War
War is as a storm of the clouds—a human storm. Dark frowning clouds, commotion and strife, and outbursts of thunder—and before the threatening disaster we tremble, and hope and fear.
It is the changing of the Universe, this mighty upheaval within nations, and there is the impulse of Destiny in it. As a storm will clear the atmosphere, afterwards there will be sunshine and better things. Not for to-day, and the present, is this warring of nations, but for the future, and the wisdom of those who in generations will follow us.
Was not the world growing fast into a plaything? Something in the form of a pleasure-giving empty bubble, growing larger, floating uncertainly, the surface substance—that which is visible to the eyes and mind—transparent, and weak, and unworthy of the clear and vigorous world from which it had risen, brightly coloured, and to which it was fast descending, colourless and vague. As a bubble will burst, so was a climax imminent.
Does not war, this drastic liberation of opposite forces, hold for us a lesson? Are we not passing through the throes of upheaval to change the mind of our race from vanity to wisdom? The world to-day is steeped in blood and sorrow; and all the suffering would be in vain, were there not hope that the world will arise in the end sobered, and humbled, and eager to live anew.
War Material
Is not to enter war to enter an arena of great possibilities, wherein a great game may be played, or a bad game? but, in any case, it is so closely and seriously fraught with terrible issues that it bares the character of men to the very bone. And there are many characters—not one character, but a thousand characters; some great, some small, some active, some dormant, but out of all such elements it is a wise man’s wish to weld a universal organisation of strength; and an ignorant man’s folly to look at no other ambition but his own.
And therein lie the factors of all troubles of organisation, and the tremendous internal difficulties of army or national construction. One man—or body of men—may plan to build well, but can only succeed if the material is good: if the material is bad, there results failure, with credit neither to the builder nor the material. And human character is material—the most delicate material great builders may know and direct, in war, or commerce—just so many human beings prone to be directed so far, and for the rest to rise or fall, in the world’s estimate, as our characters decide. But out of this mass of human character, out of these manifold qualities of a multitude, is formed the final whole which goes to mark the characteristics of an era of history, and a national greatness or littleness.
Like unto axe-men felling trees in a forest is the destructive hand of warfare. The land is depopulated of its finest timber, and that which will take a lifetime to replace.
Wholesale destruction reaches far beyond the actual crime of killing. It breaks the evolution of growth, retards or destroys the life-history of a species, and leaves, through the age it occurs in, an irreplaceable blank in the population and wealth of a country.
This is not the first war, nor has anyone in the present authority to state that it is the last. If war and the felling of our forests must be, it is well to cling stoutly to the old features of the race and cultivate, in place of the fallen giants, clean-limbed sturdy saplings of full-worthy quality to serve the generations of the future.
It will concern us greatly in the future to cultivate a race strong enough to endure the buffeting of great elements, and true and straight as the best of the race of the past. For the country will want a race that is fine-grained and sure-rooted, and fit to stand up against the stress of the many storms of a restless world’s brewing.
How little we are, we pawns of a universe: how far-reaching is war in the destruction of our plans! At the beginning of life it has picked us up in its whirlwind, from every stage of life, and left our poor ambitious castles in the air, tiny long-forgotten dust-heaps on the plain.
And yet we laugh and hide our sorrow, and go on, on our new-found task, our future now no farther ahead than we can see, and trusting in God that all will come right in the end.
We learn at the front and at home that nothing else matters, that nothing really counts in the greatness of a nation but clean, unshaken, sacrificing purpose, and ceaseless industry: worthless are all our little deceits and vanities, and greed of personal gain.
That nation will find religion and prosperity which holds on to the deeper lessons of war, long after war is over. To forget those lessons will be to sin against God and conscience, and the great silent grave-yard of our dead, who died that their nation might live.
Industry will greatly concern us after the war. On that will our nation depend for its solid existence hereafter, as it does to-day, on the activities of our war-worn, long-enduring men-at-arms. We should be glad that there will be much to do, for work is a fine thing. It is sincere in its object—it accomplishes, and it satisfies the strongest trait in our character: that wish of all men to establish a stable place of existence where they can support an acknowledged standing of manhood.
Had we not to provide for ourselves, the chief care of our lives would be taken away from us. In idleness we would become brainless and degenerate.
