England, Canada and the Great War

In appreciating the course followed by the United States since the war commenced, it must never be forgotten that if an autocratic Empire, trampled upon by a domineering military party, can be thrown in a minute into a great conflict, a Republic like that of our powerful neighbours cannot be dragooned into any hasty action. In a free country, under a responsible government, public opinion is the basis of the success of any important official decision.

The political men and the numerous publicists who incessantly called the attention of our neighbours to what was going on in Europe and on the seas, have rendered a great service in moulding public opinion for the grand duty the Republic would eventually be obliged to accomplish.

Having ourselves decided to participate in the war at once after its outbreak, and deeply engaged in the task, we, Canadians, felt somewhat uneasy about the apparent determination of our neighbours to stand aside, and let the European Powers settle the ugly question. As a rule, we were all wishing to see the United States joining with the Allies in the fray.

Once again, we had some black sheep with us. Whilst all the loyal Canadians were anxiously waiting for the day when they would applaud the American Republic's declaration of war against Germany, our Nationalists were getting more nervous at the increasing signs of the growth of public opinion amongst our neighbours against the criminal German cause and the crimes by which the Teutons were supporting it. Their leader, Mr. Bourassa, was doing his best to persuade the Americans that they had much better to remain out of the struggle. He expected he would succeed, as he had done in the Province of Quebec, in influencing, by his erroneous theories, many of the French Canadian element in the United States.

The wish being always father to the thought, Mr. Bourassa easily came to the conclusion that Mr. Wilson, the president of the United States, was decidedly opposed to any intervention of the Republic in the war, and would prevent it at all hazards. How prodigal he was of his eulogiums, of his advices, to the American "pacifists," with the President as their leader, to know one has only to read his newspaper "Le Devoir."

How disappointed, how crest-fallen, he was when he discovered how much mistaken he had been!

When Mr. Wilson, who had long been waiting for the right hour to strike the blow at the Teutonic autocratic attempt at domination, rising grandly to the rank of a great statesman, supported by the splendid strength of the public opinion he had wisely and skilfully rallied in favour of the decision he had taken, was a sad day for our Nationalists and their heart-broken leader. Blind, prejudiced, as they were, meekly pandering to pan-Germanism which they considered as the best antidote to the Anglo-Saxonism they abhor, they could not understand that the Lusitania horror, the slaughtering of hundreds of American citizens in violation of all the principles of International Law, the crimes of the Teutonic submarine campaign more than justified the intervention of the United States in the war.

What our neighbours have done since they have joined with the Allies, what they are doing and promise to do, is worthy of all admiration. Like the British Empire, like France, the United States have given the inspiring example of a most enlightened patriotism, of a splendid unity of purpose, of a boundless confidence in the triumph of the cause of Justice and Right.

Such a grand spectacle of true national unity offered a striking contrast with the sad exhibition of the narrow Nationalism Canada has had to endure without, however, hindering to any appreciable extent our loyal and patriotic effort to help winning the war.

Mr. Bourassa, who had been out of his natural vituperative tune in complimenting Mr. Wilson on his supposed peace proclivities, was sure to turn his guns against the President of the Republic the moment he boldly and energetically took his stand against German barbarism as exhibited since the beginning of the war. Mr. Wilson had especially protested against such outrages as were perpetrated on the seas by Teutonic orders. He had repeatedly warned the Berlin Government what the inevitable consequences of such proceedings would be, and going to the full length of what friendly relations between two Sovereign States could permit, had demanded that an end be put to a kind of warfare most formally condemned by International Law, contrary to all justice, to all human notions of civilization.

When the cup of German iniquities overflowed with new crimes, American reprobation was also raised to the high water mark. Indignation was at the height of its exasperation. Public opinion had rapidly rallied and ripened at the horrible sight of so many American citizens, women and children, murdered in mid-ocean, their dead bodies floating over the waves, and their souls from above crying for vengeance.

