Not all Britishers and Americans and Frenchmen are willing to sacrifice themselves in our righteous cause--there are traitors even here, and these I would rather shoot than the enemy in France.
There never was a more damnable doctrine promulgated on the face of the earth than that of "My country, right or wrong." Free men could never subscribe to such a doctrine. We have no right to call upon people to take up arms because the government has declared war, but because the government was _right_ in declaring war. Those who oppose the government in this are not traitors to a party or a majority, but traitors to the country and to right.
The two great camps in which the world is divided to-day will be known in history as those who loved liberty more than life and those who loved dominion more than right. Maybe the names of the races will be forgotten but the memory of the opposing principles will abide.
CHAPTER XXXVII
"KEEPING FAITH WITH THE DEAD"
While here and there politicians grow faint-hearted, the army fights on with cheerfulness. It would be a cure for pessimism of the deepest black to go to the trenches for a while. There all is cheery optimism, no doubt at all about the final outcome, and no talk of peace. I have never heard one man in the army talk or hint of peace or dream of it, for they know that it cannot be yet. The only people who shall declare peace will be the army--no politicians, no parliament, or government--for the army to-day is a citizen army and large enough to change any government that is weak-kneed, and they shall allow parliament to grant peace only when they are ready, and that shall not be until we have gained a certain victory.
Prime Minister Lloyd George gave us three words over a year ago that are still the beacon-lights of the army, and we shall not reach port unless they are our guiding lights. They were _reparation_, _restoration_, and _guarantees_, and anything less would be a betrayal of France and Belgium and an insult to the wounded and a defaming of the dead.
The army and people of the allied countries have already paid too much not to have the goods delivered.
Do you think, for example, that we Australian boys are going back to our country without having gained that for which we came these twelve thousand miles and have fought so long, and lost so much?
Do you think that I am going back to Australia well and sound to face the mothers of my scouts, and when they come and ask me how their boys died, I will have to say; "Well! Here I am, well and strong, still able to put up a fight, and your son lies over there, his bones rotting on a foreign soil, and all in vain. The blood of him who to you was more precious than any prince or king that ever lived has been poured out like water and uselessly"?
Listen! Here is something of what Australia has paid. There has never been a day for three years that hundreds of Australian wives have not been made widows. There has not been a single week that there has not been more than a full page of casualties in our daily papers. Every woman in Australia if she has not seen there the name of her near kin has seen the name of some one that she knows. I know a father and five sons that have all been killed. Within fifty miles of one town that I know there is not a man under fifty years of age. There are ranches and farms that will go back to the primeval wilderness, the fences will rot and fall down, and the rabbits and kangaroos will overrun them again, because the men who were developing them are gone and there are none to take their places. Never was there a country so starved for men, and sixty thousand are gone forever or maimed for life. Tell me, where are we going to replace these men? No country in the world could so ill afford to lose its young men, the future fathers of the race, for we have still our pioneering to do, a continent larger than the United States, with about the population of New York.
Outside our Australian cities there are some large cemeteries, as we mostly have only one for each city, but the largest of our cemeteries does not lie on Australian soil. There are more Australian dead buried in Egypt than in any cemetery in our own country. On Gallipoli, in enemy hands, are the graves of thousands of our sacred dead. There are more of our unburied dead whitening in No Man's Land in France than have ever been laid to rest by reverent hands in a God's acre at home.
Think of all that we have paid in blood and tears and heartache. But, perhaps, more than this has been paid in pain and sweat. Many have been in those trenches more than three years. Consider their sufferings! The unnatural life, like rats in a hole, the nerve-strain, the insufficient food, the scanty clothing. What we have paid, Canada has paid, South Africa has paid, but Britain and France, how much more!
And Belgium, and Serbia, and Poland, and Rumania, and Italy. What a price to pay for an insecure peace, an enemy still with power to harm.
We might erect to our fallen dead the most magnificent monument that this world has ever seen, we might built it in marble, and stud it with gems, and have the greatest poets and artists decorate it, but it would be a mockery and a sham.
The only monument that we dare erect to our fallen dead, the only monument that would not be a dishonor to them and a shame and eternal disgrace to us is THE MONUMENT OF VICTORY.
And the army will never quit until we have sure victory, for we dare not break faith with our dead.
These lines of a Canadian soldier, Colonel McCrae, who has made the last sacrifice are an epitome of the army's spirit:
"In Flanders' fields the poppies grow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place, While in the sky the larks, Still bravely singing, Fly unheard amid the guns.
We are the Dead-- Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunsets glow, Loved and were loved--and now we lie In Flanders' fields----
Take up our quarrel with the foe.
To you from failing hands we throw The torch--be yours to bear it high-- If ye break faith with us who die, We shall not sleep though poppies grow In Flanders' fields."
BUT A SHORT TIME TO LIVE
_By Leslie Coulson, killed in action_
Our little hour--how swift it flies When poppies flare and lilies smile; How soon the fleeting minute dies, Leaving us but a little while To dream our dream, to sing our song To pick the fruit, to pluck the flower, The Gods--they do not give us long-- One little hour.
Our little hour--how short it is When Love with dew-eyed loveliness Raises her lips for ours to kiss And dies within our first caress.
Youth flickers out like windblown flame, Sweets of to-day to-morrow sour, For Time and Death, relentless, claim One little hour.
Our little hour,--how short a time To wage our wars, to fan our fates, To take our fill of armored crime, To troop our banner, storm the gates.
Blood on the sword, our eyes blood-red, Blind in our puny reign of power, Do we forget how soon is sped One little hour?
Our little hour--how soon it dies; How short a time to tell our beads, To chant our feeble Litanies, To think sweet thoughts, to do good deeds, The altar lights grow pale and dim, The bells hang silent in the tower, So passes with the dying hymn, Our little hour.
BUT A SHORT TIME TO LIVE
_By Leslie Coulson, killed in action_
Our little hour--how swift it flies When poppies flare and lilies smile; How soon the fleeting minute dies, Leaving us but a little while To dream our dream, to sing our song To pick the fruit, to pluck the flower, The Gods--they do not give us long-- One little hour.
Our little hour--how short it is When Love with dew-eyed loveliness Raises her lips for ours to kiss And dies within our first caress.
Youth flickers out like windblown flame, Sweets of to-day to-morrow sour, For Time and Death, relentless, claim One little hour.
Our little hour,--how short a time To wage our wars, to fan our fates, To take our fill of armored crime, To troop our banner, storm the gates.
Blood on the sword, our eyes blood-red, Blind in our puny reign of power, Do we forget how soon is sped One little hour?
Our little hour--how soon it dies; How short a time to tell our beads, To chant our feeble Litanies, To think sweet thoughts, to do good deeds, The altar lights grow pale and dim, The bells hang silent in the tower, So passes with the dying hymn, Our little hour.