Unit 15 War and Peace
Before you read
a. What is war?
b. What happens if there is war in country? Describe its consequences.
c. Describe a devastating war in the world history.
Now read the following essay about war in the hope of peace.
Only recently, Wilson and Lloyd George proclaimed
their unswerving will to fight on till final victory. In the
Italian Chamber the Socialist Mergari was treated like a
madman because he had spoken a few natural, human
words. And today, with what wooden self-righteousness
a Wolff dispatch denies the rumour of a new German
peace proposal: “Germany and its allies have not the
slightest reason for repeating their magnanimous offer
of peace.”
In other words, everything goes on as before, and if anywhere a peaceful blade of grass
tries to pierce the ground, a military boot is quick to trample it.
Yet at the same time, we read that peace negotiations have begun in Brest-Litovsk,
that Herr Kühlmann has opened the session with a reference to the significance of
Christmas and has spoken, in the words of the Gospel, of peace on earth. If he means
what he says, if he has even the faintest understanding of those tremendous words,
peace is inevitable. Unfortunately, our experience of Bible quotations in the mouths of
statesmen has not thus far been encouraging.
For many days now, the eyes of the world have been focused upon two places. In those
two places, it is widely felt, the destinies of nations are coming to a head, the future
beckoning, and disaster threatening. With bated breath the world is looking eastward,
to the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk. And at the same time it is watching the
western front in dire anguish, for everyone feels, everyone knows that, short of a
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miracle, the most dreadful disaster that has ever befallen men is there impending: the
bitterest, bloodiest, most ruthless and appalling battle of all time.
Everyone knows it and everyone, with the exception of a few sanguine political orators
and war profiteers, is trembling at the thought. Concerning the outcome of this mass
slaughter, opinions and hopes vary. In both camps, there is a minority who seriously
believe in a decisive victory. But one thing that no one endowed with a vestige of good
sense can believe is that the ideal, humanitarian aims, which figure so prominently in
the speeches of all our statesmen, will be achieved. The bigger, the bloodier, the more
destructive these final battles of the World War prove to be, the less will be accomplished
for the future, the less hope there will be of appeasing hatreds and rivalries, or of doing
away with the idea that political aims can be attained by the criminal instrumentality
of war. If one camp should indeed achieve final victory (and this purpose is the one
justification offered by the leaders in their incendiary speeches), then what we abhor
as “militarism” will have won out. If in their secret heart the partisans of war mean so
much as a single word of what they have been saying about war aims, the absurdity,
the utter futility of all their arguments staggers the imagination.
Can a new massacre of inconceivable scope be justified by such a jumble of hopeless
fallacies, of mutually contradictory hopes and plans? While all people with even the
slightest experience of war and its suffering are awaiting the outcome of the Russian
peace negotiations in prayer and expectation, while all of us are moved to love and
gratitude for the Russians because they, first among nations, have attacked the war at
its root and resolved to end it, while half the world is going hungry and useful human
effort has been halved where it has not ceased altogether—at such a time, preparations
are being made in France for what we shudder even to name, a mass slaughter which is
expected to decide, but will not decide, the outcome of the war, for the final senseless
mustering of heroism and patience, the final hideous triumph of dynamite and machines
over human life and the human spirit!
In view of this situation, it is our duty, the one sacred duty of every man of good will
on earth, not to sheathe ourselves in indifference and let things take their course, but to
do our utmost to prevent this final catastrophe.
Yes, you say, but what can we do? If we were statesmen and ministers, we would do
our bit, but, as it is, we have no power!
This is the easy reaction to all responsibility—until it becomes too pressing. If we turn
to the politicians and leaders, they too shake their heads and invoke their helplessness.
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We cannot sit back and put the blame on them.
To blame are the inertia and cowardice of each one of us, our obstinacy and reluctance
to think. In response to the excellent Mergari, Sonnino refused to say “anything that
might give aid and comfort to the enemy”; the Wolff dispatch I have just mentioned
declares that Germany has “not the slightest reason” to make another move in behalf
of peace. But every day we ourselves give evidence of the same attitude. We accept
things as they come, we rejoice in victories, we deplore the losses in our own camp,
we tacitly accept war as an instrument of politics.
