Eighty Years' War

“ While the light was dawning, the sun was rising, and the birds were singing over Europe, the greater nations were preparing to turn a thousand square miles of it into a gigantic slaughter-house. After forty years of unbroken peace, in which civilization, as represented by law, science, surgery, medicine, art, music, literature, and above all religion, in their ancient and central home, had been striving to lift up man to the place he is entitled to in the scheme of creation, war had suddenly stepped in to drag him back to the condition of the barbarian. ”

“ But we have now been mercifully spared for nearly forty years from any general or continued war. Ten years more of almost unbroken peace, or of peace broken only in the remoter dependencies of the empire, have passed over us. ”

“ For the thirty years’ war in its wearisome progress makes the outward history of Germany, in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, little more than a record of battles and sieges, with scant breathing-spaces of peace, not long enough for the towns to recover from exhausting occupations of foreign troops. ”

“ Is it not full sixty whole years since the first French revolution, and six whole years since the revolution of all Europe? Bah!—change is a thing of the past, and tragedy a myth of our forefathers; war a bad habit of old barbarians, eradicated by the spread of an enlightened philanthropy. ”

“ I remember being told by a right hon. gentleman, in the course of a private conversation in the House, that 'if an angel came down from heaven to write my dispatches, I could not prevent Europe from a war in six months'. Well, Sir, not months, but years, rolled by, and no war took place. It was the anxious desire of the Government of Earl Grey to prevent war; and the maintenance of peace was one of the objects at which they expressly aimed, and succeeded. ”

“ Wars, as the Greek philosopher said, are set in motion by trivial causee, but owe their existence to great causes. The trivial causes of the Thirty Years' War were the succession to the duchies of Cleves and Juliers, and the revolt of Bohemia from the Austrian succession. ”

“ During these years we were all of us, Tories, Liberals., and Radicals, prepared to make war for what we deemed to be sufficient cause. We might debate angrily about the sufficiency of the cause., but we never denied that., if the cause was sufficient., war was the legitimate ultima ratio, and not merely for the defence of territory, but also for what were conceived to be the interests of the British Empire or the resentment of injuries to it. ”

“ But as years went on the apprehensions to which his early career and expressions gave rise were quieted, and the fear that he would plunge Europe into war vanished. The army and navy began to appear rather a costly plaything of the active young man than an engine of destruction, while it tended in considerable measure to the preservation of peace by rendering Germany a power dangerous to go to war with. ”

“ CAUSES OF THE WAR.—The long and wasteful war between England and France, known in history as the Hundred Years' War, was a most eventful one, and its effects upon both England and France so important and lasting as to entitle it to a prominent place in the records of the closing events of the Middle Ages. Freeman likens the contest to the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece. ”

“ The bloodiest war is sometimes the least costly on balance. The greatest war of all history ended but seven years ago, and already the beaten nations have healed up their wounds and are looking forward to the future with greater confidence than many of the “victorious” nations. ”

“ Under these difficulties, from which, twenty years peace and the wisest management could hardly recover us, we declare war against France, fortified by the accession and alliance of those powers, I mentioned before, and which, in the former war, had been parties in our confederacy. It is very obvious, what a change must be made in the balance, by such weights taken out of our scale, and put into theirs; since it was manifest, by ten years experience, that France, without those additions of strength, was able to maintain itself against us. ”

“ So, full of this mad obsession, full of this frenzied infatuation, full of lust of power and conquest, Germany struck swiftly, blindingly, perfidiously—struck with the forces secretly organized for instant war, while yet the peaceful peoples were unprepared. ”

“ After more than five years of the bitterest war in human experience, the last great stronghold of force, surrendering to the demands of America and her allies, agreed to cast aside the sword and live under the law. ”

“ France and England, abusing their strength, may long defer the period of its utter exhaustion; but I will venture to say, that the fate of all civilised nations is concerned in the termination of a war, the flames of which are raging throughout the whole world. ”

“ The American people of today, weighed in the balances of the greatest armed conflict of all time and found not wanting, can afford to survey, in a spirit of candid scrutiny and without reviving an ancient grudge, that turbulent episode in the welding of their nation which is called the War of 1812. ”

“ Our prosperous generation, threatened with effeminacy and softness, needs to re-open the pages of history and to linger long upon the portraits of our heroic leaders. Theirs was the greatest war that ever shook the earth. A million Northern men, and over against them a million Southern men, and a battle line a thousand miles in length! Including the long-term men and the short-term service, 3,000,000 men engaged in the conflict! ”

“ In February 1793, War was declared by Great Britain against the republic of France—and although war is a calamity that ought always to be regretted by friends of humanity, as thousands are undoubtedly thereby involved in misery ”

“ If we study the movements which govern the destinies of societies, we may perhaps discover signs that the era of violent deeds is coming to an end. War, which was formerly a standing institution among nations, is now intermittent, and the periods of peace have become of longer duration than those of war. Our country affords the observations of a fact full of interest, for the French nation presents an original characteristic in the military history of nations. Whereas other nations never waged war except from interest or necessity, alone the French have fought for the pleasure of fighting. ”

“ Now I come to the point where the two little Republics are brought face to face with the military forces of war-prepared England; when war is inevitable, when the immortal gods could not prevent a clash of arms; when the first shot is fired in a struggle destined to stir the world, humiliate the English officer and lord, and destroy the name and prestige of the great degenerate British Empire. ”

