Produced by Morgan L. Owens and David Widger WAR AND THE FUTURE Italy, France and Britain at War by H. G. Wells Contents The Passing of the Effigy The War in Italy (August, 1916) I. The Isonzo Front II. The Mountain War III. Behind the Front The Western War (September, 1916) I. Ruins II. The Grades of War III. The War Landscape IV. New Arms for Old Ones V. Tanks How People Think About the War I. Do they Really Think at all? II. The Yielding Pacifist and the Conscientious Objector III. The Religious Revival IV. The Riddle of the British V. The Social Changes in Progress VI. The Ending of the War THE PASSING OF THE EFFIGY 1 One of the minor peculiarities of this unprecedented war is the Tour of the Front. After some months of suppressed information--in which even the war correspondent was discouraged to the point of elimination--it was discovered on both sides that this was a struggle in which Opinion was playing a larger and more important part than it had ever done before. This wild spreading weed was perhaps of decisive importance; the Germans at any rate were attempting to make it a cultivated flower. There was Opinion flowering away at home, feeding rankly on rumour; Opinion in neutral countries; Opinion getting into great tangles of misunderstanding and incorrect valuation between the Allies. The confidence and courage of the enemy; the amiability and assistance of the neutral; the zeal, sacrifice, and serenity of the home population; all were affected. The German cultivation of opinion began long before the war; it is still the most systematic and, because of the psychological ineptitude of the Germans, it is probably the clumsiest. The French _Maison de la Presse_ is certainly the best organisation in existence for making things clear, counteracting hostile suggestion, the British official organisations are comparatively ineffective; but what is lacking officially is very largely made up for by the good will and generous efforts of the English and American press. An interesting monograph might be written upon these various attempts of the belligerents to get themselves and their proceedings explained.