War Letters of a Public-School Boy

by Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

I am now quite converted to the doctrine of facts. Though passionately idealistic in many respects, I realise that the Facts of life are in cruel but deadly opposition to the Ideals of life, and that while the Ideal remains a dream the cruel Fact remains the reality.

This pseudo-philosophy arises from my having read Arnold Bennett's article in to-day's Daily News, and also from a perusal of Hudson's "Herbert Spencer." Bennett is just an idealist, but in dealing with those cruel realities of which I have spoken, he seems to me a child. Any attempt to dissociate the acts of the German Government from the views of the German people—in other words to assume that a great part of the latter want peace—is absurd. Look at France in 1870. When the Second Empire was overthrown and the Third Republic set up in its place, did the Republicans seek peace? No, they proceeded to prosecute the war to the utmost and tried to drive the invader off the soil of France. And even if in this war a succession of defeats should overthrow the German Kaiser and his Government, do you think the Germans would submit forthwith, and throw themselves on the mercy of the Allies? No, they will fight to the last man, woman and child to prevent the Rhine being crossed. So we should realise that, for our own safety's sake, we must reduce the German military forces to a position of helplessness—in fact, utterly destroy them, if we are to have any settlement. It is Germany or ourselves; and till one or the other is up or down, the war will go on.

To crush the Germans we must put every ounce into the struggle. Are we doing so? I cannot think it when I see Parliament taking such a disgraceful line on the question of drink. Small wonder that Lloyd George exclaims, "What an ignoble spectacle the House of Commons presents now!" I had thought the British Parliament to be a great and potent institution. Now I think it is a convocation of old apple women. What we want is a Cromwell or a Napoleon to knock together the heads of political parties and declare, "No more drink." What will history say when it is recorded that in the midst of this great struggle the British people refused to give up the drink that was poisoning their lives and hindering the work of the nation, and that the influence of a few brewers and capitalists was sufficient to prevent any serious reform being passed in that House which is supposed to be the people's representative?

As for the recent anti-German riots, they seem to me to have been organised by those slack loafing elements of the population who lounge about refusing to enlist. Still, I suppose this is a necessary product of our type of national civilisation. Yet that system—the English or insular, I call it—has done, as it will do, marvels. So perhaps all is for the best, but I am grieved beyond measure at the collapse of L. G.'s scheme for drastic treatment of the drink evil. He at least is a man.

Do you realise what a fine part amateur sportsmen are playing in this war? I really doubt if there will be many great athletes left if things go on as they are doing. On the same day I read that Poulton-Palmer and R. A. Lloyd are gone. Only last year, I remember seeing those two as Captains of England and Ireland respectively, shaking hands with each other and with the King at the great Rugby Football match at Twickenham. I see news is to hand also of the death in action of A. F. Wilding, a great athlete who neither drank nor smoked. So in three days we have lost the most brilliant and versatile centre three-quarter in Poulton, the cleverest drop-kick in the world in Lloyd, and the world's champion tennis-player in Wilding!

June 6th, 1915.

Lloyd George in his two last speeches has said more than anyone else during the war. He is an extraordinary man, and at his greatest when rallying the workers. I see that the Tory Press is enthusiastic about him, and also about Winston Churchill's speech of yesterday. L. G.'s remark that "conscription is not undemocratic" has set a new train of thought stirring in this country. Up to now, in the view of the average Englishman, democracy and conscription had been set at opposite poles. Personally I am not exactly a democrat, an aristocrat, a monarchist, a socialist, or a constitutionalist, but a sort of combination of them all, and a firm believer in the Will to Power and in the Strong Man. But the point is that England certainly inclines to democracy—meaning by democracy laissez-faire. Hence what is needed in a crisis like this is to bring into operation a system which, while partaking of a democratic nature, and so not being repugnant to the national type (as developed by geography, circumstance and history) may yet bring into play the advantages of military training and national organisation. If you can persuade the stolid Englishman to adopt a sort of semi-voluntary military system, which is voluntary or appears so to him, yet puts him under discipline, well then you have an ideal system for England to win this war by. Of course, there is an alternative scheme, namely, for some man of outstanding personality to come along and say, "Look here, I am master, and by my force of character I will compel you to bow to a system which I know to be good for you and which will in the end benefit you." Lloyd George might be even such a man—a Cæsar, a Charlemagne, a Cromwell, or a Napoleon.

But I confess that this amazing English race is hard to bend, even when a man of outstanding personality arises. Did not Oliver himself—a superman if ever there was one—fail in his efforts to make better those whom he ruled? Still, as Goethe says, "Personality makes the man," and perhaps even in England a great man might force our stubborn nation to his will. But I confess I doubt it. Besides, I fear the system would break down as soon as the immediate need for it had vanished. We must have regard to the evolution of our type of race-species when trying to frame measures for its advance to victory over another type of race-species, for the simple reason that, if we do not, the system we are trying to set up will remain in the air, and never come to anything until the people have become sufficiently educated in our way of thinking to accept such a scheme. It seems to me that you could never make a British Army on a German model, or a German Army on a British model, because of the difference between the types of the two nations—the only exception being where you have a superman with a wonderful mind and personality to plan the pattern and enforce its adoption.

Our problem in England is to organise the very individualistic British race without letting them imagine that they are being organised. This sounds like the problem about the irresistible force up against the insurmountable obstacle. But seriously if you have followed my train of thought you will agree with me that what is wanted is to frame a system of military service and national organisation which yet conforms to the national predilection in favour of laissez-faire. This would not be so difficult if there were two or three centuries to do it in; the difficulty is that we must do it at once. Perhaps it is impossible; perhaps the influence of our insular environment will be too strong ever to allow a general military system to grow up here—I don't know, but I hope not. Anyway, it is Lloyd George to whom we look to turn the wheels, because he has personality and that almost uncanny Celtic gift of seeing into the future.

Is it not clear that the Germans have developed to the full a system of organisation in harmony with their national character? Geography has rendered necessary to them a certain type of national policy, and I consider their methods were the only possible ones for them, though they badly needed a clever diplomatist to deceive Europe in these latter years. Now Bismarck, if he had lived until to-day, would probably have secured for Germany a leading place, not by directly fighting England—who is, of course, the natural rival of Germany—the old story of the first and the second boy in the class—but by embroiling her at some suitable moment with other Powers. Then, when all would have been weakened by the war, Germany would step in and take the spoils. Fortunately for us the Prussian is a thoroughly bad diplomatist; and he has preferred open force to policy. Last year the Germans really played their cards astoundingly badly. Did we? Well, in one sense, yes, in that we failed to have a force ready to give the Germans a swift blow as soon as they ventured on an invasion of Belgium. On the other hand, no, because Edward Grey, acting openly, and in accordance with British traditions, yet succeeded by some extraordinary means in duping our enemies and making them rush into a war never expecting that we would participate in it. By accident Grey blundered into a marvellous stroke of diplomacy. Of course, we know that all his actions were governed by an honest desire to preserve peace, but the facts show that he really deceived the Germans more than Machiavelli would have done. (The Prussian, in the average, is very prone to misunderstand his enemy.) The Germans thought we would not come in; we did come in, just when they were not expecting it; in effect, that was a master-stroke. Where we failed was that we were not ourselves ready with an adequate force. Though we strangled German commerce at sea and helped to save France, we were deficient in many elements of an army, and are still woefully so. That is the natural result of insularity.