Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, 20 May 1915, Page 21

Current Topics

■ * The Priest on the Battlefield ' r ■ l T. In this issue we commence the reproduction of a most admirable publication compiled by the Rev i Father Lockington; S.J., under the title -of The Priest on the Battlefield, and issued by that excellent organisation, .. the Australian Catholic Truth Society. ' Its object and value are clearly and succinctly explained in the following characteristically thoughtful and weighty preface by his Grace Archbishop Carr: 'I trust that this pamphlet of the Australian Catholic Truth Society will be- very largely circulated and very carefully preserved It contains a record of deeds which show how, even from war, from the lion's mouth, the Almighty can bring forth honey and the honeycomb. When the present war has passed into history, these deeds will shed on its pages gleams of celestial splendor. In collecting these examples -of heroic virtue while they are still fresh in the minds of men, and free from the suspicion of .exaggeration, Father Lockington, S.J., has done a truly pious and patriotic work. He has gathered up fragments of the spiritual loaves and fishes multiplied in many a desert place since this war began. In'this selection he has exercised a wise discretion in distributing the matter so as to bring out in strong relief the glorious part played by our men, our nuns, our priests the Mass, and through all, and above all, the Divine Apostolate of the Catholic Church. In time to come this will be a precious record connected with events which may shake empires, but which will certainly prove the sanctity of the Catholic Church as luminously and as forcibly as the most searching of human tests can give testimony of personal and corporate sanctity. I recommend the pamphlet, not only to the ordinary subscribers and readers of A.C.T.S. publications, but to every adult Catholic of the archdiocese.' We heartily endorse this recommendation, and urge our readers to obtain a copy of this extremely interesting work. Those who cannot do so will find it well worth their while to preserve this valuable record as it appears in our columns. Italy and the War The intentions of Italy in regard to intervention are still uncertain, but the crisis brought about by the resignation of the Salandra Government will probably have the effect of forcing a final decision, one way or the other. Judging by the cabled reports of popular outbreaks, it would appear as if the majority of the people were in favor of intervention; "but as to whether popular feeling is sufficiently strongly represented in Parliament to carry the day and override the waverers, it is impossible at this distance to form any opinion. „At present the issue would seem to depend very largely on the relative personal influence of Premier Salandra and ex-Premier Giolitti. Under the circumstances, the following account and estimate of Signor Salandra by the well-informed Rome correspondent of the' Liverpool Catholic Times will be of special interest: ' King Victor Emmanuel's strong desire for neutrality is ascribed to the influence of the German Emperor by some, and by others to a fear of possible disturbances in Italy in case she goes to war. There is one man who is the object of unbounded admiration on the part of his countrymen, because of the firmness with which he has guided Italy's destinies so —viz., Signor Salandra, President of the Council. It is not usual for this country to praise a Prime Minister in unbounded terms he has to leave office before his merits are duly recognised by the public. But in this case the old order has changed and given place to a new and a more healthy condition of public sentiment. Even Giolitti, the ex-Premier, could not, according to many "Italians, cope with the in the-statesmanlike manner in which Salandra has done. . By way of parenthesis it may be added" that Salandra is a fervent Catholic, far different from the type of Catholics who leaves ; the practices of religion -to wife and children,

