Our Part in the Great War

The Literary Digest says: "Of the 'atrocities' in Belgium, we find reports of a 'friend,' or a 'friend's friend,' or what 'some one saw or heard.'"

I have told what I myself saw and heard.

"Fair-minded readers will be inclined to reserve judgment."

But in the light cast by eye-witnesses and German diaries, we have reserved judgment too long. Our American Revolution would have been a drearier affair, if the French had reserved judgment. In a crisis the need is to form a judgment in time to make it tell for the cause of justice. Truth-seeking is a living function of the mind.

Another critic says: "By careful reading one sees that, while it pretends to give real evidence, there isn't any that is real except where not essential. Mr. Gleason attempts to belittle the stories of priests inciting girls to deeds of violence."

I do not attempt to belittle those stories. I disprove them on the evidence given by German generals, whose names I cite. Because I defend Roman Catholic priests from slander does not mean that I am anti-Protestant. Because I prove that Belgium and France have suffered injustice does not mean that I am anti-German. I went over to find out whether Belgian and French peasants, old men, women and children, were a lawless, murderous mob, or whether the German military had sinned in burning their homes and shooting the non-combatants. Neutrals can not have it both ways – either the peasants were guilty, or the German Army was guilty. I found it was the German Army that had sinned.

This critic goes on to say: "Only a few years ago the entire world was shocked by the horrible atrocities carried on in the Congo."

Evidently those atrocities were proved to his satisfaction. But was the case not established by the same process I have used – personal observation, documentary proof, and the testimony of eye-witnesses?

The Post-Dispatch, of St. Louis, says: "Gleason in trying to make out a strong case against Germany goes too far. He is too venomous. It will be a hard thing to convince neutral Americans that German soldiers maliciously ran their bayonets through the backs of girl children. The volume would be of much greater historical value if Gleason had used his head more and his heart less." Dr. Hamilton, in The Survey, makes the same point.

In my testimony I detail my evidence, and they who deny it rest on general statements. I assure them it is not in lightness that I record these conclusions about the German Army. I have gone into the zone of fire to bring out German wounded. I have taken the same hazards as thousands of other men have taken to save German life. Does venom act so?

I find in these criticisms an underlying assumption, a mental attitude, toward war, and therefore toward facts about war. Some of these periodicals are sincere pacifists. In the cause of social reform, in their several and very different ways, they have served the common good. But because they believe war is the worst of all evils, they assume that both sides are equally guilty or equally foolish. It is not a mental attitude which leaves them open-minded. I want to ask them on what body of facts they base their criticism. Were they present in Belgium at the moment of impact? Has the German Government provided them with detailed documentary proof that in the villages I have mentioned, on the dates given, the persons I have named were not burned, were not bayonetted? Have they examined the originals of the German diaries and found that I have omitted or altered words? Have they spent many days in Lorraine taking testimony from curé and sister and Mayor and peasant? Has that testimony shown that the destruction and murder did not take place? Has Leon Mirman, Prefect of Meurthe-et-Moselle, given them a statement in which he retracts what he said to me?

Several of these critics happen to be personal friends. It would be impossible to write in resentment of anything they say. I am not interested in making out a case for myself. But I am very much interested in inducing my fellow countrymen to accept the facts of the present world struggle. My books about the war have been written with one purpose only – to bring home to Americans the undeserved suffering of Belgium and France. To do that I need the help of all men of good will. I ask them not to break the force of the facts which I have patiently collected, by the carelessness which calls systematically burned cities "bombarded" cities, and by the mental attitude which finds me "rabid," when I have given every favoring incident to German soldiers that I could find. I have spent nearly two years in observing the facts of this war. Against my desires, my pre-war philosophy, my hopes of internationalism, I was driven by the facts to certain conclusions.

notes

1

Some of our people go further even than the giving of banquets to the efficient staff of the Deutschland. They give praise to U-53. In a newspaper, edited and owned by Americans, and published in an American Middle Western city of 40,000 inhabitants, the leading editorial on the exploits of U-53 was headed, "Hats Off to German Seamen," and the writer says:

"The world in general that had educated itself to regard the German as a phlegmatic and plodding citizen will remove its headgear in token of approbation of the sustained series of sensational feats by German commanders and sailors. The entire aspect of affairs has been changed by the events of two years. The Germans have accumulated as much heroic and romantic material in that time as has been gathered by other nations since the date of the American Revolution."

In the second section of this book, I have told why we talk like that. The mixture of races (mixed but not blended), the modern theory of cosmopolitanism, a self-complacency in our attitude toward Europe, an assumption that we alone champion freedom and justice, the fading of our historic tradition – these have caused us to preach internationalism, but fail to defend ourselves or the little nation of Belgium. They have led us to admire successful force.

2

Mazzini's idea of neutrality was this:

"A law of Solon decreed that those who in an insurrection abstained from taking part on one side or the other should be degraded. It was a just and holy law, founded on the belief – then instinctive in the heart of Solon, but now comprehended and expressed in a thousand formulæ – in the solidarity of mankind. It would be just now more than ever. What! you are in the midst of the uprising, not of a town, but of the whole human race; you see brute force on the one side, and right on the other … whole nations are struggling under oppression … men die in hundreds, by thousands, fighting for or against an idea. This idea is either good or evil; and you continue to call yourselves men and Christians, you claim the right of remaining neutral? You cannot do so without moral degradation. Neutrality – that is to say, indifference between good and evil, the just and the unjust, liberty and oppression – is simply Atheism."