New York Times Current History: Vol 1, No. 1 | Page 4

BELGIUM (Music by F.H. Cowen) 1126 By
John Galsworthy
HOLLAND'S FUTURE (With Map) 1128 By H.G. Wells
FRENCH OFFICIAL REPORT ON GERMAN ATROCITIES 1133
A FRENCH MAYOR'S PUNISHMENT 1163 By The Associated Press
WE WILL FIGHT TO THE END 1164 By Premier Viviani of France
NUITS BLANCHES 1166 By H.S. Haskins
UNCONQUERED FRANCE 1167 From the Bulletin Francais
FOUR MONTHS OF WAR (With Map) 1169 From the Bulletin des
Armees
LONG LIVE THE ALLIES! 1174 By Claude Monet
UNITED STATES FAIR TO ALL 1175 By William J. Bryan,
American Secretary of State
THE HOUSE WITH SEALED DOORS (Poem) 1183 By Edith M.
Thomas
SEIZURES OF AMERICAN CARGOES 1184 By William J. Bryan,
American Secretary of State
GERMAN CROWN PRINCE TO AMERICA 1187 By The Associated
Press
THE OFFICIAL BRITISH EXPLANATION 1188 By Sir Edward Grey
ITALY AND THE WAR (With Map) 1192 By William Roscoe Thayer
HE HEARD THE BUGLES CALLING (Poem) 1198 By Carey C.D.
Briggs

GERMAN SOLDIERS WRITE HOME 1199
WAR CORRESPONDENCE 1207
THE BROKEN ROSE (TO KING ALBERT) 1210 By Annie Vivanti
Chartres
THE HEROIC LANGUAGE (Poem) 1216 By Alice Meynell
CHRONOLOGY OF THE WAR 1224
TO HIS MAJESTY KING ALBERT (Poem) 1228 By William Watson
[Illustration: GEORGE BERNARD SHAW]
[Illustration: ARNOLD BENNETT. See Page 60]

"Common Sense About the War"
By George Bernard Shaw.
I.
"Let a European war break out--the war, perhaps, between the Triple
Alliance and the Triple Entente, which so many journalists and
politicians in England and Germany contemplate with criminal levity.
If the combatants prove to be equally balanced, it may, after the first
battles, smoulder on for thirty years. What will be the population of
London, or Manchester, or Chemnitz, or Bremen, or Milan, at the end
of it?" ("The Great Society," by Graham Wallas. June, 1914.)
(Copyright, 1914, By The New York Times Company.)
The time has now come to pluck up courage and begin to talk and write
soberly about the war. At first the mere horror of it stunned the more
thoughtful of us; and even now only those who are not in actual contact
with or bereaved relation to its heartbreaking wreckage can think

sanely about it, or endure to hear others discuss it coolly. As to the
thoughtless, well, not for a moment dare I suggest that for the first few
weeks they were all scared out of their wits; for I know too well that the
British civilian does not allow his perfect courage to be questioned;
only experienced soldiers and foreigners are allowed the infirmity of
fear. But they certainly were--shall I say a little upset? They felt in that
solemn hour that England was lost if only one single traitor in their
midst let slip the truth about anything in the universe. It was a perilous
time for me. I do not hold my tongue easily; and my inborn dramatic
faculty and professional habit as a playwright prevent me from taking a
one-sided view even when the most probable result of taking a
many-sided one is prompt lynching. Besides, until Home Rule emerges
from its present suspended animation, I shall retain my Irish capacity
for criticising England with something of the detachment of a foreigner,
and perhaps with a certain slightly malicious taste for taking the conceit
out of her. Lord Kitchener made a mistake the other day in rebuking the
Irish volunteers for not rallying faster to the defense of "their country."
They do not regard it as their country yet. He should have asked them
to come forward as usual and help poor old England through a stiff
fight. Then it would have been all right.
Having thus frankly confessed my bias, which you can allow for as a
rifleman allows for the wind, I give my views for what they are worth.
They will be of some use; because, however blinded I may be by
prejudice or perversity, my prejudices in this matter are not those which
blind the British patriot, and therefore I am fairly sure to see some
things that have not yet struck him.
And first, I do not see this war as one which has welded Governments
and peoples into complete and sympathetic solidarity as against the
common enemy. I see the people of England united in a fierce
detestation and defiance of the views and acts of Prussian Junkerism.
And I see the German people stirred to the depths by a similar
antipathy to English Junkerism, and anger at the apparent treachery and
duplicity of the attack made on them by us in their extremest peril from
France and Russia. I see both nations duped, but alas! not quite
unwillingly duped, by their Junkers and Militarists into wreaking on

one another the wrath they should have spent in destroying Junkerism
and Militarism in their own country. And