a type which is only too ; often met with in official ranks in this country. rlt would be difficult to set down in Q precise terms:Salandra's intentions as to Italy's attitude for the next month. "Do not cry Viva la neutralita," I interjected the Premier at the . meeting - at; Gaeta, V when y an admirer of f his shouted these words. «'Rather cry -I Viva l'ltalia." '~ " '-*'■ - 'V 'v -i" f - _ .*Ws . « What War Makes of Us » -2 :*; V To an incomparably greater degree than has ever been known m the history of warfare before? the present * war is affecting the reason of the participants, or at least of those who are-the most closely and continuously engaged. At a comparatively early stage in thef struggle a cable message intimated that a notable? feature in connection with the numbers returned to Germany for medical treatment was the unprecedentedly large proportion of cases of insanity. The statement is confirmed by Major Dickinson of the American State Department, who declares that Europe's war is making raving maniacs of thousands of the fighters. Major Dickinson was permitted some time ago to see fighting in the German trenches near Soissons, and in a state-; ment to an American paper he describes the ' effect.' ' They don't fire at each other,' he said, ' but the din of artillery directed at the covered trenches is positively maddening. Now and then I saw men jump up out of the trenches and go at each other with bayonets or in a mad rush for each other's throats.. From my position from trenches a little behind the actual firing line I saw hundreds of men brought back. They did not seem to be wounded. They were screaming, raving maniacs, driven insane by that maddening roar of artillery over-i head. [ tell you this nation doesn't know anything about war. In fact this isn't a war; it is cold-blooded murder. God deliver me from any further sights like those I have witnessed.' - 3 * Even apart from these cases, where reason is entirely dethroned, it goes without saying that this con- > tinuous and cold-blooded carnage must have a dehumanising effect on large numbers of men, even on those endowed with quite normal feelings and susceptibilities. This is strikingly but painfully illustrated in the incidents described in a private letter written by a French soldier who serves as an interpreter to his Colonel, without losing the opportunity of having a try at the '-Bodies,' as the German soldiers are now commonly called in France. Writing from hospital to an English friend, he gives the following realistic but horrible description of his experiences: 'There in Lorraine, between Nancy and the Vosges, we only fight at night, leaving the artillery to prolong the fight in the day; the troops engaged do not exceed 10,000 men on either side therefore, nothing compared with the gigantic duel in our plains of the north. For the moment, the semi-solitude and the neighborhood .of wounded and sick would rather inspire gloomy thoughts like the weather. Against my will lam thinking of the sadness which weighs on our .countries, yours and mine, and the others as well. These are apparently scruples of disease, since Nietzche has developed at length the theme that the weak and the sick alone are accessible to scruples. Ten years ago, the reading of Nietzche was held in France as unhealthy recreation; the Germans themselves dared not openly boast of their national philosophy. Now, they openly claim him as theirs, and I have numberless indications of it in the papers we find in the enemy's trenches. "Room for us who are strong, for our nation which is clever; room for German science, German virtue"that's what their soul expresses with tranquil confidence. To fight them on equal terms, we must for the present leave far behind us all sentiment of humanity. We are coming to it, besides, even the most sensitive among us. , Shall I tell you that I have seen my comrades laugh at seeing, 1500 metres away, arms and legs of the enemy flying in the air under the fire of our artillery And I myself, I laughed also and perpetrated savage jokes on this new kind of "confiture." It has happened "to me) as to the others, to stumble against.the body of a dead

enemy and to step on it not to wet my feet. ' We always : respect the wounded, and I even think we treat them better than om; ,own. . However, it happens that fury renders some of ours like Germans let loose. One day for instance, some Bodies, seeing they were caught in | their trench, waved a white shirt on a gun. We approach : they kill some fifteen of ours. Then, without orders from their leaders, ours rush with death howls and broach like bacon all that were there. A wounded '•boche " lying on his side, raises his right hand and shows his ring, to indicate that the father of a family ought to be spared. Then a comrade, a " paysan dauphmois" told me, "I reflected a moment, but I was ensauvaye (the word is not correct, yet good) ; I raised the butt end of my gun, and with one blow I smashed his skull.' This is what war makes of us!' The moral of all of which is the urgent necessity for a united and supreme effort to bring the hellish business to a close. Facing the Facts The events of the past two weeks—the sinking of the Lusitania, German activity in Flanders, the deliberate and systematic use of asphyxiating gases, and the Russian reverses in Galicia and on the Carpathians —must serve to bring home to the most thoughtless and thoughtless and featherbrained optimists there are still amongst us—the seriousness of the* struggle in which the Allies are engaged, and the magnitude of the task which still confronts them. No one has now the shadow of an excuse for looking lightly on the war crisis, or for failing to realise that it will require the utmost degree of determination and of strenuous effort to bring the great undertaking to a successful issue. It should not have required any such painful and practical demonstration to bring homo to lis the urgent necessity for making every sacrifice and putting every iron in the fire to bring about final victory and an assured peace. The press, to do them justice,"'have in season and out of season insisted on this now obvious truth, and the best and most trusted of the British writers have again and again sounded the needed warning. One of & the latest and certainly one of the weightiest attempts to induce the British people fairly and squarely to face the facts is that made by Dr. E. J. Dillon/ the famous foreign editor of the Daily Telegrajrii. Born in Ireland, County Tipperary, Dr. Dillon lived for years in Russia, was honored by the Russian Government with the appointment of Professor of Oriental languages in the National University of St, Petersburg, and took to himself a Russian lady for wife. Speaking every European language and many Asiatic dialects, a rare student of ancient tongues, he has moved among all European nationalities as one of themselves, and is certainly the greatest living authority on all questions of European diplomacy, and on the spirit and conditions prevailing in every country on the Continent. Writing in the Contemporary lievir.ir, he surveys the present situation of the world struggle, and emphasises, in words that cannot be ignored or gainsaid, the unspeakable folly of reckless over-confide nee. Dr. Dillon considers it significant of the extreme optimism in which all the Allies indulge that leading men rely upon impending troubles, followed by disruption in Germany, to end the war. ' Now, of all the delusions that have preceded or accompanied the present war, that, to my thinking, is the wildest and most dangerous. Disintegration could come only as the final consequence of an unbearable strain imposed by reverses in the field, coupled with the dwindling of supplies, and even these trials would probably be borne with patience, so long as the military leaders kept the field.' He explains clearly why the progress of the war is so slow, and why, unless new factors are introduced, it will continue to be slow for a very long time to come. This is a sappers' war. We have had brilliant successes in the West, but have made very little progress. When after a siege of weeks or months a line of trenches is taken, the besiegers find another line of equally welldefended trenches in front of them, while still others are being dug out further back, the prospects of a

