Ordeal by Battle

by Frederick Scott Oliver

"I do not of course pretend to look at this matter except from the German standpoint; but is there any flaw in my reasoning, is there anything at all unfair, if I thus sum up my conclusions?—By Midsummer next—after stupendous efforts of the oratorical and journalistic kind—after an enormous amount of shouting, music-hall singing, cinema films, and showy advertising of every description—after making great play with the name and features of a popular field-marshal, in a manner which must have shocked both his natural modesty and soldierly pride—after all this you expect, or say you expect, that you will possess between two and two-and-a-half millions of men trained, armed, equipped, and ready to take the field.

"As against this, during the same period, and out of the less military half of our male population, without any shouting or advertising to speak of, we shall have provided approximately double that number. We have raised these new forces quietly, without any fuss, and without a word of protest from any of our people. We are training them without any serious difficulty. We are arming them, equipping them, clothing them, and housing them without any difficulty at all.

"To conclude this interesting contrast, may I ask you—is it true, as the French newspapers allege, that you are about to invite, or have already invited, your Japanese Allies to send some portion of their Army to European battlefields? With what face can you make this appeal when you have not yet called upon your own people to do, what every other people engaged in the present struggle, has already done?

"After you have pondered upon this strange and startling contrast, will you still hold to the opinion that the German system—which you have affected to despise, on the ground that it does not rest upon what you are pleased to term 'a popular basis'—is at any point inferior to your own in its hold upon the hearts of the people?

"What is meant by the phrase—'a popular basis'? Is it something different from the support of the people, the will of the people, the devotion of the people? And if it is different, is it better—judging, that is, by its results in times of trouble—or is it worse?"

So the cultured Freiherr, watching democracy at work in Britain, its ancient home, concludes with this question—"Is this timid, jealous, and distracted thing possessed of any real faith in itself; and if so, will it fight for its faith to the bitter end? Is the British system one which even the utmost faith in it can succeed in propping up? Does it possess any inherent strength; or is it merely a thing of paste-board and make-believe, fore-ordained to perish?"

[[1]] This letter, which is dated April 1, 1915, arrived at its destination (via Christiania and Bergen) about ten days later. It had not the good fortune, however, to escape the attentions of the Censor, the ravages of whose blacking-brush will be noted in the abrupt termination of sundry paragraphs.

[[2]] "The empires which during the past forty years have made the greatest relative material progress are undoubtedly Germany and Japan—neither of them a democracy, but both military states."

[[3]] It is not quite clear to what incidents the Freiherr is referring. He may be thinking of a certain round-robin which appeared a few days before the war, giving a most handsome academic testimonial of humanity and probity to the German system; or he may have in mind a later manifestation in February last, when there suddenly flighted into the correspondence columns of the Nation a 'gaggle' of university geese, headed appropriately enough by a Professor of Political Economy, by name Pigou, who may be taken as the type of that peculiarly British product, the unemotional sentimentalist. To this 'gaggle' of the heavier fowls there succeeded in due course a 'glory' of poetical and literary finches, twittering the same tune—the obligation on the Allies not to inflict suffering and humiliation on Germany—on Germany, be it remembered, as yet unbeaten, though this was rather slurred over in their spring-song of lovingkindness. The Freiherr, plunged in his heathen darkness, no doubt still believed Germany to be not only unbeaten but victorious, and likely to continue on the same course. He must therefore have been somewhat puzzled by so much tender concern on the part of our professors, etc. for sparing his feelings at the end of the war.

[[4]] Comment has already been made on the difficulty each nation has in understanding the spirit of the institutions of its neighbours. If this is borne in mind these depreciatory references of the Freiherr may be forgiven.