WAR SATIETY

Evening Star, Issue 15909, 15 September 1915, Page 10

WAR SATIETY

"All of us, even those who at the beginning were the keenest for the fight, now only want peace, our officers as well as us. Convinced as we may he of the need to conquer, enthusiasm for the war does not exist for us. "We do our duty, hut our souls are suffering. I cannot tell you the suffering we endure."—A German soldier to a Swiss professor. " The longing for peace is intense with us. At least with all those who are at the front, forced to kill and he killed. The newspapers say that it is not possible to stem the warlike passion of the soldiers. They lie, knowingly or unknowingly. Our pastors deny that this passion is abating. You cannot think how indignant we are at such nonsense. Let them hold their tongues and not speak of things they do not understand. Or, rather, let them come here, not as chaplains in the rear, but in the line of fire, with arms in their hands. Perhaps then they will perceive the inner change which is going on in thousands of us. In the eyes of these parsons a man who has no passion for war is unworthy of his age. But it seems to me that we who are faithfully doing our duty without enthusiasm for. the war, and hating it from the bottom of dur souls, are finer heroes than the others. They speak of a Holy War. I know of no Holy War. I only know one war, and that is the sum of everything that is inhuman, impious, and beastly in man, a visitation of God and a call to repentance to the people who rushed into it or allowed themselves to be drawn into it. God has plunged men into this Hell in order to teach them to love Heaven. As for the German people, the war seems to be a chastisement and a call to contrition —addressed first of all to our German Church. 3 ' —The same. " No end, no end to th© war, which for six months has been swallowing up men, treasure, happiness. This feeling is the same with the others (i.e., the French, with one of whom, an officer, he reports a touching conversation). Always the same picture: we are both doing the same, Ave are suffering the same, we are the same. And that is precisely why we are such bitter enemies."—Letter of a lieutenant of JLandwehx killed in Champagne. \