The Call to Arms
Among the common folk—and I write of them—nobody knew at first how it happened, or why. An Austrian Archduke had been murdered at some place with a queer, outlandish name. Very shocking, no doubt; but what had that to do with John Smith watering his flowers in a suburban garden, or with Mrs. Smith putting the baby to bed? Still less with John K. Smithson, of Main Street, U.S.A., winding up his “flivver.” Servia—where was Servia?—was threatened with an ultimatum by Austria. Those foreign politics! Russia was taking the matter up. What had it got to do with Russia? Kings and Emperors were exchanging telegrams; Germany was intervening, backing up Austria. France was getting excited. Why? What was it all about? Why did all that stuff, columns and columns in the newspapers, turn out the sporting news? It was all very dull and incomprehensible. Russia was “mobilising,” it seemed. Germany was threatening war with Russia, France with Germany. Why? In Heaven’s name, why? What did it all mean? In the House of Commons there were strange speeches; in the newspapers terrible warnings, that England, too, might be drawn into this conflict of nations. Preposterous! The Cabinet was sitting late, hour after hour. Sir Edward Grey—a noble soul—was working for peace, desperately. There was still a hope. Surely the world had not gone mad! Surely even now the incredible could not happen. Germany could not do this thing. The German people, good-hearted, orderly, highly civilised, in some sense our kinsfolk; surely to God they were not going to plunge the world into ruin for the sake of an Austrian Archduke! In any case it was nothing to do with England—nothing at all—until every heart stood still for a second at dreadful news.
Germany had declared war on Russia and France was threatened. German troops were moving towards the French frontier and towards the Belgian frontier. Germany was demanding a right of way through Belgium to strike at the heart of France. If the demand were resisted, she threatened to smash her way through. Through Belgium, a little neutral country, at peace with all the world, incapable of self-defence, guaranteed by Great Britain and Germany, by a treaty that the German Ambassador in London desired to treat as a “scrap of paper.” God in heaven! If that were so, then there was no law in the world, no honour among nations, no safety for civilised peoples desiring peace. How could England, with any honour, stand by and see the fields of Belgium trampled under the feet of an invading army? With any shred of honour or self-respect? This was more than a threat against Belgium. It was a slash in the face of civilisation itself, a brutal attack upon all that code of law and decency by which we had struggled out of barbarism. So the leading articles said, and there was no denial in the heart of the people, though at first they had no thrill of passion but only a stupefaction in their minds. So Great Britain was going into this war? For honour’s sake and the safety of civilisation? That would mean—who could tell what it meant? Who knew anything about modern warfare between the Great Powers with all those armies and navies and piled-up armaments? It would mean Hell, anyway.
On August 4 the British Government declared war on Germany for the violation of Belgian territory. On the following day at the mouth of the Thames the cruiser Amphion sank a German mine-layer, and so opened the first hostilities between the German and the British nations since their history began.
England was “in”—all in, with all her wealth, all her manhood, all her strength, to whatever the end might be, in a struggle for life or death, in which civilisation itself was at stake.