Then the President, Congress, statesmen, politicians, publicists, loyal Americans numbering almost a hundred million, all of one mind, of one heart, pledged their national honour to avenge the foul deeds of Teutonic barbarity, and to do their mighty share in rescuing Freedom and Civilization from the threatening sanguinary cataclysm which was cruelly saddening our times and darkening the prospects of our children.

How powerfully, how grandly, how admirably they have kept their word, all know. The laws necessary to prosecute the war with the utmost vigour were unanimously passed by Congress. The organization of the man-power of our neighbours has been made on a grand scale. The calls to the financial resources of the Republic have been patriotically answered by the people who poured out billions and billions of their hard earned and prudently saved money to support the national cause so closely identified with that of the Allies. Besides spending innumerable millions for their own gigantic military effort, the United States are lending billions of dollars to their associates in the great struggle to curb down German autocratic criminal ambition.

The universe, as a whole, gratefully applauded the magnificent effort of the leading nation of the New-World in defending the old continents of Europe, Asia and Africa against the new invasion of the Huns.

The only shadow to this ennobling picture is that which our Nationalists, from this side of the boundary line, try to breathe on it, expecting that their treacherous whisper will find some echo amongst the French Canadian and the German elements of the Republic.

The following lines are a sample of the kind words Mr. Bourassa has addressed to Mr. Wilson – the warrior – not the pacifist. On August 30, 1917, respecting the answer of the President of the United States to the Pope's appeal in favour of peace, he wrote in a gentle mood: —

"Truth and falsehood, sincerity and deceit, logic and sophism are sporting with gracefulness in this singularly astonishing document. One would imagine that the President, persuaded that the European Governments are playing an immense game of "poker" having the life of the peoples at stake, wanted to go further and to prove to them that at such a game the great American democracy is their master. Perhaps did he believe that the "bluff" outbidding would succeed in tearing to pieces the mask of falsehoods, of ambiguities and hypocrisy, by which the national Rulers are blinding the peoples in order to lead them more readily to be slaughtered."

On perusing such outrageous writing, one cannot help being convinced that Mr. Bourassa considers all the distinguished and most patriotic political leaders who, for the last four years, have guided with so much talent and devotion France, the British Empire, and their Allies through the unprecedented crisis they have had to face, are a criminal gang of murderers.

So, in Mr. Bourassa's kind opinion, when Mr. Wilson and all the members of the two Houses of Congress, with a most admirable unanimity of thought and aspirations, called upon the American nation to avenge their countrymen, countrywomen and children, murdered on the broad sea, they were criminally joining with European Rulers in a game of "bluff", going further than all of them in order to tear to pieces the falsehoods and hypocrisy they were using to blind their peoples to the facile acceptance of the slaughtering process. A very strange way, indeed, of unmasking others' hypocrisy by being more hypocritical than them all.

The next day, in a second article on the same subject, the Nationalist leader said: —

"Since the outbreak of the war, more especially since the exhausted peoples have commenced to ask themselves what will be the result of this frightful slaughter, the supporters of war to the utmost have tried hard to create the legend that Germany wants to impose her political, military and economical domination over the whole universe. To this first falsehood, they add another one, still more complete: the only way to assure peace, they say, is to democratize Germany, Austria and all the nations of the Globe."

Two falsehoods no doubt there are, but they are not asserted by those who affirm Germany's aspiration at universal domination, and who believe that if true free democratic institutions were to replace autocratic rule in many countries, peace could be much more easily maintained. They are circulated by those who deny that such are the two cases.

Whose fault is it if the almost universal opinion, outside the Central Empires and their few allies, is that Teutonic ambition, for many years past, has been to dominate the world?

Whose fault is it if, for the last forty years, autocratic rule has once more proved to be the curse of the nations which it governs, and of the peoples it subjugates?

