7. "This War Will End Within Forty Years"
A New Zealand officer was giving directions to a group of his soldiers. They were in the field at the foot of Bapaume. The immediate task was that of cutting and rolling up the barbed wire. In that territory the Germans had left trenches foul with fever, wells filled with the corpses of men and horses, springs polluted with every form of filth, but worst of all, the barbed wire entanglements. Every sharp point was covered with rust and threatened lockjaw. Looking in every direction, the whole land was yellow with the barbed wire. The work was dangerous. The rebound of the wire threatened the eye with its vision, threatened the face and the hand, and all the soldiers were in a mood of rebellion. In an angry mood, the officer exclaimed, "There are a hundred million miles of German barbed wire in France!"
And when later I asked the first lieutenant how long this war would last, he made the instant answer, "This war will continue forty years more! One year for the fighting, and thirty-nine years to roll up the wire."
Because every soldier at the front hated the wire entanglements, that bright sentence ran up and down the entire line from Belgium to the Swiss frontier. And for men of experience there is more truth in the statement than one would at first blush think. It will take one more year for the fighting, but it will take thirty-nine years more to grow the shade trees. Five centuries ago the French began to develop the love of the beautiful. On either side of the roads running across the land they planted two rows of poplars, oaks or elms. When long time had passed the fame of the French roads and the shade trees went out into all the earth. Under these trees the French farmer stopped his cart, fed his horses and refreshed himself beneath the shade. Under these trees the old men at the end of their career rested themselves, and gossiped about old friends that had gone.
And when the German found he could not hold the land and enjoy the shade trees, the splendid orchards, the purple vineyards, he determined that the Frenchman should not have them, and so he lifted the axe upon every peach and pear, plum and grape, cherry and gooseberry tree. Perhaps it was as black a crime to murder the land as it was to murder the bodies of the farmers, since the soul is immortal.
"One more year of fighting and thirty-nine years" not to roll up the wire, but to rebuild the cathedrals and churches, the colleges and universities, the halls of science, the temples of art, the mills for the weaving of cotton and linen and wool, and above all for the rebuilding of the railways, the reconstruction of the canals and the bridges, great and small. But the most grievous loss is the human loss. Think of 1,500,000 crippled heroes and poor wounded invalids in the land of France alone! Think of another 1,500,000 young widows, or lovers and mothers! Gone the young men who promised so great things for the French essay, the French poem, for the paintings and the bronzes! Dead the young lawyers, physicians and educators! Gone the young farmers and husbandmen! Perished 1,000,000 old people and 500,000 little children, all dead of heart-break. The German beast has been in the land. Like a wolf leaping into the sheepfold to tear the throats of the young lambs and the mother ewes.
What! Thirty-nine years more to recover ruined France and Belgium, Poland and Rumania? France will never be the same again. The scar of the beast will abide. That is why no man of large mind and great heart will ever make friends with a soldier from Germany, will ever buy an article of German stamp, so long as he lives, will ever read another German book, or support another German business. It is our duty to forgive the transgressor who is repentant, but it is a crime to forget the unspeakable atrocities, the devilish cruelties of the German Kaiser, the German War Staff and the German army, with its 10,000,000 criminals.
8. "Why Are We Outmanned by the Germans?"
Many thoughtful men have lingered long over the despatches announcing that Great Britain called thirty thousand farmers to the trenches, thus threatening the loss of a part of her harvest. One of the British editors and statesmen explains this event by the frank statement that for the moment the Allies are outmanned, and will be until another million Americans reach France. Many men are puzzled to understand what this means, but the explanation is very simple. The combined population of Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria is not far from 140,000,000. To this must be added seventy millions of conquered and impressed peoples of Belgium, Poland, Rumania, with the Baltic provinces of Russia, Ukraine and other regions. Over against this population stands the 125,000,000 living in Great Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the English people of South Africa, and India, and the Isles of the Sea. Concede, therefore, that the army of six millions of Allies are over against six millions of Germans. Why are we outmanned?
Back of that British editor-statesman's statement lies a most dramatic fact. Our Allies keep their treaties, and will not use German prisoners to fight against their brothers. Therefore the six million of Allies' soldiers have no support behind them. But the Germans impress all conquered peoples and lifted into the air if the observer had a glass powerful enough, he would behold back of the German six millions another six millions of impressed prisoners and conquered peoples, who support the German army. These men, driven forward by an automatic pistol and the rifle, work within half a mile of the rear German trench. They dig ditches, fill shell holes, repair roads, bring up burdens, care for the horses, scrub the mud from the wagons, and the slightest neglect of the task means that they are shot down by the German guards. All this releases the German soldier from the deadly work that breaks the nerve, and unfits a man to go over the top. That means that the German soldier can fight eight hours, and have sixteen for rest and recreation.