The remaking of a mind; a soldier's thoughts on war and reconstruction

Contents

CHAPTER

FAGB

I. Before the War 1

Foreword

.... Know'st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards?

And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles,

The making of perfect soldiers.

Be it so, then I answer'd,

I too haughty Shade also sing vrar, and a longer and greater one than any,

Waged in my book with varying fortune, with flight, advance and retreat, victory deferr'd and wavering,

(Yet methinks certain, or as good as certain, at the last), the field the world,

For life and death, for the Body and the eternal Soul,

Lo, I too am come, chanting the chant of battles,

I above all promote brave soldiers.

Walt Whitman, As I ponder'd in silence.

As books go, perhaps I might have written a book on my war experiences.

With a record of three years' service at the battle front, in capacities as various as those of a private in the infantry, a liaison officer, an artillery observer, and a trench mortar officer; with some experience of the Belgian, British, Bussian and Boimianian fronts; four months on a diplomatic mission to the Russian revolutionary government, and six months on a government mission to the United States, possibly my war diary might not have proved much more

vii viii FOREWORD

uninteresting than most similar publications on the market.

As a matter of fact, I believe it would have been less dull to the reading pubhc at large than this book is going to be. For I intend to make this a record of my psychological war experiences, without any more reference to actual occurrences than is necessary for the understanding of their reaction on my mind.

I reahse perfectly well that a book of this type is going to appeal to a much smaller section of the pubhc than would a miscellany of trench stories, or diplomatic revelations in the style of war correspondents. Yet, rather than swell the number of books of this type, I think it more worth while to contribute some fragmentary material for those who are seeking an answer to the questions: How has the war affected the mind of those who have done the fighting? Have they formed any new ideals? And what part are these ideals going to play in the reconstruction of Europe?

This book is intended to show the remaking of a mind during the remaking of the world. It will be a succession, in broad chronological order, of the reactions of the war, in its changing military and poHtical aspects, on the mind of a young European who has been "all through it."

It does not claim to be typical as a psychological document any more than the writer himself

FOREWORD ix

would claim to be considered typical as a European. The reaction of the war on men's minds is bound to differ widely according to their nationality, their personal dispositions, their social condition, their level of education, the nature of their actual war experiences, and so forth. I doubt whether anybody could at present give first hand personal evidence on a subject Hke this, and yet make good a claim that it is typical of the European mind at large. As soon as evidence ceases to be personal, not much reliance can be placed on its accuracy. And subjective accuracy is all I claim for these confessions. I will make them documentarily autobiographical evidence with the help of my diary, my notes, and my letters to my wife and a few friends.

I realise that the form I have chosen will make a certain demand upon the reader's patience and leniency. Apparent inconsistencies will occasionally reflect the contradictory impressions made upon the writer's mind by the diversity and rapid succession of experiences; while any uncouthness of style or expression may be due to the necessity of setting forth my innermost thoughts in a foreign tongue, and this in spite of the assistance of my cousin, George Greenland, Jr., of London, who suggested numerous improvements in my manuscript. Nevertheless, I have thought that it was better to sacrifice form to the recording of my impressions in the order

X FOREWORD

in which they occurred, and whilst they are still vivid in my mind.

The views recorded in this book are those of what in Europe we used to call a socialist. In America I would probably be called a radical, for I would no more identify myself with the Socialist Party of America than with the Russian Bolshevik. As such, these views are typical only of a minority of the Europeans of the so-called educated class; but, on the other hand, they may throw some light on what post-war socialism is going to be in Western Europe. The war has "radicalized" Europe to such an extent that a constitutional seizure of power by labour in most countries seems to be within the possibilities of a near future. But whilst giving socialism a chance to pass from the stage of agitation to that of reahsation, it has been made manifest that, in Western Europe at least, practical socialism is going to prove itself very different from theoretical pre-war socialism. I am confident that American readers who are anxious to gather first hand information on the state of mind of European socialists will welcome Hmited and fragmentary, but personally sincere, evidence rather than general descriptions, whose accuracy is necessarily in inverse ratio to the scope of the ground they cover.

