Part 29

Paganism, tinctured with modern materialism and a degenerate type of Christianity, broods today over Germany. Christian ministers have proclaimed Jehovah to be the national deity of the empire, a monopolized German God, who relies on the physical might of His people to destroy those who oppose His will as that will is interpreted by His chosen race. Thus the Prussian leaders would harmonize modern thought with their ancient religion of physical strength through brutalizing Christianity.

In view of the spirit of hypocrisy and bad faith manifesting an entire lack of conscience, we ought not to be astonished that the Berlin Foreign Office never permitted a promise or a treaty engagement to stand in the way of a course of action which the German Government deemed expedient. I need not cite as proof of this fact the flagrant violations of the treaty neutralizing Belgium--and the recent treaty of Brest-Litovsk. This discreditable characteristic of the German foreign policy was accepted by German diplomats as a matter of course and as a natural if not a praiseworthy method of dealing with other Governments.

Frederick the Great, with cynical frankness, once said: "If there is anything to be gained by it, we will be honest. If deception is necessary, let us be cheats." That is in brief the immoral principle which has controlled the foreign relations of Prussia for over 150 years.

It is a fact not generally known that within six weeks after the Imperial Government had, in the case of the Sussex, given to this Government its solemn promise that it would cease ruthless slaughter on the high seas, Count Bernstorff, appreciating the worthlessness of the promise, asked the Berlin Foreign Office to advise him in ample time before the campaign of submarine murder was renewed, in order that he might notify the German merchant ships in American ports to destroy their machinery because he anticipated that the renewal of that method of warfare would in all probability bring the United States into the war.

How well the Ambassador knew the character of his Government, and how perfectly frank he was! He asked for the information without apology or indirection. The very bluntness of his message shows that he was sure that his superiors would not take offense at the assumption that their word was valueless and had only been given to gain time, and that, when an increase of Germany's submarine fleet warranted, the promise would be broken without hesitation or compunction. What a commentary on Bernstorff's estimate of the sense of honor and good faith of his own Government!

We must go on with the war. There is no other way. This task must not be left half done. We must not transmit to posterity a legacy of blood and misery. We may in this great conflict go down into the Valley of Shadows, because our foe is powerful and inured to war. We must be prepared to meet disappointment and temporary reverse, but we must, with American spirit, rise above them; with courageous hearts we must go forward until this war is won.

Premier Lloyd George Lauds Americans

David Lloyd George, the British Premier, speaking at the Printers' Pension Fund dinner in London, June 7, 1918, paid this tribute to the American soldiers in France:

I have only just returned from France, and met a French statesman who had been at the front shortly after a battle in which the Americans took part. He was full of admiration not merely of their superb valor but of the trained skill with which they attacked and defeated the foe.

His report of the conduct of the American troops, a division that had been in action for the first time, was one of the most encouraging things I have heard, because they are coming in steadily. There is a great flow, and we are depending upon them, and the fact that we know that when they appear in the battleline they will fight in a way which is worthy of the great traditions of their great country is in itself a source of support and sustenance and encouragement to all of those who with anxious hearts are watching the conflict which is going on in France.

The toast with which you have done me the honor to associate my name is "Success to the Allied Cause." If for any cause the Allies were not to succeed, it would be a sorry world to live in. Most times people are inclined to exaggerate events of the day, but there are occasions when generations of men underestimate the significance of events. You cannot exaggerate the importance or significance of the issues with which we are confronted today.

In the past you have had in the history of the world great struggles for domination of a certain civilization, a certain ideal or a certain religion, and the fate of the world and the destiny of man and the lives of untold millions for generations have been fashioned upon the triumph or failure of this cause. Take the time of Turkish military power in the past or the Saracens' attempt to trample down and overrun the civilization of the West. Nations were wiped out, great countries devastated. You had untold misery and wretchedness throughout vast tracts of territory for ages. At last that tide was stemmed. Supposing that had failed. What a difference it would have made for European civilization today!

At this hour there is a struggle with an ideal more material, more sordid, more brutal, than almost any other which has been sought to be imposed upon Europe--the Prussian military ideal, with its contempt for liberty, its contempt for human right, its contempt for humanity. If they were to succeed today, you would fling back human civilization into the dark dungeons of the past.

