EVIL SHEPHERDS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11609, 29 January 1916, Page 8

EVIL SHEPHERDS.

THOSE WHO LET LOOSE THIS WAR. "HISTORY,WILL DO JUSTICE TO THE SLAYERS OF TIE PEOPLE"

Romain Rolland, the great French novelist, has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. This remarkable writer has recently published an article in the "Journal de Geneve" (translated by the "Cambridge Magazine"), in which lie gives■ some striking glimpses of the mentality of men fighiing in the Germain trenches. And his reason for doing so is very powerfully stated in these words:— WHY PUBLISH THESE? "'Why publish these things?' I shall be asked) by some in France. Wihat good is it, when we are launched' on a war, to attach pity to the enemy at the risk of blunting the ardour of the fighters? '' I will answer, ' Because it is the truth; and because it is the truthwhich justifies our,judgment andi the judgment of the world Against the rulers of Germany and against their policy. What their armies have done we know; but that they could have done it when they contained' elements suchj as those shown by the confessions we have just heard, is a circumstance that still further incriminates their masters. From the depths of the battlefield these voices of a sacrificed '* minority arise as a condemnation crying vengeance on the oppressors ' TO KILL ONE'S SOUL. "To the accusations levied against the predatory empires and their inhuman pride in tiie name of violated law and of outraged humanity by the victimised peoples, and by the lighting menj is added a cry of grief from these noble souls amongst their own people, who have been led out and forced' to murder and to madness by those evil shepherds who have let loose this war.

"To sacrifice the body is not the worst of sufferings; but to sacrifice, to deny to kill one's soul as well . . . I You who at least die for a just cause, who are overflowing with zeal and faith.' fall as it were a ripe fruit; how happy is your fate as compared with this torture!

'' But we will act so that those sufferings may not be wasted. Let the conscience of humanity hear and receive their complaint! It will resound in the futuro above the glory of the battlefield; and', whether or not they would liavo it so, it must beNrecorded in the pages of history. History will do justice to the slayers of the people. And tli© people mil learn to deliver themselves from their slayers." Hero are some of the original documents Romain Rolland quotes to prove his points. They show vividly that even to the German officers war is a terrible thing. I s HORROR OF WAR. "In the ' Friedens-Warte,' edited at Berlin, by Dr Alfred H. Fried, may be found an ' Appeal to the German people,' written at the end of October, by Baron MarscheSl von Biberstein., Land rat of Prussia, captain in the first infantry regiment reserve. This article was written in a trench north of Arras, where Biberstein was killed. He expresses his unconcealed horror at the war. and his desire that it should be the last:— ''.'This is the conviction reached by those at the front who have witnessed the unspeakable sufferings of a modern war.' With ■ a candour even more meritorious Biberstein determines to begin with an admission and a mea culpa for the sins of Germany. "'War has opened one's eyes.' he -writes. 'to our terrible unbeliolitheit (i.e., faculty for not being loved). Everything has a cause; we must have caused this hate; we have even in somo degree justified it. Let us hone that it will not bo the least gain "of this war that Germany will turn hot* eyo inwards, will seek to recognise her faults and to correct them.' Unfortunately, even this article is spoilt by the Gorman pride which, desiring the peace of the world, aims at forcing it upon the world. " BEFORE 1 THE DECISION."

"But here, from another officer, the poet Fritz von Unruh, first lieutenant of the uhlans on the _ western front, are some dramatic scenes in verse and prose, which _ recently appeared under the title, ' Yor d'er Entwheidung' (before the Decision '). This is a dramatic poem in tho author has recorded his own impressions and his moral transformation. ■ The hero, who, like himself, is an officer of the uhlans, masses through different centres of the war and remains everywhere a foreigner, a soul detached from murderous passions, who sees the horrid' reality. and who suffers to tlie point of a fronv.

" Tho two scenes reproduced by the <N cue Zurcher Zeitung' are laid in a muddy, blood-stained trench whore some German soldiers, like beasts in a slaughter-house, ar-o dying or are Hearing "death with bitter words, some officers arei making themselves djruuk with champagne lound a heavy gun, laughing and staggering until thoy fall" overcome with fatigue and slumber. From the first scene I take these terrible words, spoken by one of those who are Availing in the Irenen under grape-shot fire. 1 Driessig.jahriger (:i m.m of thirty years oh 1. •• In the country they are laug.fng: tliey celebrate each victory. They kill

