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 last resort 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, which I
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
them to 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 in which 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 after day 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 biscuit with 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 of the 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 identification disk 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, that is 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."
* * * * *
O yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;
That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.
Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last--far off--at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
WHAT ONE AMERICAN DID[10]
If a person had been standing one night beside the railroad tracks in
Germany in the fall of 1917, he would have seen a train speeding along
through the darkness at about thirty-five miles an hour. He would have
noticed through an open window a tall soldier in the uniform of an
English flyer, a lieutenant in the R.F.C. (Royal Flying Corps), stand
up on the seat as if to get something out of the rack; and then he
would have been astounded to see the same tall English flyer come
flying out feet first through the window, to land on the side of his
head on the stone ballast of the opposite track.
Few persons could do this and come through alive. This English flyer a
few weeks before had fallen eight thousand feet, with a bullet in his
neck, when his airplane had been shot down in a fight with four German
machines. When picked up within the German lines, he was enough alive
to be taken to a hospital. The bullet was removed, and he recovered. He
was a British flyer, simply because America did not enter the war soon
enough for him, and like many other young Americans, he was eager to
fight the German beast and "save the world for democracy."
He was being taken with six other officers from a prison in Belgium to
a prison camp in Germany. He knew that, once there, his chances for
escape would be very small; and he felt he preferred death to life in a
German prison camp. He knew that, if he were not killed in his leap
from the train, the Germans would doubtless shoot him as a spy, should
they succeed in recapturing him. Some Germans wanted all Americans who
enlisted in the Allied armies to be shot, as they had shot Captain
Fryatt, on the ground that they were non-combatants attacking war
forces; for this was before America entered the war against Germany.
Besides, prisoners were not allowed to know what was going on in
Germany. An escaped prisoner who could find out was, therefore, likely
to be treated as a spy.
Pat O'Brien's cheek was cut open, and his left eye badly injured and
swollen so that he could not open it. He had scratched his hands and
wrists, and sprained his ankle. But he was hard to kill. In the
excitement caused by his jump through the car window, the Germans did
not stop the train immediately, and so did not reach the spot where he
had fallen, until he had recovered consciousness and had got away from
the track. He was careful in walking away to hold the tail of his coat
so that the blood dropping from his cheek would not fall upon the
ground and show which way he went. Before daylight he had been able to
put more than five miles between him and the tracks. He then hid in a
deep woods, knowing that he must travel by night and keep out of sight
by day, for he was wearing the uniform of a British flyer.
The story of his adventures is one of the most interesting of all the
strange and interesting stories of the World War. When he reached
England, King George sent for him to come to Buckingham Palace and
spent nearly an hour listening to it. Lieutenant O'Brien has published
it in a book which he calls "Outwitting the Hun." Boys and girls who
like an exciting story of adventure, a true story, will want to read
this book.
He knew the North Star, and by this he set his course west, in order to
reach Belgium, and then go north from Belgium to Holland. It rained a
great share of the time, but this did not make much difference, for he
had to swim so many canals and rivers that his clothes were always wet.
At first he had taken off his clothes when he had to swim and had tied
them in a bundle to his head to keep them from getting wet; but after
he lost one of his shoes in the water in this way and had to spend
nearly two hours diving before he recovered it, he swam with his
clothes and shoes on. He never could have gone on without shoes. Had
he not been a good diver, he could not have found the shoe in the mud
under eight feet of water; had he not been a good swimmer, he could not
have crossed the Meuse River, nearly half a mile wide, after many days
and nights of traveling almost without food (as it was, he dropped in a
dead faint when he reached the farther side); and had he not known the
North Star, he would have had no idea at night whether he was going in
the right direction or going in, a circle. Rainy and cloudy nights
delayed him greatly.
He did not dare ask for food at the houses in Germany, for he would
have been immediately turned over to the authorities. So he lived on
raw carrots, turnips, cabbages, sugar beets, and potatoes, which he
found in the fields. He knew he must not make a fire even if he could
do so in the Indian's way, by rubbing sticks together. He had no
matches. He found some celery one night and ate so much of it that it
made him sick. He had only the water in the canals and rivers to drink,
and most of this was really unfit for human beings. He lay for an hour
one night in a cabbage field lapping the dew from the cabbage leaves,
he was so thirsty for pure, fresh water.
One day before he reached Belgium, he was awakened from his sleep in
the woods by voices near him. He kept very quiet, and soon heard the
sound of axes and saw a great tree, not far from him, tremble. He was
lying in a clump of thick bushes and could not move without making a
noise. He knew that if the great tree with its huge branches fell in
his direction, he would surely be killed or at least pinned to the
earth and badly injured--and his capture meant that he would be shot as
a spy. But there was nothing for him to do but wait, and hope. At last
the tree began to sway, and then fell away from him instead of towards
him. He had again escaped death.
When he reached Belgium, which he did in eighteen days after his escape
through the car window, he followed the North Star, for he knew Holland
was to the north, and once in Holland he would be free. His feet were
sore and bleeding, his knees badly swollen, and he was sick from
exposure and starvation. For a while, he had a severe fever and raved
and talked all night long in his half sleeping state. He feared some
one would hear him and that he would be taken. He was weary and tired
of struggling and fighting, and ready to give up; but his will, his
soul, would not let him. He tells us how he raved when the fever was on
him, and called on the North Star to save him from the coward, Pat
O'Brien, who wanted him to quit.
He says he cried aloud, "There you are, you old North Star! You want me
to get to Holland, don't you? But this Pat O'Brien--this Pat O'Brien
who calls himself a soldier--he's got a yellow streak--North Star--and
he says it can't be done! He wants me to quit--to lie down here for
the Huns to find me and take me back to Courtrai--after all you've
done, North Star, to lead me to liberty. Won't you make this coward
leave me, North Star? I don't want to follow him--I just want to follow
you--because you--you are taking me away from the Huns and this Pat
O'Brien--this fellow who keeps after me all the time and leans on my
neck and wants me to lie down--this yellow Pat O'Brien who wants me to
go back to the Huns!"
In Belgium, he had a somewhat easier time, as far as food went, for he
found he could go to the Belgian houses and ask for it. As he could not
speak the language, and did not want them to know he was an English
soldier, he pretended he was deaf and dumb. He had finally succeeded in
getting some overalls and discarding his uniform.
Belgium was full of German soldiers, many of them living in the houses
of the Belgians, so he was obliged to use extreme care in approaching a
house to ask for food or help. Every Belgian was supposed to carry a
card, called in German an _Ausweiss_. It identified the bearer when
stopped by a German sentinel or soldier. Lieutenant O'Brien knew that
without this card he would be arrested and that his looks made him a
suspicious character. His eye had hardly healed, his face was covered
with a three weeks' beard, and altogether he was a disreputable looking
creature.