the tragedy of the war. Too much could not be said. The war has
evoked patriotism among all the peoples engaged, but with the French
there is a peculiar idealistic passion of tenderness for the _patrie_
which impresses every observer who has had the good fortune to see
the nation at war. I shall not linger long on these familiar,
inspiring aspects of love for country that the war has called forth
from all classes. The ideal spirit of French youth has been
illustrated in some letters given to the public by the novelist,
Henry Bordeaux, called "Two Heroes." They relate the personal
experiences of two youths, one twenty, the other twenty-one, whose
baptism of fire came in the battle of the Marne. They grew old fast
under the ordeal of battle and of responsibility for the lives of
their men; their letters home show a loftiness of spirit, a sense
of self-forgetfulness, of devotion to the cause, that is sublime,
poignant--and typical. In every rank of society the same immense
devotion, the same utter renouncement of selfish thought can be felt.
A spirit of ideal sacrifice has spread throughout the nation, making
France proud, heroic, confident. Such a spirit must be a benediction
for generations to come.
The common effort, the universal grief, has drawn all French people
so close together that social and party differences have disappeared.
The French priest has become once more the heroic leader of his
people, fighting by their side in the trenches. The scholars, the
poets, the artists have all done their part,--the nuns, the
aristocrats, the working-people theirs. While England has been
harassed with strikes and class recriminations, France has never
known in her entire history such absolute social harmony and unity,
such universal and concentrated will.
This spirit of "sacred union" embraces the women who are doing men's
tasks, the rich who are surrendering their good American securities
to the Government in exchange for national defense bonds, the poor
who are bringing their little hordes of gold to the Bank of France to
swell the gold reserve. I wish that every American might stand in the
court of the Bank of France and watch that file of women and old men
depositing their gold--the only absolute security against want they
have! That is faith made evident, and love.
* * * * *
In looking over the bulky file of French newspapers, illustrated
weeklies, and pamphlets on the war, which I brought back with me, I
am struck by the fact that the outstanding characteristic of all this
comment on the great war from journalist to statesman and publicist
is not denunciation of the barbarian. Denunciation plays a singularly
small part in the French reaction to their suffering. References to
Germans and Germany are usually of a psychological or humorous
character, illustrating the grotesque and antipathetic aspects in
which the Teuton presents himself to the Latin mind. That part which
grieving and denunciation have played in English comment, the gross
and apoplectic hate of the German press, is taken by lyrical
enthusiasm for heroism. The newspapers, sure pulse of popular
appetite, are filled daily with stories of sacrifice, gallantry,
heroism. This is the aspect of the sordid bloody war that the French
spirit feeds on. It is a fresh manifestation of an old national
trait--the love of chivalry. Some day, doubtless, these splendid
tales of individual heroism, of soldierly and civilian sacrifice,
will be gathered together to make the laurel wreath of the New
France. I could fill a volume with those I have read and heard. And I
like to think that while Germany went wild over the torpedoing of the
Lusitania,--even dared to celebrate it in America,--while the
Zeppelin raids arouse her patriotic enthusiasm, the French gloat over
the story of the private who crawled out of the trench and hunted for
two days without food or water for his wounded officer. The love of
the _beau geste_ is an ineradicable trait of French character. It has
had a bountiful satisfaction in this war.
"We have fought a chivalrous war," General C. exclaimed, pointing to
the little figure of Jeanne d'Arc. The same general ordered that the
government dole of a franc and a half a day be paid to those Alsatian
women whose husbands were fighting in the German army. "They are
French women: it is not their fault that their husbands are fighting
against France!" And the deathless touch of all, which will be
remembered in the world long after the destruction wrought to the
cathedral of Rheims, is the picture of French saving German wounded
in the burning church--fired by German shells!
The _beau geste_, the beautiful act, which ennobles all men, not
merely the doer of the deed,--that is what France is giving the
world. The image of men who are more than efficient and strong and
physically courageous, of men who are filled with a divine spirit of
sacrifice and devotion. Truly supermen.
