Western Front

“ Already there are many of us who have a kindlier feeling and certainly more respect for a Boche who fights gamely, than for a Britisher or American who bickers and sulks in comfort. Only one doubt as to ultimate victory ever assails the Western Front: that it may be attacked in the rear by the premature peace negotiations of the civil populations it defends. ”

“ Our vision, narrowed a little by direct concentration on the progress of the engagement, and our ears dulled a little by the din of the conflict, we are prone to overlook the fact that this war is waged amid scenes only a short time ago devoted to the various avocations of peace, and that on the Western Front, especially, the armies of the Allies are oftentimes inextricably mixed with the civilian element and the civilian population.
A wave of battle is like a wave of the sea. While it advances, one is only conscious of its rush and roar, only concerned to measure how far it may advance. ”

“ For the Western Front to be rightly understood, must be regarded as a banjo-string, composed of living men holding hands from Switzerland to the English Channel. Under pressure the string may give and give, but it must never break. ”

“ We must expect that as soon as stability is reached on the Western Front, the bulk of that hideous apparatus of aggression which gashed Holland into ruin and slavery in a few days will be turned upon us. ”

“ They kept their thoughts fixed upon the Western Front, since, by a law of human nature, interest varies directly with proximity, and some mental or imaginative effort is required to realise the importance of distant undertakings. ”

“ Thus it is my view that it is necessary to abandon definitely the belief that the war can be brought to a successful issue on the Western Front, and without first defeating Russia. It is greatly to be deplored that many observers assert that the Western Powers will make peace when they have found out that the big offensive now in progress remains without any visible success. ”

“ For example, there are strong indications that Germany may be prepared, if she now fails on the western front, to abandon all that for which she has fought on her western front, provided that in Middle Europe and in the East there is no interference with her. ”

“ All along the Western Front we have begun to move forward, without haste or flurry, but in such wise that during the past twelve months no position, once fairly captured and consolidated, has ever been regained by the enemy. To-day you can stand upon certain recently won eminences—Wytchaete Ridge, Messines Ridge, Vimy Ridge, and Monchy—looking down into the enemy's lines, and looking forward to the territory which yet remains to be restored to France. ”

“ From an article in the Berliner Tageblatt descriptive of life on the Western Front:—
"Perhaps the sun will soon bring warm wind, and how glad one would be of a thaw in the trenches. But then the accursed time will come again when the whole surface of Northern France sticks to the boot of the German soldier."—The Times. ”

“ Should the Russian Republic be betrayed into making a separate peace—and, at the moment of writing, the Russian prospect is anything but cheering—the Central Powers would have released for use upon the Western Front not less than two million veterans. ”

“ The eventual place the American army should take on the western front was to a large extent influenced by the vital question of communication and supply. ”

“ The Secret Battle, is founded on the truth. We have all seen such cases. The grinding necessities of the Western front ended the joyous amateurism, which a Territorial unit was able to preserve through all its vicissitudes in Eastern warfare, but they did not require the prevailing banishment of individuality and of the exercise of intellect from Regimental life. ”

“ The days, the weeks, the years out here shall come back again, and our dead comrades shall then stand up again and march with us, our heads shall be clear, we shall have a purpose, and so we shall march, our dead comrades beside us, the years at the Front behind us:—against whom, against whom?
* *
Some time ago there was an army theatre in these parts. Coloured posters of the performances are still sticking on a hoarding. With wide eyes Kropp and I stand in front of it. We can hardly credit that such things still exist. ”

“ This western-front business couldn't be done again, not for a long time. The young men think they could do it but they couldn't. They could fight the first Marne again but not this. This took religion and years of plenty and tremendous sureties and the exact relation that existed between the classes. The Russians and Italians weren't any good on this front. You had to have a whole-souled sentimental equipment going back further than you could remember. ”

“ When we think of this contest we must think of the forces in support of each Empire. I suppose that, as regards the British Empire in the field, the odds are as twenty to one at least on behalf of the German Army. That is to say, putting your fleet for the moment out of the question, because a fleet cannot fight on dry land—that as regards your Army you are only about as one to twenty of the Germans, and that even with the assistance of your Allies of France and Belgium, you are only able practically to maintain yourselves on the western frontier—that is to say, a case of stalemate. ”

“ I shall, however, confine myself to Western Europe only. The peoples who are primarily affected - 85 million Germans, 46 million British, 45 million Italians, and about 37 million Frenchmen -are the cores of the States who were or still are opposed in war. ”

“ And the Western Powers are little likely to heed the wishes of the Soviet Government until such time as those wishes are rendered articulate in a language the Western Powers understand—the language of power. ”

“ But after negotiations shall have failed; after a powerful, ambitious nation shall have taken possession of the key of their Western country and fortified it; after the garrisons are filled by the veterans who have conquered the East: will you have it in your power to waken the generous spirit of the West and dispossess them? ”

“ I have declared that the frontier between France and Germany is a final one. I have repeatedly offered friendship and, if necessary, the closest co-operation to Britain, but this cannot be offered from one side only. It must find response on the other side. Germany has no interests in the West, and our western wall is for all time the frontier of the Reich on the west. ”

“ They arise, like all other wars, from the existence of a class within the nation which is not really in accord with the people of that nation, but is pursuing its own interests apart from theirs. In the second of the following papers, "The Roots of the Great War," I have drawn attention to the influence of the military and commercial classes, especially in Germany, and the way in which their policy, coming into conflict with a similar policy in the other Western nations, has inevitably led to the present embroilment. ”

