SAVAGE GLORYAN APPEAL AGAINST WAR
(This article was written for “Nash’s Magazine” in February, 1913, without any other than instinctive premonition of the coming Great War.)Editorial Note.—Marie Corelli’s remarkable article should be read by every man and woman at all mindful of the welfare of their fellow-sojourners on this little swinging ball of ours, which we call the earth. This contribution is far and away one of the most brilliant pieces of writing Miss Corelli has ever achieved; it is thought-compelling and in the larger sense inspirational; it is wellnigh epoch-making in its new view, its virile logic, its sane and forceful plea for the peace of the world—peace on a basis of common sense, broad humanity, and the honour of nations.
(This article was written for “Nash’s Magazine” in February, 1913, without any other than instinctive premonition of the coming Great War.)
Editorial Note.—Marie Corelli’s remarkable article should be read by every man and woman at all mindful of the welfare of their fellow-sojourners on this little swinging ball of ours, which we call the earth. This contribution is far and away one of the most brilliant pieces of writing Miss Corelli has ever achieved; it is thought-compelling and in the larger sense inspirational; it is wellnigh epoch-making in its new view, its virile logic, its sane and forceful plea for the peace of the world—peace on a basis of common sense, broad humanity, and the honour of nations.
Civilisationis a great Word. It reads well—it is used everywhere—it bears itself proudly in the language. It is a big mouthful of arrogance and self-sufficiency. The very sound of it flatters our vanity and testifies to the good opinion we have of ourselves. We boast of “Civilisation” as if we were really civilised—just as we talk of “Christianity” as if we were really Christians. Yet it is all the veriest game of make-believe, for we are mere Savages still. Savages in “the lust of the eye and pride of life”—savages in our national prejudices and animosities, our jealousies, our greed and malice, and savages in our relentless efforts to over-reach or pull down each other in social and business relations. If any confirmation of such a statement beneeded it is found in the fact that War is still permitted to exist. War is unquestionably the thrust and blow of untamed Savagery in the face of Civilisation. No special pleading can make it anything else. We may if we like call it “Patriotism” in our perpetual life-comedy or tragedy of feigning, but in sane moments we must surely realise that we are wilfully deceiving ourselves. Patriotism is understood to be that virtue which consists in serving one’s country; but in what way is this “Patria” or country served by slaying its able-bodied men in thousands?—the very men whose peaceful and progressive toil makes the country worth living in? Can any adequate answer be given to this question? Is “Honour” justly due to the heads of Government who, themselves safely out of the fray, send such men like sheep to the shambles—men innocent of all personal or national offence, but who in their fine obedience to duty and the preconceived idea of conquest which has its root in old barbaric periods, consent to be shot down under the murderous fire of unseen guns miles away, simply because their rulers have so ordained it? Is it “civilised” to spread ruin and devastation through the land?—to leave homes desolate?—and to create a wretched surplus population of widows and orphans for no other reason than that one nation refuses to comply with what is demanded of it by the other? Is it not possible to deal with even a difficult and refractory subject of quarrel in the way of reason and argument, brought to bear upon it by the soberly judging powers of all nations? And if reason and argument should fail, then, instead of consigning troops of blameless men to the scientific but cruelly treacherous methods of modern warfare,would it not be more normal and humane simply to—Stop Supplies?
Here we touch a vital centre of the question. No nation can go to war without Money. In most cases a very great deal of this same money is required. Who provides it? The nation itself? One may doubt whether any nation could raise sufficient funds to carry on a serious war for any length of time without borrowing. Supposing this to be the case, what financial force behind the scenes so obligingly lends the cash for the purpose of carrying out schemes of wholesale murder? Wherever such cash is obtained we know it must be weighted with an exorbitant rate of interest, so that the price of human blood fills the pockets of the lenders with a certain guaranteed overflow. To stop War, therefore, it should be made impossible to borrow the sums required for warfare; and any loan started with the object of War in view, whether suggested or avowed, should be considered by a National Agreement of United Powers illegal and even criminal, as conspiring against the peace and progress of the world. If, by what is called diplomacy or political subterfuge, this law were cheated, and vast sums were loaned ostensibly for other purposes than War, and it could afterwards be proved that Warhadnevertheless been, secretly and all along, the actual purpose of such loans, then the lenders should be compelled to forfeit all claims to repayment. For talk fine sentiment and pious platitudes as we will, the brutal truth is that no war can be carried on without money—money fully guaranteed—and if we would strike at the root of the evil, then these guaranteed supplies must be cut off.