Alas, every nation and every family, every single individual in all Europe and far
beyond it, has more than enough “reason” to give his utmost in behalf of the peace for
which we all yearn. Only a vanishing minority of men truly want the war to go on—and
beyond a doubt they deserve our contempt and sincerest hatred. No one else, only a
very few morbid fanatics or unscrupulous criminals are in favour of this war, and yet—
inconceivable as it seems—it goes on and on, with both sides arming indefatigably for
the allegedly final holocaust in the West!
This is possible only because we are all too lazy, too easygoing, too cowardly. It is possible
only because somewhere in our secret hearts we approve or tolerate the war, because
we throw all the resources of our minds and souls to the winds and let the misguided
machines roll on! That is what the political leaders do, and what the armies do, but we
ourselves, the onlookers, are no better. We all know that we can stop the war if we want
to in earnest. We know that whenever men have felt an action to be truly necessary they
have performed it against all resistance. We have looked on with admiration and beating
hearts as the Russians laid down their arms and manifested their will to make peace.
There is no person on earth that has not been profoundly moved in its heart and
conscience by this marvelous drama. But at the same moment we reject the obligations
such feelings imply. Every politician in the world is all in favour of revolution, reason,
and the laying down of arms—but only in the enemy camp, not in his own! If we are
in earnest, we can stop the war. Once again the Russians have exemplified the ancient
and holy doctrine that the weak can be mightiest. Why does no one follow them?
Why do parliaments and cabinets everywhere content themselves with the same dreary
drivel, the same day-to-day trivialities, why do they nowhere rise up to champion a
great idea, the only idea that matters today? Why do they favour the self determination
of nations only when they themselves hope to profit? Why are people still taken in by
the false idealism of official phrasemongers? It has been said that every nation has the
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rulers it wants and deserves. May be so. We Europeans at all events have the bloodiest
and most ruthless of all rulers: war. Is that what we want and deserve?
No, we don’t want it. We all want the opposite. Apart from a small number of profiteers,
no one wants this shameful and dismal state of affairs. What then can we do? We can
bestir ourselves! We can take every opportunity to manifest our readiness for peace. We
can desist from such useless provocations as the above-mentioned Wolff dispatch, and
stop talking like Sonnino. At the present juncture a slight humiliation, a concession,
a humane impulse can do us no harm! How, when we have befouled ourselves so
thoroughly with blood, can we worry about petty national vanities?
Now is the time to oust those statesmen who conceive foreign policy in terms of selfseeking
national programmes, who ignore the cry of mankind! Why wait until their
stupidity has shed the blood of more millions?
All of us—great and small, belligerents and neutrals—we must not close our ears to
the dire warning of this hour, the threat of such unthinkable horrors. Peace is at hand!
As a thought, a desire, a suggestion, as a power working in silence, it is everywhere,
in every heart. If each one of us opens his heart to it, if each one of us firmly resolves
to serve the cause of peace, to communicate his thoughts and intimations of peace—
if every man of good will decides to devote himself exclusively for a little while to
clearing away the obstacles, the barriers to peace, then we shall have peace.
If that is done we shall all have helped to bring it about, we shall all feel worthy of the
great tasks it will impose—whereas hitherto we have all been possessed by a feeling
of shared guilt.
Hermann Hesse
NOTES
Wilson and Lloyd George: Woodrow Wilson, the President of America, and David
Lloyd George, the Prime Minister of Britain wanted to stop a war ever happening
again to establish peace after the World War I, but they did not get on well
Brest-Litovsk: The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a peace treaty signed in 1918 between
Russia and Germany that ended Russia's participation in World War I
Herr Kühlmann: Herr Kühlmann (1873-1948) was a German diplomat and
industrialist. From 6 August 1917 to 9 July 1918, he served as Germany's Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs.
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