A Fortnight at the Front

by Henry Russell Wakefield

Turning now to France, we realise that her impelling force in this war is a sacred devotion to country. The pathetic mistake made at the beginning of operations of attempting an incursion into Alsace sprang out of the longing to give back to the beloved land the portion which had been torn from her in 1870. To a Frenchman his earth has a deep meaning, his country has an absolute right to his life, a right never disputed and which is acknowledged with the greatest fervour in the hour of gravest danger. There is no doubt that in the early months of the war the oppression of the last campaign was upon the people; they could still, some of them, remember, and all the others had been told of, the terrible experiences undergone five and forty years ago. When once more Germany was overrunning the land there was for a little time a belief in the inevitable victory of the enemy, but very soon France pulled herself together, and she was enabled to do so because the men leading her, and she herself, had developed a greatness which did not show itself in 1870. I look back to the time when I saw French prisoners spit as they passed their own principal leaders, also in the hands of the enemy. I remember in one German town how subaltern prisoners would cross a road in order to avoid saluting men of superior rank in their own army. I can also call to mind a great moral degradation on the part of many French officers. How different it all is to-day. It seems to me as if Joffre were typical of the new patience which has entered into the French character. At all times the Frenchman has been the best attacker in the world; to-day he has learnt the duty of patient warfare. When the French Commander-in-Chief says that he is nibbling at the Germans, he is making a statement which would have been impatiently received in the days gone by, but which is, after all, under present conditions not only necessary but the most difficult of warlike methods. To-day France is earnest, whilst in 1870 she was only eager. Her moral position has also changed. Behind the armies to-day woman is present, not to minister to passion but to minister to suffering, and to ennoble in thought.

The salvation of France has been, under God, its motherhood. The relationship between, not only the boy, but the grown man and his mother, has remained upon me as the most beautiful thing in the way of relationship that I have ever known. When I hear that almost invariably the dying soldier in France, of all ranks, speaks as his last word upon earth the one that he first spoke—"Maman," I know that I am being told an absolute truth. It may be that in the past the French character has suffered through passion, but if woman has sometimes been an evil influence, assuredly she has oftener certainly proved herself a blessing to the men of the land.

It is a delight to one who loves France, but who was never quite sure that she was to be trusted in difficult moments, to feel now that she has all the stability which will make her carry on to the end this awful war.

There is another class to which France owes much of her reformation: the religious, the Clergy and the Sisters. It is a pity that at the present time, through harsh dealing, she is deprived of the perfect nursing and caring for, of some of the religious Orders, as one hears rather painful accounts of the conditions in some of the French War Hospitals, but she has her clergy, her priests, who fight and pray and bear no grudge for injustice done to the Church they serve. Whatever we may feel sometimes about the great Roman Catholic religion, we know this, at any rate, that the power of its members is always at its highest in the hour of greatest sacrifice. I have seen some of its priests ministering, themselves wounded and suffering, and I have thanked God that there were such examples of Christlike devotion at this great hour of the world's history. The sacredness of la patrie for Frenchmen is a beautiful thing to dwell upon. We are just learning here in England the first lesson of that which is a finished, perfected knowledge to the meanest of French subjects.

Russia.—Here the atmosphere is different. We are in the presence of a nation naturally, often superstitiously, religious and somewhat uneducated. Russia does not make war in a cool and calculating way. The peasant is ignorant even of the causes of the war. His "little father" orders and thenceforth the war becomes a Crusade, a Holy War. The illiterate, religious, patriotic man or woman in Russia knows no such end to warfare except that which comes from the Czar's command. When you turn to the mercantile class you are conscious that all of it which is not German is strongly, almost vehemently anti-Prussian. The language of commerce to-day is German. French has been left to the aristocracy. In the shops of Moscow, Petrograd and Nijni-Novgorod, German is the universal language. It is idle to dispute the Teutonic influence which exists, but there is also an intensely antagonistic feeling on the part of those who have experienced the competition of the German. The aristocracy of Russia has a loathing of German coarseness and is French in speech and feeling. All the classes in Russia are simple, the word Kultur does not impress them. The art, the music and the stage effects of Russia are very natural, though often most perfectly expressed.