Has not Germany only herself to blame? If she had respected the eternal principles of Divine Morals; if she had been contented of her lot and mindful of the rights of other nations; if she had been guided by the true law that Right is above Might; if she had followed the ever glorious path of Justice, she would not be presently under the ban of the civilized world rising in a mighty effort to crush her threatening tyranny out of existence.

So much the worse for her, if she falls a victim to her insane ambitious dreams and to the atrocious crimes they have inspired her to commit. In her calamity, the Nationalists' sympathies will avail her very little, as they will everywhere meet with the contempt they fully deserve.

At page 116, in a virulent charge, Mr. Bourassa says that Mr. Wilson though a passionate and obstinate pedantic of democracy, is as much of an autocrat as William of Prussia.

Blinded by his fanatical antipathies towards every one and every thing, directly or indirectly, favouring England, the Nationalist leader fails to see any difference between the man who blasphemously claims by Divine Right the power to hurl his whole Empire at the throat of staggering Humanity, to satisfy his frenzied lust of domination, denying to his subjects any say whatever in the matter, and the responsible chief of State who, holding his temporary functions from the expressed will of the people who trusted him, calls upon that same nation to avenge the murder of a large number of her citizens, of her women and children, and the barbarous crimes committed in violation of her Sovereign Rights.

If Mr. Bourassa is conscious of the enormity of the stand he has taken, and of the views he has expressed, he is indeed much to be blamed; if he is not, he is greatly to be pitied.

At page 109 of his pamphlet – entitled: – "The Pope, arbiter of peace," Mr. Bourassa has written the following monstrous proposition, after having said that peace must be restored "without victory": —

"The more the results of the war are null, for both sides, the more chances there are for the peoples, astounded at the frightful uselessness of those monstrous slaughters, to protect themselves against a new fit of furious folly. To become odious to men, war must be barren."

So Mr. Bourassa has emphatically proclaimed that the war must be barren of any practical results, that the extraordinary sacrifices of lives, of resources of wealth, must be without reward of any kind; that the world must return to the ante-war conditions. And this, he asserts, would be the best means of preventing a renewal of the monstrous slaughters which have been the outcome of Germany's horrible attempt at dominating an enslaved Humanity.

In all sincerity, it is very difficult to suppose that the exponent of such outrageously abominable views is conscious of what he says.

A red hot "pacifist," Mr. Bourassa clamoured as best he could for "PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY," claiming that it was the only kind of peace that could be "just and durable." The time was when he pretended – surely without any show of reason – that such was the sort of peace Mr. Wilson wanted and suggested.

Even as far back as December 31, 1915, Mr. Bourassa, no doubt desirous of giving full vent to his new year's wishes to all, had written: —

"In spite of the lies, of the impudent "bluff," of the sanguinary appeals and of the false promises of victory of the partisans of war to excess, in all the warring countries, popular good sense commences to discern truth… The more victory (the issue) will be materially null and sterile for all the nations at war, the more chances there will be that peace will be lasting and that the peoples will be convinced that war is not only an abominable crime but an incommensurable folly."

Evidently it had already become a hobby on the brain of the Nationalist leader. He dogmatically proclaims that war between peoples – not the wars formerly fought by mercenary armies, – is a crime, —abominable, – and a folly, —incommensurable.

True it is on the part of a State tramping upon all the principles of Justice and of International Law to gratify her guilty ambition.

But honourable, glorious, is war on the part of peoples rising in their patriotic might to resist a sanguinary enemy, to defend their countries, their homes, their mothers, their wives and their children from oppression, to stem the conquering efforts of barbarous invaders.

No doubt it was a crime on the part of Germany to break her pledged honour by solemn treaties, and to violate Belgium's territory.

No doubt it was a crime for Germany – and one abominable – to overrun Belgium, spreading everywhere desolation, devastation, incendiarism, murder.

But can it be said that the admirable and heroic resistance Belgium has opposed to her tyrannical invaders was a dastardly crime?

