Ordeal by Battle

by Frederick Scott Oliver

IMPOTENCE OF LOGIC

Yet there are people who think it not impossible to prove to mankind by logical processes, that the loss which any great nation must inevitably sustain through war, will far outweigh any advantages which can ensue from it, even if the arms of the conqueror were crowned with victories greater than those of Caesar or Napoleon. They draw us pictures of the exhaustion which must inevitably follow upon such a struggle conducted upon the modern scale, of the stupendous loss of capital, destruction of credit, paralysis of industry, arrest of progress in things spiritual as well as temporal, the shock to civilisation, and the crippling for a generation, probably for several generations, possibly for ever, of the victorious country in its race with rivals who have wisely stood aside from the fray. These arguments may conceivably be true, may in no particular be over-coloured, or an under-valuation, either of the good which has been attained by battle, or of the evils which have been escaped. But they would be difficult to establish even before an unbiassed court, and they are infinitely more difficult to stamp upon popular belief.

It is not sufficient either with statesmen or peoples to set before them a chain of reasoning which is logically unanswerable. Somehow or other the new faith which it is desired to implant, must be rendered independent of logic and unassailable by logic. It must rise into a higher order of convictions than the intellectual before it can begin to operate upon human affairs. For it is matched against opinions which have been held and acted upon so long, that they have become unquestionable save in purely academic discussions. At those decisive moments, when action follows upon thought like a flash, conclusions which depend upon a train of reasoning are of no account: instinct will always get the better of any syllogism.

So when nations are hovering on the brink of war, it is impulse, tradition, or some stuff of the imagination—misused deliberately, as sometimes happens, by crafty manipulators—which determines action much more often than the business calculations of shopkeepers and economists. Some cherished institution seems to be threatened. Some nationality supposed—very likely erroneously—to be of the same flesh and blood as ourselves, appears—very likely on faulty information—to be unjustly oppressed. Two rival systems of civilisation, of morals, of religion, approach one another like thunder-clouds and come together in a clash. Where is the good at such times of casting up sums, and exhibiting profit-and-loss accounts to the public gaze? People will not listen, for in their view considerations of prosperity and the reverse are beside the question. Wealth, comfort, even life itself, are not regarded; nor are the possible sufferings of posterity allowed to count any more than the tribulations of to-day. In the eyes of the people the matter is one of duty not of interest. When men fight in this spirit the most lucid exposition of material drawbacks is worse than useless; for the national mood, at such moments, is one of self-sacrifice. The philosopher, or the philanthropist, is more likely to feed the flames than to put them out when he proves the certainty of loss and privation, and dwells upon the imminent peril of ruin and destruction.

The strength of the fighter is the strength of his faith. Each new Gideon who goes out against the Midianites fancies that the sword of the Lord is in his hand. He risks all that he holds dear, in order that he may pull down the foul images of Baal and build up an altar to Jehovah, in order that his race may not be shorn of its inheritance, in order that it may hold fast its own laws and institutions, and not pass under the yoke of the Gentiles. This habit of mind is unchanging throughout the ages. What moved men to give their lives at Marathon moved them equally, more than a thousand years later, to offer the same sacrifice under the walls of Tours. It is still moving them, after yet another thousand years and more have passed away, in the plains of Flanders and the Polish Marshes.

THE MOTIVES OF NATIONS

When the Persian sought to force the dominion of his ideals upon the Greek, the states of Hellas made head against him from the love and honour in which they held their own. When the successors of the Prophet, zealous for their faith, confident in the protection of the One God, drove the soldiers of the Cross before them from the passes of the Pyrenees to the vineyards of Touraine, neither side would have listened with any patience to a dissertation upon the inconveniences resulting from a state of war and upon the economic advantages of peace. It was there one faith against another, one attitude towards life against another, one system of manners, customs, and laws against another. When a collision occurs in this region of human affairs there is seldom room for compromise or adjustment. Things unmerchantable cannot be purchased with the finest of fine gold.

In these instances, seen by us from far off, the truth of this is easily recognised. But what some of our recent moralists have overlooked, is the fact that forces of precisely the same order exist in the world of to-day, and are at work, not only among the fierce Balkan peoples, in the resurgent empire of Japan, and in the great military nations—the French, the Germans, and the Russians—but also in America and England. The last two pride themselves upon a higher civilisation, and in return are despised by the prophets of militarism as worshippers of material gain. The unfavourable and the flattering estimate agree, however, upon a single point—in assuming that our own people and those of the United States are unlikely to yield themselves to unsophisticated impulse. This assumption is wholly false.

VIRTUES OF THE WAR SPIRIT