THE PSYCHOLOGY OF, WAR AND RECRUITING
November, 1914.
I sometimes think the country-folk round about where I live the most sensible people I know. They say with regard to the War—or said at its outset: "What are they fighting about? I can't make out, and nobody seems to know. What I've seen o' the Germans they're a decent enough folk—much like ourselves. If there's got to be fightin', why don't them as makes the quarrel go and fight wi' each other? But killing all them folk that's got no quarrel, and burnin' their houses and farms, and tramplin' down all that good corn—and all them brave men dead what can never live again—its scandalous, I say."
This at the outset. But afterwards, when the papers had duly explained that the Germans were mere barbarians and savages, bent on reducing the whole world to military slavery, they began to take sides and feel there was good cause for fighting. Meanwhile almost exactly the same thing was happening in Germany, where England was being represented as a greedy and deceitful Power, trying to boss and crush all the other nations. Thus each nation did what was perhaps, from its own point of view, the most sensible thing to do—persuaded itself that it was fighting in a just and heroic cause, that it was a St. George against the Dragon, a David out to slay Goliath.
The attitude of the peasant, however, or agriculturist, all over the world, is the same. He does not deal in romantic talk about St. George and the Dragon. He sees too clearly the downright facts of life. He has no interest in fighting, and he does not want to fight. Being the one honest man in the community—the one man who creates, not only his own food but the food of others besides, and who knows the value of his work, he perceives without illusion the foolery of War, the hideous waste of it, the shocking toll of agony and loss which it inflicts—and if left to himself would as a rule have no hand in it. It is only occasionally—when ground down beyond endurance by the rent-racking classes above him, or threatened beyond endurance by an enemy from abroad, that he turns his reaping-hook into a sword and his muck-fork into a three-pronged bayonet, exchanges his fowling-piece for a rifle, and fights savagely for his home and his bit of a field.
England, curiously enough, is almost the only country in the world where the peasant or ordinary field-worker has no field of his own[22]; and I find that in the villages and among the general agricultural population there is even now but little enthusiasm for the present war—though the raid on our coasts at Scarborough and other places certainly did something to stimulate it. Partly this is, as I have said, because the agricultural worker knows that his work is foundational, and that nothing else is of importance compared with it. [At this moment, for instance, there are peasants in Belgium and Northern France ploughing and sowing, and so forth, actually close to the trenches and between the fighting lines.] Partly it is because in England, alas! the countryman has so little right or direct interest in the soil. One wonders sometimes why he should feel any enthusiasm. Why should men want to fight for their land when they have no land to fight for—when the most they can do is to die at the foot of a trespass-board, singing, "Britons never, never shall be slaves!"
If the War is ever finished, surely one of the first things to be insisted on afterwards, with regard to England, must be the settlement of the actual people (not the parasites) on the land. Else how, after all that they have gone through, can it be expected that they will ever again "fight for their country"? But that this vast landless population in the villages and country districts—hungering as it is for some sure tenure and interest in the soil—should actually, as now, be berated and scolded by superior persons of the "upper" classes, and threatened with conscription if it does not "come forward" more readily, is a spectacle sufficient to gratify the most hardened cynic.
Certainly it is remarkable that such numbers of the great working masses of this country (including villagers) should come forward in connexion with the war, and join the standard and the ranks of fighting men—as they do—and it is a thing for which one must honour them. But in that matter there are not a few considerations to be kept in mind.
In the first place a large number are not really very enthusiastic, but simply join because pressure to do so is put upon them by their "masters." The press-gangs of old exist no longer, but substitutes for them revive in subtler form. Many large landlords, for instance, have given notice to a percentage of their gamekeepers, gardeners, park employees, and the like, to the effect that their services are no longer required, but that if they enlist in the ranks now they will be reinstated in their masters' service again when the war is over ("if still alive" is, we presume, understood). Large numbers of manufacturing and other firms have notified their workmen and clerks in similar terms. This means pretty serious economic pressure. A man in the prime of life, suddenly ousted from his job, and with no prospect either of finding a similar job elsewhere or of learning any new one, is in a pretty fix. His only certain refuge lies in the fact that he can be taught to use a rifle in a few weeks; and in a few weeks perhaps it becomes clear to him that to accept that offer and the pay that goes with it—poor as it is—is his only chance.
