War spirit

“ THE LIFELONG WAR Still goes the strife; the anguish does not die. Stronger the flesh is grown from earthy years, In siege about my soul that upward peers To see and hold its Good. The spirit's eye Approves the better things ”

“ At the present moment the war spirit attempts to justify its noisy demonstrations by quoting its great achievements in the past and by drawing attention to the courageous life which it has evoked and fostered. ”

“ Are you strong enough in spirit to face all the trials and dangers of this colossal war? Are you strong enough in body to shed blood and endure the privations of war? Are you firm enough at heart to withstand the temptations that will come to you, living among men? ”

“ For that is the problem that is facing each nation at war—to make a whole life out of a fragment, to teach that the spirit may be greater than the body, to turn to usefulness these sad and hopeless by-products of battlefields. ”

“ Without that spirit nations decay and fail, for war does not form character: war only expresses the character formed in peace.
Every volunteer and draft private, every would-be officer, realized his ignorance, as a neophyte about to be initiated into professional mystery. ”

“ In our own day the war spirit is inculcated as much as possible, at school and in church, by the press and from the rostrum. War scares are numerous, and military organizations are spread from one end of christendom to the other. ”

“ Personally, I cannot convict myself of overcheerfulness or the minimizing of the tragic side of war, for, by temperament as well as by intellectual conviction, I wrote always with heavy stress on the suffering and tragedy of warfare, though I coerced my soul to maintain the spiritual courage of the nation and the fighting men—sometimes when my own spirit was dark with despair. ”

“ It is therefore of the highest consequence to ascertain the true grounds and motives of a war, such as the present, and to know the spirit and sentiments by which it was brought about, and to what part of our character, whether to its strong or its weak side, whether to our vices or our virtues, those motives were addressed which called forth our ardour and readiness to engage in it. ”

“ In this motive and its expression in feeling and conduct there is a very general tendency which is the source of many forms of interest and enthusiasm, of ambition, of the spirit of war, of various kinds of excitement, and to some extent of morbid and criminal tendencies. The spirit of war we think of as a summation of the same forces as those which in other ways appear as the energies behind various enterprises having quite different objectives. ”

“ A melancholy experience has now taught us that such a war must not be entered into, unless it be conducted with spirit; and there is no conducting it with spirit, except with a sufficient numerical force. ”

“ You've got to face the fact that the spirit which produces war is still dominant. Fight that spirit by all means: but while it exists don't suppose your own duty is merely to keep out of wars. That seems to me a very selfish and narrow view. ”

“ During the conduct of war it is only in the simplest, broadest matters that the spirit of the people can bring its wisdom to bear. One of the most striking manifestations of it has, for example, been {207} the way in which it has shown a knowledge that the war would be long and hard. ”

“ In a warrior age the fighting spirit chooses war as its vocation and develops a warlike character; in a peaceful time that same fighting spirit may seek to bring about such reforms as will do away with war. ”

“ Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell,
Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war! ”

“ Paint us a canvas, soldier, a picture of fire and flame!
Men, mad with the lust of killing, playing their grisly game!
Show us the dead-strewn hillsides, guarding the blood-drenched plain,
A picture of war’s grim horrors. And then, oh, soldier, then,
Draw us the white-capped nurses, doctors with skilful hands,
Counting their lives as nothing when human need demands
All that they have to offer. Paint us the women and men
Who bring the joy of living back to our hearts again.
Sing us a song, oh, soldier, chant in a martial strain,
Those who have died in battle, those who come home again. ”

“ And all this before fighting had begun, or a single drop of blood had been shed.... Talk about war purifying, ennobling, strengthening men! Talk about war instilling patience, sacrifice, heroism in the human heart! ”

“ There is something in warfare, in its story and in its paraphernalia, which profoundly stirs the emotions and sends the blood tingling through the veins of the most peaceable of us, and appeals to I know not what remote instincts, to say nothing of our natural admiration for courage, our love of adventure, of intense movement and action. But this romantic fascination resides to no small extent in that very spectacular quality of which modern conditions are depriving war. ”

