With Our Soldiers in France Part 8

What a self-righteous spirit the war has bred in many of us, and what a hatred of our enemies! One has but to read the secular and religious press on both sides of the present conflict to see our sin writ large before us. Since we have such a keen vision for the mote in our brother's eye and such an eager perception of every flaw in our enemy, we can recognize this spirit most readily if we look for it first in Germany, but in doing so let us clearly recognize that every quotation can be paralleled by the press both secular and religious on our own side of the conflict. In all fairness let us state that a large proportion of the sermons which have been preached in the churches of Germany, England, and America have had a recognition of the sins of their own people. But there have been many preachers on both sides who have praised their own nation to the skies with Pharisaic self-righteousness, and have seen the enemy only with the distorted eyes of prejudice and hate.

It will not be necessary to quote here the notorious "Hymn of Hate," by Ernst Lissauer, which was distributed by the Crown Prince of Bavaria to his army. Rather let us quote from some of the sermons and poems of German pastors and the religious press. In a collection of poems published by a German pastor, Konsistorialrat Dietrich Vorwerk, there occurred the following paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer: "Though the warrior's bread be scanty, do Thou work daily death and tenfold woe unto the enemy. Forgive in merciful long-suffering each bullet and each blow which misses its mark! Lead us not into the temptation of letting our wrath be too tame in carrying out Thy divine judgment! Deliver us and our Ally from the infernal Enemy and his servants on earth. Thine is the kingdom, the German land; may we, by aid of Thy steel-clad hand, achieve the power and the glory." Fortunately, this was deleted in the later editions of this book.

The published sermons of Pastor H. Francke are also typical:

"As Jesus was treated, so also have the German people been treated. From the East the Russian threatens us. Injustice and b.l.o.o.d.y deeds of violence are his life-element, agreements and const.i.tutions, solemnly sworn to, have no significance for him; he is stained with blood from top to toe. Germany is precisely--who would venture to deny it?--the representative of the highest morality, of the purest humanity, of the most chastened Christianity. They envy us our freedom, our power to do our work in peace. To heal the world by the German nature is to become a blessing to the people of the earth. Wherever the German spirit obtains supremacy, there freedom prevails. Here we come upon the old intimate kins.h.i.+p between the essence of Christianity and of Germanism. Because of their close spiritual relations.h.i.+p, therefore, Christianity must find its fairest flower in the German mind. Therefore we have a right to say: 'Our German Christianity--the most perfect, the most pure.' Thus the Germans are the very nearest to the Lord. Is He the G.o.d of those others?

No, they serve at best Satan, the father of lies."

The Rev. J. Rump writes in the same strain:

"Against us stands the world's greatest sham of a nation, the 'English cousin,' the Judas among the nations, who betrays Germanism for thirty pieces of silver. Against us stands sensual France, the harlot amongst the peoples. Against us stands Russia, inwardly rotten, mouldering, masking its disease under outbursts of brutality. Germany shall be the Israel of the future. The Germans are guiltless, and from all sides testimonies are flowing in as to the n.o.ble manner in which our troops conduct the war. We fight--thanks and praise be to G.o.d--for the cause of Jesus within mankind. Verily the Bible is our book. It was given and a.s.signed to us, which proclaims to mankind salvation or disaster--according as we will it." [3]

Such quotations could be multiplied not only from German war sermons, but from some that have been preached in England and America as well.[4] The Archbishop of Canterbury says: "I get letters in which I am urged to see to it that we insist upon 'reprisals, swift, b.l.o.o.d.y and unrelenting. Let gutters run with German blood. Let us smash to pulp the German old men, women and children,' and so on." [5]

Here is Henri de Regnier's song of hate from France:

"I swear to cherish in my heart this hate Till my last heart-throb wanes; So may the sacred venom of my blood Mingle and charge my veins!

May there pa.s.s never from my darkened brow The furrows hate has worn!

May they plough deeper in my flesh, to mark The outrage I have borne!

By towns in flames, by my fair fields laid waste, By hostages undone, By cries of murdered women and of babes, By each dead warrior son, . . .

