14 
LAND & WATER 
November 9, 191 6 
Neutral Sympathies 
By Colonel Feyler 
NAPOLEON used to say that in war the moral 
factor counted for three-quarters of one's 
strength; the present conflict has not tended to 
lessen the truth of this dictum. We cannot deny 
that the belligerents on both sides ha%-c given proof of very 
great courage. The resistance of the French soldiers to the 
fierce and unceasingly renewed attacks at \\rclun has, 
for instance, provoked universal admiration ; and if 
we wish to be absolutely just and impartial, we must 
concede that the courage of the (icrman soldiery in 
resuming ever and again an attack that cost them such 
terrible losses, was also worthy of much praise and gave 
proof of their high \aluc. We can apply tlii> example 
of Verdun in a general manner to the whole of the war, 
and if we limit oursehes to strictly military oi)erations 
(leaving aside the crimes against humanity lr<iin which 
so many (ierman leaders have not shrunk), we may 
safely say that the two opposing armies ha\f mutually 
excelled one another in pluck and in grit, and that both 
sides have given eviden'-e of a sustained heii^'lit of morai. 
How is it^ then, that the moral on the side of the Allies 
seems to be lasting better than tliat of the Central Powers, 
amongst whose ranks there is now evident a general 
moral falling-off, whereas the failures in the Allies moral 
have only been local and temporary ? The answer can 
only be in the moral factors animating the Allien to a more 
strenuous resistance than that of their opponvnts. This 
is not so surprising as it seems at first sight, and a 
short examination of the moral factors in\()lved will 
throw much light on the subject. These factors are : 
Patriotism, desire to live, search for greater liappiness, 
and confidence in one's cause and means for \ictory. 
We can take for granted that patriotism and the desire 
to Uve have acted with equal intensity upon all the 
belligerents, for all of whom the war is a national war 
and all of whom possess the essentially htiman instinct 
of self-preservation. Theoretically, too, the desire for 
greater happiness should be of equal effect on both sides. 
But in practice, different races do not see eye to eye in 
this matter, and we have here one of the chief points of 
divergence between the two fighting groups ; for the 
Austro-liermans went to war with the idea of domination, 
the Allies with that of liberation. And ne\cr in the 
history of the world have we seen independence, given an 
equality of means, succumb before despotism. 
At the start, of course, the Germans did not realise the 
strength of this desire for domination, and beiir\ed them- 
selves the A'ictims of the aggression of their enemies. 
But this was an illusion, and illusions eventually vanish 
in the light of facts. 
What were the very first acts of war ? An attempt to 
Tisurp the independence of Serbia, and the seizure of 
Luxembourg and Belgium. No semi-official or official 
article in a newspaper can alter these facts. .As long, 
however, as success followed success, as long as the mass 
of the (iermanic people were not suffering too severely 
from the length of the war, so long could these facts be 
hidden under a tissue of equivocation and dissimulation. 
When, however, delay and diminishing hope made their 
sufferings more palpable, these people, these simple 
soldiers — to whom world domination or the hegemony of 
Europe cannot bring more happiness or less labour or 
more hope for the future — have begun to doubt. They 
are asking whether their cause is really righteous enough 
for them to support such great suffering in its defence, 
whether they ha\-e not deceived themselves, or been 
deceived by their leaders ; their moral courage is giving 
way to disquiet, and thus the supporters of Despotism 
are thems,?lves preparing her fall. 
How much greater is Liberty ! He who fights for her 
fights for mankind ; he fights for more happiness for more 
of mankind ; he fights that he and his children and all 
around shall be able to lift higher their heads towards the 
light. \\'hat a terrible thought is that of a (ierman world 
hegemony beside the idea of the peoples working out 
their destiny in independence ! 
We can realise the difference between the two mora, 
factors ; the sufiering which weakens the one serves bu 
to strengthen the other. To those who suffer for them- 
selves alone, death is a deliverance, whereas to him who 
suffers for others, pain itself is hope. 
And now as for neutral sympathies. Powerfully, 
though indirectly, these too are an element of resistance 
It is a remarkable phenomenon^this influence exerted on 
the war even by those nations most decided not to enter 
the struggle. From all time war has awakened sympathy 
in neutral countries, for one side or the other, but never 
has this sympathy been so general. The reasons for this 
intensity are doubtless the more complete interdependence 
of interests, of business ; the partial abolition of frontiers 
by the extension of railways, telegraphs, etc. ; the almost 
general introduction of conscription, which makes of this 
war a war of nations rather than of governments — and 
above all the knowledge that upon the result depends a 
transformation, social and intelltrtual rather than 
political, of the whole of Europe. 
Opposing Tendencies 
.We cannot say that the sympathies of neutrals are 
imanimous, but their general tendency is beyond all 
doubt. There is a sharp line of demarcation between the 
opposing tendencies ; on the one hand are those in favour 
of liberalism, of independence of thought and of a develop- 
ment of human dignity by progress towards democracy 
— and on the other those whose ideal lies in domination, 
in a complete subjection of individualism to authority, 
in short, in any form of autocracy or despotism. 
\\'e must give both parties credit for their good faith, 
and must realise that their battle of opinion is being no 
less ardently waged than the war of the armies them- 
selves ; for the first-mentioned class are fighting on the 
side of the army of liberalism of the Allies, and the second 
on the side of the Central Powers' army of autocracy, that 
mill where men are ground until they become so many 
fractions of the great machine. 
If you care to travel in neutral countries and. to look 
around you, especially to look up the people that you 
have known in times of peace, each one of them will then 
appear to you as an element in the great struggle that is 
killing and maiming so many thousands. Every human 
intelligence takes part in this war and reflects its sym- 
pathies for the side towards whose characteristics it is 
swayed by habit, belief, conviction and experience. 
But the majority by far are those of independent soul, 
who stand for human dignity created by a just ambition 
to deploy to the utmost its potential utihty, and for the 
desire to extend the happiness that can only exist in the 
free air of indi\iduality and personal liberty, untrammelled 
by the unjust constraint of too unlimited an authority. 
When, therefore, (iermany announced to the world 
her intention to extend her organisation, otherwise her 
domination, over all Europe ; when by her invasion of 
Belgium, she gave proof that her authority was to be 
based upon force and not upon justice, not upon per- 
suasion, but upon constraint ; when ninety-three of her 
foremost scholars demonstrated that this authority of 
force rendered such great minds as theirs incapable of 
logical observation and deduction ; when her statesmen 
and her newspapers put themselves +0 manipulate inter- 
national treaties and agreements so as to replace justice 
by necessity ; when her ministers of the gospel resusci- 
tated the Jehovah of the Israelites and presented Him 
to an astonished world as the special god of the (iermans ; 
when, finally, her armies, demonstrated in j)ractice what 
was to be expected from the humane policy of finishing 
the war quickly by an excess of destruction and from 
the Prussian lieutenant with his moral on a war footing 
—then every spirit of liberty and of personal self-respect 
thought with agony, if not with horror, of the prospect 
of a world founded upon such a gospel. 
The Allies, on the other hand, jjroved that their cause 
was infinitely more in accordance with Christianity, 
which was, after all, the foundation stone of modern 
European civilisation, and thus gained for thetnselves 
the great bulk of neutral s\'mpathies. 
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