A well-known journalist who, through his birth and family connections, may be presumed to have more than common knowledge of the various financial games of chess played by the “Chancelleries” of Europe, is responsible for the statement that “War is popular.” This is one of those brisk surface sayings that shine with apparent candour, like the sparkle of light in the ice on a puddle, but which have no more depth than the puddle itself. War is temporarily “popular”—so long as it is confined to its own pomp and panoply—its martial music, its flying banners, its glittering array of armed men—its marching and countermarching—its sensation and “show,” in fact—sensation and show which appeal to the multitude who are not brought face to face with the disease and death of its darker side. The elemental passions of a mob can be roused as easily by the “savage” beating of a tom-tom as by the “civilised” roll of the drum, or by the fussy cackling of an excitable Hen-Press. That Hen nowadays is always laying eggs of a curiously abnormal nature, in fact so surprising is its daily product that the maternal bird is for ever getting off the nest to look at results, with an evident expectation that mere chicks may turn out to be swans, though, as a rule, they are generally geese. To judge from the incessant cackle and scream, one would imagine them responsible for European opinion, and occupied in raising “nation against nation,” with “men’s hearts failing them for fear,” in startling confirmation of the New Testament prophecy, and some of us are disposed to ask: Why are sinister and disturbing suggestions constantly thrown out by the Press as baits to catch the always restless, dissatisfied and uneasy minds of the populace? Is Finance the fisherman behind the tree, angling with a long line and a devil’s hook at the end of it? No one with a grain of common sense would call it Patriotism! Our men of science, our pathologists and physicians have of late years been studying to some purpose the mysterious power of “Suggestion”—and if we have sufficient intelligence to understand the discovered facts which have rewarded their researches we shall acknowledge that ideas, started and persistently fostered in the minds of the million by constant reiteration, frequently develop into actions. With how much care and earnestness therefore should we see to it that the suggestions impressed on the brains of Nations are sane, pure and noble, moving all progress forward, with that firm gentleness which is the truest strength, into the ways of wisdom and of peace!
As “civilised” peoples we continue to exhibit the strangest barbaric inconsistency in our manners and methods of justice. If one man or woman is murdered in our midst our laws are set into instant operation to find the murderer, and if the crime is brought home to him he is sentenced to death. But in War thousands are murdered at the mere signal of “brave” commanders, and instead of the wrath and horror aroused by the slaying of a single life, an uproar of jubilation and triumph breaks out over the poor festering corpses that strew the field of so-called “glorious victory.” The “civilised” State protests against the murder of one individual, but looks upon the ghastly holocaust of slaughtered lives in battle as something almost noble and inspiring! Is this reasonable? Is it reconcilable with sane judgment? Is it any proof that our “Education” is of real worth?—or does it notrather testify to the amazing fact that in our greed of possession, our thirst of conquest, and our curious conceptions of religion and humanity, we have progressed scarcely a step ahead of our “barbarian” ancestors and their “savage” customs!
“Alas, for men that they should be so blind!That they should laud the scourges of their kind—Call each man glorious who has led a hostAnd him most glorious who has murdered most!”
“Alas, for men that they should be so blind!That they should laud the scourges of their kind—Call each man glorious who has led a hostAnd him most glorious who has murdered most!”
“Alas, for men that they should be so blind!That they should laud the scourges of their kind—Call each man glorious who has led a hostAnd him most glorious who has murdered most!”
