England, Canada and the Great War

by L. G. Desjardins

President Wilson was the first to answer a positive, a formidable NO, which, thundered out from Washington, was echoed with equal force in London, Paris and Rome. So that the astute attempt to deter the Allies from the glorious course they were forced to adopt by Germany, and by Austria herself, was doomed to failure, and bound to meet with the contempt it deserved.

But a few remarks expressing the retort that strikes one's mind on reading the Austrian communication, are in order and had better be made. The whole stress of the document is that peace should be restored as soon as possible on account of the sacrifices and sufferings war nowadays entail, and in conformity with the unanimous wishes of the peoples engaged in the conflict.

Did Austria ever suppose that, when she addressed that sadly famous and outrageous ultimatum to Servia, dated the 23rd of July, 1914, which she well knew would bring about the cataclysm she now feigns to deplore—and which Germany and herself were longing for—the war would be only a child's play, a game of golf, or something of the kind? Was Austria at that time cherishing the kind feelings of the German Kronprinz who, on being asked by an American lady, in a social event, at Berlin, why he was so desirous of seeing a great war, replied that "it was only for the fun of the thing?"

That war, when once declared, would have terrible consequences, would cost millions of dear lives, would cripple many more millions for the rest of their earthly days, would cost innumerable millions—even billions—of hard earned money, would destroy an immense amount of accumulated wealth, would delay for years the onward march of Humanity towards more and more prosperous destinies, was not only long foreseen before it broke out, but was positively known to be pregnant with all such disasters.

But what was not foreseen, not known, nor imagined as at all possible, after nearly twenty centuries of Christianity, was that, war being on, Germany, the Power responsible for it, guilty of the crime of having let loose the frightful hurricane, would multiply the horrors inseparable from military operations, with unconceivable barbarous acts condemned by all international, moral and Divine laws.

It was not foreseen, nor supposed possible, that heroism would be challenged by murder, that the glorious defenders of their country's rights would have to fight against sanguinary savages obeying the barbarian orders of a modern Attila.

It was not foreseen that hundreds of children, women, old men, wounded soldiers, would be assassinated on the open sea and sent to their eternal watery graves.

So far as the horrors of regular warfare were concerned, they were, as I have just said, very well known. And was it not on account of this knowledge that Great Britain and France had exhausted all their efforts in favour of the maintenance of peace?

Was it not out of this knowledge that England had, for more than twenty years, implored the Berlin Government to agree at least to partial disarmament, to discontinue, or, at the least, to reduce war ship building operations?

When Austria, bowing herself down to the ground under the German tyrannical lash, unjustly and cruelly declared war against weak Servia, she knew what the horrors of the conflict could not fail to be. How is it that at that time she was not moved by the sympathetic feelings expressed in her recent appeal for peace negotiations?