Chapter I: Have a Palliasse (5)

Were I to forbid him to serve me, he would shed bitter tears. Have I ever given him an order? Have I ever been short with him? Is Vassili my valet or my friend? He no longer kisses my hands, he no longer kisses my lips, he no longer kisses the ground where I have trod. He has given up these moujik ways. He simply shakes hands with me. When I am at work, he sits on my ration-chest or stands at the window, smoking _papirosy_ (cigarettes), and looking at the illustrations in my books. When he likes them he exclaims “_Harosho, harosho!_” (good, good). But always I feel his faithful Siberian eye upon me. He divines the least of my wishes. Do I need a book? He knows perfectly to whom it has been lent. He jumps up, runs along the corridors, finds the man, maybe in his casemate, maybe beneath the shade of a poplar, maybe in one of the ditches, explains himself in nigger talk, and, breathless and perspiring, comes back to me with the prize. It can hardly be said that we converse; the difficulties are too great. We look at one another, and we smile. He gives me everything he can; I respond in kind. He works; I work. He serves me; I serve him. I know how to read and write; I can influence the _Feldwebel_; and I can ask my relatives and friends in France to send me things. For his part, he knows how to darn, patch, fetch water, wash up. Thus, side by side, each at his own task, we both work. He imagines that I am a _barin_, in which he is mistaken, and that I love him, in which he is not mistaken. For my part, I regard him as a good fellow from Tomsk, who pines for his _izba_ (cottage) and his wife, and I would like to send him back to them in good condition when his imprisonment is over.

THE COMMON PEOPLE OF GERMANY AND THE WAR

_July 7, 1915._

It has lasted for eleven months. How much longer will it continue?

Our sentries are even more impatient than we are ourselves. They grumble and faultfind. “It is too bad!” they exclaim. “Do you think it will be over in a month?” they ask us. “Pooh!” we answer; “in a year perhaps, or maybe two, when we have conquered the autocracy which tyrannizes over you!” They stare at us blankly, utterly disheartened.

These poor fellows are suffering. They have many children, six, seven, or eight. Their savings are exhausted, and the wolf is at the door. When we are marching to work, they recount their troubles to Brissot and to me, confidingly and deferentially, as they would to an elder brother. They are good by nature, simple-minded, somewhat subservient, weighted by innumerable centuries of silent submission. One perceives so clearly that they have not effected their revolution, and that despite parliamentary suffrage and the Reichstag they are still under the dominion of the feudal age.

Through studying them closely, and through talking with them, it seems to me that I am beginning to understand this huge and mysterious Germany. I knew something of the élite of the country, but was quite ignorant of the common people, workmen, peasants, and lower middle class. But these are the backbone of Germany.

How different is their world from ours! In France we read the paper; we have political ideas; we influence the appointment of ministers; we take sides passionately, for or against Pelletan, for or against Clemenceau, for or against Poincaré; every one of our village orators has good advice to give to our admirals, our generals, and our diplomats. How unlike Germany! Nothing can equal the ignorance of these folk in public matters. Think of a French agriculturist of the days of Louis XIV, hardworking and kindly, engrossed in domestic cares, knowing that it is hard to gain a livelihood and occupied in this pursuit by day and by night; accepting princes, seigneurs, taxes, corvées, and wars as one accepts sunshine, rain, hail, and frost, without venturing to pass any judgment upon them; saying that these things have been, are, and will be, that he himself is but a poor man, that every one has his own trade, that it is the king’s to govern and his to provide a living for his family; there you have the political essence of the German peasant and the German workman. Monarchy, republic, foreign relations, double alliance or triple alliance—don’t waste your time talking to him about these. Should you do so, he will listen, he will express a civil assent, and will fall asleep over his beer.

A Frenchman cannot understand how utterly indifferent are the common people in Germany to political ideas and to questions of state. A Frenchman, whether he knows it or not, and even if he believes himself to be a monarchist, reasons like a leader. He speaks as if he were himself a part of the king, and a considerable part. He eagerly discusses the affairs of the country. Militarist or anti-militarist, he is patriotic to the core—patriotic like the sovereign he is. Should the foreigner insult France, he is personally insulted; this is his own business; the offence is not offered to some distant prince; it touches himself, the individual king; it makes his own skin tingle. This was obvious at the mobilization; it remains obvious after a year of war. It is not simply a caste which detests the Kaiser and his satellites and wishes to subdue them; these feelings animate every Frenchman, be he minister or cobbler. For France, one and indivisible, is truly _a free nation_, a collection of autonomous individuals who have determined to live together, who know themselves to have been entrusted with the most exalted of human missions, and each one of whom makes the fulfilment of that mission a point of personal honour.

How different is Germany! The country possesses an élite of persons well equipped for administration and rule, and this endows her national life with a fine aspect of cohesion. But directly we examine more closely, doubts arise; we see that the cohesion is no more than apparent; there are those who theorize about Germany as a whole, but there is not _one_ Germany; between the people and the leaders there is no intimate solidarity, no communion of love, hope, and will. Above, there is an empyrean of men who believe themselves superhuman, who utter claims, trace plans, issue orders (_Befehle_), who, as if at section drill, thunder out commands to Germany and to the world at large; below, there is a swarm of good and peaceable folk, all engaged in their insignificant private affairs, and making no attempt to interfere in the loftier mysteries.

