The writer has just come from visiting a group of a dozen British and American military hospitals in one French town, with from one to four thousand patients in each, where at this moment the trains are arriving in almost a steady stream, bearing the wounded from the front in the great drive in Flanders. He has stood by the operating tables and passed down those long, unending rows of cots. Some of these tragic hospital wards are filled with men, every one of whom is blinded for life by poison gas or shrapnel. They, like all the other wounded, are brave and cheerful, but it will take great courage to maintain this cheer, groping a long lifetime in the dark. One man counted 151 trains of twenty cars each, or 3,000 carriages, filled with German wounded passing back in a steady stream through Belgium. Behind all the active fronts these train loads of wounded are daily bearing their burden of suffering humanity. The cities and towns of Europe are filled with limping or crippled or wounded men today.
Opposite the writer at the ship's table sat a young man with the lower part of his face carried away. His chin and jaw were gone, yet he must live on for a lifetime deformed. Another young fellow had spent seven long weary months in training. The moment his regiment reached the front it was ordered immediately into action. He sprang to the top of the trench, but never got over it. He fell back wounded. Within three days he was back in England again, but with only one leg. Seven months of training, five minutes in action, then crippled for life! The writer saw one young fellow whose face was left contorted by shrapnel, which had carried away one eye and the bridge of his nose. He was a quiet, earnest Christian. He said, "Of course, they cannot send me back again into the line or compel me to go with only one eye, but I am going just the same. I am going to give all that I have left to the country and the cause." [4]
Hear that young soldier of France, Alfred Casalis, a brilliant student of philosophy and theology, a Student Volunteer for the African mission field, as he writes home to his father and mother at the age of nineteen: "I volunteered of course. I know with an unalterable knowledge and with an unconquerable confidence that the foundation of my faith is unshakeable, it rests upon the Rock. I shall fight with a good conscience and without fear (I hope), certainly without hate. I feel myself filled with an illimitable hope. You can have no idea of the peace in which I live. On the march I sing inwardly. I listen to the music that is slumbering inside me. The Master's call is always ringing loudly in my ears. I am not afraid of death. I have made the sacrifice of my life. I know that to die is to begin to live." And the last sentence of the unfinished letter written before the charge in which he fell, "The attack cannot but succeed. There will be some wounded, some killed, but we shallgo forwardand far—" In the other pocket of his coat, at the end of his will were the words, "'I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.' And I would that all my friends, all those who are every moment with me, and whose hearts beat with mine, should repeat the word of our hope, 'Because I live, ye shall live also.'" [5]
Professor Gilbert Murray, of Oxford, writes thus of the sacrifice of the men for us: "As for me personally, there is one thought that is always with me—the thought that other men are dying for me, better men, younger, with more hope in their lives, many of whom I have taught and loved. The orthodox Christian will be familiar with the thought of One who loved you dying for you. I would like to say that now I seem to be familiar with the feeling that something innocent, something great, something that loved me, is dying, and is dying daily for me. That is the sort of community we now are—a community in which one man dies for his brother."
Yes, these boys are making the great sacrifice for us. With 5,000,000 who have already been killed, with 10,000,000 of our own sons enrolled. as subject to their call to the colors when needed, with hundreds of American army camps at home and in France already crowded with men, what sacrifice can we make for them? How can we surround their lives with the best influences of home, that they may come back to us even better men than when they went away?
We have seen the terrible ordeal to which they will be subjected at the front, the temptations to which they are exposed in France, in the training schools, and the base camps; we have seen something of the havoc which demoralizing forces have already wrought in other armies in the camps of the prodigals, and we have seen the deadly dangers and perils, both physical and moral, which the soldier must face. We have spoken of the enormous sums voted to carry on a great war of destruction. Is there not a yet more urgent need that we should supply the great constructive forces for fortifying the physical and moral manhood of our nation? Two organizations have been recognized by our own and the other allied governments in the war zone—the one bearing the symbol ofthe red crossfor the wounded, and the otherthe red trianglefor the fighting men.
The nation has already generously responded to the needs of the wounded even before the first battle was fought, giving more in one week than any other nation in a year for the same purpose. And not a dollar too much has been given for this great cause. But we shall soon have several millions of fighting men under arms. What are we to do for these men? We have already seen that they present a threefold need. There is the physical need of these millions who will soon be training, fighting, and suffering. Only the men at the front know what it really is. There are the mental and social requirements of men who must have recreation, healthy amusement and occupation. There is also the moral and spiritual need of men who will face the greatest temptations of their lives, when they will be farthest from the help of home and friends, while old standards seem to be submerged or swept away "for the period of the war."