speedy and decisive I campaign are slender. . And [ that is one of the main hindrances to the swift or even reasonably rapid advance of the allied armies in the field. Moreover the formidable nature of this" barrier is likely to be intensified as the weeks and months roll on in/Tff 1 f b V* {? , thlS Erection;;are strenuous, nnceaswoguld Ht U ,1 BelglU, " aU i,lStance which our people would do well to realise. It was occupied by the Ger mans in a space of some days. It has not been delivered from them in all these months of victories attacks carried out by the Allies. Before the war Germany was one vat fortress, defended by more than FrS T r T• T °- day Belgium and P art of Norther Fiance ha 7. been incorporated, and now form part of ml f ,T gn S stronghold, the forcible occu-' kil of a ul l 1 W ° M d *9 the Utmost the strat egic l3f a latter-day Napo eon, and necessitate appalling sacrifices of men, from which even he would recoil Al! this means that unless men, munitions, and heavy armaments are sent forward in the measured which tieyaYe indrtnitS ° 1 °<> T the StrU^le Wi]i be indefinitely prolonged. In October, certain generals of the Allies were quite confident that the war would be count, Ll C1tmaS - N ° W Pe °P l6 whose judgment counts talk of two years at least. - * will Dr. Dillon bas , not much expectation that Germany will starve. Work has been resumed in the fields and the factories of Belgium and of Northern France, and supplies are already flowing to Germany from the conquered territory Our troops, he says, cannot now take the offensive in France and Belgium without incurring tremendous losses. Somewhat unexpectedly he look's with a large measure of hope to Russia. This costly method eliminated, there remains another source of Hope. Russia may be able to invade the enemy's territory and perhaps march to Berlin, and set her seal on the tomb of Teutonism. Happily, this, too, is not impossible. Russia has done far better than T who knew how unprepared she was for this war, ever dared to hope. And she may be expected to give her Western mends further grounds for optimism in the near future throughout her chequered history she has always made her preparations for war during the campaign, and that is precisely what she is doing again to-day None the less, fate has willed it that the Eastern Allies shall pursue their own course without concerting with their friends in the West. Unlike the Germans, they unavoidably lack unity of action and co-ordination of effort. German strategy is seen at its best in the East Von Tlindcnberg deserved the Marshal's baton. And yet Russia has done well. But the offensive there has always been repulsed by whomsoever it was attempted. . . . Russia can but give of the best that she has to the furtherance of our common cause, and it would be as foolish "to complain because it has not equalled our expectations as it would be to hope that she will yet work military miracles.' Dr. Dillon concludes his sober and weighty article by repeating and emphasising his warning as to the necessity for preternatural efforts to avert a draw, and to bring about a victorious upshot to the struggle. ' The struggle on which so much depends will have to be conductedas it was originally planned with the means actually available. The efforts it necessitates must become much more strenuous and protracted than the bulk of the allied nations yet realise. And as to the issue, only one thing is really certain, that Germany will not, cannot, be victorious. Whether we shall—as theoretically we can— crush her, military and naval power that she will be forced to acquiesce in the only terms that would secure a long peace to Europe, only a prophet could foresay. It is on the cards that when her armies arc confined within the boundaries of their Fatherland, exhaustion may assume forms and engender effects which will complete the work of the allied forces, and bring about the desired consummation. But, knowing the enemy as I do, and rating his organising power at what seems to me its real worth, T should not like to base the hopes, which I share with so many of my countrymen, on the occupation of Berlin bv the Allies from the West, or from the East, nor on military strategy alone.'