Lapas attēli
PDF
ePub

B

COL. ROOSEVELT ON SOLDIERLY LIFE
LIFE AND
AND DEATH

ESIDES DYING FOR HIS COUNTRY, Lieut. Quentin Roosevelt may be said to have left an imperishable message, for so is the interpretation placed upon the editorial written by Colonel Roosevelt, his father, in the October Metropolitan. As a purely literary expression the Colonel has

Copyrighted by French Pictorial Service.

high happiness of family life, who dare not beget and bear and rear the life that is to last when they are in their graves, have broken the chain of creation, and have shown that they are unfit for companionship with the souls ready for the Great Adventure. "The wife of a fighting soldier at the front recently wrote as follows to the mother of a gallant boy, who at the front had

HERE RESTS ON THE FIELD OF HONOR, 1ST LIEUT. QUENTIN ROOSEVELT,

AIR SERVICE.

The grave here shown has been redecorated by Americans, and will be so guarded until the end of the war.

perhaps rarely risen higher, and so, in a literary sense, too, his effort, as the content of his message, is "The Great Adventure." "Only these are fit to live," he writes, "who do not fear to die; and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life." His words are not only an interpretation of the soul of the soldier, but they are a revelation of the hearts of those who are making an equal sacrifice in seeing their bestbeloved go to fight and perhaps to die, and take the sacrifice as a part of the proof of the fitness to live. The Colonel proceeds:

"Both life and death are parts of the same Great Adventure. Never yet was worthy adventure worthily carried through by the man who put his personal safety first. Never yet was a country worth living in unless its sons and daughters were of that stern stuff which bade them die for it at need; and never yet was a country worth dying for unless its sons and daughters thought of life not as something concerned only with the selfish evanescence of the individual, but as a link in the great chain of creation and causation, so that each person is seen in his true relations as an essential part of the whole, whose life must be made to serve the larger and continuing life of the whole. Therefore it is that the man who is not willing to die, and the woman who is not willing to send her man to die, in a war for a great cause, are not worthy to live. Therefore it is that the man and woman who in peace time fear or ignore the primary and vital duties and the

fought in high air like an eagle, and, like an eagle, fighting had died: 'I write these few linesnot of condolence, for who would dare to pity you?--but of deepest sympathy to you and yours as you stand in the shadow which is the earthly side of those clouds of glory in which your son's life has just passed. Many will envy you that when the call to sacrifice came you were not found among the paupers to whom no gift of life worth offering had been entrusted. They are the ones to be pitied, not we whose dearest are jeoparding their lives unto the death in the high places of the field., I hope my two sons will live as worthily and die as greatly as yours.'

"There spoke one dauntless soul to another! America is safe while her daughters are of this kind; for their lovers and their sons can not fail as long as beside the hearthstones stand such wives and mothers. And we have many, many such women; and their men are like unto them. "No nation can be great unless its sons and daughters have in them the quality to rise level to the needs of heroic days. No army was ever great unless its soldiers possest the fighting edge. So likewise the citizenship of any country is worthless unless in a crisis it shows the spirit of the two million Americans who in this mighty war have eagerly come forward to serve under the banner of the Stars, afloat and ashore, and of the other millions who would now be beside them overseas if the chance had been given them; and yet such spirit will in the long run avail nothing unless in the years of peace the average man and average woman of the duty-performing type realize that the highest of all duties, the one essential duty, is the duty of perpetuating the family life, based on the mutual love and respect of the one man and the one woman and on their purpose to rear the healthy and fine-souled children whose coming into life means that the family, and therefore the nation, shall continue in life and shall not end in a sterile death."

With the implicit duty to die for country which accompanies all citizenship, the Colonel rates the other duty to provide the men upon whom the burden is laid. And here again he reverts to his often-preached doctrine of the family:

"Unless men are willing to fight and die for great ideals. including love of country, ideals will vanish, and the world will become one huge sty of materialism. And unless the women of ideals bring forth the men who are ready thus to live and die, the world of the future will be filled by the spawn of the unfit. Alone of human beings the good and wise mother stands on a plane of equal honor with the bravest soldier, for she has gladly gone down to the brink of the chasm of darkness to bring back the children in whose hands rests the future of the years.

[graphic]

But the

[ocr errors]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]

mother, and far more the father, who flinch from the vital task earn the scorn visited on the soldier who flinches in battle. And the nation should by action mark its attitude alike toward the fighter in war and toward the child-bearer in peace and war. The vital need of the nation is that its men and women of the future shall be the sons and daughters of the soldiers of the present. Excuse no man from going to war because he is married, but put all unmarried men above a fixt age at the hardest and most dangerous tasks, and provide amply for the children of soldiers, so as to give their wives the assurance of material safety.

