THE LION'S SPRING

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIX, Issue 29, 4 February 1915, Page 3

THE LION'S SPRING

AFTER LONG WAITING

"THE DAY" FOR BRITAIN

AS MR G. B. SHAW SEES THE

CASE

Throughout the Empire Mr G. Bernard Shaw's "Common-s6nse ol! the War" has brought much censure upon him, but he has not lacked defenders. He has been dubbed "Bernhardi" Shaw and G. B. "Jaw-," and other epithets. Perhaps one of the most trustworthy commenits on. the brilliant writer was by Mr Arnold Bennett, who praised parts of the treatise, but proved that other portions were contradictory and remarkable for some confusion of thought and view. A later opinion on the war is given by Mr Shaw in the Statesman of 12th. December. The article runs:—

"What is the English press coming to when it can find nothing in the French Yellow Book but the single morsel of garbage . that disgraces it ? In the heait and scare of the first outbreak of the war there was some excuse for swallowing that general order of the Kaiser in which, finding the German language too inexpressive, he exhorted his army to take no notice of the French and Russian millions, but to concentrate their wrath on General French's contemptible little army. Yet that journalistic effort was plausible compared to the official and secret report from a trustworthy source which M. Etienne sent to M. Jonnart on 2nd April, 1913. M. Jonnart's reception of i^t is not chronicled. I make haste to announce that I am net taken in, and that nothing more on that subject is to, be feared by readers of this article. THE OLI> CRAFT AND THE OLD COURAGE. "From the authentic part' of this YellowI'Book there emerges a, picture so stirring that it is amazing (to me that no Englishman has yet rescued it from its wrappings of official correspondence. For in it you see the old British lion, the lion- of Waterloo, the lion of Blenheim, the lion of Trafalgar, making his last and most terrible and (triumphant spring. _ You see him ; with his old craft and his old courage' and strength unimpaired, with, lids old amazing luck, his old singleness of aim, his old deep-lying afid\ suhtle instinct that does better without ;great men a.t a pinch than his enemies do with them.

"For centuries now the lion has held to his one idea, that none shall be greater than England on the land, and none as great on the sea. To him it has been nothing whether a rival to England was better or worse than England. When Waterloo was won, Byron said, Tin damned sorry'; and humanitarians and libertarians looked aghast at the re-establishment of the Inquisition and the' restoration of an effete .and mischievous dynasty by English arms on the ruins of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. Little recked the lion of that; England's rival was in the dust; England was mistress of the seas; England's general (what matter that he was an Irishman?) was master of.Kuropo, with its .Kings whispering in his presence like frightened schoolboys; England right or wrong, England, complete with her own native corruptions and oppressions on less than her own native greatness and glory, had risen all English from the conflict and held the balance of power in her hand. For a hundred years after that no Englishman knew what it was to t-urn pale at 'the possibility of an invasion. For more than two generations of Englishmen the lion lay and basked and smelt no foes that a pat of his paw could not dispose of. THE WATCHING BEGINS. "Then a rival arose again. Battles more terrible than Waterloo were fought against the same foe; but it was not England that won them. The lion rose and began to watch.''' The old instinct stirred in him. Ho heard the distant song, 'Deutschland, Deutschland über- alles'; and something in him said, 'Never that while I live.' The l'ival built a warship; built another ' warship, and yet another; openly challenged the sovereignty of the sea. That was the end. . From that moment it was only a question''of',when to spring. For a lion with that one idea at heart, with that necessity deep in his very bowels, must be crafty; he must win ajt all hazards, no matter how long he crouches before the right moment comes.

"You see it coming in the Yellow Book. Germany with Austria and Russia with France stalk each other, finger on trigger, France avoiding the fight, Russia gradually arming herself and training herself for it, Austria speculating on it; all, '. even Austria, afraid of the lion's rival. Germany. France, always manoeuvring for peace (being outnumbered) at last finds that Germany,'--defiant of her and of Russia, contemptuously sure that she can crush the one with her right hand and the qther with her left, yet fears the lion, and well knows that if he comes to the'aid of France, and Russia the odds will be too terrible even for the victors of Sedan. France sounds the lion on the subject; the lion, grim :and cautious, does not object to his naval and milittai,-y commanders talking to the commanders of France arrl discussing what might happen a.id how in that case things might be arranged. France suddenly bullies Germany—tells her to clear out of Morocco and clear out sharp. (U-r----many looks at the lion and sees him with quivering tail about to sprinar. The odds are too greajt. With mortification tearing her heitvt Germany clears out, successfully bullied for th'o first time since the rise of her star. A TEMPORARY BAULK. "The lion is baulked. Another few years of waiting and the British taxpayer may tire of keeping ahead of that growing fleet. The old instinct whispers, 'Now, now, before the rival is too strong.' Voices begin to cry that in the London streetts. But there are new forces that the lion must take account of; if the rival will not .fight, it is not easy to attack him. And Germany will not fight unless the lion can be detached from France and Russia, yet is sick with the humiliation of that .bullying and knows that nothing hut the riding down of the bullies ciui restore her prestige and heal, her wounded pride. But she 'must swallow her spleen ; for at every threat Franco points to the> lion anil saves the peace France alone really desires. Every time Germany is humiliated the lion is baulked. Austria's Balkan speculation is postpoiiod, find Russia, does not quite know winder she is baulked or respited. "The linn broods and broods; and deep in his suhconsciousness there .stirs the knowledge that Germany will rii'ver fight unless--unless—unless the l.'on does not quite know what, dof-s not want to loiow what; but disinterested ohsprvoi's complete the sentence thus: unless Germany can be per-

