An Impression of the War

WHEN the editor of the Atlantic Monthly first asked me to try to put into words an impression of what the war had meant to one in such a position as my own, a mere teacher and writer, who, for thirty years of a busy professional life, had been immersed in work the very basis of which was peace, I felt a great reluctance to attempt anything of the kind. In the first place, an elderly non-combatant who cannot, it would seem, contribute anything whatever to the active furtherance of military designs appears to be the one person upon whom silence is naturally imposed; and in the second place, the whole catastrophe is so immense and bewildering, so dim and confused in its origin and so uncertain in its outcome, that to speak about it at all in definite terms seemed almost absurd, as though an ant in an ant-hill were to give its impressions of an earthquake.

But on thinking about it, I began to feel that one can certainly effect nothing by silence, and still less by refusing to attempt to see so great an affair clearly and steadily. To emerge from so immense an experience in a mood of dumb bewilderment, only hoping that time and life will enable one to forget, is a fruitless and childish frame of mind. So I will try to set down as clearly as possible a few prevailing thoughts; because the one thing to be avoided, if possible, is to come back to life simply stunned and battered, the worse for the war in every respect. The only hopeful thing is to emerge with a resolution to see where the old conceptions of peace were wrong, where and how they broke down on so colossal a scale, and how we can reconstruct if possible a new fabric of life with fewer opportunities for human turbulence and jealousy, and whatever else is behind war, to break out into so fierce a conflagration.

I suppose that before the war began I was in the frame of mind of many peaceful and busy people, believing that a European crisis would somehow be avoided; that if Germany had a taste for shaking a mailed fist and talking about shining armor, and indulging in a romantic sort of self-glorification, she would in the last resort turn out to be civilized and reasonable and even sensible. There were many people, no doubt, who knew better, and saw how deep the poison lay. I do not doubt that now; but it was difficult for any one who knew to express all this without appearing provocative and suspicious; and then too came in that extraordinary British power of minding our own business, and of viewing other nations with a good-humored tolerance. Certainly, in the circles in which I lived there was very little suspicion expressed of the designs of Germany, and no desire to interfere with them except by steady commercial competition. The idea seems so deeply rooted in the German mind that all England was perfidiously absorbed in the aim of stepping in to crush Germany, if an opportunity offered, that I suppose it is impossible to convince the German people of the real guilelessness of the English public, and indeed of the almost total lack of interest in what Germany was doing or thinking. Strange as it may seem, I believe that the knowledge of Germany and her aims had steadily declined in the last thirty years in England. When I became a schoolmaster in 1885, there was a strong movement to make German a serious subject of study, and I spent a summer holiday in that year in Germany to pick up an acquaintance with the language. But the subject was slowly shouldered out of the curriculum, and I think it is true to say that educationally the study of German in England had been declining for some years, while among intellectual minds, the German influence had lost force and respect; the reason, I honestly believe, being that the Germans have been sacrificing intellect to what they call patriotism, and tingeing all their studies with an emotional self-worship.

Then with an awful suddenness the deluge burst upon us. And speaking quite honestly, the first months of the war were a nightmare which I do not willingly recall. My chief occupation at the beginning of the war was seeing the University and the College where my work lay melt away at the call to service; and much of my time was spent in trying to help our men to obtain the military work they wanted. As far as my own occupations went, it was like presiding at my own funeral. Writing and teaching disappeared. Cambridge became a hospital base, and was filled with troops; and for a long time my own College became the headquarters of a divisional staff, and our Hall table a military mess — a refreshing and interesting experience.

But of course anxieties multiplied fast. Scores of friends and old pupils went off to military depots and passed on to the front. Correspondence increased ; and although direct war-work was not in my power, every institution with which I was connected was confronted with the task of keeping afloat under the pressure of financial and technical difficulties; so that business, instead of decreasing, tended to ramify; and in the midst of this came a private sorrow, and much additional work resulting from it.

