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OUT TO WIN
THE STORY OF AMERICA IN FRANCE
BY
CONINGSBY DAWSON
AUTHOR OF "THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES," "CARRY ON: LETTERS IN WARTIME,"
ETC.
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
MCMXVIII
Copyright, 1918, BY JOHN LANE COMPANY
Press of J.J. Little & Ives Company New York, U.S.A.
TO
MY AMERICAN FRIENDS AND BROTHERS-IN-ARMS THIS FRANK APPRECIATION OF
THEIR EFFORT IN FRANCE IS DEDICATED
CONTENTS
PAGE
A PREFACE FOR FOOLS ONLY 9
"WE'VE GOT FOUR YEARS" 29
WAR AS A JOB 61
THE WAR OF COMPASSION 109
THE LAST WAR 196
A PREFACE FOR FOOLS ONLY
I am not writing this preface for the conscious fool, but for his
self-deceived brother who considers himself a very wise person. My
hope is that some persons may recognise themselves and be provided
with food for thought. They will usually be people who have
contributed little to this war, except mean views and endless talk.
Had they shared the sacrifice of it, they would have developed within
themselves the faculty for a wider generosity. The extraordinary thing
about generosity is its eagerness to recognise itself in others.
You find these untravelled critics and mischief-makers on both sides
of the Atlantic. In most cases they have no definite desire to work
harm, but they have inherited cantankerous prejudices which date back
to the American Revolution, and they lack the vision to perceive that
this war, despite its horror and tragedy, is the God-given chance of
centuries to re-unite the great Anglo-Saxon races of the world in
a truer bond of kindness and kinship. If we miss this chance we are
flinging in God's face His splendid recompense for our common heroism.
It is an unfortunate fact that the merely foolish person constitutes
as grave a danger as the deliberate plotter. His words, if they are
acid enough, are quoted and re-quoted. They pass from mouth to mouth,
gaining in authority. By the time they reach the friendly country
at which they are directed, they have taken on the appearance of an
opinion representative of a nation. The Hun is well aware of the value
of gossip for the encouraging of divided counsels among his enemies.
He invents a slander, pins it to some racial grievance, confides it
to the fools among the Allies and leaves them to do the rest. Some
of them wander about in a merely private capacity, nagging without
knowledge, depositing poison, breeding doubts as to integrity, and
all the while pretending to maintain a mildly impartial and judicial
mental attitude. Their souls never rise from the ground. Their
brains are gangrenous with memories of cancelled malice. They suspect
hero-worship; it smacks to them of sentiment. They examine, but
never praise. Being incapable of sacrifice, they find something
meretriciously melodramatic about men and nations who are capable. Had
they lived nineteen hundred years ago, they would have haunted Calvary
to discover fraud.
Then, there are others, by far more dangerous. These make their
appearance daily in the morning press, thrusting their pessimisms
across our breakfast tables, beleaguering our faith with ill-natured
judgements and querulous warnings. One of our London Dailies, for
instance, specializes in annoying America; it works as effectively to
breed distrust as if its policy were dictated from Berlin.
I have just returned from a prolonged tour of America's activities in
France. Wherever I went I heard nothing but unstinted appreciation
of Great Britain's surpassing gallantry: "We never knew that you
Britishers were what you are; you never told us. We had to come over
here to find out." When that had been said I always waited, for I
guessed the qualifying statement that would follow: "There's only
one thing that makes us mad. Why the devil does your censor allow the
P---- to sneer at us every morning? Your army doesn't feel that way
towards us; at least, if it ever did, it doesn't now. Are there really
people in England who--?"
At this point I would cut my questioner short: "There are men so
short-sighted in every country that, to warm their hands, they would
burn the crown of thorns. You have them in America. Such men are not
representative."
The purpose of this book is to tell what America has done, is doing,
and, on the strength of her splendid and accomplished facts, to plead
for a closer friendship between my two countries. As an Englishman who
has lived in the States for ten years and is serving with the
Canadian Forces, I feel that I have a sympathetic understanding of
the affections and aloofnesses of both nations; as a member of both
families I claim the domestic right of indulging in a little plain
speaking to each in turn.
