John Bassett - The Lost Fruits of Waterloo

No wise man will undertake to say which form of interdependence will be the result. But it seems certain that we stand today with two roads before us, each leading to the same end, a stronger degree of unity. One goes by way of German domination, the other by way of equal and mutual agreement. I do not need to say which will be pleasanter to those who travel. We cannot stand at the crossing forever: some day we shall pass down one of the roads. It is said that the world is not yet ready to choose the second road, and that it must go on in the old way, fighting off attempts at domination, until it learns the advantages of co-operation. It may be so; but meanwhile it is a glorious privilege to strike a blow, however weak, in behalf of reason.

When war broke over the world three years ago many ministers and other people declared that Armageddon had come. They had in mind a tradition founded on a part of the sixteenth chapter of Revelations, in which the prophet was supposed to describe a vision of the end of the world. In that awful day seven angels appeared with seven vials of wrath, and the contents of each when poured out wiped away something that was dear to the men of the earth. The sixth angel poured out on the waters of the river Euphrates, and they were dried up; and then unclean spirits issued from the mouths of the dragons and of other beasts and from the mouth of the false prophet, and they went into the kings of the earth, then the political rulers of mankind, and induced them to bring the people together “to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” And the armies met at Armageddon and fought there the last battle of time. This striking figure made a deep impression on the early Christians, and out of it arose the belief that some day would come a great and final war, in which the nations of the earth would unite for their mutual destruction, after which the spirit of righteousness would establish a millennial reign of peace. And so when most of the nations of the world came together in war in 1914, many persons pronounced the struggle the long expected Armageddon.

It was easy to say in those days of excitement that this war was going to be the last. Madness it certainly was, and surely a mad world would come back to reasonableness after a season of brutal destruction. Common sense, humanity, and the all powerful force of economic interest would bring the struggle to an end, and then by agreement steps would be taken to make a recurrence of the situation impossible.

It was in the days when we still had confidence in civilization. Humanity, we said, had developed to such an extent that it could not return to the chaos that an age of war would imply. International law was still considered a binding body of morality, if not of actual law. International public opinion was believed to have power to punish national wrong-doers. We who teach said as much to our classes many times in those days of innocence. In all sincerity we felt that a nation could not do this or that thing because public opinion would not tolerate it. How far distant seem now the days of early summer in 1914!

We had adopted many specific rules to restrain needless barbarity in war. For example, we would not use dum-dum bullets, nor drop bombs on non-combatants, nor shell the homes of innocent dwellers on the seashore. It was considered an achievement of the civilized spirit that an army occupying enemy territory would respect the rights of the non-combatant inhabitants, set guards over private property, protect women and children from injury, and permit civilians to go about their business as long as they did not intermeddle with military matters. In three and a half horrible years we have drifted a long way from these protestations. Those of us who once studied the elements of international law may well study them again when the war is over, if, indeed, international law is still thought worth studying.

In the vision the angel poured out his vial on the great river, to the early men of Mesapotamia the symbol of the great waters. In our own day we have seen strange engines of wrath placed in the great waters, foul spirits that destroy men and ships in disregard of the rules of fair fighting. And out of the mouths of dragons and other loathsome beasts, and of false prophets as well, evil spirits have issued in these sad days. They have taken their places in the hearts and minds of self-willed men and made beasts of them; so that the rest of humanity have had to fight against them and suffer themselves to be killed by them, in order that the wicked shall not triumph over the whole earth.

The war has been gruesome beyond the imagination of man. No other recorded experience has told us of so much killing, and of so many different ways of killing. Men have been slain with swords, cannon, great howitzers, rifles, machine guns, tanks, liquid fire, electrified wires, and finally with the germs of disease deliberately planted. Nothing that science could invent for destroying human life has been omitted, except, possibly, dum-dum bullets; and in view of the use of much more cruel means we may well ask, “Why not dum-dums also?”

We must admit that if the author of the Book of Revelations had prophetic insight and foresaw the world struggle that now is, he did not overpaint its terrors. And so, asks the man of faith, if the first part of the vision comes true, why may not the second part likewise come true? If the seer could foresee the war and its horrors, may he not also have spoken truly when he foretold that after Armageddon wars would be no more; for God would wipe away the desire for them from the hearts of men?

To this question I answer: If a man is left in the world when this conflict is ended who glories in deliberate war, he is too bad to live in civilized society. Certain it is that the vast majority of men and women are already convinced that the desire for war, henceforth and forever, is wiped out of their hearts. In the stress of actual battle or in the preparations to sustain those who fight they may forget the fundamental folly of the whole thing for the time; but it is always at the bottom of their hearts. What is the human power of reasoning worth, if it is not able to devise some way to escape from this obsession of self-slaughter?

Do not be deceived by the strut of Mars. His Day has come with a vengeance. He has shot up rapidly, like a jimson-weed, and blossomed like a cactus. We may have laughed at him in the days of peace, but we now look to him for protection. We cannot decry the men who are dying for us, dying in the best sportsmanslike manner. But we do not like their business as a business, and we wish at the bottom of our hearts that it were abolished as a peril to humanity. And we believe that of all who hate war, none hate it more than those who are actually fighting in this struggle. Let us give Mars his Day and all the glory that belongs to it, but let us not forget peace while we serve war.

Nor should we be deceived by the pallid pacifist. He has his counterpart in every struggle; and in general he serves some good purpose in a multitude of opinions. But the day of stress and world crisis is not his Day ; and the practical world loses little time in putting him in his place. The pacifist does not represent the peace movement in its freest and most significant form. The advocates of peace today who are best serving its promotion are those who are out in the armies bent on putting down that nation who is the most dangerous enemy of peace.

These men are not mere pieces of machinery in a great driving process. They are thinking men with political power in their hands, either actually or potentially. War is a great schoolteacher. It has lasted in our own time nearly as long as a course in college. The soldiers who survive from the beginning of this conflict may now be considered as more than half through their senior year. They know what war is and what it means, and they know something about the necessary form of coöperation that must exist in any society before the will of the people can be carried into effect. They knew little about war four years ago: they now know all the professors know. Behind the lines and here in our homes one never sees man nor woman who does not admit that it would be a blessing to make war impossible; but few of us have any idea how to go about getting it made impossible. Many of us think we shall never get people to act together in such a cause. But it seems unreasonable to expect that men who have raided through “No Man’s Land,” captured trenches and defeated great armies through organization and initiative should quail before the inertia of opinion, perhaps the chief obstacle confronting those who labor for a coöperative peace.