"In such a matter one can only speak in general terms. At this moment there are hundreds of thousands of gallant men eating out their hearts because the privilege of facing death in battle is denied them. So there are innumerable women and men whose undeserved misfortune it is that they have no children, or but one child. These soldiers,

denied the perilous honor they seek, these men and women, heart-hungry for the children of their longing dreams, are as worthy of honor as the men who are warriors in fact, as the women whose children are of flesh and blood. If the only son who is killed at the front has no brother because his parents coldly dreaded to play their part in the Great Adventure of Life, then our sorrow is not for them, but solely for the son who himself dared the Great Adventure of Death. If, however, he is the only son because the Unseen Powers denied others to the love of his father and mother, then we mourn doubly with them because their darling went up to the sword of Azrael, because he drank the dark drink proffered by the Death Angel.

"In America to-day all our people are summoned to service and sacrifice. Pride is the portion only of those who know bitter sorrow or the foreboding of bitter sorrow. But all of us who give service and stand ready for sacrifice are the torch-bearers. We run with the torches until we fall, content if we can then pass them to the hands of other runners. The torches whose flame is brightest are borne by the gallant men at the front and

P

A LEGAL STATUS FOR POETS

ERSONS WRITING POETRY, fiction, and advertisements are officially classified as engaged in "essential industries." Hence their dreams are not to be disturbed by the "work or fight" rules. The New York Tribune looks to the paragrapher to breed "many a merry quip"; yet it finds a settled satisfaction in the fact that "for once the official definition agrees with critical judgment." And it defends the point stedfastly. It might be left for literary historians to determine whether poets were given a legal status before. Other points have been freely debated:

"Much ink has been wasted in debating whether war is a

[graphic]

by the gallant women whose husbands and lovers, whose sons and brothers are at the front. These men are high of soul as they face their fate on the shell-shattered earth or in the skies above or in the waters beneath; and no less high of soul are the women with torn hearts and shining eyes, the girls whose boy lovers have been struck down in their golden morning, and the mothers and wives to whom word has been brought that henceforth they must walk in the shadow."

HISTORY IN THE MAKING-Nothing will be left to the chance recollections of capricious memories for the records of this war. While history is making, it is also being recorded, as this London dispatch to the New York Times shows:

"It was Canada which first set the example of how to glean history from the débris of the battle-field. . . . Photography, sketching, and painting have a big share in the task of recording the war, France having set an example for pictorial efficiency with its Mission des Beaux-Arts.

"Up and down the front among the battalions go special officers, giving instructions to battalion headquarters how to write their official war-diaries, which are supposed to be accurate chronicles of the doings of the battalion month by month. If a big event occurs the battalions concerned chronicle their part in it, the narrative being signed by the commanding officer. Then the diaries are sent to headquarters, where they are filed, tabulated, and preserved by the historical section."

stimulus to poetry, whether it inspires great poetry. It is often hard in these cases to trace cause and effect. Yet it is plain that an epoch characterized by an awakening of national consciousness feeds the imagination. Thus the Great Armada preceded and in some sense was responsible for the great Elizabethans. But we need not consider the matter too curiously. "Tis verse that gives immortal youth to mortal maids' and to many other mortal things besides. Whether the poets themselves live in war-time or peace time, they write much of war.

"Whether the present conflict will produce a Battle of Agincourt' or even a 'Battle of the Baltic' (we can hardly expect an 'Iliad') is a question that only the future can answer. But it has already produced some excellent verse. In fact, without attempting to say how large a part of this crosses the intangible and often imaginary line between verse and poetry, it must be admitted that many even of the fugitive contributions of this sort to the newspapers reach a high degree of merit. In sincerity of feeling, in felicity of construction, in beauty of expression, these utterances of poets known and unknown reveal a widely diffused talent, if no transcendent genius. And it is to be said that even where technical skill has been lacking the reality of the emotion behind the words has had a very genuine effect in uplifting the hearts or stiffening the courage of thousands of readers.