We have already seen that the building that bears the red triangle of the Y M C A at the front is at once the soldier's club, his home, his church where his own denomination holds its services, his school, his place of rest, his recreation center, his bank and postoffice where he writes his letters, his friend in need that stands by him at the last and meets his relatives who are called to his bedside in the hospital. If there is anything which safeguards the physical, social, and moral health of the men who are dying for us, can we do less than provide it for them? While billions are being spent for destruction, must we not at least invest an infinitesimal fraction of one per cent of our expenditure, in construction, in that which is the greatest asset of any nation—its moral manhood? Can we not provide a home away from home for our own sons and the other boys with them whose parents may be too poor to do so?
Here is a unique contribution which America can also make to her hard pressed allies who have been exhausted by three terrible years of fighting. Britain has already set us a wonderful example and will not need our help. But there is France to which we owe so much and whose war weary soldiers sorely need just such centers for recreation and rebuilding. General Petain, the Commander in Chief, and the French authorities have asked for the help of our Movement in their camps. General Pershing, after surveying the field, has declared that the greatest service which America canimmediatelyrender France, even before our own men can reach the trenches in large numbers, is to extend the welfare work of the Y M C A to the entire French Army. Can we do less than this for the nation that gave all that Washington asked in our own hour of crisis? Then there is Italy, with all her deep need and great possibilities. What can we do to minister to the wants of her great army?
But let us turn to Russia, which represents the deepest need of all—the nation which has undergone the greatest suffering, both within and without its borders, of any of the belligerents. Think of its vast area, greater than all North America, or one seventh of the land area of the entire globe. Think of its population, almost twice our own, and more than one tenth of the entire world. Think of these people, who have the greatest capacity for suffering of any nation on earth, suddenly released, like their own prisoners, with steps unsteady and eyes unaccustomed to the blinding light of freedom. Think of what such a movement of hope and cheer and re-creation may mean to troops hard pressed or demoralized, facing another winter in the trenches.
Add to all these the suffering prisoners of war, and we have over 24,000,000 men who deeply need the ministry of this Movement, and need it now. Here are millions who have already suffered or who are going forward ready to make the great sacrifice for us. What sacrifice shall we make for them?
[1] See World Almanac 1916, p. 488.
[2] The cost of the war has been calculated by various writers on both sides of the Atlantic. Mr. Wm. Rossiter writes on "The Statistical Side of the Economic Costs of the War," in theAmerican Economic Reviewfor March, 1916. Mr. Edmund Crammond's paper inThe Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Sir George Paish in the various issues of theLondon Statist, and others, have given careful estimates of the direct cost of the war to nations and individuals. During the first and cheapest year, according to Mr. Rossiter, the total cost of the war, not including the economic value of the lives lost, rose to forty billion dollars. That is equal to all the national debts of the world.
[3] See Appendix II on "The Treatment of Armenians," by Viscount Bryce.
[4] Publishers' Note: The whole problem of the meaning of suffering and its relation to the present war, especially for those who have suffered bereavement, is dealt with by the author in his book, "Suffering and the War."
[5] "For France and the Faith," Letters of Alfred Eugène Casalis, Association Press.
"No conclusion of peace shall be held to be valid as such when it has been made with the secret reservation of the material for a future war. No State having an existence by itself—whether it be small or large—shall be acquired by another State through inheritance, exchange, purchase, or donation. A State is not to be regarded as property or patrimony, like the soil on which it may be settled. Standing armies shall be entirely abolished in the course of time. For they threaten other States incessantly with war by their appearing to be always equipped to enter upon it. No State shall intermeddle by force with the constitution or government of another State.
"No State at war with another shall adopt such modes of hostility as would necessarily render mutual confidence impossible in a future peace—such as the employment of assassins or poisoners, the violation of a capitulation, the instigation of treason, and such like. These are dishonorable stratagems. For there must be some trust in the habit and disposition even of an enemy in war.
"The civil constitution in every State shall be republican. The law of nations shall be founded on a federation of free States. People or nations regarded as States may be judged like individual men. If it is a duty to realize a state of public law, and if at the same time there is a well-grounded hope of its being realized—although it may be only by approximation to it that advances ad infinitum—then perpetual peace is a fact that is destined historically to follow the falsely so-called treaties of peace which have been but cessations of hostilities. Perpetual peace is, therefore, no empty idea, but a practical thing which, through its gradual solution, is coming always nearer its final realization; and it may well be hoped that progress toward it will be made at more rapid rates of advance in the times to come." [1]
[1] English Edition—Pages 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 81, 127.
From Four Members of the German Missions Staff in Turkey to the Imperial German Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Berlin: "Out of 2,000 to 3,000 peasant women from the Armenian Plateau who were brought here in good health, only forty or fifty skeletons are left. The prettier ones are the victims of their gaolers' lust; the plain ones succumb to blows, hunger, and thirst. Every day more than a hundred corpses are carried out of Aleppo. All this happened under the eyes of high Turkish officials. The German scutcheon is in danger of being smirched for ever in the memory of the Near Eastern peoples."