No doubt it was a crime – and one most abominable – for Germany to order the sinking of the Lusitania and hundreds of merchant ships, without the warning required by the Law of Nations, murdering by hundreds non-combatants, children, women, and old men.

But can any one be justified in asserting that, after exhausting, for the redress of such abominable wrongs, all the resources of diplomacy, the United States were committing a crime when they accepted the criminal teutonic challenge and decided to join with the British Empire, with France, Italy and their Allies, to rescue human Freedom and Civilization from the impending destruction?

It is an aberration of mind – incommensurable in depth – for a publicist, or any one else, to be so blinded by prejudices, so lost to all sense of justice, as to place on the same footing, on the same level, the assailant and he who defends his all, the murderer and the victim.

I positively affirm that I am not actuated by the least ill-will or ill-feeling against the Nationalist leader, in judging his course and his views as I do. Thank God, I know enough of the teachings of Christianity to wish good to all men. But I cannot help being deeply sorry and deploring that one of my French Canadian compatriots is buried in such mental darkness as to be unable to perceive the difference – incommensurable – there is in the present war between the hideous Teutonic guilt, and the commendable and meritorious defence by the Allied nations of the most sacred cause on earth: – outraged Justice.

And with all sincerity, I express the profound wish that during the prolonged recess the timely war measure adopted to censure and prevent all utterances detrimental to the best Canadian effort in the conflict, the Nationalist leader has the pleasure to enjoy, he will reconsider the whole situation and his opinions – too much widely circulated. Is it yet possible to hope that, at last, he will see the dawn which will lead him to the full light with which the great and noble cause of his country and of the world is shining?

It is no surprise that such opinions utterly failed to have any echo amongst the liberty loving people of the neighbouring Republic. They died their merited shameful death before crossing over the boundary line, buried deep under the heap of the profound feelings of reprobation they provoked.

The Nationalist leader even missed the mark where he felt sure his shot would strike. We can rest assured that the large majority of the United States Germans, by birth or origin, would not change the responsible President of their new country for the autocrat Kaiser from whose absolutist power so many of them fled to breathe freely in the new land of promise it was their happy lot to enter.

Mr. Bourassa met with a complete failure in his expectation to arouse the feelings of his compatriots over the frontier against the intervention of the Republic in the war.

It has been a profound satisfaction for us, French Canadians, to learn that from the very moment war was declared by the Republic against Germany, the French Canadian element in the United States has been to the forefront of the most loyal of our friendly neighbours in fighting the common enemy.

The French Canadians of the United States, either by birth or origin, have wisely turned a deaf ear to the Nationalist leader's seductive but prejudiced theories, to the wild charges he was wont to level at all the national rulers of the Allies, and, as a final attempt, at those of the American Republic. They have rallied to their Colours with enthusiastic patriotism.

They have nobly done their duty. They are doing it, and will continue to do so to the last: to the final victory for which they are fighting with the patriotic desire to share in the glory of the triumph of their country.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

The Allies – Russia – Japan

Since its outbreak the great war has, and, before it is over, will have, played havoc in many ways in the wide world. Criminal aspirations have been quashed, extravagant hopes shattered, an ancient throne overthrown almost without a clash, an autocrat sovereign murdered, another forced to abdicate and go into exile.

In the open airs, on land, over the waves, under sea, the fighting demon has been most actively at work, ordering one of the belligerent, eager to obey, to spare no one, young, weak or old. Death has been dropped from the skies on sleeping non-combatants, assassinating right and left. On the soil Providentially provided with the resources necessary to human life, homes have been ruined, their so far happy owners brutally murdered. On the ocean the treacherous and barbarous submariner, operating in the broad light of the day, or in the darkness of the night, has sent, without remorse, to the fathomless bottom, thousands and thousands of innocent victims, children, women, old men, wounded soldiers spared on land but drowned at sea.

Viewed from the height of a much nobler standpoint, the war has developed a superior degree of heroism perhaps never equalled. Belgians, Serbians, Poles, Armenians have endured, and are still suffering, their prolonged martyrdom with a fortitude deserving the greatest admiration.