"Nor is this all. The craftsmen in this essential industry have not asked for exemption from the burdens of the time. Some of the best of this poetry of war has come from camp and field. Such brave examples of youth ready to sacrifice all

[blocks in formation]

May we not say that this flight to Vienna, this hovering over the city, this rain, not of explosive bombs, but of white leaflets, gently fluttering down through the blue mist, was one of the supreme flourishes of the war? For a parallel let us go to d'Annunzio's own record. He flew over Trieste just three years ago. Then also he carried leaflets. Courage, my brothers,' they began; 'courage and constancy! . . . The Italian flag will be placed on the arsenal and the Col San Giusto. The end of your grievances is near, and joy is imminent.' Not so imminent as the poet thought, but the day will come even yet. And he carried with him leaflets on yet another occasion. That was early in the present year, when three motor-launches and three seaplanes forced their way into the narrow Bay of Bucchari, torpedoed a ship at anchor, and left floating on the water three bottles, flaming with the gay colors of Italy. The bottles contained a message: 'The Italian Navy laughs at every kind of net and barricade, and is always ready to dare the impossible. With

Daily Telegraph in the case of Capt. Gabriele d'Annunzio. His flight over Vienna was noted with American comment in our issue of August 31, and the message he dropt from the skies was given in a translation from Il Progresso Italo-Americano (New York). The London Telegraph hails d'Annunzio's exploit as "Brooke's phrase translated into action-poetic action-a true theme for an exultant outburst of lyrical song." The mere triumph over nature-"seven hundred miles, with two crossings of the snowy Alps and the head of the stormy Adriatic"-is achievement enough, remarks the astonished writer; but "it is the airman himself and the idea of the exploit, and its perfect finish and artistry, which raise it to its peculiar pinnacle." We read:

"Others went with him and shared the dangers. But it is to d'Annunzio's name that the legend will be attached; the feat will be his for all time. It is a great thing for a poet to have personality; it is a great thing also for a poet with personality to belong to a nation like the Italian, which adores temperament, enthusiasm, and what to our more phlegmatic race seems sheer theatricality. D'Annunzio is a master of the ground flourish.

them has come as companion one whom you well know, your principal enemy and the most bitter; to laugh at the price you have placed on his head-Gabriele d'Annunzio.' Again the unmistakable flourish, the true sign-manual of the temperamentalist who lives for his emotions and for the sense of living, and asks that every moment shall be fully charged with consciousness. Contrast the British affair of the Mole at Zeebrugge! The British way is to underline the wordless message with a parting shot: but the Italian flourish has a picturesque flavor of its own.

"Moreover, they tell stories in Italy of d'Annunzio's exploits in the field at the beginning of the war, when he sought death and found it not as a junior officer with his regiment. Infantryman, motor - boat passenger, indomitable flier-there is a superb record for a luxury-loving poet, who, when the war broke out, had passed his fiftieth birthday. D'Annunzio is now fifty-four years of age, and he said to a friend the other day: 'Every time I go off on an expedition I hope it will be my last. That is the reason of my fearlessness. The finest end I wish for is to die for my country.""

The Telegraph is made happy by the reflection that men who dare to speak out their inmost thoughts like that are often denied the boon they crave. It sees the poet's mission in behalf of his countrymen still unfinished:

"D'Annunzio will surely find that he has a message for his countrymen after the war as well worth saying and hearing as when Italy's decision still hung in the balance. It is probably true to say that the burning words which he addrest to his countrymen and countrywomen during those critical days wielded a far more profound influence in Italy than the words of any of her statesmen. A poet in Italy may still be a true maker. There must be many in this country who remember the lyrical frenzy with which he denounced the historic crimes of Austria against Italy at the Garibaldi celebrations at Genoa, and the wild excitement which they created throughout the length and breadth of the Peninsula. And ever since that hour it has been d'Annunzio's high mission to be an example of daring and contempt of death, to keep bright the vision of the Greater Italy in the eyes of those of his countrymen who may have been tempted to despondency by hope long deferred and by unlookedfor misfortunes. To the Italian nation throughout the war d'Annunzio has been a perpetual inspiration. True, he is still looked askance at in certain quarters. Some of his novels figure, we believe, on the 'Index'-but there is brave company even there. Moralists used to shake their heads over much of his work, and, to be quite frank, they could often make out a good case for some of their objections. D'Annunzio was once

[graphic]
[ocr errors]

classed among the Decadents! At least he has outlived that temporary phase. There is nothing suggestive of Decadence in a flight to and from Vienna through seven hundred miles of air. The critics have said of him that he is supreme in his art, but along the lower levels; that his genius does not carry him to the holy places and to the sanctuaries of life; that he is an idealist only of what is seen and heard. But they grant him a magical style, an irresistible eloquence, a wondrous color, and a flaming passion, and since Italy entered the war he has placed all these gifts unreservedly at the service of the land which is still a great mother of men. What our stolid British authorities would have done with a d'Annunzio, if one had happened to be born among us, we do not know. Nor will we speculate. But happy Italy! whose supreme living master of the spoken word is permitted to 'live poetry,' as d'Annunzio has been living it, and to thrill with glorious bursts of patriotic song other nations than his own."

