In Europe, before it happened, there was a sense of peace in the
minds of the peoples. Do they remember how safe they felt? French
peasants in their fields were looking forward to a good harvest, the
French shopkeeper to a good season. Alsace Lorraine?... An old sore,
almost healed. Not worth re-opening at the price of the blood of a
single French soldier! The German folk were drinking their laager
beer as usual after days of industry. Their trade was good, they were
capturing the markets of the world. Life was good. The Junkers and the
militarists were talking rather loudly, and there was a lot of argument
about Germany being “hemmed in” and “insulted” by England, but it was,
after all, no more than high-sounding talk. The German Army was supreme
in Europe, unchallenged and unchallengeable. The German Fleet was the
Kaiser’s hobby. Who would attack them? Not France. Russia? Well, in
East Prussia that was a secret fear, something like a nightmare, a
bogey in the background of the mind—but really unthinkable. England?
Bah! England was friendly in the mass and without an army worth
mentioning. Poor old England! Weak and decadent as an Empire, without
the power to hold what she had grabbed. One day perhaps ... but not
with Socialism spreading in Germany like an epidemic. Anyhow, the good
old German God was presiding over the destiny of the great German
people, who were safe, strong, industrious, prosperous, and, for the
present, satisfied.
In England this sense of peace, I remember, was strongest. It was
hardly ruffled by any anxieties among the mass of our folk. There was
trouble in Ireland. There always had been. The suffragettes were a
horrible nuisance. Strikes were frequent and annoying. But the old
order of English life went on, placid, comfortable, with a sense
of absolute security. The aristocracy grumbled at the advance of
democracy, but within their old houses, their parklands and walled
gardens, they were undisturbed. They had great reserves of wealth. The
beauty of the life they had built around them was not invaded. Their
traditions of service, loyalties, sports, continued and would continue,
they believed, because those things belonged to the blood and spirit of
England.
Middle-class England was prosperous and contented. Business was good in
“a nation of shopkeepers,” in spite of fierce competition. Life—apart
from private tragedy—was comfortable, gay, with many social pleasures
unknown in Victorian days, with a greater sense of liberty in thought
and manners, and a higher standard of life for small folk. “God’s in
His Heaven, all’s right with the world!”—barring politics, newspaper
scares, women’s claims to votes—and Ireland. The people of the British
Isles felt utterly secure.
It was an inherited sense, a national tradition, an unquestioned faith.
It was their island prerogative. Now and again wars happened, but they
only gave a touch of Romance to life. The sons of the old families went
out and died like gentlemen, or came back to the music of brass bands,
after the usual victories over savage tribes, splendidly described by
artists and correspondents in the illustrated papers. Some of the young
lads from factories and fields went off and took the King’s Shilling,
and came back bronzed, with straighter backs, and a few medals. The
little Regular Army was the best in the world for its size. Not even
the Boer War, with its blunders, its inefficient generalship, and its
drain upon youth and money, touched in any vital way the foundations of
English life, its reserves of wealth, or its utter faith in national
security. The British Navy was supreme at sea.
The British people had no quarrel with any great Power. All talk
about a German menace, we thought, was the delusion of foolish old
gentlemen in military clubs, or the scaremongering of newspapers out
for circulation and sensation. The heart of England beat steadily to
the old rhythm of life in country houses and fields and workshops
and mean streets. Beneath the surface of modern change, progress and
accidental novelties, the spirit of England and of its sister peoples
was deep-rooted in the past and slow-moving towards new ideas. Outside
the big cities it was still feudal in respect for the old “quality,”
the old distinctions of class and service. The English people felt
themselves divided by a whole world from the Continent of Europe
because of that strip of sea about them. They had nothing to do, they
believed, with Continental quarrels, hatreds, fears, or armies. They
were safe from invasion, and masters of their own destiny. The Empire
was very useful for trade, peaceful in purpose, and easily controlled
by a few regiments if troubles arose among Indian hillsmen or African
tribes. They had peace in their hearts, no envy of other nations, no
military ambitions.
The English-speaking peoples, including the United States, believed
that the world was settling down to a long era of peace. War
was abominably old-fashioned! It was out of keeping with modern
civilisation and with its increasing humanity, decency, respect for
life, lack of cruelty, and general comfort. The world had reached a
higher stage of human brotherhood. Had not science itself made war
impossible between civilised peoples? The financial interests of
nations were too closely interwoven. Literature, art, education, good
manners, and liberal ideas had killed the very thought of war. We had
got beyond the Dark Ages.... So England and America thought, or among
those who did not think, felt—without question or misgiving.
Then the War happened.