ARMS AND THE MAN.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 4, 15 January 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

ARMS AND THE MAN.

It was one of Napoleon's maxims, says an English paper, that tragedy warms the soul, raises the heart, uiid can and ought to create heroes. War is just such a tragedy. No on." in his senses wishes to glorify war as a school for heroes. Oil the vast. baitlefield where thousands of men are now dying daily, wairfare lias been stripped of all its glamour. We so it not as a gay and coloui'id ad venture, but as a frightful experience, an agony of the spirit and crucifixion of the body which the imagination refui.es to idealise. Tlio romance of war is a phrase without meaning. Modern fighting is a matter of scientific mechanical killing at long r.Mige. There is no romance about the li>J--inch howitzers used by the Germans, which throw one-ton shells of unexampled explosive jxiwer. "We heard them coming along," writes Gneral Lenian, the gallant defender of Liege, now a prisoner in the forties of Magdeburg; "we lieaid the shells howling throuthe air. and finally tlio noise of a furious hurricane, which endcd with a terrific thunderclap, and then gigantic clouds of dust and smoke ro.'o ahovo the trembling ground. - ' Tlio stench and filth of the battlefields, the mangled bodies, the piles of dead mown down hy machine-gun fire, the lust °f killing in a bayonet charge, the dropping of explosive bombs which rip and tear tlio living bodies of men, women, and little children without warning; these arc the commonplaces of modern war. And tlio officer who wrot,? home recently that "If crdr I come back and anybody at homo talks to me cf tho glory of war f shall be damped rude to him" knew what war meant. Yot there is a;a exaltation of spirit, a, cheerful gallantry, an indescribable joyougnoss a greatness and gravity of soul' made manifest in those strange and perilous times whicth remain as a challenge to the mind when the l ist horrible reality of the battlefield has boon described. Here is a young officer who took part with the Naval Brigade in tho defence of Antwerp writing home to his mother that he lias been "through hell and out again," and yet he can end his letter thus: "Cheieir up, be happy, been u-o I'm happy myself, so happy and thankful' that I feel I could cry with joy. I'm proud of what I've betn through, and I would not have missed it for forty million pounds." What decs it mean, this marvellous humility and greatness of soul in tho face of the greatest horror that has ever afflicted mankind? It is not mere animal bravery, Recklessness and lev. itv speak & different language. This is the authentic voice of thil human spirit conscious of the call of destiny. For England and for Englishmen tho war means nothing else than that every moral and political tangle which has vexed tiie soul* lias suddenly Win straightened out. A vast and simple duty has suddenly .become plain to all of us. "We-Jw-ye-all-been aware," °?;u "fi"~"writer in the "Times" the other iiay, ".that there was some g't'eat discouragement in the modern world of Europe, a Itewilderment because of which politic seemed to be trivial and the men were never ranged against the worst. And behind all this discouragement lay a doubt whether or not there was any power in the uniwj'se 1 beyond slieer material force of their country so that at least it ehutild prevail over the material forco of other countries." That doubt has disappeared because men hav,.. realised whither the doctrine of materialism tends. Let us boldly uso the language ot religion and say that in this crisis of the total life of man wo face our task 'humbly and with a sober jov because wo feci that it is God's challeng?' to our spirits. Belief in tho omnipotence of matdrial forie is opposed to belief in the supremacy of the spirit; tho faith in armed men which break.; treaties and tramples on the right.; of small nations, against the faith which lceeja treaties and refuses to be bullied and browbeaten into a dishonourable acquiescenoo in a great wrong. We are lighting not to destroy a nation, but to .establish we realise that civilisation -is a common heritage of all nations which n ay yet bo blindly and brutally destroyed by one. We light on lichalf of international obligations against a nation which believes that its duties and responsibilities towards the commonwealth of peoples can be set aside on the pica that national necessity knows no law. We admit the paradcx that in going to war even for such high ends wo aro using the very weapons that Germany is using for ends which tho conseion.ee of mankind condemns. Many of our pacificist correspondents have contended that it is .absurd and illogical" to claim that by using force wo can end the reign of forco in the woirld. But the logical difficulty is only felt by those who concentrate their attention ou the means and ignore the end for which Britain is lighting. The ultimate factor in this war is—not arms, but the man. Through seas of blood, with much pain and weariness of spirit, man moves towards his final triumph, tbe conquest exf hiin.elf, as l'r. L. P. Jacks said recently. In this war we aii'e learning at oneo the greatness and the weakness of out kind. The qualiMos winch our soldiers are displaying 011 tile battlefield Hire not military virtues: they are the heroic attributes cf tlie ordinary, unidealised, average man and woman. Tie ir oounteirparts are revealed every day this war lasts among tho 1 men and women who remain "at liGme. The non-combatant re, veal precisely the same qualities of suber courage, endurance of liartkhip, unselfishness, cheerful sacrifice, pity, ai d magnanimity that the soldiers display nn the trenches. That is the ground of our confidence that tho colossal stupidity and futility of war do not invalidate the ideas a.nd ideals for which men die in battle. Tho righteousness of our caue may not (sanctify the means by which wj defend it. What docs give us confidence in humanity's glorious to-morrow is the fact that men can and do respond with such genuine greatness of soul to tho tremendous challenge of a war like this, humble glad that the hour finds the'ii ready even to the laying down of their lives. Not .">rms —but the man : is to tho man that the final victory will come. Tn this war if is the luun which is the incalculable factor.