There is another reason why I insist on the subjective sincerity of this book. It is because

FOREWORD xi

I feel the need to apologise beforehand for saying things which may hurt the feelings of many people. I shall have, for instance, to analyse and discuss notions as taboo to the common citizen as those of patriotism, heroism, and duty. I trust that the constructive aim of this analysis will not escape the notice of the reader who will be patient enough to follow the story of my mental evolution to the end. Yet I am afraid that the mere fact of admitting doubt, which is of course an essential condition to any analytical thinking, will hurt the sentiment of people who consider doubting itself as an offence. So let those who expect "dulcet rhymes" of me lay this book aside, and, following the advice of Walt Whitman to "a certain civihan," "go lull themselves with piano tunes." The others, I hope, will keep in mind that I have learned my lesson on the battlefields of a war which has not only changed the map of the world, but also the mind of the men who have fought it. And the greatest lesson I have learned there was to think earnestly, sincerely and ruthlessly. Oh, how trivial all I thought and did before the war seems to me now ! I feel as though I did not really start living until the constant menace of near death to myself and those for whom I was responsible gave life the value of sacrifice. It is one thing to play with words and theories, and to send them out into the world, the world as it was in those times, xii FOREWORD

before everything had to be paid for in blood. But it is another thing to see how —

"That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was

given To corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven — By the heart-shaking jests of Decay where it lolled on the

wires — To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes — to be cindered by

And then, to have to kill and maim and blind human beings on the other side; to have to answer the shrill voice of one's own conscience with its insistent Why? For at any moment one had to be ready to die with this question satisfied. And I for one could not do this with the argument of the mere accident that made me born a Belgian citizen instead of a subject of the Kaiser. Having been through this cross-examination by Death, and having finally found a satisfactory answer to that great Why gives one the self-confidence required for saying what one believes to be true and good, and the certainty that everything is true and good that promotes life and makes mankind fit for it.

So all I can say in defence of this book is that, as a record of the spiritual life of one out of millions of soldiers, it is un livre de bonne foy. Perhaps I am too sanguine in expecting that, with so limited a claim to the interest and perhaps even to the sympathy of the general public,

* R. Kipling. The Honours of War (A Diversity of Creatures).

FOREWORD xiii

it will be welcomed abroad. If I dare to submit it at all to the judgment of the American public, it is because I have been struck during my stay in the United States in 1918 by the great and growing attention paid there to all aspects of war psychology, I came into contact with all sorts and conditions of people in practically every part of the Union, and my conclusion was that in no belligerent country has there been more thought given to the philosophy of war and reconstruction than in America. With the exception of a very few, mostly English writers and thinkers, nobody in Europe seems to have known any other war problem than how to win,

I am positive in asserting that the majority, even of young intellectuals whom I have met in Belgian and British officers' messes, have never given an hour's thought to the meaning of the war from a broader viewpoint than that of military or diplomatic operations. They knew they were fighting for their homes, for their country's independence — exactly as the Germans thought they did themselves — and that was enough. Perhaps they would not have found it so easy to die if they had begun to analyze further, for analyzing means doubting, and doubting means, at least temporarily, a weakening of the purpose. And there was to be no weakening at all if one did not want to be crushed by the "Hun."

xiv FOREWORD

In America it was different. It took nearly three years to bring the nation to reaHze that it had to take part in the war. In the meantime its leaders did the doubting and analyzing, and they ultimately came to a conclusion inspired by a broader viewpoint than that of national interest. Even after April, 1917, America as a Democracy, and to a large extent as a Democracy of cosmopolitan extraction, had to bring her own people to the realisation of the ideal issues at stake before the full effect of her intervention could be felt. Whilst the Belgians, for instance, all knew that they had to fight on the 3rd of August, 1914, because they saw their own homes and cities threatened by a brutal invader, practically every individual American had to be convinced by reasoning that he had to fight, not for his own home, but for less immediate purposes common to mankind. That is why I think I may say, without doing any injustice to my compatriots, or their European alHes, that America fought with a wider consciousness of her aims than any other nation. Nor did she fight any the worse for having that consciousness!

It is this identification of America with the conscience of mankind, more even than her formidably increased economic and military power, that has made her the umpire in this war. And now the day of the Great Settlement has come, a Settlement which involves not

FOREWORD XV

only the fate of empires and territories, but the social and moral regeneration of the peoples of Europe, once more we look across the Atlantic to read America's thoughts. For we need her to help us reconstruct, as much as we needed her to help us fight. We need the assistance of her capital, of her social workers, of her diplomats — but above all, we need the inspiration of her ideals.

H. DE Man.

London, April, 1919.

