get her fleet practically destroyed. We ought also to be able to sweep
her shipping off the seas, and lower her flag forever in Africa and Asia
and the Pacific. All the probabilities, it seems to me, point to that.
There is no reason why Italy should not stick to her present neutrality,
and there is considerable inducement close at hand for both Denmark and
Japan to join in, directly they are convinced of the failure of the
first big rush on the part of Germany. All these issues will be more or
less definitely decided within the next two or three months. By that
time I believe German imperialism will be shattered, and it may be
possible to anticipate the end of the armaments phase of European
history. France, Italy, England, and all the smaller powers of Europe
are now pacific countries; Russia, after this huge war, will be too
exhausted for further adventure; a shattered Germany will be a
revolutionary Germany, as sick of uniforms and the imperialist idea as
France was in 1871, as disillusioned about predominance as Bulgaria is
today. The way will be open at last for all these western powers to
organize peace. That is why I, with my declared horror of war, have not
signed any of these "stop-the-war" appeals and declarations that have
appeared in the last few days. Every sword that is drawn against Germany
now is a sword drawn for peace.
*If the Germans Raid England*
*By H.G. Wells.*
*From The Times of London, Oct. 31, 1914.*
_To the Editor of The [London] Times_:
Sir: At the outset of the war I made a suggestion in your columns for
the enrollment of all that surplus of manhood and patriotic feeling
which remains after every man available for systematic military
operations has been taken. My idea was that comparatively undrilled boys
and older men, not sound enough for campaigning, armed with rifles, able
to shoot straight with them, and using local means of transport,
bicycles, cars, and so forth, would be a quite effective check upon an
enemy's scouting, a danger to his supplies, and even a force capable of
holding up a raiding advance--more particularly if that advance was poor
in horses and artillery, as an overseas raid was likely to be. I
suggested, too, that the mere enrollment and arming of the population
would have a powerful educational effect in steadying and unifying the
spirit of our people. My proposals were received with what seemed even a
forced amusement by the "experts." I was told that I knew nothing about
warfare, and that the Germans would not permit us to do anything of the
sort. The Germans, it seems, are the authorities in these matters, a
point I had overlooked. They would refuse to recognize men with only
improvised uniforms, they would shoot their prisoners--not that I had
proposed that my irregulars should become prisoners--and burn the
adjacent villages. This seemed to be an entirely adequate reply from the
point of view of the expert mind, and I gathered that the proper rôle
for such an able-bodied civilian as myself was to keep indoors while the
invader was about and supply him as haughtily as possible with light
refreshments and anything else he chose to requisition. I was also
reminded that if only men like myself had obeyed their expert advice and
worked in the past for national service and the general submission of
everything to expert military direction, these troubles would not have
arisen. There would have been no surplus of manhood and everything would
have gone as smoothly and as well for England as--the Press Censorship.
*An Improbable Invasion.*
For a time I was silenced. Under war conditions it is always a difficult
question to determine how far it is better to obey poor, or even bad,
directions or to criticise them in the hope of getting better. But the
course of the war since that correspondence and the revival of the idea
of a raid by your military correspondent provoke me to return to this
discussion. Frankly, I do not believe in that raid, and I think we play
the German game in letting our minds dwell upon it. I am supposed to be
a person of feverish imagination, but even by lashing my imagination to
its ruddiest I cannot, in these days of wireless telegraphy, see a
properly equipped German force, not even so trivial a handful as 20,000
of them, getting itself with guns, motors, ammunition, and provisions
upon British soil. I cannot even see a mere landing of infantrymen. I
believe in that raid even less than I do in the suggested raid of
navigables that has darkened London. I admit the risk of a few aeroplane
bombs in London, but I do not see why people should be subjected to
danger, darkness, and inconvenience on account of that one-in-a-million
risk. Still, as the trained mind does insist upon treating all
unenlisted civilians as panicstricken imbeciles and upon frightening old
ladies and influential people with these remote possibilities, and as it
is likely that these alarms may even lead to the retention of troops in
England when their point of maximum effectiveness is manifestly in
France, it becomes necessary to insist upon the ability of our civilian
population, if only the authorities will permit the small amount of
organization and preparation needed, to deal quite successfully with any
raid that in an extremity of German "boldness" may be attempted.
And, in the first place, let the expert have no illusions as to what we
ordinary people are going to do if we find German soldiers in England
one morning. We are going to fight. If we cannot fight with rifles, we
shall fight with shotguns, and if we cannot fight according to rules of
war apparently made by Germans for the restraint of British military
experts, we will fight according to our inner light. Many men, and not a
few women, will turn out to shoot Germans. There will be no preventing
them after the Belgian stories. If the experts attempt any pedantic
interference, we will shoot the experts. I know that in this matter I
speak for so sufficient a number of people that it will be quite useless
and hopelessly dangerous and foolish for any expert-instructed minority
to remain "tame." They will get shot, and their houses will be burned
according to the established German rules and methods on our account, so
they may just as well turn out in the first place, and get some shooting
as a consolation in advance for their inevitable troubles. And if the
raiders, cut off by the sea from their supports, ill-equipped as they
will certainly be, and against odds, are so badly advised as to try
terror-striking reprisals on the Belgian pattern, we irregulars will, of
course, massacre every German straggler we can put a gun to. Naturally.
