New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 1, No. 1

Incredible Reports of Atrocities.

Half of these stories of atrocities I do not believe. I remember when I was living in Germany at the time of the Boer war the German papers were full of accounts of Tommy Atkins's brutality. He spent his leisure time in tossing babies on bayonets. There were photographs of him doing it. Detailed accounts certified by most creditable witnesses. Such lies are the stock in trade of every tenth-rate journalist, who, careful not to expose himself to danger, slinks about the byways collecting hearsay. In every war each side, according to the other, is supposed to take a fiendish pleasure in firing upon hospitals—containing always a proportion of their own wounded. An account comes to us from a correspondent with the Belgian Army. He tells us that toward the end of the day a regrettable incident occurred. The Germans were taking off their wounded in motor cars. The Belgian sharpshooters, not noticing the red flag in the dusk, kept up a running fire, and a large number of the wounded were killed. Had the incident been the other way about it would have been cited as a deliberate piece of villainy on the part of the Germans. According to other accounts, the Germans always go into action with screens of women and children before them. The explanation, of course, is that a few poor terrified creatures are rushing along the road. They get between the approaching forces, and I expect the bullets that put them out of their misery come pretty even from both sides.

The men are mad. Mad with fear, mad with hate, blinded by excitement. Take a mere dog fight. If you interfere you have got to be prepared for your own dog turning upon you. In war half the time the men do not know what they are doing. They are little else than wild beasts. There was great indignation at the dropping of bombs into Antwerp. One now hears that a French dirigible has been dropping bombs into Luxembourg—a much more dignified retort. War is a grim game. Able editors and club-chair politicians have been clamoring for it for years past. They thought it was all goose-step and bands.

The truth is bad enough, God knows. There is no sense in making things out worse than they are. When this war is over we have got to forget it. To build up barriers of hatred that shall stand between our children and our foemen's children is a crime against the future.

These stories of German naval officers firing on their wounded sailors in the water! They are an insult to our intelligence. At Louvain fifty of the inhabitants were taken out and shot. On Monday the fifty had grown to five hundred; both numbers vouched for by eye-witnesses, "Dutchmen who would have had no interest," &c. That the beautiful old town has been laid in ashes is undoubted. Some criminal lunatic strutting in pipeclay and mustachios was given his hour of authority and took the chance of his life. If I know anything of the German people it will go hard with him when the war is over, if he has not had the sense to get killed. But that won't rear again the grand old stones or wipe from Germany's honor the stain of that long line of murdered men and women—whatever its actual length may have been. War puts a premium on brutality and senselessness. Men with the intelligence and instincts of an ape suddenly find themselves possessed of the powers of a god. And we are astonished that they do not display the wisdom of a god!

There are other stories that have filtered through to us. There was a dying Uhlan who caught a child to his arms and kissed him. One would like to be able to kiss one's own child before one dies, but failing that—well, after all, there is a sort of family likeness between them. The same deep wondering eyes, the same—and then the mist grows deeper. Perhaps after all it was Baby Fritz that he kissed.

And of a Belgian woman. She had seen her two sons killed before her eyes. She tells of that and of other horrors. Among such, of the German lads she had stepped over, their blue eyes quiet in death. The passion and the fear and the hate cleansed out of them. Just boys with their clothes torn—so like boys.

"They, too, have got mothers, poor lads!" is all she says, thinking of them lying side by side with her own.

When the madness and the folly are over, when the tender green is creeping in and out among the blackened ruins, it will be well for us to think of that dying Uhlan who had to put up with a French baby instead of his own; of that Belgian mother to whom the German youngsters were just "poor lads"—with their clothes torn.

And the savagery and the cruelty and the guiltiness that go to the making of war we will seek to forget.

"As They Tested Our Fathers"

By Rudyard Kipling

Following is the text of an address by Mr. Kipling to a mass meeting at Brighton, Sept. 8, 1914:

Through no fault nor wish of ours we are at war with Germany, the power which owes its existence to three well-thought-out wars; the power which for the last twenty years has devoted itself to organizing and preparing for this war; the power which is now fighting to conquer the civilized world.