“ My fighters of the eastern front, you have saved Germany and, beyond this, all of Europe during that winter-and, with you, the soldiers of our allies who fought at your side. While in an endless struggle against the forces of nature and the treacherousness of the enemy you doggedly held the European front in the east, preparations had already begun in the homeland for taking up the struggle in the spring. ”

“ History speaks for itself: in the following 50 years, according to the United Nations, there were 118 wars (compared to 57 in the first half of the century) , not surprisingly most of them driven or fuelled by anti-Western sentiments, most notably the Cold War (1950-1989) . ”

“ We expect from the new Eastern Front nothing different from that which German soldiers had to do during four Russian war Winters twenty-five years ago. Every German soldier must set an example to our faithful allies. ”

“ Moreover, before Germany can unify to the East she must fight the Russian, and to unify to the West she must fight the French and perhaps the English, and she may have to fight a combination of these powers. ”

“ With an engaging candour and in every fount of type, unofficial Germany had made it abundantly clear how she intended to carry her designs into execution—how, first of all, France was to be crushed by a swift and overwhelming attack—how Russia was then to be punished at leisure—how after that, some of the nations of Europe were to be forced into an alliance against the British Empire, and the rest into a neutrality favourable to Germany—how finally the great war, which aimed at making an end of our existence, was to begin. ”

“ British, Russian, Belgian, and French.
Fight and stand firm; while on the sea the British help us to cut our enemy's line of communications with the outside world.
Fight and stand firm; while the Russians continue to advance to strike the decisive blow in the heart of the German Empire.
It is the duty of the Government of the Republic to direct this stubborn resistance.
Frenchmen will rise on every side for the sake of independence. ”

“ That is why in this struggle with Germany and Austria-Hungary, elemental forces united in one impulse and spirit both the Russian Radicals, with their tendency to cosmopolitanism, and the extreme Nationalist Conservatives. ”

“ Let us be of as divergent opinions as we choose, but when in our eastern provinces the question arises: "German or Polish," then let the party feuds be laid aside until, as the Berliners say, "After nine o'clock." Now is the time to fight and to stand together. This is just as it is in military matters—and I am glad to see among you many who have experience in such things. Before joining an attack in war we do not ask: Shall we follow our progressive or our reactionary neighbor? ”

“ At the bar of the nations we must be judged, when the war is over. But meanwhile, while it is still in progress, we can get some idea of the way in which the other nations regard us from the opinion of the neutral states and even of our Allies. Fas est et ab amicis doceri.
Since the war began I have watched it and England’s share in it from Belgium, Holland, France, Italy, and German and French Switzerland, and have talked about it with the inhabitants of various other countries, including Serbs, Greeks, Russians, Swedes, Montenegrins, and Americans. ”

“ The one desire of the lower classes of Germany, whether industrial or agricultural, is for peace and plenty. In condemning them to a continuance of war conditions for nine months after their surrender and revolution we turned them from internationalists, ready to welcome us as representatives of democracy and as crusaders for an international ideal, into either nationalists who looked on us as enemies seeking the destruction of all Germans, or into internationalists who looked on us as enemies of the revolution seeking their destruction as we were seeking that of the Russians. ”

“ While the Western nations are crowding hungrily in, while the Partition of China is commingled with the clamor for the Spheres of Influence and the Open Door, other forces are none the less potently at work. Not only are the young Western peoples pressing the older ones to the wall, but the East itself is beginning to awake. ”

“ We Social Democrats in this solemn hour are at one with the whole German nation, without distinction of party or creed, in accepting the fight forced upon us by Russian barbarism, and we are ready to fight till the last drop of blood for Germany's national independence, fame and greatness. ”

“ In a general sort of way, there is no formula that covers the whole ground of all the phenomena of any great action. There is always an intersection of motives. As between Russia and Austria-Hungary, the present [Pg 279] war is a struggle of the East in its Russian form against the West, but two other forces are at work which, although they do not concern us in the least, combine with this one. These are the Anglo-German trade rivalry and the Franco-German race antipathy. ”

“ As we walked through the station gates I understood why three million Socialists who had fought their Emperor in and out of the Reichstag, suddenly rallied to his side, agreeing "I know no parties, only Germans." I felt as I thought of the young faces of the soldiers, cheerfully starting down into the unknown hell of war, that undoubtedly among their number were Socialists. In this national crisis partizan allegiance counted for nothing, they had ceased dealing with the Fatherland in terms of the mind and gave to it only the heart. ”

“ Under the impulse of this idea they have not only brought governmental order out of the old-time chaos of German divisions and dissensions, but they have given their subjects a public service, which, taken all in all, is more effective and well-ordered than its equivalent produced by popular institutions in America, France, or England, and they have built up a fighting force for the protection of German frontiers which is at once the marvel and the terror of Europe. ”

“ After having fought stubbornly against that human scourge—war, the insatiable ambition of a despot forces us to take up arms. Despite the immense sorrow that grips us at the thought of being the involuntary murderers of those Germans and Austrians who have the same 16communion of ideas, in their name and in our own, for humanity, socialism, right against the arbitrary, civilization against barbarism, in the name of all these sacred principles, our brothers of England, of Belgium, of Russia, and ourselves have answered ‘Present’ with one voice to the call of our native land. ”