I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign Nation of many sovereign States; a perfect Union, one and inseparable, established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.
I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it; to support its Constitution; to obey its laws; to respect its flag; and to defend it against all enemies.
[8]COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY E.J. WYATT, BALTIMORE.
[8]COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY E.J. WYATT, BALTIMORE.
Although I am an American, I am still in the French aviation corps, in which I enlisted when the war broke out. I am too old for service under the Stars and Stripes, but not too old to risk my life under the French flag for the freedom of the world.
I was trained in a French aviation school. Flyers were needed immediately; and so I did not go through "a ground school," or any teaching like that given for eight weeks in the American ground schools. I was sent directly to the flying field and given a machine at once. I did not, as they do at American flying fields, go up first with an instructor who might be tempted to "scare me to death" by "looping the loop" or doing "tail spins." I took my own machine at the very start and, after being given the simplest directions, away I went in it; but I did not break any records for altitude.
It was a small monoplane with a 20-horse-power motor, and its wings had been clipped; so all it could do was to roll along the ground. It was, however, some time before I could guide it in a straight line. I was discouraged at first, but felt better when Ilearned that it was very difficult even for an experienced flyer.
Such machines are called "penguins" and have a trick of turning suddenly in a short half circle and smashing the end of a wing against the ground. The queer antics of beginners in them furnish fun for every one on the flying fields.
After I had mastered this machine, I was given one with a motor of greater horse power, and in this I could fly along the ground at nearly sixty miles an hour; but I could not rise into the air, for the wings were clipped and did not have sufficient sustaining power to hold the machine in the air.
Then at last I was given a plane with full-sized wings; but, as its motor generated only about 25-horse power, I could get only from three to six feet above the ground, and went skimming along now on the ground and now a few feet in the air.
In these machines, we learned only how to manage the tail of the machine. As we skimmed along the ground, we tipped the tail at an angle slightly above a straight line. In a few moments we were off the ground, and the roar of the motor sounded softer and smoother. It seemed as if we were very far from the earth, and that something might break and dash us to our death—in reality, we had not risen six feet. To get back to earth, we must push the lever that lowers the tail—but this must be done veryslightly and very carefully. A little push too much, and the machine will suddenly dive into the ground.
After my experience with the first two machines, I found it easy to handle this one, and was soon given one that would take me up about fifty feet and give me a chance to learn the "feel of the air." All my flying was still in straight lines, or as nearly straight as I could make it. We were not yet allowed to try to turn.
In the next machine I could rise two or three hundred feet and began to learn to turn, although most of the flying was still in straight lines.
I was beginning to make good landings, which is the hardest part of the game. We have to let the ship down on two wheels and let the tail skid at a speed of thirty-five miles an hour and not break the landing gear.
The machines often bound three or four times when landing and that is hard on the landing gear. My last landing was so soft that I was not sure when I touched the ground. To take off is quite easy. The ship is controlled by an upright stick which is between one's knees and just right for the left hand. The rudder is controlled by the feet, and the throttle is on the right side. To take off, we get up a speed of about forty-six miles per hour and raise the tail up until the ship is level, and then when she starts to rise, lift the nose just a little and climb slowly.
On turns, the ship has to be banked, tipped up with the inside wing low, and turned with the rudder. It is quite a hard thing to do when it is rough, as just about the time we bank, we get a puff of wind which will hit one wing and she will roll and rock so that we have to get her straightened out. It is a fight all the time until you get about 3000 feet up, when the air gets steady.
To land, we slow the engine down to idling speed and come down in a steep glide until five or six feet from the ground, then level off and glide along until she begins to settle, then jerk the tail down until she stops. We always have to take off and come down against the wind.
I was obliged to follow the directions of my instructor, much against my own wishes. It seemed to me that I could now do anything in the air and that there was not the slightest danger. This too early feeling of mastery is the cause of many beginners' being injured or killed, by trying "stunts" too difficult for them.
I did not spend much time in flying at first, after I had learned how to handle the airplane. It is not difficult to stay in the air and to fly, but it is difficult to land safely without breaking the machine. So I was kept practicing landing.
To secure my license I was required to fly 50 miles in a straight line to a named place, and then back;then to fly 200 miles in a triangle, passing through two named places; and last of all to stay one hour in the air at an altitude higher than 7000 feet.
Now the French schools require only a 30-mile flight with three successful landings, before sending the flyer to the finishing school, where he learns to do all the "stunts" that a fighter must be able to do in order to succeed. I learned the tail wing slip, the tail spin and dive, thevrille, to loop the loop, and many other fancy flying tricks. They have saved my life more than once.
