Private Peat Part 17

The Royal Irish Constabulary are quite able to cope at this time with any Sinn Fein disturbance which may arise. As far as the true Nationalist or Home Ruler is concerned, he has enlisted in British regiments and is fighting at the front. As far as the Ulsterman is concerned, he has enlisted long ago and is dead already or fighting still. The men of both sides who are over age are enlisted as Home Defense Volunteers, just as are the men of England, Scotland and Wales.

So little is there tyranny over Ireland that when the Conscription Bill was pa.s.sed in the British Imperial Parliament it was enacted only for England, Scotland and Wales. If it had included Ireland some one might have made the accusation of tyranny.

In the United Kingdom there are no less freedom of action, freedom of speech and freedom of the individual than there are in America, and I include Canada in that word. They are as free as we, but they make no talk about it.

The United Kingdom, with the rest of the empire, is fighting to retain her own democracy. If Germany had won during the three years the Allies have held the safety of the world, then the world would have been under the heel of autocracy.

When I enlisted, and before I went over to England, I had no use for the Englishman myself; that was, the Englishman as we knew him in Western Canada. We had had specimens of "Algy boys," of "de Veres" and "Montmorency lads." These, we soon found out, were not the English true to type. They were ne'er-do-wells, remittance men, sent out of the way to the farthest point of the map.

In England we were treated with wonderful hospitality. I began to change my opinion, but not wholly until I reached France. There I met Tommy Atkins--the soldier and the gentleman. There is no cleaner, cooler, better sport on the fighting line than Mr. Atkins. Occasionally when the Irish are in a brilliant charge, when the Scotch punish the enemy with a bit of dogged fighting, it is reported. When the Canadians do a forward sprint the world rings with it. When the English advance and advance again and hold position and hold yet more positions, there is not a whisper of it--not a word.

I have no English blood in my veins, but I believe in fairness, I believe firmly that all the other nations of the empire put together have not done so much as have the English Tommies by themselves.

There has come about a complete change in the Canadian mind in its att.i.tude to the English. If, before this war, there was ever a possibility of our breaking away from the empire, that possibility is now dead--dead and buried beyond recall.

This statement is not made at random. It is a considered sentence. At the Convention of the Great War Veterans' a.s.sociation of Canada, the organization of the men returned from the world war, I was a delegate from my home town of Edmonton, Alberta. The first resolution at our first session was in effect--To propagate the good feeling between the dominions of the empire and between them and the Motherland; to continue the loyalty and devotion which have prompted us to fight for the old Union Jack.

After all, the voice of the men who have fought and bled for their country is the voice of the people.

Every criticism leveled at England or any other Ally from this side of the Atlantic is to throw a German stink-bomb for the Kaiser.

Feuds remembered are thoughts which are futile. The England of to-day is not the England of 1812. It is not possible to blame the man of to-day for the work of his great-grandfather. Read history and find out the nationality of the George who ruled in England in those far distant days.

He was a German, spoke German, and could not read a word of the language of the country on whose throne he sat.

The Lloyd George of ten years ago was the most hated and hooted man in Britain. He is not the Lloyd George of ten years ago to-day, he is the Lloyd George of the present--the most loved and respected man on earth.

The American people and the British are fundamentally alike. They are of the one stock. They have the same ideals and principles. If the English did not make sacrifices in other days, to-day they are making a sacrifice as great, or maybe greater, than others of the Allies.

The joining of the peoples of America and Britain in a tie which can never be broken is imminent. The knot is in the making.

In keeping with the dastardly methods of "frightfulness" in Europe, the German propagandist has thought on this side to strike at the women--to terrify the mothers.

It is terribly hard for women to let their men go. We know that. Our women know it, but they are ashamed should one of their men attempt to hold back.

The German lie-mongers whisper: "It is the last time you will see your boy.

It is certain death on the western front."

It is not so. The Canadian troops altogether have used up some four hundred fifty thousand in three years. Of this number, in the three years of severe fighting, only five per cent. have been killed. Of the four and a half million, approximately, who have been wounded in the fighting of three years, only two and a half per cent. have died of their wounds.

It is bad enough, but it is not nearly so bad as the German scare manufacturer would seek to make out. Boys come through without a scratch.

Not many, certainly, but they come through. There is every reason to believe that you will get your boy back. There is still more reason to believe that if you hold that thought before him while he is still with you, and hold that thought before yourself when he is gone, he will come back.

Women have a tremendous responsibility in this war. Wars are always women's wars, mothers' wars. We boys have courage and we need it, but we also need the greater courage of those women we have left behind to back us up. They have to bear the brunt of the war, which to them is a fight of endurance and eternal, everlasting waiting--waiting--waiting.

