LAxN'D AND 5V:aTES* 
Jane 12, 1915. 
SONGS OF THE ENEMY. 
THE two little books I am about to review were given 
me by a wounded Prussian Boldier. They fell 
into my hands in this way: One misty morning the 
French launched a small attack in the direction 
of Bixschoote. It had been a very brief affair, 
easily successful, and costing them liitlo. When our ambu- 
lances arrived on the scene it was all over. A few prisoners 
were being conducted across the fields, not more than eight 
or nine altogether. They came along stolidly enough, great 
grey louts, looking very big aud thick beside the French 
soldiers on each side of them. The moment they got into the 
village street — or, rather, the ruins which remained of it — 
we swarmed about them, jostling to have a look and to 
examine the things which had been takeu from their pockets, 
letters, paper-money, tobacco, 4c. They appeared — there 
is no other word which describes their demeanour — 
uncommonly shy. One or two were grinning in an 
apprehensive, propitiatory way, others stood sullen and 
*b3ent>-rainded. 
The scene reminded me of the sudden discovery of a bat-ch 
of new boys in a school-yard at the beginning of term-tim"?. 
Questions were shied at them, which provoked laughter, but, 
of course, no answers, and there was the same sort of mis- 
chievous enjoyment among us of the fact that ths new-comers 
did not know how to behave or what might not be going to 
happen to them next. Presently the ring broke to make 
wav for an cflicer, who took the papers and asked if anyone 
could speak German. I said I thought I could manage to 
make tbera understand, and began to act as interpreter for 
the usual questions. What regiments did they belong to t 
How long had they been there? How many of them had 
there been? Had they suffered much in their feet? (The 
French had suffered themselves a great deal from inflamma- 
tion and frost-bite owing to sta,nding long in watery trenches.) 
To this last question they replied, " No," which made us 
look with envy at their boots, which, sure enough, were 
heavily soled and came high up the leg. 
After this interrogatory was over they were marched away 
to a cottage with four walls intact, en tlia doorstop of which 
two French soldiers sat down with their rifles across their 
knees and began rolling cigarettes. " Now M. le Majeur," 
■aid the ofncer, " come and see what's the matter with this 
beggar over here. The surgeon is down at the other post." lex- 
plained that I was net a doctor. " Well, jou can talk to him. 
He makes out he cannot move." We went together into a 
cottage kitchen, where, in the semi-ob.scurity an enormous 
German was lying on the floor. He had a short scrubby 
beard and small black eyes which caught the light from the 
window. I knelt down beside him. " Wie geht's?" 
" Schlecht." Yet he gave an impression of great health 
and strength and an immense indifferent indolence, sprawling 
there on his back. Was he in pain ? No. Where had he 
been hit ? He didn't quite know. He said he was very 
cold and couldn't feel his legs. We slowly turned him on 
his side with some difficulty, to see if he had been hit in the 
gpine. His back was so caked with mud it was hard to dis- 
cover whether or not there was a hole in his coat. But since we 
could do nothing it was better not to disturb him further, so 
we propped him up and he settled himself stiSlly. 
Rising from my knees I saw that a few yards from his feet 
the door into a side room was open and that the head aud 
shoulders of another German were visible. This roan's mouth 
was open and his temple was smashed in. His face was yellow, 
and he had been dead some time. I got up and pulled the door 
to. The officer nodded. Oui, 9a n'est pas beau," and he went 
ont, while I sat down by the prisoner to wait till the ambu- 
lance should come back to pick us up. Enemy or not, one feels 
a respect for a seriously wounded man which makes one em- 
barrassed and often at a loss to know what to say. I thought 
tbia man was done for, though he looked placid and robust. 
{k is easiest to ask questions. 
"What is your name? " 
He told me, but his speech was thick and I could not 
catch it. I did not ask again. 
" Married I'i 
'" No." 
By DESMOND MacGARTHY. 
" What are you t " 
" Arbeiler — in a factory. "- 
" Where do you live ? " 
" East Prussia." 
" How long have you beon at the war? " 
"Four months." 
" Had a hard time T Have you been in many battles I " 
" Ach, ja." He spoke as though it was wearisome to 
look back on such things. 
" What are they going to do with mel " he said, after a 
pause. 
" Talce you to a hospital and put you to bed." 
He made a feeble movement with his hand towards ths 
door I had shut. A French soldier came in with a tin mug 
of hot coffee, which seemed a sufScient answer to his suspicions. 
After he had drunk it, I asked him if he would like to write 
a letter. H he gave me an address and told me what he 
wanted to say, I might be able to get it through, but I had 
no paper. Ho pointed to a pocket, and in it I found a torn 
note book and two other thin books bound in blue canvas. I 
had some difficulty in understanding the address. He sent 
his greetings to his mother and said he was wounded and a 
pri.'oner. Seeing me turning over the pages of one of tho 
little books, he said I could keep them. 
One was a manual of prayers for men at the front and tha 
other a " War Song Book." The most noticeable feature of 
the prayer-book is its systematic provision for every sort of 
occasion. There is a prayer for recruits, a prayer for setting 
out on the march, another for going into action, one of thanks- 
giving for victory, another to be read after a defeat. There 
are prayers asking for courage and patience, also for the 
Christian churches, for the Fatherland and one for " our 
dear rulers and the Imperial house." It is a dignified little 
manual, written in the sterling old Biblical German which 
shows the language to advantage, and it has evidently been 
compiled by men who regard war in a solemn, self-dedicatory 
spirit. The song-book was a good deal more thumbed, and if 
the first book, read in the light of the Report on the atrocities, 
produces a strange confusion in one's mind, this book, too, 
stirs unexpected reflections. 
In the first place they are sterling patriotic songs, though 
not good poetry — indeed, most of them are far from it. But 
tiie words of a song need not be poetry ; thsy need only be the 
stuff out of which poetry is made; then the music comes and 
turns them into poetry. Such are these songs. What is 
startling is that the emotion they express is not the menacing, 
aggressive patriotism which would consort with their actions, 
but the kind which is equivalent to love of home. It is odd 
to find that even " Dcvtachland iiher allts," the first phrasa 
of which seems so exactly appropriate to the spirit of rnodorn 
Germany, is, after all, only an appeal (written in 1841) to 
Germans to put the common traditions of the race befora 
local patriotism, and not to be divided by their rivers and 
princes. 
The essence of patriotism is the love of an idaal which a 
man feels inherent in the civilisation, the places and tradi- 
tions, out of which he drew liis life. No literary skill in 
adjectives is necessary to express this quality in things. For 
the Englishman, Froncliman, German, the word English, 
French, German will serve best to express that particular 
uniqueness in them which mysteriously satisfies. Where tha 
skill of the writer cornea in is in simply mentioning tiie tilings 
in which this uniqueness is most ccn.stantly felt, and iu thess 
Eongs this is done well. The Germans have conte trampling 
and ravaging into other people's countries, intensifying every 
brutality porsible in war, yet heartening themselves all the 
time with songs about their own pine-woods and water-mills, 
the peace of their homes, their sweethearts, their wives, their 
wine, their good-fellowship, their friendships, and, above all, 
their longing to be free and united. And, stronger contraeit, 
still, the fighting songs of these inventors of gases, bom- 
barders of seaside pleasure places, skuttlers of sliips, are full 
of the spirit of a romantic chivalry. 
One feels after reading them there was never a more 
foolish thing said than : " Let who will govern them, if I may 
writ« the songs of a people." 
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