Above the Battle Part 6

May the representatives of all countries--according to the saying of a Dutch statesmen--remember what unites them and not only what separates them!

_Signed_:--H.-C. DRESSELHUYS, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Justice, _President_ of the N.A.O.R. J.-H. SCHAPER, member of the Second Chamber, _Vice-President_. Madame M. a.s.sER-THORBEKE, secretary of the Dutch League for Women's Suffrage. Professor Dr. D. VAN EMBDEN, Professor of law at Amsterdam. Dr. KOOLEN, member of the Second Chamber.

V.-H. RUTGERS, member of the Second Chamber. Baron de JONG VAN BEEK EN DONK, _Secretary_ of the N.A.O.R. (and also subscribed to by 130 politicians, intellectuals, and artists, including FREDERIK VAN EEDEN, WILLEM MENGELBERG, etc.). Office: Theresiastraat, 51, The Hague.

_Journal de Geneve_, February 15, 1915.

XI. LETTER TO FREDERIK VAN EEDEN

_January 12, 1915._

MY DEAR FRIEND:

You offer me the hospitality of your paper _De Amsterdammer_. I thank you and accept. It is good to take one's stand with those free souls who resist the unrestrained fury of national pa.s.sions. In this hideous struggle, with which the conflicting peoples are rending Europe, let us at least preserve our flag, and rally round that. We must re-create European opinion. That is our first duty. Among these millions who are only conscious of being Germans, Austrians, Frenchmen, Russians, English, etc., let us strive to be _men_, who, rising above the selfish aims of short-lived nations, do not lose sight of the interests of civilization as a whole--that civilization which each race mistakenly identifies with its own, to destroy that of the others. I wish your n.o.ble country,[26] which has always preserved its political and moral independence among the great surrounding states, could become the hearth of this ideal Europe we believe in--the hearth round which shall gather all those who seek to rebuild her.

Everywhere there are men who think thus though they are unknown one to another. Let us get to know them. Let us bring together each and all.

Here I would introduce to you two important groups, one from the North and one from the South--the Catalonian thinkers who have formed the society of _Amis de l'Unite Morale de l'Europe_ at Barcelona--I send you their fine appeal: and the _Union of Democratic Control_ founded in London and inspired by indignation against this European war, and by the firm determination to render it impossible for the diplomatists and militarists to inaugurate another. I am having the programmes and the first publications sent to you. This Union, whose general Council contains members of Parliament, and authors like Norman Angell, Israel Zangwill, and Vernon Lee, has already formed twenty branches in towns in Great Britain.

Let us try and unite permanently all such organizations, though each has its racial characteristics and peculiarities, for all aim at re-establis.h.i.+ng the peace of Europe as best they may. With them let us take stock of our united resources. Then we can act.

What shall we do? Try to put an end to the struggle? It is no use thinking of that now. The brute is loose; and the Governments have succeeded so well in spreading hatred and violence abroad that even if they wished they could not bring it back again into control. The damage is irreparable. It is possible that the neutral countries of Europe and the United States of America may decide one day to interfere, and endeavor to put an end to a war which, if it continued indefinitely, would threaten to ruin them as well as the belligerents. But I do not know what one must expect from this too tardy intervention.

In any case I see another outlet for our activity. Let the war be what it may--we can no longer intervene; but at least we must try to make the scourge productive of as little evil and as much good as possible. And in order to do this we must get public opinion all the world over to see to it that the peace of the future shall be just, that the greed of the conqueror (whoever that may be) and the intrigues of diplomacy, do not make it the seed of a new war of revenge; and that the moral crimes committed in the past are not repeated or allowed to stain yet darker the record of humanity. That is why I hold the first article of the Union of Democratic Control as a sacred principle: "No Province shall be transferred from one Government to another without the consent by plebiscite of the population of such province." We must oppose those odious maxims which have weighed too long on the populations they enslave and which quite recently Professor La.s.son dared to repeat as a threat for the future, in his cynical Catechism of Force (_Das Kulturideal und der Krieg_).[27]

And this principle must be proposed and adopted at once without any delay. If we waited to announce it until--the war being over--the congress of the Powers were a.s.sembled, we should be suspected of wis.h.i.+ng to make justice serve the interest of the conquered. It is now, when the forces of the two sides are equal, that we must establish this primordial right which soars over all the armies.

From this principle we can deduce an immediate application. Since the whole of Europe is disorganized let us profit by it to set in order this untidy house! For a long time injustices have been acc.u.mulating.

The moment of settling the general account will be an opportunity of rectifying them. The duty of all of us who feel for the brotherhood of mankind is to stand for the rights of the small nations. There are some in both camps: Schleswig, Alsace, Lorraine, Poland, the Baltic nations, Armenia, the Jewish people. At the beginning of the war Russia made some generous promises. We have registered them in our minds; let her not forget them! We are as determined about Poland, torn by the claws of three imperial eagles, as we are about Belgium crucified. We remember all. It is because our fathers, obsessed by their narrow realism and by selfish fears, let the rights of the people of Eastern Europe be violated, that today the West is shattered, and the sword hangs over the small nations, over you, my friends, as over the country which is befriending me, Switzerland. Whoever harms one of us harms all the others. Let us unite! Above all race questions, which are for the most part a mask behind which pride crouches and the interests of the financial or aristocratic cla.s.ses dissemble, there is a law of humanity, eternal and universal, of which we are all the servants and guardians; it is that of the right of a people to rule themselves. And he who violates shall be the enemy of all.