I was interested in reading the other day James Norman Hall's funny description of how he learned at last to master the penguin. He felt triumphant, but he says, "But no one had seen my splendid sortie. Now that I had arrived, no one paid the least attention to me. All eyes were turned upward, and following them with my own, I saw an airplane outlined against a heaped-up pile of snow-white cloud. It was moving at tremendous speed, when suddenly it darted straight upward, wavered for a second or two, turned slowly on one wing, and fell, nose-down, turning round and round as it fell, like a scrap of paper. It was thevrille, the prettiest piece of aërial acrobatics that one could wish to see. It was a wonderful, an incredible sight.
"Some one was counting the turns of thevrille. Six, seven, eight; then the airman came out of it onan even keel, and, nosing down to gather speed, looped twice in quick succession. Afterward he did theretournement, turning completely over in the air and going back in the opposite direction; then spiraled down and passed over our heads at about fifty meters, landing at the opposite side of the field so beautifully that it was impossible to know when the machine touched the ground."
There is nothing in all the experiences of life like what one feels in flying through the air, especially at a great height and with no other machines in sight. There is a loneliness, unlike any other kind of loneliness; there is a feeling of smallness and weakness; a sense of the immensity of things and of the presence and nearness of God. It is surprising that in doing that in which man has shown his greatest power over the forces of Nature, he feels most his littleness and how easily he could be destroyed by the very forces he has conquered.
Lieutenant Roberts, an American flying in France, described not long ago an experience that came just after his first flight. He was up in the air, higher than anybody had ever been before, when the machine suddenly broke into little pieces, which, as he was tumbling down through the air, he vainly tried to catch. Just as he hit the ground and broke every bone in his body, he woke up on the floor beside his bunk.
The Englishmen are the most daring of all the flyers, take the most risks, and do the most dangerous "stunts." Not so much is heard of them because their exploits and their scores are not announced by the British army. Bishop, who has just been ordered from the flying field to safer work, is said to have brought down nearly eighty German planes, and on the day he learned of his recall, went up and brought down two.
The Americans are daredevils, too. I took one of them one night as a "guest," when I went over Metz on a bombing expedition. One of the bombs stuck. He thought it might cause us trouble when we landed, possibly explode and kill us, so he crawled out over the fusilage and released it. He certainly earned his passage.
With several other Americans we formed what we called the American Escadrille; but as the United States was neutral at that time, we were obliged to change the name to the Lafayette Escadrille.
Since joining the squadron, I have used all sorts of machines, and there are many of them, from the heavy bombing machine to the swift little swallow-like scouts.
My first important work was reconnoissance, in which I carried an observer. I managed the machine, and he did the reconnoitering. We went out twice a day and flew over into German territory, sometimesas far in as fifty miles, observing all that was going on, the movements of troops and supplies, and the building of railroads and defensive works. We also took photographs of the country over which we flew.
Reconnoissance is dangerous work, and is constantly growing more so, as anti-aircraft guns are improved. These guns are mounted on a revolving table, upon which is a mirror in which the airplane shows as soon as it comes within range of the gun. With an instrument designed for the purpose, the crew get the flyer's altitude; and with another, the rate at which he is traveling. They aim the gun for the proper altitude, make the correct allowance for the time it will take the shell to reach him, and as they have an effective range of over 30,000 feet, there is reason to worry. Yet by zig-zagging and other devices, the aviators are rarely brought down by anti-aircraft guns. The small scout machines with a wing spread of not more than thirty feet are not visible to the naked eye when at an altitude of over 10,000 feet, and are therefore safe from these guns at this height.
But reconnoissance, to be effective, must be done at a much lower altitude, and sometimes the machine must remain under fire for a considerable period of time. Poiret, the French aviator, fighting with the Russians, with a captain of the General Staff for an observer, was under rifle and shell fire for about twentyminutes. His machine was up about 4000 feet. Ten bullets and two pieces of shell hit his airplane, but he never lost control. The captain was shot through the heel, the bullet coming out of his calf; but he continued taking notes. They returned in safety to their lines.
I also did some work in directing artillery fire. For this my machine was equipped with a wireless apparatus for sending. No method has yet been devised whereby an airplane in flight can receive wireless messages. In directing the fire of the big guns, the aviator seeks to get directly over the object that is under fire, and to signal or send wireless messages in regard to where the shells land. After the aviator is in position, the third shot usually reaches the target.
I am not yet one of the great aces, and will not, therefore, tell you about any of my air battles. I hope some day you may read of them and that I may come to have the honor of being named with Lufbery, Guynemer, Nungesser, Fonk, Bishop, Ball, Genét, Chapman, McConnell, Prince, Putnam, and other heroes of the air.
Lieutenant R.A.J. Warneford, who won the Victoria Cross for destroying a giant Zeppelin, is one of the greatest of these; at least, he performed a feat never accomplished before and never since.