-hero-cellar. To die is 'Krepieren.' The veterinary surgeon is 'der Pferdeschlächter,' and a man who reports himself sick has the extremely epigrammatic title of 'der Aspirinaspirant." Heinie, we are told, has slang names for every sort of troops: "The English soldier is 'Tommy' and 'the footballindian,' which is pretty clumsy. The Russian is known as Ivan and 'the running association'; the French are, among other things, the Ohlalas (derived from the cries of their wounded), the Wulewuhs and the Parlewuhs, which last is a traditional English name for them. The German soldier's descriptions of his food draw freely on words like 'shrapnel' and 'granite'; he calls a

[graphic]

I

GERMAN WAR-SLANG

T IS SAID THAT GERMANS listening in on the lines of the American forces in some sectors would think that the Americans were an army of lunatics, granting that the eavesdroppers had only a knowledge of straight English. The language overheard is a deliberate fabrication and makes sheer nonsense without the key. It is intended to lead "Heinie" astray. This is not, of course, the language of slang, which grows up spontaneously and is full of imaginative color. The German, too, has also evolved a language since the war began, and a scrutiny of the new words gives an interesting insight into the psychology of the inventors. The largest collection of these words has been made by a Frenchman, Mr. René Delcourt, interpreter of the first class and regional interpreter of the eleventh region. His accumulations, made from prisoners and from war-time newspapers and books, is published in Paris under a title which may be translated as "Expressions of German and Austrian Slang." Some weeks ago we gave in this department some specimens of "gun slang"; but from the new work Mr. Solomon Eagle has gleaned for The New Statesman (London) many curious terms in this and in other fields. The book, we are told, divides its subject matter into (1) French Slang, (2) Prewar Barrack Slang, (3) Student Slang, (4) Popular Expressions of Berlin and Alsace, (5) Expressions from Prisoners of War Depots. Mr. Eagle says:

"We begin, for instance, with surnames for various branches of the service. The chasseur is 'der Quak-Quak'; telephonists are 'Bruder von der Quasselstrippe' (chatter-line); automobilists are 'Stinksacke' and 'Benzinhusaren.' Engineers are called, among other things, 'Stinktiere,' 'Stachelschweine,' and 'Erdmännchen'; the gunners are 'die Bummsköpfe.' There is a special name for Landsturmers with many children: Armeolieferanten' (army contractors), and for men in the clothing office there is the cumbersome title of 'Nähmaschinen gewehrabteilung. Among equipment slang is 'der Maulkorb (jawbasket) for the gas-mask, and 'die Gewittertulpe' (storm-tulip) for the steel helmet; and the numerous nicknames for superior officers include 'der Kommissjesus' for chaplain and 'Lieber Gott' for lieutenant. The Iron Cross is 'das Vereinabzeichen.' "The Zeppelin is known as England's Schrecken' (England's Terror). Entente airmen are 'die Habichte' (the hawks), and an airman who comes regularly over the German lines is 'der Stammgast' and 'der Abonnent' (the regular subscriber). . . . Where our men use words like 'crump' and 'Jack Johnson,' the Germans speak of 'schwarze Biester,' 'schwarze Säue,' and Marmeladeneimer.' For shrapnel the Germans use 'Tsching-bum'; and they have onomatopoeic words in great plenty for every sort of missile, starting, in flight, and landing. Our own modern 'whiz-bang' and older 'pompom' are put in the shade by Ratsche-bum,' 'Huhle-huhle,' and others. Our 'Archie' is known as a 'Wau-Wau'; and 'die Bulldogge,' surprizingly, is nothing English, but an Italian gun in southern Tyrol. The many names for a machine gun include 'alte Weibergosche' (gossiping hag), 'Totenorgel' (death-organ), Mähmaschine' (mowing-machine), 'Fleischhackmaschine,' and 'Kaffeemühle' (coffee-mill), a list which illustrates both German romanticism and German realism. A dugout is 'Heldenkeller'

potato a 'field-gray.' (In several of these phrases about food the word 'naplü' appears, which is the German version of 'napoo,' both English and Germans having collared the same French term.) A cigar is a 'gas-bomb,' and cigarets are 'Spreitzen' and 'Stäbchen.'