Chivalry was a trait of the Old France as it is of the New. It
has fallen somewhat into disrepute of late years with the rise
of the comfort and efficiency standards. Nowhere else on the broad
battlefields of Europe has it revived, to redeem the horror of war,
so shiningly as in the New France.
* * * * *
Another aspect of French character which is both old and new is
the quality of humorous "sportsmanship" the French have displayed.
When Germany's crack aviator made a daily visit to Paris, dropping
bombs, in the afternoon during the early weeks of the war, the
Parisians took his arrival as a spectacle and thronged the boulevards
to watch him and applaud. When at last he was shot through the head,
the French press lamented his loss with genuine appreciation of his
nerve and his skill. A young cavalry officer at the front told me
this story: One of the younger officers of his regiment, to encourage
his men, had offered rewards for German shoulder straps, that is,
prisoners. Two simple peasants, misunderstanding his words, proudly
brought in a couple of pairs of German ears strung on a string like
game. The officer, brooding over the incident, resolved to explain
and apologize to the enemy. Putting his handkerchief on the point of
his sword, he crawled out of the trench and advanced across the field
of death between the lines.
Tales from the trenches by the hundreds prove that the French have
not lost the sparkle of wit even under the dreary conditions of
trench-fighting. When Italy joined the Allies, some soldiers of a
front-line trench hoisted the placard,--"Macaroni mit uns!" Again,
when boasting placards of German successes in Galicia were displayed,
the French _poilus_ retorted,--"You lie. You have taken ten thousand
officers and ten millions of troops." When in a German military
prison the keepers boasted of their recent successes on the western
front, the French prisoners began to sing the _Marseillaise_ to the
astonishment of their German guards, "because," as they explained,
"we know if you have killed all those French soldiers, you must have
lost at least four times as many!"
The barbarian misread the Gallic love of wit and laughter. To joke
and quip seemed to him beneath the dignity of men. It is, rather,
the safety-valve of a highly intelligent people--the outlet for their
ironic perceptions of life. The most amusing songs of the war that I
have heard were given by the _poilus_ on a little stage near Commercy
while the cannon thundered a few miles away. This ability to turn
upon himself and see his life in a humorous light is an invaluable
quality of the French soldier. So, too, is his love of handicraft
which finds many ingenious expressions even in the trenches. The
French soldier is always a civilian, with a love of neatly arranged
gardens and terraces, and he lays out a _potager_ in the curve of a
shell-swept hillside, or a neat flower garden in the crumbled walls
of a village house. He makes rings from the aluminum found in German
shell-caps, carves the doorposts of his stone dugout, or likenesses
of his officers on beam-ends, as I saw in a colonel's quarters in
the Bois-le-Prêtre.
The French soldier remains, even in this bloodiest of wars, always
a civilian, a man, capable of laughter and tears, of heroic heights,
of chivalrous sacrifices,--with the soul's image of what manhood
requires, with the vision of a state of free individual men like
himself.
* * * * *
The New France is inspired with qualities of Old France, qualities
which I call Latin, which have emerged into high relief under grief
and suffering and effort. It is above all gallant and high-minded.
The wounded Frenchman never complains or whimpers. "_C'est la
guerre--que voulez-vous!_" To the surgeon who has operated on
him,--"_Merci, mon major_." And they lie legless or armless, perhaps
with running sores, a smile on the face in answer to the sympathetic
word, in long hospital rows....
The fundamental element in this New France is the gravity, the
seriousness of it. Of all the warring peoples the French seem to
realize most clearly what it all means, what it is for, and the deep
import of the decision not merely to them, but to the whole world.
They are fighting, not for territory, but for principles. Peace must
be not a rearrangement of maps, but of men's ideas, of men's wills.
