THE WAR IN PEACE.

Western Star, 2 October 1936, Page 3

THE WAR IN PEACE.

DISCOVERING TRUTH. DANGERS OF PROPAGANDA. It has been -said of a great and conscientious historian of our own times that he spent the last half-dozen years of his life in an unsuccessful attempt to discover where final responsibility for the Great War really lies, writes the London correspondent of the Melbourne Age. As to the actual conduct of that supreme conflict and the relative merits of the parts played in it by soldiers, sailors, airmen, and statesmen of many nationalities, opinion differs so sharply that all that is certain is that the future is left with a big problem to discover where truth lies. It is only necessary to read any halfdozen of the memoirs of leading figures in the ordeal to realise how diverse ara the views on matters which, on the face of them, should, one would think, admit of little or no doubt. A case in point is the final volume of Mr Lloyd George’s lively and outspoken account of the war years. Statement after statement that he has made is challenged by those whose actions he so fearlessly and confidently criticises. The controversy, it would appear, is endless, and provokes the reflection that if the chief actors in the drama are so completely at loggerheads over events that are so recent future generations will be hard put to it to disentangle fact and fancy.

SCANTY DATA. One of the difficulties of the great ware of the past has been to come by the material necessary to form a considered judgment. To go no further back than the Marlborough campaigns the data are singularly scanty, and the trustworthy information regarding the wars of Tudor monarchs, including the defeat of the Armada itself, could be recited in a relatively brief document. It is, at all' events, through no scarcity of material that future historians will suffer when they address themselves to the lessons of the war of 1914-18. Every combatant country, and, come to that, every neutral country has an immense array of information to its hands. One is reminded of this by the opening by the Duke and Duchess of York of the new home of the Imperial War Museum, which is now accommodated in the old Bethlem Hospital, which, with its surrounding park, has been presented to the nation by Lord Rotlierrnere in memory of his remarkable mother, Geraldine Mary Harmsworth. In bringing together that museum the difficulties of knowing where to begin, what to accept, and what to reject of the relics of the war which were offered for permanent preservation were enormous, and perhaps even now there are doubts as to whether it is not too comprehensive.

SIXTY THOUSAND BOOKS. Certain it is, however, that posterity will have no complaint on the ground that material available to form a picture of those awful years is inadequate. At the new museum the research worker can delve into a library of no fewer than 60,000 volumes, a large collection of maps, and nearly 500,000 photographs. He may wander among a unique collection of paintings and sculpture which reveal aspects of the war as they appealed to artists of the time—James M’Bey, Tonks, Gilbert Spencer, John and Paul Nash, Augustus John, Hughes-Stanton, Orpen, Lavery, Epstein, Derwent Wood, to name only outstanding contributors. As for other souvenirs there are guns that sailors once handled, and models of the ships they sailed in. The museum shows specimens of every kind of. equipment of soldiers of the war period from heavy artillery to hand grenades, from uniforms to life-sized models of dugouts and trench systems —trench systems with their satirical sigposts, “Piccadilly Circus,” “Surrey Lane,” “Sylvan Glade,” and so forth, or more ominous ones like ‘ ‘Hellfire Corner” or “Death Valley.” No fewer than 30 model aircraft are on exhibition, and bombs, one of them (of which only three had been manufactured when the Armistice was signed) being 15ft long and weighing 3,3001 b, are on view. It is, in fact, this very multiplication of material which vastly increases the task of the historian, for all the evidence available cannot be accepted without careful sifting.- As Lord Sankey pointed out in an address before the foureh quinquennial Anglo-American Conference of Historians, organised by the Institute of Historical Research of the University of London, a further very formidable difficulty arises from the fact that in these times as in war times, the sources of history are being poisoned in the interests of national and political propaganda.

INFLUENCE OF CENSORSHIP

“Take the censorship (he proceeded) which is exercised in some countries so as to prevent the real facts appearing before the public. Take the propaganda, which is exercised in order to place before others a distorted view of the facts, it is only in a country where there is liberty of speech and writing that the work of the historian can be safely carried, on and his object reasonably fulfilled. ... “It is much to be wished,” lie continued, “that some Maecenas would come to our rescue. There are many great patrons of literature in tlie United States. Supposing one of them were to commission a competent historian in each of the belligerent countries and in three of the neutral countries to write a short history upon the causes, the progress, and the results of the Great War, and to translate and publish the 12 histories together. It is doubtful, however, whether even then we should get a unanimous, unbiased verdict from such a world-wide jury. It may be that the causes and results of the war are so hidden or so far-reaching that the whole truth can never be discovered. Upon some questions no jury can or will ever agree. Was the sinking of the Lusitania right or wrong in law, advisable or inadvisable in policy ? Was the Battle of Jutland, a second Trafalgar, if not on the day, at any rate in its results? Was the Treaty of Versailles inspired by the remembrance of the past or by the fears of tho future ? It may be too soon to give an answer.” ' Oddly enough, there is a liinc of prejudice in comnicncs made even by some of the 600 scholars who gathered together in London for this very conference. It would, of course, be a dull i world if prejudices were not occasionally l given a free, rein both in tlie angle of approach to and the treatment of current ; history. But historians cannot be too i careful.

IMPORTANCE OF ATLANTIC. Philip Guedalla, who has been taking the chair in tho section of the conference for the study of Latin American history, is a case in point. Few minds are more lively than his, and lie had no difficulty in interesting his hearers as he discoursed on the subject of influence on modern history of countries bordering on the Atlantic. Wasn't it Dr Johnson’s ponderous observation—- “ All that raises us above the level of th© savage ccunes frejm the shores of the

Mediterranean” —that used to be a pop* ular subject for essays when we were younger ? It belonged to the samo class of essay subject as “Great rivers unite, small rivers divide,'” which severely tested our knowledge of geography and history. Those with a taste for piophecy have taken another > great water for ai text, and declare with some reason that the future of the world is wrapped up in the development of the shores of the Pacific Ocean. But Mr Guedalla does not accept this view. “The history of the modern world,” he says, “is the history of the shores of the Atlantic, and it is there that the future lies!” If he had contented himself with this, well and good, but no. He roundly asserts that the importance of Eastern Europe is past. In the history of the Atlantic nations there is an immense field of profitable research, as everyone will freely admit, nor will anyone contest Mr Guedalla’s assertion that, while North American history is fairly well known over here, we know little of the work of the South American historians. The reason he gives is that “we study funny little local languages, like German, instead of world-wide languages like Spanish." Here surely is the voice of prejudice. If the importance of a language rests on the literature of which it | boasts, German is scarcely so negligible as Mr Guedalla would have us believe. One almost wonders whether his natural dislike of Germans for their inhuman treatment of the Jews has not got the better of the scholar’s judgment. All of which goes to show that the truth' i about history lies at the bottom of a deep, if not unfathomable, well.