“Alas, for men that they should be so blind!
That they should laud the scourges of their kind—
Call each man glorious who has led a host
And him most glorious who has murdered most!”
It is said by certain special pleaders that War is a Necessity. We are referred for verification of this to the world of nature, where it would certainly seem that various tribes of animals and insects do make war upon each other. These wars, however, occur much more frequently among the low grades of nature-life than the high. One may doubt whether eagles as a tribe make war upon eagles, lions upon lions, and so forth. That every animal should fight or work individually for food is the natural law—the spirit of prey is one from which Man himself is never exempt. But has any one ever heard of several thousand lions or bears taking up a stand against each other and slaying each other wholesale for a disputed portion of territory? Ants and emmets make continual war among themselves, but “Civilisation” is supposed to have set Man a trifle higher than the ant or emmet; he is even believed to be superior in mental capacity to the eagle or the lion. He is accredited with fine faculties of reason, and is more or less conscious ofhigh spiritual impulses—and in Christian countries he professes a humane creed, and assumes to teach the ethics of a divine moral code. During the far-off periods of his evolution from embryonic animalism towards the higher potentialities of his being, he was doubtless forced to fight his way against such opposing obstacles as threatened to stay or overwhelm him in his progress, but now—now when he stands, or thinks he stands, on a height of intellectual power and attainment which enables him to discard old barbarisms, surely it would be possible for him to control the lurking remains of his original savagery! War may be, as the before-quoted journalist declares, “popular,” but it might be as well, considering the ruin and misery which follow in its train, to inquire into the inward working of its asserted “popularity,” apart from its deceptive outward display.
First then, as already hinted, there are floaters of a War Loan. With them it is undoubtedly “popular,” for it opens several channels for the rapid making of money. Roughly speaking, most of the money advanced at interest for all important purposes comes from the Jews. All nations are more or less under the thumb of Israel, disguise it as we will, or may. No great scheme, either in peace or war, can be started without Jewish gold and Jewish support. The Jews are the cleverest commercial people on the globe; they are also charitable and benevolent to a degree that often shames Christianity. They could, as a race, do much to stop War in its very beginnings if they once unanimously and resolutely decided on such a course of action. But it is not likely that they will ever pronounce their “veto”; the idea would be tooUtopian and unbusinesslike. Therefore, as things exist, it is scarcely unkind to say, that with their race all over the world War is “popular.” Its commencement, progress, and continuance are in their hands. And they will, from a purely commercial point of view, continue to lend cash for the furtherance and encouragement of National Savagery, so long as National Savagery exists, and is willing to borrow money at a high rate of interest. For with them the God of Israel is still a God of Battles.
Secondly, War is “popular” with the Press. Unctuous newspaper articles lamenting the “horror” of War, and disclaiming all responsibility for fermenting and agitating the motives of quarrel, are only so much meaningless “copy.” Useful “copy,” too, because it conveys to the ingenuous and child-like mind of the man in the street that the intelligent editors and journalists who “manage” his news for him are really peace-loving, unselfish folk, and pious withal. Whereas the very suggestion of War is a paying “sensation” for press-men; it gives plenty of opening for big “headlines” and attractive “posters,” which help to sell their penny or halfpenny sheets to the best advantage. Whatever rumour is abroad, whatever whisper of a “conference of the Powers” flies on the wind, the Press makes more than the most of both rumour and whisper—and if it can only work up a national “Scare” it is as happy as a monkey with a banana. Such a Press as that of America and Great Britain could not exist without “sensation.” Even in “piping times of peace” it resorts to the most ludicrous methods of producing mild excitements, such as “Sweet Pea” or “Giant Carnation” or “Photographic” competitions, or a“Symposium” as to whether milk or fish diet is best for the brain. A murder is life to it!—while the useful, brilliant, beautiful or noble work done in Art or Literature gets scarcely a helpful mention. How often we see great space given to the description of a public dancer!—her jewels, her dresses, her opinions!—while a fine poem or picture is dismissed in a flippant paragraph. The reason of this is obvious: it is that many of the persons who assist in the work of daily journalism are only educated up to the public dancer standard—the poem or the picture is lost on the limited area of their abilities. And it may really be said again without either prejudice or unkindness that so far as the press is concerned War is “popular,” because it provides just that particular “sensation” which in its turn commands sales. Therefore if press-men, directly or indirectly, do foster national bitterness or help to stir up strife, we must remember that they are only serving their own interests, and that blame is chiefly due to ourselves if we give credence to their often exaggerated statements. Bismarck is reported to have said on one occasion, “The windows which our Press breaks we shall have to pay for!” This is true enough. Indeed, it is just possible that if there were no Press at all for a few years many dissensions would die out, and many unfortunate happenings would never happen!