In my appeal I leave the fighting men out of the question. Death is
a universal teacher of charity. At the end of the war the men who
survive will acknowledge no kinship save the kinship of courage. To
have answered the call of duty and to have played the man, will make
a closer bond than having been born of the same mother. At a New York
theatre last October I met some French officers who had fought on the
right of the Canadian Corps frontage at the Somme. We got to talking,
commenced remembering, missed the entire performance and parted as old
friends. In France I stayed with an American-Irish Division. They were
for the most part American citizens in the second generation: few of
them had been to Ireland. As frequently happens, they were more Irish
than the Irish. They had learned from their parents the abuses which
had driven them to emigrate, but had no knowledge of the reciprocal
provocations which had caused the abuses. Consequently, when they
sailed on their troop-ships for France they were anti-British almost
to a man--many of them were theoretically Sinn Feiners. They were
coming to fight for France and for Lafayette, who had helped to lick
Britain--but not for the British. By the time I met them they were
marvellously changed. They were going into the line almost any day
and--this was what had worked the change--they had been trained for
their ordeal by British N.C.O.'s and officers. They had swamped their
hatred and inherited bitterness in admiration. Their highest hope
was that they might do as well as the British. "They're men if you
like," they said. In the imminence of death, their feeling for these
old-timers, who had faced death so often, amounted to hero-worship. It
was good to hear them deriding the caricature of the typical Briton,
which had served in their mental galleries as an exact likeness for
so many years. It was proof to me that men who have endured the same
hell in a common cause will be nearer in spirit, when the war is
ended, than they are to their own civilian populations. For in all
belligerent countries there are two armies fighting--the military
and the civilian; either can let the other down. If the civilian army
loses its _morale_, its vision, its unselfishness, and allows itself
to be out-bluffed by the civilian army of Germany, it as surely
betrays its soldiers as if it joined forces with the Hun. We execute
soldiers for cowardice; it's a pity that the same law does not govern
the civilian army. There would be a rapid revision in the tone of
more than one English and American newspaper. A soldier is shot
for cowardice because his example is contagious. What can be more
contagious than a panic statement or a doubt daily reiterated? Already
there are many of us who have a kindlier feeling and certainly
more respect for a Boche who fights gamely, than for a Britisher
or American who bickers and sulks in comfort. Only one doubt as
to ultimate victory ever assails the Western Front: that it may be
attacked in the rear by the premature peace negotiations of the
civil populations it defends. Should that ever happen, the Western
Front would cease to be a mixture of French, Americans, Canadians,
Australians, British and Belgians; it would become a nation by itself,
pledged to fight on till the ideals for which it set out to fight are
definitely established.
We get rather tired of reading speeches in which civilians presume
that the making of peace is in their hands. The making may be, but the
acceptance is in ours. I do not mean that we love war for war's sake.
We love it rather less than the civilian does. When an honourable
peace has been confirmed, there will be no stauncher pacifist than
the soldier; but we reserve our pacifism till the war is won. We
shall be the last people in Europe to get war-weary. We started with
a vision--the achieving of justice; we shall not grow weary till that
vision has become a reality. When one has faced up to an ultimate
self-denial, giving becomes a habit. One becomes eager to be allowed
to give all--to keep none of life's small change. The fury of an
ideal enfevers us. We become fanatical to outdo our own best record
in self-surrender. Many of us, if we are alive when peace is declared,
will feel an uneasy reproach that perhaps we did not give enough.
This being the spirit of our soldiers, it is easy to understand their
contempt for those civilians who go on strike, prate of weariness,
scream their terror when a few Hun planes sail over London, devote
columns in their papers to pin-prick tragedies of food-shortage, and
cloud the growing generosity between England and America by cavilling
criticisms and mean reflections. Their contempt is not that of the
fighter for the man of peace; but the scorn of the man who is doing
his duty for the shirker.
A Tommy is reading a paper in a muddy trench. Suddenly he scowls,
laughs rather fiercely and calls to his pal, jerking his head as a
sign to him to hurry. "'Ere Bill, listen to wot this 'ere cry-baby
says. 'E thinks we're losin' the bloomin' war 'cause 'e didn't get an
egg for breakfast. Losin' the war! A lot 'e knows abart it. A blinkin'
lot 'e's done either to win or lose it. Yus, I don't think! Thank
Gawd, we've none of 'is sort up front."
To men who have gazed for months with the eyes of visionaries on
sudden death, it comes as a shock to discover that back there, where
life is so sweetly certain, fear still strides unabashed. They had
thought that fear was dead--stifled by heroism. They had believed that
personal littleness had given way before the magnanimity of martyrdom.
In this plea, then, for a firmer Anglo-American friendship I address
the civilian populations of both countries. The fate of such a
friendship is in their hands. In the Eden of national destinies God
is walking; yet there are those who bray their ancient grievances so
loudly that they all but drown the sound of His footsteps.
Being an Englishman it will be more courteous to commence with the
fools of my own flesh and blood. Let me paint a contrast.
