Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  The Germans made another attempt to break through, and nearly succeeded, but they were held. Both armies then dug themselves in, and a new kind of fighting, trench warfare, began. It was a kind of stalemate, and for over three years, and to some extent almost to the end of the war, this trench warfare continued on the western front, and huge armies dug themselves in like moles, and tried to exhaust each other. The German and French armies at this front ran into millions from the very beginning. The little British army, also at this front, grew rapidly till it could also be counted by the million.

  On the eastern or Russian front there was more movement. Russian troops repeatedly defeated the Austrians, but were themselves invariably defeated by the Germans. The losses and casualties on this front were colossal. Do not imagine that at the western front, because of trench warfare, the losses were much less. The lives of men were treated with amazing unconcern, and hundreds of thousands were hurled to certain death in repeated attacks on the entrenched positions, with little result.

  There were many other theatres of war. The Turks tried to attack the Suez Canal, but were repulsed. Egypt, as I have previously told you, was declared a British Protectorate in December 1914, and forthwith Britain suspended the new Legislative Assembly and filled the prisons with people they suspected. Nationalist newspapers were suppressed, and not more than five persons were allowed to meet. The censorship introduced there was described by the London Times as “savagely ruthless”. The country was, indeed, under martial law for the whole of the war period.

  Britain attacked Turkey in many weak places of her ramshackle empire: in Iraq and, later on, in Palestine and Syria. In Arabia the national sentiment of the Arabs was taken advantage of by the British, and an Arab revolt against Turkey organized with the help of liberal bribes of money and material. Colonel T.E. Lawrence, a British agent in Arabia, was largely responsible for this revolt, and later he developed a reputation as a man of mystery, acting behind the scenes of many movements in Asia.

  But the direct attack on the heart of Turkey began in February 1915, when the British fleet tried to force the Dardanelles, and thus to capture Constantinople. If they had succeeded in this, they would not only have put an end to Turkey in the war, but cut off all German influence from western Asia. But they failed. The Turks put up a brave fight and, it is interesting to note, Mustafa Kemal Pasha had a great share in this. For nearly a year the British carried on this attempt in Gallipoli; after great losses they retired.

  The German colonies in western and eastern Africa were also attacked by the Allies. These colonies were quite cut off from Germany and could not receive help. Gradually they succumbed. In China the German concession of Kiauchau was easily taken possession of by Japan. Japan, indeed, had a very easy time, as there was little doing in the Far East. So she tried to improve the occasion by bullying and threatening China into giving her all manner of valuable concessions and privileges.

  Italy, for many months, watched the course of the war and tried to make out which side would win. Having decided at last that the chances of victory lay with the Allies, she agreed to the bribes they offered her and a secret pact was concluded. In May 1915 Italy formally joined the Allies in the war. For two years the Italians and the Austrians pegged away at each other without great results. Then the Germans came to help the Austrians, and the Italians collapsed before them. The Austro-German army almost reached Venice.

  Bulgaria joined Germany in October 1915. Soon after this the Austro-German army, co-operating with Bulgaria, crushed Serbia completely. The Serbian ruler with the remnants of his army had to leave the country and take refuge in Allied ships, and Serbia came under German rule.

  Rumania had a special reputation for opportunism after her conduct in the Balkan wars. For two years she watched the course of the Great War, and ultimately, in August 1916, she threw in her lot with the Allies. Swift punishment came upon her, and the German army swept down upon her and crushed all resistance. Rumania also passed under Austro-German occupation.

  So the Central Powers, Germany and Austria, came to occupy Belgium and a part of France in the north-east, and Poland, Serbia, and Rumania. In many of the minor theatres of the war they had triumphed. But the heart of the struggle lay on the western front and on the seas, and they were making no progress there. On that front the rival armies lay locked in the embrace of death. On the seas the Allies were supreme. Some German cruisers in the early days of the war had roamed about interfering with the shipping of the Allies. One of these was the famous Emden, which even bombarded Madras. But this was a petty diversion which made no difference to the fact that the Allies controlled the sea-routes. And with the help of this control they had tried to cut off the Central Powers from all food and other material from outside. This blockade of Germany and Austria was a terrible ordeal for them, for food grew scarce and hunger stared the whole population in the face.

  Germany, on the other hand, started sinking the ships of the Allies by means of submarines. This submarine warfare was so successful that England’s food supply was reduced and there was danger of famine. In May 1915 a German submarine sank the great English Atlantic liner Lusitania, and a large number of people were drowned in this. Many Americans also went down in her, and there was much indignation in America because of it.

  Germany also attacked England by the air. Huge Zeppelin airships came on moonlit nights to throw bombs on London and places where there were munition factories. Later, aeroplanes did this bombing; and it became quite a usual thing for the whirring of the planes to be heard, and the firing of the anti-aircraft guns, and for people to rush down to cellars and underground places to protect themselves. The British people were very indignant at this bombing of civilian populations. They were rightly indignant, for it is a horrible thing. But there is little indignation in Britain when British aeroplanes drop bombs, and especially those devilish inventions “the time-delayed bombs”, in the North-West Frontier of India or in Iraq. This is called police work, and is done even in so-called peace-time.