But setting aside the two chief forces behind the scenes, Usury and the Press, with all other commercially concerned parties in the quarrels of nations, whocanor whodaresay that War is “popular”? Let wives and children answer! Let us try to understand what we ourselves mean by our conflicting theoriesand arguments—we who make such ado about a “declining birth-rate,” and fall into hysterical raptures over a family of “soldier sons”! Let us realise clearly that the slaughter of able-bodied men materially assists towards the “declining birth-rate,” and that where there are “soldier sons” they have been brought into the world apparently for no other reason than to be mangled out of it! This is War! Glorious War! Is it sane? Is it truly “glorious” to shoot down thousands of human beings who have committed no fault of their own, but are simply commanded by their Governments to serve as marks for the bullets of an enemy who might never have been an enemy at all but for mischief arising out of idle and often erroneous report, based on what is perhaps only a temporary and trivial misunderstanding? The best of friends are sometimes parted by the stupid gossip of stupid persons who, envious of happiness and grudging it to those who possess it, never rest till something has been done to undermine and destroy it. In the same way nations are set against each other by some persistently irritating and ill-founded rumour—some difference of opinion, which, if taken in hand reasonably and at once, could be satisfactorily settled, provided there be not too much talk, “red tape,” and officialism employed for the purpose of creating general vacillation and muddle. The conventional “ifs” and “buts” exchanged among the Powers may be looked upon with considerable doubt and foreboding under certain circumstances—an overflow of fine words not unfrequently means an outbreak of treacherous deeds.
Unhappily, and in flat contradiction to that “humane” spirit, which we so frequently profess, treachery strikes the dominant note in modern warfare, and this is one of the chief reasons why War should no longer be permitted. The new long-range quick-firing gun is as dastardly as it is powerful, for surely to shoot down men miles away who cannot see their enemies is as reprehensible and cowardly as to stab a man in the back unawares. Another instrument of treachery is the submarine—a truly devilish invention devised for the avowed object of destroying war-vessels by murderous action from the hidden depths of the sea. No one ever seems to pause and consider what an amount of fiendish cunning in the mind of man has evolved the construction of this deadly engine of warfare—still less does the question ever appear to suggest itself as to whether such a perfidious way of compassing slaughter is humane (we will not shame the word “Christian”) or truly “civilised.” If we refer back to what we are pleased to call the “dark ages” or ages of barbarism, we read much concerning “instruments of torture,” such as the rack, the thumb-screw, and other inventions brutally designed by man to injure his fellow-man, but these things for the most part avowed their murderous intention in open daylight—the doomed creatures knew what they had to expect and prepared to die accordingly. But modern science has sharpened our wits to a more merciless edge—we are cunning enough to hide ourselves and our instruments of death from our intended victims after the fashion of assassins lurking in ambush—therefore by the very law of compensation it is scarcely to be wondered at that we are sometimes “hoist with our own petard,” of which the many appalling submarine fatalities are proof and warning. And now, not satisfied with attack from the secret depths of the ocean, Zeppelins and aeroplanes shower bombs upon open towns and innocent civilians, so that even the hitherto neutral skies will be made spaces of vantage for pitiless assault. All these “civilised” inventions for the practice of barbarity ought to give so-called “Christian” empires food for serious thought—yet, strange to say, it would seem that every new and more murderous weapon for warfare is hailed with columns of praise in the press, and such general acclamation as may truly be called “savage”—as no “civilised” community educated according to all that we boast of in our advanced state of progress, could orwouldrejoice over the construction of mere killing-machines for the slaughter of their fellow-creatures! Therefore, it may be asked: Are we truly “civilised” or is it all a Sham? Are we really humane?—or as bloodthirsty as when, in our aboriginal savagery, we cracked the skulls of our enemies open with flint axes?
