The Forum, October 1914

by Various

THE FORUM

FOR OCTOBER 1914

THE WAR

Charles Vale

In each of the nations now engaged in the European conflict, a large number of people of all classes—the vast majority of people of all classes—did not want war, and would have done all in their power to avert it: for they knew, more or less completely, the price of war; and they knew also, more or less completely, in spite of the inadequacy of all the churches through all the centuries, that war cannot possibly be reconciled with Christianity, with civilization, with humanity, decency, and the most rudimentary common sense. But when hostilities had actually been commenced, each of the nations was practically a unit with regard to the prosecution of the war to its final and terrible conclusion. With the exception of a few professional agitators or eccentric fanatics, who have gleaned scant sympathy for their antics, every citizen or subject of each country has placed implicit faith in the justice of the nation’s cause and has been prepared to give, ungrudgingly, the last full measure of devotion. Canada, Australia, South Africa, India, and all the great and small oversea commonwealths, colonies and dominions of Great Britain have come forward in the time of stress to offer new strength to the United Kingdom and new pledges of a United Empire. In the Fatherland, every man and woman has accepted the issue as inevitable, has held the cause of Kaiser and country as sacred and supreme, and has shrunk from no sacrifice to ensure the fulfilment of the long-cherished dream of victory, security and expansion. In France, where the ghosts of the dead that von Moltke required have not yet ceased to walk o’ nights, (they will

have new companionship now), there is no doubt in the mind of man, woman or child that la Patrie is waging a holy war for liberty and honor against the ruthless aggression of an arrogant and pitiless foe. In Russia, Austria, Servia, and whatever countries may have been dragged into the vortex week by week, there is a similar spirit, a similar belief in the justice of the national cause and the calculated injustice of the enemy’s plans. And in Belgium, always the victim of her unneighborly neighbors’ feuds, a people dedicated to peace has been flung into the hell of butchery and flames. Verily, Macbeth hath murther’d sleep!

In these United States, there has been little attempt to transcend race-limitations, so far as concerns the aliens within our borders, and those hyphenated-Americans who have rushed with virulence into a wordy warfare, intent, not on establishing the truth, but on giving publicity, ad nauseam, to their own special, and specially obnoxious, prejudices. The American nation, and every individual in it, has a clear right to hold and express a definite opinion: but it must be an opinion formed in conformity with the American character and the American freedom from entanglements of inherited and unreasoned bias. No other opinion is worth, here and now, a moment’s consideration; and no other opinion should dare to voice itself in this country, which has ties with almost all the peoples of the world—ties of blood and friendship, but not of bloodshed and hysteria.

America alone, of the great Powers of the world, is in a position to exercise free and calm reflection and to form a free and just judgment. The value of her decision has already been made manifest, through the efforts of every country involved in the war to influence American sentiment and gain American good will. A peculiar responsibility therefore rests upon us to avoid the banalities of the various special pleaders, and to form our judgment soberly and in good faith, nothing extenuating, and setting down naught in malice. And one of the first thoughts that should occur to us, one of the most significant and pregnant thoughts, is that which I have expressed in my first paragraph. Europe is a house divided against itself: but each nation in Europe has proclaimed the sanctity of its cause; each nation conceives that it has, or is entitled to have, the special protection

of Providence; each nation is sending its men to death and claiming patient sacrifice from its women.

What does this mean? Is there such little sense of logic in the world that it is impossible to distinguish right from wrong, so that nation may rise against nation, each convinced of its own probity, and each unable to attribute anything but evil motives to its adversaries? Can self-delusion be carried so far that black and white exchange values according to the chances of birth and environment? Have Christianity and civilization achieved this remarkable result, that the peoples of the world are like quarrelsome children in a disorderly nursery?