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Never Again! ........................................................................................................................................................1

Never again must this Thing happen. The time has come if the human race does not wish to destroy itself

in its own madness for men to make up their minds as to what they will do in the future; for now indeed is

it true that we are come to the crossroads, we stand at the Parting of the Ways.

The rapid and enormous growth of scientific invention makes it obvious that Violence ten times more potent

and sinister than that which we are witnessing today may very shortly be available for our use or abuse

in War. On the other hand who can doubt that the rapid growth of interchange and understanding among

the peoples of the world is daily making Warfare itself, and the barbarities inevitably connected with it, more

Which of these lines are we to follow? Along which path are we to go? This is a question which the mass

peoples of Europe in the future and not merely the Governments will have seriously to ponder and

That bodies of men as has happened a hundred times in the trenches in Northern France and even on the

Eastern Front should exchange morning salutations and songs in humorous amity, and then at a word of

That peasants and artisans, and shopkeepers and students and schoolmasters, who have no quarrel whatever,

who on the whole rather respect and honour each other, should with explosive bombs deliberately blow one

another to bits so that even their own mothers could not recognize them; That human beings should use every

devilish invention of science with the one purpose of maiming, blinding, destroying those against whom they

Only a short time ago a private soldier said to me: "Yes, we had got to be such friends with those Bavarians

in the trenches over against us that if we had returned there again I believe nothing could have made us fight

with each other; but of course that point was perceived and we were moved to another part of the Line." What

a criticism in a few words on the whole War! A hundred times this or something similar has happened, and a

hundred and a thousand times these 'enemies' who have madly mutilated each other have a few minutes

later been only too glad to dress each other's wounds and share the last contents of their waterbottles.

By all the heartrending experiences which have now become so common and familiar to us;

By the fact that today there is hardly a family over the greater part of Europe that is not grieving bitterly

By the white faces of the women clad in black, whom one sees everywhere in the streets of Berlin and

By the sufferings of faminestricken Poland, ravaged already three or four times in the last two years by

By the awful sufferings of the six or seven million Jews of the Russian Pale, hounded homeless in winter to

and, fro over the frozen earth the old men and women and children perishing of exposure, fatigue, and

By the five or six million actual combatants already slain; and, the strange spectacle of millions of Women

(over half a million in Britain, more in France, multitudes in Germany and America) manufacturing

mandestroying explosive shells in ceaseless stream by day and night; (And it is estimated that on the

average some fifty shells are expended for every one man slain) By the terrified faces as of drowning men

of those suffering in countless hospitals from shellshock; by their trembling hands and, limbs and

By the curses of the tenderhearted friend who collects in Noman'sland between the lines the scattered

fragments of his comrade's body the dabs of flesh, the hand, the head he knows so well, a boot with a foot

By the silent stupefaction of wives and mothers trying vainly to picture to themselves a death which cannot

be pictured; by the insane laughter of those who having witnessed these things can no longer weep;

By the beach at Gallipoli covered with the prostrate and writhing forms of men exhausted and emaciated with

dysentery, who have crawled down from the hills only to lie out there in the terrible sun tormented with flies

and thirst, or to shiver through the frosty night, waiting for the tardy arrival of the Hospital Ship;

By the hundreds of bodies thrown at the last into the sea at sunrise, for their unceremonious end;

And each poor body for all its loathsome state so loved, so loved by some one far away;

By the dear Lord who in the beautiful legend descended for three days into Hell that he might redeem

By the growth and expansion of Science (God forgive the word!) which will inevitably make each future war

By the cry of the black and coloured peoples of the Earth who have for long enough already said how hard

and cruel the faces of the white men seemed to them, and who now think how black their souls are;

By the hardness of heart, the insensitiveness of a certain kind, which during a century or more now has been

By the habitual betrayal, through long periods of 'prosperity' and `peace,' of men by their fellows of the

weak by the powerful, of the generous by the mean, of the simple and thoughtless by the crafty and selfish;

By the huge dividends declared by Armament Firms; by the international agreements of these firms with one

By the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of innocent folk trampled underfoot in the ditch of competition,

By the treacherous internal warfare of the ordinary industrial life of every country, the secret betrayal and

murder of bodies and souls for profit at last written out in letters of blood and fire across the continents,

Let the Allies by all means accuse Germany of worldambition and worldplunder, and let the German

people accuse their Prussian lords but let every nation also search its own heart and accuse itself.

For have not the lords of every nation set before themselves the same goal, the goal of worldambition and

glory and 'empire' and plunder? And have not the masspeoples of every nation stood meanly by and

acclaimed the fraud, nor spoken out against it, silently consenting to these things in the prospect of some

Have not all the nations without exception acted meanly and dastardly towards the out lying black races, and

even towards those more civilized peoples whom they thought weaker than themselves and now in the

stress of war are they not finding that their own rights and liberties are being slowly filched from them?

