WAR IS HELL!

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume IV, Issue 241, 25 September 1914, Page 3

WAR IS HELL!

the temper of the nation.

‘ PURIFIED BY PITY AND TERROR."

(By Geo. F. lugli:.-). London, Aug. 5. War A European war ! A world cenfiagration! Such a war as no living man can remember ! Such a war as none need ever expect to sec again ! It is here. Lt has come at I’ist —even that for which the nations have toiled and struggled and saved and schemed for scores ot weary nars. Of course it was the very last thing that any of them wished to see- -so they said I It was only to ip t-erve peace, beautiful pence, that 1 hex added battleship to battleship, cud tegimeut t>> regiment, and one mteiiiiiJ et'g’iie ul destruction to another. Ail in the interests <9 univerm.l peace; hut see with wha! wire-trained fury thev leap now at ore another’s throats ’. Bee how smiU a candle sets a comment abli’Z" 1 Look with what maniacal gl<*e th’’ nations dance and yell as. the flames leap higher, feeding on all the dancers bold most dear and scorching the very flesh to the bone. A week ago Britain looked on stolidly—albeit with just a t.tace of anxiety. Another war scare ! It would pass like many another before it. A European war was too frightful, too inconceivably appalling in these days to be possible. Now the inconceivable has actually happened. Five nations are at war with two, and the European Powers not at war are almost negligible. Chief of all. Great Britain is at war with Germany. The problems on which so many skilled minds have spent themselves in the past are even now being put to a practical test. The general feeling is one of relief. Even if Great Britain could have stood aside honourably it would have been intensely unsatisfactory to look on with folded arms at such a struggle. A settlement so arrived at could never have been final. When this is over we shall really know. For a day or two Sir Edward Grey spoke stern, unmistakable. courageous words, words that put iron in the blood and that stiffened the back to read. But Germany would not be warned. Then suddenly the temper of the nation changed. The “Daily’ Telegraph” expressed its uppermost thought : “Let them have it And now we tire letting them have if ! As yet there is not a great deal of autlienic news. If there is, the people of New Zealand devoured it witii eagerness six weeks ago- All the great newspapers are being issued with bewildering rapidity day and night. Anyone reading a paper an hour old is hopelessly out of date. Fortunately, the news-vendors scare headings are v aried and comprehensive. and they’ save many a penny. By the aid of these placards 'poor people can get along with the purchase of three, or only two. papers a day. The trend of the news so far goes to show that Germany has undertaken a colossal task that may well prove beyond even her enormous strength. “Woe to the conquered 1” snouted one of the great Berlin journals with menacing fist towards France; and it will indeed be woe to the conquered if France succeeds in clutching with her fierce fingers the throat of Imperial Germany. For 43 years that debt has been accumulating, and it will go hard if she escapes thence without paying to the uttermost farthing. I'h'e transforming effect of war maybe measured by the wild delight with which millions of usually humane Englishmen could receive the news of the slaughter of thousands of their German feiiows. Any report of a German reverse by land or sea is received with the fervent expression, “i do hope it’s true”’ “War is hell'.” said Sherman, and never was a truer word. An American lady tourist —one of the fortunate few who succeeded in escaping from the Continent just in time — said to-day (hat the most pitiful scenes she ever saw were the partings in Germany between soldiers and their families. Might she never •.ee such sights again! But if the setting cut of armies is tragic and pitiful, what shall he said of their ret urn ! H it rends the heart to see the strong, brave manhood marching out in llie glory of their strength to battle, who shall dare to look upon the scarred battered remnant, the thinned ranks and tattered flags that return If mothers and sweethearts ami sisters wept to say goodbye, how shall they weep when thev know that they can never say it more to him again. Yes. war is hell ; bul. even hell m.s its proper place in the Divine economy of the universe. ‘‘Doubtless God doeth all things well,” mused Stephenson once. ”l>ut what strange, murderous contrivances He sometimes uses 1” Ami of all those contrivances war is surely the strangest and surely the most, murderous. Who would be rash enough to venture to explain what it. all means? And yet even the dullest may see no small measure of immediate good springing from it. The presence of such a stupendous catastrophe invests a nation with a strange new dignity. One who has been singled out for a great person.’.l sorrow has a claim to respect that none can fail to recognise. It * not otherwise with a nation. A hush ot colemnity has fallen upon Britain. The little petty, unworthy interests and pursuits have dropped out of sight in the presence ol the vast issues opened up before the world. On Monday a lady in Edinburgh said to me: ”1 was going to send away some shortbread to my people, l ut it seems too silly to think ot tilings like that now. Or to take tnc most striking instance of this spirit on a large scale: here are I Istermen and Nationalists, only a few days ago with difficulty restrained from destroying one another, now ready to join forces and fight shoulder to shoulder against a common enemy. .Surely these are better men than they were when ranged in opposite camps. Surely something has happened to ennoble their souls. inc raw young Territorials tramp through the slushy London streets. ' A shop assistant points and smiles. He is one of the crowd that has been accustomed to jeer at youths “playing at soldiering.” and there is his favourite joke before him. But at ; one:; a new and softer expression comes into his face. A thought has stiuck him. These lads are not going to a drill ground. They are not starting for holiday manoeuvres. I They aie going to war —none of them know where ; but this they know, and he knows, that in all human probability there will be ugly gaps in those ranks when next they’ tramp the streets of London. That shop assistant is a better man for the , vision he has seen. For perhaps the : first time in history war editions '"were being sold all about Edinburgh last Sunday. “Any fresh news?” I asked a lad somewhat sceptically. .The unstudied dramatic tensity 1 and 1 earnestness of his voice as he replied: “War, sir' Wail" would not nave disgraced a Henry Irving. He. too. had been stirred by a vision ot

