20:2 (1915) 206-212
The whole world has mourned the death of our saintly Pontiff Pius X, We have only to join our voice to that universal cry of mourning, and to thank God for the blessings of his wonderful Pontificate. To his successor, Benedict XV—surely happy in the choice of name, if not in the time of his accession—we offer our filial obedience and reverence.
The terrible war that lately burst upon Europe from summer skies with the suddenness of a thunderstorm, includes, besides old elements of destructiveness and death, many novel features of atrocity and horror. Amongst these is its kinship with civil war through the number and intimacy of previous international relations. In the good old days our fathers fought Spaniards, or Frenchmen, or Russians, with the comfortable security of complete ignorance. When few relations drew foreign countries together, when few men travelled or spoke foreign tongues, people could fight with easy minds against unknown enemies, who might be ogres, or frog-eaters, or other fabled monsters. The facile and frequent communications of the past half-century have changed all that. Barriers between nations being thrown down, their intercourse has been more intimate and frequent than ever before in history.
With Germans and Austrians Englishmen have never crossed swords before, though they have often fought side by side. We have learnt one another’s language, studied in one another’s schools, admired one another’s literature and science, appreciated the good qualities of each other. We have lived or travelled in each other’s countries, spending pleasant holidays in their cities and mountains. Innumerable ties of trade, of friendship, of customs, or of marriage have bound the two peoples together. From Germany England borrowed a Royal House with the political and social links that such a fact involves, — not to mention a religion that was mainly made in Germany. These many bonds of business, of common pursuits, of marriage, of religion, have drawn the two nations so close together that the fratricidal strife that has broken out between them takes on much of the atrocity of civil war.
We English had fondly hoped that such a catastrophe would prove impossible, that, in spite of feverish preparations and open challenge, our latent jealousies and incompatible ambitions could never flame into open warfare. In this spirit we smiled away menaces as the ravings of professors, the blusterings of a military caste, or the rhetorical vapourings of a theatrical War-Lord. It was hard at first to get angry enough with the enemy; now our indignation has the bitterness of an unexpected quarrel, intensified by the awful carnage of modern weapons, and the ruthless efficiency of Teutonic warfare. We had allowed for devastated fields and burnt villages in the fighting line; not for the ruined cities of France and Flanders, the massacre of unarmed peasants, the bombardment of defenceless towns; and these have at last roused to white heat the slow anger of the Briton. Louvain, Dinant, Termonde, Rheims, will not easily.be forgotten, nor Scarborough, Whitby and the Hartlepools. It is like fighting with a homicidal maniac, into which little personal anger enters, but a grim determination to wrest his weapon from the madman’s hands, or else to slay him where he stands. To such a war an ending may come through exhaustion or defeat, but never a satisfactory issue until all power of aggression be destroyed, and all danger brought to an end.
For the issue that is now being fought out not only in Europe, but, since England is engaged, over almost the whole globe, is one that has never quite been put to the World before. It is not merely an ambitious attempt at aggrandizement or, to use a more misleading term, at expansion on the part of a powerful European state — such an attempt as provoked the Napoleonic wars a century ago. Neither is it merely a matter of public honour and decency arising, firstly, from the declaration of war by Germany on Russia at the very hour when Austria and Russia were attempting amicably to compose their differences, and, in the second place, from the flagrant abuse by Germany of Belgium’s trust and of Belgium’s weakness.
Centuries ago public honour and decency in Europe were felt to be outraged by the occupation of the Holy Places by the infidels, and the removal of this stigma was the inspiration of the Crusaders. Nor can the main issue in this world-struggle be said to be merely a question of Freedom or Tyranny. The Greeks fought on this issue at Thermopylae and Marathon, and left to posterity the conception of freedom which has become the vital principle of the British Empire, and is the mainspring of her policy. It is not merely Prussian domination that we are now resisting, but all that Prussian domination stands for, and mainly and essentially the Prussian claim that where the interests of Germany are involved, might is right, expediency has an ethical sanction, and a man’s bond is worth just the paper it is written on.
The Greek conception of a tyrant, which has passed into the very idiom of their language, was of a man who made laws for others, and was not bound by them himself. It has been left to modern Prussia to apply this function of the tyrant to the moral sphere — to the law of God. That this means logically, if and in proportion as Germany were to succeed, the subversion of morals among mankind, is obvious, when we make ourselves aware of the German claim to Germanise the world. Years ago Treitschke wrote 'The greatness and goodness of the world is to be found in the predominance there of German culture, of the German mind, in a word of the German character.' And, we suppose, the predominance of German ethics.
