Begot us scoundrels, to give place
To something meaner yet unborn.
Horace, tr. Stapleton.
I suppose it is inevitable that those of us who have lived through a great world-crisis, such as the late war, should ask themselves or should be asked by others what it was like just before the crisis happened? How postured did the time of reckoning find us? Were we playing on, all unconscious, at the brink of a volcano? Or were we prepared—materially, morally, spiritually prepared—for what was to come upon us? The question is obviously not an easy one to answer. It is not easy to wipe out, even in imagination, the impressions left by nearly three years of war atmosphere and war strain. But, if only because there are not many of us left whose birth dates right back to the Five Years’ War, the last occasion when Europe became an armed camp, I feel that I ought to try and give my answer to that question, before I close these memoirs and bow myself out, to make way for younger authors with other messages.
I do not intend, however, to say anything much about our merely material preparation for the war. It is, after all, a question for experts: and the event proved that all the combatant countries were far better prepared for hostilities than the general public had ever supposed they would be. It is a commonplace that in any war either the offensive or the defensive arm is the better equipped, in advance of its rival. In this case, there can be no doubt at all that our defensive had outrun our offensive preparations. This was not generally known; indeed in our own country and in many others the comparatively small results achieved by our striking force became the subject of severe and quite undeserved criticism. The truth is, that Science does not lightly forget her humanitarian purpose; and (it is important to remember) the amazing efficiency of the Secret Service work done in the interests of the various belligerents in the long period between 1919 and 1972 had made it easy for the authorities in each country to know what was in store for them and to prepare against it. For the heroic and self-sacrificing work done by that noble body of men, the Secret Service Agents (mostly of Japanese origin, I believe), Europe and humanity itself can never be too grateful.
What was the effect of it? Why, that Mars, as in the old Greek legend, found himself in fetters. We, like the enemy, had put our faith in the invincible quality of our heavy artillery, not realizing that they, like us, had prepared a system of mine defences for their troops which made heavy artillery a back number. We told ourselves that our aerial fleet, superior both in numbers and in efficiency to any Continental fleet, was bound to make life insupportable in the larger enemy towns: the calculations of our enemy were exactly similar. Neither of us could foresee that long deadlock which resulted from the “stranglehold” we exercised over the enemy’s dispositions; neither of us could foresee that both sides would come out of the war with their air fleet practically untouched. Again, the typhus-germs from which we expected so much proved utterly ineffective against nations which had inoculated their children against typhus from infancy: and similarly, their dastardly plan (contrary to all the rules of civilized warfare) of infecting London with bubonic plague came too late when Milling’s discovery had made the bubonic plague a matter of three days in bed. In fact, if it had not been for the hitherto unrealized strength of British propaganda, it is difficult to see how the war could have resulted in anything but a complete stalemate.
But the question, Were we prepared for the war? involves deeper and more spiritual issues than this. What manner of men were we when that sudden strain was put upon our moral fibre? That is what posterity will want to know. And first of all, let me say that it is of England, not of the other belligerents, that I intend to speak. After all, on the admission of her enemies and even of her allies, it was she who bore the brunt of the conflict. Going into it with less, I suppose, of religious inspiration than France, with a Government less efficient, because less autocratic, than that of the United States, and with material resources not capable of competing with those of Brazil, she has achieved such a measure of victory as is indicated by the fact that her war indemnity, if it is ever paid, will amount to little less than a tenth of her war debt. It is not, then, simply because England is my own country, and because, a stay-at-home by nature, I have little inside information about other peoples, but because it was upon Great Britain that, in those fateful three years, the eyes of the world were centred, that I confine myself in this chapter to a survey of English conditions and English ideals.
“Show me,” that great philanthropist Peterson used to say, “how the poor of a nation live, and I will tell you whether that nation is alive.” In this respect, it must be confessed, the record of England at that time was indeed a black one. Huddled together in slums and rookeries, whose “model” flats often had to contain two families where only one could live with comfort, the poor were stifled from the first by overcrowding. It must be remembered that the poorer classes had, as usual, larger families than the rich, and it was no uncommon thing to find four or five children living in the same tenement with their parents. Many of these poor little mites got no more than a fortnight’s holiday at the seaside every year, and had nowhere to play in except the public parks. In return for their school attendance they were paid a mere pittance, and only the simplest possible fare was provided for them by the school authorities. It was piteous, as one moved about the poorer parts of London, to see their untidy hair, their crumpled collars and dirty handkerchiefs. Small wonder that disease spread quickly in such surroundings, and it was estimated that child-mortality in the poorer quarters of the large towns was fully one in a thousand. For a time, of course, the influence of the school kept them out of harm’s way, but at seventeen or eighteen, just at the most impressionable period of life, their schooling must perforce come to an end, and, hardly more than boys, they were thrust out into the world to shift for themselves. Often, of course, drink or gambling would be responsible for the worst cases of poverty; but often, too, it would be mere ill-luck or imprudent under-insurance that left them stranded when they were out of work. Too proud to accept relief from any of the thirty-eight organizations that offered it, these unfortunates would drag out a wretched existence on such doles as their Union and the National Beneficent Fund could afford them. It is true, and fortunately true, that we have now done much to remedy this terrible state of things; but in 1972 it was no exaggeration to say that the conditions of life in our great cities stood up in witness against us.
As usual, overcrowding in the towns went hand in hand with, and was partly caused by, rural depopulation. In all the country districts it was the same story—you could not get the young people to remain on the land. It was difficult to blame them; wages were so low that an unskilled agricultural labourer was hardly paid on the same scale as a governess; the cottages for the most part were mere eight-roomed hovels, and the deafening noise and incessant whirr of the machinery made the farmyard a good imitation of the Inferno. Machinery was continually replacing human labour, almost faster than the diminution in the birth-rate could keep pace with the process. Besides, there were few amusements which could make the country towns and villages compare in amenity with the large manufacturing centres: the cinemas often had no afternoon performances, and such dances as there were seldom lasted later than midnight. It was no wonder that the lure of the great cities continued to exercise its spell over the young and the ambitious.
The effect of these bad conditions on the health of the nation was plainly shown during the war itself, when the various “classes” came up for medical examination. Of the total manhood of Great Britain, one-tenth were liable to vertigo, such as prevented them either from going up in aircraft or else from going down into the pits. Something like 13 per cent. suffered from Pollock’s inhibition, either in the form of actonism (reluctance to kill) or of athanism (reluctance to die). Eight per cent. were declared unfit through psophophobia, which made them unable to stand loud noises. Another six per cent. had taxiphobia, and could not serve in the ranks. Ochlophobia, capnophobia, pyrophobia, zophophobia, atenxipodia, and other more ordinary nervous diseases, such as Blast’s inhibition, swelled the total of non-combatants. In all it is doubtful whether 40 per cent. of the men who were of military age could have been called upon to fight. Happily, most of the unfit were available for the much needed work of propaganda, since only a small percentage were troubled with pseudophobia, which alone was treated as ground for exemption from this class of work.