For the last two generations the Germans in their books, teachers, speeches, and schools have been carefully taught that nothing less than this world conquest was the object of their preparations and their sacrifices. They have prepared carefully and sacrificed greatly.

We must have men, and men, and men, if we with our allies are to check the onrush of organized barbarism.

Have no illusions. We are dealing with a strong and magnificently equipped enemy, whose avowed aim is our complete destruction.

The violation of Belgium, the attack on France, and the defense against Russia are only steps by the way. The Germans' real objective, as she has always told us, is England and England's wealth, trade, and worldwide possessions.

If you assume for an instant that that attack will be successful, England will not be reduced, as some people say, to the rank of a second-rate power, but we shall cease to exist as a nation. We shall become an outlying province of Germany, to be administered with what severity German safety and interest require.

We arm against such a fate. We enter into a new life in which all the facts of war that we had put behind or forgotten for the past hundred years have returned to the front and test us as they tested our fathers. It will be a long and a hard road, beset with difficulties and discouragements, but we tread it together and we will tread it together to the end.

Our petty social divisions and barriers have been swept away at the outset of our mighty struggle. All the interests of our life of six weeks ago are dead. We have but one interest now, and that touches the naked heart of every man in this island and in the empire.

If we are to win the right for ourselves and for freedom to exist on earth, every man must offer himself for that service and that sacrifice.

Kipling and "The Truce of the Bear"

STAUNTON, Va., Sept. 25, 1914.—On Sept. 5 The Staunton News printed some verses by Dr. Charles Minor Blackford, an associate editor, addressed to Rudyard Kipling, calling attention to the apparent inconsistency of his attitude of distrust of Russia as shown in his well-known poem, "The Truce of the Bear," and his present advocacy of the alliance between Russia and Great Britain. A copy of the verses was sent to Mr. Kipling and the following reply was received from him:

Bateman's Burwash, Sussex.

Dear Sir: I am much obliged for your verses of Sept. 4. "The Truce of the Bear," to which they refer, was written sixteen years ago, in 1898. It dealt with a situation and a menace which have long since passed away, and with issues that are now quite dead.

The present situation, as far as England is concerned, is Germany's deliberate disregard of the neutrality of Belgium, whose integrity Germany as well as England guaranteed. She has filled Belgium with every sort of horror and atrocity, not in the heat of passion, but as a part of settled policy of terrorism. Her avowed object is the conquest of Europe on these lines.

As you may prove for yourself if you will consult her literature of the last generation, Germany is the present menace, not to Europe alone, but to the whole civilized world. If Germany, by any means, is victorious you may rest assured that it will be a very short time before she turns her attention to the United States. If you could meet the refugees from Belgium flocking into England and have the opportunity of checking their statements of unimaginable atrocities and barbarities studiously committed, you would, I am sure, think as seriously on these matters as we do, and in your unpreparedness for modern war you would do well to think very seriously indeed. Yours truly,

RUDYARD KIPLING.

On the Impending Crisis

By Norman Angell

To the Editor of The London Times:

Sir: A nation's first duty is to its own people. We are asked to intervene in the Continental war because unless we do so we shall be "isolated." The isolation which will result for us if we keep out of this war is that, while other nations are torn and weakened by war, we shall not be, and by that fact might conceivably for a long time be the strongest power in Europe, and, by virtue of our strength and isolation, its arbiter, perhaps, to useful ends.

We are told that if we allow Germany to become victorious she would be so powerful as to threaten our existence by the occupation of Belgium, Holland, and possibly the North of France. But, as your article of today's date so well points out, it was the difficulty which Germany found in Alsace-Lorraine which prevented her from acting against us during the South African War. If one province, so largely German in its origin and history, could create this embarrassment, what trouble will not Germany pile up for herself if she should attempt the absorption of a Belgium, a Holland, and a Normandy? She would have created for herself embarrassments compared with which Alsace and Poland would be a trifle; and Russia, with her 160,000,000, would in a year or two be as great a menace to her as ever.

