Brothers in arms

by E. Alexander Powell

As to you, my dear Yvonne, know that I have always loved you and that I will love you always no matter what happens. As soon as you can, leave for Fontenay, for on my return I should prefer to find you there; and once more let me say that I count on you, and that you will be brave.

I will give you no more advice, for I believe that would be superfluous.

Your little husband, who embraces you tenderly, as well as dear Raymond—

Georges

America’s entrance into the war is the surest guarantee that the world can have for a peaceful future. Our practically inexhaustible military, financial, industrial, and agricultural resources give us all the trump cards. We can double and, if necessary, redouble, every bid that Germany makes. We must beware, however, of one pitfall: of assuming that the war is going to be a short one. England, notwithstanding the solemn warnings of Lord Kitchener, made that mistake at the beginning of the war, and she has paid for it in blood and tears. Though we are warned with all earnestness by the men who are best qualified to know that peace is not in sight, and probably will not be in sight for many, many months to come, one nevertheless hears on every hand the confident assertion that Germany is on her last legs, that the morale of her armies is weakening, that her supply of men is almost exhausted, that her people are starving, and that American troops will never get within sound of the guns because the war will be over before they can be made ready to send to France. There is no surer way to prolong the war than to indulge in such talk as this. Why deceive ourselves? Let us look the facts in the face. Germany is not starving, nor is there any prospect of her being brought to that point for a long time to come, if, indeed, at all. Her man-power, though greatly depleted, is not giving out. Her morale apparently remains unimpaired; in short, her military machine still seems impregnable. Remember, moreover, that she is everywhere fighting on the enemy’s soil and that her own frontiers remain intact. The extreme gravity of the situation was recently made plain to the Canadian Parliament by the Premier, Sir Robert Borden, in these words: “A great struggle still lies before us, and I cannot put it before you more forcibly than by stating that at the commencement of this spring’s campaign Germany put into the field a million more men than she put into the field last spring. And that million was provided by Germany alone and not by the whole of the Central Powers.” There is, indeed, nothing to indicate at this time that the German Government is prepared to negotiate peace save on impossible terms. It has been a fallacy, and nearly a fatal one for the Allies, this underestimating the power of Germany. She has, as some one has truthfully said, made of war “a national industry.” She is a professional, while the rest of us are, after all, but amateurs, and she has repeatedly shown, moreover, that she has not the slightest intention of adhering to the rules laid down by civilized nations for the conduct of the game. She has spikes on her boots and brass knuckles on her fingers, and she will not hesitate to gouge or kick or strike below the belt. She is a ferocious, formidable, and desperate adversary, possessed of immense staying power, and the only way we can hope to crush her in reasonable time is by intelligent coördination of effort, by the fullest and most painstaking preparation, and by the exertion of every ounce of our strength.

Don’t let us be deceived by the made-in-Germany talk of an early peace. In accepting it we are only playing the enemy’s game. In every possible way Germany is throwing out the idea that the end of the war is in sight. She is doing this because she knows that she has reached the crest of her military strength. She is at “the peak of the load.” She knows that every day she is weaker by so many men, and that she no longer has any considerable reserves from which to replace these losses. She is ready and anxious to quit—upon her own terms. But she is prepared to fight a long, long time yet before accepting the terms that we and our allies must insist upon in order to safeguard the future peace of the world. The mere appearance of American troops upon the battle-line is not going to end the war, as so many of our people seem to think. Not until America begins making war as though she was facing Germany alone will it be possible to predict with any certainty when the end will come.

The truth of the matter is that the American people utterly fail to realize the seriousness of our situation. In fact, the Government itself did not realize its gravity until from the lips of the French and British commissioners it learned the startling truth. Up to the moment of our entrance into the war the Allied Governments, controlling all the channels of information, had so successfully fostered the impression that they had the Germans on the run, that all of our people, save a handful who were in possession of the facts, looked to see the war end in a sweeping victory for the Allies before the close of the present year. The truth of the matter is that, had we remained aloof, the war would in all probability have ended before this year was over, but not in a victory for the Allies. The almost pathetic eagerness with which the Allied Governments welcomed our proffered aid in money and men is the best proof of how desperate was their plight. Here are the facts: Germany’s submarine campaign is an almost unqualified success. Unless we can successfully and immediately combat this menace, England is in grave danger of being brought within measurable distance of starvation. France is rapidly approaching complete military and economic exhaustion. The drain upon her vitality of nearly three years of war has left her faint and gasping. Though she has inflicted huge losses upon the enemy, her own losses have been enormous, and, with her much smaller population, she is less able to stand them. It is not the slightest exaggeration to say that France is in as crying need of American assistance as were the American Colonies when Rochambeau and his soldiery disembarked upon these shores. Should the Russian Republic be betrayed into making a separate peace—and, at the moment of writing, the Russian prospect is anything but cheering—the Central Powers would have released for use upon the Western Front not less than two million veterans. The war has become, indeed, a race between ourselves and Germany. Can we build food-ships faster than Germany can sink them? Can we raise enough food to feed our allies as well as ourselves? Can we put more men and guns upon the Western Front than Germany can? Upon the answers to these questions depends the duration and decision of the war.

If we are to win this war it will be necessary for us to practise self-denials, to endure hardships, perhaps to know sorrows of which we have never dreamed. We must hold back nothing. Our sheltered, ordered, comfortable lives will be turned topsy-turvy. There will be no man, woman, or child between the oceans which this war will not in some way affect. It will impose burdens alike on the rich and the poor, on the old no less than on the young, on women as well as on men. It will entail innumerable sacrifices, many of which will be hard and some of which will seem unjust, yet we must accept them cheerfully.

If millions of our young men are prepared to give up their lives for their country, is it too much to ask the rest of us to give up for a time our comforts and our pleasures?

The civilian must do his duty no less than the man in khaki. And “duty,” at this time, has many meanings. It is a duty to pay taxes. These will, without doubt, be increased again and again and yet again before this war is over, and in many cases they will be directly felt. The man who dodges taxes when his country is at war is more deserving of contempt than the soldier who shows the white feather on the firing-line, for whereas the one fears for his life the other fears only for his pocketbook. It is a duty to raise foodstuffs and to give every possible encouragement to others to do so. The householder who refuses to plough his yard and plant it to vegetables because it would spoil the looks of his place is as much a slacker as the man who attempts to evade his military obligations. It is a duty to refrain from every form of extravagance. By this I do not mean to imply that people should suddenly stop buying, but only that they should stop buying things that they do not need or that they can get along without. For how, pray, are we to place some seven billion dollars of purchasing power at the disposal of the Government unless we curtail our individual expenditures? And it is the duty of our merchants and business men to promptly cease their gloomy prophecies that an era of national economy will bring on a paralysis of trade and industry. As a matter of fact, it will do nothing of the sort. There is far more danger of there being a lack of workers than there is of there being a lack of work. Already there is more work in sight than can possibly be done. The shipyards, the steel-mills, the clothing-factories, the munitions plants, the mines, the farms, the railways are all clamoring for it, and they will clamor for labor still more insistently when a million or so men have been taken out of industry for the army. It is a duty to keep cool, to think sanely, to avoid hysteria. It is a duty to refrain from giving circulation to sensational rumors. It is a duty to refrain from nagging the Government, for the Government is, you may be sure, doing the best it can. And finally, it is a duty to buy your country’s bonds. Buy all you can. Take that ten or hundred or thousand dollars that you have been saving for some cherished personal purpose and invest it in the Liberty Loan. That is the most practical way I know of showing that your patriotism is not confined to words.