I take my oath of hatred and of wrath Before G.o.d, and before The holy waters of the Marne and Aisne, Still ruddy with French gore;

And fix my eyes upon immortal Rheims, Burning from nave to porch, Lest I forget, lest I forget who lit The sacrilegious torch!"

A poem recently written by an "Unbeliever" represents all the churches, Catholic and Protestant, Lutheran and Reformed, of the enemy and of the Allies, at last united in one message, which furnishes the recurring refrain of the poem, "In Jesus' Name go forth and slay."

With two-thirds of the world, representing more than twenty nations, already dragged into the widening vortex of the present war; with more than five millions of the finest youth of Europe already slaughtered on the battlefield, with twenty millions who have already been wounded, nearly forty millions under arms, and whole nations organized for war and the manufacture of munitions; with the flood tide of impurity and immorality which war has brought in its train; with the barbarism and cruelty, poison gas, flaming oil, and organized destruction used at present on the battlefields of Europe, is it not time for the Church to set her own house in order, to humble herself with shame in the very dust for her criminal impotence and worldliness and sin, and to return to her crucified Lord and Master? Is it not time that we seek a new vision of His face, to renew our consecration before Him, and to seek a vital and life-giving message first for ourselves and then for the world about us?

Not for "our country right or wrong," not for a Pharisaic self-righteousness, but for Christ and His suffering world, for a whole Kingdom, and a whole Church, must we reconsecrate ourselves.

As Fosd.i.c.k says, "The issue was drawn: _Christianity would be a failure if it did not stop slavery_. And from the day that this issue was drawn, the result was a.s.sured. It was not Christianity that failed, it was slavery. . . . This, too, is a climactic day in history. For so long time the Gospel and war have lived together in ign.o.ble amity! If at last disharmony between the spirit of Jesus and the spirit of war is becoming evident, then a great hope has dawned for the race. . . . The main issue is clear. _Christianity will indeed have failed if it does not stop war_." [6]

Is it not time that we turn to G.o.d in humiliation and prayer for an outpouring of His spirit and a deeply needed revival of religion? In the words of Admiral Sir David Beatty, the Commander of the British Fleet, "England still remains to be taken out of her stupor of self-satisfaction and complacency and until she be stirred out of this condition, until religious revival takes place at home, just so long will the war continue."

If at the call of nationalism the manhood of the nation has poured forth in boundless heroism and self-sacrifice, at the call of Christ cannot His Church rise again to its high vocation? If half of the zeal and pa.s.sion, half of the outpouring of life and treasure, of organization and efficiency, that the State has put into this war could be thrown into the cause of the Kingdom and of the eternal verities, the world would soon be won. If Christians would but follow Christ, war, as an unbelievably brutal and barbarous anachronism, like its former savage contemporaries of slavery, the burning of witches, and the torture of the Inquisition, would be forever done away. The message with which our Lord challenges the whole Church today is that with which He began His ministry when He faced His apostate nation, "Repent, for the Kingdom of G.o.d is at hand."

[1] The songs of the men which are most popular in war time bear evidence of this unconscious virtue. They fall into three cla.s.ses. There are the songs of cheer so popular in the camps today: "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Own Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile," "Are We Down-hearted, No,"

"Though Your Heart May Ache Awhile Never Mind," etc. Then there are the songs of home: "Keep the Home Fires Burning," "Tipperary," "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty," "Put Me on the Train to London Town," "Back Home in Tennessee," "In My Old Kentucky Home," "There's a Long, Long Trail Awinding," "Give Me Your Smile," "If You Were the Only Girl in The World," "Mother McCrae," etc. Then there are the songs of nationality; The "Ma.r.s.eillaise," "John Brown's Body," "When Irish Eyes are Smiling,"

"Come Back to Erin," "Annie Laurie," etc.

[2] See Appendix III for a typical expression of a soldier's new experience of religion at the front.

[3] Quoted in "Hurrah and Hallelujah," pp. 116-119.