The object and effect of our entering into this war would be to insure the victory of Russia and her Slavonic allies. Will a dominant Slavonic federation of, say, 200,000,000 autocratically governed people, with a very rudimentary civilization, but heavily equipped for military aggression, be a less dangerous factor in Europe than a dominant Germany of 65,000,000 highly civilized and mainly given to the arts of trade and commerce?

The last war we fought on the Continent was for the purpose of preventing the growth of Russia. We are now asked to fight one for the purpose of promoting it. It is now universally admitted that our last Continental war—the Crimean war—was a monstrous error and miscalculation. Would this intervention be any wiser or likely to be better in its results?

On several occasions Sir Edward Grey has solemnly declared that we are not bound by any agreement to support France, and there is certainly no moral obligation on the part of the English people so to do. We can best serve civilization, Europe—including France—and ourselves by remaining the one power in Europe that has not yielded to the war madness.

This, I believe, will be found to be the firm conviction of the overwhelming majority of the English people.

Yours faithfully,

NORMAN ANGELL.

4 Kings Bench Walk, Temple, E.C., July 31.

Why England Came To Be In It

By Gilbert K. Chesterton

I

Unless we are all mad, there is at the back of the most bewildering business a story; and if we are all mad, there is no such thing as madness. If I set a house on fire, it is quite true that I may illuminate many other people's weaknesses as well as my own. It may be that the master of the house was burned because he was drunk; it may be that the mistress of the house was burned because she was stingy, and perished arguing about the expense of the fire-escape. It is, nevertheless, broadly true that they both were burned because I set fire to their house. That is the story of the thing. The mere facts of the story about the present European conflagration are quite as easy to tell.

Before we go on to the deeper things which make this war the most sincere war of human history, it is easy to answer the question of why England came to be in it at all; as one asks how a man fell down a coal hole, or failed to keep an appointment. Facts are not the whole truth. But facts are facts, and in this case the facts are few and simple.

Prussia, France, and England had all promised not to invade Belgium, because it was the safest way of invading France. But Prussia promised that if she might break in through her own broken promise and ours she would break in and not steal. In other words, we were offered at the same instant a promise of faith in the future and a proposal of perjury in the present.

Those interested in human origins may refer to an old Victorian writer of English, who in the last and most restrained of his historical essays wrote of Frederick the Great, the founder of this unchanging Prussian policy. After describing how Frederick broke the guarantee he had signed on behalf of Maria Theresa he then describes how Frederick sought to put things straight by a promise that was an insult. "If she would but let him have Silesia, he would, he said, stand by her against any power which should try to deprive her of her other dominions; as if he was not already bound to stand by her, or as if his new promise could be of more value than the old one." That passage was written by Macaulay; but so far as the mere contemporary facts are concerned, it might have been written by me.

Diplomacy That Might Have Been.

Upon the immediate logical and legal origin of the English interest there can be no rational debate. There are some things so simple that one can almost prove them with plans and diagrams, as in Euclid. One could make a kind of comic calendar of what would have happened to the English diplomatist if he had been silenced every time by Prussian diplomacy. Suppose we arrange it in the form of a kind of diary:

July 24—Germany invades Belgium.

July 25—England declares war.

July 26—Germany promises not to annex Belgium.

July 27—England withdraws from the war.

July 28—Germany annexes Belgium. England declares war.

July 29—Germany promises not to annex France. England withdraws from the war.

July 30—Germany annexes France. England declares war.

July 31—Germany promises not to annex England.

Aug. 1—England withdraws from the war. Germany invades England.