At three o'clock one morning in June, 1915, he discovered a Zeppelin returning from bombing townsalong the east coast of England. The Huns shot Captain Fryatt because, as they said, he was a non-combatant and tried to defend himself. The rule that non-combatants should not attack military forces was made with the understanding that military forces would not war on non-combatants. But law, or justice, or agreements never are allowed by the Huns to stand in their way. This Zeppelin was returning from a raid in which twenty-four were killed and sixty seriously injured, nearly all women and children, and all non-combatants.
Lieutenant Warneford well knew of the dastardly deeds of the Zeppelins, and he immediately gave chase, firing as he approached. The Zeppelin returned his shots. He mounted as rapidly as possible so as to get the great gas-bag below him, until he reached over 6000 feet and the Zeppelin was about 150 feet directly below him. Both were moving very rapidly, and to hit was exceedingly difficult, but he dropped six bombs, one after the other. One of them hit the Zeppelin squarely, exploded the gas-bag, and set it afire its entire length. The explosion turned Lieutenant Warneford's airplane upside down, and although he soon righted it, he was obliged to land. He was over territory occupied by the Germans and he landed behind the German lines, but he succeeded in rising again before being captured, and returned to his hangar in safety, to tell his marvelous story.The Zeppelin and its crew were completely destroyed. A few days later Lieutenant Warneford was killed.
One of the greatest air duels, between airplanes, was during the Battle of Vimy Ridge. At that time Immelman was as great a German ace as were Boelke and Richthofen later, and Ball was the greatest of the English.
One morning Ball learned that Immelman was stationed with the Germans on the opposite line, and carried him a challenge which read:
Captain Immelman:I challenge you to a man-to-man fight to take place this afternoon at two o'clock. I will meet you over the German lines. Have your anti-aircraft guns withhold their fire while we decide which is the better man. The British guns will be silent.Ball.
Captain Immelman:I challenge you to a man-to-man fight to take place this afternoon at two o'clock. I will meet you over the German lines. Have your anti-aircraft guns withhold their fire while we decide which is the better man. The British guns will be silent.
Ball.
Ball dropped this from his airplane behind the German lines, and soon afterward Immelman dropped his answer behind the British lines:
Captain Ball:Your challenge is accepted. The German guns will not interfere. I will meet you promptly at two.Immelman.
Captain Ball:
Your challenge is accepted. The German guns will not interfere. I will meet you promptly at two.
Immelman.
A few minutes before two, the guns ceased firing, and all on both sides fixed their eyes in the air to witness a contest between two knights that would make the contests of the days of chivalry seem tame.
A Battle in the AirCopyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.A Battle in the AirThe French plane at the top is maneuvering for position preparatory to swooping down on its German adversary.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N.Y.
A Battle in the Air
The French plane at the top is maneuvering for position preparatory to swooping down on its German adversary.
In an air battle, the machine that is higher up is thought to have the advantage. Both Ball and Immelman went up very high, but Ball was below and seemed uncertain what to do. The British were afraid that he had lost his nerve and courage when he found himself below, for he made no effort to get above his opponent, but was flying now this way and now that, as if "rattled."
Immelman did not delay, but went into a nose dive directly towards the machine below, which he would be able to rake with his machine gun as he approached; but just at the proper moment, Ball suddenly looped the loop and was directly above the German, and in position to fire. As the shower of bullets struck Immelman and his machine, it burst into flames and dropped like a blazing comet.
Ball returned to his hangar, got a wreath of flowers, and went into the air again to drop them upon the spot where Immelman had fallen dead.
Four days later Ball was killed in a fight with four German planes, but not until he had brought down three of them.
But the fighting planes do not get all the thrills in the air. A young English aviator and his observer who were directing artillery fire in September, 1918, showed as great devotion and courage as any ace and lived through as exciting an adventure as ever befell a fighting plane.
They were flying over No Man's Land to get the proper range for a battery which was to destroy a bridge of great value to the Huns. Their engine had been running badly and back-firing. They would have returned home had their work been of less importance.
Suddenly the pilot smelled burning wood, and looking down, saw the framework near his feet blackened and smoldering. It had caught fire from the backfire of the engine and the exhaust, but was not yet in a decided blaze. He turned off the gas and opened the throttle. Then he made a steep, swift dive, and the powerful rush of the air put the fire out.
Then he hesitated, trying to decide whether to "play safe" and go home or whether to continue their work until the battery had secured the exact range. He knew that in a very short time and with a little more observation, their work would be completely successful. So he turned to the observer and asked him what he thought. The observer leaned over and examined the damage near the pilot's feet. It did not look very bad; so he shouted, "Let's carry on."
Up they went again and in a short time had shells from the battery falling all about the bridge, which was soon destroyed. Their work was done, and well done. In the excitement they had forgotten the bad engine until they heard it give one last sputter and stop.
