Each side fears the barbarity of the other. “Would it be good military policy,” asked a military official, “to encourage any other idea?” “‘My comrades were afraid,’ said this German sergeant. ‘They cried out to me that the Indians would kill their prisoners, and that we should die if we surrendered. But I said, ‘That is not true, comrades, and is only a tale. Let us go forward with our hands up.’ So in that way we went, and the Indian horsemen closed about us, and I spoke to one of them, asking for mercy for our men, and he was very kind and a gentleman, and we surrendered to him safely.’ He was glad to be alive, this man from Wiesbaden. He showed me the portrait of his wife and boy, and cried a little, saying that the German people did not make the war, but had to fight for their country when told to fight, like other men.... He waved his hand back to the woodlands, and remembered the terror of the place from which he had just come. ‘Over there it was worse than death.’” Yes, and “If any man were to draw the picture of those things or to tell them more nakedly than I have told them, because now is not the time, nor this the place, no man or woman would dare to speak again of war’s ‘glory,’ or of ‘the splendour of war,’ or any of those old lying phrases which hide the dreadful truth.” (Philip Gibbs in the Daily Chronicle, July 18, 1916.)
The Civilian’s Hate.
Yet, appalling as modern war is, there are things which some soldiers find worse. When I spoke to an old friend of mine about a popular print that disseminates hatred he said, “Whenever I see that paper it makes my blood run cold.” Yet in one of the charges which that man had faced only about a quarter of his company came back. That charge was to him less hideous than some newspaper malice—a malice which is so often a matter of business. Since then my friend has given his life, and has left in one heart a desolation that is worse than death. But in that heart there is no hate, only sympathy for all the sorrow, both on this side and the other.
Mr. Frederick Niven tells us the impressions of a wounded soldier who saw the Zeppelin burned at Cuffley. “What stuck in his mind was the roars that occurred when the airship took fire and began to come sagging and flaming down. ‘It reminded me of what I have read of “Thumbs down” in the arenas of ancient Rome. It was the most terrible thing I have heard in my life. I’ve heard some cheering at the front, but this was different. Nothing out there had quite the same horrible sound.’” The difference can be explained. “These men,” says Mr. Niven, “have seen the procession of the maimed, grey propping khaki, khaki propping grey, all trooping down to the dressing station.” (Daily News, October 9, 1916.)
And here is a letter from a brave young officer, since killed. “I drifted into the —— Parish Church last evening to hear the organ and the singing. I was pushed into a pew up in the front, and so could not escape until the end of the service. I could have wept when I heard the sermon; it was a dreadful medieval picture of Heaven and Hell, and a dreadful curse on all the German people as being ready for ‘Hell.’ ... The whole service was as artificial as one could imagine—so heartless and so soulless. It made me feel so very sad that, as I said before, I could have wept openly. Do you think that the congregation, a large one, would take in and believe all that they heard from the pulpit? It seems too dreadful!”
And Civilian Kindness.
Yet even civilians, even German civilians, do not always hate.
There is a better Germany, but it is only occasionally that we are allowed glimpses of it now, and we must go usually among unknown people, and read unpopular or comparatively obscure publications if we seek a wider range of vision. In December, 1914, Mrs. Jackson, wife of a golf professional, returned from Germany to Clacton-on-Sea. Her husband had been in the employ of the Cologne Golf Club. “Do you think,” she was asked, “the German hatred of England is general?” “No,” replied Mrs. Jackson. “Of course, the Germans hate England fiercely as a nation, but I do not think they do as individuals. Everyone treated us extremely well, although they knew our nationality, and my husband’s employers are anxious for him to go back again to them when the war is finished.” “Does Germany know the truth?” “I do not think so. We could not get any British newspapers, and only heard the German side of the question. I was quite thunderstruck when I heard England had joined in, and I am sure the German people were, too. The Germans are confident of victory, and so much is this so that some of my friends did not want me to go back, saying that I should be much safer where I was.” I take this report from the Clacton Graphic of February 20, 1915.
Of course, there has been much kindness on this side, and much gratitude for it in Germany, but I confess that some things I have heard from the other side have given me twinges of patriotic jealousy. I should like to feel that my country is always first in generosity. When Chaplain O’Rorke walked unattended and in khaki through the streets of Burg, there was no offensive remark.[42] Three English ladies travelling in Germany in war-time tell me that they never suffered from one unpleasant word. Miss Littlefair tells of some anti-English demonstrations, but of far more kindness, and when her unpopular nationality became known in a railway carriage, there was no change in the friendliness of its occupants.[43] Again, a Canadian Chaplain has been allowed to travel free, and in his uniform, and to visit his men in different camps. He seems to have had no difficulty with the populace. As regards walks on parole, we hear from Crefeld, “There has been no trouble of any kind with the inhabitants.”[44]