They are the conscious protagonists of a long tradition of ideals
that have once more been put in jeopardy. It is the character of this
human world of ours which they are struggling to mould, and like
actors in a Greek tragedy they are suitably impressed with the
gravity of the issue in their hands.
The New France has been born in the travail of the monstrous
desolation of trench-land that stretches, scabby with shell-holes,
leprous with gray wire, pitted with countless graves, scarred with
crumbled villages for four hundred miles across the fair fields of
_la douce France_. In this savage desert, inhumanly silent except
for the shrieking of shells, for now more than a year's time France
has struggled with the incarnated spirit of evil, rearing its head
again, armed with all the enginery of modern science. The little,
dirty-bearded soldiers squat there in their burrows, white-faced,
tense, silent, waiting, watching, month after month, or plunge over
their walls to give their lives on that death-field outside. They are
the simple martyrs of the New France.
* * * * *
France has learned her German lesson; has reorganized her life to
make it tell effectively for her task, has reorganized her inner
life, discarding frivolity and waste. She has found herself in the
fire. France is not "done for," as my German-American friends so
pityingly deem. Bleeding from her terrible wounds, she is stronger
today than ever before,--stronger in will, in spirit, in courage, the
things that count in the long, long run even in the winning of wars.
Technically minded soldiers may judge that "Germany can't be beaten."
But the French know in their souls that she can be, that she is beaten
today! In this greatest of world's decisions it is the spirit of the
Latin that triumphs again--the sanest, suavest, noblest tradition that
the earth has ever known, under which men may work out their mysterious
destiny.
Part Three--America
I
_What Does It Mean to Us?_
I went from the French front back to America. The steamer slipped
down the Gironde between green vineyards, past peaceful villages,
a whole universe distant from that grim, gray trench-land where the
French army was holding the invader in Titan grip, stole cautiously
into the Bay of Biscay at nightfall to escape prowling submarines,
and began to roll in the Atlantic surges, part of those "three
thousand miles of cool sea-water" on which our President so complacently
relies as a nonconductor of warfare. I was homeward bound to America,
the land of Peace, after four months spent in "war-ridden Europe"--to
that homeland stranger somehow than the war lands, where my countrymen
were protesting to both belligerents and making money, manufacturing
war supplies and blowing up factories, talking "peace" and "preparedness"
in the same breath; also--and God be thanked for that!--helping to feed
the starving Belgians, sending men, money, and sympathy to the French.
As the old steamer settled into her fourteen-knot gait, the submarines
ceased to be of more than conversational concern, and I began to ask
myself,--"What does it all mean to us, this bloody sacrifice of world
war,--to us, strong, rich, peaceful, confident Americans?"
For in spite of a curious indifference among many Americans to the
outcome, so long as it did not get us into trouble with either party,
betrayed by personal letters and press articles which I had received,
I was profoundly convinced that the issues of the world tragedy were
momentous to us too. "This European butchery means nothing," said one
friend, who supplies editorial comment for a most widely read American
weekly, "except a lot of poverty, a lot of cripples, and a lot of
sodden hate in the hearts of the people engaged. Europe will not be
changed appreciably as a result of the war!" Our pacifist ex-Secretary
of State, I remember, wrote Baron d'Estournelles de Constant inquiring
what the French were fighting for, implying that to the reasonable
onlooker there was no clear issue involved in the whole business,
merely the passions of misguided patriotism. The well-meaning agitation
for peace, which as I write has been lifted into the grotesque by the
Ford peace ship, is based largely on this inability to realize the
reality of the issue between the belligerents. And there is our national
attitude of strict neutrality, which fairly represents the evasive mind
of many Americans. Happily, they seem to say to themselves, "This war is
not our affair." We were warned by Washington to keep clear of European
"quarrels," and wisely we covered our retreat at The Hague by inserting
that little clause which relieved us from all real responsibility for
the observance of the conventions. Excuse for cowardice and blindness
of vision! Such Americans like to think that as a nation we have no more
concern in the present war than a peaceable family in one house has with
the domestic upheavals of an unfortunate family in the next house. The
part of prudence is to ignore all evidences of unpleasantness, to profess
good offices, and to keep on friendly terms with all the belligerents.
