Can we explain it even to ourselves? Thousands of Germans come over to England to live. They prosper among us, take their pleasures with us, adapt themselves to our English ways, and learn to prefer them. Thousands of Englishmen make their homes in German cities; find German ways of living, if anything, suit them better. Suddenly there arises the question, shall English ways of life or German ways of life prevail: English or German culture—which shall it be? And the English who have lived contentedly in Germany for years hasten back to fight for England, and the desire of every German in England is to break up his pleasant home among us and fight to bring all Europe into German ways of thinking.
Clearly the definition is a right one. It is just a game.
Just as all life is a game; joy and sorrow the zest of it, suffering the strength-giving worth of it. Till Death rings his bell, and the game is over—for the present. What have we learned from it? What have we gained from it? Have we played it to our souls' salvation, learning from it courage, manhood? Or has it broken us, teaching us mean fear and hate?
I quote from the letter of a young cavalry officer writing from the trenches:
Although I can't pretend to like this nightmare, I cannot help realizing that it is doing something for those of us who are going through it that we otherwise would have missed; it brings out either the best or worst in a man. It makes character.
He speaks of a little black dog. They are living in two feet of water, he and his men. The German lines are a hundred yards off; wounds, disease, and death are around them. They are worried about this wretched little dog. He has, it seems, lost his people, and is not to be comforted. It is a curious picture. One sees the straggling line of grimy, mud-stained men. They are there to kill; their own life hangs on a thread. A nightmare of blood and dust and horror, and in the midst of it, growing there as if the soil suited it, this flower of pity for a little fellow-creature.
I quote from another letter:
I can assure you there is none of that insensate hatred that one hears about out here. We are out to kill, and kill we do at every opportunity. But when it is all over the splendid universal soldier spirit comes over all the men. Just to give you some idea of what I mean, the other night four German snipers were shot on our wire. The next night our men went out and brought one in who was near and getatable and buried him. They did it with just the same reverence and sadness as they do our own dear fellows. I went to look at the grave next morning, and one of the most uncouth-looking men in my company had placed a cross at the head of the grave, and had written on it:
|
Here lies a German, We don't know his name, He died bravely fighting For his Fatherland. |
And under that "Got mitt uns," (sic,) that being the highest effort of all the men at German.