The Drama of Three Hundred and Sixty Five Days/"Your King and Country Need You"
"YOUR KING AND COUNTRY NEED YOU"
What a mockery! What a waste! What a
hideous reversion! What a confession of blank
failure on the part of civilization, including
morality and religion! But, happily, the invisible
powers of evil had not got it all their own
way, even on that morning of August 5. Out
of the very shadow of battle great things were
already being born among the children of men,
and chief among them were the spirits of sacrifice
and brotherhood. Even the cruel loss of nearly
all that makes human life worth living—
cleanliness and purity and exemption from foul
disease—could be borne for the defence of truth and
freedom. And then it was worth a world of
suffering to realise the first-fruits of that golden
age of brotherhood among all the nations of the
earth (except those of our enemy) which has
been the peace-dream of humanity for countless
centuries.
We in Great Britain have no reason to be ashamed of how our country answered the call. A few years before the outbreak of war I talked about conscription with a British admiral in the cabin of his flagship. "There's not the slightest necessity for it in this country," said the admiral. The moment war was declared the whole nation would rise to it. A great thrill would pass over our people from end to end of the land, and we should have millions flocking to the colours.
The old sailor proved to be a true prophet. None of us can ever forget the spontaneous response in August 1914, to the cry, "Your King and country need you." To such as, like myself, are on the shadowed side of the hill of life, and therefore too old for service, it was a profoundly moving thing to see how swiftly our immense voluntary army sprang (as by a miracle) out of the earth, to look at the long lines of young soldiers passing with their regular step through the streets of London, to think of the situations given up, of the young wives and little children living at home on shortened means, and of the risk taken of life being lost just when it is most precious and most sweet.
What was the motive-power that impelled the young manhood of Great Britain to this tremendous sacrifice? The thought of our country's danger? The danger to France? The danger to Belgium? The fact that a man named Palmerston had pledged his solemn word for them long years before they were born, or even the mothers who bore them were born, that they would go to their deaths rather than allow a great crime to be committed or England's oath be broken? I don't know. I do not believe anybody knows. But I am not ashamed of my tears when I remember it all, and sure I am that in those first critical days of the war the invisible powers of justice must have been fighting on our side.