Then they perceived the woodwork was on fire againand really blazing this time. To dive now would only fan the flames about the pilot's feet, but they must get to the ground, and get there quickly, too.
The pilot put the machine into a side slip toward the British line. This fanned the flames away from his feet. The observer squirted the fire extinguisher on the burning wood near the pilot's feet, and thus enabled him to keep control of the rudder bar.
They were now within fifteen hundred feet of the ground, but the heat was almost unbearable. The right wing was beginning to burn. Down, down, they went, and luckily towards a fairly good landing place. One landing wheel struck the ground with such force that it was broken off, and the airplane bumped along on the other for a short distance until it finally crashed on its nose and left wing.
Both pilot and observer were unhurt. They sprang to the ground and hurried away from the burning wreck just in time, for a few seconds later the gasoline tank exploded. They looked at each other without a word, but neither of them regretted that he had stayed up until the job had been finished.
Such is the life and the danger of the flyers; but thousands of the finest young men of all the nations at war eagerly seek the service, for the aviators are the eyes of the armies and will determine always more than any other branch which side shall be finally victorious.
As England and the world lost Rupert Brooke, so America and the world lost Alan Seeger. English poetry and lovers of beauty expressed in verse are losers to a greater extent than we can ever know.
It is not strange that these two young poets should have enlisted at the very beginning of the war, for they recognized what high-minded men mean bynoblesse oblige. Much having been given you, much is expected from you. Those of the highest education should show the way to those less favored. So Rupert Brooke enlisted in the English navy, and Alan Seeger enlisted in the French army as one of the Foreign Legion.
He felt he owed a debt to France that could only be paid by helping her in her struggle for life and liberty. He gave his life, at the age of twenty-eight, to pay the debt.
Alan Seeger lived a life like that of many other American boys. At Staten Island where he passed his first years, he could see every day the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, the skyscrapers of NewYork, the ferry boats to the Jersey shore, the great ocean liners inward bound and outward bound,—all the great and significant things that say "America" to one landing for the first time at the greatest seaport of the world. Later he lived in New York and attended the Horace Mann School. His vacations were spent among the hills and mountains of New Hampshire and in southern California. He fitted for college at a famous preparatory school at Tarrytown on the Hudson, attended Harvard College, and after graduation lived for two years in New York City. All this is American, and thousands of other American boys have passed through the same or a similar experience.
Alan Seeger was romantic. So are most boys. But with most boys, romance goes no further than books and dreams. "Robinson Crusoe," "Huckleberry Finn," "Treasure Island," and other tales of adventure and of foreign lands are all the romance that many know. But, like Rupert Brooke, Alan Seeger had the opportunity to live romance, as he always declared he would do. He found it in his life as a boy in Mexico, as a young man in Paris, and in the Foreign Legion of the French army. The Foreign Legion was made up of foreigners in France who volunteered to fight with the French army. Its story is a stirring one of brave deeds and tremendous losses. To have belonged to it is a great glory.
Alan Seeger enjoyed life and found the world exceedingly beautiful. He says,
From a boyI gloated on existence. Earth to meSeemed all sufficient, and my sojourn thereOne trembling opportunity for joy.
From a boyI gloated on existence. Earth to meSeemed all sufficient, and my sojourn thereOne trembling opportunity for joy.
Like Rupert Brooke, he thought often of Death, which he feared not at all. In his beautiful poem entitled, "I Have a Rendezvous with Death," he looked forward to his own death in the spring of 1916. He lost his life on July 4 of that year while storming the village of Belloy-en-Santerre. The first two stanzas are as follows:
I have a rendezvous with DeathAt some disputed barricade,When Spring comes back with rustling shadeAnd apple blossoms fill the air—I have a rendezvous with DeathWhen Spring brings back blue days and fairIt may be he shall take my handAnd lead me into his dark landAnd close my eyes and quench my breath—It may be I shall pass him still.I have a rendezvous with DeathOn some scarred slope of battered hill,When Spring comes round again this yearAnd the first meadow flowers appear.
I have a rendezvous with DeathAt some disputed barricade,When Spring comes back with rustling shadeAnd apple blossoms fill the air—I have a rendezvous with DeathWhen Spring brings back blue days and fair
It may be he shall take my handAnd lead me into his dark landAnd close my eyes and quench my breath—It may be I shall pass him still.I have a rendezvous with DeathOn some scarred slope of battered hill,When Spring comes round again this yearAnd the first meadow flowers appear.
Alan Seeger has written two poems that all Americans should know. One is entitled "Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France." It was to have been read before the statue of Lafayette and Washington in Paris, on Memorial Day, 1916; but permission to go to Paris to read it did not reach Seeger in time, to the disappointment of him and many others. It is perhaps the best long poem Seeger has written, although "Champagne, 1914-15" is by many ranked ahead of it.
