in France are repudiating the unworthy excesses of the beginning of the campaign and are respecting life and private property. This will alleviate the horrors of the war, but France nevertheless will place no limit on the sacrifices which she will make. She will wear out the German Army and destroy it, day after day, in continuous battles. * * *

The Belgians with us at Clermont-Creans, instead of being a burden, as I had feared, are making themselves useful. They are very welcome. They are gradually recognized and appreciated as estimable people, and are employed in the homes and farms and fields. We should like to have more of them. How we shall regret them when they leave! * * *

The German Emperor must stand either as a pacifist or as a conqueror. He cannot pass as both. All the results which may follow this war could well have been obtained in peace by a general effort of good-will. On the other hand, the legacy of the war will be endless rancor, hatred, reprisal, and savagery. When it shall be understood that, in spite of Governments and Parliaments, the war has been, in large part, excited by the manoeuvres of an international band of the dealers in military supplies and by their all-powerful newspapers, when it shall be thoroughly comprehended that these dealers and these newspapers have played with rumors of war as with a scarecrow, for the purpose of keeping up a general condition of disquiet favorable to their sinister operations, then, too late, alas! there will be a revulsion of public opinion to sustain finally those men, like our friends, who have urged arbitration rather than war, and conciliation rather than arbitration.