Life — April 4, 1918 — page 18: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

APRIL 4, 1918 J. A. Mitcnene, Pres’t. 3 17 West Thirty English Offices, Rolls House. ‘O sit still and read the papers while the big Hindenburg crush is going on on the French front is not easy. As Lire goes to press, the strug- gle, five days old, is raging back and forth, but mostly forth. Our minds go over the sea to an enormous conflict and destruction, the outcome of which is still hidden. There has been nothing like it since the battle of the Marne, and even that did not get home to us as this does, Of what the headlines tell us we know not how much is true or what is misleadin; neither can we measure the relative significance of what we read. There is nothing we can do. For a year we have been in the war, and what we could we have done, but not enough. We have fighting men in France, and workers there; those who know, know how many; the rest of us merely know that the number, though considerable, is not great enough to count for much in such a struggle of nations as is going on. It is what is left of France and Britain against what is left of Ger- many, and especially so far as goes the news these lines are based on, it is the British empire against the German em- pire. This fight may end the war. Of course, people are saying so. advertised so long and so openly that people doubted that the Germans in- tended to carry out plans avowed with such publicity and prepared with so The people who Tt was little concealment. ‘* While there ts Life there's Hope" No. 1849 Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY A. Mitte, Sec’y and Treas. it Street, New York Breams Bldgs., London, F. C have doubted it most have heen the war experts. Everybody has known more or less about the great extent of German preparation, but in spite of that, the Allied experts and prognos- ticators have been incredulous of the German purpose to put the German fate to the hazard of a vast attack in force. Indeed, the Ally writers have feared the onset would not come. They have told us that preparations to re- ceive the German effort were formid- able and complete, and that if the rush came the Allies could handle it ig is on these assurances that we rely. All that Britain could do has been done: all that France can do has been done, and we of the United States have contributed a little something. The collapse of Russia has greatly aug- mented the German forces, but in spite of that, the means of meeting this Ger- man onslaught seem incomparably more adequate than the forces that fought the battle of the Marne and sent Germany into the trenches. Such a struggle as this has no prec- edent in history. Three days sufficed for Waterloo; three days for Gettys- burg; but they were puny battles com- pared with this. Here the fundamental energies of two antagonistic theorics of civilization have met head-on, and we Americans, three thousand miles y, have to watch this gigantic contention, in which our future, too, is so very much at stzke, and an which we cannot much get into. It hurts, doesn’t it? It is no joke to be lookers-on at Ar- mageddon, violently desirous to be in the fight in force with our colleagues, but able to do so little! Let us remember these pains, let us lay them to heart, for it is out of pain that our deepest impressions come, and these pangs that we suffer as hour fol- lows hour and a later headline drives out an earlier one should drive deep into our consciousness the misery of being overtaken by a great emergency in which we are not ready to do our part. We say as we look on, Oh, if only we had ten times as many men in that fight! So England said at the battle of the Marne, but she need not say so to-day. She learned her lesson. UT the battle of the Marne was won for France without ten times as many British troops, and we must he confident that this fight will be won for the Allies without ten times as many Americans. There is abundant basis for expectation that it will be so won, and those hearts that sink be- cause the headline of the moment reads ominous might better avoid headlines altogether and spend the week in for- tifying exercises, and wait for the end. Great battles sway back and forth, and are usually won and lost several times before they finish. So it was with Waterloo ; so, doubtless, it will be with this battle of Holy Week, except that the fury of this fight may run on for many days. If the Germans are go- ing to overwhelm the whole of conti- nental Europe it will be time enough to accept that situation when it ar- rives. Anyone who goes out to meet it wastes time and strength, and fetches loose from sustaining faith. The best advices we have from men of judg- ment fresh from inspection of the Allied preparation is that though the German effort may make gains and test all the strength that is gathered against it, it cannot overwhelm the Allied de- fense. It may drive it back many comichooks.co Awe