“ It is some such high cause as this, such principles and emotions as these that give war nearly all the poetry and the glory that can ever be found in it. There is nothing of either in the mere exhibition of military might, the boast of conquest, the raw carnage, the hecatombs of slain. ”

“ What does each separate human atom feel, when caught in that whirling tornado of passion and of peril? Who shall make visible to us the actual faces in the fighting-line; or make audible the words—stern order, broken prayer, blasphemous jest—spoken amid the tumult? Who shall give us, in a word, an adequate picture of the soldier's life in actual war-time, with its hardships, its excitements, its escapes, its exultation and despair? ”

“ God made such horrors? Count that word a lie.
God made the pleasant river, clear and blue,
Peace is His handiwork, and love, and joy,
While man makes sewers and artillery,
Grim bayonets, and howitzers and shell,
The battle-squadron surging through the tides,
Ten thousand hecatombs of reeking red
And all the vile magnificence of War. ”

“ The heroes on the battlefield are calm in death,
Their fighting o'er;
They feel no more the fevered breath
Of battle's war;
They hear at last the voice that saith
"Fight on no more."
But oh, the heroes on the grander field of peace,
Who know no rest!
Whose hearts ne'er feel the full release
From mortal quest,
Nor breathe the air where struggles cease
The soul to test.
99
For such we mourn, O purifying soul of life,
For such we pray.
Let Nature free them from the strife
Of falsehood's way,
And Love through every struggle rife
Have free, full play. ”

“ The deeds of other days,
Enacted by their sires,
Themes long of love and praise,
Have wakened high desires
In every heart that beats within thy proud domain,
To cherish their remembrance, and live those scenes again.
Each heart the home of daring,
Each hand the foe of wrong,
They'll meet with haughty bearing,
The war-ship's thunder song;
And though the base invader pollute thy sacred shore,
They'll greet him in their prowess as their fathers did of yore.
His feet may press their soil,
Or his numbers bear them down,
In his vandal raid for spoil,
His sordid soul to crown ”

“ War paralyzes your courage and deadens the spirit of true manhood. ”

“ These personal narratives reveal the psychology of war in all its horrible reality—modern warfare on its gigantic scale—the genius of invention and organization applied to destruction. They reveal, moreover, the psychology of human nature and human emotions in all their moods and passions. ”

“ Beneath a burning sky:
He bivouacs; the night comes on;
His comrades 'round him lie—
O memories of the years long gone!
O years that now go by!
The vintager of Earth is War, is War whose grapes are men;
Into his wine-vats armies go, his wine-vats steaming red:
The crimson vats of battle where he stalks, as in a den,
Drunk with the must of Hell that spurts beneath his iron tread. ”

“ By the torchlight unsteady, The dead and the dying seem one. What! paling and trembling already, Before your dear mission’s begun? These wounds are more precious than ghastly; Fame presses her lips to each scar, As she chants of a glory which vastly Transcends all the horrors of war. ”

“ There can be little doubt that these several minds and spirits, stirred by the passion and energy of war, and reacting sensitively both to its cruelties and to its pities, have experienced the kinship of quickened insight and finer unselfishness in the face of wide-ranging death. ”

“ If deeds like these delight you, take your fill,
And shout, and triumph, in the groans of pain.
Since war you love, then arm you for the fight,
Bind on the shield, and grasp the sword, and throw
A stronger fence around the endanger'd home
Of those you love. And since for war you call,
Prepare for war; and train your infant sons
To deeds of daring; let no voice of peace
Or mercy reach them, lest it enervate
Souls given to war; but let the tale of blood
Sooth them to slumber, and the trumpet's clang
Break up their cradle dream. ”

