confiance!...
"Le passé est là qui enseigne l'avenir. Chaque fois qu'une armée
quelconque, prise de la folie de l'espace, a voulu s'enfoncer dans
les terres lointaines et abandonner le berceau où elle puisait sa
force et ses vivres, elle est morte de langueur et d'épuisement,
elle s'est éffritée comme la pierre qu'on arrache de l'assemblage
solide des maisons, elle n'est pas plus revenue que ne reviennent
les grains de poussière qu'emporte le vent.... Voici plus d'un
siècle que des légions ont tenté la conquète de l'Egypte et ces
légions étaient les plus magnifiques du monde. Elles avaient des
chefs qui s'appelaient Desaix, Kléber et Bonaparte; mais elles
n'avaient pas la maitrise de la mer et rien ne revint des sables
brulants du désert. Voici un siècle aussi qu'une armée la plus
formidable d'Europe, conduite par le plus fameux conquérant qu'ait
connu l'univers, tenta de submerger l'immense empire russe; mais
l'empire était trop grand pour la grande armée et rien ne revint
des solitudes glacées de la steppe.... Puisse, de même, aller
loin, toujours plus loin, l'armée allemande déjà décimée, haletante,
épuisée! Puisse-t-elle pousser jusqu'au Tigre, jusqu'à l'Euphrate,
jusqu'à l'Inde!...
"O Etoile, apprends à ceux qui ne sont pas dans la tranchée,
l'Histoire!...
"Certes ces nuits d'hiver sont longues. Et tous tes scintillements,
Etoile, ne valent pas le sourire de la femme aimée au logis.
Cependant, tu as quelque chose de la femme, puisque tant d'hommes
te suivent aveuglément: tu en as la grâce et l'éclat; et toi, au
moins, nul couturier boche ne t'habilla jamais!... Tu possèdes
même des vertus que ne possède pas toujours la femme: tu as la
patience et le calme. Les nuages ont beau s'interposer entre tes
adorateurs et toi, l'aurore a beau chaque matin éteindre tes feux,
tu t'inclines devant la loi suprême de la nature et nulle révolte
ne vint jamais de toi.... Tâche d'inspirer ta soumission à tes
soeurs terrestres qui, dans les villes, attendent le retour des
guerriers.
"O Etoile, apprends à celles qui ne sont pas dans les tranchées,
la Discipline!...
"Que tous, que toutes sachent qu'il y a quelque chose au-dessus
du Nombre, au-dessus de la Force, au-dessus même du Courage: et
c'est la Persévérance.... Il y eut, une fois, un match de lutte
qui restera à jamais célèbre dans l'histoire du sport: celui de
Sam Mac Vea contre Joe Jeannette. Le premier, trapu, massif, tout
en muscles: un colosse noir du plus beau noir. Le second, plus
léger, plus harmonieux, tout en nerfs: un métis jaune du plus beau
cuivre. Le combat fut épique: il se poursuivit pendant quarantedeux
rounds et dura trois heures. Au troisième round, puis au septième,
Sam Mac Vea jetait Joe Jeannette à terre et sa victoire ne paraissait
plus faire de doute. Cependant, Joe Jeannette peu à peu revint à
la vie, se cramponna, se défendit, vécut sur ses nerfs, puis attaqua
à son tour. Au quarante-deuxième round, épaule contre épaule,
haletants, ruisselants de sang, ils se portaient les derniers coups;
mais le ressort de Sam Mac Vea était cassé et, devant l'assurance
de son adversaire, il se sentit vaincu... Alors on vit le grand
géant noir lever les bras et s'écrouler en disant: I GUESS I CAN
NOT.... (Je crois que je ne peux pas...) Ainsi, bientôt peut-être,
verrons-nous s'écrouler l'Allemagne, en avouant: "Je ne peux
pas...."
"O Etoile, apprends à ceux qui ne sont pas dans la tranchée, la
Boxe!..."
[signed]Stéphane Lauzanne
The Prayer of "Le Poilu"
Then "Le Poilu" standing, in the cold December night, behind
the breastworks, fixed his gaze upon a star that was shining with
a strange brilliance in the sky above. His mind was stirred with
thoughts of far away things. His heart grew lighter, as though it
yearned to reach the star; his lips trembled, and softly he breathed
a prayer.