But the day of glory is departed. The newspapers, it is true, still keep up the phrase. They talk of a battalion

"covering itself with glory." But the men themselves do not talk so. They know too well what it all means.

They see no glory in covering themselves with the blood of their brothers of the opposing trenches; with

They only say: Now that we have begun, we will see it through but it must not be Again.

Never I think in all the history of the world has there been a thing so great in its way as the present British

Army and Navy. This enormous force, raised except for a small remnant by Voluntary enlistment from

all classes of the nation, and inspired more by a general and protective sense towards the Motherland than by

anything else, has fulfilled what it considered to be its duty and its honour with a devotion and a heroism

A young officer said to me one day "Horrible as the whole thing is, yet it almost seems worth while, when

you think of the splendid things done and done too in such a simple matteroffact way: when you think

of all the love and devotion poured out, and the lives our men have given one for the sake of another."

Great indeed is the spirit of such an army, great its magnanimity, its simplicity of mind, its

Yet perhaps the most surprising thing about our men is that they have done all this with so little hatred in

Whatever the Germans may have felt, and whatever the French, the Britishers have just done their fighting in

their own nonchalant way "because they had to" with scarcely a shadow of malice or revenge rather

with that respect for a doughty opponent which always distinguishes the true fighter.

Think of that quaint story (Between The Lines, by Boyd Cable, pp 188 ff) of the German Burschen in their

trenches, singing with pious enthusiasm the Song of Hate (probably commanded and compelled, poor devils,

to sing it) and our men for days secretly listening, learning the words, practicing the tune on their muffled,

mouthorgans; till having got it all complete they one morning, burst it forth in full chorus on the astonished

Teutons, nor failed at the end to blaze out "Gott strafe England" at the top of, their voices as if they really

meant it and then subsided into a roar of laughter. They simply would not take the German "Hate"

Well, what can an enemy do with such an army? It would seem indeed to be invincible.

The other surprising thing about this Army is (but it is also in part true of the Russians and others) that the

members of it not only bear so little malice in their heart of hearts against the enemy, but that all the time

they (or ninetenths of them) are giving their lifeblood, for a Country which in hardly any available or

Not one man of ours in ten, probably not one in a hundred, has any direct rights or interest in his native soil;

and the Motherland has too often (at any rate in the past) turned out a stepmother who disowned him later

He is told that he is fighting for his country, but he finds that his real privilege is to die at the foot of a

Trespassboard on some rich man's estate, singing bravely to the last that "Britons never, never shall be

slaves!" He is told that he is defending his hearth and his home, and to prove that that is so, he is sent out on a

far campaign to further some dubious scheme in Mesopotamia! I think we cannot refuse to say that the

good temper and they singleheartedness and the single mindedness of the British soldier are beyond all

But, in another way, how admirable and how great has the French soldier proved himself to be!

The passion of Patriotism, the sheer love of their own country (in the case of the French, more truly "their

own" than in the case of the British) has swept through France in a wave of devotion which consumed in its

flame, one may almost say, the energies and the treasures of every household. To protect their beautiful land,

their divine mistress, from violation by the German hordes was a thing for which all men artists, literary

When at Meaux the French army (reorganized and reinforced) broke through the German centre and fell upon

Von Kluck's left flank (his right being already threatened by the French Sixth Army), they were surely not

men who fought, but spirits rather many of them almost ghosts, white with the fatigues and privations of a

long retreat; but to save their beloved Paris they faced the enemy with a fury that nothing could resist.

A miracle was wrought (talk of Angels at Mons, it was Devils at Meaux), and Germany in that moment was

Think of Lieutenant Pericard who in a trench full of corpses at Boisbrule cried, suddenly entranced, in a

loud voice, "Debout les morts!" and in a moment, as it were, the souls of their dead comrades were around his

When again at Verdun week after week and month after month the French army endured tine almost hourly

massattacks of the enemy battalions and the deluge of their shells (eight million shells, it is estimated the

Germans threw in ten weeks), it still, though heavily punished, stood solid, and the whole of France stood

solid behind it. France never doubted the conclusion; and the conclusion was never doubtful.

We have spoken of `glory,' but the day of ` la gloire ' has departed. France herself has ceased to speak of it

and there can be no better proof than that, of the change that has come over the minds of men .

