ON THE WATCH TOWER

Evening Star, Issue 15606, 24 September 1914, Page 8

ON THE WATCH TOWER

[By Ariel.]

English literature is poor in war songs. Ihie cannot regard 'By Jingo, if we do,* or 'Boys of the Bulldog Breed' with any sense of national elation. Our National Anthem, though musically sonorous, is rather weak in matter, and rather out of touch with our democratic spirit. 'Ye Mariners of England' is really a national anthem of a high order, but it is limited to one department of our forces. The very best we have is no doubt 'Britons Never, Never Shall be Slaves.' Yet even that is not sufficiently broad m its outlook, and is, moreover, somewhat boastful. Scotland is richer in martial songs than England, for even without 'The Campbells are Coming' .ind 'The March of the Cameron Men,' and many others of similar character, she has the immortal ' Scots Wha Hae.' The Welsh also have a splendid marching song in ' Men of Harlech.' But none of these is comparable to the 'Marseillaise,' which is not only fiery and stirring, but human and universal, giving no offence to any other nation. It is. indeed, an international anthem—ihe imperishable song of liberty. 0 Liberty, can men resign thee, Once having felt thy generous flame? Can dungeon bolts and bars confine thee. Or whip thy noble spirit tame? Too long the world has wept, bewailing 'That talsehood's dagger tyrants wield : But freedom is our sword and shield, And all their arts are unavailing. ,

A song like that is born in the furnace. Suffering, calamity, and danger were at its birth. And that" is the reason why we have no such song. We have been too long immune from the conditions that could produce it. Even Burns could not get " Scots Wha Hae' out of his own time and experience. He had to project his imagination back four centuries and .-aturate it with those evil days to catch the true note. ******* Strange to sav, America, though a young country, with lew wars in her record, is rich ir. national songs, for her wars were mainly wars on her own soil and for her very existence. Her war with the Mother Country for independence produced ' The Star-spangled Banner' and 'Hail, Columbia.' 'John Brown's Body.' and, I think, • Yankee Doodle,' were born in the great Civil War. Loftier than any of these, and curiously shot through with the- old Hebrew spirit, is ' The Battle Hymn ot trie Republic,' written by Miss Julia Ward Howe, and sting to the tune of 'John Brown's Body': Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord ; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored : He hath loosed the fateful lightnings ot His terrible swift sword His truth is marching on. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps -, They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps : I can read His righteous sentence in the dim and flaring lamps— His day is marciiing on. *.■** * * * * It was Trollope who advised the colonics '"not to blow." Well, as the old cock rrow3 the young one learns. We ar» but Chips off the Old Block, for it is the undeniable vice of all our national songs tit her to "blow" or to belittle the enemy. Britain Bulea the Waves' has provoked ■ triers to build navies; but. of course, they can't build " boys of the bulldog :ireed"—but we can. "We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the noney, too"; " Tis the first on the blazmg scroll of fame, deny it who can." As for the outer barbarians, they do but live <>n frogs or saner-kraut, or suck train oil. Confound their politics. Frustrate their knavish tricks—ind let the Roast Beef of Old England rule :ha roast, and "beware how you tread on ")i> tail." It's a littla mixed, but never mind ' I only want to say " Don't blow." We ought to give more heed to Kipling : If. drunk with siylit of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe— Such boastings as the Gentiles u?e And lesser breeds without the law . . . For frantic boast and foolish word, Thy mercy on Thy people. Lord ! Next to not blowing comes, in the international decalogue: " Thou shalt not too lemliVv- evi\ o£ tHe enemy.' 1 t. a.t\l sure that we _ are having too much about 'Jerman atrociiies just now. A few years ago we were very sore because Germans believed libellous stories about our men in South Africa. Usually it is the side that is getting the worst of it that tells these stories, and when we get into Germany there will be a rich crop of them, and ive shall be asking the world not to believe them. * * * * * * *

There is one tiling that we can do as well as any nation." and that is to keep our head cool. We do not show ourselves badly punctured over a reverse; neither do ue get excited over good news, except, perhaps, after a long strain of anxiety like the siege of Mafeking. Kipling behmds very properly the man who can '" wait and not be tired of waiting,' 5 who "can meet with triumph and disaster, end beat those two impostors jueb the ;.ime.'| To such a son of Adam he awards the highest of all titles—.that of Man—and makes him heir to the earth and everything in it. Compared with Kiplinjjs bass-viol, a mere tin-whistle performer has put the matter in a way to suit common folk :

It is easy enough, to be- pleasant When life flows like a song ; But the man worth while is the one who will smile When everything gc*s dead wrong. For the test of the heart is trouble,

.And it .always comes with the years; And the smile that is worth the" praise of the earth

Is the smile that shines through tears. The tender part of a Briton is his pocket, and if John Bull will only smile on payday _ we are safe to win "in this war of attrition. With an outlav of three millions a. day, and a loss of 0.000 men a day, both of which are reported, Germany can't last long, especially as she has to stew in her own juice with regard to loans. So keep cool, and keep on smiling. *******

