First of all, War is evil—utterly evil. Let us be sure of that first. It is an evil instrument, even if it be used for motives that are good. I, who have been through war and know it, say that it is evil. I knew it before the war; instinct, reason, religion told me that war was evil; now experience has told me also.
It is a strange synthesis, this war: it is a synthesis of adventure, dulness, good spirits, and tragedy; but none of these things are new to human experience; nor is human nature altered by war. It is at war as a whole that we must look in order to appreciate its quality. And what is war seen as a whole, or rather seen in the light of my eight months’ experience? For no one man can truly appraise war.
I have seen and felt the adventure of war, its deadly fascination and excitement: it is the greatest game on earth: that is its terrible power: there is such a wild temptation to paint up its interest and glamour: it gives such scope to daring, to physical courage, to high spirits: it makes so many prove themselves heroic, that were it not for the fall of the arrow men would call the drawing of the bow good. I have seen the dulness, the endless monotony, the dogged labour, the sheer power of will conquering the body and “carrying on”: there is good in that, too. In the jollity, the humour, the good-fellowship, is nothing but good also. There is good in all these things; for these are qualities of human nature triumphing in spite of war. These things are not war; they are the good in man prostituted to a vile thing.
For I have seen the real face of war: I have seen men killed, mutilated, blown to little pieces; I have seen men crippled for life; I have looked in the face of madness, and I know that many have gone mad under its grip. I have seen fine natures break and crumble under the strain. I have seen men grow brutalised, and coarsened in this war. (God will judge justly in the end; meanwhile, there are thousands among us—yes, and among our enemy too—brutalised through no fault of theirs.) I have lost friends killed (and shall lose more yet), friends with whom I have lived and suffered so long.
Who is for war now? Its adventure, its heroism? Bah! Yet this is not all.
For war spares none. It desecrates the beauty of the earth; it ruins, it destroys, it wastes; it starves children; it drives out old men, and women, homeless. And most terrible of all, it brings agony to every household: it is like a plague of the firstborn. Do not think I have forgotten you, O women, and old men. You, too, have to endure the agony of the arena; you are compelled to sit and watch us fight the beasts. Every mother is there in agony, watching her baby, and unable to stretch a finger to help. This, too, is war—the anguish of mothers whose sons perish, of wives who lose their husbands, of girls robbed for all time of marriage and motherhood.
And this vile thing is still perpetrated upon the earth among peoples who have long ago declared human sacrifice impossible and barbaric.
This then is a basal fact. We have faced it fairly. The instrument is vile. What then of the motive? What is the motive which drives us to use this evil instrument? And I see you fathers and mothers waiting to hear what I shall say. For there are people who whisper that we who are fighting are vindictive, that we lust for the blood of our enemies, that we are coarse and brutal, that we are unholy champions of what we call a just cause. Again let us face the facts. And to these whisperers I answer boldly: “Yes! we are coarse, some of us; we are vindictive; we hate; we do not deny it.” For war in its vileness taints its human instruments too. When Davidson died I cried death upon his murderers. I called them devils, and worse. I am not ashamed.
That is not the point. What I or Tommy may be at a given moment is not the point. The question is, with what motives did we enter this war, agree to take up this vile instrument? We cannot help if it soils our hands. What is our motive in fighting in the arena? What provokes the dumb heroism of our soldiers? Why did men flock to the colours, volunteer in millions for the arena? You know. I who have lived with them eight months in France, I also know. It was because a people took up this vile instrument and used it from desire of power. Because they trampled on justice, and challenged us to thwart them. Because they willed war for the sake of wrong; because they said that force was master of the world, and they set out to prove it.
Yet, it is sometimes said, war is unchristian. If men were Christian there would be no war. You cannot conquer evil by evil. I agree, if men were Christian there would be no war. I agree that you cannot conquer evil by evil; but it is war that is evil, not our motive in going to war. We are conquering an evil spirit by a good spirit, even if we are using an evil instrument. And if you say that Christ would not fight, I say that none of us would fight if the world had attained the Christian plane towards which we are slowly rising: but we are still on a lower plane, and in it there is a big war raging; and in the arena there are many who have felt Christ by their side.