Doubtless, in the lower regions, respect is felt for the empyrean; people tremble before it, as before the eye of God; but there is no risk that they will attempt to penetrate its designs. They are faithful subjects, and they obey. They are soldiers when the time comes for enrolment, and good soldiers; when the order for mobilization is issued, they go to the war; when the ritual demands it, they shout hurrahs “for king and country.” But at bottom, if words have any meaning, they are not patriots. Militarists, yes; easily regimented, yes; patriots, no.

It is true that they would be greatly astonished if any one were to say to them point-blank: “You don’t care a fig for your country!” They all believe themselves to be good, honest, and loyal Germans. Are they not obedient to the death? Certainly they are. But they would be equally obedient, with very little feeling of disturbance at the change, to George V or to Poincaré; and they would obey just as well in a republic as in a monarchy. It is not their business to be patriots (for this presupposes a degree of liberty, and of internal sovereignty, to which they have not yet attained), but to be good subjects. To obey, unfailingly and without discussion; to abase themselves devoutly before authority; to be subservient to their leader, whoever he may be; to carry out orders whencesoever derived, be they democratic or be they Cæsarian—this it is to be a good German. Active as he is in private affairs, he is passive in religion, with a sort of mystical fervour, and he is passive in his relationships to authority. The Germans hardly realize this, and yet to us it is so obvious.

Here is an example. On one occasion I, a prisoner of war, roundly reprimanded a sentry, reproaching him with disobedience to orders. Secretly I was laughing, but the sentry trembled. Standing at attention as if confronted by an officer, he trembled before the majesty of the command, the _Befehl_. I had issued an order, and that is why he stood to attention; there he was, submissive, stupefied with willingness; he forgot that I was a Frenchman, subject to his orders, that the regulations forbade me to speak to him, that he should have charged bayonet and touched me with the steel, even run me through. No, I had issued an order; the man who commands, who gives a _Befehl_, is sacrosanct for the German.

The reason is that the German has never emerged from private life. He lives in his house, on his land, in his factory, his tavern, his church; he lives with his family, with a few friends, with his professional associates. He makes his life there as agreeable as possible; he is an able domestic economist, knowing well how to adorn his residence, his table, his savings bank. The currents of modern life, socialism, liberalism, materialism, the religion of comfort and of hygiene, have developed his practical aptitudes to an unimaginable extent, to a degree unsuspected in France. But no current of modern life has induced him to touch the holy of holies, the government; to discuss the constitution, the bureaucracy, or the army; to investigate the essential problems of political life. Even the boldest among them does not lose his veneration for constituted authority. In fine, there is but one domain in which he is free, that of economic life. Here, therefore, his energy is concentrated, and within this sphere his thoughts are confined. Here he is master; here none can equal him in perseverance and tenacity; here he risks everything and makes trial of everything; unceasingly he innovates; he is hindered by no prejudice: the poverty of recent days spurs him on and makes wealth seem marvellously appetizing; in a decade he transforms a province; in three decades he makes of Germany a fragment of America in the heart of Europe. We are forced to recognize that Germany is the “Marius’s mule” of the economic world.

But this suffices him. Formerly he possessed the clouds, but he has bartered the inheritance for the markets of the world. He boasted of being Greek, but he is now content to be Carthaginian. He makes money, and he knows nothing more.

And authority? Does he not know authority? Yes, he knows it, but as something grand and remote, as a sort of divinity which might do him harm, and which he must render favourable or at least indifferent. He knows it as an average Christian knows the invisible. He believes in it, but continues to mind his own business; he is not jealous of it and has no desire to share its exercise; he gives it his confidence, and pays it a certain worship of an unexacting character; above all, he asks that authority should help him to make money; in that case he finds everything good—the Kaiser, the bureaucracy, the army.

This utilitarian loyalty is especially characteristic of the wealthy German. As far as those of small means are concerned, they recognize that outside private life, beyond the family, the factory, the tavern, and the trade-union, there exists something that is great, divine, and unknowable. In the highest degree of the unknowable, in close proximity to God, the saints, and the hero Siegfried, there exists authority: emperor, princes, generals, diplomatists, ministers. All this is an immense and unfathomable ocean, primitive and sacred; but he, poor mollusc, rooted to his rock, is concerned solely with the tiny region upon which his valves open. And when the terrible convulsion of the powers of the abyss, of the sceptred, gold-laced, and helmeted majesties, rages athwart him, shaking his frail habitation, he trembles, simultaneously inspired with dread and with love, and he murmurs his abjection and his devotion in inarticulate words. When all is over, forgetting the gods that have passed, the gods that glitter, shout at him, and sometimes kick and chastise him, he conscientiously resumes the task of loving his wife, of procreating as many children and of earning as many marks as possible.

After all, the German of no account is utilitarian in his loyalty. He does not, like the wealthy German, demand that his government shall deliver the universe into his hands, so that he may inundate it with wares great and small “made in Germany.” He is less exacting. He asks merely for work and a livelihood. But upon this his desire is firmly fixed. He has become accustomed to a certain degree of comfort—quite recently, it is true, but the newest pleasure is ever the most attractive. He wants to get his belly well-lined during the week, and to be able on Sundays to go with his _gnädige Frau_ and his quiverful of children, all smartly dressed, to drain several dozen tankards of beer, and to spend the entire afternoon, laughing boisterously, in the arbours of neighbouring _Wirtschaften_. He likes to think proudly that his father lived in poverty, but that he lives at ease. He likes to imagine that no workman in the world is happier than the German workman. As long as he has a full stomach, he can believe that all is well. The government can do what it likes, can ally itself to Austria or to France, can be licentious or strait-laced, can obey or disobey the Reichstag. He himself, trusty Michael, is well off. Germany, therefore, is great, the world is perfect.