France has emerged from the War a changed nation. The people who in 1870 made ribald verses and sang

cynical songs over the plight of their country are now no more, and France emerges serious, resolute, to the

great work which she has before her of building the great first Democratic State of Europe and becoming

And what shall we say of the German army? (In the moment and merely for the sake of brevity I leave the

When I think of the great German army now scattered over Europe, fighting along that immense line

(including the Austrian portion) of some 1,400 miles in extent; when I think of this on the whole so

wonderfully goodhearted, genial, sociable people, these regiments of Westphalians, Wurtemburgers, Saxons,

Bavarians, Hungarians, these men and boys from the fields and farms of Posen and Pomerania, the forests of

Thuringia, the vineyards of the Rhine or the vegetable gardens of the Palatinate, these students from the

Universities and scholars from the Technical Schools; plunged in this insane War, fighting in very truth for

they know not what, and pouring out their lifeblood, like water in obedience to the longprepared schemes

They have been told they are fighting to save their Fatherland. And as far as our argument is concerned it

does not matter how falsely they have been instructed or what grain of actual truth there may be in the

The point is that the vast majority of them believe this to be true; and they too, dear children, are giving their

lives for their hearths and homes they too are leading this hateful existence in trenches and mines, called

to it by what seems to them a good conscience, and carried onward (in company with those they have left at

However we may, blame the German High Command and certainly we must blame those in power, who

over such a long period deliberately prepared this war, and at the last so suddenly launched it upon Europe.

However we may blame the German High Command, we cannot refuse to acknowledge the really great

qualities of their general Army: its extraordinary courage and devotion, its versatility and resource.

As to its goodheartedness, that is proved by the endless stories of spontaneous friendliness shown by the

German troops even to their enemies, the individual rapprochements on occasions, the succour to the

wounded, the Christmas songs and celebrations, and by the fact of advances of this kind so often coming first

As to its good sense, that element certainly has not been wanting. Among the stories' abovementioned as

coming from the Front is one which I have every reason to believe is true. The Saxons one day, in their

trenches thirty or forty yards away, put up a blackboard on which was written: "The English are fools!" The

board was of course peppered with bullets, and went drown. Presently it reappeared with "The French are

fools!" written on it. Being duly peppered again it went down, and came up with "The Russians are fools!"

Same treatment. But when it, or a similar board, appeared for the fourth time, lo! the inscription was "The

Austrians are fools!"; and when it appeared for the fifth time, "The Germans are fools!"; and the sixth time,

And to think that the insane policy of a Government or Governments should bring about the wholesale

To think that the longer such a war goes on, the less heroic and generous it becomes, and the more dominated

by hatred and revenge by the wish to score a military victory or the desire to secure mere political and

To think that nations who consider themselves civilized should be thus acting: so contrary to the natural laws

and instincts of humanity that often in order for a bayonet charge men must be primed with liquor to the

Of the three great nations primarily involved those indeed of which we can speak most confidently, knowing

them best it is intolerable to think they should thus mutilate and destroy each other.

When one thinks of the whole dread Coil and Entanglement, and, what it is for, the mind reels in despair.

When one thinks of the marvellous scientific ingenuity and skill, directed in a kind of diabolic concentration

Of the huge guns, the 12.5's, weighing 40 tons apiece, and boxed and rifled to the nicety of the thousandth

Of the larger 15 in. guns, with range of 13 or 14 miles, so accurate that the shells thrown at that distance will

deviate hardly a couple of yards to the right hand or the left of their line of fire (and in the Jutland battle the

Of the shells themselves varying from a few pounds to nearly, a ton in weight, and so delicately fashioned

that the moment of their explosion can be positively timed to the tenth part of a second:

When one thinks of the ingenuity put into aeroplanes and airships, and almost entirely with a view to the

Of the automatic steering of submarine torpedoes by means of gyroscopes, so that when deviated by any

obstacle or accident from their set course they will actually return of themselves to that course again;

Of the everlasting duel going on in any one country between armour plates and projectiles but of course

always between the armour plates of one firm and the projectiles of another (since obviously for any one firm

Of the competition even now in progress between the Russian universities for the invention of a new

Of the weighty Advisory Committee of scientific Experts sitting permanently in Britain for the discussion

When one thinks of what a Paradise all this ingenuity, all this expenditure of labour and treasure, might make

That Great Britain alone has already spent on the War enough to provide every family in the whole kingdom

When further one thinks of all the mass of human material there is, such as we have already described of

the very finest quality, and fit to build the most splendid races and cities "the sun ever shone upon" and

How heartrending the waste and the folly! How disgusting the sin of those who are responsible!