Last October I sailed back from New York with a company of American
officers; they consisted in the main of trained airmen, Navy experts
and engineers. Before my departure the extraordinary sternness of
America, her keenness to rival her allies in self-denial, her willing
mobilisation of all her resources, had confirmed my optimism gained in
the trenches, that the Allies must win; the mere thought of compromise
was impossible and blasphemous. This optimism was enhanced on the
voyage by the conduct of the officers who were my companions. They
carried their spirit of dedication to an excess that was almost
irksome. They refused to play cards. They were determined not
to relax. Every minute they could snatch was spent in studying
text-books. Their country had come into the war so late that they
resented any moment lost from making themselves proficient. When
expostulated with they explained themselves by saying, "When we've
done our bit it will be time to amuse ourselves." They were dull
company, but, in a time of war, inspiring. All their talk was of when
they reached England. Their enthusiasm for the Britisher was such
that they expected to be swept into a rarer atmosphere by the closer
contact with heroism.
We had an Englishman with us--obviously a consumptive. He typified for
them the doggedness of British pluck. He had been through the entire
song and dance of the Mexican Revolution; a dozen times he had been
lined up against a wall to be shot. From Mexico he had escaped to New
York, hoping to be accepted by the British military authorities. Not
unnaturally he had been rejected. The purpose of his voyage to the Old
Country was to try his luck with the Navy. He held his certificate as
a highly qualified marine engineer. No one could persuade him that
he was not wanted. "I could last six months," he said, "it would be
something. Heaps of chaps don't last as long."
This man, a crock in every sense, hurrying back to help his country,
symbolised for every American aboard the unconquerable courage of
Great Britain. If you hadn't the full measure of years to give, give
what was left, even though it were but six months. I may add that
in England his services were accepted. His persistence refused to be
disregarded. When red-tape stopped his progress, he used back-stairs
strategy. No one could bar him from his chance of serving.
In believing that he represented the Empire at its best, my Americans
were not mistaken. There are thousands fighting to-day who share his
example. One is an ex-champion sculler of Oxford; even in those days
he was blind as a bat. His subsequent performance is consistent with
his record; we always knew that he had guts. At the start of the war,
he tried to enlist and was turned down on the score of eyesight. He
tried four times with no better result. The fifth time he presented
himself he was fool-proof; he had learnt the eyesight tests by heart.
He went out a year ago as a "one pip artist"--a second lieutenant.
Within ten months he had become a captain and was acting
lieutenant-colonel of his battalion, all the other officers having
been killed or wounded. At Cambrai he did such gallant work that he
was personally congratulated by the general of his division. These
American officers had heard such stories; they regarded England with a
kind of worship. As men who hoped to be brave but were untested, they
found something mystic and well-nigh incredible in such utter courage.
The consumptive racing across the Atlantic that he might do something
for England before death took him, made this spirit real to them.
We travelled to London as a party and there for a time we held
together. The night before several set out for France, we had a
farewell gathering. The consumptive, who had just obtained his
commission, was in particularly high feather; he brought with him a
friend, a civilian official in the Foreign Office. Please picture the
group: all men who had come from distant parts of the world to do one
job; men in the army, navy, and flying service; every one in uniform
except the stranger.
Talk developed along the line of our absolute certainty as to complete
and final victory. The civilian stranger commenced to raise his voice
in dissent. We disputed his statements. He then set to work to run
through the entire argument of pessimism: America was too far away to
be effective; Russia was collapsing; France was exhausted; England had
reached the zenith of her endeavour; Italy was not united in purpose.
On every front he saw a black cloud rising and took a dyspeptic's
delight in describing it as a little blacker than he saw it. There was
an apostolic zeal about the man's dreary earnestness. He spoke with
that air of authority which is not uncommon with civilian Government
officials. The Americans stared rather than listened; this was not
the mystic and utter courage which they had expected to find well-nigh
incredible. Their own passion far out-topped it.
The argument reached a sudden climax. There were wounded officers
present. One of them said, "You wouldn't speak that way if you had the
foggiest conception of the kind of chaps we have in the trenches."
"It makes no difference what kind they are," the pessimist replied
intolerantly. "I'm asking you to face facts. Because you've succeeded
in an attack, you soldiers seem to think that the war is ended. You
base your arguments all the time on your little local knowledge of
your own particular front."
The discussion ceased abruptly. Every one sprang up. Voices strove
together in advising this "facer of facts" to get into khaki and
to go to where he could obtain precisely the same kind of little
local knowledge--perhaps, a few wounds as well. His presence was
dishonourable--contaminating. We filed out and left him sitting humped
in a chair, looking puzzled and pathetic, murmuring, "But I thought I
was among friends."
My last clear-cut recollection is of a chubby young American
Naval Airman standing over him, with clenched fists, passionately
instructing him in the spiritual geography of America. That's one
type of fool; the type who specialises in catastrophe; the type who in
eternally facing up to facts, takes no account of that magic quality,
courage, which can make one man more terrible than an army; the type
who is so profoundly well-informed, about externals, that he ignores
the mightiness of soul that can remould externals to spiritual
purposes. Were I a German, the spectacle of that solitary consumptive
leaving the climate which meant life to him and hastening home to give
just six months of service to his country, would be more menacing than
the loss of an entire corps frontage.