The crisis is not past, but with a stout heart we shall win through, and then woe to the plague. In the interests of civilization, in the interests of the human race, it must be stamped out. You cannot allow it to come again to darken the lives of millions, and to desolate millions of homes. That is what we are fighting for.

This is a country which has faced a great crisis in the past. We hear about Ludendorff's hammer blows. Hammer blows crack and crumble poor material. Hammer blows harden and consolidate good metal. There is good metal in British hearts. It has stood the test of centuries. It will stand this. So will that gallant little people, that gallant great people across the Channel who are fighting for their liberties, for the honor of their native land, fighting without flinching. I have seen them. I never saw signs of wavering in any French face. They are full of courage, full of determination to fight through to the end, and it is a united France more than ever. So it is a united Britain. Unity and resolution are two qualities we need. We have sunk our political differences. We have bigger things to think about. I am not despising the political controversies of the past. In some form or another they will come again. These controversies are the very essence of freedom, but for the moment we have one purpose.

Let us be one people, one in aim, one in courage, one in the resolve never to give in. Let Britain stand like a breakwater against the torrent, and, God willing, we will break it in two.

Clemenceau's Defiance of Obstructors

Premier Clemenceau of France received a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies on June 6, 1918, by a vote of 377 to 110. An attempt was made by the militant Socialists to embarrass the Government by demanding information of military matters which it was deemed inexpedient to reveal. In his victorious speech defying his critics he said:

The collapse of Russia enabled the enemy to set free an army of a million men to add to his forces on our front. Anybody can understand that under such enormous weight our line must give way at some points. Some of our men have fought one against five without sleeping for three or four days. The losses of our allies, the British, in the heroic struggle have been more than we could have believed possible.

The situation has become dangerous for our armies, but in all this I see nothing to diminish our confidence in our troops. As to the Government, it will continue to make war stubbornly and obstinately. We will never capitulate. If you are not satisfied with our work, turn us out. It is for you to decide.

The only thing that matters is final success. Our effectives are lessening in number, but so are those of Germany, while the Americans are coming in larger and larger numbers to take part in the final victory. * * *

Down there all that the heroes can do is to die, but you by your firm and resolute attitude can give them what they deserve--victory. You have before you a Government which told you the very first day that it did not enter into power to negotiate without victory. As long as we are here the fatherland will be defended at all costs, and no force will be spared to obtain success.

We have allies who represent the greatest nations in the world, that have decided to go on until success is certain, success which is near. The Americans are arriving for the final blow.

The Living Line

By HAROLD BEGBIE

[By arrangement with The London Chronicle]

_As long as faith and freedom last, And earth goes round the sun, This stands--the British line held fast And so the fight was won._

_The greatest fight that ever yet Brought all the world to dearth; A fight of two great nations set To battle for the earth._

* * * * *

_That bleeding line, that falling fence, That stubborn ebbing wave, That string of suffering human sense, Shuddered, but never gave._

_A living line of human flesh, It quivered like a brain; Swarm after swarm came on afresh And crashed, but crashed in vain._

* * * * *

_The world shall tell how they stood fast, And how the fight was won, As long as faith and freedom last And earth goes round the sun._

Brute Force Versus Humanity

By MAURICE MAETERLINCK

[Translated for CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE from Les Annales, Paris]

The struggle of today is only a resumption of the conflict that has never ceased to redden the soil of Western Europe ever since its birth into history. The two chief episodes of this conflict, as everybody knows, are the invasion of Roman Gaul (including Northern Italy) by the Germans, and the conquest of Great Britain by the Anglo-Saxons and the Normans. Ignoring questions of race, which are complex, uncertain, and always debatable, one can, by viewing the subject from another point, see in the persistence and desperation of this war the conflict of two wills, either one of which succumbs for a moment only to rise again with more energy and determination.

On one side there is the will of earth, or of nature, which openly, in the human species, as in all others, favors physical and brutal force; on the other, the will of humanity, or at least of a part of humanity that is seeking to establish the reign of other energies more subtile and less animal. It is incontestable that brute force thus far has always triumphed. But it is equally certain that it has never triumphed save in appearance and for a brief moment. Gaul, invaded and overcome, quickly assimilated the invaders, and England gradually transformed her conquerors. The instruments of the will of earth turned against it on the morrow of victory and armed the hand of the vanquished.