"O Star," he murmured, "I need not thy glimmering light, for I
know my way. The road may have appeared dark at first when my eyes
were unaccustomed to its sharp turns, but for a year it has been
divinely illumined for me. Even if it grew longer each day, it will
never seem dark again. Although torn by thorns and cut by stones,
nothing can make me turn back. I know that I shall go on, steadfast
to the end. I behold before me Victory.... But there,--behind
me, is a multitude sorely troubled in the darkness.
"Now, as the old year revolves on its rusty hinges, those who wait
at home live over in their troubled hearts the events which marked
its passing. They think of the barbarous hordes of the Orient
which the German has caught in his train; Turks and Bulgarians,
Kurds and Malissores, and they overlook the great nations enrolled
under the banner of civilization. They brood over lands ground
under the iron heel of the Teuton and overlook the Empires that we
hold; here, West and East Africa, four times as large as all Germany,
with their thousands of miles of railroads and their diamond mines;
there, the Islands of Oceania and the fortress of Asia: Kiao-Tcheou,
which the Kaiser has proclaimed the pearl of his colonies. They
are alarmed at the chaff that Germany gathers in her lawless course
and they do not see the mighty girders that stay France. But we
who are the girders, we know better, we see farther.
"O Star, teach those who are not in the trenches.... Confidence!
"By the light of the past we behold the future. Whenever an army,
seized with the frenzy of conquest, has forced its way into a far
land, abandoning the cradle whence it drew its life and strength,
it has wasted away, it has perished from utter exhaustion. Like
stones loosened from a solid wall, it has disintegrated. Like the
grain of dust which the wind has blow away, it has vanished never
to return.
"More than a century ago legions attempted the conquest of Egypt.
They were the most magnificent in the world. Their chiefs bore
the names of Desaix, Kleber and Bonaparte. But they had not the
mastery of the seas, and returned not from the burning sands of the
desert.... Think also of the time when the most formidable army
of Europe, led by the greatest conqueror the world has ever known,
tried to overwhelm the vast Russian Empire. But the empire was
mightier than the Great Army, and it returned not from the glacial
solitude of the steppes.... So let it go far, ever farther on,
that German army already decimated, panting, exhausted; let it
reach the Tigris, the Euphrates, even far off India! It will not
return.
"O Star, teach those who are not in the trenches.... History!
"Truly the winter nights are long, and all the rays, O Star, are
not worth the smile of the loved woman at the hearth. And yet,
thou hast something of woman, since so many men follow thee blindly:
thou hast her grace and splendor. [No German couturier will ever
clothe you!] Thou hast even virtues that women do not possess,
for thou art patient and calm. Clouds come between thy worshipers
and thee, dawn each morning extinguishes thy light, yet dost thou
bow before the supreme law of nature without a murmur. I pray
thee inspire with submission thy sisters of the earth; teach them
calmly and patiently to await the return of their warriors.
"O Star, teach those who are not in the trenches.... Discipline!
"Would that all men, that all women might know that there is
something above Numbers, above Force, above even Courage, and that
is PERSEVERANCE! A few years ago there was a boxing match between
Sam Mac Vea and Joe Jeannette that will remain famous in the history
of the sport. Mac Vea was a heavy weight, strong, all muscle: a
veritable black giant. Joe Jeannette, light, well proportioned,
all nerve: a mongrel of the best sort. The match was epic. It
went on for forty-two rounds and lasted three hours. At the third
round, and again in the seventh, Sam Mac Vea threw Joe Jeannette,
and his victory seemed assured. But little by little Joe Jeannette
revived, pulled himself together, defended himself, and through
sheer nerve, began to attack. At the forty-second round, shoulder
to shoulder, panting, dripping wet and covered with blood they
struck the last blow. The resources of Sam Mac Vea were exhausted,
and through the very assurance of his adversary he felt himself
beaten.... Suddenly the great giant lifted his arms and gave way,
saying: 'I guess I cannot.'...
"Thus shall we soon see Germany fall to the earth, saying brokenly,
'I cannot.'...
"O Star, teach those who are not in the trenches...to be game!"
Stéphane Lauzanne
Translation by Madame Carlo Polifème.