The nations united to withstand the torrent of German cruel and depraved ambition are writing, with the purest of their blood, pages of history which, for all times to come, will offer to posterity unrivalled examples of the sound and unswerving patriotism which has elevated them all to the indomitable determination to bear patiently, perseveringly, all the sacrifices, in lives courageously given, in resources profusely spent, in taxation willingly accepted and paid, in works of all kinds cheerfully performed, which the salvation of human Liberty and Civilization shall require.

The collapse of the ancient and hitherto mighty Empire of Russia will undoubtedly be one of the most startling events of the "Great War." For the present, I shall not comment, on the causes of this momentous episode, incidental to the wonderful drama being played on the worldly stage, more than I have done in a previous chapter. Still the important change it has made in the respective situation of the belligerents, with the prospective consequences likely to follow, one way or the other, calls for some timely consideration.

Evidently, the downfall, first, of the Imperial regime, second, of the de facto Republican government by which it was replaced, throwing the great Eastern ally of Great Britain, France and Italy under the tyrannical sway of the "bolchevikis" terrorists, most considerably altered the relative strength of the fighting power of the belligerents. Very detrimental to the Allies, it was largely favourable to the Central Empires. The "Triple Entente" as first constituted, was much weakened by the desertion of one of the great partners in the heavy task they had undertaken, whilst the "Triple Alliance" was strengthened in a relative proportion, at least for the time being and the very near future.

Evidence, incontrovertible, is coming to light, proving what had been soundly presumed, that "bolchevikism" was not merely the result, as in other instances, of the violence of sanguinary revolutionists overpowering a regular progressive movement of political freedom and reform, but that it has been the outcome of German intrigue easily succeeding in corrupting into shameless treason the "bolchevikis" leaders.

As a Sovereign State, as an independent nation, Russia was, in honour bound, pledged not to consent to a separate peace, and to make peace with Germany only with conditions to which all the Allies would agree. Acceptance of, and concurrence in, all peace agreements, were the essential clause of the pledge Great Britain, France and Russia had reciprocally taken in going to war with the Central Empires. With this sacred pledge Italy concurred fully on joining the Allies.

To that solemn pledge, the American Republic has emphatically assented when she threw her weighty sword in the balance against blood stained and murderous Germany.

The "bolchevikis'" treacherous government repudiated the solemn engagement of their country, threw her honour to the winds, sold her dearest national interests by the infamous Brest-Litovsk treaty. Betrayed Russia was out of the war, leaving her Allies to their fate.

From a military point of view, the consequences were easily foreseen. Freed from the danger of further attacks on the eastern front, both Germany and Austria could send their eastern armies, the first, on the western front in France, the second, on the Italian front. Germany, only requiring a sufficient force to keep down trodden Russia under the yoke treacherously fastened on her neck by the traitors who had ignominiously sold their country to her enemy, and anxious to profit to the utmost by her success in coercing the Russians to agree to dishonourable peace conditions, hurried more than a million men over to the western front. Austria did likewise, sending a large force with the hope of smashing the Italians out of the fight.

Those were no doubt very anxious days. All remember how the Italian army lost in a very short time all the ground they had so stubbornly conquered.

Germany made formidable preparations to strike, in the very early spring of the present year, a decisive blow by which she fully expected to reach and take Paris. We shall never forget the feverish hours we lived when came the successive reports of the crushing advance of the Teutonic hordes so close to the illustrious capital of France.

For a while, it seemed to be – and really it was – a renewal of the first terrific invasion of northern France, in 1914. Fortunately, it was Providentially decreed that the second onslaught was to meet with a second Marne disaster. The Huns were forced to retire after a tremendous loss of men and war materials, the allied armies, brilliantly led and fighting heroically, redeeming all the lost territory and, at the moment I am writing, moving steadily towards the German frontier.