And there's the type who can't forget; he suffers from a fundamental
lack of generosity. The Englishman of this type can't refrain from
quoting such phrases as, "Too proud to fight," whenever opportunity
offers. His American counterpart insists that he is not fighting for
Great Britain, but for the French. He makes himself offensive by
silly talk about sister republics, implying that all other forms of
Government are essentially tyrannic. He never loses an opportunity
to mention Lafayette, assuming that one French man is worth ten
Britishers. A very gross falsehood is frequently on the lips of this
sort of man; he doesn't know where he picked it up and has never
troubled to test its accuracy. I can tell him where it originated; at
Berlin in the bureau for Hun propaganda. Every time he utters it he is
helping the enemy. This falsehood is to the effect that Great Britain
has conserved her man-power; that in the early days she let Frenchmen
do the fighting and that now she is marking time till Americans are
ready to die in her stead. This statement is so stupendously untrue
that it goes unheeded by those who know the empty homes of England or
have witnessed the gallantry of our piled-up dead.
Then there's the jealous fool--the fool who in England will see no
reason why this book should have been published. His line of argument
will be, "We've been in this war for more than three years. We've done
everything that America is doing; because she's new to the game, we're
doing it much better. We don't want any one to appreciate us, so why
go praising her?" Precisely. Why be decent? Why seek out affections?
Why be polite or kindly? Why not be automatons? I suppose the answer
is, "Because we happen to be men, and are privileged temporarily to be
playing in the rôle of heroes. The heroic spirit rather educates one
to hold out the hand of friendship to new arrivals of the same sort."
There is one type of fool, exclusively American, whose stupidity
arises from love and tenderness. Very often she is a woman. She
has been responsible for the arrival in France of a number of
narrow-minded and well-intentioned persons; their errand is to
investigate vice-conditions in the U.S. Army. This suspicion of the
women at home concerning the conduct of their men in the field, is
directly traceable to reports of the debasing influences of war set in
circulation by the anti-militarists. I want to say emphatically that
cleaner, more earnest, better protected troops than those from the
United States are not to be found in Europe. Both in Great Britain and
on the Continent their puritanism has created a deep impression. By
their idealism they have made their power felt; they are men with a
vision in their eyes, who have travelled three thousand miles to keep
a rendezvous with death. That those for whom they are prepared to die
should suspect them is a degrading disloyalty. That trackers should
be sent after them from home to pick up clues to their unworthiness
is sheerly damnable. To disparage the heroism of other nations is
bad enough; to distrust the heroes of your own flesh and blood,
attributing to them lower than civilian moral standards, is to be
guilty of the meanest treachery and ingratitude.
Here, then, are some of the sample fools to whom this preface is
addressed. The list could be indefinitely lengthened. "The fool hath
said in his heart, 'There is no God'." He says it in many ways and
takes a long while in saying it; but the denying of God is usually the
beginning and the end of his conversation. He denies the vision of
God in his fellow-men and fellow-nations, even when the spikes of the
cross are visibly tearing wounds in their feet and hands.
Life has swung back to a primitive decision since the war commenced.
The decision is the same for both men and nations. They can choose the
world or achieve their own souls. They can cast mercenary lots for
the raiment of a crucified righteousness or take up their martyrdom
as disciples. Those men and nations who have been disciples together
can scarcely fail to remain friends when the tragedy is ended. What
the fool says in his heart at this present is not of any lasting
importance. There will always be those who mock, offering vinegar in
the hour of agony and taunting, "If thou be what thou sayest...." But
in the comradeship of the twilit walk to Emmaus neither the fool nor
the mocker are remembered.
OUT TO WIN
I
"WE'VE GOT FOUR YEARS"
The American Troops have set words to one of their bugle calls. These
words are indicative of their spirit--of the calculated determination
with which they have faced up to their adventure: an adventure
unparalleled for magnitude in the history of their nation.
They fall in in two ranks. They tell off from the right in fours.
"Move to the right in fours. Quick March," comes the order. The
bugles strike up. The men swing into column formation, heads erect
and picking up the step. To the song of the bugles they chant words as
they march. "We've got four years to do this job. We've got four years
to do this job."
That is the spirit of America. Her soldiers give her four years, but
to judge from the scale of her preparations she might be planning for
thirty.