"A man is judged and ranked by that which he considers to be of the greatest value. Some men believe it is knowledge, and spend their lives in study and research; some think it is beauty, and vainly seek to capture it and hold it in song, poem, statue, or painting; some say it is goodness, and devote their lives to service, self-denial, and sacrifice; some declare it is life itself, and therefore never kill any creature and always carefully protect their own lives from disease and danger; and some are sure it is being true to the best knowledge, the greatest beauty, the highest good that one can know and feel and realize; for this alone is life, and times come when the only way to save one's life is to lose it."
[9]BASED ON POEMS OF ALAN SEEGER, COPYRIGHT HELD BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.
[9]BASED ON POEMS OF ALAN SEEGER, COPYRIGHT HELD BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.
After England had entered the war against the Central Powers, Gilbert Murray, an English writer, asked this question and answered it by saying "Yes," and giving his reasons.
He had always favored peace. He hated war, not merely for its own cruelty and folly, but because it was an enemy of good government, of friendship and gentleness, and of art, learning, and literature.
Yet he believed firmly that England was right in declaring war against Germany on August 4, 1914, and that she would have failed in her duty if she had remained neutral. France, Russia, Belgium, and Serbia had no choice. They were obliged to fight, for the war was forced upon them. Germany did not wish to fight England; but after carefully looking over the whole matter, England, of her own free will, declared war. She took upon her shoulders a great responsibility. But she was right.
With a few changes in the wording and some omissions, the argument of Gilbert Murray is as follows:
"How can such a thing be? It is easy enough to see that our cause is right, and that the German cause is wrong. It is hardly possible to study the officialpapers issued by the British, the German, and the Russian governments, without seeing that Germany—or some party in Germany—had plotted this war beforehand; that she chose a moment when she thought her neighbors were at a disadvantage; that she prevented Austria from making a settlement even at the last moment; that in order to get more quickly at France she violated her treaty with Belgium. Evidence shows that she has carried out the violation with a cruelty that has no equal in the wars of modern and civilized nations. Yet there may be some people who still feel doubtful. Germany's wrong-doing they think is no reason for us to do likewise. We did our best to keep the general peace; there we were right. We failed; the German government made war in spite of us. There we were unfortunate. It was a war already on an enormous scale and we decided to make it larger still. There we were wrong. Could we not have stood aside, as the United States did, ready to help refugees and sufferers, anxious to heal wounds and not make them, watchful for the first chance of putting an end to this time of horror?
"'Try for a moment,' they say, 'to realize the suffering in one small corner of a battlefield. You have seen a man here and there badly hurt in an accident; you have seen perhaps a horse with its back broken, and you can remember how dreadful it seemed to you. In that one corner how manymen, how many horses, will be lying, hurt far worse, and just waiting to die? Terrible wounds, extreme torment; and all, further than any eye can see, multiplied and multiplied! And, for all your just anger against Germany, what have these wounded done? The horses are not to blame for anybody's foreign policy. They have only come where their masters took them. And the masters themselves ... though certain German rulers and leaders are wicked, these soldiers, peasants, working-men, shop-keepers, and schoolmasters, have really done nothing in particular; at least, perhaps they have now, but they had not up to the time when you, seeing they were in war and misery already, decided to make war on them also and increase their sufferings. You say that justice must be done on such wrong-doers. But as far as the rights and wrongs of the war go, you are simply condemning to death and torture innocent men, by thousands and thousands; is that the best way to satisfy your sense of justice? These innocent people, you say, are fighting to protect the guilty parties whom you are determined to reach. Well, perhaps, at the end of the war, after millions of innocent people have suffered, you may at last, if all goes well with your arms, get at the "guilty parties." You will hold an inquiry, you will decide that certain Prussians with long titles are the guilty parties, and even then you will not know what to do with them.You will probably try, and almost certainly fail, to make them somehow feel ashamed. It is likely enough that they will instead become great national heroes.
"'And after all, this is supposed to be a war in which one party is wrong and the other right, and the right wins. Suppose both are wrong; or suppose the wrong party wins? It is as likely as not; for, if the right party is helped by his good conscience, the wrong has probably taken pains to have the odds on his side before he began quarreling. In that case, all the wild waste of blood and treasure, all the suffering of innocent people and dumb animals, all the tears of women and children have not set up the right, but established the wrong. To do a little evil that great or certain good may come is all very well; but to do great evil for only a chance of getting something which half the people may think good and the other half think bad ... that is neither good morals nor good sense. Anybody not in a passion must see that it is insanity,' So they say who think war always wrong.
"Their argument is wrong. It is judging war as a profit-and-loss account. It leaves out of sight the fact that in some causes it is better to fight and be broken than to yield peacefully; that sometimes the mere act of resisting to the death is in itself a victory.
