Towards the Goal

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

But the feeling of abhorrence which is not, at such a moment as this, sternly and incessantly translated into deeds is of no account! So let me return to a last survey of the War. On my home journey from Nancy, I passed through Paris, and was again welcomed at G.H.Q. on my way to Boulogne. In Paris, the breathless news of the Germans' quickening retreat on the Somme and the Aisne was varied one morning by the welcome tidings of the capture of Bagdad; and at the house of one of the most distinguished of European publicists, M. Joseph Reinach, of the Figaro, I met, on our passage through, the lively, vigorous man, with his look of Irish vivacity and force—M. Painlevé—who only a few days later was to succeed General Lyautey as French Minister for War. At our own headquarters, I found opinion as quietly confident as before. We were on the point of entering Bapaume; the "pushing up" was going extraordinarily well, owing to the excellence of the staff-work, and the energy and efficiency of all the auxiliary services—the Engineers, and the Labour Battalions, all the makers of roads and railways, the builders of huts, and levellers of shell-broken ground. And the vital importance of the long struggle on the Somme was becoming every day more evident. Only about Russia, both in Paris and at G.H.Q., was there a kind of silence which meant great anxiety. Lord Milner and General Castelnau had returned from Petrograd. In Paris, at any rate, it was not believed that they brought good news. All the huge efforts of the Allies to supply Russia with money, munitions, and transport, were they to go for nothing, owing to some sinister and thwarting influence which seemed to be strangling the national life?

Then a few days after my return home, the great explosion came, and when the first tumult and dust of it cleared away, there, indeed, was a strangely altered Europe! From France, Great Britain, and America went up a great cry of sympathy, of congratulation. The Tsardom was gone!—the "dark forces" had been overthrown; the political exiles were free; and Freedom seemed to stand there on the Russian soil shading her bewildered eyes against the sun of victory, amazed at her own deed.

But ten weeks have passed since then, and it would be useless to disguise that the outburst of warm and sincere rejoicing that greeted the overthrow of the Russian autocracy has passed once more into anxiety. Is Russia going to count any more in this great struggle for a liberated Europe, or will the forces of revolution devour each other, till in the course of time the fated "saviour of society" appears, and old tyrannies come back? General Smuts, himself the hero of a national struggle which has ended happily for both sides and the world, has been giving admirable expression here to the thoughts of many hearts. First of all to the emotion with which all lovers of liberty have seen the all but bloodless fall of the old tyranny. "It might have taken another fifty years or a century of tragedy and suffering to have brought it about! But the enormous strain of this war has done it, and the Russian people stand free in their own house." Now, what will they do with their freedom? Ten weeks have passed, and the Russian armies are still disorganised, the Russian future uncertain. Meanwhile Germany has been able to throw against the Allies in France, and Austria has been able to throw against Italy on the Isonzo, forces which they think they need no longer against Russia, and the pace of victory has thereby been slackened. But General Smuts makes his eloquent appeal to the Russia which once held and broke Napoleon:

"Liberty is like young wine—it mounts to your head sometimes, and liberty, as a force in the world, requires organisation and discipline…. There must be organisation, and there must be discipline. The Russian people are learning to-day the greatest lesson of life—that to be free you must work very hard and struggle very hard. They have the sensation of freedom, now that their bonds and shackles are gone, and no doubt they feel the joy, the intoxication, of their new experience; but they are living in a world which is not governed by formulas, however cleverly devised, but in a world of brute force, and unless that is smashed, even liberty itself will suffer and cannot live."

Will the newly-freed forget those that are still suffering and bound?
Will Russia forget Belgium?—and forget Serbia?

"Serbia was the reason why we went to war. She was going to be crushed under the Austrian heel, and Russia said this shall not be allowed. Serbia has in that way become the occasion probably of the greatest movement for freedom the world has ever seen. Are we going to forget Serbia? No! We must stand by those martyr peoples who have stood by the great forces of the world. If the great democracies of the world become tired, if they become faint, if they halt by the way, if they leave those little ones in the lurch, then they shall pay for it in wars more horrible than human mind can foresee. I am sure we shall stand by those little ones. They have gone under, but we have not gone under. England and America, France and Russia, have not gone under, and we shall see them through, and shame on us if ever the least thought enters our minds of not seeing them through."

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Noble and sincere words! One can but hope that the echoes of them may reach the ear and heart of Russia.

But if towards Russia the sky that seemed to have cleared so suddenly is at present clouded and obscure—"westward, look, the land is bright!"

A fortnight after the abdication of the Tsar, Congress met in Washington, and President Wilson's speech announcing war between Germany and America had rung through the world. All that you, sir, the constant friend and champion of the Allies, and still more of their cause, and all that those who feel with you in the States have hoped for so long, is now to be fulfilled. It may take some time for your country, across those thousand miles of sea, to realise the war, to feel it in every nerve, as we do. But in these seven weeks—how much you have done, as well as said! You have welcomed the British mission in a way to warm our British hearts; you have shown the French mission how passionately America feels for France. You have sent us American destroyers, which have already played their part in a substantial reduction of the submarine losses. You have lent the Allies 150 millions sterling. You have passed a Bill which will ultimately give you an army of two million men. You are raising such troops as will immediately increase the number of Americans in France to 100,000—equalling five German divisions. You are sending us ten thousand doctors to England and France, and hundreds of them have already arrived. You have doubled the personnel of your Navy, and increased your Regular Army by nearly 180,000 men. You are constructing 3,500 aeroplanes, and training 6,000 airmen. And you are now talking of 100,000 aeroplanes! Not bad, for seven weeks!