[4] It is interesting to note in this connection some words of Immanuel Kant. See Appendix I.

[5] _London Times_, June 22, 1917.

[6] "The Challenge of the Present Crisis," a.s.sociation Press.

CHAPTER VIII

THE WORLD AT WAR

Let us try to grasp the colossal facts of the present war. Since the beginning of the conflict there has been a daily attrition of more than 25,000 in killed, wounded, or prisoners every twenty-four hours. At the opening of the fourth year of the war the number killed was over 5,000,000. This does not include those who have perished in the devastated nations. Not less than 6,000,000 men are now in the military prisons of Europe, some of whom have undergone great suffering, both physical and mental. More than 6,000,000 lie wounded today in the military hospitals, not to speak of several times that number who have been patched up and sent back into the line to face death again, or have been rejected as unfit for further service, often left crippled or maimed, blinded, or deformed for life.

Mere numbers or statistics cannot measure the sacrifice and suffering of these lives. If we could know the infinite value of the unit of personality, or compute the preciousness and potentiality of a single life destroyed, we might then hope to multiply it by the million. If human scales could weigh the sorrow of a widow's heart, could compute the anguish of a mother's loss, could prophesy the deprivation of an orphan's lot, or know the good which might have been done by even one man who has now been killed, we would then be in a position to begin to estimate the casualty list.

There are today nearly 40,000,000 men with the colors. If we add to these the 5,000,000 already killed, the 6,000,000 prisoners and the large number discharged as unfit for further service, we have a total of far more than 50,000,000 who have been with the colors in the first three years of the war. We can better realize the significance of this statement if we remember that in no previous war have more than 3,000,000 men faced each other in conflict. According to Gibbon, Rome's great standing army was not over 400,000 men. Napoleon's grand army did not exceed 700,000, and in the Battle of Waterloo less than 200,000 men were engaged. In the American Civil War less than 3,000,000, and in the Russo-j.a.panese War only 2,500,000 men were employed. Indeed, if we sum up the twenty greatest wars of the last one hundred and twenty-five years, from the Napoleonic Wars to the present time, less than 20,000,000 men were engaged, while in this war nearly twice that number are now under arms. Britain alone has enrolled over 5,000,000 for the army, with 1,000,000 more from the overseas dominions, and about 500,000 for the navy. Germany has called some 12,000,000 and Russia more than 12,000,000 to the colors.

By the end of 1917 nearly 6,000,000 men will have been killed. Less than 5,500,000 were killed in the twenty greatest wars of the last century and a quarter, all combined. In the Battle of Gettysburg only 3,000 were killed. England's casualty list during a vigorous offensive averages over 3,000 every day. In the first ten days alone of the battle of the Somme, the British lost 200,000 in killed or wounded.

France as a whole has lost even more heavily, while Germany's casualty list during the great battles of the Somme and in Flanders has averaged 200,000 a month. When our own relatives are at the front, and our own boys are in the line, we realize what these statistics mean. In Germany alone the number of men killed now totals far over 1,000,000.

Think of the many millions of mothers and wives in the nations of Europe scanning that crowded page of the newspaper, with several thousand names on the casualty list every day, each looking to see if her boy's name is there.

During that fateful day of July 1st when the great drive on the Somme began, when the English along a front of twenty-five miles and the French on a front of ten miles leaped out of the trenches and sprang forward in that terrible charge, men were mowed down like ripened grain. Regiments on both sides were cut to pieces. The writer's brother-in-law, a young colonel, went in with 1,100 men of his battalion--only 130 came out. Only one officer was unscathed and he has since been killed. The young colonel was shot within an inch of the heart and fell into a sh.e.l.lhole. Two of his men fell dead on top of him. There he lay under a terrible fire for sixteen hours, and finally at midnight gained strength to struggle from under the two bodies that lay upon him, and crawled on his hands and knees for over a mile back to the nearest dressing station. In the first year of the war he lost nearly half his men with trench foot, the men's feet being frost-bitten or frozen in the muddy trenches. In the second year he was wounded in seven places by shrapnel, and later, after recovery, was almost killed. He has now again returned to the service.