How long is anybody expected to go on with that sort of game, or keep peace at that illimitable price? How long must we pursue a road in which promises are all fetiches in front of us and all fragments behind us? No; upon the cold facts of the final negotiations, as told by any of the diplomatists in any of the documents, there is no doubt about the story. And no doubt about the villain of the story.

These are the last facts, the facts which involved England. It is equally easy to state the first facts—the facts which involved Europe. The Prince who practically ruled Austria was shot by certain persons whom the Austrian Government believed to be conspirators from Servia. The. Austrian Government piled up arms and armies, but said not a word either to Servia, their suspect, or Italy, their ally. From the documents it would seem that Austria kept everybody in the dark, except Prussia. It is probably nearer the truth to say that Prussia kept everybody in the dark, including Austria.

The Demands on Servia.

But all that is what is called opinion, belief, conviction, or common sense, and we are not dealing with it here. The objective fact is that Austria told Servia to permit Servian officers to be suspended by the authority of Austrian officers, and told Servia to submit to this within forty-eight hours. In other words, the Sovereign of Servia was practically told to take off not only the laurels of two great campaigns, but his own lawful and national crown, and to do it in a time in which no respectable citizen is expected to discharge a hotel bill. Servia asked for time for arbitration—in short, for peace. But Russia had already begun to mobilize, and Prussia, presuming that Servia might thus be rescued, declared war.

Between these two ends of fact, the ultimatum to Servia, the ultimatum to Belgium, any one so inclined can, of course, talk as if everything were relative. If any one asks why the Czar should rush to the support of Servia, it is easy to ask why the Kaiser should rush to the support of Austria. If any one say that that the French would attack the Germans, it is sufficient to answer that the Germans did attack the French.

There remain, however, two attitudes to consider, even perhaps two arguments to counter, which can best be considered and countered under this general head of facts. First of all, there is a curious, cloudy sort of argument, much affected by the professional rhetoricans of Prussia, who are sent out to instruct and correct the minds of Americans or Scandinavians. It consists of going into convulsions of incredulity and scorn at the mention of Russia's responsibility for Servia or England's responsibility for Belgium; and suggesting that, treaty or no treaty, frontier or no frontier, Russia would be out to slay Teutons or England to steal colonies.

England Kept Her Contracts.

Here, as elsewhere, I think the professors dotted all over the Baltic plain fail in lucidity and in the power of distinguishing ideas. Of course, it is quite true that England has material interests to defend, and will probably use the opportunity to defend them; or, in other words, of course England, like everybody else, would be more comfortable if Prussia were less predominant. The fact remains that we did not do what the Germans did. We did not invade Holland to seize a naval and commercial advantage; and whether they say that we wished to do it in our greed or feared to do it in our cowardice, the fact remains that we did not do it. Unless this common sense principle be kept in view, I cannot conceive how any quarrel can possibly be judged. A contract may be made between two persons solely for material advantages on each side; but the moral advantage is still generally supposed to lie with the person who keeps the contract. Surely, it cannot be dishonest to be honest—even if honesty is the best policy. Imagine the most complex maze of indirect motives, and still the man who keeps faith for money cannot possibly be worse than the man who breaks faith for money.

It will be noted that this ultimate test applies in the same way to Servia as to Belgium and Britain. The Servians may not be a very peaceful people; but on the occasion under discussion it was certainly they who wanted peace. You may choose to think the Serb a sort of a born robber; but on this occasion it was certainly the Austrian who was trying to rob. Similarly, you may call England perfidious as a sort of historical summary, and declare your private belief that Mr. Asquith was vowed from infancy to the ruin of the German Empire —a Hannibal and hater of the eagles. But when all is said, it is nonsense to call a man perfidious because he keeps his promise. It is absurd to complain of the sudden treachery of a business man in turning up punctually to his appointment, or the unfair shock given to a creditor by the debtor paying his debts. Lastly, there is an attitude not unknown in the crisis against which I should particularly like to protest. I should address my protest especially to those lovers and pursuers of peace who, very shortsightedly, have occasionally adopted it. I mean the attitude which is impatient of these preliminary details about who did this or that and whether it was right or wrong. They are satisfied with saying that an enormous calamity called war has been begun by some or all of us, and should be ended by some or all of us. To these people this preliminary chapter about the precise happenings must appear not only dry (and it must of necessity be the dryest part of the task), but essentially needless and barren. I wish to tell these people that they are wrong; that they are wrong upon all principles of human justice and historic continuity; but that they are especially and supremely wrong upon their own principles of arbitration and international peace.

