On the Edge of the War Zone: From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and StripesAldrich, Mildred
History
On the Edge of the War Zone: From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes
Aldrich, Mildred
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
I am sorry that you find holes in my letters. It is your own fault. You do
not see this war from my point of view yet--alas! But you will. Make a
note of that. The thing that you will not understand, living, as you do,
in a world going about its daily routine, out of sight, out of hearing of
all this horror, is that Germany's wilful destruction is on a
preconceived plan--a racial principle. The more races she can reduce
and enfeeble the more room there will be for her. Germany wants
Belgium--but she wants as few Belgians as possible. So with Poland,
and Servia, and northeast France. She wants them to die out as fast
as possible. It is a part of the programme of a people calling
themselves the elect of the world--the only race, in their opinion,
which ought to survive.
She had a forty-four years' start of the rest of the world in preparing
her programme. It is not in two years, or in three, that the rest of the
world can overtake her. That advantage is going to carry her a long
way. Some people still believe that advantage will exist to the end. I
don't. Still, one of the overwhelming facts of this war is to me that:
Germany held Belgium and northeast France at the end of 1914, and
yet, all along the Allied fronts, with Germany fighting on invaded
territory, they cried: "She is beaten!" So, indeed, her strategy was. At
the end of 1915 she had two new allies, and held all of Servia,
Montenegro, and Russian Poland, and still the Allies persisted: "She
is licked, but she does not know it yet." It is one of the finest proofs of
the world's faith in the triumph of the Right that so many believe this
to be true.
You are going to come some day to the opinion I hold--that if we want
universai peace we must first get rid of the race that does not want it
or believe in it. Forbidden subject? I know. But when I resist
temptation you find holes in my letters, and seem to imagine that I am
taking no notice of things that happen. I notice fast enough, and I am
so interested that I hope to see the condemnation, already passed in
England, against Kaiser, Kronprinz and Company, for "wilful murder,"
executed, even if I cannot live to see Germany invaded.
This is what you get for saying, "You make no comment on the
overrunning of Servia or the murder of Edith Cavell, or the failure of
the Gallipoli adventure." After all, these are only details in the great
undertaking. As we say of every disaster, "They will not affect the final
result." It is getting to be a catch-word, but it is true.
Germany is absolutely right in considering Great Britain her greatest
enemy. She knows today that, even if she could get to Paris or
Petrograd, it would not help her. She would still have Britain to settle
with. I wonder if the Kaiser has yet waked up to a realization of his
one very great achievement--the reawakening of Greater Britain? He
dreamed of dealing his mother's country a mortal blow.
The blow landed, but it healed instead of killing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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