The continued existence of War is, in the face of all faith and feeling, a shame to the world! So long as nations are slaves to the barbarous idea that Blood and Carnage alone can keep them in their places as authoritative forces for the higher progress and welfare of Humanity, so long will Civilisation be more or less a farce. No one denies the self-sacrifice, the endurance, the patience, and the courage which makes men military heroes—the pity of it all is that such splendid qualities of character should be wasted on the mere consummation of slaughter and conquest. What good to the world has ever come out of Napoleon’s many massacres? Looking down upon the sarcophagus containing that Imperial Murderer’s ashes in the gorgeous tomb consecrated to his memory in Paris, one wonders sadly why he was ever permitted to live. We may with the great poet Byronsay:—
“To think that God’s fair earth hath beenThe footstool of a thing so mean!”
“To think that God’s fair earth hath beenThe footstool of a thing so mean!”
“To think that God’s fair earth hath beenThe footstool of a thing so mean!”
“To think that God’s fair earth hath been
The footstool of a thing so mean!”
If War is still to confirm us and other nations as Savages, we must behave accordingly. We must train our men and youths to kill, and to use the newest and surest weapons for killing. When we are offered Dreadnoughts, we accept them with salvos of rejoicing and thanksgiving. Yet without War these Dreadnoughts will, in ten years’ time from the date of their completion, be useless, and the millions they cost will be sunk into waste material. Must we have continuous War, then?—just for the sake of employing Dreadnoughts—and proving to our own satisfaction that we can slaughter as many innocent thousands as other Savages if we like? Why should any cause arise for the visitation of such a scourge upon us or any nation! If we have foes who show a threatening front we are naturally bound to be on the defensive—and we should be prepared to guard our kingdom and coast from Savages more savage than ourselves. But when we can get rid of our Savagery we shall lay down our arms. We shall realise that Civilisation means Unity; Unity in all high purpose and progress towards the betterment of mankind.
“Sheathed be the sword for ever—let the drumBe schoolboy’s pastime—let your battles cease!And be the cannon’s voice for ever dumbExcept to celebrate the joys of Peace!Are ye not brothers?—God, whom we revere,Is he not Father of all climes and lands?Form an Alliance holy and sincereAnd join your hands!”
“Sheathed be the sword for ever—let the drumBe schoolboy’s pastime—let your battles cease!And be the cannon’s voice for ever dumbExcept to celebrate the joys of Peace!Are ye not brothers?—God, whom we revere,Is he not Father of all climes and lands?Form an Alliance holy and sincereAnd join your hands!”
“Sheathed be the sword for ever—let the drumBe schoolboy’s pastime—let your battles cease!And be the cannon’s voice for ever dumbExcept to celebrate the joys of Peace!Are ye not brothers?—God, whom we revere,Is he not Father of all climes and lands?Form an Alliance holy and sincereAnd join your hands!”
“Sheathed be the sword for ever—let the drum
Be schoolboy’s pastime—let your battles cease!
And be the cannon’s voice for ever dumb
Except to celebrate the joys of Peace!
Are ye not brothers?—God, whom we revere,
Is he not Father of all climes and lands?
Form an Alliance holy and sincere
And join your hands!”
Surely it is not too much to hope for this—to pray for this!—if our Faith means anything more than mere lip-service and false show!