I have gradually been able to fathom this state of mind through more or less clandestine conversations with the soldiers who guard us and the peasants who employ us at twenty pfennig for the day of nine hours. Notwithstanding all the patriotic songs with which the recruits make the roads resound, and notwithstanding all the pratings of the pulpit and the school, I am now confident that the affairs of the fatherland are not Michael’s affairs. Whether it be that the degree of economic emancipation he has attained supplements or reinforces his ingrained instinct of submission to authority, in any case, the ancient sentiment, quasi-religious in nature, and the new sentiment, thoroughly utilitarian, lead to the same result, a concern with nothing but private affairs, political indifference, so that one can even say that in the world of politics the common German is a mere cipher.

This state of mind has its advantages. It is favourable to the maintenance of public order. Since everyone rests content in his own sphere, there is no friction, there is no waste of energy, no mutual suspicion between the classes. Authority, certain of its durability, can take long views, it has elbow-room. Whilst those in authority are loved, they can give themselves up to their natural bent, which is to regulate—to regulate the workman at home, the employer abroad; to wrap themselves in purple, to cut a dash, to astonish the universe. All these things are done for their own sake, for the pleasure they give, but they serve also to shed a reflected glory on German commerce. This political nullity of the crowd has hitherto had good results. But hitherto the crowd has consisted of fat kine. Association with the worthy Michael day after day in these times when every one is rationed, when poverty and death stalk abroad, has led me to think that the political nullity of the people, precious to those in authority, is hardly likely to produce a tenacious and trustworthy patriotism, and that in the long run it may well eventuate in disaster.

* * * * *

For nearly a year I have been studying life in this corner of Germany. I observe, I ask questions, and I listen. They are now quite tamed. No longer do they cry death on us. No longer do they call out _kaput_, except as a joke. In the villages, when the working gang arrives, the children flock to the scene from all directions, bare-footed, somewhat timid, at once shy and smiling. They have heard their fathers say that the French are splendid soldiers, “the only ones who can hold their ground against the grey-blues.” The description has raised us in these youngsters’ esteem. They know, too, that we receive parcels, many parcels. They believe us to be extraordinarily wealthy. The gossips even state with definite assurance that there are six millionaires and one multi-millionaire at Fort Orff; and, for what reason I know not, I am the multi-millionaire. This little world is astonished that persons of such eminence, terrible on the battlefield, should be so friendly with their humble selves. The German bourgeois and the junkers, we gather, have less agreeable manners. Finally, the villagers have been informed that our prison society is a true republic, that we have suppressed all distinctions of fortune, that the “sans-parcels” gain just as much advantage from the coming of the French mail as the “little-parcels” and the “big-parcels.” This communism, natural as it seems to us, touches and vanquishes them.

The fact is that the children and the members of the working gang fraternize. Some of the poor women secretly offer us an apple or an egg. The old men salute us humbly. One of us was addressed as “Most honoured sir,” another as “Highly well-born sir.” Even those who have been discharged from service on account of severe wounds, men with empty sleeves and horribly scarred faces, no longer glare at us with the murderous hatred they showed at the outset.

At Ingolstadt, when we are waiting for our parcels in the square in front of the _Kommandantur_, civilians come and go before our group and converse with us. The women are particularly attentive. They recognize monsieur Pierre, “who had a frightful wound, and who, God be thanked, is now quite well again”; monsieur Paul, “who …”; monsieur Jacques, “who …” They smile broadly when we call them to order, quoting to them the phrases in which one of the newspapers the night before has censured them for their friendliness to the prisoners. Little do they care what the papers say. The sentry growls at them, but they tell him to his face that the _Franzosen_ are pre-eminently “cholis” and “chantils.” Some of the better educated go so far as to admit that “a red-trousers is worth quite as much as a _Feldgrau_,” and that “it is all nonsense to say, as people do, that France is decadent.”

Yesterday, some of the gang were talking to a hoary-headed postman.

“Well, daddy, how goes it?” said Bracke, who can speak the Franconian patois.

“Very well, gentlemen, very well!” There he stood, not knowing what to say. He had taken off his _Mütze_ and was wiping his forehead to keep himself in countenance. Then, all at once:

“It grieves me,” stammering slightly, “to think that we are at war with you.…”

“Nou, nou, old chap, we’re not at war with you! Our quarrel is with the big guns of your country. They’re a bad lot; they oppress you, and would like to oppress the whole world. But you’re a _poteau_! (_Du bist ein poteau_).”

“_Poteau_, what’s that?”

“A comrade, a chum.”

The postman had tears in his eyes. “Ah,” he exclaimed, “it does me good to hear you say that. I love the French. You are so awfully nice to every one. You don’t despise the common people.”

“Here, old general, here’s a cheroot which my missus has sent me. Happily France keeps us supplied, as you know. All the same, we intend to give a good hiding to your old Kaiser and all your bigwigs. We are republican. Liberty, equality, and fraternity. Live and let live is our motto. But any one who meddles with us had better look out. Damn it all! why don’t you kick your dirty old Kaiser into the sewer? Never mind! We shall set you free, and be jolly quick about it.”

The postman, dumbfounded, lit his cigar at the wrong end.

Yes, they have changed greatly since our coming. The dogma of French decadence, with which they had been sedulously indoctrinated, no longer finds credence. They join with us in making fun of it. It is amusing to see these humble folk, who have always been treated with disdain by their superiors, whether civil or military, accept us as intimate friends. They feel flattered when they can talk to us on a footing of democratic equality, for they do not fail to recognize our superiority, and they are greatly touched that we never abuse it. They feel that we are sincere in our hatred of the pride of caste. They applaud our republican speeches. In return, they confide to us their grievances and their despair. The poor devils are absolutely unanimous in detesting this horrible butchery.