But the war itself! The devastation of Belgium was an accomplished fact, the fortresses meant to stem the tide for months fell in a few days, the onrush into France followed, and then as unaccountably was checked and held. Very slowly the affair resolved itself into an awful monotony of sparse combat, with every tradition and principle of warfare reversed, while at the same time it became clear how firm was Britain’s grasp upon the sea, after all. The submarine menace lost its grip, the Zeppelin scare revealed itself as a piece of elaborate and futile brutality. The whole rush and turmoil of war seemed to curdle and settle down into a stern and simple strain of endurance and grim hopefulness.

Meanwhile the nation fell gradually into line; without wishing to impugn the motives of the critics who made it their business to find fault, acrimoniously and bitterly, with every department of state organization, a looker-on may frankly say that it is almost impossible to conceive how entirely some of our leading newspapers have misrepresented the mood of the nation. The nation has been singularly placid, diligent, patient, and public-spirited. It has responded cheerfully and as a matter of course to every call for men, money, and work. Every honest claim has been liberally financed, workers have flocked into every enterprise; and it is lawful to feel a deep pride in the fact that a huge national army containing all the best and freshest stock of the nation has been raised, trained, and equipped out of nothing but a vast reserve of healthy and sensible energy. I do not believe that such an army has ever been created in so short a time in the history of the world.

The papers have contrived to give an impression of fuss, selfish inactivity, and fear — the three elements which have been simply conspicuous by their absence throughout. My associates through the war have been mainly dons and soldiers, but I have not come across a trace of either pacifism or militarism. One would suppose that there was a large and influential group of men so besotted by the idea of peace that they wished to bring the war to an end at any cost. There is no such thing. There are a few faddists who have never had a hearing; while as to militarism, I have lived in a town crammed with billeted troops, whose one desire seemed to be as little in evidence as possible, and to prove themselves the kindliest and the most easily pleased of visitors; while in traveling about the country as I have had to do, the popularity of the soldiers whom one sees everywhere arises from the fact that they have claimed no privileges which are not shared by the humblest traveler. Only one who has lived and moved about in England during the war can realize how little the militarism of the country has interfered with the civic life and organization.

Again, some of our papers have seemed to consider that panic is the only proof of seriousness. As a matter of fact, the absence of brooding and despondent anxiety has been a very remarkable thing. Men and women have proved their seriousness best by treating their own private fears and anxieties as part of the normal price they were prepared to pay for the task in which they were engaged. In Germany the loud proclamation of an ideal seems to be accepted as the only proof of deep convictions. I do not think that in England the national seriousness has taken the shape of defining a positive ideal. Great Britain has no more conscious desire to make herself felt, or to stamp a type of honor and duty on the world, than before. What she desires is a sort of independence, the power to live a tolerant and reasonable life without subscribing too definitely to an ethical theory. The desire to conquer Germany is not accompanied by any missionary wish to improve Germany; it is rather the intense longing to be rid of a bullying and tyrannical neighbor, whose aggressive theories imperil the British conception of liberty — liberty of action, opinion, and conduct.

I do not think that Englishmen mind honest competitors or even avowed rivals. What really revolts them is the idea that another nation’s self-satisfaction should take the form of imposing an ideal on the world. The Englishman does not believe in shaping or moulding an ideal. He is inclined to trust his instincts; he loves order, and he accepts the duty of work. But he does not like taking the Ark into battle; he does not believe in trying to invest with sacred associations what seem to him matters of common sense. I do not feel that the attempts to call the war a sacred war have really met with much favor in England. That savors of unreality. It seems to us merely disgusting and hateful that another nation should believe in aggression; and the sooner such nonsense is put an end to, the better. In this the Englishman is a realist and not a romanticist. Many a young officer who has gone cheerfully and good-humoredly into training and to the front, as a matter of course, and never dreamed of doing otherwise, has said to me, ‘I want to see this through, and it is n’t bad fun; but of course I shall be glad to get back to my work.’ There is no touch of either cynicism or indifference in this; it means simply that a young Englishman trusts his instinct, and dislikes making out an emotional case for himself.

I have seen something, at close quarters, of the sorrow of the war; and here too I have admired to the very bottom of my heart the simplicity of it. It has never taken the form of self-pity, of pathos, or of repining. There has been no glorification of self-sacrifice. It has simply appeared in the light of a heavy stroke to be endured. I hear critics say that we lack discipline, that we are individualists, that we have no national solidarity. Here again I believe that our solidarity is instinctive rather than rhetorical. But I do not know what the word discipline means, if it does not mean the spontaneous and immediate sinking of the sense of personal loss in the larger sense of national concern. If people do not indulge their grief, it is because a perfectly natural kind of temperateness steps in, which says that, whatever happens, this is a thing to be felt and not paraded. The intense mistrust of anything theatrical or even dimly dramatic intervenes. The Englishman with a loss to bear is simply grateful to anyone who will not remind him of it. He wants to resume his place in the ranks as though all were well with him. It is not stolidity, as I can abundantly testify. It may be called a convention, but it is a convention based upon a wholesome vitality and a belief in life as a process rather than in life as a show.

It is difficult to say in what way the war has really affected the thought of the country. I am inclined to believe that the deepest and most passionate craving of all human beings is the desire to be interested. The desire for pleasure is not so strong as the desire for excitement — that is to say for a quickened and fuller sense of life. People are happier in so far as they can believe in the significance and importance of what they are doing; the dreariness of all drudgery lies in the fact that it is uninteresting; and thus I believe that in spite of the sorrows, anxieties, fears, and losses of the war there has been a vast increase in the kind of happiness that does not represent itself as happiness so much as lend zest and enjoyment to action. Thousands of men and women who have hitherto tried to fill their lives with imaginary activities have found their way to real activities. Even the planning necessary to effect economies in ways of living has brought with it a sense of pleasure in contrivance.

I do not think that the war has had a depressing or dreary effect at all, apart from personal anxieties for the safety of individuals. Heavy and grievous as the casualties have been, the percentage as compared to the population is small. Indeed the war has not developed new qualities so much as afforded an outlet for qualities which are characteristic of the nation — sturdiness, hopefulness, self-confidence, cheerfulness. The young men whom I have known, who have flocked to the colors, have done so primarily out of adventurousness and then out of camaraderie. There has been little solemnity about it; they have not seemed to me to follow the call out of a reasoned selfsacrifice, but out of a spontaneous impulse to bear a hand in an obvious need. I have not come across much weighing of motives. It has been rather the wish to have a part in a big affair; and the cases which I have come across of a man being rejected on medical grounds have been of the nature of a frank personal disappointment.

I am inclined to believe, too, that the organizing of athletics which has been going on for the last thirty or forty years in the public schools has had something to do with the matter. I confess that I was inclined to believe that athletic organization had gone too far, and had produced a conventional belief in the importance of games; but I now see that it has had a much deeper and more instinctive effect in producing a feeling of coöperation, and a tradition of united effort which has gone much deeper than one had imagined. The unanimous response of the public-school element in England has proved that a force has been somehow generated of which we hardly guessed the strength. It has not presented itself in the light of a duty so much as in the light of an irresistible prepossession. The nature of this impulse, so widespread and so spontaneous, has lent I think a certain unreality to the religious appeals that have characterized the war. I do not believe that what may technically be called religious motives have entered into the matter. The outbreak of the war produced a certain number of religious utterances devoted to reconciling the need to fight with the principles of Christianity. But the instinct to fight was so natural and spontaneous that those obeying it had no scruples to overcome nor any doubt of the righteousness of the adventure.

I do not myself doubt that one aim of Christianity was to substitute a conception of human brotherhood which was intended to supersede national brotherhood. I do not think that the attempt to consecrate and Christianize the employment of force is likely to be fruitful, and I cannot help feeling that the outbreak of war has proved that Europe is still living more on chivalrous and knightly ideals of virtue than on Christian ideals. I do not mean that Christian ideals may not ultimately prevail, but it is idle not to recognize the fact that they have not so far prevailed. Religious teachers have certainly thrown their weight into the chivalrous scale and frankly accepted it. Bishops have gone so far as to say that they will not ordain candidates to the ministry unless they have offered themselves for war service and been definitely rejected; and I have not come across a single case of a man who has been deterred by religious scruples from serving in some capacity.

It will be deeply interesting to see what effect the war will have on the current conceptions of Christianity. No religious teachers that I know of, except a section of Quakers, have lifted their voice to protest against the derision and abuse which has been the fate of the peace-makers who have preached the policy of stopping the war at any cost. Even those who have felt most sensitively the horror of the carnage, have not regarded it as a thing to be seriously attempted, to discuss any terms of peace. I myself feel so clear on the point that the only hope of civilization lies in the crushing root and branch of the aggressive ideals of Germany, that I am forced to consider whether I am entitled to claim to call myself a Christian honestly and sincerely. If non-resistance is a Christian principle, then I certainly am not a Christian. Whether it is possible to eliminate or to explain away the element of condemnation of the use of force in any form which stares one in the face in Christian teaching, I do not know; but I feel that this war has put Christian principles to the severest test ever applied to them. Whether it will produce a great awakening of Christian forces is hard to say; but I expect that thoughtful people will be forced to ask themselves whether a society that bases its life so largely on the accumulation of wealth can continue to believe that it is in any real sense Christianized.

Deeper even than this is the possible effect of the war upon the whole Theistic theory. The belief in the fatherly guidance and providence of God and in his education of the moral sense of humanity must be deeply shaken by a catastrophe which has set the most intelligent and civilized nations to kill off their best stock, to waste their accumulated wealth, to devastate each other’s territory, to wreck each other’s shrines, and to do all this with an intense conviction of its rightness and its nobility, instead of attempting to fight the common human foes of disease, of tainted heredity, of poverty, of brutality. It is impossible for the sane and candid man to look upon the war as a divinely appointed educative experiment. The only possible interpretation of it is that it is a vast outbreak of evil forces, which have nothing in common with the forces of light, and are, indeed, in deadly opposition to all that makes for the happiness of mankind. The possibility of considering such a deluge of evil as the outcome of the power of humanity to choose what is detestable inside the Divine purpose of order, welfare, peace, is frankly inconceivable. The war must be evidence to all thoughtful men of the hideous actuality of evil, though it may end by showing the force and vitality of good. If it is a shadow cast by the light, it must be the shadow of powers which are incontestably and dreadfully there. It cannot be a mere perversion of good, when the right to aggression is romantically, emotionally, and passionately claimed by the millions of a nation conspicuous for devotion and laboriousness.

Is it possible sincerely to attribute, as in the old Collect, the putting into our minds of good desires to God, and to beseech Him to bring them to good effect? The simultaneous outbreak in the minds of millions of civilized people of a desire to crush by frank violence all ideals but their own and to set their heel on a prostrate continent — where does that originate? If the Power that guides the destinies of men does permit two such mutually destructive theories of morality to arise on so gigantic a scale in the minds of great nations, what becomes of our religion? It would seem that religion must be prepared either to take a wider sweep and admit a new philosophy, or else retire into the background as a self-created paradise for idealists who can overlook the real elements of human nature.

The question before us is whether religion is to be a sentiment, or whether it will attempt an altogether wider task, and face, instead of evading, the problem of moral evil. It may be, I think, that the war may evoke a vast spiritual force, of a kind undreamed-of hitherto. The highest hope that I have for the outcome of the war, is that it will immensely enlarge our spiritual horizon, and raise it from the temperamental, almost artistic, region in which it is apt to linger, into its true place as a law of life which is as stubbornly there for all as the laws of intellect or health. At present religion has codified preferences; what one desires is to see it ascertain scientifically what the laws of psychology really are; for that they exist inflexibly I have no manner of doubt.

Civilization in the material sense will, I have no doubt, take care of itself, nor do I think that the social institutions of Europe will be seriously affected. But may we not hope that the wisest will set themselves to consider what are the causes and laws which affect this contagious fury which has drawn every nation of Europe, contrary to all their most obvious interests, into the maelstrom, with professed reluctance, yet with a deep suspicion of each other’s designs and purposes? The fault must eventually lie with the only nation that has frankly preached the direct merit and nobility of war, while she brewed the cup as a medicine for ailing nations; yet by the tragic irony of destiny she is being forced to drink to the dregs, so great is her own heartsickness, the potion so insolently proffered.