"Let us try to understand this. The Greeks who fought and died at Thermopylæ had no doubt thatthey were doing right to fight and die, and we all agree with them. They probably knew they would be defeated. They probably expected that, after their defeat, the Persians would easily conquer the rest of Greece, and would treat it much more harshly because it had resisted. But such thoughts did not affect them. They would not consent to their country's dishonor.
"Take again a very clear modern case: the fine story of the French tourist who was captured, together with a priest and some other white people, by Moorish robbers. The Moors gave their prisoners the choice either to trample on the Cross or to be killed. The Frenchman was not a Christian. He disliked Christianity. But he was not going to trample on the Cross at the orders of a robber. He stuck to his companions and died with them.
"Honor and dishonor are real things. I will not try to define them; but will only notice that, like religion, they admit no bargaining. Indeed, we can almost think of honor as being simply that which a free man values more than life, and dishonor as that which he avoids more than suffering or death. And the important point for us is that there are such things as honor and dishonor.
"There are some people, followers of Tolstoy, who accept this as far as dying is concerned, but will have nothing to do with killing. Passive resistance, theysay, is right; martyrdom is right; but to resist violence by violence is sin.
"I was once walking with a friend of Tolstoy's in a country lane, and a little girl was running in front of us. I put to him the well-known question: 'Suppose you saw a man, wicked or drunk or mad, run out and attack that child. You are a big man, and carry a big stick: would you not stop him and, if necessary, knock him down?' 'No,' he said, 'why should I commit a sin. I would try to persuade him, I would stand in his way, I would let him kill me, but I would not strike him,' Some few people will always be found, less than one in a thousand, to take this view. They will say: 'Let the little girl be killed or carried off; let the wicked man commit another wickedness; I, at any rate, will not add to the mass of useless violence that I see all around me.'
"With such persons one cannot reason, though one can often respect them. Nearly every normal man will feel that the real sin, the real dishonor, lies in allowing such an act to be committed under your eyes while you have the strength to prevent it. And the stronger you are, the greater your chance of success, by so much the more are you bound to interfere. If the robbers are overpoweringly strong and there is no chance of beating them, then and only then should you think of martyrdom. Martyrdom is not the best possibility. It is almost the worst. It is the lastresort when there is no hope of successful resistance. The best thing—suppose once the robbers are there and intent on crime—the best thing is to overawe them at once; the next best, to defeat them after a hard struggle; the third best, to resist vainly and be martyred; the worst of all, the one evil that need never be endured, is to let them have their own will without protest.
"We have noticed that in all these cases of honor there seems to be no counting of cost, no balancing of good and evil. Ordinarily we are always balancing results, but when honor or religion come on the scene, all such balancing ceases. The point of honor is the point at which a man says to some wrong proposal, 'I will not do it. I will rather die.'
"These things are far easier to see where one man is concerned than where it is a whole nation. But they arise with nations, too. In the case of a nation the material consequences are much larger, and the point of honor is apt to be less clear. But, in general, whenever one nation in dealing with another relies simply on force or fraud, and denies to its neighbor the common consideration due to human beings, a point of honor must arise.
"Austria says suddenly to Serbia: 'You are a wicked little state. I have annexed and governed against their will some millions of your countrymen, yet you are still full of anti-Austrian feeling, whichI do not intend to allow. You will dismiss from your service all officials, politicians, and soldiers who do not love Austria, and I will further send you from time to time lists of persons whom you are to dismiss or put to death. And if you do not agree to this within forty-eight hours, I, being vastly stronger than you, will make you. As a matter of fact, Serbia did her very best to comply with Austria's demands; she accepted about two thirds of them, and asked for arbitration on the remaining third. But it is clear that she could not accept them all without being dishonored. That is, Serbia would have given up her freedom at the threat of force; the Serbs would no longer be a free people, and every individual Serb would have been humiliated. He would have confessed himself to be the kind of man who will yield when an Austrian bullies him. And if it is urged that under good Austrian government Serbia would become richer and safer, and the Serbian peasants get better markets, such pleas cannot be listened to. They are a price offered for slavery; and a free man will not accept slavery at any price.
"Germany, again, says to Belgium: 'We have no quarrel with you, but we intend for certain reasons to march across your territory and perhaps fight a battle or two there. We know that you are pledged by treaty not to allow any such thing, but we cannot help that. Consent, and we will pay you afterwards;refuse, and we shall make you wish you had never been born.' At that moment Belgium was a free, self-governing state. If it had yielded to Germany's demand, it would have ceased to be either free or self-governing. It is possible that, if Germany had been completely victorious, Belgium would have suffered no great material injury; but she would have taken orders from a stranger who had no right to give them, simply because he was strong. Belgium refused. She has had some of her towns destroyed, some thousands of her soldiers killed, many more thousands of her women, children, and non-combatants outraged and beggared; but she is still free. She still has her honor.
