War whoop

“ And foundered trench-lines volleying doom for doom.
O my brave brown companions, when your souls
Flock silently away, and the eyeless dead
Shame the wild beast of battle on the ridge,
Death will stand grieving in that field of war
Since your unvanquished hardihood is spent.
And through some mooned Valhalla there will pass
Battalions and battalions, scarred from hell;
The unreturning army that was youth;
The legions who have suffered and are dust. ”

“ When a warlike race has an invader on its soil, the men holding back the invader can never be said to be inactive. But behind the army were the waiting millions to whom that long motionless line in the trenches might gradually have become a mere condition of thought, an accepted limitation to all sorts of activities and pleasures. The danger was that such a war—static, dogged, uneventful—might gradually cramp instead of enlarging the mood of the lookers-on. ”

“ Just imagine the possibility of withdrawing an army of 90,000 men with artillery, stores, field hospitals, mules and horses, and all the vast impedimenta of war, right from under the nose of an active enemy, and all on a clear moonlight night. One single traitor could have queered the whole pitch. But British, Indians, New Zealanders and Australians were loyal to the core. ”

“ The German outposts were all round us, and the place undefended.
The utterly helpless agitation of a population unable to do anything, seeing itself, without an hour's notice from the authorities, forced to surrender home after home, and forbidden to resist, was an inexpressibly painful sight, and cannot occur often, even in war. Undefended towns, when abandoned, generally have some warning. Here the enemy dropped out of the sky in an hour; and the peasants looked round to find their own army gone. ”

“ For these the chief interest will not lie in the walls of the ruined church or the relics of the departed jubé, if any there be, but out in the open, pleasant fields where, in trenches that the kindly hand of nature will gradually obliterate, the brave men of four nations met in one of the fiercest and bloodiest death grapples of the great war. ”

“ The expectation of peace had made us forget our bitterness towards the army, but it began to show itself again:
"They don't want us to know!"
"They're damned sorry it's all over!"
"There's too many of 'em wi' soft jobs what wants the war to go on for ever!"
"What are you grumbling about? What has the Armistice got to do with us? The Armistice concerns the Staff, not us. It's not our business—we're only common soldiers."
When we got back to camp a boy was selling papers at the entrance. I bought a Times. It was Tuesday's. The Armistice had been signed on the Monday morning! ”

“ For the war went on; west and east the perpetual deluge of shells and shrapnel and bullets, the surges of poisonous gases, the savagery of assassination, and the cruelty of the bayonet, were emptying homes, thinning the ranks, and draining the country of its best, its strongest, men. And now came the trench lines; the insinuating deep gutters in the earth, worming themselves this way and that, here in unutterable perplexity of entrance and exit, there more simple, running on with occasional dug-outs and bomb-proof dungeons, cellar-like dismal caverns of darkness, humidity, and sickness. ”

“ Troops of a different nature were sent next against the town, whose horses trampled down the grave, and whose bayonets forced open the closed doors.
It was a weary strife, without the glory of war; one by one each house was taken, defended as they were by women and children; the contest was renewed in every street; the infuriated inhabitants pouring boiling water and oil over the heads of their enemies, while the fearful tolling of the bell, heard above the cries and the clang of arms, excited them to still greater desperation. ”

“ A gaunt and desolate country haunted by the melancholy crows, resounding with clacking detonations of fusillades and a hoarse bass of heavy cannon, is the place of invisible war. One rubs shoulders with it without being aware of it. One comes suddenly upon it in all innocence. ”

“ As the general's voice droned on and on, Whitlow barely listened. The general, Top Secret or no Top Secret, was divulging nothing that wasn't common knowledge from the ruins of Philadelphia to the great Hollywood crater ...
All at once, weapons had gotten too good. That was the whole problem. Wars, no matter what the abilities of the death-dealing guns, cannon, rifles, rockets or whatever, needed one thing on the battlefield that could not be turned out in a factory: Men.
In order to win a war, a country must be vanquished. In order to vanquish a country, soldiers must be landed. ”

“ I never before saw our men fight so spitefully. Volley after volley was poured into their advancing hosts, and then, with a ringing cheer for old England, we closed upon them with that weapon they so much dread. Some of our men’s bayonets were bent like reaping-hooks, which was a clear proof of the work we had been at. Although they beat us for once, we let them know that the Lion was on the war-path, and that he was well roused. I think out Allies got out of debt too, for they stuck to them well; we can always tell when they are winning, for they do not forget to shout. ”

“ How easily this [100] might have been, but for the mercy of God, the mistakes and miscalculations of the enemy, and the bravery and self-sacrifice of our heroes in blue and khaki, yes, and our workers in fustian and print—for England must never forget the debt she owes to her munition workers as well as to her sailors, soldiers, and airmen. They see nothing of the romance of war; they know nothing of its excitement, and yet apart from their patriotic service the best efforts of our fighting men would have been in vain. ”

“ In the jumble of musket fire and lanterns he could tell that the Jamestown breastwork had been circled and seized: its gunners overwhelmed, its cannon still directed impotently out toward the dark sea. Only two culverin had been fired. He watched heartsick as the invading infantrymen, breastplates shining in the lantern light, swarmed over the guns.
The militia manning the cannons had been sacrificed. Deliberately. To draw in the rest of the invading force. He felt his anger welling up. In war the men who actually fought counted for nothing. ”

“ The unsatisfactory side of it for our Allies is that because of their failure to turn the enemy out of the Camp des Romains they have not been able to put an end to the occupation of the Woevre, and that to a certain extent the menace of a forward movement still exists. On the other hand, the menace has always been held well in check, and the legs of the tongs are sensibly nearer to each other than they were fifteen months ago. ”