It is unquestionable that the terrible burden of the war—the most terrible burden of death, weariness, and misery, that has ever weighed humanity down—presses more heavily upon their shoulders than upon ours. We have been held up in the trenches since September. On their side, for a year they have had no respite. Alternately victors and vanquished, upon the eastern front there continually occurs some new gigantic action, like that of the Marne. Day after day there is a savage attack in full force. Day after day there is a massacre. More than three and a half million Germans are fattening the soil of Galicia and Poland; more than ten millions have been wounded. And why? In defence? “Ah,” they say to us, “if you only knew how little we care whether we are French or Prussian! Give us peace, give us peace!”

They no longer believe that the war is a war of defence. They have heard their non-commissioned officers, men of the middle class, cursing Austria for having led them into this hateful business. The idea has become current in the villages where the troops are quartered. Exasperated by their sufferings, the soldiers are murmuring. Many would like to desert. They understand perfectly that they are the victims of a caste of nobles and manufacturers mad with pride. They still obey, but they grumble. A German grumbler is a new phenomenon.

“Every one hates us,” declared in my hearing a young workman from Upper Franconia. “Every one in the world except the Pope and the Turks. There can be no doubt that our rulers wanted everything for themselves. They told us, too, that the French nation was crumbling and would fall to pieces at a touch. What rot! We know well enough that you are splendid soldiers.”

“I was in the Vosges,” said a sentry of the 13th Bavarians. “Your chasseurs alpins are perfect fiends!”

“I was on the Yser,” commented another. “I shan’t forget your colonial infantrymen in a hurry!”

He made me come near the lamp to see his wound.

“Old man,” I rejoined, “my younger brother, a colonial infantryman, was also wounded in the fight on the Yser.”

“We have been made fools of,” they declare without exception. “You are not decadent! Far from it! Nor are your cannon. Fine tales they fed us up with! If our leaders had been the humanitarians they claim to be, it is obvious that we should have a few friends somewhere in the world. We should not have every one against us. And we poor devils have to pay for the folly. It’s altogether too bad! Oh that peace may come quickly! Take Alsace-Lorraine if you like. What on earth does it matter? Take anything. What difference does it make to us whether we are governed from Paris or from Berlin?”

A fat _Unteroffizier_ spoke as follows:

“I honestly prefer the French to the Prussians. The French are good fellows. They feel compassion; they share their bread with us. But the Prussians! It’s kicks we get from them. A pack of swelled-heads who imagine they can do anything they like, who want everything for themselves, who bamboozle their own people and refuse to give them any rights! There is but one thing we want: to live at peace with the world. Instead of that they make us go and kill. Why? Does any one know why? What do we gain by it? The villages are full of widows and disabled men. It is even worse in the towns, where lots of working-class families are positively starving. You fellows are lucky. France is rich. France can send parcels to her prisoners. All that we can do is to draw our belts tighter. They lead us to the slaughter while they leave our wives and children to suffer. And how it drags. Peace! Let’s have done with it! Peace at any price!”

For the last six months I have not heard a single German soldier use any other language than this. Wounded returning to the front, men of the _Landwehr_ or the _Landsturm_ on their way to the fighting-line, they are unanimous. If but the tenth part of their private grumblings were to be translated into action there would be revolution throughout the country.

To speak frankly, these mutterings do not evoke my admiration. They are not the fruit of an indignant conscience, they do not manifest the reaction of inner freedoms which have been outraged and deceived, and which come to their own again in the form of a reasserted dignity. One hears in them nothing but the cry of the beaten and overloaded mule. He wants his peaceful stable, bran, fresh water, warm and comfortable litter. But there is no occasion to be alarmed, for he dreads the whip, and his master is an adept in drubbing him all the way up the hill.

For Michael can hardly be said to have become more spiritual-minded since the empire was founded. In former days he was extremely poor. He was frugal. He was fond of music and of dreaming, and was addicted to a mystical piety. A serf before men, he felt free in the presence of God, his God of the gospels, gentle and affectionate, _mein lieber Gott_. To-day he is fairly well-to-do. He is still a serf, more of a serf than ever, in relation to those in authority, the nobility, officers in the army, and employers; but he no longer endeavours to find freedom at God’s hands. His new cult is that of a cosy fireside, with good victuals and a barrel of beer. In a word, he has become an egoist. He now thinks only of himself, of his personal interests, of his trade unions which protect his wages, of his co-operative societies which secure his comforts. Without realizing it, through ignoring politics, through taking no interest in the workings of authority, through thinking solely of his own private affairs, he has slipped into the acceptance of that base doctrine which finds expression in the ancient formula, _Ubi bene, ibi patria_—“My country is the place where I am well off!”

Last July, when he was luxuriating in his petty good fortune, he cried with his masters, “_Deutschland über alles!_” At his drinking parties he vociferated jingo songs. Some of the megalomania of the Olympians was fermenting in his body, indiscriminately mingled with beer and sausages. In this mood he saw himself mounting in company with his Germania, mounting continuously to attain the topmost summit of glory and strength. Then he loved his Germania. She was so powerful. It was thus that she had always been depicted to him, as a robust and formidable matron, not altogether amiable, imposing her will with peremptory fists, but providing her children with such good things to eat and drink, with all the comforts they could desire. How can one help loving a person like this when one is a poor devil who has only just emerged from poverty?