  So the war went on, month after month, consuming human lives as a forest fire consumes hordes of locusts, and as it went on, it became more destructive and barbarous. The Germans introduced poison gas, and soon both sides were using it. Aeroplanes came into greater use as bomb-throwers, and then came, first on the British side, the “tanks”, huge mechanical monsters, crawling over everything like caterpillars. Men died by the hundred thousand on the fronts, and behind them, in the home countries, women and children suffered from hunger and privation. In Germany and Austria especially, because of the blockade, starvation grew terrible. It became a test of endurance. Which side would outlast the other in this ordeal? Would either army wear out the other? Would the Allied blockade of Germany break her spirit? Or would the German submarine campaign starve England and break her spirit and morale? Behind each country lay a gigantic record of sacrifice and suffering. Was all this terrible sacrifice and suffering in vain, people wondered? Are we to forget our dead and give in to the enemy? The pre-war days seemed remote, even the causes of the war were forgotten; only one thing remained to obsess the minds of men and women, the desire for revenge and victory.

  The call of the dead, who have sacrificed themselves in a cause they held dear, is a terrible thing. Who that has any spirit in him or her can resist it? Darkness reigned everywhere during these last years of war, and there was sorrow in every home in the warring countries, and a weariness, and disillusion, yet what could one do but hold the torch aloft? Read this moving poem, written by a British officer, Major McCrae, and try to imagine how it must have affected the men and women of his race who read it in those black and dreary war days. And remember that similar poems were written in various countries and in many languages.

  We are the Dead. Short days ago

  We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.

  Loved and were loved, and now we lie

  In Flanders Fields.

  Take up our quarrel with the foe:
r />   To you from failing hands we throw

  The Torch; be yours to hold it high.

  If ye break faith with us who die

  We shall not sleep, though Poppies grow

  In Flanders Fields.

  Towards the end of 1916 the advantage seemed to lie on the side of the Allies. Their new tanks had given them the initiative on the western front; the Zeppelin airships raiding England met with disasters; enough food managed to reach England on neutral ships in spite of German submarines. In May 1916 a naval battle had taken place in the North Sea (the Battle of Jutland), which was on the whole a success for the British. Meanwhile the blockade of Germany was bringing starvation nearer to the Austro-German people. Time seemed to be against the Central Powers, and quick results were considered necessary. Germany had even sent out some feelers for peace, but the Allies would have none of them; the Allied governments were committed too much by their secret treaties for the division of various countries to be satisfied with anything short of complete victory. Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United States, had also made some unsuccessful efforts to bring about peace.

  The German leaders thereupon decided to intensify their submarine warfare, and thus starve England into submission. They proclaimed in January 1917 that they would sink even neutral ships in certain waters. This was to prevent these neutrals from taking food to England. This announcement greatly offended America; she could not tolerate her ships being sunk in this way. It made her entry into the war inevitable, and indeed the German Government must have known this when they made their decision about unrestricted submarining. Perhaps they had felt that there was no alternative left for them and the risk had to be taken. Or they might have thought that, as it was, American financiers were giving enough help to the Allies. In any event, the United States declared war in April 1917, and their entry, with their vast resources and fresh condition when all the other nations were jaded, made it certain that the German Powers would be defeated.

  And yet, even before America had declared war, another event of vital importance had taken place. On March 15, 1917, the first Russian Revolution had resulted in the abdication of the Tsar. I shall write to you about this revolution separately. What I wish you to note now is that this revolution made a tremendous difference to the war. Russia obviously could not fight much now, if at all, against the German Powers; and this meant that Germany was relieved of all anxiety on the eastern front. She could transfer all or most of the eastern armies to the western front and hurl them against the French and British. Suddenly the position had become very favourable to Germany. If she had only known of the Russian revolution six or seven weeks before it occurred, what a difference it would have made. It might have meant no change in submarine warfare, and perhaps America remaining neutral. With Russia out of the lists and America neutral, it was highly likely that Germany would have crushed the British and French armies. Even as it was, German strength on the western front grew, and there was also a prodigious destruction of shipping, Allied and neutral, by German submarines.

  The Russian Revolution seemed to help Germany. And yet it turned out to be one of the greatest causes of internal weakness. Within eight months of the first revolution came the second revolution, which gave power to the Soviets and the Bolsheviks, whose slogan was peace. They addressed the workers and soldiers of all warring nations and appealed for peace; they pointed out that it was a capitalists’ war and that the workers must not allow themselves to be used as cannon-fodder for the advancement of imperialist aims. Some of these voices and appeals reached the soldiers of other nations at the front, and they produced a considerable impression. There were many mutinies in the French army, which the authorities just managed to suppress. The effect on German soldiers was even greater, for many regiments had actually fraternized with the Russian army after the revolution. When these regiments were transferred to the western front they carried this new message with them and spread it among other regiments. Germany was war-weary and utterly disheartened, and the seeds from Russia fell on ground that was prepared to receive them. In this way the Russian Revolution made Germany weak internally.