“ That he never aids those who war against his enemies?"
"Allies have been known to become enemies. If they grow too ambitious. Just who would your frigates, assuming you had them and the trained seamen to man them, be used against? ”

“ I think I am within the bounds of truth when I say that every man and boy capable of bearing gun 131 or pistol marched with the soldiers and artillery down to the riverside, determined to defend the city. There they waited until the evening, the howitzers firing from time to time to forewarn the war-ship of their presence. ”

“ So, day after day, week after week, month after month they endured still; swept by rifle and machine-gun fire, blown up by mines, buried alive by mortar bombs, their very trenches smitten flat by high explosives—yet they endured and held on. They died all day and every day, but their places were filled by men just as fiercely determined. ”

“ Fences gone, buildings in ruins, shrubbery destroyed, fields uncultivated—all showing the sad effects of [Pg 34] desolating war—while in every direction may be seen the “canvas home” of the soldier. Frequently we passed squads of men under drill—recruits, I suppose—their glistening bayonets and gleaming swords sparkling and flashing in the sunlight, innocent of the destructive work they will soon aid in executing. Every now and then we caught sight of the stars and stripes proudly floating from some strongly-fortified place, with its big guns bidding defiance to the enemy. ”

“ It is one of the numerous proofs that the apparent deadlock at the front is really a signal victory for the Allies. For it means that for all their carefully prepared organization and their calm disregard of the conventions of war by which the other nations consider themselves bound, the original plans of the enemy have broken down. ”

“ Under the leadership of Dengan Jouga and a lean, painted pawang, or medicine-man, the war fleet crawled downstream. Spears, axes, stone and iron maces with ornate hafts bristled in all the long war-canoes, high-prowed and gaudy with flaring colors. Blow-guns, too, were there, carrying venomed darts, and krises by the score—wavy-edged blades, heavy and long, that, driven by a sinewed arm, would slice through a man’s neck as if it had been ghee, or melted butter; would open a man’s body broad to the light of day ”

“ No, the Germans will fight on, they will shorten their front, and they will at least keep the Allies off German territory for an indefinite period until they can secure better terms."
"You overrate the strength of the Germans. I think the German army is becoming completely demoralized. I also think that the blockade has done its work amongst the civilian population. We shall have an armistice within the next few days. Perhaps rumour is correct for once and the war is already over. We haven't heard any guns for a long time—the front is extraordinarily quiet." ”

“ It is characteristic of this era of armed peace that in all these extensive preparations for breaking the peace any formal avowal of other than a defensive purpose has at all times been avoided as an insufferable breach of diplomatic decorum. It is likewise characteristic of the same era that armaments have unremittingly been increased, beyond anything previously known; and that all men have known all the while that the inevitable outcome of this avowedly defensive armament must eventually be war on an unprecedented scale and of unexampled ferocity. ”

“ But the laurels of the past, thickly showered as they were on the “Worcesters,” are little to compare with those of the present, when valour is put to its utmost test, and when war weapons contrary to all international usage, more deadly and treacherous than ever were known before, are employed by the most inhuman and dishonourable of foes. We have only to recall the dramatic scenario of the village of Gheluvelt during the battle of Ypres, when the Worcesters literally saved the day. ”

“ Every man—statesman or otherwise—knows that it is no longer a question of whether the bombs will drop—but when they will drop—and who will drop them—we or they?
"It is true that no nation has declared war, but terror declares its own war. Can we wait another day to take the initiative? Can they? The undeclared enemy may destroy us tomorrow—or tonight—even within the next few minutes. ”

“ The askaris stood between them with their bayonets. Godovius shook his head.
“Even now I see that you do not understand. This man is a prisoner of war. However dear he may be to you, this is the fortune of war. I could not help you to your desires if I would. You will see no more of him. But even in war Germany is generous. The Germans do not make war on women or on priests. p. 219You will stay here, for the present at any rate, under my supervision. What the Government may do with you and your brother later I do not know. The man Hare will be shot. ”

“ It really is preposterous to talk, among other things, about 'the extermination of a white nationality,' or to give any sort of countenance to the now fully exploded calumny about the ill-treatment of women and children. The war, gentlemen, has its horrors—every war has. Those horrors increase as it becomes more irregular on the part of the enemy, thus necessitating severer measures on the part of the Imperial troops. ”

“ The enemy was so close to us that we could not use some of our guns to demolish his trenches. We even had to take some of our howitzers back a mile in order to hit the enemy in front of us. What a conglomeration of anomalies this war presents! In an age when our big guns can hurl huge projectiles many miles, we are compelled to fight with bows and bayonets and bombs and brickbats.
Bricks were not often used. But when the Turkish snipers "sneaked" close up to our lines through the scrub, we threw stones at the likely places. ”

“ More shots are fired, and now there are answering shots from the besieged; and so naturally does the din increase, that one can follow, by listening, the progress of the attack and the slow, sure gain of the invader. Some of the illusion of the anxiety and mental tension which war brings, steals over the watching crowd, and they breathlessly await the outcome of the struggle. ”

“ For hours the game went on, the reserves at the trenches hearing now distinctly and now faintly the tumult of the lines, now receding, now coming on. But the volume of the tumult, and its separation into a thousand distinct and terrifying sounds, became in the average ever an increasing and not a lessening thing. The cracker-popping of the musketry became less and less a thing of sport, of reminiscences. The whinings that passed overhead bore more and more a personal message. These young men, who but lately had said good-bye to the women of their kin, began to learn what war might mean. ”