Part 1 (2/2)

In many cases, as victorious armies swept through Poland and Serbia, the wretched inhabitants fled before them, literally starving, because all food had been seized for the use of fighting men. Dreadful diseases, which cannot exist where people have the chance to bathe and keep themselves clean, once more appeared, sweeping away hundreds of thousands of victims. The strongest, healthiest, bravest men of a dozen different nations were shot down by the millions or left to drag out a miserable existence, sick or crippled for life. Silent were the wheels in many factories which once turned out the comforts and luxuries of civilization. There were no men to make toys for the children, or to work for mankind's happiness. The only mills and factories which were running full time were those that turned out the tools of destruction and shot and sh.e.l.l for the guns. Nations poured out one hundred fifty million dollars a day for the purpose of killing off the best men in Europe. Had the world gone mad? What was the reason for it all?

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fleeing from their Homes, around which a Battle is Raging.]

In 1913 Germans traveled in Russia and Englishmen traveled in Germany freely and safely. Germans were glad to trade with intercourse Russians, and happy to have Englishmen spend their money in Germany.

France and Austria exchanged goods and their inhabitants traveled within each other's boundaries. A Frenchman might go anywhere through Germany and be welcomed. There was nothing to make the average German hate the average Englishman or Belgian. The citizen of Austria and the citizen of Russia could meet and find plenty of ground for friends.h.i.+p.

We cannot explain this war, then, on the grounds of race hatred. One can imagine that two men living side by side and seeing each other every day might have trouble and grow to hate each other, but in this great war soldiers were shooting down other soldiers whom they had never seen before, with whom they had never exchanged a word, and it would not profit them if they killed a whole army of their opponents.

In many cases, the soldiers did not see the men whom they were killing. An officer with a telescope watched where the sh.e.l.ls from the cannon were falling and telephoned to the captain in charge to change the aim a trifle for his next shots. The men put in the projectile, closed and fired the gun. Once in a while, a sh.e.l.l from the invisible enemy, two, three, or four miles away, fell among them, killing and wounding. When a regiment of Austrians were ordered to charge the Russian trenches, they shot and bayoneted the Russians because they were told to do so by their officers, and the Russian soldiers shot the Austrians because their captains so ordered them. The officers on each side were only obeying orders received from their generals. The generals were only obeying orders from the government.

In the end, then, we come back to the governments, and we wonder what has caused these nations to fly at each other's throats. The question arises as to what makes up a government or why a government has the right to rule its people.

In the United States, the government officials are simply the servants of the people. Practically every man in our country, unless he is a citizen of some foreign nation, has a right to vote, and in many of the states women, too, have a voice in the government. We, the people of the United States, can choose our own lawmakers, can instruct them how to vote and, in some states, can vote out of existence any law that they the people have made which we do not like. In all states, we can show our disapproval of what our law-makers have done by voting against them at the next election. Such is the government of a republic, a ”government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” as Abraham Lincoln called it. In the leading British colonies, the people rule. Australian citizens voted against forcing men to serve in the army. The result was very close and the vote of the women helped to decide it. Canada, on the contrary, voted to compel her men to go. How is it in Europe? Have the people of Germany or Austria the right to vote on war? Were they consulted before their governments called them to arms and sent them to fight each other? It is plain that in order to understand what this war is about, we must look into the story of how the different governments of Europe came to be and learn why their peoples obey them so unquestioningly.

We must remember that government by the people is a very new thing.

One hundred and thirty years ago, even in the United States only about one-fourth of the men had the right to vote. These were citizens of property and wealth. They did not think a poor man was worth considering. In England, a country which allows its people more voice in the government than almost any other nation in Europe, it is only within the last thirty years that all men could vote. There are some European countries, like Turkey, where the people have practically no power at all and others, like Austria, where they have very little voice in how they shall be governed.

For over a thousand years, the men of Europe have obeyed without thinking when their lords and kings have ordered them to pick up their weapons and go to war. In many instances they have known nothing of the causes of the conflict or of what they were fighting for. A famous English writer has written a poem which ill.u.s.trates how little the average citizen has ever known concerning the cause of war, and shows the difference between the way in which war was looked upon by the men of old and the way in which one should regard it. The poem runs as follows:

THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM

It was a summer evening, Old Kaspar's work was done, And he before his cottage door Was sitting in the sun, And by him sported on the green His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

She saw her brother Peterkin Roll something large and round, Which he beside the rivulet In playing there had found, He came to ask what he had found That was so large and smooth and round.

Old Kaspar took it from the boy, Who stood expectant by; And then the old man shook his head, And, with a natural sigh-- ”'Tis some poor fellow's skull,” said he, ”Who fell in the great victory.

”I find them in the garden, For there's many hereabout; And often when I go to plow, The plowshare turns them out!

For many a thousand men,” said he, ”Were slain in the great victory.”

”Now tell us what 'twas all about,”

Young Peterkin he cries; And little Wilhelmine looks up With wonder-waiting eyes-- ”Now tell us all about the war, And what they fought each other for.”

”It was the English,” Kaspar cried, ”Who put the French to rout; But what they fought each other for I could not well make out; But everybody said,” quoth he, ”That 'twas a famous victory.

”My father lived at Blenheim then, Yon little stream hard by; They burnt his dwelling to the ground, And he was forced to fly; So with his wife and child he fled, Nor had he where to rest his head.

”They say it was a shocking sight After the field was won-- For many thousand bodies here Lay rotting in the sun; But things like that, you know, must be After a famous victory.

”Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won, And our good Prince Eugene.”

”Why,'twas a very wicked thing!”

Said little Wilhelmine.

”Nay, nay, my little girl,” quoth he, ”It was a famous victory.

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