Now the war has begun. Germania is at length to become queen of the world. Forward! Good Michael sets out for Paris. It will soon be over. A fortnight or so. A simple wedding journey. Just think of it: Rheims, and champagne in floods; Paris, the little women, all the delights of Babylon. For, after all, France, as every one knows, is ours for the taking. Forward!

Forward! But, confound it all, there are some hard knocks! Paris is just over there, but what an inferno of fire to get through first! I say, we’re retreating now! We’re leaving a lot of good Germans on the stubbles and in the ponds of the Marne. What a massacre! They have been fooling us, it seems. The French can beat us after all: in fact, they have already given us a good licking.

“But there’s no end to it. How bitter winter seems in the trenches. Always more dead, and more, and more. My feet are freezing. I am badly fed. Oh, my slippers, my nice, comfortable slippers, my darling wife who used to light my long pipe for me, and who used to cuddle me warm in bed! _Sakrament!_ What’s this horrible war about? They told me it would be such an easy matter. After all, what do I, good, honest Michael, care about ruling the world? Must I pay for _this_ with _my_ skin? No, no; I’m only a poor man. What business is it of mine, this ruling of the world? Oh, _lieber Gott_, let the war end soon, let me get back to my village, my pub, my bed, and my children!”

Thus has Michael reasoned, and thus he continues to reason. It is not heroic. Sancho Panza would shake him by the hand as a true comrade. Still, why should Michael be a Don Quixote? Has Germany ever claimed to be a Dulcinea? Has she manifested herself to him as charming, winsome, gentle, and maternal, as loving him unselfishly for his own sake? Nothing of the sort! On the contrary, Germany has terrorized him with rough orders, and has made him efface himself by her display of aggressive force. She has appealed to the traditional servility of his imagination, not to the nobility of his heart. She has desired obedience, not affection.

Now the great hour has arrived, the gloomy hour of sacrifice. It is not enough to sing:

Lieb Vaterland, magst ruhig sein.…

No, one simply has to die so that the country one loves may live.

Love is an easy word to say. We have so often been told that the Germans loved Germany, that they were the true patriots, while we, the French, were nothing but anarchists. Yet, after a year of war, these Gallic “grumblers,” who are always wrangling, who take ideas into their heads, and who hold to these ideas so firmly that you sometimes hear them cry, “Perish countries, so long as principle lives and humanity becomes established”—these ungovernable and intractable “anarchists” remain a single body and soul, exhibit infinite patience, and continue the most formidable warlike efforts. Why? Are they inconsistent? Not for a moment. For them, France is justice; France is the human ideal. They save their souls by saving France. They can die, for they would not wish to go on living if beautiful Europe were to fall beneath the German yoke.

But why should you expect these little Michaels of Germany to die cheerfully? Why, as the slaughter increases, should they stand shoulder to shoulder round their leaders, firmly resolved to conquer or to perish? Is Germany really worth dying for?

This much is certain, that the mystical admirers of justice and liberty, who, in time of peace, filled the men of order with dismay, are to-day the most disciplined in the world; whilst the pillars of order, the singers of unity, the adorers of powerful Germania, those who made a mystical cult of force and force alone, have taken to grumbling, are reasoning like ill-conditioned individualists, have denied their faith.

I have noticed a thousand times that these Teuton soldiers who, through dread of their leaders, are not yet traitors in fact, are nevertheless traitors in soul.

This no longer surprises me. I understand why they regard us without hatred, why they long for peace at any price, and why, if the war is to continue, they look forward to being made prisoners. They suffer too much, and their suffering has overwhelmed their patriotism.

Those only who love greatly can accept great suffering. Their boasted affection for Germania was nothing more than a fever of the imagination, a fictitious suggestion, a sentiment for display. It was the fascination felt by the ignorant for everything that glitters and makes a brave noise. They loved Germania in her success. They loved her triumphant, colossal, brobdingnagian. They loved her as a parvenu loves wealth and a gourmand good cheer. They loved her carnally, a power of the flesh. Has any one ever seen such a love accept sacrifice cheerfully and outlast misfortune? No, the ideal alone is worth more than life. The ideal alone evokes that wonderful love which increases with suffering, the chaste and shy love which shuns display, and which does not chant its pæans or unfurl the beauties of its splendid wings until the hour of absolute surrender. Now Germany has long ere this ceased to be an ideal.

This is what it means to have nothing but force to depend upon. When we lose it, we have lost all. This is what it means to build upon egoism and the political nullity of the masses. When the hour strikes for an appeal to their heroism, we encounter nothing but a soft and melancholy passivity.

But what an astounding organization it is which is capable of neutralizing so much inadequacy of will, and is able to make tough and efficient armies out of this assemblage of worthless material!

CROSSING SWITZERLAND

_July 31, 1915._

Our convoy crossed Switzerland last night. I should have been sorry to be ill, ill with relief and happiness, for this would have made it impossible to describe our reception. It delighted and I must say it surprised me.

I know Switzerland well. I love it like a second motherland. I am familiar with its history and its institutions. I have made prolonged stays by the shores of Lake Geneva, and dear friendships convinced me long ere this that our two nations are animated by the same instinct, the instinct of independence and humanity. In the terrible duel now in progress I was assured beforehand of the freely given sympathy of our predecessors in the art of republican government.

I believed, nevertheless, that on our way through the country we should find this sympathy, however true and however certain, veiled and restrained.

