Lay Down Your Arms: The Autobiography of Martha von Tilling

by Bertha von Suttner

“I have just been out for an instant. The stars are shining as indifferently as ever. On the ground a few shadows are gliding—those of stragglers. Many, many men are left behind on the road; these have now slipped in here drawn on by the light of our watch-fires. But not all; some are still lying in some far-off ditch or cornfield. What a heat it was during this forced march! The sun flamed as if it would boil your brains, add to that the heavy knapsack and the heavy musket on their galled shoulders; and yet no one murmured. But a few fell out and could not get up again. Two or three succumbed to sunstroke and fell dead at once. Their bodies were put on an ambulance waggon.

“This June night, however illuminated by moon and stars, and however warm it may be, is still disenchanted. There are no nightingales or chirping crickets to be heard, no scents of rose and jasmine to be breathed. All the sweet sounds are drowned by the noise of snorting or neighing horses, by the men’s voices and the tramp of the sentries’ tread; all sweet scents overpowered by the smell of the harness and other barrack odours. Still all that is nothing; for now you do not hear the ravens croaking over their feast, you do not smell gun-powder, blood, and corruption. All that is coming—ad majorem patriæ gloriam. It is worth noting how blind men are. In looking at the funeral piles which have been lighted ‘for the greater glory of God’ in old times, they break out into curses over such blind, cruel, senseless fanaticism, but are full of admiration for the corpse-strewn battlefields of the present day. The torture chambers of the dark middle ages excite their horror, but they feel pride over their own arsenals. The light is burning down—the form in that corner has disappeared. I will also lie down to rest, beside our good Puxl.”

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“Up on a hill, amidst a group of generals and high officers, with a field-glass at his eye—that is the situation in a war which produces the greatest æsthetic effect. The gentlemen who paint battle pieces and make illustrations for the journals know this too. Generals on a hill reconnoitring with their glasses are represented again and again; and just as often a leader pressing forward at the head of his troops on a horse, as white and light-stepping as possible, stretching his arm out towards a point in the background all in smoke, and turning the head towards those rushing on after him, plainly shouting ‘Follow me, lads!’

“From my station on this hill one sees really a piece of battle poetry. The picture is magnificent, and sufficiently distant to have the effect of a real picture, without the details, the horrors, and disgusts of the reality; no gushing blood, no death-rattles, nothing but elevated and magnificent effects of line and colour. Those far-extended ranks of the army corps winding on, that unbounded procession of infantry regiments, divisions of cavalry, and batteries of artillery, then the ammunition train, the requisitioned country waggons, the pack horses, and, bringing up the rear, the baggage. The picture comes out still more imposing if, in the wide country stretched out beneath the hill, you can see, not merely the movements of one, but the meeting of two armies. Then how the flashing sword-blades, the waving flags, the horses rearing up like foaming waves, mingle with each other, while amongst them clouds of smoke arise, forming themselves in places into thick veils which hide all the picture, and when they lift show groups of fighters. Then, as accompaniment, the noise of shots rolling through the mountains, every stroke of which thunders the word Death! Death! Death! through the air. Yes, that sort of thing may well inspire battle lays. And for the composition, too, of those contributions to the history of the period which are to be published after the conclusion of the campaign, the station on the hill-top offers favourable opportunities. There, at any rate, the narrative can be made out with some exactness. The X Division met the enemy at N, drove him back, reached the main bulk of the army; strong forces of the enemy showed themselves on the left flank—and so on, and so on. But one who is not on the hill, peering through his field-glass, one who is himself taking part in the action, he can never, never relate the progress of a battle in a way worthy of belief. He sees, feels, and thinks of only what is close to him. All the rest of his narrative is from intuition, for which he avails himself of the old formulas. ‘Look, Tilling,’ one of the generals said to me, as I was standing near him on the hill. ‘Is not that striking? A grand army, is it not? Why, what are you thinking about?’ What was I thinking about, my Martha? About you. But to my superior officer I could not say so. So I answered, with all due deference, some untruth. ‘All due deference’ and ‘truth’ have besides little to do with each other. The latter is a very proud fellow, and turns with contempt from all servility.”

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“The village is ours—no, it is the enemy’s—now ours again—and yet once more the enemy’s; but it is no longer a village, but a smoking mass of the ruins of houses.

“The inhabitants (was it not really their village?) had left it previously and were away—luckily for them, for the fighting in an inhabited place is something really fearful; for then the bullets from friend and foe fall into the midst of the rooms and kill women and children. One family, however, had remained behind in the place which yesterday we took, lost, re-took, and lost again—namely, an old married couple and their daughter, the latter in childbed. The husband is serving in our regiment. He told me the story as we were nearing the village. ‘There, colonel, in that house with the red roof, is living my wife with her old parents. They have not been able to get away, poor creatures; my wife may be confined any moment, and the old folks are half-crippled; for God’s sake, colonel, order me there!’ Poor devil! he got there just in time to see the mother and child die; a shell had exploded under their bed. What has happened to the old folks I do not know. They are probably buried under the ruins; the house was one of the first set on fire by the cannonade. Fighting in the open country is terrible enough, but fighting amongst human dwellings is ten times more cruel. Crashing timber, bursting flames, stifling smoke; cattle run mad with fear; every wall a fortress or a barricade, every window a shot-hole. I saw a breastwork there which was formed of corpses. The defenders had heaped up all the slain that were lying near, in order, from that rampart, to fire over on to their assailants. I shall surely never forget that wall in all my life. A man, who formed one of its bricks, penned in among the other corpse-bricks, was still alive, and was moving his arm.

“ ‘Still alive’—that is a condition, occurring in war with a thousand differences, which conceals sufferings incalculable. If there were any angel of mercy hovering over the battlefields he would have enough to do in giving the poor creatures—men and beasts—who are ‘still alive’ their coup de grâce.”

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