The impression that such an attitude makes on the American in
Europe is painful, whether it be expressed in personal letters,
in newspapers and magazines, or in diplomatic "notes." He becomes
impatient with the provincialism of his own people, ashamed of their
transparent selfishness, astonished that human values should have got
so fatally distorted in our fat, comfortable world. To the European,
American neutrality has become a matter of public indifference, of
private contempt. Inspired with the lofty ambition of playing the
rôle of mediator in the world war, President Wilson has lost his
chance of influencing the decision toward which Europe is bloodily
fighting its way. At that great peace conference which every European
has perpetually in mind, America will be ignored. Only those who have
shared the bloody sacrifice--at least have had the courage to declare
their beliefs--will penetrate its inner councils. We have had our
reward--money and safety. It is not fantastic even to expect that the
conquerors might under certain circumstances say to the conquered,
"Take your losses from the Americans: they alone have made money out
of our common woe!"
No, ours has not been the _beau geste_ as a nation. Nor can the
American take comfort in the thought that Washington diplomacy does
not fairly represent the sentiment of our people. As the weeks slip
past, it is only too evident that our President has interpreted
exactly the national will. The farther west one travels the colder
is the American heart, and duller the American vision. The numerical
center of the United States is somewhere in the Mississippi Valley.
Europe gave Chicago, in her distress after the great fire, eighty
cents per person; Chicago has given Belgium and France seven cents
per Chicagoan. Not a single Chicago bank appears on the list of
subscribers to the Anglo-French loan,--very few banks anywhere west
of the Alleghanies. "It is not our quarrel; we are not concerned
except to get our money for the goods we sell them!"
* * * * *
But are we not concerned? I asked myself as the old steamer throbbed
wheezily westward. Beneath the deck in the ship's strong room there
were thick bundles of American bonds, millions of them, part of the
big American mortgage that Europe has been obliged to sell back to
us. They represent European savings, hopes of tranquil old age, girls'
_dots_, boys' education and start in life. The American mortgage is
being lifted rapidly. The stocks and bonds were going home to pay for
the heavy cargoes of foodstuffs and ammunition and clothes which we
had been shipping to Europe. The savings of the thrifty French were
going to us, who were too rich already. The French were bleeding their
thrift into our bulging pockets, selling their investments for shells
and guns and barbed wire which would not keep old age warm, marry their
girls, or start their boys in life. They were doing it freely, proudly,
for the salvation of their _patrie_, which they love as the supreme
part of themselves. And to us what did all this sacrifice mean? Oh,
that we were growing richer day by day while the war lasted; "dollar
exchange" was coming nearer; we were fast getting "rotten with money,"
as a genial young coal merchant who had the deck chair next mine
remarked affably. Yes, the war meant that to us surely,--we were fast
raking in most of the gold that Europe has been forced to throw on the
table of international finance, the savings, the _dots_, the stakes of
her next generation. The number of lean-faced American business men,
war brokers, on the steamer was plain evidence of that. Already
Prosperity was flooding into America--that prosperity upon which our
President congratulated the country in his Thanksgiving address.
But is that prosperity a good thing for the American people just
now? Aside from the speculation excited by the superabundance of gold
in our banks, there is the envy of hungry Europe to be reckoned with
a few months or years hence, after the close of the great war, an envy
that might readily be translated into predatory action under certain
circumstances, as some thoughtful Americans are beginning to perceive.
Eastern America, where the war money has largely settled, is already
fearful, desires to arm the nation to protect its prosperity. And
there is the more subtle, the more profound danger that this undigested
war bloat of ours will dull the American vision still further to the
real issue at stake--the kind of world we are willing, the kind of soul
we wish, to possess. Can we safely digest the prosperity that the happy
accident of our temporary isolation and the prudent policies of our
Government have given us? Are we not feeding a cancer that will take
another war to cut from our vitals?