There is another matter in which we have- a distinct advantage-, and that, is the relation of officers towardu men. The stories of German officers spitting on a man who is an inch out ~>f line, and feeling no camaraderie even in misfortune, are eminently believable. The whole Prussian system works up to that. None- but those born in a certain caste can be officers, and the ivhole machine is intended to reduce the man to a machine and to make the officer a tin god. Hence ho protests loudly against being put with his men in a truck when taken prisoner. Ho is not to he herded with swine, and even in captivity tries to keep up his bullying. He reminds one of the pre-Revolution aristocrat in France, as you may find him in Dickens's 'Tale of Two Cities.' Xo wonder the surgeons in our hospitals repoit a number of German officers shot in the back bv their iwn men. That, too, is eminently beJievable, for, drill it ho» you «i!f, human laturo is still human nature. It is piea•ant to turn to Tommy's account of General French : " There is no side, about hirn. Be stops aaid talks to us and finds out whether we are being well cared for." Df course, thern are sure to be a few insolent fools among out officers, but we do not cultivate and reward insolence, wid the traditions of our Army involve good relations between all ranks. The Duke of Cambridge, who took part in the Crimea, used to do aa Uncle. Toby said our Army did in Flanders—«wore terrible. Passing through the hospital one day he recognised a soldier, and exclaimed: " Why, it, Jack, I thought you were Ut hj long ago.' The poor fellow used to tell the story with pride, and add: "Wasn't it good of him?" • # * * * * * ▼«rj grim are the tale* of walls, of 4m4 men 6ft high, being built as cover by *V« £Ura*aa. Eicejot that the height in

too great, this story Is qmte credible, lor »eli-pxeaeOT»tion ia the first law of Nature; and in war it ia qmte a common thing to mate the best use even of the dead. All sentiment periehee in the presence of a hailatorm of death. How often have the fallen, whether dead or not, been used to fill the ditch in' an escalade. The survivors swarm over the fallen into the deadly imminent breach. I have xead a still more startling illustration of 4he destruction of sentiment in war in one of Napoleon's campaigns in Germany. There had been some fighting in the «now, and th» combatants were separated by ndxhi. Small patties of Frenchmen collected five or six dead comrades each, and laying them close together, lay down upon them and slept the untroubled sleep of _ the weary. It is very dreadful, but yet it is perhaps only good sense, in such circumstances, to make the dead help to protect the living. "In such circumstances" ; ay, but who can bear the responsibility for creating such dehumanising circumstances. ******* The Kaiser evidently does not like the j responsibility. He has been explaining I to the vorld, through America, that it wasn't him, but the other fellow. Both he and his Chancellor have been explaining, and it seemed to me that they should have agreed beforehand they were to say, for they are not "both in a tale," as Dogberry would 6ay The Kaieer sayshe had to fight the menace-of Pan-Slavi6ra and Russian barbarism. The Chancellor, on the other hand, says it was the perpetual military preparations of Prance, whom they had tried in vain to conciliate, that compelled Germany to go to war. We were told that there was a split between the Kaiser and his Ministers, and this seems to hear it out. No doubt they are hard put to it just now as to what to say; but they ought at least to agree. The Chancellor, by the way, defends the violation of the neutrality ot Belgium. "It is no custom of ours to violate neutralities. There are Denmark, Holland, and Switzerland : we did not violate them!" Ho might have added Patagonia. Sir Edward Grey got home on that point—the virtue of not doing what there was no temptation to do! The Chancellor continues i " Did we not offer to pay for everything if they let ns through?" " Wbat could be clearer? If you offer to pay a man to let you burrow through his wall into the bank, what right has he to refuse? * * " * * * * *

The plain fact is that the Kaiser has got into t!i.' ut pleasant way of negotiating by ultimatum. After the Japanese-Chinese War the Russian Ambassador, when the Conference came to the clause yielding Port Arthur to Japan, drew his sword and laid it across the document, saying, with folded arms, that Russia objected. The objection pre*.iled—for a time. Well, that's the Kaiser's wav of negotiating. Austria had demanded the abject humiliation of Servia. She was to receive Austrian police, who were to have power to deal with Slavish plots. This meant the surrender of her sovereignty and independence. Russia would not allow that, and asked for the abatement of theee unhesrd-of terms ; at tho same time beginning to mobilise to show that she wae in earnest. All was uoing well, and Austria would have c.H'Mlrd the point, but the Kaiser must ■ <■.!•; lav his sword across the bu&inese.

:-' ivi.-i nivot be crushed, and Russia must at once or deal -with him. Tli-.-"- !iis little way. He is among the Vt.v. s what his officers are among their men '!ut he forgot that the Powers had not t; it trained by the Prussian drill sergeant, and that they had no mind to b« so. He had done ihat same thing to Russia a few years back, and she had been getting ready ever sine© to arg;u* th* point. The Kaieer is an authority on nearly everything, but he should take a few lesson?, in human nature, for there is a lot of it in mankind. ******* The Kaiser and his myrmidons are reflecting on the ingratitude of the Boers. "Didn't we barrack for you.' Didn't we believe all your yarns about the Tommies? Didn't v.e"wish we had a bigger fleet? Didn't we do a roaring trade in aims through Delagoa. Bay? And now vou won't revolt against the verdommte fcnglanders!" Again there is a sad lack of human nature. Did they ever read the story of the wolf and the nurse? The wolf had heard, the nurse threaten the crying child : "If you don't behave I'll throw you out to the wolf " On that hint he prowled about the house every night, Bind, often heard the child cry and felt his mouth water. But the child wae not thrown out. At last he learnt a lesson in human nature, and said: "These stupid humans, when they're cross, say things that they don't mean." That accounts for the Boers, and the Irish, and the trad© unions, and the suffragettes, who are now all against their would-be friend the Kaieer. I suppose he would scorn to read anything French just now ; but there is a scene in Moliere's ' Doctor by Compulsion' that suits his- case (the characters are Man, Wife, and Stranger): Man: I'll comb your hair for you. Wife: Rascal, knave, coward, villain, hang-dog, Togue, varlet, thief Man: Well, if you will have it, here goes (beats, her). Wife: Oh, oh; oh, oh A Stranger: Hnllo, hullo! What's the natter here? What a shame! He must be b, scoundrel who beats his wife in this fashion. Wife s I choose that he should beat me! What do you come meddling hero for? Is it your business that you poke your nose into it r What ar. impertinent fellow you must be! etc., etc.