Nature has decreed her purposeful laws of all existence. Everything that lives must industriously seek to find its means of livelihood, and its means of defence against its enemies. For instance, in wild nature, do not birds and animals without cease spend all their lives providing themselves with food, and defending themselves against storms and their enemies? In similar manner so must we; so must all things.
There are centuries of Time.
The World is very, very old, and a mighty universe in which a man is but an infinitesimal activity of creation. After all, in spite of the breathless, concentrated ambitions of a lifetime, we are a little people and we only live on earth for a very little while. Let us then, above all, make our fireside, and that of our neighbours, as pleasant as we can. For love and beauty have a powerful influence to promote the better religion, the stronger manhood of our race, and it is those intimate characteristics, wisely planted, that may take root and grow, and be everlasting long after we have travelled over the line and are gone.
It is sometimes our misfortune to misunderstand the scene or the life around us. Forgetting our humility, it is often our temperament to find fault, rather than reason, with the picture we view; and fault-finding causes uneasiness, pain, and strife.
Perhaps our first care should be to perfect ourselves, and, next, to harmonise with the endeavours of our neighbours. It would be well to go pleasantly forward to find the best that is in anything—to look for the little gleams of beauty which throw light across most pictures, no matter how dark the background.
Some men, like a giant moth in its full beauty of life when it breaks from its chrysalis cell, fail to accomplish anything before they are lured to the bright lights of the lamps of civilisation. Like an unfortunate moth to a lamp, it is their fate to be inevitably drawn towards the attraction, to seek an elusive something, and a possible happiness. Persistently they damage their manhood and their strength in trying to reach a luminous star within the radiant unattainable circle. Again and again they return to flutter madly to their doom; and have no wish to stay away. Until, at last—unless the will and mind overmaster the weakness, and they go soberly away—the body drops to the darkness, wasted and broken, and lies seriously damaged or dead. Ah, the pity of it!—the sadness! There lies a creature of unknown possibilities come to untimely grief.
Some men have no luck. Why are the strong impulses of a character born in a creature without the one great saving grace of control? It is the mystery of life, and it is impossible to criticise justly the man or the ultimate end. It would be wise and kind to be very generous to all acts and to all characters, since it is, above all else, “Destiny that shapes our ends.” The moth could not damage its wings if the lamps were not there, and alight, and yet for generations they have hung in their places by the custom of our race, if not by the will of our God.
Judge no man hastily or harshly. Know a man long enough and, in most cases, you will know him, in some phase of life, do an act of nobleness.
Environment has a great and often a deciding influence on man’s behaviour; and sometimes it is a man’s misfortune never to have had a chance.
Justice is not so straightforward as it seems. To bring blame home to the true offender, or the true origin of offence, is often a task beyond human breadth of mind and human skill. We attempt, as best we can, what is God’s work—He who sees and knows all things.
It is not always what appears on the surface that really counts; it is when the storms of battle are at their bitterest that the true materials are found out, and the pure metal most praised.
How thoroughly in us is instilled the knowledge of right and wrong! How clearly we know our wickedness when we err! That alone should be sufficient to prove that there is a God and a sound foundation to religion.
Sleepless night—the bare hard ground an awkward resting-place, and our look-out on the outer edges of outer civilisation. Over on the left of camp a tireless, cheerful youngster, with spirit undaunted, is holding the long, dreary watches through the night. Once he was a dandy-dressed youth of a great city. He has come through a lot since then, he has learned his lesson and his position in a grim world of naked realities. He has risen from nothing to become a man—stripped of the fine clothes of his drifting butterfly days, and aware now of how little they were. For him the war has held more than loyalty to his country, for it held for him, in its own time, and in its own way, the finding of himself.
A boy changed to a man, and the man seeing a world that is not as he built it. He has sighed and fretted for lost dreams, but he knows the battle-ground of Life’s conflict must be in the arena before him, and, headstrong and vigorous, he accepts the challenge against strange weapons and foes, and is of the stuff to prove that he has grown to be a worthy defender of his race.
Routine
At your post there are some days when mists are in your eyes, and you cannot clearly see; there are days when mountains must be climbed with aching limbs and burdened back; and there are days when you are humbled in wretchedness, and glad of the kindliness of natives. Those days we all experience, but, thank God, there are days when the sky is blue and sunshine is in everything, and it is good to be alive.