It is probable that, even today, if events followed the course prescribed by destiny, the same phenomenon would be reproduced. Germany, after having crushed and enslaved the greater part of Europe, throwing it back and overwhelming it with numberless evils, would herself end by turning against the will which she represents; and that will, which hitherto had found a docile instrument and a chosen accomplice in the German race, would be obliged to find these elsewhere, a task less easy than formerly.

But now, to the stupefaction of those who will some day examine this epoch dispassionately, behold, events are suddenly moving upward against the irresistible current, and, for the first time since man is in a position to observe it, brute force is meeting an unexpected and insurmountable resistance. If this resistance remains victorious to the end, there will, perhaps, never have been a change of course comparable to it in the history of man; it will mean a triumph over the will of earth, of nature, or of fate, a triumph infinitely more significant, more heavy with consequences, and perhaps more decisive, than all those which in other domains appear to have crowned our effort with more glory.

Let us be not at all astonished, then, that the resistance is enormous and prolonged beyond all that experience of war has taught us. Our prompt and easy defeat was written in the annals of destiny. We had against us all the force of aggression acquired since the origin of Europe. We have to reverse the wheel of history. We are on the point of succeeding; and if it is true that intelligent beings on the heights of other worlds are watching us, they are doubtless contemplating the most curious spectacle that our planet has offered them since they discovered it in the star dust scintillating around them in space. They must be saying to themselves, disconcerted, that age-long and fundamental laws are being unexpectedly transgressed.

Unexpectedly? That is too much to say. This transgression of an inferior law, no longer as high as man, has long been in process of preparation; but it came very near to being frightfully punished. Its success will be due only to the aid of a part of those who formerly swelled the great flood which today they are resisting with us, as if something in the history of the world or in the plans of destiny had been changed; or, rather, as if we had finally succeeded in changing something, and in bending laws to which we have hitherto been entirely subject.

But we need not think that after victory the struggle will be ended. The profound forces of earth (brute force) will not lay down their arms so soon, and the invisible war will go on for a long time under peace. If we do not take care, victory will be even more fatal than defeat. In fact, this defeat, like its predecessors, would have been only an adjourned victory. It would have worn out, scattered, absorbed, the adversary by dispersing his energies over the world, while our victory will bring us a double danger. It will leave our enemies in a fierce isolation, where, massed upon themselves, fenced in, purified by misfortune and misery, they will secretly strengthen their formidable virtues, while we, no longer held in check by their intolerable but salutary menace, may give free rein to defects and vices which, soon or late, will place us at their mercy. Before thinking of peace, therefore, it would be well to assure ourselves of the future and make it powerless to harm us. We cannot take too many precautions when going, as we are, against the manifest desire of the power that is carrying us.

This is why our effort is painful and meritorious. We are going, it cannot be too often repeated, against the law of force. Our adversaries are driven forward by a power that drives us back. They are advancing in the direction of nature, whereas we are swimming against the great current that flows around the globe. Earth has an idea that is no longer ours. She is convinced that man is an animal in all respects like other animals. She has not yet noticed that he has drawn away from the herd. She does not yet know that he has climbed her highest mountains. She has not yet heard of justice, of pity, of loyalty, of honor; she knows not what these are, or she confuses them with weakness, inefficiency, stupidity, and fear. She has held to the original certitudes that were indispensable in the beginnings of life. She is falling behind us, and the space between is growing rapidly. She thinks less swiftly and has yet had the time to comprehend us. Besides, she does not count as we do, and the ages for her are less than our years. She is slow because she is almost eternal, while we are swift because we have not many hours before us. It is possible that her thought may some day rejoin ours; meanwhile, we have to defend our advance and prove to ourselves, as we are beginning to do, that it is permitted to be right against her will, that our advance is not fatal, and that it is possible to maintain it.

