GERMAN TERMINOLOGICAL INEXACTITUDES
Some years ago a British statesman, then great, put on record a phrase
which at once is polite and convincing. He wished to convey that a certain
statement was a d---- lie, but as he himself had made the statement he was
in somewhat of an awkward situation. He got out of the difficulty by
calling it a "terminological inexactitude."
Now since I have been back in America, and more especially in the States, I
have run to earth any number of terminological inexactitudes uttered by
German propagandists. As far as Canada is concerned, the work is not now
progressing very favorably. The German inexactitude farmer is sowing seed
on barren soil. But I have traveled extensively during some crowded weeks
through the States, and I find that among a certain section of the American
public the seed of the German propagandist has taken root; not so deeply,
however, but that an application of the hoe of truth will remove it. It is
there all the same, and his success is spurring the agents to further
efforts.
The German in high place is aware that the English are and always have been
very friendly to the American people. He knows that the Englishman has
regarded the American as of the same family. He also knows that one day,
and possibly very soon, there will be a union that will amount almost to an
amalgamation of the three greatest races on earth, closely bound now by
ties of blood and friendship, that will never be broken: France, America,
England. He knows that when that occurs the German day is done, that the
sun has set forever on a German Empire.
The German in high place has realized this, and with the usual thoroughness
of the race has set out to combat this friendship and prevent this joining.
He is trying to do it by the regulation German method. He knows the British
dislike of boasting, and that the American and the Britisher are woefully
trusting. They themselves abhor deception and they distrust no man until
they find him out. The British and the French have discovered the
machinations of the German. The people of the United States have yet to be
convinced that they have been deliberately deceived, cozened and duped by
the Kaiser's government.
I am embarrassed at times as I go from town to town by the intensity of the
congratulations poured on me as a representative of our Canadian Army.
"You Canadians have done it all. We know that. We know that the English are
hanging back and have done nothing."
I am ashamed when people talk to me in such a strain. I am ashamed of their
lack of intelligence, ashamed that they will allow themselves to be so
deceived.
"You Canadians were asked by England to go and help her. When you got there
they put you in front and stayed in safety themselves."
Think of it! Think of the base lie. Think of believing such twaddle. At
first I did not trouble to deny the statement; then, as it was repeated
again and again, I began to deny it.
The British Empire is in this fight. Canada is doing her share of it, and
nothing more than her share. We were not asked to send men over. We
declared war upon Germany ourselves, because we are an independent
dominion. We have had on the battle-field at one time some one hundred and
ten thousand men--that is the greatest number at any one time, though of
course nearly five hundred thousand are in khaki. At Vimy Ridge we held the
longest portion of trenches that we have ever held before or since--five
miles. To right and left of us there were Imperial troops, Anzacs,
Africans, and they held over fifty-five miles of line. We advanced four
miles, and papers on this continent blazed with the news. The English
advanced nine miles on the same day, and there was not so much as a
paragraph about it on this side of the Atlantic.
For every overseas soldier wounded on the western front there are six of
the Imperial troops wounded. This is true except at Lens, where the
overseas casualties were considerably heavier.
All this about Canada being in front is a German "terminological
inexactitude" which is so despicable that we in Canada are ashamed that it
should be said of us. It will injure us after the war; it will injure our
prestige in the empire, which is now higher than ever before. We are not
boasters and egotists, we are fighters. We are fighting men who live
straight and who are proud to fight straight, and who are disgusted at lies
such as this.
The British, the Imperial troops, have done magnificently. They have done
more than their share. The original agreement with France was to place
fifty thousand men in that country should Germany ever attack. The British
have five million troops under arms, of which only one-fifth are overseas.
They have some five hundred thousand more men in France than have the
French themselves.
The British are fighting on many fronts. They are not fighting one war;
they are fighting in German West Africa, they are in German East Africa. It
was English troops who fought in the Cameroons. They are fighting in
Mesopotamia and in Egypt. They have an army at Saloniki and in the Holy
Land, and they have, of necessity, a large army in India, because the
borders of that empire must be protected.
And then we hear that the English are not doing anything! The English are
feeding their own prisoners in Germany, because the Germans were starving
them. They have been keeping some of their Allies in munitions and money.
They have been sheltering refugees from every nation that has been
devastated and overrun by the mad Huns. They have Belgians and French and
Serbians and Poles--a vast concourse of all nations is sheltered on the
little island which is the Motherland. It would be a poor thing if the
dominions could not protect themselves.