America is out to win. I write this opening sentence in Paris where I
am temporarily absent from my battery, that I may record the story of
America's efforts in France. My purpose is to prove with facts that
America is in the war to her last dollar, her last man, and for just
as long as Germany remains unrepentant. Her strength is unexpended,
her spirit is un-war-weary. She has a greater efficient man-power
for her population than any nation that has yet entered the arena
of hostilities. Her resources are continental rather than national;
it is as though a new and undivided Europe had sprung to arms in
moral horror against Germany. She has this to add fierceness to her
soul--the reproach that she came in too late. That reproach is being
wiped out rapidly by the scarlet of self-imposed sacrifice. She did
come in late--for that very reason she will be the last of Germany's
adversaries to withdraw.
She did not want to come in at all. Many of her hundred million
population emigrated to her shores out of hatred of militarism and to
escape from just such a hell as is now raging in Europe. At first it
seemed a far cry from Flanders to San Francisco. Philanthropy could
stretch that far, but not the risking of human lives. Moreover, the
American nation is not racially a unit; it is bound together by
its ideal quest for peaceful and democratic institutions. It was a
difficult task for any government to convince so remote a people that
their destiny was being made molten in the furnace of the Western
Front; when once that truth was fully apprehended the diverse souls
of America leapt up as one soul and declared for war. In so doing the
people of the United States forewent the freedom from fear that they
had gained by their journey across the Atlantic; they turned back in
their tracks to smite again with renewed strength and redoubled hate
the old brutal Fee-Fo-Fum of despotism, from whose clutches they
thought they had escaped.
America's is the case of The Terrible Meek; for two and a half years
she lulled Germany and astonished the Allies by her abnormal patience.
The most terrifying warriors of history have been peace-loving nations
hounded into hostility by outraged ideals. Certainly no nation was
ever more peace-loving than the American. To the boy of the Middle
West the fury of kings must have read like a fairy-tale. The appeal to
armed force was a method of compelling righteousness which his entire
training had taught him to view with contempt as obsolete. Yet never
has any nation mobilised its resources more efficiently, on so titanic
a scale, in so brief a space of time to re-establish justice with
armed force. The outraged ideal which achieved this miracle was the
denial by the Hun of the right of every man to personal liberty and
happiness.
Few people guessed that America would fling her weight so utterly into
the winning of the Allied cause. Those who knew her best thought it
scarcely possible. Germany, who believed she knew her, thought it
least of all. German statesmen argued that America had too much to
lose by such a decision--too little to gain; the task of transporting
men and materials across three thousand miles of ocean seemed
insuperable; the differing traditions of her population would make it
impossible for her to concentrate her will in so unusual a direction.
Basing their arguments on a knowledge of the deep-seated selfishness
of human nature, Hun statesmen were of the fixed opinion that no
amount of insult would compel America to take up the sword.
Two and a half years before, those same statesmen made the same
mistake with regard to Great Britain and her Dominions. The British
were a race of shop-keepers; no matter how chivalrous the call,
nothing would persuade them to jeopardise their money-bags. If they
did for once leap across their counters to become Sir Galahads, then
the Dominions would seize that opportunity to secure their own base
safety and to fling the Mother Country out of doors. The British gave
these students of selfishness a surprise from which their military
machine has never recovered, when the "Old Contemptibles" held up the
advance of the Hun legions and won for Europe a breathing-space. The
Dominions gave them a second lesson in magnanimity when Canada's lads
built a wall with their bodies to block the drive at Ypres. America
refuted them for the third time, when she proved her love of
world-liberty greater than her affection for the dollar, bugling
across the Atlantic her shrill challenge to mailed bestiality. Germany
has made the grave mistake of estimating human nature at its lowest
worth as she sees it reflected in her own face. In every case, in
her judgment of the two great Anglo-Saxon races, she has been at
fault through over-emphasising their capacity for baseness and
under-estimating their capacity to respond to an ideal. It was an
ideal that led the Pilgrim Fathers westward; after more than two
hundred years it is an ideal which pilots their sons home again,
racing through danger zones in their steel-built greyhounds that they
may lay down their lives in France.
In view of the monumental stupidity of her diplomacy Germany has found
it necessary to invent explanations. The form these have taken as
regards America has been the attributing of fresh low motives. Her
object at first was to prove to the world at large how very little
difference America's participation in hostilities would make. When
America tacitly negatived this theory by the energy with which she
raised billions and mobilised her industries, Hun propagandists, by
an ingenious casuistry, spread abroad the opinion that these mighty
preparations were a colossal bluff which would redound to Germany's
advantage. They said that President Wilson had bided his time so that
his country might strut as a belligerent for only the last six months,
and so obtain a voice in the peace negotiations. He did not intend
that America should fight, and was only getting his armies ready that
they might enforce peace when the Allies were exhausted and already
counting on Americans manning their trenches. Inasmuch as his country
would neither have sacrificed nor died, he would be willing to give
Germany better terms; therefore America's apparent joining of the
Allies was a camouflage which would turn out an advantage to Germany.
