Lay Down Your Arms: The Autobiography of Martha von Tilling

by Bertha von Suttner

“Don’t get excited,” interrupted Aunt Mary; “however much we might look, and however much we might reflect, we should never be able to chase evil from the earth. It is now, once for all, a vale of misery, and will ever remain so.”

“It will not,” I replied; and so at least I had the last word.

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“The danger that peace will be concluded is coming steadily nearer,” said my brother Otto complainingly one day.

We were sitting at the time at the family table again, Frederick on the sofa near us, and some one had just read out of the newspapers the tidings that Benedetti had arrived in Bohemia, obviously entrusted with the mission of suggesting proposals for peace.

My little brother—he was indeed big enough by this time, but I had got into the habit of calling him so—my little brother was in fear of nothing so much as that the war would come to a speedy end, and it would not be his lot to chase the enemy out of the country. For the news had just come from the Neustadt that in case hostilities had to be resumed, then at the next period of calling out the reserves—i.e., next August 18—not only the recruits of the last year, but also a large proportion of the last but one would have to go at once into active service. This prospect delighted the young hero. Straight from the academy into the field! What rapture! Just so a school-girl looks out into the world—to her first ball. She has learned to dance; the Neustadt scholar has learned to shoot and fence. She longs to display her powers under a blazing chandelier in evening dress, to the accompaniment of the orchestra; and he longs no less for the smart uniform and the great artillery dance.

My father was of course pleased in the highest degree at his darling’s martial ardour.

“By easy, my brave boy,” he said in reply to Otto’s sigh over the threat of peace, patting him the while on the shoulder. “You have a long life before you. Even if the campaign were to come to an end now, it must break out again in a year or two.”

I said nothing. Since my outbreak against Aunt Mary I had, on Frederick’s advice, formed and carried out the resolution to avoid these painful disputes on the subject of war as far as possible. It would lead to nothing but bitter feelings; and after having seen the traces of the grim scourge with my own eyes I had so increased my hatred and my contempt for war that all defence of it cut into my soul like a personal insult. About Frederick we were indeed at one—he was to quit the service; and I was also clear on this point, that my son Rudolf should not be put into any military institution where the whole of the education is directed—and must, to be consistent, be directed—to awaken in the young a longing for deeds of war. I once asked my brother what might be the views which were put before the students on the subject of war. His replies came to something like what follows: War was represented as a necessary evil (thus, at any rate, evil—a concession to the spirit of the age) but at the same time as the chief excitant of the noblest of human virtues—such as courage, the power of self-renunciation and the spirit of sacrifice, as the bestower of the greatest glory, and lastly, as the mightiest factor in the development of civilisation. The mighty conquerors and founders of the so-called universal empires—Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon—were quoted as the most exalted specimens of human greatness, and recommended for admiration. The successes and advantages of war were set forth in the liveliest colours, while they passed over in complete silence the drawbacks which inevitably come in its train, its barbarising influence, its ruinous effects, the moral and physical degeneration it causes. Yes, assuredly, for the same system was pursued in my case—in the education of girls—and it was thus that was kindled in my childish spirit the admiration of warlike laurels which at first inspired me. If I had even myself been full of regret that the possibility of plucking these laurels did not beckon me on, as it did the boys, could I now take it ill in a boy if such a possibility filled him with joy and with impatience?

And so I answered nothing to Otto’s complaint, but quietly went on with my reading. I was, as usual, reading a newspaper, and that was filled, as usual, with news from the theatre of war.