"For our own arm-chair strategist' the Germans have 'beer-table strategist'; they would. Their soldiers have transformed some French place-names. As ours speak of Wipers and Plugstreet, so theirs speak of Genua (Quesnoy), Neuschrapnell (Neufchatel), and Bärenschiss (Pérenchis). The chalky positions on the Western Front are called 'white-works.' The cavalry call the infantry 'Hurrahkanaille,' another name for the infantry being 'Kilometerschwein.' The infantry retort with 'Flying Dutchmen.' Companies of small men (the analogy is to our own 1914 bantam battalions) are called 'Fummelkork'; also 'Brotbeutelhupser.' Galicia is called Galilee on account of the number of Jews there. To shirk is 'sich aalen.' Naval officers are called-this is queer-die Nelsons'; and, according to Mr. Delcourt, if a German soldier wants to say 'you won't come it over me with your airs,' he says (or did in the barracks before the war) 'du militärisches Kulturschwein.' This phrase might have been concocted by an Englishman knowing no other German words than those, and sounds too good to be true. For the rest I observe that no other two syllables occur anything like so frequently as 'stink' and 'schwein.""

[blocks in formation]

May we not say that this flight to Vienna, this hovering ove city, this rain, not of explosive bombs, but of white lea gently fluttering down through the blue mist, was one of supreme flourishes of the war? For a parallel let us g d'Annunzio's own record. He flew over Trieste just three ago. Then also he carried leaflets. 'Courage, my broth they began; 'courage and constancy!... The Italian flag be placed on the arsenal and the Col San Giusto. The your grievances is near, and joy is imminent.' Not so impr as the poet thought, but the day will come even yet. A carried with him leaflets on yet another occasion. Tha early in the present year, when three motor-launches and seaplanes forced their way into the narrow Bay of Bu torpedoed a ship at anchor, and left floating on the water bottles, flaming with the gay colors of Italy. The bottle tained a message: 'The Italian Navy laughs at every kind and barricade, and is always ready to dare the impossible. them has come as companio whom you well know, your pri enemy and the most bitter; to a at the price you have placed ra head-Gabriele d'Annunzio. A the unmistakable flourish, the sign-manual of the temperant ist who lives for his emotions and the sense of living, and asks i every moment shall be fully char with consciousness. Contras British affair of the Mole at brugge! The British way is to derline the wordless message vi parting shot; but the Italian f has a picturesque flavor of its

[graphic]

Daily Telegraph in the case of Capt. Gabriele d'Annunzio. His flight over Vienna was noted with American comment in our issue of August 31, and the message he dropt from the skies was given in a translation from Il Progresso Italo-Americano (New York). The London Telegraph hails d'Annunzio's exploit as "Brooke's phrase translated into action-poetic action-a true theme for an exultant outburst of lyrical song." The mere triumph over nature-"seven hundred miles, with two crossings of the snowy Alps and the head of the stormy Adriatic"-is achievement enough, remarks the astonished writer; but "it is the airman himself and the idea of the exploit, and its perfect finish and artistry, which raise it to its peculiar pinnacle." We read:

"Others went with him and shared the dangers. But it is to d'Annunzio's name that the legend will be attached; the feat will It is a great thing for a poet to have perbe his for all time. sonality; it is a great thing also for a poet with personality to belong to a nation like the Italian, which adores temperament, enthusiasm, and what to our more phlegmatic race seems sheer theatricality. D'Annunzio is a master of the ground flourish.

"Moreover, they tell storis Italy of d'Annunzio's exploits i field at the beginning of the when he sought death and fo not as a junior officer with his ment. Infantryman, motor passenger, indomitable flier-th a superb record for a luxur poet, who, when the war brok had passed his fiftieth bir D'Annunzio is now fifty-four) of age, and he said to a frien other day: 'Every time I god an expedition I hope it will last. That is the reason of my lessness. The finest end I wi is to die for my country.

[ocr errors]

The Telegraph is made happ the reflection that men who d speak out their inmost though

that are often denied the boo crave. It sees the poet's in behalf of his countryme unfinished:

"D'Annunzio will surely find that he has a message countrymen after the war as well worth saying and hear when Italy's decision still hung in the balance. It is pr true to say that the burning words which he addrest countrymen and countrywomen during those critica wielded a far more profound influence in Italy than the any of her statesmen. A poet in Italy may still,be a true There must be many in this country who remember the frenzy with which he denounced the historic crimes of against Italy at the Garibaldi celebrations at Genoa, wild excitement which they created throughout the lengt breadth of the Peninsula. And ever since that hour it has d'Annunzio's high mission to be an example of daring and tempt of death, to keep bright the vision of the Greater in the eyes of those of his countrymen who may bare tempted to despondency by hope long deferred and by To the Italian nation throughout th d'Annunzio has been a perpetual inspiration. True, be looked askance at in certain quarters. Some of his figure, we believe, on the 'Index'--but there is brave even there. Moralists used to shake their heads over his work, and, to be quite frank, they could often mak good case for some of their objections. D'Annunzio

for misfortunes.

4

« iepriekšējāTurpināt »