"Let us think this matter out more closely. The follower of Tolstoy will say: 'We speak of Belgium's honor and Serbia's honor; but who is Serbia and who is Belgium? There is no such person as either. There are only great numbers of people who happen to be Serbians and Belgians, and who mostly have had nothing to do with questions at issue. Some of them are honorable people, some dishonorable. The honor of each one of them depends very much on whether he pays his debts and tells the truth, but not in the least on whether a number of foreigners walk through his country or interfere with his government. King Albert and his ministers might feel humiliated if the German government compelled themto give way against their will; but would the ordinary population? Would the ordinary peasant or shop-keeper or artisan in the districts of Vise and Liége and Louvain have felt particularly disgraced or ashamed? He would probably have made a little money and been greatly amused by the sight of the troops passing. He would not have suffered any injury that can for a moment be compared with what he has suffered now, in order that his government might feel proud of itself.'
"I will not raise the point that, as a matter of fact, to grant a right of way to Germany would have been to declare war against France, so that Belgium would not, by giving up her independence, have been spared the danger of war. I will assume that it was simply a question of honor. And I believe that our follower of Tolstoy is very wrong.
"Is it true, in a healthy and well-governed state, that the average citizen is indifferent to the honor of his country? We know that it is not. True, the average citizen may often not understand what is going on, but as soon as he knows, he cares. Suppose for a moment that the King, or the Prime Minister, or the President of the United States, were found to be in the pay of a foreign state, can any one pretend that the ordinary citizens of Great Britain or America would take it quietly? That any normal man would be found saying: 'Well, the King, or the President,or the Prime Minister, is behaving dishonorably, but that is a matter for him, not for me. I am an honest and honorable man, and my government can do what it likes.' The notion is absurd. The ordinary citizen would feel instantly and without question that his country's honor involved his own. And woe to the society in which it were otherwise! We know of such societies in history. They are the kind which is called 'corrupt,' and which generally has not long to live. Belgium has proved that she is not that kind of society.
"But what about Great Britain herself? At the present moment a very clear case has arisen, and we can test our own feelings. Great Britain had, by a solemn treaty, pledged herself to help keep the neutrality of Belgium. Belgium is a little state lying between two very strong states, France and Germany, and in danger of being overrun or abused by one of them unless the Great Powers guaranteed her safety. The treaty, signed by Prussia, Russia, Austria, France, and Great Britain, bound all these Powers not to attack Belgium, move troops into it, or annex any part of it; and further, to resist by armed force any Power which should try to do any of these things. Belgium, on her part, was bound to maintain her own neutrality to the best of her power, and not to side with any state which was at war with another.
"At the end of July, 1914, the exact case arose inwhich we had pledged ourselves to act. Germany, suddenly and without excuse, invaded Belgium, and Belgium appealed to us and France to defend her. Meantime she fought alone, desperately, against overwhelming odds. The issue was clear. The German Chancellor, Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, in his speech of August 6, admitted that Germany had no grievance against Belgium, and no excuse except 'necessity.' She could not get to France quick enough by the direct road. Germany put her case to us, roughly, on these grounds. 'True, you did sign a treaty, but what is a treaty? We ourselves signed the same treaty, and see what we are doing! Anyhow, treaty or no treaty, we have Belgium in our power. If she had done what we wanted, we would have treated her kindly; as it is we shall show her no mercy. If you will now do what we want and stay quiet, later on we will consider a friendly deal with you. If you interfere, you must take the consequences. We trust you will not be so insane as to plunge your whole empire into danger for the sake of "a scrap of paper."' Our answer was: 'Evacuate Belgium within twelve hours or we fight you.'
"I think that answer was right. Consider the situation carefully. No question arises of overhaste or lack of patience on our part. From the first moment of the crisis, we had labored night and day in every court of Europe for any possible means of peace.We had carefully and sincerely explained to Germany beforehand what attitude she might expect from us. We did not send our ultimatum till Belgium was already invaded. It is just the plain question put to the British government, and, I think, to every one who feels himself a British citizen: 'The exact case contemplated in your treaty has arisen: the people you swore to protect is being massacred; will you keep your word at a gigantic cost, or will you break it at the bidding of Germany?' For my own part, weighing the whole question, I would rather die than submit; and I believe that the government, in deciding to keep its word at the cost of war, has expressed the feeling of the average British citizen.
"War is not all evil. It is a true tragedy, which must have nobleness and triumph in it as well as disaster, but we must not begin to praise war without stopping to reflect on the hundreds of thousands of human beings involved in such horrors of pain that, if here in our ordinary hours we saw one man so treated, the memory would sicken us to the end of our lives; we must remember the horses and dogs, remember the gentle natures brutalized by hardship and filth, and the once decent persons transformed by rage and fear into devils of cruelty. But, when we have realized that, we may begin to see in this desert of evil some oases of good.