From prudential considerations, first of all. Switzerland is such a paradox! When a citizen of Lausanne manifests his love for French civilization (in which he has just as strong and legitimate an interest as any citizen of Orleans or Nancy), can he ever do so without being afraid lest he may be wounding a fellow-Confederate of Basle or Zurich? Supposing that his manifestation should become generalized, and that it should provoke a counter-manifestation, has he not good reason to dread the consequences to Switzerland of this spontaneous plebiscite? Would it not involve the ruin of this nation with two hearts, if within its frontiers war should suddenly be declared between the two rival civilizations? If during our nocturnal journey from Constance to Geneva we had encountered nothing but gentle and calm faces, I should not, on that account, have harboured any suspicions of my dear Switzerland.

I should have said to my companions:

“Continue to trust her; she loves us. This democracy is tranquil, healthy, little inclined to use lofty phrases, and by no means fond of scenes in the street; but she has a robust faith in the right of nations. With all her heart she detests aggressive imperialism and the cultured barbarism of Germany. You will find her shy, reserved, and circumspect; you will perhaps blame her for her silence. But this would be wrong, for her silence is a duty she owes to her patriotism. She is intensely patriotic. She would like to hail you with acclamations, but a great national obligation seals her lips. You could not possibly wish her light-heartedly to do anything owing to which German civilization and Latin civilization might suddenly come into hostile conflict within her closed borders, for she exists solely in virtue of their mutual accord, and it is her historic mission to maintain the contact between them, to harmonize them, to interpenetrate each with the other. This abominable war is a difficult hour in her inner life. Even in times of peace she has to walk circumspectly; but now, if she is to avoid a disruption which is always possible, she must control her every movement, must bridle her tongue, swallow her burning words, the words of love and admiration which, if she followed the dictates of her heart, she would utter to her valiant sister and neighbour. Believe me, my friends, the mountain democracy is praying in her heart for the victory of right, for our victory. Her silence is but a mask; she is mute for reasons of state.”

I did not have to deliver this address. From one end to the other of Switzerland, the Helvetian people, so hostile to demonstrations, hailed us with acclamations. They sat up all night. They overwhelmed us with gifts. The seats of the train were heaped with ribbons, cockades, flowers, boxes of cigars, baskets of food, bottles of the celebrated vintages of Neuchâtel, La Côte, Lavaux, and Yvorne. In my compartment alone we filled six haversacks with cigars, which we sent to the front to the 30th of the line, the regiment of poor Robequain, of whose death I learned on reaching Bellegarde.

Do not imagine that this explosion of generosity was inspired by mere pity for the wreckage of war. I am absolutely confident that it was inspired by love for France. Burghers and peasants, children and old men, in German Switzerland just as much as in French, they all sang the _Marseillaise_. They waved the tricolor. They cried, “_Vive la France!_” At the stops they talked to us frankly, like brothers. They handed us addresses which were hymns to “The Nation of Valmy and of the Marne,” to “The Champions of the Rights of Man,” to “The Citizen Army which has sworn to conquer or die for the Advent of a Free Europe.”

It seemed to me that the proud Helvetians of Morgarten and Sempach, these forefathers of democracy and liberty, had emerged from their national Grütli to line the road in our honour, and to give their blessing to the sons of the young republic.

I cannot describe the mad jubilation which surged through our veins. France! France the beloved! France of our blood and our heart. France the eternal, resuscitated by the German aggression, once more become the champion of freedom. France hailed by the neutrals, and by all men who respect the right! I was drunk with happiness. This single night was a compensation, for you, noble fellows mutilated in the war; for you, my brother, with broken ear-drums and split skull; and for you, my friends, all my dear dead friends, who sleep in Lorraine, in Belgium, in Flanders, and on the Marne.

FOOTNOTES

[1] On this point I am in entire agreement with my friend François Poncet. His little book, published a year before the war, _Ce que pense la jeunesse allemande_, besides being couched in an admirably concise and clear style, is of substantial value.

[2] Many German liberals have held the opinion, in all good faith, that the new generation of France is reactionary. I do not know why, but a young man coming from Paris, and having nothing to do with either royalism or clericalism, was regarded by them as a remarkable exception.

[3] Vide _supra_, note on p. 17.

[4] The system of having no more than one or two children.

[5] M. Deschars was killed by the Germans in Belgium, in August 1914, together with all the wounded and the staff of Dr. Sedillot’s ambulance.

[6] Let me repeat once more that such is the belief of every German liberal. In their view we are all nothing more than replicas of Charles Maurras.

[7] Are you not ashamed, you, the French democracy, to be allied with the Russian barbarians?

[8] Provençal execration.

[9] Are any of you sick? Any tropical fevers?

[10] Sergeant-major.

[11] A slang word, universally employed, meaning “smashed” or “ruined.” Accent on second syllable.

[12] Treat a ruffian gently and he will knock you about; knock a ruffian about and he will fawn upon you.

[13] It need hardly be said that this story has no pretensions to historical accuracy. The current talk among soldiers is, as a rule, no less “imaginary” than the chatter of the drawing-rooms.

[14] Refer to previous note.

[15]

O my native place! O my native place!
O Toulouse! O Toulouse!…

[16] Old city of Cahors, so old and so smoky!

[17] A few days later the regulations established the right to send four cards and two letters each month.

[18]

Dear fatherland, calm heart be thine,
Firm stands and true the watch by Rhine!

[19]

Hail to thee in the victor’s crown,
Ruler of the fatherland!

[20] The men would rather have a little more bread than so much spiritual nourishment.

[21] The word “tub” alarms me, and the reader must excuse me for writing it as we really pronounce it in France.