R. R.

_De Amsterdammer Weekblad voor Nederland_, January 24, 1915.

XII. OUR NEIGHBOR THE ENEMY

_March 15, 1915._

While the war tempest rages, uprooting the strongest souls and dragging them along in its furious cyclone, I continue my humble pilgrimage, trying to discover beneath the ruins the rare hearts who have remained faithful to the old ideal of human fraternity. What a sad joy I have in collecting and helping them!

I know that each of their efforts--like mine--that each of their words of love, rouses and turns against them the hostility of the two hostile camps. The combatants, pitted against each other, agree in hating those who refuse to hate. Europe is like a besieged town. Fever is raging.

Whoever will not rave like the rest is suspected. And in these hurried times when justice cannot wait to study evidence, every suspect is a traitor. Whoever insists, in the midst of war, on defending peace among men knows that he risks his own peace, his reputation, his friends, for his belief. But of what value is a belief for which no risks are run?

Certainly it is put to the test in these days, when every day brings the echo of violence, injustice, and new cruelties. But was it not still more tried when it was entrusted to the fishermen of Judea by him whom humanity pretends to honor still--with its lips more than with its heart? The rivers of blood, the burnt towns, all the atrocities of thought and action, will never efface in our tortured souls the luminous track of the Galilean barque, nor the deep vibrations of the great voices which from across the centuries proclaim reason as man's true home. You choose to forget them, and to say (like many writers of today) that this war will begin a new era in the history of mankind, a reversal of former values, and that from it alone will future progress be dated.

That is always the language of pa.s.sion. Pa.s.sion pa.s.ses away. Reason remains--reason and love. Let us continue to search for their young shoots amidst the b.l.o.o.d.y ruins.

I feel the same joy when I find the fragile and valiant flowers of human pity piercing the icy crust of hatred that covers Europe, as we feel in these chilly March days when we see the first flowers appear above the soil. They show that the warmth of life persists below the surface of the earth, that fraternal love persists below the surface of the nations, and that soon nothing will prevent it rising again.

I have on several occasions shown how the neutral countries have become the refuge of this European spirit, which seems driven from the belligerent countries by the armies of the pen, more savage than the others because they risk nothing. The efforts made in Holland or in Spain to save the moral unity of Europe, the burning charity and untiring help that Switzerland lavishes on prisoners, on wounded, on victims of both sides, are a great comfort to oppressed souls, who in every country are suffocating in the atmosphere of hatred forced on them, and who look for purer air. But I find still more beautiful and touching the signs of fraternal aid between friends and enemies in belligerent countries, however rare and feeble they may be.

If there are two countries between which the present war seems specially to have created an abyss of hatred and misunderstanding, they are England and Germany. The writers and publicists of Germany, whose orders are to profess for France rather sympathy and compa.s.sion than animosity, and who are even constrained to distinguish between the people and the Government of Russia, have vowed eternal hatred against England. _Ha.s.se England_ has become their _Delenda Carthago_. The most moderate declare that the struggle cannot be ended except by the destruction of the _Seeherrschaft_ (naval supremacy) of Britain. And Great Britain is not less determined to continue the conflict until German militarism has been totally eradicated. Yet it is precisely between these two nations that the n.o.blest bonds of mutual a.s.sistance for the misfortunes of the enemy have been formed and maintained.

Two days after the declaration of war there was founded in London by the Archbishop of Canterbury and by well known persons, such as J.

Allen-Baker, M.P., the Right-Hon. W. H. d.i.c.kinson, M.P., Lord and Lady Courtney of Penwith, the _Emergency Committee for the a.s.sistance of Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians in Distress_. This work, which affects a large part of England, consists in paying the repatriation expenses of dest.i.tute civilians, of accompanying German women and girls on their return journey, of securing hospitality in families for poor Germans and finding work for them. By the end of December almost 10,000 had been spent in this way. Several sub-committees visit Prisoners'

Camps, facilitate correspondence between the belligerent nations, or undertake, for Christmas, to convey to interned alien enemies more than 20,000 parcels and 200 Christmas trees. Another English society, already in existence before the war, the _Society of Friends of Foreigners in Distress_, regularly looks after 1,800 German and Austrian families.

Finally, the Central Bureau (London) of the International Union of Women Suffrage Societies has rendered great service to foreigners, paying for the return journey of between seven and eight thousand women.