This lie, with variations, has spread beyond the Rhine and gained
currency in certain of the neutral nations.
Four days after President Wilson's declaration of war the Canadians
captured Vimy Ridge. As the Hun prisoners came running like scared
rabbits through the shell-fire, we used to question them as to
conditions on their side of the line. Almost the first question that
was asked was, "What do you think about the United States?" By far the
most frequent reply was, "We have submarines; the United States will
make no difference." The answer was so often in the same formula that
it was evident the men had been schooled in the opinion. It was only
the rare man of education who said, "It is bad--very bad; the worst
mistake we have made."
We, in the front-line, were very far from appreciating America's
decision at its full value. For a year we had had the upper-hand of
the Hun. To use the language of the trenches, we knew that we could go
across No Man's Land and "beat him up" any time we liked. To tell the
truth, many of us felt a little jealous that when, after two years of
punishment, we had at last become top-dog, we should be called upon
to share the glory of victory with soldiers of the eleventh hour. We
believed that we were entirely capable of finishing the job without
further aid. My own feeling, as an Englishman living in New York, was
merely one of relief--that now, when war was ended, I should be able
to return to friends of whom I need not be ashamed. To what extent
America's earnestness has changed that sentiment is shown by the
expressed desire of every Canadian, that if Americans are anywhere on
the Western Front, they ought to be next to us in the line. "They are
of our blood," we say; "they will carry on our record." Only those
who have had the honour to serve with the Canadian Corps and know its
dogged adhesion to heroic traditions, can estimate the value of this
compliment.
I should say that in the eyes of the combatant, after President
Wilson, Mr. Ford has done more than any other one man to interpret the
spirit of his nation; our altered attitude towards him typifies our
altered attitude towards America. Mr. Ford, the impassioned pacifist,
sailing to Europe in his ark of peace, staggered our amazement.
Mr. Ford, still the impassioned pacifist, whose aeroplane engines
will help to bomb the Hun's conscience into wakefulness, staggers
our amazement but commands our admiration. We do not attempt to
understand or reconcile his two extremes of conduct, but as fighters
we appreciate the courage of soul that made him "about turn" to
search for his ideal in a painful direction when the old friendly
direction had failed. Here again it is significant that both with
regard to individuals and nations, Germany's sternest foes are
war-haters--war-haters to such an extent that their principles at
times have almost shipwrecked their careers. In England our example is
Lloyd George. Throughout the Anglo-Saxon world the slumbering spirit
of Cromwell's Ironsides has sprung to life, reminding the British
Empire and the United States of their common ancestry. After a hundred
and forty years of drifting apart, we stand side by side like our
forefathers, the fighting pacifists at Naseby; like them, having
failed to make men good with words, we will hew them into virtue with
the sword.
At the end of June I went back to Blighty wounded. One of my most
vivid recollections of the time that followed is an early morning
in July; it must have been among the first of the days that I was
allowed out of hospital. London was green and leafy. The tracks of
the tramways shone like silver in the sunlight. There was a spirit of
release and immense good humour abroad. My course followed the river
on the south side, all a-dance with wind and little waves. As I
crossed the bridge at Westminster I became aware of an atmosphere
of expectation. Subconsciously I must have been noticing it for some
time. Along Whitehall the pavements were lined with people, craning
their necks, joking and jostling, each trying to better his place.
Trafalgar Square was jammed with a dense mass of humanity, through
which mounted police pushed their way solemnly, like beadles in a vast
unroofed cathedral. Then for the first time I noticed what I ought
to have noticed long before, that the Stars and Stripes were
exceptionally prevalent. Upon inquiry I was informed that this was the
day on which the first of the American troops were to march. I picked
up with a young officer or the Dublin Fusiliers and together we
forced our way down Pall Mall to the office of The Cecil Rhodes Oxford
Scholars' Foundation. From here we could watch the line of march from
Trafalgar Square to Marlborough House. While we waited, I scanned the
group-photographs on the walls, some of which contained portraits of
German Rhodes Scholars with whom I had been acquainted. I remembered
how they had always spent their vacations in England, assiduously
bicycling to the most unexpected places. In the light of later
developments I thought I knew the reason.
Suddenly, far away bands struck up. We thronged the windows, leaning
out that we might miss nothing. Through the half mile of people
that stretched between us and the music a shudder of excitement was
running. Then came cheers--the deep-throated babel of men's voices and
the shrill staccato of women's. "They're coming," some one cried; then
I saw them.