Such a procedure may be sanguinary, but it is just the common sense of
the situation. We shall hang the officers and shoot the men. A German
raid to England will in fact not be fought--it will be lynched. War is
war, and reprisals and striking terror are games that two can play at.
This is the latent temper of the British countryside, and the sooner the
authorities take it in hand and regularize it the better will be the
outlook in the remote event of that hypothetical raid getting home to
us. Levity is a national characteristic, but submissiveness is not.
Under sufficient provocation the English are capable of very dangerous
bad temper, and the expert is dreaming who thinks of a German expedition
moving through an apathetic Essex, for example, resisted only by the
official forces trained and in training.
And whatever one may think of the possibility of raids, I venture to
suggest that the time has come when the present exclusive specialization
of our combatant energy upon the production of regulation armies should
cease. The gathering of these will go on anyhow; there are unlimited men
ready for intelligent direction. Now that the shortage of supplies and
accommodation has been remedied the enlistment sluices need only be
opened again. The rank and file of this country is its strength; there
is no need, and there never has been any need, for press hysterics about
recruiting. But there is wanted a far more vigorous stimulation of the
manufacture of material--if only experts and rich people would turn
their minds to that. It is the trading and manufacturing class that
needs goading at the present time. It is very satisfactory to send
troops to France, but in France there are still great numbers of
able-bodied, trained Frenchmen not fully equipped. It is our national
duty and privilege to be the storehouse and arsenal of the Allies. Our
factories for clothing and material of all sorts should be working day
and night. There is the point to which enthusiasm should be turned. It
is just as heroic and just as useful to the country to kill yourself
making belts and boots as it is to die in a trench. But our organization
for the enrollment and utilization of people not in the firing line is
still amazingly unsatisfactory. The one convenient alternative to
enlistment as a combatant at present is hospital work. But it is really
far more urgent to direct enthusiasm and energy now to the production of
war material. If this war does not end, as all the civilized world hopes
it will end, in the complete victory of the Allies, our failure will not
be through any shortage of men, but through a shortage of gear and
organizing ability. It will not be through a default of the people, but
through the slackness of the governing class.
*Arms and Equipment Needed.*
Now so far as the enrollment of us goes, of the surplus people who are
willing to be armed and to be used for quasi-military work at home, but
who are not of an age or not of a physique or who are already in shop or
office serving some quite useful purpose at home, we want certain very
simple things from the authorities. We want the military status that is
conferred by a specific enrollment and some sort of uniform. We want
accessible arms. They need not be modern service weapons; the rifles of
ten years ago are quite good enough for the possible need we shall have
for them. And we want to be sure that in the possible event of an
invasion the Government will have the decision to give every man in the
country a military status by at once resorting to the levée en masse.
Given a recognized local organization and some advice--it would not take
a week of Gen. Baden-Powell's time, for example, to produce a special
training book for us--we could set to work upon our own local drill,
rifle practice, and exercises, in such hours and ways as best suited our
locality. We could also organize the local transport, list local
supplies, and arrange for their removal or destruction if threatened.
Finally, we could set to work to convert a number of ordinary cars into
fighting cars by reconstructing and armoring them and exercising crews.
And having developed a discipline and self-respect as a fighting force,
we should be available not only for fighting work at home, in the
extremely improbable event of a raid, but also for all kinds of
supplementary purposes, as a reserve of motor drivers, as a supply of
physically exercised and half-trained recruits in the events of an
extended standard, and as a guarantee of national discipline under any
unexpected stress. Above all, we should be relieving the real fighting
forces of the country for the decisive area, which is in France and
Belgium now and will, I hope, be in Westphalia before the Spring.
At present we non-army people are doing only a fraction of what we would
like to do for our country. We are not being used. We are made to feel
out of it, and we watch the not always very able proceedings of the
military authorities and the international mischief-making of the
Censorship with a bitter resentment that is restrained only by the
supreme gravity of the crisis. For my own part I entertain three
Belgians and make a young officer possible by supplementing his
expenses, and my wife knits things. A neighbor, an able-bodied man of 42
and an excellent shot, is occasionally permitted to carry a recruit to
Chelmsford. If I try to use my pen on behalf of my country abroad, where
I have a few friends and readers, what I write is exposed to the clumsy
editing and delays of anonymous and apparently irresponsible officials.