As to Certain Peace Lovers.

These sincere and high-minded peace lovers are always telling us that citizens no longer settle their quarrels by private violence, and that nations should no longer settle theirs by public violence. They are always telling us that we no longer fight duels, and need no longer wage wars. In short, they perpetually base their peace proposals on the fact that an ordinary citizen no longer avenges himself with an axe.

But how is he prevented from avenging himself with an axe? If he hits his neighbor on the head with the kitchen chopper what do we do? Do we all join hands, like children playing mulberry bush, and say: "We are all responsible for this, but let us hope it will not spread. Let us hope for the happy, happy day when he shall leave off chopping at the man's head, and when nobody shall ever chop anything forever and ever." Do we say: "Let bygones be bygones. Why go back to all the dull details with which the business began? Who can tell with what sinister motives the man was standing there within reach of the hatchet?"

We do not. We keep the peace in private life by asking for the facts of provocation and the proper object of punishment. We do not go into the dull details; we do inquire into the origins; we do emphatically inquire who it was that hit first. In short, we do what I have done very briefly in this place.

Given this, it is indeed true that behind these facts there are truths—truths of a terrible, of a spiritual sort. In mere fact the Germanic power has been wrong about Servia, wrong about Russia, wrong about Belgium, wrong about England, wrong about Italy. But there was a reason for its being wrong everywhere, and of that root reason, which has moved half the world against it, I shall speak later in this series. For that is something too omnipresent to be proved, too indisputable to be helped by detail. It is nothing less than the locating, after more than a hundred years of recriminations and wrong explanations, of the modern European evil—the finding of the fountain from which poison has flowed upon all the nations of the earth.

II.

Russian or Prussian Barbarism?

It will hardly be denied that there is one lingering doubt in many who recognize unavoidable self-defense in the instant parry of the English sword and who have no great love for the sweeping sabre of Sadowa and Sedan. That doubt is the doubt of whether Russia, as compared with Prussia, is sufficiently decent and democratic to be the ally of liberal and civilized powers. I take first, therefore, this matter of civilization.

It is vital in a discussion like this that we should make sure we are going by meanings and not by mere words. It is not necessary in any argument to settle what a word means or ought to mean. But it is necessary in every argument to settle what we propose to mean by the word. So long as our opponent understands what is the thing of which we are talking, it does not matter to the argument whether the word is or is not the one he would have chosen. A soldier does not say, "We were ordered to go to Mechlin, but I would rather go to Malines." He may discuss the etymology and archaeology of the difference on the march, but the point is that he knows where to go. So long as we know what a given word is to mean in a given discussion, it does not even matter if it means something else in some other and quite distinct discussion. We have a perfect right to say that the width of a window comes to four feet, even if we instantly and cheerfully change the subject to the larger mammals and say that an elephant has four feet. The identity of the words does not matter, because there is no doubt at all about the meanings, because nobody is likely to think of an elephant as four feet long, or of a window as having tusks and a curly trunk.

Two Meanings of "Barbarian."

It is essential to emphasize this consciousness of the thing under discussion in connection with two or three words that are, as it were, the keywords of this war. One of them is the word "barbarian." The Prussians apply it to the Russians, the Russians apply it to the Prussians. Both, I think, really mean something that really exists, name or no name. Both mean different things. And if we ask what these different things are we shall understand why England and France prefer Russia, and consider Prussia the really dangerous barbarian of the two.