Re: Dit even terzijde
Geplaatst: 11 nov 2018 19:24
Vandaag is hier in Canada en andere geallierde landen die in de eerste wereld oorlog (1914-1918) betrokken waren het vandaag 11 november 100 jaar gelen is dat het einde van de oorlog was herdacht.
Hier een editorial in de Manchester Guardian van 12 november 2018.
The war is over, and in a million households fathers and mothers, wives and sisters, will breathe freely, relieved at length of all dread of that curt message which has shattered the hope and joy of so many. The war is over. The drama is played out.
After years of tedium there opened on March 21 a short and sharp fifth act of swift and surprising changes. Our language misses that single word applied by the Greeks to those sudden and complete changes of fortune which they regarded as appropriate to the final act of a tragic drama. No historic change of fortune so swift, so pulverising to the loser, has occurred since Napoleon's retreat from Moscow as the reversal that began on July 18. And since July 18, blow has followed blow with a rapidity which, if it has almost bewildered the victors, must have stupefied the enemy.
The old order in Europe has perished. The new is hardly born, and no one knows what its lineaments will be. Tomorrow we shall be brought up against the hard immediate problems of re-establishment. Before we grapple with these, let us give a moment to the review of the position gained and try our best to sum up the result of four tremendous years as it may be measured by the historian.
From Waterloo to Mons there elapsed almost 100 years. The first part of this period was one of peace and progress, industry and optimism. Below the surface were seething forces of democracy and nationalism and soon these began to break forth to disturb the complacency of statesmen. But for the thinker these forces were full of hope, and the men of the mid-19th century foresaw a better order, a civilised humanity, a race dedicated to the works of peace and the cultivation of a gentler and yet a nobler life. Towards the end of the century their optimism gave way to a gloomier view. Unrest and anxiety took hold of the more thoughtful minds. Democracy had everywhere progressed but had not brought healing.
The burden of armaments lay heavy on the nations, and the war cloud lowered dark on the horizon. The main cause of this change was the success of the Prussian system under Bismarck. The year 1870 divides the period of which we have spoken into two nearly equal halves, of progress and hope on the one side, and reaction and apprehension on the other. The union of Germany was, indeed, accepted, even welcomed, by liberally minded men as the overdue consummation of a long and unhappy political travail, but the mode in which it was accomplished turned out to be more fateful to Germany and the world than the achievement itself.
From 1870 men began to accept the doctrine of blood and iron. Ideas, arguments, appeals to right and justice took a lower place. Force and fraud seemed to make their way, if only men would be thorough in the use of them. The Prussian idea enjoyed all the prestige of immense success, and the pre-eminence of Germany in many fields of learning, backed with this prestige, won its way in the regions of the mind.
The idea of humanity receded in favour of the state, freedom gave way to discipline and organisation, right to the strong hand, reason to passion, and self-restraint to ambition. Meanwhile in one country after another there arose the sense of instability. It began to be felt that things could not last as they were. The piled-up armaments were like vast electric accumulators awaiting their discharge.
In England these influences penetrated more slowly, but from the time when Germany set out seriously to become a great naval power we felt that we, too, were being drawn in. For long years, even to the last, many of us hoped that ours might be the balancing power, so exerted as to deter either side in the great continental combinations from a fatal plunge. But it was not to be.
The Prussian idea swept Germany out of itself and gave to the world the final demonstration of its naked deformity. The circumstances of the war were such that, a very few individuals apart, it united all the humanitarian enthusiasm, all the political love of liberty, which nowadays go to the support of peace, in favour of a stern resistance, carried through, at whatever cost, to indubitable victory. The defeat of Prussianism was rightly stated by Mr Asquith at the outset as the object which included all others. Prussianism - an idea, a system, not a nation or an army - is hopelessly defeated today. Its hold on the world's future is gone, and the human mind is empty, swept and garnished, of its worst idol. That is the real and decisive victory in the war.
By the hundred thousand, young men have died for the hope of a better world. They have opened for us the way. If, as a people, we can be wise and tolerant and just in peace as we have been resolute in war, we shall build them the memorial that they have earned in the form of a world set free from military force, national tyrannies and class oppressions, for the pursuit of a wider justice in the spirit of a deeper and more human religion.