feuaded that the lion is taking a fancy to Germany, and is becoming a, bit of a Pacifist and will not fight.

LUCK OF THE LION

"Then the luck that has so seldom failed the lion sent Prince Lichnowsky as German Ambassador to London. There was nothing wrong in being very friendly to the Prince, a charming man'with a very charming wife. There was our Sir Edward Grey, also a charming man, always ready to talk peace quite sincerely at tea panties, with all Europe if necessary. The lion knew in his heart that Grey knew nothing of the ways of lions, and would not1 approve of them if he did; for Grey had ideas instead of the One Idea. And Lichnowsky knew so much less of the ways of iions than Grey that be actually though/t Grey was tho lion. The lion said, 'This is not my doing ; England's destiny has provided Grey and provided Lichnowsky, England's star is still in the zenith."

Lichnowsky thought Grey every day a

greater statesman and a more charming mar, and became every day more persuaded that the lion's heart had changed and |that he was becoming

frsdndly. And /Grey thought JLi'chnowsky perhaps rather a fool, but was none the less nice to him.

DIPLOMACY

"Then there was Asquith, the lucid

lawyer, the man who could neither remember the past nor foresee the future, yet was always a- Yockshireman, with ancient English depths behind his mirror-like lucidity in. which some-

thiug of lion craft could dodge without troubling the surface of the mirror. Asquith suddenly found working in himse/lf an unaccountable but wholly irresistible impulse to hide and deny those arrangements with the French commanders which had frightened Germany. He said to Grey, 'You must go |to the French, and say that,we are not bound to anything.' Grey, -the amiable lover of peace, Avas delighted. He went; and the French, with imperturbable politness, made a note of it. And then Asquith and Grey, with good consciences, found themselves busily persuading the world that the lion was not bound to help France and Russia when the great day of Armageddon came. They persuaded the nation; they persuaded

the House of Commons; they per-

suaded their own Cabinet; and at list j —at last—they persuaded Germany. And the lion crouched. Almost before he was ready, the devil's own luck struck down the Archauke. by the hand of an assassin, and Austria saw Servia in »her grasp at last. She flew at Servia; Russia, flew a-t Austria; Germany flew at France; and the lion, with a mighty roar, sprang at last, and, in a flash'had his teeth and claws in the rival of England, and will now not let her go for all the i Pacifists or Socialists in the world', until he is either killed or back on his Waterloo pedestal again. EPIC OF THE YELLOW BOOK. "That, gentlemen of England, is the epic of 4he Yellow Book. That was the roar that your, tradesmen pretended not to hear because it frightened them into assuring thel Germans that it was only the bleat of a pack iof peaceful sheep attacked by a wicked wolf. Much you will care for their babble about old treaties, and their assurances that you are in-. } capable of anything so wicked as the j hurrah with which you share in, the I lion's heart responds to his roar, and I the ir piteous stories . like the old

; stories of Boney easing babies, and I their frantic lies and shameful abuse jof the enemy whom you ktoow you « must now hold sacred from every f weapou meaner than your steeh

j BERNARD UNBENDS. I "As for me, I understand it; I ' vibrate to it; I pei-ceiye the might < and mystery of it; and all sorts of j chords in me sound the demand thait ; the lion's last fight shall be the best fight of all, and Germany the last foe overcome. But I am a Socialist, and know'wjell that the lion's day is gone by, and that the bravest lion gets shot in the long run. I foresee that his victory will not, like the old victories, lead to a century of security; I know that it will create a situation' more dangerous than the situation of six months ago, and that only by each western nation giving up every dream of supremacy can that situation be mastered. A lion with frontiers is; aft>er,,;,all, a lion in a cage; and the future, has no use for caged "lions fighting to' defend their own chains. In future we must fight, not alone for England, but for the welfare of the world. Bu<t for all that, the lion is a noble old beast; and his past is a splendid past, and his breed more valiant than ever—too valiant nowadays,-; indeed, to be merely Englishmen contra mundum. I take off my hat to him as he makes his last charge, and shall not cease to wave it because of the squealing of the terrified chickens."