Character and Command
Eighty per cent. of the rank and file are good fellows, glad to do their best if treated with consideration, humanity, and a little love. They are all very human, and you cannot prevent them from thinking in a human way. What they expect and desire is a strong command that lays down a just and reasonable order of things, and carries them through without confusion and change. To supply such command is often difficult—for, again, it is human nature that has to be dealt with.
Perhaps thirty per cent. of young officers are in part ignorant or forgetful of their trust and its bearing on good or bad organisation. They are sometimes inclined to imagine themselves set on a pedestal above the rank and file, spending more thought than should be on rivalling one another for rank, and stylishness, and a well-catered mess, while their men go forgotten, and left to look after themselves.
One may truly say that one does not always find strong men in large majorities down the list of young officers of a battalion—men who have a prolonged determination and ambition to endure the hard fight for a complete, wholesome, and wholly dangerous and united force. Here and there one may pick out the strong men, who never lose their military interest and who will brave anything, and then look at the remaining line which clearly shows, in the chain which is to bind the whole of a battalion, some weakness of strength, and the full extent of our failing.
It is a chain of some usefulness, thank God, but not capable, with its weaknesses, of everlasting service, nor as strong as it might be if time and material had allowed of a faultless welding.
By nature it is impossible to find all men of equal resolution, but at the same time we of some means and education are often a thoughtless people inclined to travel the line of least resistance in a difficult, self-seeking world. And that is where, in part, the fault springs from—the country from which we draw our stock has falteringly halted or fallen back in producing men of refinement and chivalry, and has encouraged in its stead a temperament of peculiar self-set vanity.
In a strong commander, a man who is loved by his men, you will always find there is refinement and generosity and bravery, and little selfish vanity—whether he be gentle-born or not. And look on the men who play the clean, straight game in any field of life, and one cannot fail to see that they are loved of all true-minded humanity. It is, they know, the only game to play, the only game that wins a mighty battle.
Leadership
The control of an ordered parade is a simple thing, and for the drill sergeant. But do not let us confuse the drill and discipline of the barrack square, which is something of an ornament and impressive, with the state of mind and aspect of a vital battle.
Gifted leadership is that which takes hold of and controls disorder—not order. No matter what we have read and have preached about discipline, the eternal fact which human nature will put before you on the awesome field is that we are of many tempers, that all has not been calculated or understood, and that Fate or Circumstance has, in part, destroyed the plan so carefully arranged before setting out.
Out of such a situation nothing can lift the force, that is confronted with difficulties, but quick thought, speedy action, and sure command. And that is the leadership so hard to obtain.
Men essentially want strength in their leaders. They will go through fire and brimstone for a good leader, and never be at a loss. Is it not a mistake to rely too much on discipline as a factor of strength? May it not be misleading to judgment of fighting strength? Drill and discipline are somewhat automatic and ornamental, and it is just that surface which is rudely swept aside in the first shock of battle.
Drill and discipline, in moderation, are good, but one should not overdo it or overvalue it. Husband the high spirit of youth as long as one can—it is the spirit that fights a winning battle.
Above all it should be remembered that soldiers are not schoolboys, or mere tools, but men, often with high-strung feelings, who have put their lives at the disposal of their country. The British soldier is essentially a practical man; he has, in peace time, been an engineer, a boiler-maker, an electrician, a mason, a farmer, or in a score of other trades, and he does not easily lose the character of his long training; nor should we expect it. He wants to be considered seriously, and as a man. He wants to do his best, within reason, and, given a fair chance, he never fails you. And, finally, he considers he has the right, at all times, to be the keeper of his own soul.
Leadership imposes a wide knowledge of human nature, and a wide responsibility; but tact, great patience, and a durable enthusiasm will carry one far on an undertaking that is full of difficulties.
Criticism
A soldier said to me the other day: “I have been fifteen months out here—I may be fifteen more—I may be shot to-morrow.”
To him it was a commonplace remark without a note of complaint. He merely wished to show he had had time to think of the subject he was discussing from a serious point of view.
And he had been discussing the folly, the uselessness, the narrowness, the meanness of some of the newspaper and political criticisms so rife in his home papers—the home that now he passionately hoped would emerge from bloody battle-fields purified, serious, content, and aged to a greater wisdom.