But today surely the armies themselves of these three countries are beginning to see through the illusions

which have been dangled before then so long by those in power the "Mycountry rightorwrong"

kind of Patriotism which has so often been evoked only in order to serve the plots of private schemers;

They are surely beginning to see that the directing of Statepolicy and foreign relations must no longer be left

in the hands of a few highborn diplomats (mostly ignorant of the actual modern world amid which they live),

but must be subject to the severest scrutiny and surveillance by the people at large and their representatives;

They are beginning to see that if courage, devotion to an Idea, love of the Father or Motherland, Fidelity of

comrade to comrade, Efficiency, daring in Adventure, exactness in Organization, and so forth, are the

qualities which in the past have made the profession of arms great and glorious, it is these very qualities

which will be demanded and evoked for all future time in the great free armies of Industry.

For with the cessation of Militarism as the leading principle of national life must inevitably come the

liberation of Industry else the last state of our societies will indeed be worse than the first.

Truly there is nothing very exhilarating about Industry as it has in modern times been conceived, and one

does not altogether wonder that all down the centuries the man with the sword has despised the man with the

But when once Labour is freed or rather when once it frees itself from the thraldom, of the old Feudal

system, and finally from the fearful burden of modern Capitalism when once it can lift its head and see the

great constructive vision of the new society which awaits it then surely it will perceive that all the great

qualities we have named as exhibited in the past in the old destructive Warfare, and now become the splendid

heritage of the peoples of Europe, will be necessary and will have a field for their exercise in the beneficent

constructive conquests of Nature and the building up on Earth of that great City of the Sun which for so many

And of the old mad Warfare it will then say This odious and inhuman Thing must never be again!

I think we may see that the new conception of life will only come through the peeling off in the various

nations of the old husks of the diplomatic, military, legal, and commercial classes, with their antiquated,

narrowminded and profoundly. irreligious and inhuman standards those husks which have so long

It will only come with the determination of the workers (that is, of everybody) to produce things useful,

profitable, and beautiful, in free and rational cooperation things useful because deliberately made for

use, things profitable for all because not made for the gain of the few, and things beautiful because of the joy

Simultaneously with this peeling off, of the Old, and disclosure of the New, will of necessity appear

indeed it is taking shape already the blossom of international solidarity and federation the common cause

Naturally such process will not mature all at once. It may, bit that the four Western nations, England, France,

Italy and Belgium, combining with some of the neutral States, will constitute the first European Federationor

at any rate the nucleus of a Federation destined, as it expands to absorb within its borders Germany herself

(of course when she shall have taken on her true republican form) and the other States in due succession.

Such Federation when firmly consolidated might, it is not unlikely, still retain for a long period a military

system, of some kind, if only for its own protection against outlying and non European dangers; but that

military system would be small and secondary. It right reasonably be no more dominant or meddlesome than

the military system of China has been during the last thousand years in comparison with the massive

Meanwhile let us remember how important it is for the future of the world that each nation and people should

be free to contribute its special quality and character to the whole; nor be riddenover roughshod by the

That each should contribute, in Trade or otherwise, its special gifts or facilities; and that the Internationalism

which already rules in labour affairs and in Commerce and Science and Fashion and Finance and

Philanthropy and Literature and Art and Music, should at last be recognized in Politics.

Let us further remember how important it is that every man and woman should insist on the rights of

Personality to preserve sacred his or her most intimate sense of selfness and duty the very, essence of

Though I do not, for instance, think that a refusal to fight under any condition or circumstance can reasonably

be maintained to its logical conclusion, and though I certainly would not engage myself to refuse to fight in

any and every case. Still, I do honour and respect the genuine conscientious objectors (of whom there are

Some of them may, be narrowminded and faddist (as conscience often is), but let us remember that the great

It was they who barred and broke the gladiatorial games at Rome; it was they, who, steered the "Mayflower"

And it is they, who are possibly sowing the seed a great Movement which will spread all over Europe, and

ultimately by opposing compulsory military service inaugurate a worldera of Peace. (For certainly, without

Conscription the Continental Powers would never have become involved in the present war)

Let us recognize the right and the duty of each man to ponder these worldproblems for himself: to play his

Let us recognize the falsity of Science divorced from the Heart, and begin today to create a political, an

economic, and a material world which shall be the true and satisfying expression of the real human soul;

Let us acknowledge even at the last that the War may have been a, necessary evil to show us by contrast the

Let us render, homage to those who have given their lives in it; let us vow that their great sacrifice shall not

Let us believe that Love, not Hatred, is the power by which in the end the World will be saved;

And let us pray that a Heroism equal to that, shown today in the cause of Destruction may urge us in the

future towards a great and glorious Constructive era in social life and inspire us with a new hope:

Out of purgatory to build a paradise, in which the ugliness, vulgarity, sordidness and cruelty of the present