Do not think of the sorrow of his leaving, think of the pride of his going.

The martial spirit is not actively abroad on this side of the Atlantic yet.

Wait till the boys get over to France; wait till they see the outrages on women and on nature, and all the blood of their fighting ancestors will boil with indignation and rage. They will thank G.o.d that they have come to prevent such a devastation on the soil of their own homeland.

In the trenches the boys compare the merits of their mothers. It is a wonderful thing, that spirit of mother love which surrounds us, blesses us and leads us on to higher things. We gather together in the trench and we talk of mother--mother--mother. The lad whose mother cried and fainted when he left quietly drops out from the group. We always know him. He is just a tiny bit afraid that we will ask him how his mother sent him off. He never shows his letters from home, because it is possible that she writes him laments and moanings. He is ashamed. But those of us who have a home courage of which we talk--how we boast! Mother is a mighty factor in the winning of the war.

Out to France we go for Flag and Country. "Over the top" we go for Mother.

And mother, that one simple word, embraces the whole of womanhood.

Remember that your boy is going for you. Talk to the French mother, to the English mother, who has lost all. Ask her about the war, about peace.

"Peace, yes, we all want peace, but not a German peace. If all the menfolk die and there is no one else to go, why, we will carry on!"

And here I want to ask: What is the pacifist in this country doing for peace? Nothing. He is only trying to put off this war, for a worse war.

Every man, woman or child who talks peace before the complete defeat of Germany is a Kaiser agent, spreading German poison gas to the injury and possible destruction of his own countrymen.

Back at home we must have the United Spirit which is inspiring us at the front. After all, it is not the body which is going to take us through to ultimate victory; it is the Spirit. And because American arms ultimately will be the deciding factor in this war, so will American womanhood. From what I have seen already, I have no hesitation in saying that the American mother will be just as true to herself as the English and French mother has been.

Let him go with a smile, and if you can't smile, whistle. You can never know how much it means to him. We at the front are undaunted. If there ever had been a thought of defeat, to-day, with the American arms beside us, we are certain of a sure and glorious victory.

Because we know that if Caesar crossed the Rhine for Rome, and Napoleon crossed it for France and autocracy, so shall we, the Freemen of the world, not only cross the Rhine, but will march even to Berlin for the sake of Liberty, of Love, of Right and of Democracy.

CHAPTER XVII

THE LAST CHAPTER

by

"HERSELF"

War! It was the first of August, 1914, and I almost ran home from the city to tell the news to my people.

War! It was like we'd be in it. War between England and Germany. That war we had all heard of and knew was inevitable. The war of the ages was imminent.

I had been free-lancing in Fleet Street for the past three months. Left _The Daily Chronicle_ over the Home Rule questions, as well as other things.

I was in Ireland for the Ulster gun-running. Ireland was a seething ma.s.s of German-inspired sedition south of the Boyne. The authorities apparently would not listen to the warnings of Ulster. But Ulster was ready for anything. There were hospitals, clearing stations, bases. There were despatch riders, signalers, transport men, all in readiness, besides the ordinary infantry volunteers, who were pledged by all means in their power to keep Ireland under the flag of the Union.

I was in a little country church one Sunday morning. A roll of a drum and the skirl of a fife came wafting across the valley on the April breeze. The minister paused a moment in his sermon. Two, three, half a dozen men rose and softly left. They were going to the rendezvous in case of alarm. No one knew what might happen. A conflagration might flare out at a moment's notice.

But in August there came war, real war. Civilization was threatened. Ulster handed over men, guns, ammunition, hospitals and nurses to the Imperial government. Hundreds of the Ulster Volunteers in the Ulster Division have died for Britain. Hundreds of the men south of the Boyne who have not been bitten with the microbe of revolution, and a mistaken idea that England is a tyrant, have died for the cause of world Liberty.

How we lived through those first electric four days of August! Would the Liberal government funk? We doubted them unjustly. Then came the devastation of Belgium, and Britain gave Germany its disappointment--Britain declared war. Ireland rallied round the brave old Union Jack; the colonies, rather we call them now the dominions overseas, India, Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the smaller islands, sent word that they were with us to a man.

And then the fight commenced. Those casualty lists of the first Imperial Army! G.o.d in Heaven! The thud of distant guns, and then nearer and nearer we could hear in London the rumble of the enemy artillery as though of thunder. Smoke drifted over, and we lived in a pall of death.

It was in October that Fate's apparent working showed itself.

"This war will alter our lives very greatly," said my aunt one evening in this month, as we sat around the fire. We have all a trace of second sight.

Most old families of the north of Ireland can claim to be "fey."