One is tempted to sum up the present Russian position as that of a simple, religious, almost fatalistic people, ready for all things at the order of the man who is their civil and spiritual head. But Russia was not prepared for war last year. Those of us who have seen in Moscow the drilling of even some of the best known regiments were conscious that we were not looking at the finished article. The Cossack is a natural horseman who in some ways has hardly anything to learn, but the infantry need to be modernised. The Russian will not turn his back, and his preparedness will grow each day.

Italy.—One or two words only in regard to this country, as to which I fancy we at home are a little disappointed. Let us not forget that it was by no means easy for Italy to sever herself from Germany, with whom she had been allied for a long time. We must not leave out of account that there had been no close sympathy with France for some years, nor must the impoverished condition of the country be forgotten. It needed some courage and some faith to ignore the continental impression of the power of Germany and to take up arms at all against her. We must be patient with her, because, though she may not be "on fire" for this war, yet she is in earnest, and her love for England is real.

Belgium.—This little land faced the inevitable, the never-dreamt-of, with an army not intended for international warfare, and which had to be strengthened by utterly untrained civilians. Her action was magnificent. She could have had terms, but she scorned them. Belgium did not love England before this war. One may doubt whether she even trusted her, but she does now. Still even here there has always been a pro-German class, well-to-do and influential, which may be said to have dominated the commerce of Antwerp and other leading centres. There has also been some sympathy with Germany on the part of the people living near to the German border, and no doubt the Belgian nation has suffered through this war from the treachery of some of its own people. But the tenacity of this little land is unquestionable, and her King and Queen will go down to posterity as perhaps the two most knightly characters of this war, two people who seem more to fit in with the days of the Round Table than with the age of Zeppelins and Mines.

On turning to our own Empire, we have to confess that the level of earnestness at the beginning of the war was lower than in the case of France, Russia, or Belgium, and, indeed, in some ways lower than that of Germany. We were thrilled for a moment, as it were, by the knowledge that we were taking up arms because honour demanded that we should, but the public heart was not greatly stirred. Gradually we began to realise that we were engaged in a struggle for our own existence, but even now there are millions in Great Britain who are not persuaded of this fact. Canada, Australia, New Zealand seem to have understood, before the Motherland, how serious the war was for the Empire. It is not for me to declare to Britain her duty; I do not suggest that I know more of the mind of the nation or of the needs of the nation than any other Briton. I think that I may have had greater opportunity of feeling the pulse of other lands than many people, but all of us here at home can see now what our own duty is, and that whilst the usual mistakes have been made, there is now an awakened Empire which dare not in the sight of God refuse any sacrifice in order to crush for at least the generation that is coming, the accursed ideals which the military party in Germany wishes to see dominating the world. Upon this subject the Church must continue to speak and to act; her words being stronger and her actions firmer than up to the present they have been. This war is in my judgment a fight between right and wrong, between God and evil.

Had I my way I would relegate to obscurity for at any rate the whole period of the war every religious division; I would on this all-important matter fall gladly into line with all sides of Christianity in order that men should know that in our judgment the followers of Jesus cannot understand their Leader without being ready to give, if needs be, life, to prevent the victory of wickedness. This is my reasoned judgment, more than ever impressed upon me by my visit to the Front. If we all face the future with this conviction pessimism will die, not to be superseded by a stupid, unreflecting optimism, but by an unremitting devotion, which shall spring out of that courage which belongs to the man who knows his cause is that of God, and that he himself can and must do something towards hastening the triumph which is inevitable if only we are worthy. The religious England to which I look forward is one which has been taught by the awakening of the spirit of Christian patriotism, that in life the beginning and the end of perfection, for nation as well as individual, is the willing offering of body, mind, and spirit in order that it shall be easy for humanity to be free and for right to triumph over evil. May it be our Empire's glory to have the grandest share in this great offering.