Meanwhile, the Turkish Commander announced that he had received a telegram from the Sultan requiring the immediate presence of himself and army at Constantinople: so the firing line took the hint and started for the new alignment by the shortest route. However, as everybody's great idea was to put the river between himself and the enemy he'd been facing, two streams met at the bridge D. and there were further scenes. By this time it was dark, and our troops were utterly exhausted, so nothing more was done for the moment.
Our casualties were 85 killed and 1,158 wounded, an extraordinary proportion. We haven't had any reliable information of the enemy's losses yet: but we took about 1,300 prisoners.
I must stop now. I am very fit and a Capt., 3rd Senior Officer out here for the moment (excluding Adjutant O.M.O.) and am commanding "A" double Coy.
Amarah.
October 8, 1915
To N.B.
Two lots of letters arrived this mail, including yours of August 30th and September 6th, for which many thanks.
If I said that this war means the denying of Christianity I ought to have explained myself more. That phrase is so often used loosely that people don't stop to think exactly what they mean. If the Germans deliberately brought about the war to aggrandise themselves, as I believe they did, that was a denial of Christianity, i.e. a deliberate rejection of Christian principles and disobedience to Christ's teaching: and it makes no difference in that case that it was a national and not an individual act. But once the initiating evil was done, it involved the consequence, as evil always does, of leaving other nations only a choice of evils. In this case the choice for England was between seeing Belgium and France crushed, and war. In choosing war I can't admit there was any denial of Christianity, and I don't think you can point to any text, however literally you press the interpretation, which will bear a contrary construction. Take "Resist not him that doeth evil" as literally as you like, in its context. It obviously refers to an individual resisting a wrong committed against himself, and the moral basis of the doctrine seems to me twofold: (1) As regards yourself, self-denial, loving your enemies, etc., is the divine law for the soul; (2) as regards the wronger nothing is so likely to better him as your unselfish behaviour. The doctrine plainly does not refer to wrongs committed in your presence against others. Our Lord Himself overthrew the tables of the money-changers. And the moral basis of His resistance to evil here is equally clear if you tolerate evils committed against others: (1) your own morale and courage is lowered: it is shirking; (2) the wronger is merely encouraged. If I take A.'s coat and A. gives me his cloak also, I may be touched. But B.'s acquiescence in the proceeding cannot possibly touch me and only encourages me. Now the Government of a country is nearly always in the position of B. not A., because a country is not an individual. In our case we were emphatically in the position of B.: but I would justify the resistance of Belgium on the same grounds.
Of course as I said last week, national standards can't be as self-sacrificing as individual standards: and never can be until all the individuals in a nation are so Christian as to choose unanimously the self-sacrificing course.