The unwholesome part of this particular form of national pride has, we may hope, left us for good. (It has now, incidentally, infected the Bulgarians, who say to-day that the Western nations can only fight in the trenches, and that in the open field one Bulgar is equal to five French or English.) We began to learn the folly of it even before the war. Sous-lieutenant Carpentier, of the French air-service, taught us a few lessons. So did Jack Johnson—though he was only a nigger. So did the football teams from Africa and New Zealand, though they were only Colonials, and so did our competitors in the Olympic Games, though they were only foreigners. But more than anything else, it is the war that has been and must be still our tutor. It is teaching us the lesson which cock-sure St. Peter (who must surely have had English blood in his veins) learnt long ago at Joppa—that nothing is common or unclean. It is teaching us that we must get rid of the kind of Lucifer pride that goes before a fall. It is teaching us to respect not only our Allies and our foes, but each other. We have found out that the whole of Europe can fight. As a body of soldiers, General French’s contemptible little army, which was sent to fill the gap at Mons, was probably the finest fighting force, regimental officers, non-commissioned officers, and men, that ever stepped on to a field of battle. But it was we non-combatants who wore most of their laurels. At the beginning of this war and in all previous wars, in our complacent English way, we have always thought and talked of our regular army (when any part of it was at war) as though it were actually the nation, instead of only a minute fraction of it, as though it was we ourselves who were doing the fighting. We have a better right to our national pride now that the Government of the nation has decided and the nation (or most of it) has willingly agreed that at least all its unmarried men of military age shall be trained not only to defend their country but to take their stand beside the other allied nations in their battle for something that is far greater and more sacred and more important than the very greatest of them.
Photograph by Libert-Fernand, Nancy. CHURCH AT DROUVILLE—MEURTHE ET MOSELLE ]