So practically I am doing nothing, and a great number of people are
doing very little more. The authorities are concentrated upon the
creation of an army numerically vast, and for the rest they seem to
think that the chief function of government is inhibition. Their
available energy and ability is taxed to the utmost in maintaining the
fighting line, and it is sheer greed for direction that has led to their
systematic thwarting of civilian co-operation. Let me warn them of the
boredom and irritation they are causing. This is a people's war, a war
against militarism; it is not a war for the greater glory of British
diplomatists, officials, and people in uniforms. It is our war, not
their war, and the last thing we intend to result from it is a
permanently increased importance for the military caste.
Yours very sincerely,
H.G. WELLS.
*Sir Oliver Lodge's Comment*
_To the Editor of The [London] Times_:
Sir: In a strikingly vigorous letter Mr. H.G. Wells claims that a nation
of which every individual prefers death to submission is unconquerable
and cannot be successfully invaded. Ways of hampering an army are too
numerous, if people are willing to run every risk, not only for
themselves but for those dependent on them.
This may be admitted. And we may also agree that the British race would
be likely to risk everything if the consequences of carefully engendered
hate were loosed upon us. But here comes a point worthy of
consideration. An invasion of England is, to say the least, unlikely; an
invasion of Germany may soon have to be undertaken. May it not add to
the difficulties of our troops if a policy of "arming every woman,
child, and cat and dog" is favorably regarded by us? Is not such a
policy a sort of left-handed outcome of the Prussian contention that
even their own unarmed civilian populace is contemptible and may be
slaughtered without mercy if military procedure is resisted, or even if
supplies are not forthcoming?
It will be difficult, and I hope impossible, for the Allies to act in
accordance with this latter view; though the German peasantry may have
been so fed with lies that it will be unable to believe that our
soldiers can be trusted to behave like civilized beings when the time
has come for a forward march. It is clear that riotous license is
subversive of discipline, and conduces to defeat--as it probably has in
recent Continental experience. For, although ancient warriors used to
ravage a country, and although women have occasionally intervened in
order to stop a battle, surely never before in the history of the world
have women and children been forced forward in defense of a fighting
line! Yet undoubtedly war can be so conducted that foes mutually respect
each other; indeed, save for the cowardly abomination of floating mines,
this present war has been so conducted at sea. I suggest that the fair
procedure in case of invasion is for each civilian to choose whether to
be a combatant or not, and to incur the danger of an affirmative choice
in a sufficiently conspicuous and permanent manner. I am, Sir,
faithfully yours,
*OLIVER LODGE,* The University, Birmingham, Oct. 31.
*What the German Conscript Thinks*
*By Arnold Bennett.*
_Copyright_, 1914, _by The New York Times Company_.
Some hold that this is a war of Prussian militarism, and not a war of
the German people. This view has the merits of kindliness and
convenience. Others warn us not to be misled by such sentimentalists,
and assert that the heart of the German people is in the war. The point
is of importance to us, because the work of the conscript in the field
must be influenced by his private feelings. Notwithstanding all drill
and sergeantry, the German Army remains a collection of human
beings--and human beings more learned, if not better educated, than our
own race! It is not a mere fighting machine, despite the efforts of its
leaders to make it into one.
Among those who assert that the heart of the German people is in the war
are impartial and experienced observers who have carefully studied
Germany for many years. For myself, I give little value to their
evidence. To come at the truth by observation about a foreign country is
immensely, overpoweringly difficult. I am a professional observer: I
have lived in Paris and in the French provinces for nine years; I am
fairly familiar with French literature and very familiar with the French
language--and I honestly would not trust myself to write even a shilling
handbook about French character and life. Nearly all newspapers are
conservative; nearly all foreign correspondents adopt the official or
conventional point of view; and the pictures of foreign life which get
into the press are, as a rule--shall I say incomplete?
Even when the honest observer says, "These things I saw with my own eyes
and will vouch for," I am not convinced that he saw enough. An
intelligent foreigner with first-class introductions might go through
England and see with his own eyes that England was longing for
protection, the death of home rule, and the repeal of the Insurance act.
The unfortunate Prince Lichnowsky, after an exhaustive inquiry and
access to the most secret sources of exclusive information telegraphed
to the Kaiser less than a month ago that civil war was an immediate
certainty throughout Ireland. Astounding fatuity? Not at all. English
observers of England have made, and constantly do make, mistakes equally
prodigious. See Hansard every month. So that when I read demonstrations
of the thesis that the heart of the German people is in the war, I am
not greatly affected by them.