When I joined the Belgian army as a volunteer on the 3d of August, 1914, I was much less of a citizen of my native country than of Germany, England, or France. Since the beginning of my student's career my ambition had been to become a "citizen of the world." From the age of eighteen until a short time before the war I had travelled extensively through most European countries, spent five years at German and Austrian universities, one year in England, and shorter periods in France, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, and Scandinavia. I had learned to speak and write French, German, and EngHsh with nearly the same ease as my native Flemish language. My purpose was to become acquainted with the conditions of life, the science and literature of the great European nations, and I do not think that many men of my age have made a greater effort to come near to the type of a world citizen, in the European sense at least than I. Even during the three years — 1914 till 1917 — which I spent mostly in Belgium, I continued to take more interest in international politics than in Belgian affairs. I used to read the great British, German, and French newspapers before the home product, and I do not think that more than five per cent of my library was occupied by native authors.

I want to make it quite clear at the outset that my ideal was not cosmopolitanism, but a sort of ectectic internationalism. I never felt attracted by the shallow cosmopolitanism of those who pretend to see no difference between nations, because all they see of them are a few material institutions which they have in common, whilst the higher and subtler things that differentiate them escape their notice. This is bound to happen to the traveller who judges France by what he sees of the Paris Boulevards, England by Piccadilly, Russia by the Newski Prospect, America by New York's Fifth Avenue, and less important countries by a hasty visit to their ports. This class of migratory cosmopolitans only see that superficial and in itself cosmopoHtan aspect of civiHsation which the Belgian nationalist writer, Edmond Picard, shrewdly called "Kellnerism." Kellnerism is as universal as the institution of the German waiter used to be. To the "Kellnerists" the world is indeed one, for a ship's cabin or a Pullman car look and smell very much the same in every part of the globe. There is no more difference between the type and manners of the people one meets in a Palace Hotel in Cairo, in Brussels or in Chicago than between the tastes of dishes one gets there. To the cosmopolitan all countries look alike. To the internationalist the world is a wonderful living mosaic, deriving its beauty from the infinite variety of national colouring. A citizen of Europe meant to me one who strives to understand and to sympathise with those characteristics of every country which are an essential element of what, as a whole, constitutes European civilisation.

Therefore, in every country where I lived my passionate pursuit was to look, not for what its culture had in common with that of other nations, but for what was peculiarly its own. To grow acquainted with it meant to love it and make it part of my spiritual self. So I gradually became a French patriot, a German patriot, an English patriot, as my knowledge of French, German, and English civilisation grew more intimate. My European internationalism was based, not on a denial of nationality, but on a conscious attempt to identify myself with the spirit of several great European nations. What makes Central and Western Europe so beautiful and passionately interesting to my mind is its infinite variety. On this smallest of all continents — a mere peninsula stretching out beyond the Russian plains from the western extremity of Asia — humanity shows itself more diverse than anywhere else on earth, much more so even than the landscape, thanks to the continuous and intricate blending of races, languages, institutions and civihsations involved in two thousand years of invasions, migrations and wars. Yet my European patriotism was not at all exclusive of the rest of the world. On the contrary I considered it as only a step towards becoming a citizen of the world at large, which I so far only knew through literature. Walt Whitman gave me a foretaste of what it would be to love America, and Kipling more than anybody else taught me that contact with exotic civilisation was a necessary part of a white man's training.

The love of my native country played but a part in my life. It is true that, when the war broke out, I found that something in the subconscious impulses which are after all the mainspring of even an^educated man's actions, was particularly associated with the land of my birth and childhood. These fundamental impulses, that really make a man what he is, can no more be obHterated by later attempts to identify oneself with the soul of other nations, than having learnt foreign languages can make one forget the sound of the mother tongue. This sound, the images associated with it, and the instinctive Hkes and dislikes formed in those early years remain paramount. It takes a strong cause, which, like dreaming or death agony, releases the strings of self -consciousness, to make one realise how much more of these impulses remain present and active than one would think.

Yet although they are associated with one's native language and the recollections of childhood, they have little to do with nationality as such. They are an essential part of national feeling, but no more identical with it than are the topographical boundaries of home, or, at the utmost, of the native town, with the frontiers of the country. This is' especially the case with Belgium, where several languages are spoken, and where my native Flemish tongue, or, more particularly still, my local dialect, does not identify itself with the existence of the State. So though my instinctive patriotism would link me with my home, with my family, with the customs and manners of my class, and with the aspect of the small part of the country where I received my impressions as a child, it would not do so with the country as a whole.

