France July 10, 1918
I am delighted to see that every day the prophecies I made in Out to Win are coming true. The attack that the Americans put on on 4th July is, to my mind, one of the most significant things that has happened yet. Their battle-cry, “Lusitania,” says everything in one word concerning their purpose in coming to France. If I were a Hun I should find it more terrifying than the most astounding statements of armaments and men. I can picture the enemy in those old shell-holes of the Somme that I know so well. It's early morning, and a low white mist steals ghost-like over that vast graveyard, where crumbling trenches and broken entanglements mark the resting-places of the dead. The enemy would be sleepy-eyed with his long vigil, but with the vanishing of night he would fancy himself safe. Suddenly, hurled through the dawn, comes the cry, “Lusitania!” It must have sounded like the voice of conscience—the old and boasted sin for which medals were struck, the infamy of which was worn as a decoration, rising out of the past to exact suffering for suffering, panic for panic, blood for blood. Whoever chose that battle-cry was a poet—he said everything in the shortest and most rememberable way. America is in France to act as the revenge of God. She has suffered in the spirit what France has suffered in the flesh; through being in France she has learnt from the French the justice of passionate, punishing hate. I can think that somewhere beneath the Atlantic the bodies of murdered children sat up at that cry; I can believe that the souls of their mothers went over the top with those American boys. “Lusitania!” The white-hot anger of chivalry was in the cry.
Yes, and we, too, are learning to hate. For years we have hesitated to dogmatize as to which side God favours; but now, since hospitals have been bombed and the women who came to nurse us have been slaughtered, Cromwell's religious arrogance has taken possession of our hearts—“Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered.” When it was only we men who were wounded and killed by the Hun we could afford to regard him with an amused tolerance, but now——This is how we have changed: we should welcome our chance to kill at close quarters and to forget mercy. This time last year we were proud to say that we had no personal animosity for the individual German; it sounded so strong and impartial. We don't feel that way now; can't feel that way. At last, because of our women who are dead, we have learnt the magnanimity of hatred. Germany has entered a new phase of the war—a phase which her persistent brutality has created. She will find no more smiling faces on our side of No Man's Land when she lifts up her hands, shouting “Kamerad!” We are not her comrades; we never shall be again so long as our race-memory lasts. Like Cain, the brand of murder is on her forehead and the hand of every living creature is against her. When she pleads with us her common humanity, we will answer “Lusitania!” and charge across the Golgotlias and the mists of the dawn, driving her into oblivion with the bayonet. No truth of the spirit which her voice utters will ever be truth for us again. It has taken four years to teach us our lesson; we were slow; we gave quarter; but we have learnt.
LIX
France July 11, 1918
I've returned from being with the infantry and am back with my battery now. For the next few days I shall probably be out of touch with my incoming mail.
I have spoken several times to you about the test of war; how it acknowledges one chief virtue—courage. A man may be a poet, painter, may speak with the tongue of angels; but, if he has not courage, he is as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. The other day I was accidentally the witness to the promulgation of a court-martial. The man was an officer; he had been sentenced to be shot, but the order had been changed to cashiering. There, in the sunlight, all his brother officers were drawn up at attention. Across the fields the men whom he had commanded were playing baseball. He was led out bareheaded. The sentence and the crime for which he had been sentenced were read aloud to him in an unsteady voice. When that was ended, an officer stepped forward and stripped the buttons and the badges of rank from his uniform. It was like a funeral at which his honour was buried. Under an escort, he was given “Right turn,” and marched away to meet the balance of life that remained. In peace times he'd have been reckoned a decent-looking chap, a little smart, but handsome—the kind of fellow of whom some mother must have been proud and whom probably at least one girl loved. A tall chap, too—six foot at least. I see him standing in the strong sunlight, white-faced and dumb—better dead—despised. His fate was the fate which many of us feared before we put on khaki when the call first came. We had feared that we might not be able to stand the test and might be shot behind the lines. How and why we can stand it we ourselves cannot say. It was all a gamble at the start. Here was one man who had failed. The arithmetic of his spiritual values was at fault: he had chosen bitter life when death would have been splendid.
This must all sound very strange to you in your environment, where your honour and life are safe. Perhaps I should not intrude such scenes upon you.
LX
France July 15, 1918