"Do the fighting men become degraded? Day afterday come streams of letters from the front, odd stories, fragments of diaries, and the like; full of the small intimate facts which reveal character, and almost with one accord they show that these men have not fallen, but risen. No doubt there has been some selection in the letters; to some extent the writers repeat what they wish to have remembered, and say nothing of what they wish to forget. But, when all allowances are made, one cannot read the letters and the dispatches without a feeling of admiration for the men about whom they tell. They were not originally a set of chosen men. They were just our ordinary fellow citizens, the men you meet on a crowded pavement. There was nothing to suggest that their conduct in common life was better than that of their neighbors. Yet now, under the stress of war, having a duty before them that is clear and unquestioned and terrible, they are daily doing nobler things than we most of us have ever had the chance of doing, things which we hardly dare hope that we might be able to do. I am not thinking of the rare achievements that win a V.C. or a Cross of the Legion of Honor, but of the common necessary heroism of the average man; the long endurance, the devoted obedience, the close-banded life in which self-sacrifice is the normal rule, and all men may be forgiven except the man who saves himself at the expense of his comrade. I think of the men who share their last biscuitwith a starving peasant, who help wounded comrades through days and nights of horrible retreat, who give their lives to save mates or officers.
"For example, to take these two stories:
"Relating his experiences to a pressman, Lance-Corporal Edmondson, of the Royal Irish Lancers, said: 'There is absolutely no doubt that our men are still animated by the spirit of old. I came on a couple of men of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who had been cut off at Mons. One was badly wounded, but his companion had stuck by him all the time in a country swarming with Germans, and, though they had only a few biscuit between them, they managed to pull through until we picked them up. I pressed the unwounded man to tell me how they managed to get through the four days on six biscuit, but he always got angry and told me to shut up. I fancy he went without anything, and gave the biscuit to the wounded man. They were offered shelter many times by French peasants, but they were so afraid of bringing trouble on these kind folk that they would never accept shelter. One night they lay out in the open all through a heavy downpour, though there was a house at hand where they could have had shelter. Uhlans were on the prowl, and they would not think of compromising the French people, who would have been glad to help them.'
"The following story of an unidentified private ofthe Royal Irish Regiment, who deliberately threw away his life in order to warn his comrades of an ambush, is told by a wounded corporal of the West Yorkshire Regiment now in hospital in Woolwich:
"'The fight in which I got hit was in a little French village near to Rheims. We were working in touch with the French corps on our left, and early one morning we were sent ahead to this village, which we had reason to believe was clear of the enemy. On the outskirts we questioned a French lad, but he seemed scared and ran away. We went on through the long narrow street, and just as we were in sight of the end, the figure of a man dashed out from a farmhouse on the right. Immediately the rifles began to crack in front, and the poor chap fell dead before he reached us.
"'He was one of our men, a private of the Royal Irish Regiment. We learned that he had been captured the previous day by a party of German cavalry, and had been held a prisoner at the farm, where the Germans were in ambush for us. He tumbled to their game, and though he knew that if he made the slightest sound they would kill him, he decided to make a dash to warn us of what was in store. He had more than a dozen bullets in him and there was not the slightest hope for him. We carried him into a house until the fight was over, and then we buried him next day with military honors. His identificationdisk and everything else was missing, so that we could only put over his grave the tribute that was paid to a greater: "He saved others; himself he could not save." There wasn't a dry eye among us when we laid him to rest in that little village.'
"Or I think again of the expressions on faces that I have seen or read about, something alert and glad and self-respecting in the eyes of those who are going to the front, and even of the wounded who are returning. 'Never once,' writes one correspondent, 'not once since I came to France have I seen among the soldiers an angry face or heard an angry word.... They are always quiet, orderly, and wonderfully cheerful.' And no one who has followed the war need be told of their heroism. I do not forget the thousands left on the battlefield to die, or the groaning of the wounded sounding all day between the crashes of the guns. But there is a strange, deep gladness as well. 'One feels an extraordinary freedom,' says a young Russian officer, 'in the midst of death, with the bullets whistling round. The same with all the soldiers. The wounded all want to get well and return to the fight. They fight with tears of joy in their eyes.'
"Human nature is a mysterious thing, and man finds his weal and woe not in the obvious places. To have something before you, clearly seen, which you know you must do, and can do, and will spend your utmost strength and perhaps your life in doing, thatis one form at least of very high happiness, and one that appeals—the facts prove it—not only to saints and heroes but to average men. Doubtless the few who are wise enough and have enough imagination, may find opportunity for that same happiness in everyday life, but in war ordinary men find it. This is the inward triumph which lies at the heart of the great tragedy."