England has in this war reached a height of achievement loftier than
that which she attained in the struggle with Napoleon; and she has
reached that height in a far shorter period. Her giant effort, crowned
with a success as wonderful as the effort itself, is worthily described
by the author of this book. Mrs. Ward writes nobly on a noble theme.
This war is the greatest the world has ever seen. The vast size of the
armies, the tremendous slaughter, the loftiness of the heroism shown,
and the hideous horror of the brutalities committed, the valour of the
fighting men, and the extraordinary ingenuity of those who have designed
and built the fighting machines, the burning patriotism of the people
who defend their hearthstones, and the far-reaching complexity of the
plans of the leaders--all are on a scale so huge that nothing in past
history can be compared with them. The issues at stake are elemental.
The free peoples of the world have banded together against tyrannous
militarism and government by caste. It is not too much to say that the
outcome will largely determine, for daring and liberty-loving souls,
whether or not life is worth living. A Prussianised world would be as
intolerable as a world ruled over by Attila or by Timur the Lame.
It is in this immense world-crisis that England has played her part; a
part which has grown greater month by month. Mrs. Ward enables us to see
the awakening of the national soul which rendered it possible to play
this part; and she describes the works by which the faith of the soul
justified itself.
What she writes is of peculiar interest to the United States. We have
suffered, or are suffering, in exaggerated form, from most (not all) of
the evils that were eating into the fibre of the British character three
years ago--and in addition from some purely indigenous ills of our own.
If we are to cure ourselves it must be by our own exertions; our destiny
will certainly not be shaped for us, as was Germany's, by a few towering
autocrats of genius, such as Bismarck and Moltke. Mrs. Ward shows us the
people of England in the act of curing their own ills, of making good,
by gigantic and self-sacrificing exertion in the present, the folly and
selfishness and greed and soft slackness of the past. The fact that
England, when on the brink of destruction, gathered her strength and
strode resolutely back to safety, is a fact of happy omen for us in
America, who are now just awaking to the folly and selfishness and greed
and soft slackness that for some years we have been showing.
As in America, so in England, a surfeit of materialism had produced a
lack of high spiritual purpose in the nation at large; there was much
confusion of ideas and ideals; and also much triviality, which was
especially offensive when it masqueraded under some high-sounding name.
An unhealthy sentimentality--the antithesis of morality--has gone hand
in hand with a peculiarly sordid and repulsive materialism. The result
was a soil in which various noxious weeds flourished rankly; and of
these the most noxious was professional pacificism. The professional
pacificist has at times festered in the diseased tissue of almost every
civilisation; but it is only within the last three-quarters of a century
that he has been a serious menace to the peace of justice and
righteousness. In consequence, decent citizens are only beginning to
understand the base immorality of his preaching and practice; and he has
been given entirely undeserved credit for good intentions. In England as
in the United States, domestic pacificism has been the most potent ally
of alien militarism. And in both countries the extreme type has shown
itself profoundly unpatriotic. The damage it has done the nation has
been limited only by its weakness and folly; those who have professed it
have served the devil to the full extent which their limited powers
permitted.
There were in England--just as there are now in America--even worse foes
to national honour and efficiency. Greed and selfishness, among
capitalists and among labour leaders, had to be grappled with. The
sordid baseness which saw in the war only a chance for additional money
profits to the employer was almost matched by the fierce selfishness
which refused to consider a strike from any but the standpoint of
the strikers.
But the chief obstacle to be encountered in rousing England was sheer
short-sightedness. A considerable time elapsed before it was possible to
make the people understand that this was a people's war, that it was a
matter of vital personal concern to the people as a whole, and to all
individuals as individuals. In America we are now encountering much the
same difficulties, due to much the same causes.
In England the most essential thing to be done was to wake the people to
their need, and to guide them in meeting the need. The next most
essential was to show to them, and to the peoples in friendly lands,
whether allied or neutral, how the task was done; and this both as a
reason for just pride in what had been achieved and as an inspiration to
further effort.
Mrs. Ward's books--her former book and her present one--accomplish both
purposes. Every American who reads the present volume must feel a hearty
and profound respect for the patriotism, energy, and efficiency shown by
the British people when they became awake to the nature of the crisis;
and furthermore, every American must feel stirred with the desire to see
his country now emulate Britain's achievement.
In this volume Mrs. Ward draws a wonderful picture of the English in the
full tide of their successful effort. From the beginning England's naval
effort and her money effort have been extraordinary. By the time Mrs.
Ward's first book was written, the work of industrial preparedness was
in full blast; but it could yet not be said that England's army in the
field was the equal of the huge, carefully prepared, thoroughly
coordinated military machines of those against whom and beside whom it
fought. Now, the English army is itself as fine and as highly efficient
a military machine as the wisdom of man can devise; now, the valour and
hardihood of the individual soldier are being utilised to the full under
a vast and perfected system which enables those in control of the great
engine to use every unit in such fashion as to aid in driving the mass
forward to victory.
Even the Napoleonic contest was child's play compared to this. Never has
Great Britain been put to such a test. Never since the spacious days of
Elizabeth has she been in such danger. Never, in any crisis, has she
risen to so lofty a height of self-sacrifice and achievement. In the
giant struggle against Napoleon, England's own safety was secured by the
demoralisation of the French fleet. But in this contest the German naval
authorities have at their disposal a fleet of extraordinary efficiency,
and have devised for use on an extended scale the most formidable and
destructive of all instruments of marine warfare. In previous coalitions
England has partially financed her continental allies; in this case the
expenditures have been on an unheard-of scale, and in consequence
England's industrial strength, in men and money, in business and
mercantile and agricultural ability, has been drawn on as never before.
As in the days of Marlborough and Wellington, so now, England has sent
her troops to the continent; but whereas formerly her expeditionary
forces, although of excellent quality, were numerically too small to be
of primary importance, at present her army is already, by size as well
as by excellence, a factor of prime importance, in the military
situation; and its relative as well as absolute importance is
steadily growing.
And to her report of the present stage of Great Britain's effort in the
war, Mrs. Ward has added some letters describing from her own personal
experience the ruin wrought by the Germans in towns like Senlis and
Gerbéviller, and in the hundreds of villages in Northern, Central, and
Eastern France that now lie wrecked and desolate. And she has told in
detail, and from the evidence of eye-witnesses, some of the piteous
incidents of German cruelty to the civilian population, which are
already burnt into the conscience of Europe, and should never be
forgotten till reparation has been made.
Mrs. Ward's book is thus of high value as a study of contemporary
history. It is of at least as high value as an inspiration to
constructive patriotism.