He thought some journalism at home and, incidentally, politics had been, since the date of war, very disappointing. War had brought the golden opportunity, while the State was in trouble and distress, to raise the standard of thought to high Idealism. Yet had it carried on, on the whole, as before, the chief forte criticism; sometimes uttered in weak alarm or blundering foreboding—always in attack or defence of a narrow circumstance.
And, having warmed to his subject, the soldier went on to condemn criticism—and his arguments were these:
There is far too much freedom of field given to fractious, unfounded criticism. Criticism is nearly always, in some aspect, unjust; certainly it is always unkind. For it aims at striking a down-felling blow while it hits but one surface of the many-sided views of complex humanity. The surface that is struck at may be bruised or even destroyed, if the blow be straight, but there are others of the many surfaces which will merely recoil and revolt, with cause, against the blow. And there are times when the blow misses the mark altogether, and revolt is complete from all sides.
Criticism can only be justified in two forms: when it condemns a great wrong or a grave deceit—and then we should see to it that it is our law, not criticism, that deals out judgment with certain understanding; and, in the other case, when it is uttered in good spirit with helpful purpose—and then it were more rightly called advice. Surely it is wrong entirely to condemn, in bitter and unsubstantiated speech, the thoughts and purpose of another body which dares to see a phase of life, or government, in other light, and with another brain. Were it not far better to prove by deed, by clear-sighted example—not merely by words—the value of thought? And, if the opponent be a man, he will come to thank you, and both views, in the process of discussion, will become enlightened and instructive.
If he is not ‘a man’ his scheme of things opposed to yours should crumble away if our laws are right, and concur with the common law of decay which decrees that ill-fed roots cannot live and flourish. Does any man do right to sit on a stool at home looking for trouble in the machinery of the nation, when millions toil in endless endeavour, his object to descry weakness or fault, or to direct to his temple of ideas, while he raises no active hand to prove his knowledge or his understanding? Is he certain of his usefulness? Does his position as a man of letters entitle him, by self-appointment, to be king of people? Is there not a more noble, if harder, method of reasoning a cause to greatness? If we are to be truly great we must see the main views together, listening to all from every human standpoint—and framing the final law with certain wisdom—for the greatness of nations must spring from absolute unity of purpose, and with an honesty near to the goodness of God. And is it not by example, by action, and thereafter with broader vision, by help and advice, that mankind should build together their fortresses of strength against the battles of to-day and of the future? Have you seen a grim figure, grimly occupied during an action, defending his yard of trench—which is to him his Britain’s all—and dealing death with certain purpose and unshakable resolution? He has nothing to say—only by deed can he hope to hold this little yard for Britain’s honour.
He has no need for criticism. He has risen beyond any fault-finding or narrowness.
He may live but to-day, but he lives those hours for the good and the greatness of his motherland.
Should he criticise, if he comes through, methinks his words will be measured with a new seriousness, and with warmth of comradeship more than with enmity and bitterness.
And does not that common picture show the nobleness of action, and its accomplishment—while criticism, ignorant and powerless, is blown back into the four winds ashamed of its fragility?
Alone
I have been a lone sentry many nights now in this distant outpost, and, like a single plover seeking out the flock, I could utter his weird, wild cry of loneliness. Love is surely the strongest motive in our lives, and ah! it is cruel, and cold, and barren without any of it.... Yet I carry on, though sometimes losing control of wariness and pitching among the far-off fields of dream-land in search of the old home ... then back to this lone, wild beat as before.
Is it an untamed spirit beating its life out because it has not the saving faculty of control? or is it lost for a time on unbeaten tracks, out of the course that it was intended to keep?
The virtue of life is not in learning to get what you want, but in learning to do without what you want; and a soldier may have to do without everything. A motto is no good if it is only an ornament on the wall. If we live up to it, then only does it become worth while.
There is one thing greater than strength that will carry one far, and that is endurance.
It is the fate of youth, in simple trustfulness, to venture forth on the broad highway of life a dreaming idealist; and to return, if the wars go against him, with deep-cut scars and bowed head. He knows that there are plans made otherwise than his, and that they will remain unalterable, while he must break his spirit to change, and self-denial, and humbleness.
There is something of bitterness in the struggle, but it is that bitterness which makes for deeper experience and ultimate strength, though underlain with haunting sadness.