For it is beginning to be difficult to maintain that earth, or nature, or brute force, is always right, and that those who do not blindly follow its mandates are doomed to perish. We have learned to observe nature more attentively and have acquired the right to judge her. We have ascertained that, far from being infallible, she never ceases to deceive herself. She hesitates, she gropes. She does not know just what she wants. She begins with enormous blunders. She first peoples the world with fantastic and inchoate monsters, not one of which is stable, and they all disappear. Gradually, at the expense of the life which she creates, she acquires an experience which is the cruel fruit of innumerable sufferings inflicted with indifference. In the long run she grows wiser, learns moderation, corrects herself, retraces her steps, redresses her errors, and devotes to their reparation the best of her intelligence and of her forces. It is incontestable that she is perfecting her methods and that she is showing herself more able, more prudent, less given to excess, than in the beginning. It is none the less true that in all reigns, in all organisms, and even in our own bodies, the bad workmanship, the double uses, the inadvertencies, the things repented of, the absurdities, the useless complications, the sordid economies, and the senseless wastes continue.

There is no reason, therefore, to believe that our enemies have the truth on their side because nature's primal force is with them. Nature does not possess the truth any more than we do. She searches for it as we do, and does not find it any more easily. She does not seem to know any more than we where she is going or whither she is being led by that which leads all things. We do not have to obey her without questioning, and there is no need to be disturbed or to despair if one is not of her opinion. We are not dealing with an infallible and immutable wisdom against which it would be madness to oppose one's thought. We are on the way to prove to her that she is in error, that the raison d'être of man is higher than that which she has provisionally assigned to him, that he has already surpassed her previsions, and that she is wrong to retard his march. Besides, she is full of good-will, knows how to recognize her faults on occasion, to avoid their disastrous consequences, and never stiffens herself in an inflexible and majestic self-esteem. We can convince her if we can persevere. It will take a great deal of time, for, I repeat, she is slow, but not at all obstinate. It will take a great deal of time, because it involves a very long future, a very great change of direction, and the most important victory for which man has ever hoped.

The Battle of Jutland

Debatable Phases of the Great Naval Conflict Reviewed by Eminent British Experts

By ADMIRAL SIR CYPRIAN BRIDGE, G. C. B.

_In the May number of_ CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE _appeared a general review of the battle of Jutland by Mr. Thomas G. Frothingham, with a footnote and diagrams by Professor Westcott of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. The article was brought to the attention of Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge, one of the most noted naval experts of Great Britain, and was also sent to Mr. Arthur Pollen, an internationally recognized naval writer in England, both of whom contribute comments on the American writer's article. Since his review appeared Mr. Frothingham has joined the National Army of the United States as Captain._--EDITOR.

There is only one thing certain in naval history, and that is that every great sea fight--as to the circumstances of which we have detailed information--has been criticised as indecisive and as not fought in the way which it should have been. Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, whose fairness and accuracy as a naval historian have been generally recognized, has said: "Every historian ought to feel a sense of the most lively gratitude toward Nelson; in his various encounters he never left any possible room for dispute as to which side had come out first best." Unfortunately, this is going rather too far, for the merits of every one of Nelson's battles have been disputed, and his way of fighting each has been adversely criticised. This fate he shares with the great De Ruyter and with less important men. Rodney and Lord Howe, as commanders in general actions, were fiercely criticised. Lord Hawke did not receive the customary recognition of his services until seventeen years after the great battle of Quiberon Bay. Roosevelt tells us that: "In every one of De Ruyter's last six battles each side claimed the victory." If we had minute accounts of the talk that went on in the gardens and porches of ancient Athens we should, without doubt, learn that Salamis was far from being decisive and that, anyhow, it ought to have been fought in a different way. It is just as well to remember this whenever we are discussing a naval battle, whether of old date or recent. Land battles have not been treated in quite the same fashion. Their results have not been disputed so often, nor has the manner in which they were fought been so often adversely criticised.

Perhaps we may account for this difference in the treatment of conflicts on the two elements by noting the fact that naval historians and critics of naval operations have but rarely been men of naval experience, while the historians and critics of military operations have usually been soldiers. There has, of course, been some conflict of opinion as to the results of fighting on shore, as we can see on comparing the communiques of the contending sides in the present war. Even after allowing for the unprecedented mendacity of the German authorities and the unprecedented gullibility of the German public there is still some sign of an honest difference of opinion. The difference is not due to lay or unprofessional ignorance.