New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-07-22

fury" Were one proceeding TO carry
out that cold-blooded process with the
| French he would select from the whole
French race the very million which
will be under the soil or hopelessly
crippled by next summer.
The process must be almost exactly
! the same in Germany. She has larger
/ population, and therefore more men.
| But she has been fighting on two from
! tiers and has been bolstering up two
weaker allies. Her losses must have
/ been as heavy as Frances in proportion
TO her population-probably heavier.
Your Bernhard, driven into the corner
with such facts as these, would prob
ably answer that he was thinking in
terms of races; that in war the stronger
races survive, the weaker perish; and
the whole human breed profits thereby.
By the stronger race Bernhard, being
a German, means the German race.
That rule worked once, perhaps.
I When the European races were first
building they met and conquered sew
oral inferior peoples. | imagine that
Attila's Huns were a race decidedly
inferior to the Franks, who annihllat-
ed them. But there is no such differ
ence between the six great civilized,
modern nations who are fighting out
this war in Western Europe. Grant
for the sake of argument that Germany
is the superior nation, the coming race;
yet any reasonable pro-German must
admit that the margin of superiority
is very small indeed. Grant also that
Germany wins overwhelmingly and
gains the place in the sun" No one
hall, nsf,rr1
war, but grant it. She would probably,
could she measure II, find her stock re-
duced below the standard of the low
est" the most "inferor" race of her
enemies as that race stood before the
war. The lower" the inferior" races
would go still further back; and we
should find the blood of all Europe
thinned, the physical and mental
standards of all Europe lowered As
matter of fact, that has already hap
pened, TO a certain extent, with the
worst of this war, possibly, yet to
come 1t was only a year or so before
the war that Bernhard put forth mis-
geological necessity his Survival OF
the fittest" nonsense. No man was ever
so quickly or so thoroughly proved
fool.
have omitted England from
this calculation. With England. which
has not yet adopted conscription. the
case is different. Yet il works out
toward the same end. Never before IN
the world was there such volunteer
army as Britain is raising now. Inc
number of men from the British Isles
under arms and ready TO fight is per-
haps two million and half. And here'
even more than in the conscrlpt coun-
tries, the process is selectlve. Ihose
who have volunteered are character
istically the best young men OF Britain
for physical and moral force.
1--WE cannot stop now" said a Ger
man journal recently, England has not
yet suffered enough" II is true that
the British losses, so far, have been
far lower than those of France and
Germany. Probably the British have
no more than 1000 men killed or so
badly wounded as to make them useless
to the race. But from this time forth
if the war goes as every one expects
it to go-England will lose more and
more, until her blood, also, is drained.
mo Gentlemen Left"
However, the British have sustained
their losses in such fashion as to drive
home the point to support in the Brit
ish mind this. new theory, which all
Western Europe is beginning to under
stand. Your typical Briton worships
"class." Be he upper class, lower class
or middle class, he believes in his bones
that the aristocracy is really and lit
orally the best of England Now, so far,
the losses have fallen most heavily on
the aristocracy. The upper class and
the upper middle class were first to re-
spond to the call of England. In the
early days of the war they took service
anywhere-in the corps of officers, in
the army service corps and in the
ranks. And of the 10000 who retreated
from Mons in August, the 10000 who
held the line at Ypres in October, com:
paratively few survive. Later, England
began making subalterns, or second
lieutenants, of her gentleman class.
The traditions of the British army are
such that the subaltern must take the
greatest chances OF all. The life OF
subaltern on the line is rs short as
that of an artillery horse. Great faml-
~ after great family has lost all us
male heirs. By the end of March tif-
teen major titles were already extinct.
An English marquis and a plain War
wickshire Tommy have spoken to me OF
the situation in almost identical terms.
men if this thing keeps up?" they said.
By what is happening to the aristocracy
the Britisher measures what is happen
ing 10 the whole race.
France and England, as | have said,
understand thoroughly this new horror
of war. OF Germany | cannot speak,
not having been in Germany since early
in the war. German public opinion has
been "mobilized" as thoroughly as Ger
man men and German resources. The
German people, to judge by their jour
mails. are thinking what the govern
ment wants them to think. We have
no line on the state OF mind Of the
nuzzled. But doubtless thousands and
thousands of Germans are at one with
the French and British IN their per-
ception of what this war is doing 70
their blood and to the whole European
stock In a nation so intelligent as
Germany it could not be otherwise.