A Tribute to England
It may be said of this war, as the master mind of all the ages said
of adversity, that "its uses are sweet," even though they be as a
precious jewel shining in the head of an ugly and venomous toad.
While the world-war has brutalized men, it has as a moral paradox
added immeasurably to the sum of human nobility. Its epic grandeur
is only beginning to reveal itself, and in it the human soul has
reached the high water marker of courage and honor.
The war has enriched our language with many new expressions, but
none more beautiful than that of "Somewhere in France." To all noble
minds, while it sounds the abysmal depths of tragic suffering, it
rises to the sublimest heights of heroic self-sacrifice.
The world has paid its tribute to the immortal valor of France,
and no words could pay the debt of appreciation which civilization
owes to this heroic nation; but has there been due recognition of
the equal valor and the like spirit of self-sacrifice which has
characterized Great Britain in this titanic struggle?
When the frontier of Belgium was crossed, England staked the existence
of its great empire upon the issue of the uncertain struggle. It
had, as figures go in this war, only a small army. If it had been
niggardly in its effort to defend Belgium, and save France in her
hour of supreme peril, England might have said, without violating
any express obligation arising under the ENTENTE CORDIALE, that
in giving its incomparable fleet it had rendered all the service
that its political interests, according to former standards of
expediency, justified; and it could have been plausibly suggested
that the ordinary considerations of prudence and the instinct of
self-preservation required it, in the face of the deadly assault
by the greatest military power in the world, to reserve its little
army for the defense of its own soil. England never hesitated, when
the Belgian frontier was crossed, but moved with such extraordinary
speed that within four days after its declaration of war its
standing army was crossing the channel, and within a fortnight it
had landed upon French soil the two army corps which constituted
the backbone of her military power.
What follows will be remembered with admiration and gratitude
by the English speaking races as long as they endure, for nothing
in the history of that race is finer than the way in which the so
called "contemptible little British Army," as the Kaiser somewhat
prematurely called it--outnumbered four to one, and with an even
greater disproportion in artillery--withstood the powerful legions
of Von Kluck at Mons. Enveloped on both flanks they stood as a
stone wall for three days against an assault of one of the mightiest
armies in recorded history, and only retreated when ordered to do
so by the high command of the Allied forces in order to conform to
its strategic plans. The English were not defeated at Mons. It
was a victory, both in a technical and moral sense.
The retreat from Mons to the Marne was one of terrible hardship
and imminent danger. For nearly fourteen days, in obedience to
orders, the British soldiers,--fighting terrific rear guard actions,
which, in retarding the invaders, made possible the ultimate
victory,--slowly retreated, never losing their morale, although
suffering untold physical hardships and the greater agony of temporary
defeats, which they could not at that time understand, and yet it
is to their undying credit, in common with their brave comrades
of the French Army, that when the moment came to cease the retreat
and to turn upon a foe, which flushed with unprecedented victory
still greatly outnumbered the retreating armies, the British soldier
struck back with almost undiminished power. The "miracle of the
Marne" is due to Tommy Atkins as well as to the French Poilu.
Even more wonderful was the defense of Ypres. There was a time in
the first battle of Ypres when the British high command, denuded
of shells, were allotting among their commands, then engaged in a
life-and-death struggle, ammunition which had not yet left England.
So terribly was the "first seven divisions" of glorious memory
decimated in this first battle of Ypres, that at a critical time,
the bakers, cobblers and grooms were put into the trenches to fill
the gaps made by the slain soldiers in that great charnel house.
The "thin red line" held back--not for days, but for weeks,--an
immensely superior force, and the soldiers of England unflinchingly
bared their breasts to the most destructive artillery-fire that
the world at that time had ever known. They held their ground and
saved the day, and the glory of the first and second battles of
Ypres, which saved Calais, and possibly the war itself, will ever
be that of the British Army.
Over four million Britons have volunteered in the war, and although
very few of them had ever had an previous military experience, yet
their stamina and unconquerable courage were such that the youth
of the great Empire, on more than one occasion, when called upon,
as on the Somme, to attack as well as defend, swept the famed Prussian
guard out of seemingly impregnable positions, as for example at
Contalmaison.
Will the world ever forget the children of the Mother Empire who
came so freely and nobly from far distant Canada, who wrenched Vimy
and Messines ridges from a powerful foe?