Events in Armenia, published in theSonnenaufgang, and in theAllgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, November, 1915: "Twelve hundred of the most prominent Armenians and other Christians were arrested; 674 of them were embarked on thirteen Tigris barges, the prisoners were stripped of all their money and then of their clothes; after that they were thrown into the river. Five or six priests were stripped naked one day, smeared with tar, and dragged through the streets. For a whole month corpses were observed floating down the River Euphrates, hideously mutilated. The prisons at Biredjik are filled regularly every day and emptied every night—into the Euphrates." …
From a German eye-witness: "In Moush there are 25,000 Armenians; in the neighborhood there are 300 villages, each containing about 500 houses. In all these not a single male Armenian is now to be seen, and hardly a woman. Every officer boasted of the number he had personally massacred. In Harpout the people have had to endure terrible tortures. They have had their eyebrows plucked out, their breasts cut off, their nails torn off. Their torturers hew off their feet or else hammer nails into them just as they do in shoeing horses. When they die, the soldiers cry: 'Now let your Christ help you.'"
Memorandum forwarded by a foreign resident at H.: "On the 1st of June, 3,000 people (mostly women, girls, and children) left H. accompanied by seventy policemen. The policemen many times violated the women openly. Another convoy of exiles joined the party, 18,000 in all. The journey began, and on the way the pretty girls were carried off one by one, while the stragglers from the convoy were invariably killed. On the fortieth day the convoy came in sight of the Euphrates. Here they saw the bodies of more than 200 men floating in the river. Here the Kurds took from them everything they had, so that for five days the whole convoy marched completely naked under the scorching sun. For another five days they did not have a morsel of bread, nor even a drop of water. They were scorched to death by thirst. Hundreds upon hundreds fell dead on the way, their tongues were turned to charcoal, and when, at the end of five days, they reached a fountain, the whole convoy naturally rushed towards it. But here the policemen barred the way and forbade them to take a single drop of water. At another place where there were wells, some women threw themselves into them, as there was no rope or pail to draw up the water. These women were drowned, the dead bodies still remaining there stinking in the water, and yet the rest of the people later drank from that well. On the sixty-fourth day, they gathered together all the men and sick women and children and burned and killed them all. On the seventieth day, when they reached Aleppo, there were left 150 women and children altogether out of the whole convoy of 18,000."
Christ in Flanders
Christ in Flanders
Christ in Flanders
"We had forgotten You or very nearly,You did not seem to touch us very nearly.Of course we thought about You now and thenEspecially in any time of trouble,We know that You were good in time of troubleBut we are very ordinary men.
And there were always other things to think of,There's lots of things a man has got to think of,His work, his home, his pleasure and his wifeAnd so we only thought of You on Sunday;Sometimes perhaps not even on a SundayBecause there's always lots to fill one's life.
And all the while, in street or lane or bywayIn country lane in city street or bywayYou walked among us, and we did not see.Your feet were bleeding, as You walked our pavementsHow did we miss Your foot-prints on our pavements;Can there be other folk as blind as we?
Now we remember over here in Flanders(It isn't strange to think of You in Flanders)This hideous warfare seems to make things clear,We never thought about You much in EnglandBut now that we are far away from EnglandWe have no doubts--we know that You are here.
You helped us pass the jest along the trenchesWhere, in cold blood, we waited in the trenches,You touched its ribaldry and made it fine.You stood beside us in our pain and weakness.We're glad to think You understand our weakness.Somehow it seems to help us not to whine.
We think about You kneeling in the GardenAh! God, the agony of that dread Garden;We know you prayed for us upon the Cross.If anything could make us glad to bear it'Twould be the knowledge, that You willed to bear itPain, death, the uttermost of human loss.
Tho' we forgot You, You will not forget us.We feel so sure that You will not forget us.But stay with us until this dream is past--And so we ask for courage, strength, and pardon,Especially I think, we ask for pardon,And that You'll stand beside us to the last."
"You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy. You have to perform a task which will need your courage, your energy, your patience. Remember that the honor of the British Army depends upon your individual conduct. It will be your duty not only to set an example of discipline and perfect steadiness under fire, but also to maintain the most friendly relations with those whom you are helping in this struggle. The operations in which you are engaged will, for the most part, take place in a friendly country, and you can do your own country no better service than in showing yourself, in France and Belgium, in the true character of a British soldier.
Be invariably courteous, considerate, and kind. Never do anything likely to injure or destroy property, and always look upon looting as a disgraceful act. You are sure to meet with a welcome and to be trusted; and your conduct must justify that welcome and that trust. Your duty cannot be done unless your health is sound. So keep constantly on your guard against any excesses. In this new experience you may find temptations both in wine and women. You must entirely resist both temptations, and while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy.
Do your duty bravely.
Fear God.
Honor the King."
Kitchener,Field-Marshal.