In so far as patriotism means attachment to the institutions and the national spirit of a country, I candidly confess that in the ordinary sense of the term, I never was much of a Belgian patriot. If I were asked whether the fact that I have fought for years with the Belgian army, and shared its glory and its sufferings as well as those of the whole nation, has not created a new tie between me and my countrymen, I am afraid that I could only to a limited extent answer in the affirmative. There is certainly a very strong sympathy between me and those whose sufferings I have shared, but as far as it is really a bond of feeling, that is, based on actual and personal experience, it only applies to that very small portion of the army with which I have actually been in touch, my own men, and my own comrades. On the other hand, as far as mihtary solidarity is the outcome of conscious thinking, it is not at all confined to my own countrymen, for I naturally extend it to all soldiers who have fought for the same cause. My intellectual sympathy goes out to the poilu, the Tommy and the Sammy and all their alHes, as well as to the Belgian soldier, and to every one of them in direct ratio not so much of their sufferings and their courage as of the extent to which their purpose in fighting was identical with mine. Otherwise I might include the German soldiers as well, who certainly have fought as bravely and suffered as much as most of us. But this is another story. My point for the moment is that mihtary sohdarity created by the war is either too narrow or too broad a feeling to add much strength to the

BEFORE THE WAR T

patriotism of a man who never looked upon the war from a purely national viewpoint. j

The only way in which I ever felt any Belgian patriotism in the real sense of the word is by loving Belgium as a microcosm of Europe. The existence of Belgian nationality, or to put it more exactly, of a pecuhar Belgian quality of civilisation, is a matter of controversy amongst historians. There is no doubt that what mostly differentiates Belgian culture from that of the neighbouring nations is local or provincial characteristics; whilst the small class who have any common characteristics beyond those, mostly derive them from French, or — in the case of a very few — from Dutch civilisation.

There is no better proof of this than the fact that most books by Belgian writers were read much less in their own country than abroad. Practically all the Belgians who wrote French had their works published in France and sold more copies of them in Paris alone than in the whole of Belgium. The Flemish writers did the same in Holland. The reputation of our French writers was made in Paris, that of the Flemings in Holland, before they attained any popularity in their native land. Even certain translations into German found more readers in Teutonic countries and helped more to advertise their authors in Belgium itself than their original publications had done at home. Pirenne's "History of Belgium," the standard work of Belgian neonationalism, was published in a German translation and popularised beyond the Bhine before it attracted any notice in Belgium; and the excellent German translation of Verhaeren's poems by Stefan Zweig had made the greatest French writing poet of pre-war Belgium more popular in Germany than in his own country.

The lack of a national culture in Belgium, however, proves nothing against Belgium's right to exist as a State. State and nationality are two different things. Switzerland is another instance of a State, formed of fragments of nationalities, strongly united by their attachment to a common political organisation which has for centuries safeguarded their existence, under conditions derived from the peculiar natural situation of the country and the uniform economic mode of living that has resulted therefrom. In spite of what I have said above, I do not in the least agree with those who consider that Belgium as a State is an artificial creation of professional diplomacy. There is no doubt anyhow that the great majority of Belgians, Flemish or Walloon, consider the maintenance of the State as an essential guarantee for the conservation of certain things, and especially the freedom of their local and provincial institutions, which are dear to them. But these things have very httle to do with nationality as a cultural value. The culture of the Walloons, and of those educated Flemings who use French as their usual language, links them with France and the Latin world; whilst that of the mass of the Flemings unites them with the Dutch (who speak the same language) and the Teutonic races.

What they have in common, and what constitutes the essence of Belgian patriotism, is their attachment to certain civic institutions and a certain civic spirit. These institutions are the outcome of living for centuries, in spite of different language and culture, under similar economic, poHtical and religious conditions; and this civic spirit results from centuries of struggling in common for the defence of these institutions against continuous attempts at absorption by the great neighbouring powers.

The only plausible theory of Belgian patriotism is that which bases it on those common conditions and common sufferings, and not on the existence of a distinctive and peculiar national culture, which is a myth. These conditions arise from the situation of Belgium as a natural gateway between the three great currents of economic and cultural life in Western Europe — Latin, Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon. They have made it racially the melting pot, economically the turning plate, militarily the battlefield, politically the buffer state, and spiritually the microcosm of Europe.