“ Marshal Joffre, that fine Christian soldier, said a memorable thing about the winning of the war: "Our victory will be the fruit of individual sacrifice." So of the coming of peace on earth we may say the same: it will be the fruit of the entrance of peace into individual hearts and lives.
A world at war is the necessary result of human restlessness and enmities. "From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts, that war in your members?" Envy, malice, greed, hatred, deceit,—these are the begetters of strife on earth. ”

“ Angel of Peace, the hounds of war,
Unleashed, are all abroad,
And war’s foul trade again is made
Man’s leading aim in life.
Blood dyes the billow and the sod;
The very winds are rife
With tales of slaughter. ”

“ Yes, when out of the dust in the splendour of their release The spirits of those who fell go forth and they hallow our hearts to peace, And, brothers in pain, with world-wide voice, we clamour that War shall cease. ”

“ That all base dreams thrust out at door,
We may in loftier aims excel
And, like men waking from a spell,
Grow stronger, nobler, than before,
When there is Peace.
Austin Dobson
A PRAYER IN TIME OF WAR [ The war will change many things in art and life, and among them, it is to be hoped, many of our own ideas as to what is, and what is not, "intellectual."]
Thou, whose deep ways are in the sea,
Whose footsteps are not known,
To-night a world that turned from Thee
Is waiting—at Thy Throne. ”

“ The homeliness of that group in so warlike a setting helped to illustrate in its way, as those other memories do in theirs, all that I have been labouring here to express: that all the good and gracious human qualities in men are formed and nurtured in peace, amidst the decencies of common, everyday life; that war may on occasion evoke them, but it no more creates them than the night creates the stars. ”

“ To know what war is, it would be necessary to possess eyes to behold all the sin and vice; all the ruin and destruction; ears to hear every despairing cry and agonizing wail; a mind to comprehend all the misery and desolation, and a heart to feel the anguish in the heart of each suffering fellow-creature, from the moment the first shot was fired down through ages yet to come, until 115the twilight of times, brighter in prospect, than the daylight of the present generation shall obscure the last shadows of the unholy conflict. ”

“ Their thoughts are light and trifling; they think not of death or futurity. Removed from all destruction, accustomed to look at death as of minor importance, they feel not the due importance. But such is war. Although a soldier and inured to meet the foe with determination and calmness, I must say, Oh what a cruel and wicked thing is war! ”

“ War was here displayed in all its brilliance, in all its dazzling grandeur; the remembrance of long days and quiet years of peace filling in the background of the picture. War was here in all its horror, destroying in one frightful moment the happiness of years, and amidst the clash of national rights and interests, unchaining the savage instincts of human nature; but here too bloomed the noblest and purest flowers of heroism and self-sacrifice. ”

“ Then will war stand forth before their view in all its hideousness, its features distorted by rage, and its garments dripping with blood,—a mournful and a fearful spectacle. Oh! when shall the time come, that the true character of War—its horrors, its vices, its crimes, unredeemed by a single trait properly its own,—shall be understood. ”

“ But inordinate ambitions are the soul of every patriotism, and the possibility of violent death the soul of all romance. The militarily patriotic and romantic-minded everywhere, and especially the professional military class, refuse to admit for a moment that war may be a transitory phenomenon in social evolution. The notion of a sheep's paradise like that revolts, they say, our higher imagination. Where then would be the steeps of life? If war had ever stopped, we should have to re-invent it, on this view, to redeem life from flat degeneration. ”

“ The smoke of battle will clear: the scarred fields will mantle again with springtime verdure: the fighting hosts will once more find their way to peaceful pursuit. Time the Healer will wipe out the wounds of war. ”

“ The gluttonous guns of War.
Everywhere thrill the air
The maniac bells of War.
There will be little of sleeping to-night;
There will be wailing and weeping to-night;
Death's red sickle is reaping to-night:
War! War! War! ”

“ The impression, the deep impression, made upon the human heart by four years of unexampled slaughter will disappear with the hearts upon which it has been marked by the terrible sword of the Great War. ”