I hear still the tramp of marching thousands in the first days of
the war, as they passed through the streets of Winchester en route
to France via Southampton, singing with cheer and joy, "It is a
long way to Tipperary." Alas! It is indeed a "long, long way,"
and many a gallant English boy has fallen in that way of glory.
To-day, from the Channel to the Vosges, there are hundreds of
thousands of graves where British soldiers keep the ghostly bivouac
of the dead. They gave their young lives on the soil of France to
save France, and when the great result is finally accomplished, a
grateful world will never forget that "fidelity even unto death" of
the British soldier. Their place on Fame's eternal camping ground
is sure.
What just man can fail to appreciate the work of the English
sailor? It has been said by Lord Curzon, that never has an English
mariner in this war refused to accept the arduous and most dangerous
service of patrolling the great highways of the deep. No soldier
can surpass in courage or fortitude the mine sweepers, who have
braved the elemental forces of nature, and the most cruel forces
of the Terror, which lurks under the seas.
The spirit of Nelson still inspires them, for every mariner of
England has done his duty in this greatest crisis of the modern
world.
And how can words pay due tribute to the work and sacrifices of the
women and children of England? They have endured hardships with
masculine strength, and have accepted irreparable sacrifices with
infinite self-sacrifice.
When the three British cruisers were sunk early in the war by a
single submarine, and many thousand British sailors perished, the
news was conveyed to a seaport town in England, from which many of
them had been recruited, by posting upon a screen the names of the
pitifully few men who had survived that terrible disaster. Thousands
of women, the wives and daughters of those who had perished, waited
in the open square in the hope, in most cases in vain, to see the
name of some one who was dear to them posted among the survivors;
and yet when the last names of the rescued were finally posted, and
thousands of English women, there assembled, realized that those
who were nearest and dearest to them had perished beneath the waves,
these women of England, instead of lamentations or tears, in the
spirit of loftiest and most sacred patriotism united their voices
and sang "Britannia Rules the Waves," and re-affirmed their belief
that, notwithstanding all the powers of Hell, that "Britons never
would be slaves."
Who shall then question England's right to a conspicuous place in
this worldwide tournament of Fame? In all her past history, there
has never been any page more glorious. Without her, as without
France, civilization would have perished. To each nation be lasting
honor!
The spirit of Shakespeare has animated his people, and that mighty
spirit still says to them in his own flaming words---
"In God's name, cheerily on, courageous friends,
To reap the harvest of perpetual peace
By this one bloody trial of sharp war."
[signed]James M. Beck
Unity and Peace
Great Britain and the United States were politically separated
nearly a century and a half ago, because Britain was not in those
days governed by the will of the people as she has been for the
last eighty years and more. But the ideals of the two nations
have been for many generations substantially the same. Both have
loved Liberty ever since the time when their common ancestors
wrested it from feudal monarchs. A time has now come when both
nations are called to defend, and to extend in the world at large,
the freedom they won within their own countries. America has
harkened to the call. Renouncing her former isolation, she has
felt that duty to mankind requires her to contend in arms for the
freedom she has illustrated by her example. The soldiers of Britain
and France welcome the stalwart sons of America as their comrades
in this great struggle for Democracy and Humanity. With their help,
they look forward confidently to a decisive victory, a victory to
be followed by a lasting peace.
[signed] Bryce.
[caption under a picture] The Right Honourable Arthur James Balfour
"Here was a great British statesman equal to his place and fame.
He will long be remembered in America. He has done a high service
to Great Britain and all democracies." -- New York Times (Editorial)
Our Common Heritage
Not very long ago I happened to be dining in The Savoy Restaurant
in London one evening at a table close to the screen, when suddenly
there was a stir. People looked away from their dinners. The band
abruptly stopped the air it was playing, and after an instant's
pause struck up another. Every one in the crowded restaurant stood
up. And then there came in slowly from the outer hall a procession
of serious looking men in uniform, who, walking in couples, made
their way to a large table almost in the middle of the room. They
gained their places. The air ceased. The new comers sat down.
And we all went on with our dinners and our interrupted conversations.