[22] A handsome Frenchman and an ugly German.

[23] Back with the mob!

[24] Now then, gentlemen, can’t we work a little harder?

[25] There, old chum! There’s something to grease your dirty palm!

[26] This war will be the greatest stain on the history of Europe!

[27] “Upon what nation, in days to come, will the verdict of ‘guilty’ be passed by the tribunal of world history? One thing, at least, is certain. Germany can look forward to the verdict with a clear conscience.” (Otto von Gierke, _Internationale Monatschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst, und Technik_, November 1, 1914, 3rd _Kriegsheft_, “Deutsches Recht und Deutsche Kraft.”) At this identical time, the Protestant theologians of England, in the celebrated letter they sent to Adolf von Harnack, assured that illustrious German historian and personal friend of William II: “_Doch wir sind der festen Ueberzeugung, dass Grossbritannien in diesem Kampfe für Recht und Gewissen; für Europa, die Menschheit und dauernden Frieden fecht._” [“We are, however, firmly convinced that, in this struggle, Great Britain is fighting for right and conscience, for Europe, humanity, and permanent peace.”] It is a remarkable fact that throughout Europe every one has a “clear conscience”!

[28] The German authorities subsequently rifled all the notebooks containing “memoirs.” It was only by continued stratagems that I was able to save part of my own.

[29]

The Vandals have taken Berlin! Oh, what a spectacle!
The pagans are at Danzig! The Mongols at Breslau!
In my mind all this rises simultaneously,
Pell-mell, as chance wills; it is horrible!… O shame!…
Germany, Germany, Germany.… Alas!

[30]

The little Frenchwoman
Who awaits me at home
Has eyes that glow
And a heart of lilac.…

[31] After repeated requests I had been allowed to subscribe to the _Frankfurter Zeitung_. Three other prisoners have subscribed respectively to the _Münchener Neueste Nachrichten_, the _Berliner Tageblatt_, and the _Kölnische Zeitung_.

[32] Potato bread.

_Printed in Great Britain by_

UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON

Battles and Bivouacs

A French Soldier’s Note-book

BY JACQUES ROUJON

TRANSLATED BY FRED ROTHWELL

_Large Crown 8vo._ _5s. net._

“Battles and Bivouacs,” by Jacques Roujon, is a vivid recital of the first six months of warfare. The language is direct and unaffected, soul-stirring, and free from exaggeration; every page, nay, every line, compels attention and evokes the most sympathetic interest. The book is alike authentic and restrained in tone, but what most strikes the reader is its extraordinary _sincerity_. No war book has yet appeared that gives so strong an impression of reality, or which, on its own sheer merits, is more worthy to survive the rage and tumult of battle.

My Experiences on Three Fronts

BY SISTER MARTIN-NICHOLSON

_Crown 8vo._ _4s. 6d. net._

A vivid account of the author’s experiences in Belgium and Russia and afterwards with the French and English troops.

Practical Pacifism and its Adversaries: “Is it Peace, Jehu?”

BY DR. SEVERIN NORDENTOFT

_Crown 8vo._ _4s. 6d. net._

In addition to making definite suggestions as to the lines on which the Peace Movement should go to work after the war—suggestions which are both obvious and practical—the book contains a reprint of a pamphlet written by an upper-class native of Schleswig, with footnote criticisms by a Prussian scholar of unbiassed views, which renders very sensational and personal testimony to the terrible discontent and bitter rage which a conquered nation feels in its humiliating position of subjection—thus proving beyond all doubt that the chief obstacle that the Peace Movement has to face is this unnatural denial to the conquered people of the Rights of Peace.

Above the Battle

BY ROMAIN ROLLAND

TRANSLATED BY C. K. OGDEN, M.A.

_Crown 8vo, Cloth._ THIRD IMPRESSION. _2s. 6d. net._ _Postage 4d._

“We must leave unnoticed many fine and penetrating thoughts and many stirring passages in these golden pages. In them, let us say, once for all, speaks the finest spirit of modern France.”—_The Times Literary Supplement._

“At last it is here … the book we have been waiting for.”—_Labour Leader._

Poland’s Case for Independence

_Demy 8vo._ _7s. 6d. net._

This notable book is a reprint of certain remarkable pamphlets illustrating the vitality of Polish nationality, and written mostly by representative Poles. Introductions have been furnished to the pamphlets by Lord Bryce, Lord Weardale, Mr. G. P. Gooch, Mr. Sidney Webb, Dr. Seton Watson, etc.

Poland Past and Present

BY J. H. HARLEY

_Crown 8vo._ _4s. 6d. net._

Some new and vital details of the recent history of this unfortunate country are conveyed to British readers in Mr. J. H. Harley’s vividly interesting volume. It will be preceded by a preface from the pen of Mr. Ladislas Mickiewicz—the son of the great Polish poet—which will state the attitude of the Polish people to Germany, and reveal how deeply their sympathies are enlisted in the cause of the Allies. A notable feature of the book will be a record of the attempts made by the Germans in Poland during the last few months to seduce Poland from her confidence in the justice of the Western Powers.

Antwerp to Gallipoli

BY ARTHUR RUHL

_Small Demy._ _7s. 6d. net._

CONTENTS.—“The Germans are Coming!”—Paris at Bay—After the Marne—The Fall of Antwerp—Paris Again; and Bordeaux: Journal of a Fight from a London Fog—“The Great Days”—Two German Prison-Camps—In the German Trenches at La Bassée—The Road to Constantinople: Rumania and Bulgaria—The Adventure of the Fifty Hostages—With the Turks at the Dardanelles—Soghan-Dere and the Flier of Ak-Bash—A War Correspondents’ Village—Cannon Fodder—East of Lemberg: Through Austria-Hungary to the Galician Front—In the Dust of the Russian Retreat.