The British fleet has for three years kept the seas open for the neutral
nations. The English fleet has protected Canada and other parts of the
empire that have no navies of their own. The English must keep an army in
England to protect her own shores. There was danger of invasion--that
danger is past to all seeming, but it would not have passed had not the
English had men on English soil.
"And, you know, we think it dreadful that our boys are being sent over to
France to fight for democracy when England is keeping her men back in
safety in England."
Another story this--another "terminological inexactitude." A fairly clever
one. There is a half truth here. Yes; England has big reserves in England,
and it's well for the world that she has. Well for the neutral world during
these three years that England has her men in England.
The English have good reserves and they are in England. They are there
because England is nearer to the firing line than is the base in France.
They are there because it is easier to transport troops by boat across the
English Channel, which is a matter of twenty-one miles, and another twenty
or thirty miles in a train on the French side, than it is to transport them
in cattle cars over a congested railroad system from a base some twenty-six
hours from the front line.
Can not the people who hear these stories disprove them for themselves? Is
there not a war-map sold in America? England is closer to the firing line
than are portions of France, the portions of France which are used as
bases. It takes twenty minutes for a German air-ship to reach England.
Were the English soldiers all to be kept in France, in addition to being
farther away from the line, they would still have to be fed. Is it better
sense to keep them near to the food supply, or to send the reserves to
France and use valuable tonnage to ship foodstuffs to them? There is no
surplus food in France.
It makes me tired and it makes every Britisher the same to think that such
absurd stories should take effect. Of course the German is keen enough to
recognize that there is already the will to think evil of England. He just
wishes to season it a little and stir it up. He is wily, is the German
propagandist.
Then there is the hoary tale that England is keeping one hundred fifty
thousand troops in Ireland to tyrannize over the poor Irish, while the
States soldiers are sent to France to fight for democracy.
This I also thought too obvious a lie for denial, but it has been repeated
and repeated again. I do not know whether there are any English regiments
stationed in Ireland at all. There are good barracks in that country, and
good camps, so there may be.
The Royal Irish Constabulary are quite able to cope at this time with any
Sinn Fein disturbance which may arise. As far as the true Nationalist or
Home Ruler is concerned, he has enlisted in British regiments and is
fighting at the front. As far as the Ulsterman is concerned, he has
enlisted long ago and is dead already or fighting still. The men of both
sides who are over age are enlisted as Home Defense Volunteers, just as are
the men of England, Scotland and Wales.
So little is there tyranny over Ireland that when the Conscription Bill was
passed in the British Imperial Parliament it was enacted only for England,
Scotland and Wales. If it had included Ireland some one might have made the
accusation of tyranny.
In the United Kingdom there are no less freedom of action, freedom of
speech and freedom of the individual than there are in America, and I
include Canada in that word. They are as free as we, but they make no talk
about it.
The United Kingdom, with the rest of the empire, is fighting to retain her
own democracy. If Germany had won during the three years the Allies have
held the safety of the world, then the world would have been under the heel
of autocracy.
When I enlisted, and before I went over to England, I had no use for the
Englishman myself; that was, the Englishman as we knew him in Western
Canada. We had had specimens of "Algy boys," of "de Veres" and "Montmorency
lads." These, we soon found out, were not the English true to type. They
were ne'er-do-wells, remittance men, sent out of the way to the farthest
point of the map.
In England we were treated with wonderful hospitality. I began to change my
opinion, but not wholly until I reached France. There I met Tommy
Atkins--the soldier and the gentleman. There is no cleaner, cooler, better
sport on the fighting line than Mr. Atkins. Occasionally when the Irish are
in a brilliant charge, when the Scotch punish the enemy with a bit of
dogged fighting, it is reported. When the Canadians do a forward sprint the
world rings with it. When the English advance and advance again and hold
position and hold yet more positions, there is not a whisper of it--not a
word.
I have no English blood in my veins, but I believe in fairness, I believe
firmly that all the other nations of the empire put together have not done
so much as have the English Tommies by themselves.
There has come about a complete change in the Canadian mind in its attitude
to the English. If, before this war, there was ever a possibility of our
breaking away from the empire, that possibility is now dead--dead and
buried beyond recall.
This statement is not made at random. It is a considered sentence. At the
Convention of the Great War Veterans' Association of Canada, the
organization of the men returned from the world war, I was a delegate from
my home town of Edmonton, Alberta. The first resolution at our first
session was in effect--To propagate the good feeling between the dominions
of the empire and between them and the Motherland; to continue the loyalty
and devotion which have prompted us to fight for the old Union Jack.
After all, the voice of the men who have fought and bled for their country
is the voice of the people.
