If an English ship were reported sunk, he believed it must be, despite the government’s denial. Did he go to the Germans and demand that he might publish the rumours of what had happened to the Moltke in the Gulf of Riga, or how many submarines Germany had really lost? Indeed, he was unconsciously paying a compliment to British free institutions. He expected more in England; it seemed a right to him, as it would at home. Englishmen talked frankly to him about mistakes; he heard all the gossip; and sometimes he concluded that England was in a bad way. In Germany such talk was not allowed. Every German said that the government was absolutely truthful; every German believed all of its reports. But ask this critical American how he would like to live under German rule, and then you found how anti-German he was at heart. Nothing succeeds like success, and Germany was winning and telling no one if she had any setbacks.
If there were a strike, the British press made the most of it for it was big news. Pessimism is the Englishman’s natural way of arousing himself to fresh energy. It is also against habit to be demonstrative in his effort; so it is not easy to understand how much he is doing. Then, pessimism brought recruits; it made the Englishman say, “I’ve got to put my back into it!” Muddling there was and mistakes, such as that of the method of attack at Gallipoli; but in the midst of all this disspiriting pessimism, no Englishman thought of anything but of putting his back into it more and more. Lord Kitchener had said that it was to be a long war and evidently it must be. Of course, England’s misfortune was in having the war catch her in the transition from an old order of things to social reforms.
But if the war shows anything it is that basically English character has not changed. She still has unconquerable, dogged persistence, and her defects for this kind of war are not among the least admirable of her traits to those who desire to live their own lives in their own way, as the English-speaking people have done for five hundred years, without having a verboten sign on every street corner.
It is still the law that when a company of infantry marches through London it must be escorted by a policeman. This means a good deal: that civil power is superior to military power. It is a symbol of what Englishmen have fought for with spades and pitchforks and what we have fought Englishmen for. My own idea is that England is fighting for it in this struggle; and starting unready against a foe which was ready, as the free peoples always have, she was fighting for time and experience before she could strike her sturdiest blows.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.