_FICTION_

_Crown 8vo._ _6s. each._ _Postage 5d._

The Financing of Fiona

BY DOROTHEA CONYERS

“The Financing of Fiona” is a sporting story with love interest running through it. The plot turns on Colonel Beresford’s will, written hurriedly on notepaper, in which he leaves everything to his niece Fiona; but he dies suddenly, and his nephew Challoner, though he does not think of suppressing the will, takes out the centre sheet, so completely altering everything that Fiona gets her uncle’s lovely old home but no income with it. By this Challoner thinks that the girl is sure to marry him, and that he will have both Kinvarragh and the money. But Fiona, left penniless, determines to struggle and to take paying guests for the hunting. Two men, Major Bohun and his nephew, come to her, and bring their horses. Fiona fights with many troubles, and Major Bohun’s fears that his nephew will marry her, together with hunting and shooting, make the rest of the book. The troubles end in an unexpected manner, and Fiona is left at Kinvarragh, but not alone.

When the Wicked Man …

BY GUY THORNE

Author of “When it was Dark”

Mr. Guy Thorne’s new novel, “When the Wicked Man …,” is one of unusual and penetrating interest. It is a profound study of a bad man’s soul, stripped bare and naked without equivocation or evasion. If Maupassant had written this story it would have stopped at the third book, and a brilliant but unutterably painful document would be all that remained. Mr. Guy Thorne goes farther. He shows us the dark and sensual soul of Sebastian Warde moving towards the Light, until the wicked man at last turns from his wickedness, and, crushed, broken, and empty, casts himself at the feet of God. The action of the story takes place in Paris, at Athens and the Bay of Nauplia in Greece, at Weymouth in Dorsetshire, the French battle-front, and finally in London. These are the main divisions into which the tale naturally falls.

This is not a story without a plot. The action is continuous and intense throughout, and from first to last is as inevitable as a Greek tragedy. “When the Wicked Man …” is written with an economy and precision of effect that is stereoscopic. The people, places, and dramatic situations stand out from the page. They have perspective; one sees them.

In fact, the novel is quite unlike anything published in England for very many years.

Redwing

BY CONSTANCE SMEDLEY

Miss Smedley’s latest novel displays her usual skill in the presentation of character; and her characters do not stand still, but grow as we watch them. Her two leading characters in this book are a boy and girl, both of whom are lonely, misunderstood, and, to some extent, unwanted; and in each case the experiences of childhood create a determining bias. Their development of strength and courage not only helps them mutually, but finally brings the three people who are the dominating influences of their lives into happier conditions. The book is planned on a large scale, covers a wide range of social life, and deals with explorers, business gamblers, and men and women of large ambitions.

Families Repaired

BY J. S. FLETCHER

Mr. J. S. Fletcher’s new novel is of the same _genre_ as the author’s well-known humorous stories, “The Paths of the Prudent” and “Grand Relations,” both of which have gone through several editions. It deals with a highly complicated matrimonial arrangement, proposed by an Anglo-Canadian multi-millionaire as the means of repairing the fortunes of two noble families which have fallen upon bad times, and the plot involves numerous amusing and piquant situations and quaint embarrassments. The various characters are drawn with great fidelity, especially those of an old bachelor about town, a couple of young ladies of high rank, who live their own very modernized lives in a Camden Town flat, and an Irish-American widow of a lively and original type. The story is full of smart and bright dialogue, and though it is essentially one of farcical humour, the plot is exciting and even sensational.

The Farm Servant

BY E. H. ANSTRUTHER

The central theme of this remarkable first novel is the passionate love-story of Anna Murrell, “The Farm Servant.” But the study of Frank Harding and the manner in which his life was affected by three women is of equal importance. Few modern novels have been so varied in setting, for the two largest sections of the book deal with a quiet village in East Anglia and with the Latin Quarter of Paris just before the War. It is a book with passages of great tragic power; but these are interspersed with chapters delightful for their quiet humour and acute observations of the little “actions and reactions” of everyday life. It is a long book: but only in a long book could the author, besides working out the main theme, have created such a host of minor characters. Mr. Harding, the Carringtons, the Juleses, Dr. Emmersley, Lucie Dubels, and a dozen others are all as real as the people one meets every day.

The Long Divorce

(John Bogardus)

BY GEORGE A. CHAMBERLAIN

Author of “Through Stained Glass,” “Home,” etc.

Another brilliant, fascinating, out-of-the-ordinary Chamberlain novel. The panoramic setting is Europe, America, Africa, and the seas between. The style is the author’s swiftest, that whirls the reader along. And John Bogardus’s love-story, or series of love-stories, is a beautiful, tender, and extraordinarily illuminating record. Behind the rushing style, the astonishing fire of epigrams, the groups of memorable characters, and the stream of the alluring plot, the reader is gratefully conscious of a deep and rich background of seeing and thinking and feeling.

Moll Davis

BY BERNARD CAPES

“Written with all the liveliness one is accustomed to associate with the name of Mr. Bernard Capes.”—_Pall Mall Gazette._

“If witty dialogue and a sense of atmosphere can make a good comedy, here is one of the best.”—_T. P.’s Weekly._

An Outraged Society

BY A. BROWNLOW FFORDE

SOME OPINIONS ON MR. FFORDE’S PREVIOUS NOVELS: