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Marius Iulian Mihailescu and Stefania Loredana Nita
Pro Cryptography and Cryptanalysis
with C++23
Creating and Programming Advanced Algorithms
2nd ed.
Marius Iulian Mihailescu
Bucharest, Romania

Stefania Loredana Nita

Bucharest, Romania

ISBN 978-1-4842-9449-9 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-9450-5

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9450-5

© Marius Iulian Mihailescu and Stefania Loredana Nita 2021, 2023

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in
any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Apress imprint is published by the registered company APress
Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY
10004, U.S.A.
Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the
author in this book is available to readers on GitHub
(https://github.com/Apress). For more detailed information, please
visit http://www.apress.com/source-code.
Table of Contents
Part I: Foundations
Chapter 1:​Getting Started in Cryptography and Cryptanalysis
Cryptography and Cryptanalysis
Book Structure
Internet Resources
Forums and Newsgroups
Security Protocols and Standards
Cryptography Tools and Resources
Conclusion
References
Chapter 2:​Cryptography Fundamentals
Information Security and Cryptography
Cryptography Goals
Cryptographic Primitives
Background of Mathematical Functions
One-to-One, One-Way, and Trapdoor One-Way Functions
Permutations
Inclusion
Concepts and Basic Terminology
Domains and Codomains Used for Encryption
Encryption and Decryption Transformations
The Participants in the Communication Process
Digital Signatures
Signing Process
Verification Process
 Public-Key Cryptography
Hash Functions
Case Studies
Caesar Cipher Implementation in C++23
Vigenére Cipher Implementation in C++23
Conclusion
References
Chapter 3:​Mathematical Background and Its Applicability
Probabilities
Conditional Probability
Random Variables
Birthday Problem
Information Theory
Entropy
Number Theory
Integers
Algorithms inℤ
Integers Modulo n
Algorithms ℤm
The Legendre and Jacobi Symbols
Finite Fields
Basic Notions
Polynomials and the Euclidean Algorithm
Case Study 1:​Computing the Probability of an Event That Takes
Place
Case Study 2:​Computing the Probability Distribution
 Case Study 3:​Computing the Mean of the Probability
Distribution
Case Study 4:​Computing the Variance
Case Study 5:​Computing the Standard Deviation
Case Study 6:​Birthday Paradox
Case Study 7:​(Extended) Euclidean Algorithm
Case Study 8: Computing the Multiplicative Inverse Under
Modulo q
Case Study 9:​Chinese Remainder Theorem
Case Study 10:​The Legendre Symbol
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4:​Large Integer Arithmetic
A Bit of History
What About Cryptography?​
Algorithms Used for Large Integer Arithmetic
Subtraction (Subtraction Modulo)
Multiplication
Big Integers
Review of Large Integer Libraries
Conclusion
References
Chapter 5:​Floating-Point Arithmetic
Why Floating-Point Arithmetic?​
Displaying Floating-Point Numbers
The Range of Floating Points
Floating-Point Precision
 Next Level for Floating-Point Arithmetic
Conclusion
References
Chapter 6:​New Features in C++23
Headers
The <expected> Header
The <generator> Header
The <flat_​map> Header
Conclusion
References
Chapter 7:​Secure Coding Guidelines
Secure Coding Checklist
CERT Coding Standards
Identifiers
Noncompliant Code Examples and Compliant Solutions
Exceptions
Risk Assessment
Automated Detection
Related Guidelines
Rules
Rule 01.​Declarations and Initializations (DCL)
Rule 02.​Expressions (EXP)
Rule 03.​Integers (INT)
Rule 05.​Characters and Strings (STR)
Rule 06.​Memory Management (MEM)
Rule 07.​Input/​Output (FIO)
 Conclusion
References
Chapter 8:​Cryptography Libraries in C/​C++23
Overview of Cryptography Libraries
Hash Functions
Public-Key Cryptography
Elliptic-Curve Cryptography (ECC)
OpenSSL
Configuration and Installing OpenSSL
Botan
CrypTool
Conclusion
References
Part II: Pro Cryptography
Chapter 9:​Elliptic-Curve Cryptography
Theoretical Fundamentals
Weierstrass Equation
Group Law
Practical Implementation
Conclusion
References
Chapter 10:​Lattice-based Cryptography
Advantages and Disadvantages of Lattice-based Cryptography
Applications of Lattice-based Cryptography
Security of Lattice-based Cryptography
Lattice-based Cryptography and Quantum Computing
 Mathematical Background
Example
Conclusion
References
Chapter 11:​Searchable Encryption
Components
Entities
Types
Security Characteristics
An Example
Conclusion
References
Chapter 12:​Homomorphic Encryption
Full Homomorphic Encryption
A Practical Example of Using FHE
Conclusion
References
Chapter 13:​Ring Learning with Errors Cryptography
Mathematical Background
Learning with Errors (LWE)
Ring Learning with Errors (RLWE)
Practical Implementation
Conclusion
References
Chapter 14:​Chaos-based Cryptography
Security Analysis
 Chaotic Maps for Plaintexts and Image Encryption
Rössler Attractor
Complex Numbers:​A Short Overview
Practical Implementation
Secure Random Number Generator Using Chaos Rössler
Attractor
Encrypt and Decrypt Using Chaos and Fractals
Conclusion
References
Chapter 15:​Big Data Cryptography
Verifiable Computation
Conclusion
References
Chapter 16:​Cloud Computing Cryptography
A Practical Example
Conclusion
References
Part III: Pro Cryptanalysis
Chapter 17:​Starting with Cryptanalysis
Part III:​Structure
Cryptanalysis Terms
A Bit of Cryptanalysis History
Understanding Cryptanalysis Techniques
Analyzing Cryptographic Algorithms
Cracking Cryptographic Systems
Understanding Cryptographic Systems
 Understanding Cryptographic Keys
Understanding Cryptographic Weaknesses
Analyzing Cryptographic Keys
Penetration Tools and Frameworks
Conclusion
References
Chapter 18:​Cryptanalysis Attacks and Techniques
Standards
FIPS 140-2, FIPS 140-3, and ISO 15408
Validation of Cryptographic Systems
Cryptanalysis Operations
Classification of Cryptanalytics Attacks
Attacks on Cipher Algorithms
Attacks on Cryptographic Keys
Attacks on Authentication Protocols
Conclusion
References
Chapter 19:​Differential and Linear Cryptanalysis
Differential Cryptanalysis
Linear Cryptanalysis
Performing Linear Cryptanalysis
Conclusion
References
Chapter 20:​Integral Cryptanalysis
Basic Notions
Theorem 20-1 [1, Theorem 1, p.​114]
 Theorem 20-2 [1, Theorem 2, p.​114]
Practical Approach
Conclusion
References
Chapter 21:​Brute-Force and Buffer Overflow Attacks
Brute-Force Attack
Buffer Overflow Attack
Conclusion
References
Chapter 22:​Text Characterization​
Chi-Squared Statistic
Cryptanalysis Using Monogram, Bigram, and Trigram
Frequency Counts
Counting Monograms
Counting Bigrams
Counting Trigrams
Conclusion
References
Chapter 23:​Implementation and Practical Approach of
Cryptanalysis Methods
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Ciphertext-Only Attack (COA)
Known-Plaintext Attack (KPA)
Chosen-Plaintext Attack (CPA)
 Chosen-Ciphertext Attack (CCA)
Conclusion
References
Index
About the Authors
Marius Iulian Mihailescu, PhD
is an associate professor at the Faculty of Engineering and Informatics,
Spiru Haret University in Bucharest, Romania. He is also the CEO of
Dapyx Solution Ltd., a company based in Bucharest specializing in
information security and cryptography-related research projects. He is
a lead guest editor for applied cryptography journals and a reviewer for
multiple publications with information security and cryptography
profiles. He authored and co-authored more articles in conference
proceedings, 25 articles, and books. For more than six years, he has
been a lecturer at well-known national and international universities
(the University of Bucharest, Titu Maiorescu University, and Kadir Has
University in Istanbul, Turkey). He has taught courses on programming
languages (C#, Java, C++, Haskell) and object-oriented system analysis
and design with UML, graphs, databases, cryptography, and information
security. He served three years as an IT officer at Royal Caribbean
Cruises Ltd., dealing with IT infrastructure, data security, and satellite
communications systems. He received his PhD in 2014, and his thesis
was on applied cryptography over biometrics data. He holds two MSc in
information security and software engineering.

Stefania Loredana Nita, PhD

is a lecturer at the Ferdinand I Military Technical Academy in
Bucharest, Romania, and a software developer at the Institute of for
Computers in Bucharest. Her PhD thesis was on advanced
cryptographic schemes using searchable encryption and homomorphic
encryption. She has been an assistant lecturer at the University of
Bucharest, teaching courses on advanced programming techniques,
simulation methods, and operating systems. She has authored several
whitepapers and journal articles, as well as books on the Haskell
programming language. Stefania is a lead guest editor for information
security and cryptography issues, such as advanced cryptography and
its future: searchable and homomorphic encryption. She has a master’s
degree in software engineering and bachelor’s degrees in computer
science and mathematics.
About the Technical Reviewer
Massimo Nardone
has more than 25 years of experience in
security, web/mobile development,
cloud, and IT architecture. His true IT
passions are security and Android. He
has been programming and teaching
how to program with Android, Perl, PHP,
Java, VB, Python, C/C++, and MySQL for
more than 20 years. He has a master’s
degree in computing science from the
University of Salerno, Italy.
He has worked as a CISO, CSO,
security executive, IoT executive, project
manager, software engineer, research
engineer, chief security architect,
PCI/SCADA auditor, and senior lead IT security/cloud/SCADA architect
for many years. His technical skills include security, Android, cloud,
Java, MySQL, Drupal, Cobol, Perl, web and mobile development,
MongoDB, D3, Joomla, Couchbase, C/C++, WebGL, Python, Pro Rails,
Django CMS, Jekyll, Scratch, and more.
He worked as visiting lecturer and supervisor for exercises at the
Networking Laboratory of the Helsinki University of Technology (Aalto
University). He holds four international patents (PKI, SIP, SAML, and
Proxy areas). He is currently working for Cognizant as head of
cybersecurity and CISO to help internally and externally with clients in
information and cyber security areas, like strategy, planning, processes,
policies, procedures, governance, awareness, and so forth. In June 2017,
he became a permanent member of the ISACA Finland Board. Massimo
has reviewed more than 45 IT books for different publishing companies
and is the co-author of Pro Spring Security: Securing Spring Framework
5 and Boot 2-based Java Applications (Apress, 2019), Beginning EJB in
Java EE 8 (Apress, 2018), Pro JPA 2 in Java EE 8 (Apress, 2018), and Pro
Android Games (Apress, 2015).
Part I
Foundations
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to APress Media, LLC, part of Springer
Nature 2023
M. I. Mihailescu, S. L. Nita, Pro Cryptography and Cryptanalysis with C++23
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9450-5_1
1. Getting Started in Cryptography and
Cryptanalysis
Marius Iulian Mihailescu1 and Stefania Loredana Nita1
(1) Bucharest, Romania

Cryptography and cryptanalysis are two fascinating and highly

technical disciplines that have played a critical role in modern
communication and security. Cryptography is the practice of protecting
data using encryption algorithms, while cryptanalysis is trying to break
those algorithms. Whether you have just become interested in these
topics or have been studying them for some time, this step-by-step
guide helps you get started in the world of cryptography and
cryptanalysis. From understanding the basics of cryptography to
exploring advanced techniques, this guide provides you with all the
necessary information to become an expert in the field. Along the way,
you learn about the history of cryptography, common algorithms and
techniques used in encryption, and the tools and resources available to
help you grow your knowledge. Therefore, let’s get started!
Cryptography is the practice of protecting data by using encryption
algorithms. The word cryptography comes from the Greek words
kryptos, which means hidden, and graphein, which means written. As
such, it has been around for a very long time, but it wasn’t until the
invention of the telegraph that it started to play a larger role in society.
The telegraph was a critical piece of infrastructure in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, and it needed a way to secure messages. As a
result, cryptography became more standardized and public knowledge.
The first standardized cipher was the Vigenère cipher, invented in 1553
but not publicly known until 1863. The next major cipher was the one-
time pad, invented in 1917 and the first known completely unbreakable
cipher. The next major advancement in cryptography came with the
invention of the computer and the rise of digital communications. Since
then, there have been many advances in cryptography, including the
invention of the RSA algorithm, which is widely used today.
Knowledge is one of the most important aspects to consider when
designing and implementing complex systems, such as companies,
organizations, and military operations. Information falling into the
wrong hands can be a tragedy and result in a huge loss of business or
disastrous outcomes. To guarantee communication security,
cryptography can encode information so that no one can decode it
without legal rights. Many ciphers have been broken when a flaw or
weakness has been found in their design or enough computing power
has been applied to break an encoded message. Cryptology consists of
cryptography and cryptanalysis, as you see later.
With the rapid evolution of electronic communication, the number
of issues raised by information security is significantly increasing every
day. Messages that are shared over publicly accessible computer
networks around the world must be secured and preserved and have
the proper security mechanisms to protect against abuse. The business
requirements in electronic devices and their communication consist of
having digital signatures that can be legally recognized. Modern
cryptography provides solutions to all these problems.
The idea of this book started from an experience that has been
achieved through three directions: (1) cryptography courses for
students (graduate and undergraduate) in computer science at the
University of Bucharest and Titu Maiorescu University; (2) industry
experience achieved in national and international companies; (3)
ethical hacking best practices; and (4) security audit.
This book aims to present the most advanced cryptography and
cryptanalysis techniques and their implementations using C++20. Most
implementations are in C++20, using the latest programming language
features and improvements (see Chapter 5).
The book is an advanced and exhaustive work, comprehensively
covering all the most important topics in information security,
cryptography, and cryptanalysis. The content of the book can be used in
a wide spectrum of areas by multiple professionals, such as security
experts with their audits, military experts and personnel, ethical
hackers, teachers in academia, researchers, software developers, and
software engineers when security and cryptographic solutions need to
be implemented in a real business software environment, student
courses (undergraduate and graduate levels, master’s degree,
professional and academic doctoral degree), business analysts and many
more.
Cryptography and Cryptanalysis
It is very important to understand the meanings of the main concepts
involved in a secure communication process and to see their
boundaries.
Cryptology is the science or art of secret writing; the main goal is to
protect and defend the secrecy and confidentiality of information
with the help of cryptographic algorithms.
Cryptography is the defensive side of cryptology; the main objective
is to create and design cryptographic systems and their rules. When
you look at cryptography, you can see a special kind of art: protecting
the information by transforming it into an unreadable format called
ciphertext.
Cryptanalysis is the offensive side of cryptology; its main objective is
to study cryptographic systems with the scope of providing the
necessary characteristics in such a way as to fulfill the function for
which they have been designed. Cryptanalysis can analyze the
cryptographic systems of third parties through the cryptograms
realized with them so that it breaks them to obtain useful
information for their business purpose. Cryptanalysts, code breakers,
and ethical hackers deal with cryptanalysis.
Cryptographic primitives represent well-established or low-level
cryptographic algorithms for building cryptographic protocols;
examples include hash functions and encryption functions.
This book provides a deep examination of all three sides from the
practical side of view with references to the theoretical background by
illustrating how a theoretical algorithm should be analyzed for
implementation.
There are many different algorithms and techniques in modern
cryptography. Here are a few of the more common ones.
Symmetric-key algorithms use both sides of a communication to
generate a shared secret key and then use that key to encrypt and
decrypt messages. The most prominent example is AES, which is
used by the US government and many businesses worldwide.
Asymmetric-key algorithms use two different keys to encrypt and
decrypt messages. The most common example is RSA, which secures
websites and applications like Gmail.
Hash algorithms are commonly used to create digital signatures for
data and are sometimes used for message authentication. The most
well-known example is probably the SHA family of hash algorithms.
Trapdoor function algorithms generate digital signatures and are
sometimes used to implement public-key encryption. The most
common example is probably the RSA function.
One-time pad algorithms are the only unbreakable ciphers
requiring truly random keys. The most widely used OTP algorithm is
the Vernam cipher, which was the basis for the encryption used by
the US military in World War II.
Book Structure
The book is divided into 23 chapters divided into three parts: Part I
(Chapters 1–8) covers foundational topics, Part II (Chapters 9–17)
covers cryptography, and Part III (Chapters 18–23) covers
cryptanalysis.
Part I includes topics from beginner to advanced level and from
theoretical to practice. Chapter 2 discusses the basic concepts of
cryptography. Chapter 3 covers a collection of key elements regarding
complexity theory, probability theory, information theory, number
theory, abstract algebra, and finite fields and how they can be
implemented using C++20, showing their interaction with
cryptography and cryptanalysis algorithms.
Chapters 4 and 5 focus on integer arithmetic and floating-point
arithmetic processing. The chapter is vital, and other chapters and
algorithm implementations depend on these chapters’ content. Number
representations and working with them on the computer’s memory can
represent a difficult task.
Chapter 6 discusses the newest features and enhancements of
C++23. It presents how the new features and enhancements are
important in developing cryptography and cryptanalysis algorithms
and methods. It goes through three-way comparison, lambdas in
unevaluated contexts, string literals, atomic smart pointers, <version>
headers, ranges, coroutines, modules, and so forth.
Chapter 7 presents the most important guidelines for securing the
coding process, keeping an important balance between security and
usability based on the most expected scenarios based on trusted code.
Important topics include securing state data, security and user input,
security-neutral code, and library codes that expose protected
resources.
Chapter 8 covers the libraries and frameworks that are developed in
C++/C++23.
Part II covers the most important modern cryptographic primitives.
Chapters 9–16 discuss advanced cryptography topics by showing
implementations and how to approach this kind of advanced topic from
a mathematical background to a real-life environment.
 Chapter 9 discusses the basics of one of the most important
branches of cryptography: elliptic-curve cryptography.
Chapter 10 introduces the Lattice Cryptography Library and hot its
works for implementation, pointing out the importance of
postquantum cryptography. Implementations of key exchange protocols
proposed by Alkim, Ducas, Poppelmann, and Schwabe [1] are discussed.
The discussion continues by instantiating Chris Peikert’s key exchange
protocol [2]. The implementation is based on modern techniques for
computing, known as the number theoretic transform (NTT). The
implementations apply errorless fast convolution functions over
successions of integer numbers.
Chapter 11 and Chapter 12 present two important cryptographic
primitives, homomorphic and searchable encryption. For searchable
encryption (SE), Chapter 11 presents a framework using C++23 for SE,
showing the advantages and disadvantages of removing the most
common patterns from encrypted data. Chapter 12 discuss how to use
the SEAL library in practical examples. The SEAL library contains one of
the most important homomorphic encryption schemes: BGV
(Brakerski-Gentry-Vaikuntanathan) [3].
Chapter 13 identifies the issues generated during implementing
(ring) learning with error cryptography mechanisms. It gives an
example of implementing the lattice-based key exchange protocol, a
library used only for experiments.
Chapter 14 is based on the new concepts behind chaos-based
cryptography and how it can be translated into practice. The chapter
generates some new outputs, and its contribution is important for
advancing cryptography as it is a new topic that didn’t get the proper
attention until now.
Chapter 15 discusses new methods and their implementations for
securing big data environments, big data analytics, access control
methods (key management for access control), attributed-based access
control, secure search, secure data processing, functional encryption,
and multiparty computation.
Chapter 16 points out the security issues about the applications
running in a cloud environment and how they can be resolved during
the design and implementation phase.
 Part III deals with advanced cryptanalysis topics and shows how to
pass the barrier between theory and practice and how to think about
cryptanalysis in terms of practice by eliminating the most vulnerable
and critical points of a system or software application in a network or
distributed environment.
Chapter 17 introduces you to cryptanalysis by presenting the most
important characteristics of cryptanalysis. Chapter 18 starts by
showing the important criteria and standards used in cryptanalysis,
how the tests of cryptographic systems are made, the process of
selecting the cryptographic modules, the cryptanalysis operations, and
classifications of cryptanalysis attacks.
Chapter 19 and Chapter 20 show how to implement and design
linear, differential, and integral cryptanalysis. These chapters focus on
techniques and strategies, and their primary role is to show how to
implement scripts for attacking linear and differential attacks.
Chapter 21 presents the most important attacks and how they can
be designed and implemented using C++23. You study the behavior of
the software applications when they are exposed to different attacks,
and you see how to exploit the source code. This chapter also discusses
software obfuscation and why it is a critical aspect that needs to be
considered by the personnel involved in implementing the software
process. Additionally, you learn how this analysis can be applied to
machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms that can be used
to predict future attacks over software applications that are running in
a distributed or cloud environment.
Chapter 22 goes through the text characterization method and its
implementation. It discusses chi-squared statistics; identifying
unknown ciphers; index of coincidence; monogram, bigram, and
trigram frequency counts; quad ram statistics as a fitness measure;
unicity distance; and word statistics as a fitness measure.
Chapter 23 presents the advantages and disadvantages of
implementing cryptanalysis methods, why they should have a special
place when applications are developed in distributed environments,
and how the data should be protected against such cryptanalysis
methods.
As you become more advanced in your study of cryptography, you
want to explore analysis techniques like frequency analysis, letter
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Ten years
after
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Ten years after

a reminder

Author: Philip Gibbs

Release date: December 26, 2023 [eBook #72512]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Hutchinson & Co, 1924

Credits: Bob Taylor, Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEN YEARS

AFTER ***
TEN YEARS AFTER
 Ten Years After:
A Reminder :: :: By
PHILIP GIBBS :: ::

LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO.

PATERNOSTER ROW
1924
 CONTENTS
PAGE

FOREWORD v
I.— THE WORLD WAR 7
II.— THE UNCERTAIN PEACE 61
III.— THE PRESENT PERILS 140
IV.— THE HOPE AHEAD 167
 FOREWORD

Since the last words of this book were written the political temper
of the nation has been tested by the General Election and has been
revealed by the mighty majority of the Conservatives, the dismissal
of the first Labour Government, and the all but mortal blow to the
Liberal Party.
It would be a bad thing for the British people if that sweeping
change were the sign of reaction to wooden-headed principles of
autocratic rule and class legislation. It would be a worse thing for
the world. But the new Conservative Government will have no
support from the majority of those who voted for it if it interprets its
power as a mandate for militarism, jingoism, or anti-democratic acts.
The verdict of the ballot box was, certainly, not in favour of any
black reaction, but in condemnation of certain foreign, revolutionary,
and subversive influences with which the Labour Party were
believed, fairly or unfairly, to be associated.
It is true that the Labour Ministers had denounced Communism,
and during their tenure of office had revealed in many ways a high
quality of statesmanship and patriotism. But all this good work was
spoilt in the minds of many people of liberal thought, anxious to be
fair to Labour, by the uneasy suspicion that behind the Labour Party,
and in it, there were sinister influences foreign in origin, anti-British
in character, revolutionary in purpose. Up and down the country
some of its supporters indulged in loose-lipped talk about Social
revolution, preached a class war, paraded under the Red Flag.
Political incidents not quite clear in their origin, not fully explained,
intensified this national uneasiness, developed into something like a
scare, in minds not naturally hostile to Labour ideas. They made
allowance for exaggeration, political lies and slanders, but when all
allowance had been made suspicion remained that if “Labour” were
given a new lease of power it might play into the hands of a crowd
fooling with the idea of revolution, not as honest as some of the
Labour Ministers, not as moderate as the first Labour Government. It
was a risk which the people of Great Britain refused to take. Mr.
Ramsay MacDonald and his colleagues failed to prove their
independence from their own extremists, and Liberal opinion entered
into temporary alliance with Conservative thought to turn them out.
To men like myself, standing politically in “The Middle of the Road”
between the extremists, the downfall of the historic Liberal Party is a
tragedy and a menace. It brings the possibility of class conflict
nearer by the elimination of a central balancing party of moderate
opinion. That possibility will become a certainty if Mr. Baldwin’s big
majority drifts into reaction, or into lazy disregard of urgent national
distress. But I am inclined to believe that the new Government will
be more Liberal than is pleasing to some of its reactionary
supporters as Mr. MacDonald’s Government was more moderate than
the wild crowd who tried to force the pace. The nation as a whole
will not tolerate black reaction any more than red revolution, and
England stands steady to its old traditions of caution and
commonsense. Those qualities will be needed in times of trouble not
far ahead.
Philip Gibbs.
 Ten Years After:
A REMINDER

I.—THE WORLD WAR

Ten years ago, as I write these words, a spiritual tremor, as though

the last trump were sounding for the judgment of God, shook the
souls of many peoples. Something incredible, inconceivable, frightful,
was about to happen in a world which believed it could not happen.
It was the beginning of the World War in which the most civilised
nations on earth, as they believed themselves to be, were to be
hurled against each other, with all their power, science, manhood,
wealth, in a struggle to the death.
Ten years ago.... Not much in historical time, not a great span in
the life of an individual, but so long, because of what has happened,
that only by an immense effort of imagination can one’s mind leap
the gap between that time and this. One has to think back to
another world in order to see again that year 1914 before the drums
of war began to beat. It is a different world now, greatly changed, in
the mental outlook of men and women, in the frontiers of the soul
as well as the frontiers of nations. Dynasties have fallen, kings are in
exile, the political maps have been re-drawn, new nations have
come into being, old nations have lost their pride and their place.
And yet that is nothing to what has happened in the minds of men
and women. Old habits of thought have been smashed; old
securities, traditions, obediences, convictions, lie in wreckage and,
unlike the ruins of the war itself, will never be restored. We are
different men and women.
Ten years after! How brief a time since that August in 1914! A
mere tick of the clock in the history of mankind, yet we who are
alive after so much death, who were stirred by the first shock of that
war, and lived through its enormous drama, can hardly get back to
ourselves as we were before the War began. Were we indeed those
men and women who thought, acted and agonised in those days?
Did we really believe the things that were then believed? Were we
shaken by those passions, uplifted by those emotions? Are we the
people who suffered and served? It is hardly possible to recapture,
even in a dream, even for a few moments of illusion, the state of
mind which was ours before the War happened and in the beginning
of its history. It is very difficult because something has broken in us
since then, and the problems of life have a different basis of
thought, and all that emotion lies dead within us.

The Sense of Peace

In Europe, before it happened, there was a sense of peace in the

minds of the peoples. Do they remember how safe they felt? French
peasants in their fields were looking forward to a good harvest, the
French shopkeeper to a good season. Alsace Lorraine?... An old sore,
almost healed. Not worth re-opening at the price of the blood of a
single French soldier! The German folk were drinking their laager
beer as usual after days of industry. Their trade was good, they were
capturing the markets of the world. Life was good. The Junkers and
the militarists were talking rather loudly, and there was a lot of
argument about Germany being “hemmed in” and “insulted” by
England, but it was, after all, no more than high-sounding talk. The
German Army was supreme in Europe, unchallenged and
unchallengeable. The German Fleet was the Kaiser’s hobby. Who
would attack them? Not France. Russia? Well, in East Prussia that
was a secret fear, something like a nightmare, a bogey in the
background of the mind—but really unthinkable. England? Bah!
England was friendly in the mass and without an army worth
mentioning. Poor old England! Weak and decadent as an Empire,
without the power to hold what she had grabbed. One day perhaps
... but not with Socialism spreading in Germany like an epidemic.
Anyhow, the good old German God was presiding over the destiny of
the great German people, who were safe, strong, industrious,
prosperous, and, for the present, satisfied.
In England this sense of peace, I remember, was strongest. It was
hardly ruffled by any anxieties among the mass of our folk. There
was trouble in Ireland. There always had been. The suffragettes
were a horrible nuisance. Strikes were frequent and annoying. But
the old order of English life went on, placid, comfortable, with a
sense of absolute security. The aristocracy grumbled at the advance
of democracy, but within their old houses, their parklands and walled
gardens, they were undisturbed. They had great reserves of wealth.
The beauty of the life they had built around them was not invaded.
Their traditions of service, loyalties, sports, continued and would
continue, they believed, because those things belonged to the blood
and spirit of England.
Middle-class England was prosperous and contented. Business was
good in “a nation of shopkeepers,” in spite of fierce competition. Life
—apart from private tragedy—was comfortable, gay, with many
social pleasures unknown in Victorian days, with a greater sense of
liberty in thought and manners, and a higher standard of life for
small folk. “God’s in His Heaven, all’s right with the world!”—barring
politics, newspaper scares, women’s claims to votes—and Ireland.
The people of the British Isles felt utterly secure.
It was an inherited sense, a national tradition, an unquestioned
faith. It was their island prerogative. Now and again wars happened,
but they only gave a touch of Romance to life. The sons of the old
families went out and died like gentlemen, or came back to the
music of brass bands, after the usual victories over savage tribes,
splendidly described by artists and correspondents in the illustrated
papers. Some of the young lads from factories and fields went off
and took the King’s Shilling, and came back bronzed, with straighter
backs, and a few medals. The little Regular Army was the best in the
world for its size. Not even the Boer War, with its blunders, its
inefficient generalship, and its drain upon youth and money, touched
in any vital way the foundations of English life, its reserves of
wealth, or its utter faith in national security. The British Navy was
supreme at sea.
The British people had no quarrel with any great Power. All talk
about a German menace, we thought, was the delusion of foolish old
gentlemen in military clubs, or the scaremongering of newspapers
out for circulation and sensation. The heart of England beat steadily
to the old rhythm of life in country houses and fields and workshops
and mean streets. Beneath the surface of modern change, progress
and accidental novelties, the spirit of England and of its sister
peoples was deep-rooted in the past and slow-moving towards new
ideas. Outside the big cities it was still feudal in respect for the old
“quality,” the old distinctions of class and service. The English people
felt themselves divided by a whole world from the Continent of
Europe because of that strip of sea about them. They had nothing to
do, they believed, with Continental quarrels, hatreds, fears, or
armies. They were safe from invasion, and masters of their own
destiny. The Empire was very useful for trade, peaceful in purpose,
and easily controlled by a few regiments if troubles arose among
Indian hillsmen or African tribes. They had peace in their hearts, no
envy of other nations, no military ambitions.
The English-speaking peoples, including the United States,
believed that the world was settling down to a long era of peace.
War was abominably old-fashioned! It was out of keeping with
modern civilisation and with its increasing humanity, decency,
respect for life, lack of cruelty, and general comfort. The world had
reached a higher stage of human brotherhood. Had not science itself
made war impossible between civilised peoples? The financial
interests of nations were too closely interwoven. Literature, art,
education, good manners, and liberal ideas had killed the very
thought of war. We had got beyond the Dark Ages.... So England
and America thought, or among those who did not think, felt—
without question or misgiving.
Then the War happened.
 The Call to Arms

Among the common folk—and I write of them—nobody knew at

first how it happened, or why. An Austrian Archduke had been
murdered at some place with a queer, outlandish name. Very
shocking, no doubt; but what had that to do with John Smith
watering his flowers in a suburban garden, or with Mrs. Smith
putting the baby to bed? Still less with John K. Smithson, of Main
Street, U.S.A., winding up his “flivver.” Servia—where was Servia?—
was threatened with an ultimatum by Austria. Those foreign politics!
Russia was taking the matter up. What had it got to do with Russia?
Kings and Emperors were exchanging telegrams; Germany was
intervening, backing up Austria. France was getting excited. Why?
What was it all about? Why did all that stuff, columns and columns in
the newspapers, turn out the sporting news? It was all very dull and
incomprehensible. Russia was “mobilising,” it seemed. Germany was
threatening war with Russia, France with Germany. Why? In
Heaven’s name, why? What did it all mean? In the House of
Commons there were strange speeches; in the newspapers terrible
warnings, that England, too, might be drawn into this conflict of
nations. Preposterous! The Cabinet was sitting late, hour after hour.
Sir Edward Grey—a noble soul—was working for peace, desperately.
There was still a hope. Surely the world had not gone mad! Surely
even now the incredible could not happen. Germany could not do
this thing. The German people, good-hearted, orderly, highly
civilised, in some sense our kinsfolk; surely to God they were not
going to plunge the world into ruin for the sake of an Austrian
Archduke! In any case it was nothing to do with England—nothing at
all—until every heart stood still for a second at dreadful news.
Germany had declared war on Russia and France was threatened.
German troops were moving towards the French frontier and
towards the Belgian frontier. Germany was demanding a right of way
through Belgium to strike at the heart of France. If the demand were
resisted, she threatened to smash her way through. Through
Belgium, a little neutral country, at peace with all the world,
incapable of self-defence, guaranteed by Great Britain and Germany,
by a treaty that the German Ambassador in London desired to treat
as a “scrap of paper.” God in heaven! If that were so, then there was
no law in the world, no honour among nations, no safety for civilised
peoples desiring peace. How could England, with any honour, stand
by and see the fields of Belgium trampled under the feet of an
invading army? With any shred of honour or self-respect? This was
more than a threat against Belgium. It was a slash in the face of
civilisation itself, a brutal attack upon all that code of law and
decency by which we had struggled out of barbarism. So the leading
articles said, and there was no denial in the heart of the people,
though at first they had no thrill of passion but only a stupefaction in
their minds. So Great Britain was going into this war? For honour’s
sake and the safety of civilisation? That would mean—who could tell
what it meant? Who knew anything about modern warfare between
the Great Powers with all those armies and navies and piled-up
armaments? It would mean Hell, anyway.
On August 4 the British Government declared war on Germany for
the violation of Belgian territory. On the following day at the mouth
of the Thames the cruiser Amphion sank a German mine-layer, and
so opened the first hostilities between the German and the British
nations since their history began.
England was “in”—all in, with all her wealth, all her manhood, all
her strength, to whatever the end might be, in a struggle for life or
death, in which civilisation itself was at stake.

The Ignorance of the Peoples

The peoples of Europe knew nothing of the forces which had led
up to the conflict. They had never been told about the secret
treaties—made by statesmen of the old school without their consent,
though their lives were pledged in them—by which the Foreign
Offices of Europe had played against each other for high stakes in a
dangerous game called the Balance of Power. They were ignorant of
the rivalries and greeds which had been inflamed for half a century
by the rush for Africa, where France, Germany, Italy, Spain and
Great Britain had bargained and intrigued and quarrelled with each
other for slices of the Dark Continent which had put a black spell
upon the imagination of Imperialists in all these countries. They did
not know that German Imperialists believed, not without reason,
that England and France had squared each other in order to prevent
German influence in Morocco, and that she felt herself thwarted by
the two powers in all her ambitions for “a place in the sun,” for the
sources of raw material, and for the expansion of her trade. They
were ignorant of Pan-German dreams of dominant power in Middle
Europe, and of an Asiatic Empire following the line of Berlin to
Bagdad. They were not aware of Pan-Slav ambitions cutting clean
across Pan-German ambitions and looking forward to a future when
the Russian Tsardom would have its second capital in
Constantinople, and when the Russian race would stretch through
Serbia to the Adriatic Sea. They had never realised the meaning of
the Balkan Wars of 1912, when Russia was behind Serbia and
Germany behind Turkey, in the first skirmish for these rival schemes.
They were never told by their leaders that explosive forces were
being stored up in Europe because of the rival Imperialisms which
sooner or later were bound to result in infernal fire shattering the
whole structure of European life.
All these things had been kept secret in the minds of kings and
emperors, statesmen and diplomats, and the peoples in the mass
went about their work without a thought of the dark destiny that
was being woven for them in the looms of Fate. In Germany, it is
true, the military caste, the Civil Service, and the Universities had
been steeped in the poison of an Imperial philosophy based upon
Brute Force and the right of the strong to seize the power and
places of the weak. The Kaiser, picturing himself in “shining armour,”
with God as his ally, had made himself the figurehead of this school
of thought. From time to time he uttered portentous words. He
threatened with “a mailed fist” all who dared to cross the path of
German aspirations. He vowed that he would “dash to pieces” all
those who opposed his will. Even in Germany before the War these
words were ridiculed by peace-loving citizens, scorned by millions of
theoretical Socialists, and ignored by the peasants who were busy
with their sowing and reaping in quiet fields. In England they
seemed but the bombast of a theatrical man born too late in the
world’s history for such mediæval clap-trap. Outside small circles, in
touch with the undercurrents of international policy and afraid of
unspeakable things, or ready to risk them, the common folk knew
nothing of their peril, and were not allowed to know.

The Call to Courage

Ten years ago! Who can remember the spirit of Europe then? Or
his own mind? That sense of horror, chilling the heart of
unimaginable things, that bewilderment because so monstrous a
tragedy had come out of the blue sky, without warning, as it
seemed, for trivial causes, and then ... and then ... a call to the
secret courage of the soul, a dedication to service and sacrifice, a
welling-up of old traditions, emotions, passions, primitive instincts,
which had seemed dead and useless because of world peace and
the security of civilisation.
In Great Britain it was as though the nation had been shaken by a
great wind in which the Voice of God was heard. In those first days
—and months—there was no degradation of the height to which the
spirit of the British people was uplifted. Even their enemies admit
that. The petty, squalid, rotten things of life fell from them. They put
away their own quarrels, self-interests, political and industrial
conflicts. This thing was too big for those trivialities. It was bigger
than individual lives, loves, hates, fortunes, homes or business. The
old barriers of class, strongly entrenched in the structure of English
life, were broken down with one careless and noble gesture. The
sons of the great old families joined up with the shop boys, the
peasants, the clerks, the slum-folk, and stood in the same ranks with
them as volunteers in the “war for civilisation.” The daughters of the
county gentry, of the clergy, and professional classes went down on
their knees with shop girls and servant girls, to scrub the floors of
hospitals or do any kind of work. Those wild women who had fought
the police for the Vote became ambulance drivers, nurses, farm girls,
ammunition workers, needlewomen—anything for service. The rich
poured out their money and the sons of the rich their blood. The
poor offered their bodies and all they had. It took some time for
England to understand this need of soldiers. It was not until after
the Retreat from Mons and terrible despatches, revealing dreadfully
that the little Regular Army was but a small outpost, half-destroyed
after immortal valour against overwhelming odds in France, that the
recruiting stations were stormed by the young manhood of the
nation, from public schools, factories, city offices, and the little
villages of the countryside. Husbands left their wives, lovers their
sweethearts, fathers their children, scholars their books, and
enrolled themselves, as they knew, for the chance of Death. And the
women let them go, urged them to go, and hid their tears. There
was not a mother in England at that time, or none that I knew or
ever heard of, who, looking at the strained face of her son, held him
back by any passionate plea when he raised his head and stared into
her eyes and said: “I must go!”
The whole nation, apart from a few individuals, was inspired by a
common loyalty to ideals which seemed very clear and bright. They
believed, without any complications of thought and argument,
without any secret doubts, that this war had come upon the world
solely because of German brutality, unprovoked, against peaceful
neighbours. Stories of German atrocity, some true and many false, in
the first invasion of France and Belgium, deepened their horror for a
nation which had threatened civilisation itself with a return to
barbarism, and under whose rule there would be no liberty, no life
worth living. The chivalry of the British people, their love of fair play,
their pity, were outraged by the trampling of Belgium and the agony
of France, attacked by the greatest military power in the world. That
was enough for them. That was what inspired them in their first rush
to the rescue. It was only later that they understood the menace to
their own Island and Empire, whose existence was at stake. In those
early days there was no self-interest in the spiritual uprising of
England and her sister nations. There was a nobility of purpose,
undimmed and untarnished, crystal clear to simple minds, knowing
nothing and caring nothing for deeper causes of the war than
German militarism and its brutal assault. Only the newspaper press
vulgarised and degraded the splendour of this simple chivalry by its
appeal to blood lust and its call to hate and many frantic lies.

The Homing Birds

From all parts of the Empire the old Mother Country saw her
homing birds. From Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa
came bronzed and hardy men who were the uncles or the cousins or
the brothers of the boys who were still storming the recruiting
stations at home. After them came wave after wave of young
manhood from the far Dominions, and for the first time in history the
British Empire, so loosely linked, so scattered, so jealous of restraint
or control from the British Government, was seen to be a federation
of English-speaking peoples more strongly bound by links of
sentiment and kinship in time of peril than any Imperialist of the old
school could have forged by autocratic power. They were free
peoples enlisting for service, as they believed also, in the cause of
civilisation and in the chivalrous defence of peace-loving peoples
wantonly attacked by a brutal enemy.
Looking back now with disgust of war and all its filthiness and
death in our inmost souls, after years of disillusion with the results of
that war, with a more complicated knowledge of its causes back in
history; with a legacy of debt; unsettled problems; with new causes
of hate, revenge, conflict; with justice no longer all on one side, nor
injustice, one must still acknowledge the splendour of that spiritual
comradeship which made all classes offer themselves for service and
sacrifice to the uttermost, which was death. Not in England, nor in
France, nor later in the United States, was there any love of this war
for war’s sake. It did not appeal to the imagination of youth as a
great adventure. Here and there its call might have come as a
liberation from dull existence, or as an escape from private tragedy,
or as a primitive blood lust. In very rare cases it appealed to old
fighting instincts as a better thing than peace. To most it was
hateful. Our young men loved life and loathed the thought of death.
They did not want to kill or be killed. They disliked military discipline,
dirt, lice, the thought of shell-fire, the foreboding of wounds,
blindness, mutilation, and horror. They were the heirs of a civilisation
in which there had been a high standard of decency, refinement,
comfort, and individual liberty. Each young man when he went to the
recruiting office knew in his heart that he was saying good-bye,
perhaps for ever, to the things and folk he loved, to all familiar
decent things, to the joy of life itself. Yet in millions they went, tide
after tide ... and the women hid their tears and their agony as best
they could, and found out work to do. In great houses and little
homes there was the same spirit. Out of the foulest slums as well as
out of fine houses came the heroic soul of a people proud of its
history, impelled unconsciously by old loyalties which had been
stunted but never killed by social injustice.
That was the passion of England and her sister peoples when war
began. Difficult to imagine, impossible to feel again—now!... So
much has happened since.

The Spirit of France

I remember the mobilisation in Paris on the day before war was

declared, and that day. The French people had a different, sharper,
more immediate fear. The frontier was in danger. France herself was
menaced by the greatest army in the world. In one day, two days, all
her life would be at stake. There was a sense of stupefaction among
the common people. They too had been taken by surprise by the
suddenness of the challenge. And they knew better than the English
what war meant in horror and agony. In those crowds among whom
I went there were many who remembered 1870—that nightmare of
terror and shame and tears. There was no cheering, as when fifty
years before the people in Paris had shouted á Berlin! in an ecstasy
of war fever. In Paris there was the hush of souls who looked into
the face of great death. In the streets men were parting from their
women—for the last time. Some wept, not many, after the kiss of
eternity. Emotion strangled one’s heart. In those days France
seemed to me divine in courage, in sacrifice, in suffering. Anarchists,
revolutionists, the scum of the underworld, the poor drabs, were
cleansed of all evil, for a time, by love and passion—for France. They
themselves did not matter. They held their lives as nothing so that
France might live. The Pacifists said: “This is a war to end war.” The
Socialists said: “This is a war against militarism.” The old women
said: “Our sons will die, but France will be saved.” The young women
said: “We give our lovers to France.” From the fields, the workshops
and the factories, the manhood of France, quicker than in England,
came down to the railways to join their depôts, and for hundreds of
miles on the first night of war, in a train taking the first troops to the
eastern frontier, I heard on the warm breeze the “Marseillaise,” the
song of Liberty and France, and the tramp of marching men, and the
rattle of gun waggons; and I felt the spirit of an heroic people like a
physical vibration about me. After that come a thousand memories,
strangely distant now, like an old dream, of roads black with fugitive
people, retreating from the red flame of war; of French and Belgian
towns under the first shell-fire, until they fell into flame and ruin; of
wounded men, clotted with mud and blood, very quiet, on dirty
stretchers, lying in rows under brown blankets, on railway platforms,
in improvised hospitals, piled in farm carts, huddled under broken
walls, in endless caravans of ambulances; the reek of blood,
disinfectants, death; troops on the march, guns going forward, the
French cavalry riding on saddle-galled horses, machine-guns in
cornfields; troop trains; stations crowded with regiments; fields
strewn with dead; women wheeling perambulators with babies and
household goods, boys pushing old men along in wheelbarrows,
farmcarts laden with children, furniture, grandmothers; the cry
reiterated of “Sales Boches!”; the words “C’est la guerre!” repeated
as an endless reason for infinite resignation to all this agony, and
terror of civilian folk trapped in chaos; the phantasmagoria of war in
modern civilisation; and always the courage of women, the valour of
men, the immortal spirit of France rising above the torture of its soul
and body, while the enemy thrust closer to its heart. In those days—
ten years ago—an Englishman in France dedicated his heart to these
people....

The Entente Cordiale

And in those days the French people loved the English and their
kinsfolk, so that when the first British troops appeared they went
mad with joy, as I saw, kissing them, with streaming tears, dancing
round them, flinging flowers to them, giving them fruit, as those
boys, clean-shaven, bronzed, smart, laughing, singing, “It’s a long,
long way to Tipperary,” went forward to be killed, wounded,
maimed, blinded, broken, as most of them were before the end
came, and some very soon. Vivent les Anglais!... Have the French
people forgotten, or have we?
I was in Paris, after wild adventures, with two comrades on a day
in September when it seemed that the city was doomed. It was
already deserted. At mid-day, between the Place de la Concorde and
the Etoile, we saw only one man, and that a policeman on a bicycle.
It was no longer the seat of Government. Vast numbers had fled. We
had seen them storming the trains. All others sat indoors, with their
shutters closed, waiting for the tramp of German soldiers down the
streets. The German guns were as close as Chantilly. Only a miracle
could save Paris, as we knew, having seen the retreat of a French
Army through Amiens, and the stragglers of the British Army after
the Retreat from Mons, and the advance of the enemy as far as
Beauvais, and a hundred signs of impending tragedy. The sun was
glittering on the golden eagles above one of the bridges. The
palaces, domes, spires of Paris were clear-cut under a cloudless sky.
All the beauty of the city, all its meaning to the world in knowledge
and art and history, invaded our hearts. If Paris were taken and
France beaten, civilisation itself would be defeated and life would be
worthless, and God mocked. It could not happen like that. A miracle
must happen first. For God’s sake!
 The miracle happened—the miracle of the Marne. The German
tide was turned at last. By the blunder of the German Staff, by the
audacity of Foch, by Galliéni with his army in taxi-cabs, by the
desperate valour of French soldiers, fighting, dying, maddened by
thirst, with untended wounds, with rage in their hearts, agonising,
but without surrender in their souls because the life of France was in
their guard that day. They won a victory which smashed back the
German Army and destroyed their plan.
The British Army had a small share in that victory of the Marne.
Its weight did not count for much, but its artillery harassed the
German retreat with deadly execution, and in fighting down from
Mons it had helped to spoil the German time-table and to bar the
way to Paris for just that little time which enabled France to stand on
its line of battle and repair the dreadful blunders of its first defence.
Have the French forgotten that? It happened ten years ago!

Trench Warfare

The Germans were forced to dig in. It was the beginning of trench
warfare. Then the line hardly altered for four years more, in spite of
endless battles and unceasing death.
The British Regulars—that “contemptible little army” as the Kaiser
called it before its rifle fire mowed down his men—were spent and
done after the first and second Battles of Ypres, where they barred
the way to Calais with a thin line standing among their dead. The
Territorials—volunteers before the war—arrived, as steady as old
soldiers. It was due to them that the Regulars had been able to get
to France, leaving them for home defence. Then the new armies
came into the field—“the Kitchener boys”—the First Hundred
Thousand. They were those young men who had stormed the
recruiting offices at the first call: from the Universities, public
schools, city offices, village shops, and fields. They had been
together in the ranks, learning each other’s language, bullied by
sergeant-majors, broken in by discipline, taught to forget the
decencies of civilisation as they had known it in their homes, the
little comforts of their former state, individual liberty. Already they
had left their old civilian life far behind. Yet they came out to France
and Flanders like schoolboys in keenness and enthusiasm. They
wanted to get into the “real thing” after all that gruelling training.
They got into it quickly enough, up beyond Ypres at Hooge and St.
Julien, or further south at “Plug Street” and Hill 60. They sat in
water-logged trenches, with bits of dead bodies in the mud about
them, under frightful shell-fire twenty times greater than the answer
of their own guns because they were weak in artillery and short of
shells. (The workers at home had not got into their stride in pouring
out the engines of destruction.) They had no dug-outs worth the
name. Only the Germans knew how to build them then, as they
knew most else of war, as masters of technique, overwhelmingly
superior in material, and in organisation. The British were in the low
ground everywhere, with the Germans on the high ground, so that
they could not march or move by daylight, or light a fire, or cross a
road, without being signalled to watchful eyes and shelled without
mercy. They were lousy in every seam of their shirts. There was no
chance of cleanliness unless they were far behind the lines. Young
gentlemen of England—and of Scotland, Ireland and Wales—found
themselves like cave men: eating, sleeping, living in filth and the
stench of corruption, under winged death searching for their bodies.
They saw their comrades blown to bits beside them; counted their
own chances, coldly, made it one in four, with luck. They were afraid
of fear. To lose control—that would be worst of all. To show funk
before the other men, to feel themselves ducking, shrinking,
weakening, under those cursed shrieking shells, to surrender will
power—that would be fatal. Some did, gibbering with shell-shock, or
shot as cowards; but few. The marvel was that youth could stand so
much, and still make jokes, laughing at the frightful irony between
their old life and this new one, between the old lessons learnt by
nice little gentlemen in nurseries, and this bloody business and
primaeval stuff of killing and being killed!
 It was truly a world war. Italy had come in. British troops were
fighting in Africa and Asia. The Japanese Navy was in alliance with
the British Fleet. Both France and England brought over coloured
troops. Indian Princes poured out their wealth and offered their man
power. Sikhs and Pathans rode through French fields. Gurkhas cut
off the ears of German peasants after cutting their throats with
curved knives. Indian cavalry, dismounted, were sent into the wet
trenches of French Flanders and died of cold if they did not die of
wounds. Seneghalese negroes drove French lorries, were massacred
as infantry. Moroccans were billeted in French villages and Arab
chiefs rode through Dunkirk. Chinese coolies unloaded British shells
and cut down French forests for British trench props. And the
coloured races of the world were shown the picture of the white
races destroying each other for some reason which was never clear
to them....

The Slaughter on the Somme

The British Armies in France and Flanders reached their full

strength before their great offensive on the Somme in the summer
of 1915. In material and in manhood they were the best that
England and the Empire could produce. The men were the fine
flower of their race, in intelligence, physique, training, and spirit. In
time of peace they would have lived to be leaders, administrators,
artists, poets, sportsmen, craftsmen, the “quality” of their nation;
the fathers of splendid children. They were in living splendour the
priceless treasure of the British folk—and they were squandered,
wasted, and destroyed.... Behind them now was an immense power
in artillery and ammunition and the material of destruction. The
factories in England had been working at full pressure, millions of
women had been stuffing shells with high explosives; guns, guns,
guns came pouring up the roads towards the front in an endless
tide; the ground was piled with ammunition dumps, and British
Generals had at their command a fighting machine incomparable at
that time, not only in weight of metal, but above all in freshness of
enthusiasm and heroic human fire.
 The British Armies rose out of their ditches for the great attack
with an ardour that had never been seen before in the history of
war, and in my judgment will never be seen again. They believed
that at last—after artillery duels deciding nothing, after muddled
battles like that of Loos, mining and counter-mining, and trench
raids, and the gain of little salients at murderous cost—they were
going to “do the trick” and end the war by irresistible attack. I saw
the glory of those young men and the massacres of their bodies and
hopes.
At the first assault, after the greatest bombardment ever seen yet
still leaving forests of barbed wire and a fortress system of trenches
and tunnels twenty miles deep behind the German front lines, they
were mown down in swathes by German machine-gun fire, and
afterwards, in isolated positions to which they staggered, blown to
bits by German gun fire. By desperate courage they smashed
through the outer earthworks of that infernal trench-system; for five
months they fought through that twenty miles, yard by yard; but it
was sheer slaughter all the way, and they were the victims of
atrocious staff work, incompetent generalship, ruthless disregard of
human life, repeated and dreadful blundering. The British Generals
cannot be blamed. They were amateurs doing their best in an
unknown type of war. They had to learn by failures and by mistakes.
Perhaps their mistakes were not worse than those of the enemy’s
High Command; or not much worse. But for the men it was Hell.
They were ordered to attack isolated positions, which often they
captured although the whole arc of German gun fire for forty miles
around was switched on to their bodies until they were annihilated.
High Wood, Delville Wood, Trones Wood, Mametz Wood—a hundred
more—are names that bleed with the memory of enormous sacrifice
of British youth. In the end they won through to open ground and
forced the enemy into a far retreat to the shelter of the Hindenburg
line.
The German losses in these battles of the Somme were frightful
too, and for a time certainly broke the spirit of the German Army, as
thousands of letters left in their dug-outs proved beyond doubt.
Their agony was as great as that of the British troops. They were
pounded to death in their trenches and dug-outs, until all that land
stank of their bodies, and one could not walk without treading on
them. They were stunned by shell fire, tortured by fear beyond
human control as they crawled out of their broken ditches to meet
British bayonets. Their heroism was wonderful, as all our men
confessed with an admiration which extinguished hate among those
—nearly all—who had a sense of chivalry. But their losses, though
enormous, were not as great as the British suffered, not half as
great, I think, because defence was less costly than attack in those
conditions. By the end of the battle of the Somme half a million of
the finest manhood of Great Britain had been killed, wounded,
blinded, shell-shocked, and broken.
The tide of wounded flowed back from the fields of the Somme in
endless columns of ambulances, where the bad cases lay under
brown blankets with only the soles of their boots visible. To the end
of my life I shall remember those upturned soles and the huddled
bodies above. The walking wounded formed up in queues outside
the dressing stations: silent, patient, dog-weary, caked with a
whitish clay. The casualty clearing stations were crammed, and the
surgeons were overworked while, row upon row, the badly wounded
were laid on the grass outside the tents or on blood-stained
stretchers waiting for their turn. The “butcher’s shop” in Corbie had
a great clientèle. Whiffs of chloroform reeked across the roadways.
Fresh graves were dug in cemeteries behind the lines, in spreading
areas. The lightly wounded, after a little rest, came back laughing,
cheering and joking. A Blighty wound!... Home again!... Out of it for
a few months of grace!

The Spirit of the Victims

By the end of the Battle of the Somme the first impulses of the
war had died down, the first emotions had been forgotten.
Disillusion, dreadful experience, bitterness, had turned the edge of
idealism. One cannot understand the mind of men ten years after
without going back to that period of disenchantment. The young
men who had hurried to the recruiting stations were on fire with
enthusiasm for France and Belgium, for the rescue of liberty and
civilisation, and for love of England. They became rather damped in
the training camps because of so much red-tape, eyewash, spit and
polish, and humiliation. They were handled, not like men filled with
heroic spirit, but often like swine. Sergeant-majors swore at them in
filthy language; old officers, too feeble for the front or sent back in
disgrace for their incompetence, set them to ridiculous, time-wasting
work. Reviews, inspections, parades, took the heart out of them.
They had not joined for this ... they were trained and staled by the
time they went to France, though their spirits rose at the thought of
getting into “the real thing” at last. They didn’t like it. They hated it
when its routine became familiar and horrible and deadly. They were
ready to stick it out to the death—they did so—but certain values
altered as their illusions were shattered. It was all very well—though
not at all pleasant—to die for civilisation or liberty, but it was another
thing to die for some old General they had never seen because he
ordered them to attack positions which were wrongly marked on his
maps, or because he was competing in “raids” with the General
commanding the line on his left, or because he believed in keeping
up the “fighting spirit” of his troops by ordering the capture of
German trenches which made another salient in his line and were
bound to be blotted out in mud and blood as soon as the German
guns received their signals. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
Sweet to die for one’s country—in the first flash of enthusiasm—and
afterwards necessary anyhow, though distinctly unpleasant to have
both legs blown off, or both eyes blinded, or one’s entrails torn out.
But not in any way comforting to be sent over the top with a
battalion unsupported on the right or left, or with wrong orders, or
without a barrage to smash the enemy’s wire, or by some incredible
blunder which meant the massacre of a man’s best pals and a hole
in his stomach. Inevitable, perhaps. Yes, but unforgivable by its
victims when it became a habit.... Over and over again battalions
were wiped out because some one had blundered. It was the same
on the German front, the French front, every front. And its effect in
the minds of the fighting men was the same in all nations and on
both sides of the line. It made them rage against the Staff. It made
them feel that the front line men were being sacrificed, wasted and
murdered by pompous old gentlemen and elegant young men living
very comfortably behind the lines in pleasant châteaux of France, far
from shell fire, growing “flower borders” on their breasts. Men talked
like that, with increasing irony. They were unfair, often. It’s not easy
to be fair when one’s certain death is being ordered by influential
folk who do not share the risks.

The People at Home

For England’s sake! Yes, those young officers and men who went
through the battles of the Somme and many others, seeing no end
to the war, and the only chance of life in a lucky wound, endured
everything of fear and filth, because at the back of their minds and
hidden in their hearts was the remembrance of some home or plot
of earth, some old village with an old church, which meant to them
—England, or Scotland, or Wales. They “stuck it” all because in their
spirit, consciously or unconsciously, was the love of their country,
and in their blood the old urge of its pride. But as the war went on
even this, though it was never lost and flamed up again in the
darkest hours, was overcast by doubts and angers and ironies. They
were all so damned cheerful in little old England! They took the
losses of men as a matter of course. Business as usual and keep the
home fires burning! That was all very well, but those “charity
bazaars for the poor dear wounded,” all that jazz and dancing and
love-making, giving the boys a good time in their seven days’ leave,
earning wonderful wages in the munition works, making enormous
profits out of shipping and contracts, spending their money like
water, filling the theatres, keeping up the spirit of the nation, wasn’t
it too much of a good thing when viewed from the angle of a trench
with one’s pals’ dead bodies in No Man’s Land, and a blasted world
around one, and death screaming overhead?