Henry Russell Wakefield

“ One looked in the trenches upon little mounds and crosses, marking the resting-places of men who had been hurriedly, but reverently, buried. There they are side by side with their living comrades, who are doing their work whilst their brothers sleep. Dotted all about the country are little cemeteries, which tell of devotion unto death, and which remind one of all the sorrow this war has caused. It is strange to see how religious emblems appear to have been strong against shell. ”

“ This is my reasoned judgment, more than ever impressed upon me by my visit to the Front. If we all face the future with this conviction pessimism will die, not to be superseded by a stupid, unreflecting optimism, but by an unremitting devotion, which shall spring out of that courage which belongs to the man who knows his cause is that of God, and that he himself can and must do something towards hastening the triumph which is inevitable if only we are worthy. ”

“ If only one could make people understand that the whole position is intensely serious, and that the possibility of our Empire in the days to come being influential for the benefit of the world, nay, the possibility of our being a free nation; that these things rest upon our being at home instinct with the same devotion as our people at the Front, we should find that it would be unnecessary to issue almost despairing recruiting bills, and that all would be rushing to service in the cause of God and country, crying, "Here am I, send me." ”

“ It is refreshing to get away from this atmosphere and to go into the trenches where everybody is doing his bit of work, content with somewhat unpleasant circumstances so long as through him England is served. Whenever, in future, I am inclined towards a fit of pessimism, I shall shut my eyes in order to see once again, with the vision of the spirit, a stalwart Britisher of the Worcester Regiment, not very far from the German lines, on a certain afternoon, when a most appalling thunderstorm was raging and some German shells were falling. ”

“ The religious England to which I look forward is one which has been taught by the awakening of the spirit of Christian patriotism, that in life the beginning and the end of perfection, for nation as well as individual, is the willing offering of body, mind, and spirit in order that it shall be easy for humanity to be free and for right to triumph over evil. May it be our Empire's glory to have the grandest share in this great offering. ”

“ Whatever we may feel sometimes about the great Roman Catholic religion, we know this, at any rate, that the power of its members is always at its highest in the hour of greatest sacrifice. I have seen some of its priests ministering, themselves wounded and suffering, and I have thanked God that there were such examples of Christlike devotion at this great hour of the world's history. The sacredness of la patrie for Frenchmen is a beautiful thing to dwell upon. ”

“ It is a delight to one who loves France, but who was never quite sure that she was to be trusted in difficult moments, to feel now that she has all the stability which will make her carry on to the end this awful war. ”

“ I think that I may have had greater opportunity of feeling the pulse of other lands than many people, but all of us here at home can see now what our own duty is, and that whilst the usual mistakes have been made, there is now an awakened Empire which dare not in the sight of God refuse any sacrifice in order to crush for at least the generation that is coming, the accursed ideals which the military party in Germany wishes to see dominating the world. ”

“ It sounds almost an impertinence to speak of the devotion of the chaplains at the Front, but I am bound, after having mixed with a large number of them, to express the deep thankfulness one feels to the padre for all that he is doing. The young men who are now for the first time seeing service as clergy associated with troops, are exceptionally fortunate in the leadership they get from the Army chaplains of long standing. There is something about work with the soldier which intensifies the humanity of any one working for his spiritual welfare. ”

“ The Prussian is easily made coarse. He is learned, he is what he calls "gemuethlich," which can be described as kindly disposed. He has an over-elaborated polish which is a clumsy imitation of French politeness. His table manners are slightly improving, but the vice of his capital city is disgusting in its coarseness, and some of the jests he attempts are Rabelaisian, except that they have no humour. His religion is that of the Old Testament, and his preachers are powerful to stir him to warfare, but incapable of instilling into him high principles. His jealousy of England was not unnatural. ”

“ I do not claim that every Archbishop in France would go so far as he does of Rouen, but when sometimes we accuse others of narrowness we must bear in mind, first, that we are guilty very often ourselves, and, secondly, that there are great instances of breadth to be found within the ranks of Rome. I feel, honestly, that out of this war should come a possibility of a better understanding between the various religious bodies, whose men are fighting for the Allies.
Out at the Front all are living for duty. ”

“ Self-interest has to be, unfortunately, the motive inspiring petty States. If it be true that M. Delcassé, the French Foreign Minister, resigned because of his distrust of Greece, no one need be surprised. Greece is in a very difficult position, not only because her Queen is a German Princess, but also because if by any chance Germany were victorious and Greece had taken up arms against her, the German demands upon that small country would be such as would mean practical destruction.
Turning now to France, we realise that her impelling force in this war is a sacred devotion to country. ”

“ They have been able to see God through the cloud of smoke raised by shot and shell, and the Presence of the Divine has not been obscured by the horrors of war. Conscious of the seriousness of the work in which they are engaged, feeling every moment the nearness of eternity, our soldiers have in no craven spirit, but with a due remembrance of their relationship to God and to eternity, turned to religion as a stay in the hour of conflict. ”

“ It is when one gets face to face with such circumstances as these that the pettiness of religious strife strikes one with force. Is it just possible that out of this great conflict there may arise a stronger desire for religious unity than the world has ever yet known? ”

“ Conscious that her colonising power has proved to be very slight, there have been moments when she has been anxious to meet Great Britain for the purpose of securing some dominions beyond the seas in association with ourselves, and I should not be surprised if, when the question of peace is before us, she should suggest a bargain whereby it is made easy for her to expand on other continents, she agreeing to surrender that which she so far holds by temporary conquest in Europe. It is when one reads the Old Testament that one can best understand Germanic patriotism of to-day. ”