*German Heart Is In the War.*
Still, I do myself believe that the heart of the German people is in the
war, and that that heart is governed by two motives--the motive of
self-defense against Russia and the motive of overbearing
self-aggrandizement. I do not base my opinion on phenomena which I have
observed. Beyond an automobile journey through Schleswig-Holstein, which
was formidably tedious, and a yacht journey through the Kiel Canal and
Kiel Bay, which was somewhat impressive, I have never traveled in
Germany at all. I base my opinion on general principles. In a highly
educated and civilized country such as Germany (the word "civilized"
must soon take on a new significance!) it is impossible that an
autocracy, even a military autocracy, could exist unrooted in the
people. "Prussian militarism" may annoy many Germans, but it pleases
more than it annoys, and there can be few Germans who are not flattered
by it. That the lower classes have an even more tremendous grievance
against the upper classes in Germany than in England or France is a
certitude. But the existence and power of the army are their reward,
their sole reward, for all that they have suffered in hardship and
humiliation at the hands of the autocracy. It is the autocracy's bribe
and sweetmeat to them.
The Germans are a great nation; they have admirable qualities, but they
have also defects, and among their defects is a clumsy arrogance, which
may be noticed in any international hotel frequented by Germans. It is a
racial defect, and to try to limit it to the military autocracy is
absurd. An educated and civilized nation has roughly the Government that
it wants and deserves. And it has in the end ways of imposing itself on
its apparent rulers that are more effective than the ballot box or the
barricade, and just as sure. No election was needed to prove to the
Italian Government that Italy did not want to fight for the Triple
Alliance, and would not fight for it. The fact was known; it was
immanent in the air, beyond all arguments and persuasions. Italy
breathed a negative, and war was not. So in Germany the mass of Germans
have for years breathed war, and war is. The war may be autocratic,
dynastic, what you will; but it is also national, and it symbolizes the
national defect.
*How About the Leaders?*
Does the German conscript believe in the efficacy of his leaders? I mean
when he is lying awake and fatigued at night, not when he is shouting
"Hoch!" or watching the demeanor of women in front of him. Does no doubt
ever lancinate him? Again I would answer the question from general
principles and not from observation. The German conscript must know what
everybody knows--that in almost every bully there is a coward. And he
must know that he is led by bullies. He learned that in the barrack
yard. An enormous number of conscripts must also know that there is
something seriously wrong with a system that for the sake of its own
existence has killed freedom of the press. And the million little things
that are wrong in the system he also knows out of his own daily life as
a conscript. Further, he must be aware that there is a dearth of really
great men in his system. In the past there were in Germany men great
enough to mesmerize Europe--Bismarck and von Moltke. There is none today
that appeals to the popular imagination as Kitchener does in England or
Joffre in France. Alone, in Germany, the Kaiser has been able to achieve
a Continental renown. The Kaiser has good qualities. But twenty-four
years ago he committed an act of folly and (one may say) "bad form"
which nothing but results could justify, and which results have not
justified. Whatever his good qualities may be it is an absolute
certainty that common sense, foresight, and mental balance are not among
them. The conscript feels that, if he does not state it clearly to
himself. And as for the military organization of which the Kaiser is the
figurehead, it has shown for many years past precisely those signs which
history teaches us are signs of decay. It has not withstood the fearful
ordeal of success. Just lately, if not earlier, the conscript must have
felt that, too.
What is the conclusion? Take the average conscript, the member of the
lower middle class. He is accustomed to think politically, because at
least fifty out of every hundred of him are professed Socialists with a
definite and bitter political programme against certain manifestations
of the autocracy. (It is calculated that two-fifths of the entire army
is Socialist.) He may not argue very closely while in the act of war;
indeed, he could not. But enormous experience is accumulated in his
subconsciousness--experience of bullying and cowardice, of humiliation,
of injustice, of lying, and of his own most secret shortcomings--for he,
too, is somewhat of the bully, out for self-aggrandisement as well as
for self-defense, and his conscience privately tells him so. The
organization is still colossal, magnificent, terrific. In the general
fever of activity he persuades himself that nothing can withstand the
organization; but at the height of some hand-to-hand crisis, when
one-hundredth of a dogged grain of obstinacy will turn the scale, he may
remember an insult from an incompetent officer, or the protectionism at
home which puts meat beyond his purse in order to enrich the landowner,
or even the quite penal legislation of the autocracy against the
co-operative societies of the poor, and the memory (in spite of him) may
decide a battle. Men think of odd matters in a battle, and it is a
scientific certainty that, at the supreme pinch, the subconscious must
react.
*Felix Adler's Comment*
*From The Standard, Oct. 14, 1914.*
Apropos of a recent article by Mr. Arnold Bennett, wherein he speaks of
the resentment which the German soldiers--two-fifths of them
Socialists--must feel against the bullying discipline to which they have
been subjected, the following reflections are jotted down. The reader
who is interested in pursuing the subject further may profitably consult
a book entitled "Imperial Germany," by Prince von Bülow, which contains
some penetrating observations on the workings of the German mind, as
well as the chapter on Germany in Alfred Fouillée's notable work,
"Esquisse Psychologique des Peuples Européens."