• Manchester Guardian, Nov 12 1918
Hier een editorial in de Manchester Guardian van 12 november 2018.
The war is over, and in a million households fathers and mothers, wives and sisters, will breathe freely, relieved at length of all dread of that curt message which has shattered the hope and joy of so many. The war is over. The drama is played out.
After years of tedium there opened on March 21 a short and sharp fifth act of swift and surprising changes. Our language misses that single word applied by the Greeks to those sudden and complete changes of fortune which they regarded as appropriate to the final act of a tragic drama. No historic change of fortune so swift, so pulverising to the loser, has occurred since Napoleon's retreat from Moscow as the reversal that began on July 18. And since July 18, blow has followed blow with a rapidity which, if it has almost bewildered the victors, must have stupefied the enemy.
The old order in Europe has perished. The new is hardly born, and no one knows what its lineaments will be. Tomorrow we shall be brought up against the hard immediate problems of re-establishment. Before we grapple with these, let us give a moment to the review of the position gained and try our best to sum up the result of four tremendous years as it may be measured by the historian.
From Waterloo to Mons there elapsed almost 100 years. The first part of this period was one of peace and progress, industry and optimism. Below the surface were seething forces of democracy and nationalism and soon these began to break forth to disturb the complacency of statesmen. But for the thinker these forces were full of hope, and the men of the mid-19th century foresaw a better order, a civilised humanity, a race dedicated to the works of peace and the cultivation of a gentler and yet a nobler life. Towards the end of the century their optimism gave way to a gloomier view. Unrest and anxiety took hold of the more thoughtful minds. Democracy had everywhere progressed but had not brought healing.
The burden of armaments lay heavy on the nations, and the war cloud lowered dark on the horizon. The main cause of this change was the success of the Prussian system under Bismarck. The year 1870 divides the period of which we have spoken into two nearly equal halves, of progress and hope on the one side, and reaction and apprehension on the other. The union of Germany was, indeed, accepted, even welcomed, by liberally minded men as the overdue consummation of a long and unhappy political travail, but the mode in which it was accomplished turned out to be more fateful to Germany and the world than the achievement itself.
From 1870 men began to accept the doctrine of blood and iron. Ideas, arguments, appeals to right and justice took a lower place. Force and fraud seemed to make their way, if only men would be thorough in the use of them. The Prussian idea enjoyed all the prestige of immense success, and the pre-eminence of Germany in many fields of learning, backed with this prestige, won its way in the regions of the mind.
The idea of humanity receded in favour of the state, freedom gave way to discipline and organisation, right to the strong hand, reason to passion, and self-restraint to ambition. Meanwhile in one country after another there arose the sense of instability. It began to be felt that things could not last as they were. The piled-up armaments were like vast electric accumulators awaiting their discharge.
In England these influences penetrated more slowly, but from the time when Germany set out seriously to become a great naval power we felt that we, too, were being drawn in. For long years, even to the last, many of us hoped that ours might be the balancing power, so exerted as to deter either side in the great continental combinations from a fatal plunge. But it was not to be.
The Prussian idea swept Germany out of itself and gave to the world the final demonstration of its naked deformity. The circumstances of the war were such that, a very few individuals apart, it united all the humanitarian enthusiasm, all the political love of liberty, which nowadays go to the support of peace, in favour of a stern resistance, carried through, at whatever cost, to indubitable victory. The defeat of Prussianism was rightly stated by Mr Asquith at the outset as the object which included all others. Prussianism - an idea, a system, not a nation or an army - is hopelessly defeated today. Its hold on the world's future is gone, and the human mind is empty, swept and garnished, of its worst idol. That is the real and decisive victory in the war.
By the hundred thousand, young men have died for the hope of a better world. They have opened for us the way. If, as a people, we can be wise and tolerant and just in peace as we have been resolute in war, we shall build them the memorial that they have earned in the form of a world set free from military force, national tyrannies and class oppressions, for the pursuit of a wider justice in the spirit of a deeper and more human religion.
• Manchester Guardian, Nov 12 1918