T WAR

I

FOREWORD

In publishing these collected articles in book form (the result of my
visits to Flanders, the battlefields of France and divers of the
great munition centres), some of which have already appeared in the
press both in England and America, I do so with a certain amount of
diffidence, because of their so many imperfections and of their
inadequacy of expression. But what man, especially in these days, may
hope to treat a theme so vast, a tragedy so awful, without a sure
knowledge that all he can say must fall so infinitely far below the
daily happenings which are, on the one hand, raising Humanity to a
godlike altitude or depressing it lower than the brutes. But, because
these articles are a simple record of what I have seen and what I
have heard, they may perhaps be of use in bringing out of the
shadow--that awful shadow of "usualness" into which they have
fallen--many incidents that would, before the war, have roused the
world to wonder, to pity and to infinite awe.

Since the greater number of these articles was written, America has
thrown her might into the scale against merciless Barbarism and
Autocracy; at her entry into the drama there was joy in English and
French hearts, but, I venture to think, a much greater joy in the
hearts of all true Americans. I happened to be in Paris on the
memorable day America declared war, and I shall never forget the
deep-souled enthusiasm of the many Americans it was my privilege to
know there. America, the greatest democracy in the world, had at last
taken her stand on the side of Freedom, Justice and Humanity.

As an Englishman, I love and am proud of my country, and, in the
years I spent in America, I saw with pain and deep regret the
misunderstanding that existed between these two great nations. In
America I beheld a people young, ardent, indomitable, full of the
unconquerable spirit of Youth, and I thought of that older country
across the seas, so little understanding and so little understood.

And often I thought if it were only possible to work a miracle, if it
were only possible for the mists of jealousy and ill-feeling, or
rivalry and misconception to be swept away once and for all--if only
these two great nations could be bonded together by a common ideal,
heart to heart and hand to hand, for the good of Humanity, what
earthly power should ever be able to withstand their united strength.
In my soul I knew that the false teaching of history