“ When we reflect upon the uncertainty of the result of the late mission to France, and upon the uncommon nature, extent, and aspect, of the war now raging in Europe—which affects materially our relations with the powers at war, and which has changed the condition of their colonies in our neighborhood—we are of opinion, with you, that it would be neither wise nor safe to relax our measures of defence, or to lessen any of our preparations to repel aggression. ”

“ Hitherto the opposition for the most part had been confined to the higher nobility, men who held some office, and who had something to lose; now the lesser nobility began to move. These, like the smaller nobility in France, had previously found occupation in the wars, where they furnished a famous force of cavalry. The peace had destroyed this occupation, and many had returned to their homes with a turbulent spirit, a love of extravagance and of licence engendered of the war, and ready for any opportunity of repairing their shattered fortunes. ”

“ Taking, roughly, the first few months of the war, apart from wastage, our enemies remain month after month far superior to either half of the Allies they are fighting—the French and English in the West, the Russians in the East. ”

“ The whole history of our country has been, in the main, a history of peace. Since 1789, a hundred and twenty-one years ago, only three foreign wars have interrupted our progress, and they lasted, all told, less than eight years. ”

“ Aside from a few bruised shins and torn coats and missing caps, there had been no casualties worth mentioning. It was not a country-wide war. It was, indeed, a war of which no history save this veracious chronicle, gives any record. ”

“ In the army and navy no reductions can, with reason, be required. At a moment like this, when all Europe is in arms; when, from the farthest borders of Poland, to the extremities of the Spanish Peninsula, the war-shout has gone forth; when not merely monarchs are at enmity, but nations are in arms! ”

“ But our old, rich, and beautiful country, with all the accumulations on its soil of the labour, the art, the thought of uncounted generations, has been in this war the buffer between German savagery and the rest of Europe. Just as our armies bore the first brunt and held the pass, till civilisation could rally to its own defence, so our old towns and villages have died, that our neighbours might live secure. We have suffered most in war—we claim the first thought in peace. We live in the heart and on the brink of danger. ”

“ Already in the East there were skirmishes as the prelude to the great war of the nations. All Europe, Europe that only yesterday was sceptical and apathetic, like a dead wood, was swept by the flames. All men were possessed by the desire for battle. War was ever on the point of breaking out. ”

“ The twenty months that have just lapsed into history have done much to loosen the hold of some of the baleful insular prejudices which heretofore held sway over the minds of nearly all sections of the British nation. It may well be, therefore, that we are now better able to grasp the significance of the principal events of the war, and to seek it not in their immediate effects on the course of the struggle, but in the roots—still far from lifeless—whence they sprang. ”

“ I consider that either a serious weakening of England, France, and Italy, or a serious strengthening of Germany, would be a great misfortune for the civilisation of the world. I wish ardently to see the Germans expelled from France and Belgium, and led to feel that the war has been a misfortune for them as well as for the Allies. ”

“ To smooth the scarred and broken earth, and plant
The fields again. But—if we must—
We'll deal first with those war-lords, break
Their knees and bring them to the dust.
For France's sake
We'll fight until we drop. ”

“ Every nation of Europe was throwing open its armoury, and preparing its weapons for the field. The troops invading France were palpably no more than the advanced guards of Prussia and Austria. Even with all my inexperience, I foresaw that the war would differ from all the past; that it would be, not a war of tactics, but a war of opinion; that not armies, but the people marshalled into hosts, would be ultimately the deciders of the victory; and that on whichever side the popular feeling was more serious, persevering, and intense, there the triumph would be gained. ”

“ Nothing grander has ever appeared to the eyes of men than to fight against barbarism and despotism, against the system of provocations and threats which Germany called peace, against the system of murder and wholesale pillage which Germany calls war, [Loud cheers.] And it is against the insolent supremacy of a military caste that France and her Allies have flung themselves as emancipators and avengers. ”

“ If the British Empire took the war as business, were ready to disturb its daily life, alter its daily habits, to throw on the scrap-heap its sacred individualism, and do and live for the national cause, no one doubts but we could win this war so as to avoid an inconclusive peace. ”

“ To watchers of the present conflict it seems an intolerable thought that, after the fighting is done, we should once more return to a condition of “armed peace,” with jealous, distrustful, and revengeful Powers piling up armaments and plotting singly or in groups against their neighbors until Europe is plunged into another war more terrible, more bloody, and more costly than this. ”

“ But the mass of respectable Northerners, though they may be willing to pay, do not very naturally feel themselves called upon to give their blood in a war of aggression, ambition, and conquest; for this war is essentially a war of conquest. ”

“ It has been said that each of the preceding centuries during a long period of European history has ended in a great war. This one which closed the nineteenth century is not, and will not become, great, as wars are measured. ”

“ But soon the mass of French and English blended
Emerged, while British cheers proclaimed the conflict ended.
XXVI.
Up, up the crags the rapid Frenchman flies,
The powerful Briton following in his trail,
Till new intrenchment, new redoubts, arise.
Once more they stand—once more our troops assail
Their abatís, till France again doth quail.
And ever Nial flourished in the van
His faithful sword that turned the foeman pale,
And cheered his rifles on, and foremost ran,
Like gallant chief whose port gives courage to each man. ”

“ Did they imagine that, at this day, a war with Great Britain would be such a contest as our last struggle with her, when our lands were without roads, and without fortifications, and without munitions, and without all we should have had, save the native bravery of our people, when Great Britain could pour in her regiments on our defenceless frontiers? Far, far different would a war be now. ”