In a small country like Belgium, with less than a century's existence as an independent state, and no unity of language or culture based thereon, this universal aspect of Belgium's function as an element in the progress of European civilisation is the only intellectual justification of patriotic feeling. It is the theoretical foundation of the writings of Henri Pirenne, and the essential inspiration of our great poet, Emile Verhaeren, to whom Belgium stood as the symbol of the intensive life of the modern industrial world.

The only sense in which Belgian, patriotism as a cultural value ever appealed to me, was through my appreciation of its historical function in the ensemble of European civilisation, and through my admiration for the skilful activity of its artisans and traders, the tenacious devotion to local and provincial independence of its historical heroes, the broad universal vision of its great exponents in art and literature, by which it strove to fulfil this function since the early Middle Ages. The more I loved my country in this wide sense the more I was led to value and venerate the culture of the nations between whom Belgium was the hyphen. Being a Belgian was thus only a step towards becoming a European.

So, on the one hand, I was far from believing, like so many pre-war sociahsts and to-day's

Bolsheviki, in what the Austrian, Otto Bauer (the first to attempt a scientific analysis of nationality from a sociaHst viewpoint), calls the naive cosmopohtanism which characterises the earlier sentimental stages of sociahsm. But, on the other hand, I was equally far from allowing my sense of nationality to lead me to jingoism or political nationahsm, which consists in the belief that one's own nationahty has rights which the others have not. I was always as disgusted by the misuse of patriotism, as a feeling of attachment to a particular type of civiHsation, for the fostering of pohtical enmity against other nations, and promoting militarism and imperialism, as I was by the prostitution of rehgious feeling to the purposes of worldly domination. I was convinced that there should be the same difference between patriotism and the State as there is— or ought to be— between rehgion and the Church. Love of one's own country need not involve any hostihty towards another country. On the contrary, if it be sincere and enlightened, it should tend to strengthen the ties of sympathy between them. Real patriotism has an inherent tendency to become universal, just as love of individual men and women helps one to love mankind.

It is true that patriotism involves a desire to maintain the pohtical autonomy of a nation and the pecuHar institutions which are an element of its cultural life, and which may be threatened by attack from abroad. As long as no trust can be placed in international institutions to make such an attack impossible or fruitless, a patriot will have to be prepared to defend his country. But this does not mean that patriotism justifies any and every sort of war. On the contrary if the only patriots were those who refused to fight save in defence of their country, there would be no wars at all — for lack of aggressors. But this can only be if each people knows the true relation in which it stands towards other nations. Have we not seen in 1914?, as often before, a war begin between nations, which were all told by their rulers that they were fighting in selfdefence and moreover believed it. For I have no doubt that the great mass of the people of the Central Powers were from the beginning convinced that they were fighting to defend their country against the aggression of a wicked foe intent on their extermination. So easy is it to use the disguise of patriotism for the aggressive purposes of commercial avidity, the pride of a military caste, or the ambitions of a dynasty.

Yet my training as a historian had put me on my guard against a too subjective or too absolute outlook on things. In consequence I did not feel towards war in general in the same way as those who probably formed the most numerous class of pacifists. I would call them the ethical pacifists, for their hatred of war — not any war in particular, but war in general, at all times, under any circumstances, and from the viewpoint of any of the belligerents — is based on the ethical principle that no man should kill a man. Their most consistent exponents are the Christian nonresisters of the Tolstoian type.

My hatred of war was based more on history than on ethics. But, indeed, can individual ethics be sound if they come into conflict with the laws of social progress? Sound ethics must aim at making mankind fitter to live. This can only be achieved by social progress, that is to say, by evolving forms of human organisation, and civilisation which are better adapted to assist human society in its struggle with hostile forces of nature. History teaches us that this evolution is not a logical, but a dialectical process. I mean, it is realised, not by straight hnear development starting from one cause towards one aim, but by a continuous struggle between individuals, classes, tribes, nations, races, according to their own conflicting interests and ideals. Progress consists in the victory of the form of organisation that is fittest to survive, because it proves better adapted to the fulfilment of human needs under given natural circumstances and to the development of material and moral resources. Wars, like revolutions, racial, class and religious conflicts, have been one of the agencies through which this dialectical process is accomplished.