* * * * *
Most of us on board were Americans going about our businesses on a
belligerent nation's ship in defiance of Mr. Bryan's advice. The man
next to me was building a new munitions plant for France, and beyond
him was the European manager for a large American corporation whose
factories have been taken over by the German Government. He was
returning to America to enter the munitions business in Pittsburg
or Connecticut. To these commercial travelers of war the European
struggle meant, naturally, first of all money, the opportunity of a
lifetime to make money quickly; it meant also less vividly helping
the Allies, who needed everything they could get from us and were
willing to pay almost any price for it. Sometimes they talked of the
long list of "accidents" that were happening daily in American factories
and genially cursed the hyphenated Germans. As for the other sort of
Germans they felt vaguely that some day America must reckon with them,
too. Evidently they put small faith in the "three thousand miles of
cool sea-water" as a nonconductor of warfare! So here was another
aspect of the war--the possible dangers to us, without a friend in
the world, as every one agreed. And we talked "preparedness" in the
usual desultory way. The munitions men seemed to think that they were
patriotically working for their own country in getting "the plant" of
war into being. "Some day we shall need guns and shells too!" Afterwards
I found in America that this vague fear of probable enemies had seized
hold of the country quite generally, and that the very Government which
had done nothing toward settling the present war rightly was planning
for "defense" with a prodigal hand. Peaceful America was getting
alarmed--of what?
There were also in our number some young doctors and nurses who were
returning from the hospitals in France for a little needed rest. They
were of those young Americans who are giving themselves so generously
for the cause, eager, courageous, sympathetic. They seemed to me to
have gotten most from the war of all us Americans, much more than the
munitions men who were making money so fast. In Belgium, in Serbia,
behind the French lines, in the great hospital at Neuilly, they had
got comprehension and all the priceless rewards of pure giving. They
had seen horror, suffering, and waste indescribable; but they had
seen heroism and devotion and chivalry. And with them should be joined
all the tender-hearted and generous Americans at home who have aided
their efforts, who are working with the energy of the American character
"for the cause." Alas, already the word was coming of a relaxation in
the generosities, the devotions, the enthusiasms of these Americans.
Other interests were coming into our rapid activities to distract us
from last year's sympathies....
* * * * *
So as we rolled on through the soft summer night while the passengers
discussed the latest Russian reverse of which news had been received
by wireless, I kept asking myself,--"What does it really mean to us?
To vast, rich, young America?" Surely not merely more money, more
power, even a loftier inspiration for the few who have given themselves
generously in sympathy and aid. After all, these were but incidental.
The threat we were beginning to feel to our own security, this campaign
for "preparedness," did not seem of prime, moving importance. Probably
in our bewildered state of mind we should wrangle politically about the
matter of how much defense we needed, then drop some more hundreds of
millions into the bottomless pit of governmental extravagance and waste.
We had already spent enough to equip another Germany! When peace was
finally made in Europe, we would forget our fears; our Congressmen and
their parasites would fatten on the new appropriations, which would be
as actually futile as all their predecessors had been. No; these were
hardly the significant aspects of the war to us as a people.
No more was that acrobatic exhibition of diplomatic tight-rope
walking we had witnessed from Washington. Mere "words, words, words,
professor!" Our dialectic President had thus far failed to establish
any one of his contentions, either with Germany or Great Britain, nor
did it seem likely that he ever could. While he was still modifying
that awkward phrase, "strict accountability," Germany obviously would
murder whomsoever it suited her purpose to murder, and England would
hold up any ship that attempted to trade with Germany. All those
neutral rights for which Washington was paying big cable tolls had
not been advanced an atom. The time had gone by when our strong voice
could compel respect from the barbarian, could hearten the soul of
other weaker neutrals. Europe had taken our exact measure. We should
have saved some dignity had we not murmured more than a formal
protest....