us like cattle in the slaughterhouse, and they say, ' This is wax.' When this is over they will act spitefully; they will fete us for three years. But the first cripple will not have grown grey before they are already laughing at his »vhi'te hair.' A UHLAN'S PRAYER. " And the seized with horror in the midst of the massacre, falls on his knees rnd prajs: 'Thou .Who givest life, Thou Who taJrest it, )how shall one recognise Thee? In these trenches strewn with mutilated bodies Ido not find Thee. The lacerati3ig cry of these thousands, which is stifled by tth.B terribly constrain of death, does it aos reach Thee, or is it lost in the frozen space? Bor whom does Thy spring-time flower? For whom are the splendour of Thy suns? Oh, for whom, my God? I ask Thee in the name of all those whose mouths are closed by courage and by fear before the horror of Thy darkness: What warmth have I in myself P What truth enlightens me? Can this massacre be Thy will? Is it Thy will?. "(He loses consciousness and falls). THE FLOWER OF MANHOOD. u Marked by a grief less lyrical, less excited, and in a style more simple, more reflective and nearer to us, the series of letters from the'front' by Dr Albert Klein, professor at Oberrealsehule, in Giessen, and lieutenant in the Reserve, who was killed in Champagne.

" The first describes with rare frankness the moral condition of the German army:— " 1 Who amongst us is brave and regardless of death? We all realise our position too well; we are in the flower of manhood', of physical and spiritual strength; and as none would die willingly none are brave (Tapfer) in the usual sense of the -word; or at any rate such bravery is exceedingly rare. It is precisely because bravery is so rare in life that we make so much of religion, of poetry, of thought, beginning early in the school, and hymning death for one's country as the highest lot of man; until it attains its height in the false heroism that ringß so noisily in our newspapers and discussions, and is so cheap—and' also in the true heroism of a small number who expose themselves and carry others with them. . . . We do .our duty, we do what we ought to do, but these aro passive virtues. . . . '"When we read in the papers, i in the scribblings of those who suffer from an evil conscience because they are left, behind in safety, when I read those boastful outbursts which make a hero of every soldier, it makes me feel sick. Heroism is a rare plant, and' does not flourish in a citizen army (Volksheere). In order to preserve it a man must have respect for and even more fear of his superiors than of the enemy; and these superiors must have a conscience, must do their duty well, must Jcnow their business, must be swift in action and must be in control of their nerves. When we read these eulogies on ourselves, written by those who are left behind', we blush. Thank heaven ! The robust shame of earlier days is not dead amongst us. . . . "IF I RETRUN." " ' My friends, men out here do not speak so calmly of death, of sacrifice or of victory as do those who are left behind, and who ring their bells, -deliver their patriotic speeches, and rant in the papers. Here a man adapts himself as best he can to the bitter necessity of suffering, and death, if so it must be ; but lie knows and sees what noble sacrifices, what countless sacrifices, have already been offered'. He .sees that' there has already long been enough destruction on our side and on the other.. It is precisely when one is face to lace with suffering, as I am, that a link is forged which unites me with those in the enemy camp (which unites you with them, too—do you not fee! it?)

"'lf I return, of which I have begun to despair, my dearest task will bo to devote myself to the study of the thought of those who have been our enemies. I would reconsruct my ex-i.-itenco on a broader foundation. . . And I believe l&at after this war it will be less difficult than after any other to be human.' "The second fragment is a moving account of a meeting with a French prisoner:— "'Yesterday I was strangely moved. I chanced to see a transport of prisoners, and' I chatted with one of them—a Professor of Philogy at the college of F , a man most frank, .most intelligent, and: with a fine soldierly bearing like all his companions, although they had just passed through a terrible experience—the fire of mitrailleuse. To me it was a proof of the absurdity of the war. THE TWO PHILOLOGISTS. " I longed to be a friend of these men so near to me by education, by their manner of life, by their thought and by their interests. We began to talk about ono of Rousseau's works, and' to argue like old philologists. How alike we were; and how false are those newspaper tales of French troops broken and exhausted—as false as those which the French papers publish about us! My French friend showed evidence of much reflection in the comprohen-

sion and admiration of German thought. To think that we were meant to be friends and' that we must .vet be forced apart! I was quite over-'" come. I sat down prostrated. I meditated, and no sophism could l deceive me .longer. Oh, for any end whatever to this war, which for six months lias engulfed men, fortune, and happiness. This feeling is the same both amongst us and our enemies. Always the same picture. We do the same things, we suffer the same agonies, we are made of the same stuff—and it is precisely for this reason that we are such bitter foes."