  But the German military authorities were blind to these portents, and in March 1918 they forced a crushing and humiliating peace on Soviet Russia. The Soviets accepted because they had no alternative and they wanted peace at any price. In March 1918 also the German army made its last mighty effort on the western front. The Germans broke through the Anglo-French line, destroying armies in the process, and again reached the river Marne, from which they had been pushed back three and a half years before. It was a great effort, but it was the last one, and Germany was exhausted. Meanwhile, armies came from America across the Atlantic, and, learning from bitter experience, all the Allied armies on the western front—British, American, French—were put under one supreme command, so that there might be the fullest-co-operation and unity of effort. The French Marshal Foch was made the Generalissimo of the whole Allied army in the west. By the middle of 1918 the tide had definitely turned; the initiative and the offensive were with the Allies, and they marched on, pushing the Germans back. By October the end was near, and there was talk of an armistice.

  On November 4 there was a German naval mutiny at Kiel, and five days later the German Republic was proclaimed in Berlin. The same day, November 9, the Kaiser Wilhelm II made an unseemly and ignominious exit from Germany to Holland, and with him passed away the house of Hohenzollern. Like the Manchus in China, “they had come in with the roar of a tiger, to disappear like the tail of a snake”.

  On November 11, 1918, the armistice was signed and the war was at an end. This armistice was based on “Fourteen Points” which President Wilson of America had formulated. They were framed to a large extent on the principles of self-determination for the small nationalities involved, disarmament, no secret diplomacy, Russia to be helped by the Powers, and a League of Nations. We shall see later how many of these Fourteen Points were conveniently forgotten by the victors.

  The war was over. But the blockade of Germany by England’s fleet continued and food was not allowed to reach the starving German women and children. This amazing exhibition of hatred and desire to punish even the little children was supported by reputable British statesmen and public men, by great newspapers, even by so-called liberal journals. Indeed, the Prime Minister of England then was a Liberal, Lloyd George. The record of the four and quarter years of war is full of mad brutalities and atrocities. And yet perhaps nothing exceeds in sheer cold-blooded brutality this continuation of the blockade of Germany after the armistice. The war was over, and still a whole nation was starving and its little children were suffering terribly from hunger, and food was deliberately and forcibly kept away. How war distorts our minds and fills them with mad hatred! Bethmann Hollweg, the old Chancellor of Germany, said: “Our children, and our children’s children, will bear traces of the blockade that England enforced against us, a refinement of cruelty nothing less than diabolic.”

  While the great statesmen and others in high places approved of this blockade, the poor British Tommy, who had done the fighting, could not stand the sight of it. After the armistice a British army had been stationed at Cologne in the Rhineland, and the English general commanding this army had to send a telegram to Prime Minister Lloyd George pointing out “how bad was the effect produced upon the British army by the spectacle of the sufferings of German women and children”. For more than seven months after the armistice England continued this blockade of Germany.

  The long years of war had brutalized the warring nations. They destroyed the moral sense of large numbers of people, and made many normal persons into half criminals. People got used to violence and to deliberate distortion of facts, and were filled with hatred and the spirit of revenge.

  What was the balance-sheet of the war? No one knows yet; they are still making it up! I shall give you some figures to impress on you what modern war means.

  The total casualties of the war have
been calculated as follows:

  Known dead soldiers 10,000,000

  Presumed dead soldiers 3,000,000

  Dead civilians 13,000,000

  Wounded 20,000,000

  Prisoners 3,000,000

  War orphans 9,000,000

  War widows 5,000,000

  Refugees 10,000,000

  Look at these tremendous figures and try to imagine the human suffering that underlies them. Add them up: the total of dead and wounded alone comes to 46,000,000.

  And the cost in hard cash? They are still counting it! An American estimate gives the total expenditure on the Allied side as £40,999,600,000—nearly forty-one thousand million pounds; and on the German side as £15,122,300,000—over fifteen thousand million pounds. Grand total, over fifty-six thousand million pounds! These figures cannot be fully understood by us, as they are so utterly out of proportion to our daily life. They seem to remind us of astronomical figures like the distance to the sun or the stars. It is not surprising that the old warring nations, victors and vanquished alike, are still hopelessly involved in the after-effects of war finance.

  The “war to end war”, and “make the world safe for democracy”, and “ensure the freedom of small nationalities”, and for “self-determination”, and generally for freedom and high ideals, was over; and England, France, America, Italy, and their smaller satellites (Russia was of course out of it) had triumphed. How these high and noble ideals were translated into practice we shall see later. Meanwhile, we might repeat the lines which the English poet Southey wrote about another and an older victory.