I forget which regiment lead. The Coldstreams were there, the Scotch
and Welsh Guards, the Irish Guards with their saffron kilts and green
ribbons floating from their bag-pipes. A British regimental band
marched ahead of each American regiment to do it honour. Down the
sunlit canyon of Pall Mall they swung to the tremendous cheering
of the crowd. Quite respectable citizens had climbed lamp-posts and
railings, and were waving their hats. I caught the words that were
being shouted, "Are we downhearted?" Then, in a fierce roar of denial,
"No!" It was a wonderful ovation--far more wonderful than might have
been expected from a people who had grown accustomed to the sight of
troops during the last three years. The genuineness of the welcome
was patent; it was the voice of England that was thundering along the
pavements.
I was anxious to see the quality of the men which America had sent.
They drew near; then I saw them plainly. They were fine strapping
chaps, broad of shoulder and proudly independent. They were not
soldiers yet; they were civilians who had been rushed into khaki.
Their equipment was of every kind and sort and spoke eloquently of the
hurry in which they had been brought together. That meant much to us
in London-much more than if they had paraded with all the "spit and
polish" of the crack troops who led them. It meant to us that America
was doing her bit at the earliest date possible.
The other day, here in France, I met an officer of one of those
battalions; he told me the Americans' side of the story. They were
expert railroad troops, picked out of civilian life and packed off
to England without any pretence at military training. When they
were informed that they were to be the leading feature in a London
procession, many of them even lacked uniforms. With true American
democracy of spirit, the officers stripped their rank-badges from
their spare tunics and lent them to the privates, who otherwise could
not have marched.
"I'm satisfied," my friend said, "that there were Londoners so doggone
hoarse that night that they couldn't so much as whisper."
What impressed the men most of all was the King's friendly greeting of
them at Buckingham Palace. There were few of them who had ever seen
a king before. "Friendly--that's the word! From the King downwards
they were all so friendly. It was more like a family party than a
procession; and on the return journey, when we marched at ease, old
ladies broke up our formations to kiss us. Nice and grandmotherly of
them we thought."
This, as I say, I learnt later in France; at the time I only knew
that the advance-guard of millions was marching. As I watched them
my eyes grew misty. Troops who have already fought no longer stir
me; they have exchanged their dreams of glory for the reality of
sacrifice--they know to what they may look forward. But untried troops
have yet to be disillusioned; dreams of the pomp of war are still in
their eyes. They have not yet owned that they are merely going out to
die obscurely.
That day made history. It was then that England first vividly realised
that America was actually standing shoulder to shoulder at her side.
In making history it obliterated almost a century and a half of
misunderstanding. I believe I am correct in saying that the last
foreign troops to march through London were the Hessians, who fought
against America in the Revolution, and that never before had foreign
volunteers marched through England save as conquerors.
On my recovery I was sent home on sick leave and spent a month in New
York. No one who has not been there since America joined the Allies
can at all realise the change that has taken place. It is a change
of soul, which no statistics of armaments can photograph. America
has come into the war not only with her factories, her billions
and her man-power, but with her heart shining in her eyes. All her
spread-eagleism is gone. All her aggressive industrial ruthlessness
has vanished. With these has been lost her youthful contempt for older
civilisations, whom she was apt to regard as decaying because they
sent her emigrants. She has exchanged her prejudices for admiration
and her grievances for kindness. Her "Hats off" attitude to France,
England, Belgium and to every nation that has shed blood for the cause
which now is hers, was a thing which I had scarcely expected; it was
amazing. As an example of how this attitude is being interpreted
into action, school-histories throughout the United States are being
re-written, so that American children of the future may be trained in
friendship for Great Britain, whereas formerly stress was laid on the
hostilities of the eighteenth century which produced the separation.
As a further example, many American boys, who for various reasons were
not accepted by the military authorities in their own country, have
gone up to Canada to join.
One such case is typical. Directly it became evident that America was
going into the war, one boy, with whom I am acquainted, made up his
mind to be prepared to join. He persuaded his father to allow him
to go to a Flying School to train as a pilot. Having obtained his
certificate, he presented himself for enlistment and was turned down
on the ground that he was lacking in a sense of equipoise. Being too
young for any other branch of the service, he persuaded his family to
allow him to try his luck in Canada. Somehow, by hook or by crook, he
had to get into the war. The Royal Flying Corps accepted him with the
proviso that he must take out his British naturalisation papers.
This changing of nationality was a most bitter pill for his family to
swallow. The boy had done his best to be a soldier; he was the eldest
son, and there they would willingly have had the matter rest. Moreover
they could compel the matter to rest there, for, being under age, he
could not change his nationality without his father's consent. It was
his last desperate argument that turned the decision in his favour,
"If it's a choice between my honour and my country, I choose my honour
every time." So now he's a Britisher, learning "spit and polish" and
expecting to bring down a Hun almost any day.