Another red-cheeked boy told the writer that his battalion had gone in with 960 men and had come out with only eighty. In another battalion all the officers were killed or wounded and the remaining handful was left with a lance-corporal in command: the colonel, the majors, captains, lieutenants, sergeants, and corporals had all been killed or wounded. At Bradford the writer was told that their favorite sons in the "Bradford Pals" had to be sacrificed, and every man that went into action in this battalion was either killed or wounded within a few hours. An unusual proportion of British officers have fallen. The university students and the flower of the land who have gone into the officers' training corps have oftentimes been among the first to fall.

Let us now turn from the numbers of killed, wounded, and prisoners and estimate if we can the cost of the conflict. The present war, more than any in previous history, has been a warfare of attrition, that is, by the killing and maiming of men and the destruction of resources to attempt to wear out the enemy.

Already the cost of the war has mounted to over $130,000,000 a day, or more than $100,000 every minute of the twelve hours that the sun s.h.i.+nes upon us. Contrast, for instance, the total cost, the lives lost, and the numbers of men called to the colors in the twenty princ.i.p.al wars during the last century and a quarter, from the Napoleonic Wars of 1793, with the figures for the present war to August 4, 1917, at the end of the third year of the conflict.[1]

Twenty previous wars Present War Total cost $26,123,546,240 $75,000,000,000 Total killed 6,498,097 5,000,000 Called to the colors 18,562,200 40,000,000

We have said that the cost of the war has now risen to the almost unbelievable total of over $130,000,000 a day.[2] That is more than the total cost of the whole war between Russia and Turkey in 1828. In a single great day in the battles on the Somme, or in Belgium, the British have used as much ammunition as they were able to manufacture in the entire first ten months of the war in 1914.

Even before the end of 1915 the five great powers had more than doubled their national debts. When will these debts be paid? Great Britain, the wealthiest of the nations of Europe, after one hundred years of peace still owes much of the debt incurred in the American Revolution and all of the debt incurred in the Napoleonic Wars. The whole cost of the American Civil War was only $5,000,000,000, and of the Napoleonic Wars $6,000,000,000, while this war will cost over six times the amount of either during this single year.

Great Britain's war debt at the end of the third year has reached the enormous total of more than $20,000,000,000, or twenty times the national debt of the United States at the beginning of the war, yet even this does not begin to exhaust her resources. At the close of the Napoleonic Wars Great Britain's debt was one-third of her national resources. She can almost double her present enormous war debt before utilizing a third of her wealth.

We have not in this calculation reckoned on the economic value of the lives destroyed. That would average about $3,000 for each man. Five million men killed means an economic loss to the countries concerned of $15,000,000,000. But the economic value of the lives destroyed represents only a small fraction of their potentiality--socially, morally, and spiritually. No human brain can calculate, no heart can fathom the cost or loss of this terrible conflict.

The cost of less than one month of the present war would equal that of the entire Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Another month would pay for the whole Russo-j.a.panese War; twelve days would pay for the Boer War, while the cost for three days would dig the Panama Ca.n.a.l. At the beginning of 1918 the war debts of the warring countries will exceed $90,000,000,000, or more than one-fifth the wealth of all the warring nations of Europe. The daily cost of the war is equal to half the earning power of these European nations, and the interest on their war debts will be equal to one-half their budgets as they stood at the beginning of the war. The wealth of more than twenty nations is being rapidly drained, and the world's financial reserves are being consumed in this vicious and sinful struggle which an autocratic militarism has forced upon the world.

Although late in entering the war, America's expenditure has been out of all proportion to that of any other nation. Upon arrival in this country the writer finds the statement in our press that the nation will have spent or sanctioned before the end of 1917, the enormous total of $19,000,000,000. That is more than twenty per cent of the entire cost of the war to date for all the European nations. That sum is as great as Germany spent on land and sea for the conduct of the first three years of the war. It represents more than twice our total wealth in 1850, and one-twelfth of our present national wealth of $328,000,000,000.