WAR IN LITERATURE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 129, 27 November 1929, Page 7

WAR IN LITERATURE

"JOURNEY'S END"—ITS

MEANING

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—lt was a relief to read "A.l.F.'s" letter in to-night's "Post." The public is always more or less blindly led and it is a curiously sad study to see how Communism has crept through the Empire and is showing in the most unexpected places and people, in some few cases in the men who fought. There is a form of hysteria at present that is the aftermath of war; it is this hysteria that accepts the sheer beastliness in that masterPiece of literature, "All Quiet on the Western Front," simply because it is on the whole written against war when a more wholesome public opinion would in* wronf rw° f W3r- T<? £ hU tyPe there «o^ re ß n?t S ~ tF f ne "Sht-Peace. The logical 41 Lh \r neither Kinsnor «««■ awful five_ years, were merely fools to do t, they should have stayed comfortably at nome and kept whole skins-the only thing that to them would matter-and let Germany take as much of Belgium France, England and the Dominions as »he wanted and become a world conqUTrorm^ lon£ as there was Peace. ! h > 191, 4 that ™« the only alternative, and as men were men then, the nower of the Empire went bravely and wihngly to.force Germany back. The belttling of these men is Bolshevism in its lowest form -whose only ideal is comfortable physical life If the short memories of the people who are inclined to sneer at tne men who fought in the Great War can carry them back, let them think of tne men that we knew and saw leave these shores. Dare anyone call them fools brutes, curs, or bullies? Those who call them so merely show themselves incapable of understanding self-sacrifice and heroism, for the men of the Empire who fought were all these. Those who belittled our enemies m the war were fools; those who belittle the men who defended us are knaves.

n The part that matters most in "All Quiet on the Western Front" and -"Journfys End' is the desolating terrible cry of despair_ of men who have suffered too much. It is because of this suffering that sane men and women hate war, but in spite of, it they still put their King and country first. Peace with honour should be everyone's desire, but not peace the only thing that matters. It all goes back to the meaning of life and death. If death is the greatest evil in the world then war is; if dishonour is the greatest evil, under some conditions, peace is. Thank God.for the men who 'fought. May England find men and women who if necessary will fight again.—I am, etc.,

CITIZEN.

25th November.