“To Avenge”
Stern is the denunciation of W.S. Lilly, in the same issue of The Nineteenth Century and After, upon the atrocities recounted in an article on German atrocities in France by Professor Morgan, appearing in the next preceding number. Mr. Lilly quotes Thomas Carlyle's sarcastic words about the "blind loquacious prurience of indiscriminate Philanthropism" that commands no revenge for great injustice. He says:
Apart from the "fierce and monstrous gladness," with which the German people have welcomed the hellish cruelty of their soldiery, they must be held responsible for its crimes. General von Bernhardi, indeed, assures them that "political morality differs from individual morality because there is no power above the State." And they have been given over to a strong delusion to believe this lie. Above the State is the Eternal Rule of Right and Wrong: above the State is the Supreme Moral Governor of the Universe; yes, above the State is God. Let us proclaim this august verity though in France Atheism has been triumphant; in England Agnosticism is fashionable; in Lutheran Germany—worst of all—evil has been enthroned in the place of good, and "devils to adore for deities" is the proper cult.
The resolution of the old Roman patriot that "Carthage must be destroyed" is quoted by this writer. He adds:
As stern a resolution is in the minds and on the lips of all true lovers of their country and of mankind, be they English or French, Russian, Italian, Japanese, and I do not hesitate to add American. German militarism must be utterly destroyed and the monstrous creation of blood and iron overthrown. Such is the plainest dictate of the instinct of self-preservation. It is also the plainest dictate of justice. Germany must be paid that she has deserved. When the triumphant Allies shall have made good their footing on her soil, they will not indeed rival her exploits or violating women and butchering children, of murdering prisoners and wounded, of slaying unoffending and peaceful peasants, of destroying shrines of religion and learning. But they will assuredly shoot or hang such of the chief perpetrators of these and the like atrocities as may fall into their hands. They will strip her of ill-gained territory. They will empty her arsenals and burn her war workshops. They will impose a colossal indemnity which will condemn her for long years to grinding poverty. They will confiscate her fleet. They will remove the treasures of her galleries and museums, and take toll of her libraries, to make compensation for her pillage and incendiarism in Belgium. The measure of punishment is always a matter of difficulty. But surely anything less than this would be wholly disproportionate to the rank offences of Germany. The reckoning, the retribution, the retaliation to be just must be most stern. The victorious Allies, who will be her judges, will not be moved by "mealymouthed philanthropies." "Justice shall strike and Mercy shall not hold her hands: she shall strike sore strokes, and Pity shall not break the blow."
The Pope, the Vatican, and Italy
In The Fortnightly Review for July E.J. Dillon is sweeping in his arraignment of the new Pope Benedict XV. and the Vatican, of the Pope because of his "neutrality in matters of public morality," and of the Vatican because of its hostility to the cause of Allies. Toward martyred Belgium and suffering France the Pope "has been generous in lip sympathy and promises of rewards in the life to come," Mr. Dillon says; but he has "found no word of blame for their executioners." Mr. Dillon personally offered Benedict XV. "some important information on the subject which seemed adequate to change his views or modify his action," but he "turned the conversation to other topics." In fairness he adds that "personally Benedict XV. had been careful to keep aloof from Buelow and his band," and has neither said nor done anything blameworthy with the sole exception of the interview and message which he was reported to have given "to an American-German champion of militarism at the instigation of his intimate counsellor, Monsignor Gerlach"—an interview, by the way, which the Pope has since expressly repudiated.