vaster things, and was a better, bigger man. , After all does not this war achieve in fact what all imaginative literature and acting are striving alter. The author and the actor seek to catch the interest and then to rouse and stir tiie emotions. If they aie of lefty ideals they seek “to, purity through pity and terror.” Anu people read and flock to the theatre oecause it is pleasant to have the emotions stirred. But that pleasure is healthy only so long as the object oi the emotion is worthy ; and, moreover. it is always better to spend emotion on a real than on an imaginary object. Here now is an object mg enough and near enough, real enough and terrible enough to stir all the emotions of the greatest mind and to purify the meanei.-fc with pity and terror. It is a worthy object ami elevates the emotions it arouses. ret it must lie admitted that even the direst national and international p< il dues not bring all men to a better frame of mind. Home grosser natures find in it only tin occasion for riotous self-indulgence. Their voices arc heard in many’ a crowded t:ip-rocm where they defile strong patriotic songs with their harsh drunken utterance. They reel about the streets and stagger to and iro uiirebuked. In Faris they broke loose and began a wild orgie of shop,pillaging till they were suddenly and sharply pulled up by lint gendarmerie. Perhaps even some of them may yet learn a little about the seriousness of life.

Anyone who would make prophecies to-day would be rash indeed. But one thought is uppermost m many minds. It cannot last. It is too awful to go on. We have not yet seen the dead and dying brought home, but the nation is fully awake to the terrible situation it is facing. The meaning of war is being pressed home in a thousand ways. Holidaymakers on the Continent have had to flee, with or without their luggage. and look not behind them. Holiday 1 makers at home have hurried back whence they came, for all railways are now’ under Government control and no one knows how or when they will be required. Every railway bridge has its armed guard. Streets are placarded with army and navy notices and Royal proclamations. They resound to the tread of marching men and the cheers of eager spectators. Banks are all closed for four days this week, and money is almost unobtainable. Today, when two short, sharp peals of thunder broke over London, there were many who could scarcely believe that German airships were not dropping bombs from above or German officers firing bombs from below. The secrecy as well as the effectiveness with which plans are being carried out is inspiring a wonderful confidence in the nation’s leaders. It is beginning to be realised now that our army mobilisation had begun a week or 10 days before the public knew’ anything of it. Our soldiers know not where they are going. Neither do we. The probability is that neither will the enemy till they learn with their own eves.

And when it is all over and Europe has time to look round upon the vast and appalling scene of desolation and devastation, Norman Angell and others will have the poor pitiful satisfaction of saying, “I told you