One noticed in almost the smallest details how deeply America had
committed her conscience to her new undertaking. While in England
we grumble about a food-control which is absolutely necessary to our
preservation, America is voluntarily restricting herself not for her
own sake, but for the sake of the Allies. They say that they are
being "Hooverized," thus coining a new word out of Mr. Hoover's name.
Sometimes these Hooverish practices produce contrasts which are rather
quaint. I went to stay with a friend who had just completed as his
home an exact reproduction of a palace in Florence. Whoever went
short, there was little that he could not afford. At our meals I
noticed that I was the only person who was served with butter and
sugar, and enquired why. "It's all right for you," I was told; "you're
a soldier; but if we eat butter and sugar, some of the Allies who
really need them will have to go short." A small illustration, but one
that is typical of a national, sacrificial, underlying thought.
Later I met with many instances of the various forms in which this
thought is taking shape. I was in America when the Liberty War Loan
was so amazingly over-subscribed. I saw buses, their roofs crowded
with bands and orators, doing the tour of street-corners. Every store
of any size, every railroad, every bank and financial corporation had
set for its employés and customers the ideal sum which it considered
that they personally ought to subscribe. This ideal sum was recorded
on the face of a clock, hung outside the building. As the gross
amount actually collected increased, the hands were seen to revolve.
Everything that eloquence and ingenuity could devise was done to
gather funds for the war. Big advertisers made a gift of their
newspaper space to the nation. There were certain public-spirited men
who took up blocks of war-bonds, making the request that no interest
should be paid. You went to a theatre; during the interval actors and
actresses sold war-certificates, harangued the audience and set the
example by their own purchases.
When the Liberty War Loan had been raised, the Red Cross started its
great national drive, apportioning the necessary grand total among all
the cities from sea-board to sea-board, according to their wealth and
population.
One heard endless stories of the variety of efforts being made.
America had committed her heart to the Allies with an abandon which it
is difficult to describe. Young society girls, who had been brought
up in luxury and protected from ugliness all their lives, were banding
themselves into units, supplying the money, hiring the experts, and
coming over themselves to France to look after refugees' babies.
Others were planning to do reconstruction work in the devastated
districts immediately behind the battle-line. I met a number of these
enthusiasts before they sailed; I have since seen them at work in
France. What struck me at the time was their rose-leaf frailness and
utter unsuitability for the task. I could guess the romantic visions
which tinted their souls to the colour of sacrifice; I also knew
what refugees and devastated districts look like. I feared that the
discrepancy between the dream and the reality would doom them to
disillusion.
During the month that I was in America I visited several of the camps.
The first draft army had been called. The first call gave the country
seven million men from which to select. I was surprised to find that
in many camps, before military training could commence, schools in
English had to be started to ensure the men's proper understanding of
commands. This threw a new light on the difficulties Mr. Wilson had
had to face in coming into the war.
The men of the draft army represent as many nationalities, dialects
and race-prejudices as there are in Europe. They are a Europe
expatriated. During their residence in America a great many of them
have lived in communities where their own language is spoken, and
their own customs are maintained. Frequently they have their own
newspapers, which foster their national exclusiveness, and reflect the
hatreds and affections of the country from which they emigrated. These
conditions set up a barrier between them and current American opinion
which it was difficult for the authorities at Washington to cross. The
people who represented neutral European nations naturally were anxious
for the neutrality of America. The people who represented the Central
Powers naturally were against America siding with the Allies. The only
way of re-directing their sympathies was by means of education and
propaganda; this took time, especially when they were separated from
the truth by the stumbling block of language. For three years they
had to be persuaded that they were no longer Poles, Swedes, Germans,
Finns, Norwegians, but first and last Americans. I mention this here,
in connection with the teaching of the draft army English, because it
affords one of the most vivid and comprehensible reasons for America's
long delay.
What brought America into the war? I have often been asked the
question; in answering it I always feel that I am giving only a
partial answer. On the one hand there is the record of her two and a
half years of procrastination, on the other the titanic upspringing
of her warrior-spirit, which happened almost in a day. How can one
reconcile the multitudinous pacific notes which issued from Washington
with the bugle-song to which the American boys march: "We've got four
years to do this job." The cleavage between the two attitudes is too
sharp for the comprehension of other nations.
The first answer which I shall give is entirely sane and will be
accepted by the rankest cynic. America came into the war at the moment
she realised that her own national life was endangered. Her leaders
realised this months before her masses could be persuaded. The
political machinery of the United States is such that no Government
would dare to commence hostilities unless it was assured that its
decision was the decision of the entire nation. That the Government
might have this assurance, Mr. Wilson had to maintain peace long after
the intellect of America had declared for war, while he educated
the cosmopolitan citizenship of his country into a knowledge of Hun
designs. The result was that he created the appearance of having been
pushed into hostilities by the weight of public opinion.