What did we talk about? Well, I will dare forswear that at
all the tables the same subject was discussed. And that subject
was--America. For the air we had heard was "The Star Spangled
Banner," and the men we had seen were General Pershing, commanding
the first American contingent to France, and his Staff, who had
landed that day in England. It was a great moment for Britishers,
and those of us who were there will probably never forget it. For
it meant the beginning of a New Era, and, let us hope, of a new
sympathy and a new understanding.
Since then we have learnt something of what America is doing. We
know that ten millions of men have registered as material
for the American army, that a gigantic aircraft scheme and a huge
shipbuilding program are in process of realization; that enormous
camps and cantonments have been established for the training of
officers and men, that American women have crossed the Atlantic,
in spite of the great danger from submarines, to act as nurses at
the front, that the regular army has been increased to thrice its
former size, that the volunteer militia has been doubled through
voluntary enlistment, and that an immense expenditure has been voted
for war purposes. We know all this and we are glad, and thankful
that hands have been held out to us across the sea.
True sympathy and true understanding are very rare in this world.
Even between individuals they are not easy to bring about, and
between nations they are practically unknown. Diversity of tongues
builds up walls between the peoples. But the Americans and the
British ought to learn to draw near to each other, and surely the
end of this war, whenever it comes, will find them more inclined
for true friendship, for frank understanding, than they have ever
been yet, less critical of national failings, less clearsighted
for national faults. The brotherhood of man, which the idealistic
Russian sighs for, may only be a far away dream, but the brotherhood
of those who speak one language, have one great aim, and fight
side by side for freedom against force, law against lawlessness,
justice against persecution, right against evil, is a reality, and
must surely endure long after the smoke of the world war has faded
into the blue sky of peace, and the roar of the guns has died away
into the silence of the dawn for which humanity is longing.
The happy warriors lead us. Let us follow them and we shall attain
a goodly heritage.
[signed] Robert Hichens.
Poetic Justice
I
The blow fell without warning, and a typewritten notice informed
the Poet that the Cabinet Committee on Accommodation required the
tiny, thread-bare chambers in Stafford's Inn, where he had lived
unobtrusively for seven happy, insolvent years.
"'There was no worth in the fashion; there was no wit in the
plan,'" murmured the Poet. The rooms were too small even for a
Deputy-Director-General, and he knew that not one of the
silk-stockinged, short-skirted, starling-voiced young women
with bare arms and regimental badges, who acted as secretaries to
Deputy-Director-Generals, would consent to walk up four flights
of creaking, uncarpeted stairs to the dusty sparrows' nest on the
housetop that was his home.
For a while he scented a vendetta, but--deleterious poetry apart--he
had injured no man, and the personnel of the Cabinet Committee was
as little known to him as his poetry to the Cabinet Committee. In
general, too, he was the object of a certain popularity and pitying
regard; the Millionaire sent him presents of superfluous game each
year, the Iron King invited him at short notice to make a fourteenth
at dinner and the Official Receiver unloaded six bottles of sample
port wine when the Poet succumbed to his annual bronchitis. Even
the notice of eviction was politely worded and regretful; it was
also uncompromising in spirit, and the Poet made his hurried way
to four house-agents. No sooner had he started his requirements
to be a bed-sitting-room (with use of bath) within the four-mile
radius than all four agents offered him a Tudor manor house in
Westmoreland; further, they refused to offer him anything else, but
on his own initiative he discovered a studio in Glebe Place and a
service-flat in Victoria Street.
"I saw in the paper that you'd been turned out," said the Millionaire
that night, when the Poet trudged home, footsore and fretful, to
find his chambers occupied by the Iron King, the Private Secretary,
the Lexicographer, the Military Attaché and their friends. "What
are you going to do about it?" he continued with the relentlessness
of a man who likes a prompt decision, even if it be a wrong one.
"You know nothing about business, I'm sure; leases, premiums,
insurance, all that sort of thing. You're in a hole; I don't see
what more there is to be said."
So far the Poet, his mind wavering wearily between Glebe Place and
Victoria Street, had said nothing; he turned silently to the Iron
King, wondering how, without being rude, to indicate his desire
for bed.
"I saw rather a decent place that might suit you," drawled the
Private Secretary, smoothing a wrinkle out of his shapely silk
socks. "It's next to my Chief's in Belgrave Square. Of course,
I don't know what rent they want for it..."
The Iron King shook his head.