The World War and What was Behind It | Page 5

poor man was worth
considering. In England, a country which allows its people more voice
in the government than almost any other nation in Europe, it is only
within the last thirty years that all men could vote. There are some
European countries, like Turkey, where the people have practically no
power at all and others, like Austria, where they have very little voice
in how they shall be governed.
For over a thousand years, the men of Europe have obeyed without
thinking when their lords and kings have ordered them to pick up their
weapons and go to war. In many instances they have known nothing of
the causes of the conflict or of what they were fighting for. A famous
English writer has written a poem which illustrates how little the
average citizen has ever known concerning the cause of war, and shows
the difference between the way in which war was looked upon by the
men of old and the way in which one should regard it. The poem runs
as follows:

THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM
It was a summer evening, Old Kaspar's work was done, And he before
his cottage door Was sitting in the sun, And by him sported on the
green His little grandchild Wilhelmine.
She saw her brother Peterkin Roll something large and round, Which
he beside the rivulet In playing there had found, He came to ask what
he had found That was so large and smooth and round.
Old Kaspar took it from the boy, Who stood expectant by; And then the
old man shook his head, And, with a natural sigh-- "'Tis some poor
fellow's skull," said he, "Who fell in the great victory.
"I find them in the garden, For there's many hereabout; And often when
I go to plow, The plowshare turns them out! For many a thousand
men," said he, "Were slain in the great victory."
"Now tell us what 'twas all about," Young Peterkin he cries; And little
Wilhelmine looks up With wonder-waiting eyes-- "Now tell us all
about the war, And what they fought each other for."
"It was the English," Kaspar cried, "Who put the French to rout; But
what they fought each other for I could not well make out; But
everybody said," quoth he, "That 'twas a famous victory.
"My father lived at Blenheim then, Yon little stream hard by; They
burnt his dwelling to the ground, And he was forced to fly; So with his
wife and child he fled, Nor had he where to rest his head.
"They say it was a shocking sight After the field was won-- For many
thousand bodies here Lay rotting in the sun; But things like that, you
know, must be After a famous victory.
"Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won, And our good Prince
Eugene." "Why,'twas a very wicked thing!" Said little Wilhelmine.
"Nay, nay, my little girl," quoth he, "It was a famous victory.

"And everybody praised the duke Who this great fight did win." "But
what good came of it at last?" Quoth little Peterkin. "Why, that I cannot
tell," said he; "But 'twas a famous victory."
--Robert Southey.
Old Kaspar, who has been used to such things all his life, cannot feel
the wickedness and horror Of the battle. The children, on the other
hand, have a different idea of war. They are not satisfied until they
know what it was all about and what good came of it, and they feel that
"it was a very wicked thing." If the men in the armies had stopped to
ask the reason why they were killing each other and had refused to fight
until they knew the truth, the history of the world would have been very
different.
One reason why we still have wars is that men refuse to think for
themselves, because it is so much easier to let their dead ancestors
think for them and to keep up customs which should have been
changed ages ago. People in Europe have lived in the midst of wars or
preparation for wars all their lives. There never has been a time when
Europe was not either a battlefield or a great drill-ground for armies.
There was a time, long ago, when any man might kill another in Europe
and not be punished for his deed. It was not thought wrong to take
human life. Today it is not considered wrong to kill, provided a man is
ordered to do so by his general or his king. When two kings go to war,
each claiming his quarrel to be a just one, wholesale murder is done,
and each side is made by its government to think itself very virtuous
and wholly justified in its killing. It should be the great aim of