Every criticism leveled at England or any other Ally from this side of the
Atlantic is to throw a German stink-bomb for the Kaiser.
Feuds remembered are thoughts which are futile. The England of to-day is
not the England of 1812. It is not possible to blame the man of to-day for
the work of his great-grandfather. Read history and find out the
nationality of the George who ruled in England in those far distant days.
He was a German, spoke German, and could not read a word of the language of
the country on whose throne he sat.
The Lloyd George of ten years ago was the most hated and hooted man in
Britain. He is not the Lloyd George of ten years ago to-day, he is the
Lloyd George of the present--the most loved and respected man on earth.
The American people and the British are fundamentally alike. They are of
the one stock. They have the same ideals and principles. If the English did
not make sacrifices in other days, to-day they are making a sacrifice as
great, or maybe greater, than others of the Allies.
The joining of the peoples of America and Britain in a tie which can never
be broken is imminent. The knot is in the making.
In keeping with the dastardly methods of "frightfulness" in Europe, the
German propagandist has thought on this side to strike at the women--to
terrify the mothers.
It is terribly hard for women to let their men go. We know that. Our women
know it, but they are ashamed should one of their men attempt to hold back.
The German lie-mongers whisper: "It is the last time you will see your boy.
It is certain death on the western front."
It is not so. The Canadian troops altogether have used up some four hundred
fifty thousand in three years. Of this number, in the three years of severe
fighting, only five per cent. have been killed. Of the four and a half
million, approximately, who have been wounded in the fighting of three
years, only two and a half per cent. have died of their wounds.
It is bad enough, but it is not nearly so bad as the German scare
manufacturer would seek to make out. Boys come through without a scratch.
Not many, certainly, but they come through. There is every reason to
believe that you will get your boy back. There is still more reason to
believe that if you hold that thought before him while he is still with
you, and hold that thought before yourself when he is gone, he will come
back.
Women have a tremendous responsibility in this war. Wars are always women's
wars, mothers' wars. We boys have courage and we need it, but we also need
the greater courage of those women we have left behind to back us up. They
have to bear the brunt of the war, which to them is a fight of endurance
and eternal, everlasting waiting--waiting--waiting.
Do not think of the sorrow of his leaving, think of the pride of his going.
The martial spirit is not actively abroad on this side of the Atlantic yet.
Wait till the boys get over to France; wait till they see the outrages on
women and on nature, and all the blood of their fighting ancestors will
boil with indignation and rage. They will thank God that they have come to
prevent such a devastation on the soil of their own homeland.
In the trenches the boys compare the merits of their mothers. It is a
wonderful thing, that spirit of mother love which surrounds us, blesses us
and leads us on to higher things. We gather together in the trench and we
talk of mother--mother--mother. The lad whose mother cried and fainted when
he left quietly drops out from the group. We always know him. He is just a
tiny bit afraid that we will ask him how his mother sent him off. He never
shows his letters from home, because it is possible that she writes him
laments and moanings. He is ashamed. But those of us who have a home
courage of which we talk--how we boast! Mother is a mighty factor in the
winning of the war.
Out to France we go for Flag and Country. "Over the top" we go for Mother.
And mother, that one simple word, embraces the whole of womanhood.
Remember that your boy is going for you. Talk to the French mother, to the
English mother, who has lost all. Ask her about the war, about peace.
"Peace, yes, we all want peace, but not a German peace. If all the menfolk
die and there is no one else to go, why, we will carry on!"
And here I want to ask: What is the pacifist in this country doing for
peace? Nothing. He is only trying to put off this war, for a worse war.
Every man, woman or child who talks peace before the complete defeat of
Germany is a Kaiser agent, spreading German poison gas to the injury and
possible destruction of his own countrymen.
Back at home we must have the United Spirit which is inspiring us at the
front. After all, it is not the body which is going to take us through to
ultimate victory; it is the Spirit. And because American arms ultimately
will be the deciding factor in this war, so will American womanhood. From
what I have seen already, I have no hesitation in saying that the American
mother will be just as true to herself as the English and French mother has
been.
Let him go with a smile, and if you can't smile, whistle. You can never
know how much it means to him. We at the front are undaunted. If there ever
had been a thought of defeat, to-day, with the American arms beside us, we
are certain of a sure and glorious victory.
Because we know that if Cæsar crossed the Rhine for Rome, and Napoleon
crossed it for France and autocracy, so shall we, the Freemen of the
world, not only cross the Rhine, but will march even to Berlin for the sake
of Liberty, of Love, of Right and of Democracy.