THE COMING STRUGGLE: OUR TASK
[Up to this time the Australians had been in quiet trenches in the green
lowlands near Armentières. From this time the coming struggle began to
loom ahead.]
_France, May 23rd._
I sat down to write an article about a log-chopping competition. But the
irony of writing such things with other things on one's mind is too much
even for a war correspondent. One's pen goes on strike. One impression
above all has been brought home in the two months we have spent in
France. For some reason, people at home are colossally ignorant of the
task now in front of them. We have now seen three theatres of war, and
it was the same everywhere. Indeed, in Gallipoli we ourselves were just
as ignorant of the state of affairs elsewhere. All the news we had of
Salonica came from the English newspapers. We thought, "However
difficult things may be here, at any rate the Salonica army is only
waiting for a few more men before it cuts the railway to
Constantinople." Then somebody came from Salonica, and we found that the
army there was comforting itself with exactly the same reflections about
us. As for England, everyone who reached us from there arrived with the
conviction that we needed only a few more men to push through.
When the attempt to get through from Suvla failed the public turned to
Bulgaria, and, on the strength of what they read, many of those on the
Peninsula could not help doing the same. Now that we see with our eyes
the nature of Britain's task in France, there is only one depressing
thing about it, and that is that one doubts if the British people have
any more idea of its magnitude than it had of the difficulties of
Gallipoli.
The world hears from the British public vague talk of some future
offensive. It goes without saying that we hear nothing of any plans
here. If there were any, it would be in London that they would first
become common knowledge. But if such an offensive ever does happen, have
the British people any idea of its difficulties? In this warfare, when
you have brought up such artillery as was unbelievable even in the
first year of the war, and reduced miles of trenches to powder, and have
walked over the line of the works in front of you, a handful of batmen
and Headquarters' cooks may still hold up the greatest attack yet
delivered, and you may spend the next month dashing your strength away
against a barrier of ever-increasing toughness.
If an offensive ever is made, we know it will not be made without good
reason for its success. But everything which one has seen points to the
conclusion that a vague belief in the success of such an offensive ought
not to be the sole mental effort that a great part of the nation makes
towards winning the war. And yet, from what I saw lately during a recent
visit to Great Britain, I should say that such was the case. "If we fail
to break through," the public says, "surely the Russians will manage it,
or the French will succeed this time." Wherever we have seen the war
there is always this tendency to look elsewhere for success. There is
not the slightest doubt we have success in our power. The game is in our
hands if we will only play it. The talk about our resources and staying
power is not all "hot air," as the Americans say. The resources were
there, and it was always known that in the later stages of the war,
when Germany and our Allies who entered the war at final strength, had
used most of their resources, then those of Britain would become
decisive because she had not yet used them. That stage we are reaching
now--Britain's resources measured against those of Germany. We have the
advantage in entering it. The danger is that while we squander our
wealth without organisation, the German, by bringing all his brains and
resolution to bear on the problem, may so eke out his strained resources
as to outstay our rich ones.
One sees not the least sign that the British people understand this. I
do not know how it is in Australia, but in Britain life runs its normal
course. Gigantic sums flow away daily, and the only efforts at economy
one hears of are a Daylight Saving Act adopted only because Germany
adopted it first; a list of prohibited imports and petty economies,
which we mistook when first we read it for an elaborate satire; and a
pious hope, in the true voluntary and official British style, that meat
would be shunned on two days in the week.
By way of contrast there are dished out for our encouragement reports of
all the pains which the Germans are put to to economise food in their
country. Potatoes instead of flour, meat twice a week, food strictly
regulated by ticket, children taught to count between each mouthful in
order to avoid over-eating. We are supposed to draw comfort from this
contrast.
It is the most depressing literature we have. The obvious comment is,
"Well, there is a nation organised to win a war--that is the sort of
nation which the men in the opposite trenches have behind them. A nation
which has organised itself for war, and is already organising itself for
peace after the war"; and all that we, who are organised neither for war
nor peace, have, in answer to a national effort like that, is an
ignorant jeer at what is really the most formidable of the dangers
threatening us.
If the British Empire took the war as business, were ready to disturb
its daily life, alter its daily habits, to throw on the scrap-heap its
sacred individualism, and do and live for the national cause, no one
doubts but we could win this war so as to avoid an inconclusive peace.
Some of us were talking to a middle-aged British merchant. We had left
our fellows in France cheerfully facing unaccustomed mud and frosts,
cheerfully accepting the chance of being blown into undiscoverable
atoms or living horribly maimed in mind or body, cheerfully accepting
all this with the set, deliberate purpose of fighting on for a
conclusive settlement--one which put out of question for the future the
rule of brute force, or tearing up of treaties, or renewal of the
present war. We had left those fellows fighting for an ideal they
perfectly well realised, and cheerful in the belief that they would
attain it.
The merchant was dressed in black morning coat and black tie, and looked
in every way a very respectable merchant. He was full of respectable
hopes. But when we spoke of a long war he drew a long face and talked
lugubriously of dislocated trade and strain upon capital--doubted how
long the industry could stand it, and shook his head.
Whenever one thinks of that worthy man one is overcome with a
great anger. What he meant was that if the war went on he might be
broken, and that was a calamity which he could not be expected to
face. We thought of all those fellows in France--British, Australians,
Canadians--cheerfully offering their lives for an ideal at which this
worthy citizen shied because it might cost him his fortune. Suppose it
did, suppose he had to leave his fine home and end his days in a villa,
suppose he had to start as a clerk in someone else's counting-house,
what was it beside what these boys were offering? I think of a fair head
which I had seen matted in red mud, of young nerves of steel shattered
beyond repair, of a wild night at Helles, when I found, stumbling beside
me in the first bitterness of realisation, a young officer who a few
yards back had been shot through both eyes. And here was this worthy man
shaking his head for fear that their ideals might interfere with his
business.
As to which, one can only say that, if the British nation, or the
Australian nation, because it shirks interference with its normal life,
because it is afraid of State enterprise, because of any personal or
individual consideration whatever, lets this struggle go by default, and
by inconclusive peace, to the people which is organised body and soul in
support of the grey tunics behind the opposite parapet, then it is a
betrayal of every gallant heart now sleeping under the crosses on
Gallipoli, and of every boyish head that has reddened the furrows of
France.
There are good reasons for saying that the struggle is now with the
British Empire. With your staying power you can win. But in Heaven's
name, if you wish to win, if you have in you any of the ideals for which
those boys have died, cast your old prejudices to the winds and organise
your staying power. Organise! Organise! Organise!