In Germany there has been founded at Berlin a similar Bureau for giving information and a.s.sistance to Germans abroad, and to foreigners in Germany (_Auskunfts-und Hilfsstelle fur Deutsche im Ausland und Auslander in Deutschland_). Amongst its members may be noted aristocratic names, and persons well known in the religious and academic world: Frau Marie von Bulow-Mrlins, Helene Graefin Harrach, Nora Freiin von Schleinitz, Professors W. Foerster, D. Baumgarten, Paul Natorp, Martin Rade, Siegmund-Schultze, etc. At its head is a lady of deep religious feeling, Dr. Elisabeth Rotten. As will be readily imagined, an undertaking of this kind has not failed to evoke suspicion and opposition in nationalist quarters. But it has emerged successful, and persists; and here are the terms in which it justifies its high mission against the ravings of German Chauvinism:

"Since the beginning of the war we have recognized the obligation to interest ourselves in the welfare of foreigners stranded in Germany.

Efforts such as ours are as unpopular in our country as in other countries. At a time when the whole German people is engaged in resisting the enemy, it seems superfluous to render to those who belong to foreign countries more than minimum services to which they are legally ent.i.tled. But it is not only the thought of our kinsmen abroad which urges us to this work, it is our own desire to render friendly service (_Freundendienste_) to those who, through no fault of their own, are in difficulties because of the war. Even in war time, our neighbor is he who is in need of our help; and love for one's enemy (_Feindesliebe_) remains a sign whereby those who retain their faith in the Lord may recognize one another....

"We have been able to rea.s.sure German families as to the lot of their members in enemy countries, and in return to vouch to foreigners for the fact that their friends in our country will be able to rely on us for a.s.sistance if they need it. We have been able to help as neighbors (_Naechstendienste_) innocent enemies, in whom we see human brothers and sisters. Above and beyond this practical aid, we find consolation and comfort in being able freely to hearken, even in such times as these, to the voice of humanity, and to the command 'love thy neighbor.' The tragedy which bursts over the earth on every side, which fills all our being with a religious respect for human suffering, but also stirs our love and self-sacrifice, enlarges our hearts and leaves no room except for feelings of affirmation and benevolent action.

"Our desire to help and to alleviate suffering knows no frontiers. This need is all the more urgent when we find in the sufferings of others the traits of what we ourselves also suffer. What unites men goes deeper into our being than what separates them. That we can tend the wounds that we are constrained to deal, and that the same is the case in the enemy's country, gives promise of the brighter days which will come. In the midst of the tempest which destroys all around us so many things which we consider worthy of eternal existence, the possibility of such action strengthens our courage and gives us hope that new bridges will be rebuilt, on which the men who now find themselves separated, will once more be closely united in a common effort."

I dedicate these n.o.ble words to my friends amongst the people of France, who have so often, by letter or by message, declared to me their sympathy for such thoughts and their unchanging faith in humanity. I dedicate them to all in France who, even in these days, by their justice and goodness contribute to make their country loved, as much as she makes herself admired by her arms--to those who a.s.sure her of the name which I read with emotion on a postcard written yesterday, on his way to Geneva, by a badly wounded German who had been repatriated: the name of _gutes Frankreich_, "good France," or, as our tender-hearted old writers used to say, "_Douce_ France."

R. R.

I take this opportunity of recommending to my French readers the publication of Mme. Arthur Spitzer (Geneva): _Le Paquet du prisonnier de guerre_. It has contributors in Paris, and was founded in November "to bring comfort in their misery to such French, Belgians, and English prisoners as cannot be a.s.sisted by their families." It begs all who wish to send a parcel to a relation or friend who has been taken prisoner, to send with it, when possible, a similar consignment for some other prisoner--one of their fellow countrymen without relations, friends, or resources. May this n.o.ble thought of solidarity be extended later, in more humane times, so that whoever helps a prisoner belonging to his own country may be willing at the same time to help an enemy prisoner!

R. R.

_Journal de Geneve_, March 15, 1915.

XIII. A LETTER TO SVENSKA DAGBLADET OF STOCKHOLM[28]

The European thought of tomorrow is with the armies. The furious intellectuals in one camp and the other who insult one another do not represent it at all. The voice of the peoples who will return from the war, after having experienced the terrible reality, will send back into the silence of obscurity these men who have revealed themselves as unworthy to be spiritual guides of the human race. Amongst those who thus retire more than one St. Peter will then hear the c.o.c.k crow, and will weep saying, "Lord, I have denied thee!"

The destinies of humanity will rise superior to those of all the nations. Nothing will be able to prevent the reforming of the bonds between the thought of the hostile nations. Whatever nation should stand aside would commit suicide. For by means of these bonds the tide of life is kept in motion.

But they have never been completely broken, even at the height of the war. The war has even had the sad advantage of grouping together throughout the universe the minds who reject national hatred. It has tempered their strength, it has welded their wills into a solid block.

Those are mistaken who think that the ideals of a free human fraternity are at present stifled! They are but silent under the gag of military (and civil) dictation which reigns throughout Europe. But the gag will fall, and they will burst forth with explosive force. I am agonized by the sufferings of millions of innocent victims, sacrificed today on the field of battle, but I have no anxiety for the future unity of European society. It will be realized anew. The war of today is its baptism of blood.

R. R.