There are others, again—perhaps a very large number—who do not care much about the war in itself, and probably have only the vaguest notion of what it is all about, but for them to join the ranks means adventure, comradeship, the open air—all fascinating things; and they hail the prospect with joy as an escape from intolerable dullness—from the monotony of the desk and the stuffy office, from the dreary round and mechanical routine of the factory bench, from the depressing environment of "home" and domestic squalor.
I must confess—though I have no general prejudice in favour of war—that I have been much struck, since the outbreak of the present one, by the altered look of crowds of young men whom I personally know—who are now drilling or otherwise preparing for it. The gay look on their faces, the blood in their cheeks, the upright carriage and quick, elate step—when compared with the hang-dog, sallow, dull creatures I knew before—all testify to the working of some magic influence.
As I say, I do not think that this influence in most cases has much to do with enthusiasm for the "cause" or any mere lust of "battle" (happily indeed for the most part they do not for a moment realize what modern battle means). It is simply escape from the hateful conditions of present-day commercialism and its hideous wage-slavery into something like the normal life of young manhood—a life in the open under the wide sky, blood-stirring enterprise, risk if you will, co-operation and camaraderie. These are the inviting, beckoning things, the things which swing the balance down—even though hardships, low pay, and high chances of injury and death are thrown in the opposite scale.
Nevertheless, and despite these other considerations, there does certainly remain, in this as in other wars, a fair number of men among those who enlist who are bonâ fide inspired by some Ideal which they feel to be worth fighting for. It may be Patriotism or love of their country; it may be "to put down militarism"; it may be Religion or Honour or what not. And it is fine that it should be so. They may in cases be deluded, or mistaken about facts; the ideal they fight for may be childish (as in the mediaeval Crusades); still, even so it is fine that people should be willing to give their lives for an idea—that they should be capable of being inspired by a vision. Humanity has at least advanced as far as that.
I suppose patriotism, or love of country—when it comes to its full realization, as in the case of invasion by an enemy, is the most powerful and tremendous of such ideals, sweeping everything before it. It represents something ingrained in the blood. In that case all the other motives for fighting—economic or what not—disappear and are swallowed up. Material life and social conditions under a German government might externally be as comfortable and prosperous as under our own, but for most of us something in the soul would wither and sicken at the thought.
Anyhow, whatever the motives may be which urge individuals into war—whether sheer necessity or patriotism, or the prospect of wages or distinction, or the love of adventure—a nation or a people in order to fight must have a "cause" to fight for, something which its public opinion, its leaders, and its Press can appropriate—some phrase which it can inscribe on its shield: be it "Country" or "God" or "Freedom from Tyranny," or "Culture versus Barbarism." It must have some such cry, else obviously it could not fight with any whole-heartedness or any force.
The thing is a psychological necessity. Every one, when he gets into a quarrel, justifies himself and accuses the other party. He puts his own conduct in an ideal light, and the conduct of his opponent in the reverse! Doubtless if we were all angels and could impartially enter into all the origins of the quarrel, we should not fight, because to "understand" would be to "forgive"; but as we have not reached that stage, and as we cannot even explain why we are quarrelling—the matter being so complex—we are fain to adopt a phrase and fight on the strength of that. It is useless to call this hypocrisy. It is a psychological necessity. It is the same necessity which makes a mistress dismiss her maid on the score of a broken teapot, though really she has no end of secret grievances against her; or which makes the man of science condense the endless complexity of certain physical phenomena into a neat but lying formula which he calls a Law of Nature. He could not possibly give all the real facts, and so he uses a phrase.
In war, therefore, each nation adopts a motto as its reason for fighting. Sometimes the two opposing nations both adopt the same motto I England and Germany both inscribe on their banners: "Culture versus Barbarism." Each believes in its own good faith, and each accuses the other of hypocrisy.