“ What his experience of war is doing for the soldier in regard to religion is remarkable. It would have been possible that the sight of humanity striving to the death and inflicting horrible suffering might have made our young fellows despair of Christianity. They might have argued that it was of no avail to teach the religion of Jesus when no effect was produced upon international conduct; but they have been able to look more deeply into matters and to realise that not Divine intention was at fault, but human refusal to follow true teaching. ”

“ Just now the German is a brave, disciplined, determined, brutal foe, led by a Sovereign who knows that this campaign will either place him first of all Earth's monarchs, or disgrace him and his country for all time. He knows also that he must do the work himself, for from his eldest born nothing stable or wholesome is to be expected. ”

“ Russia does not make war in a cool and calculating way. The peasant is ignorant even of the causes of the war. His "little father" orders and thenceforth the war becomes a Crusade, a Holy War. The illiterate, religious, patriotic man or woman in Russia knows no such end to warfare except that which comes from the Czar's command. When you turn to the mercantile class you are conscious that all of it which is not German is strongly, almost vehemently anti-Prussian. The language of commerce to-day is German. French has been left to the aristocracy. ”

“ Germanic patriotism is aggressive, and there is certainly some excuse, when we bear in mind that there is a constantly growing population and there is not very much room still left uninhabited. Colonial expansion is the special desire of the heart of Germany, and it is here where she comes into conflict with Great Britain, though it must never be forgotten that there is nowhere a German feels happier than in one of our English dominions. ”

“ It does seem strange that men who are fighting for the liberties and rights of France, and whose religion is, after all, not antagonistic to the faith of the people of that country, may not have the shelter of the less sacred part of a parish church in order to offer up their prayers to Almighty God. ”

“ On turning to our own Empire, we have to confess that the level of earnestness at the beginning of the war was lower than in the case of France, Russia, or Belgium, and, indeed, in some ways lower than that of Germany. ”

“ In the shops of Moscow, Petrograd and Nijni-Novgorod, German is the universal language. It is idle to dispute the Teutonic influence which exists, but there is also an intensely antagonistic feeling on the part of those who have experienced the competition of the German. The aristocracy of Russia has a loathing of German coarseness and is French in speech and feeling. All the classes in Russia are simple, the word Kultur does not impress them. The art, the music and the stage effects of Russia are very natural, though often most perfectly expressed. ”

“ Although for some ten years after the Franco-German War it was a poor country, it was nevertheless laying the foundations of that preparedness for eventual attack upon others, which it felt would be necessary in order to consolidate its position of prominence. After 1880 the great growth in material prosperity facilitated the extension of armed power, whilst national pride, which before had been reasonable, now grew into an extraordinary conception of the Divine right of Teutonic aspirations. ”

“ You go through village after village, and the ubiquitous person is our soldier. He appears out of farm buildings, he leans over gates, holding difficult conversation, not only with the young maidens of the village, but with dear old ladies who can be seen taking a motherly interest in him. ”

“ There is another class to which France owes much of her reformation: the religious, the Clergy and the Sisters. It is a pity that at the present time, through harsh dealing, she is deprived of the perfect nursing and caring for, of some of the religious Orders, as one hears rather painful accounts of the conditions in some of the French War Hospitals, but she has her clergy, her priests, who fight and pray and bear no grudge for injustice done to the Church they serve. ”

“ It is not altogether wonderful that some of the more ignorant French people should say that they do not believe we are ever going away; whilst on the other hand, some French officers told me that their confidence in our alliance had become immensely greater because we had done everything in such a stable manner, one man going so far as to say to me that he considered one of the surest signs of our determination to see this war through was that so many of our officers had taken houses for three years certain. ”

“ When he christens a road along which there are a couple of miles of Army Service carts "Lorry Park," when he finds every kind of strange anglicising for Flemish or French words, we know that he is not only having some fun for himself, but also providing amusement for those who come after him. The same humour shines out when he is in hard case. A chaplain told me that he had been addressing informally some wounded men who had just arrived from the trenches. ”

“ To a Frenchman his earth has a deep meaning, his country has an absolute right to his life, a right never disputed and which is acknowledged with the greatest fervour in the hour of gravest danger. There is no doubt that in the early months of the war the oppression of the last campaign was upon the people ”

“ One is tempted to sum up the present Russian position as that of a simple, religious, almost fatalistic people, ready for all things at the order of the man who is their civil and spiritual head. But Russia was not prepared for war last year. ”

“ The short-sighted policy which now prevails at the Vatican, and which has been the cause of the vacillation of the Pope on the subject of the war, has in regard to Abbé Lemire turned him into the hero of all the Liberal Church people of France. He is an extraordinarily winning personality, and as we walked through the streets of his city every woman and child and old man had something to say to him. With one he would discuss the imprisonment of a soldier son in Germany ”

“ In the towns he pervades the whole place. Always bright and cheerful, and yet conscious of his responsibility, our khaki-clad young fellow maintains his good character and earns the respect of the people. I asked a French Archbishop and also a French Bishop, the jurisdiction of both of whom is within our area, if they were satisfied with the behaviour of our men, and on each occasion the answer was that they were beyond reproach. We do not seem to be visitors in France, but we almost appear to have taken root there. ”