Evening star., 1934-07-29

Author OF Spears Against Us Pilgrim
Cottage" Etc.
w YHEN, few days ago. ] stood
IA at the top of that great
wv fight of stone steps which
leads to the immense mon
ument erected by the
French at Verdun. / was suddenly
aware that some 30 years had passed
since the flame of war had swept
the battlefelds. Twenty years. and
there l stood with the attendant of
that memorial. discussing-what? Not
the war and the million dead on
that Verdun battlefield, the bloodiest
episode in the annals of the human
race, but the possibility-and the
robability-of yet another war in
the near futurel
1t seems to me that only yesterday
the war ended. recall the occa-
sion vividly. At quarter to IL on
the morning of November IL, 1918.
was entering the old market place
at Mons. Before the Hotel de Vile
the councillors, many of them newly
from prison and internment, had
taken out the top hats they had
not worn for four years, and had
put on the fancy waistcoats and
tall coats which it had seemed likely
they would never need again, and
they had assembled to cheer the
! troops marching in.
The World Pauses.
At II o'clock it seemed as II the
whole world caught its breath, while
airplanes zoomed overhead, bands
played their national anthems and
even stern generals burst into tears.
And away out there on the horizon
great and shattered army, which
had fought heroically and vainly,
knew that the greatest military ma
chine which had ever been devised
lay broken and humbled in the dust.
A few days later. in Brussels, I
saw King Albert of the Belgians well
coined back to his city with de-
lirious acclaim. / saw him stand
with Gems. Foch, Haig and Pershing
while the troops of the allies marched
past to the cheers of a vast multi
tude, and when, a few days later,
in company with my colleagues, Field
Marshal Haig shook our hands and
OoAO 40 AoACWCA VIC oil AlOpCd blldL
our profession of war correspondent
would never be revived.
That was only Is years ago, and
1t seems like yesterday. And only
yesterday received visit from a
representative of a famous newspaper
who inquired whether "in the event
of certain things happening" I would
be prepared to represent his papers
in the coming war.
stared at him, more in dismay
than surprise, for as he spoke I felt
he was saying something that sug-
gested the end of our civilization,
something which implied that the
human race had gone mad and was
not Mt to survive on the face of the
earth. Could it be possible, after
mere 20 years of experience, still
vivid in our memories, of immense
agony and fearful bloodshed, after
the most elaborate and persistent eff
fort to establish means of abolishing
war and making reason and good
sense paramount, that the possibility
OF war was really within view?
No One Desires War,
Just a short tire uefore had re-
turned from a motor tour across
Europe. Nowhere in France, in
Switzerland, in Austria, in Italy, even
in Germany, did any individual desire
war. Every one feared it. every one
declared it would be madness, every
one said he only wished to get on
with his work and to be left alone
And yet here was France. having
made the most elaborate system of
defenses on her frontier. tense and
nervous. Here was Switzerland, hap
PLY spared through the last holo-
caust, convinced to a man that one
day soon Germany intended marching
through their country against France
Here was Italy, her northern from
tier briStling with forts and troops.
anxious to hold what she has gained
! Here was Austria. in the depths of
despair but nursing. nevertheless. un-
der all her internal strife, a dream
of reSuscitation. AMI. finally. here
was Germany, the sudden cause of all
this tension, drilling, marching,
cheering, with all its youth in uni
form.
Every one in Germany today vows
he is dedicated to peace: but a peace
in topboots with spurs, a peace with
intense propaganda to make Ger
many air-minded seems so far from
the conception of peace at Geneva
that the world wonders. With a
turn of the screw at headquarters it
would be so easy to turn 1000 600
well-disciplined, well-trained men
into formidable army. One won-
ders whether these smart, smiling
youths who come up with collecting
boxes and charm away your pfennigs
on behalf of their airport" clubs
themselves know what apprehension
they cause to the rest of Europe.
Talk of Conflict.
Twenty years after. one terrible
| fact stands clear. The people of the
: earth are talking of war again No
one wants it no one believes it can
pay. The man IN the street is
reasonable, human. level-headed fel-
| low, whether he walks in the streets
1 of Paris. London. Rome, Berlin or
New York. He himself is related TO
! somebody who lies in a soldiers
grave somewhere in Europe He be-
| lieved 10 years ago that the world
could never 60 mad again. that-20
years sgo-inSanity seized the human
spirit and led it into acts which have
left us MANNED. weak and impover-
| ished to this day.
Fer Is years, from the day the last