In a sense this is all right, and could not be better. It does not so much matter which is really the most cultured nation, England or Germany, as that each should really believe that it is fighting in the cause of Culture. Then, so fighting for what it knows to be a good cause, the wounds and death endured and the national losses and depletion are not such sad and dreadful things as they at first appear. They liberate the soul of the individual; they liberate the soul of the nation. They are sacrifices made for an ideal; and (provided they are truly such) the God within is well-pleased and comes one step nearer to his incarnation. Whatever inner thing you make sacrifices for, the same will in time appear visibly in your life—blessing or cursing you. Therefore, beware I and take good care as to what that inner thing really is.
Such is the meaning of the use of a phrase or "battle-cry"; but we have, indeed, to be on our guard against how we use it. It can so easily become a piece of cant or hypocrisy. It can so easily be engineered by ruling cliques and classes for their own purposes—to persuade and compel the people to fight their battles. The politicians get us (for reasons which they do not explain) into a nice little entanglement —perhaps with some tribe of savages, perhaps with a great European Power; and before the nation knows where it is it finds itself committed to a campaign which may develop and become a serious war. Then there is no alternative but for Ministers to repair to a certain Cabinet where the well-dried formulae they need are kept hanging, and select one for their use. It may be "Women and Children," or it may be "Immoral Savages," or it may be "Empire," or it may be "Our Word of Honour." Having selected the right one, and duly displayed and advertised it, they have little difficulty in making the nation rise to the bait, and fight whatever battles they desire.
Since the early beginnings of the human race we can perceive the same processes in operation. We can almost guess the grade of advancement reached among primitive tribes by simply taking note of their totems. These were emblems of the things which held the mind of the tribe, as admirable or terrible, with which it was proud to identify itself—the fox, for instance, or the bear, the kangaroo, or the eagle. To be worthy of such ideals men fought. Later, every little people, every knightly, family, every group of adventurers, adopted a device for its shield, a motto for its flag, a figure of some kind, human, or more often animal. Even the modern nations have not got much farther; and we can judge of their stage of advancement by the beasts of prey they, flaunt on their banners or the deep-throat curses which resound in their national anthems.
But surely the time has now come—even with this world-war—when the great heart of the peoples will wake up to the savagery and the folly perpetrated in their names. The people, who, although they enjoy a "scrap" now and then, are essentially peaceful, essentially friendly, all the world over; who in the intervals of slaughter offer cigarettes to their foes, and tenderly dress their enemies' wounds; whose worst and age-long sin it is that they allow themselves so easily to be dominated and led by, ambitious and greedy schemers—surely it is time that they should wake up and throw off these sham governments—these governments that are three-quarters class-scheming and fraud and only one-quarter genuine expressions of public spirit—and declare the heart of solidarity that is within them.
The leaders and high priests of the world have used the name of Christianity to bless their own nefarious works with, till the soul is sick at the very sound of the word; but surely the time has come when the peoples themselves out of their own heart will proclaim the advent of the Son of Man—conscious of it, indeed, as a great light of brotherhood shining within them, even amid the clouds of race-enmity and ignorance, and will deny once for all the gospel of world-empire and conquest which has so long been foisted on them for insidiously selfish ends.
An empire based on brotherhood—a holy human empire of the World, including all races and colours in a common unity and equality—yes! But these shoddy empires based on militarism and commercialism, and built up in order to secure the unclean ascendancy of two outworn and effete classes over the rest of mankind—a thousand times no! That dispensation, thank Heaven! is past. "These fatuous empires with their parade of power and their absolute lack of any real policy—this British Lion, this Russian Bear, these German, French, and American Eagles—these birds and beasts of prey—with their barbaric notions of Greed and War, their impossible armaments, and their swift financial ruin impending—will fall and be rent asunder. The hollow masks of them will perish. And the sooner the better. But underneath surely there will be rejoicing, for it will be found that so after all the real peoples of the earth have come one degree nearer together—yes, one degree nearer together."
FOOTNOTES:
[22] In Servia, for instance, which many folk doubtless regard as a benighted country, more than four-fifths of the people are peasant farmers and cultivate lands belonging to their own families. "These holdings cannot be sold or mortgaged entire; the law forbids the alienation for debt of a peasant's cottage, his garden or courtyard, his plough, the last few acres of his land, and the cattle necessary for working his farm." [Encycl. Brit.] In 1910 there were altogether five hundred agricultural co-operative societies in Servia.