Elsewhere in the pages of this Journal are recorded, so far as they are known, the names of the sons of Ampleforth who have offered or who have given their lives, not only in defence of their country against foreign aggression, in defence of freedom against tyranny, of public right against individualist insolence, but also and chiefly for the maintenance of the principles of Christian life which were breathed into the world at Bethlehem, at Nazareth, and in all Judea, and which are now challenged not without blasphemy from Potsdam and Berlin.
We mourn for the fallen; our heartfelt sympathy goes out to those so terribly bereaved — within one short week in December three members of this community lost relatives most near and dear to them — but through it all, and whatever sorrow the future has in store for us, it is our deep conviction that those who die in this war against Germany are most certainly not to be pitied, for they die witnesses to the great Commandment, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.'
The latest news about Rheims Cathedral is that the damage done by the many bombardments is not as yet irreparable. About forty shells have struck the building — enough, we should have thought, to wipe it out of existence. Yet the twin towers — most delicately graceful of their kind — and the main walls, north, south, east and west, are still standing, practically intact; and, when re-roofed and mended, the restored building will be no new thing, but the same venerable Rheims Cathedral we have known and loved. No doubt, when time has rubbed oft the newness of the restoration, the glorious facade will be as beautiful as ever.
But we may not hope that the place will be to the French nation what it has been. With the complete destruction of the interior — the beautiful pictured windows blown into scattered bits; the priceless tapestries shrivelled up and charred by fire; the altars smashed and the choir stalls reduced to cinders — much of its sacredness will have left it never to return. New furniture and fittings will create a new and less saintly atmosphere. The Cathedral will be a shrine emptied of the treasure it was designed to preserve. Happily for us Laurentians the relics we prize most, the body of Archbishop Gifford, our founder, lay safe in a vault beneath the pavement. It is unlikely that the German shells have desecrated the tombs.
What of that other world-famous monument, the even more venerable and, in certain respects, more beautiful Abbey church of St Remi? Our congregation is even more closely connected with the Abbey than with the Cathedral. It was when Fr Leander Jones was novice-master there that, in 1608, Dr William Gifford, Fr Clement Reyner (in religion Fr Laurence), Joseph Haworth, Anthony Walgrave, Peter Wilford and Robert Babthorpe took the Benedictine habit, and a month later set out to make a beginning of English monastic life at Dieulouard.
The same report tells us, 'In the neighbourhood of St Remi... the worst mischief of all has been wrought and many lives have been lost. It was impossible to examine this quarter.' We may hope that so stout a building as the old Abbey church will not have been wrecked and ruined beyond repair. We may hope also that the muniments of the Archiepiscopal palace were removed before it was burnt down, and that the conventual church of St Peter has escaped destruction. It is there, before the statue of Our Lady, that Archbishop Gifford’s heart was buried. And it was there, in the old convent of St Peter, that his portrait was last seen. When the war is over, some Laurentian should be deputed to visit the city and make further inquiries about this picture of our founder. The Abbe Haudecoeur was convinced that it had never left Rheims.
Though the war has happily ended, war prices are still with us, and the Journal once again has complied with the exigencies of the times and the inexorable demands of her finance by curtailing the number of articles. Our readers, so considerate and long suffering, may be growing tired of the reiterated apologies with which these notes have so often begun, but it is well to record that our pre-war ideals — be they literary or artistic — have not yet receded beyond our line of vision. We as well as others are too conscious how far our grasp has fallen short of our reach.
It is not for us to speak at length of the glorious victory which has crowned the Allied cause, but we may be allowed to add our voice to the pean of joy which has filled the land. Sometimes it is hard to realise that the black days of the great war have gone for ever, and we — thanks to others — have been allowed once again to live in the days of peace. All honour to those to whom victory is due, from the greatest to the least. We are proud to think that among them may be numbered those whom Ampleforth accounts among her sons. Thank God many have been spared us, but many, too, have nobly forfeited their splendid young lives in the great cause. Ampleforth can surely never forget them. In her prayers they shall live and, we trust, in some enduring monument of befitting beauty which shall be at the same time both a symbol of their sacrifice and a token of her love.
At the Solemn Requiem sung at the end of term, when we heard read aloud the long list of those who have one and all died so nobly and so well, we were momentarily able to gauge what the war must have cost England in manhood and in character. May the knowledge of what their lives were and the strong piety they manifested in their deaths be an abiding inspiration to us. With more than ordinary confidence too we can surely say, 'Visi sunt oculis insipientium mori, illi autem sunt in pace.'
The war has robbed the monastery of several postulants. Some were about to enter the monastery when the war broke out, others were desirous of doing so, but their duty to their country prevented them, and their sacrifice has been of another kind. May they rest in peace. Now that the end of the war enables us to recruit in the normal way, we are glad to be able to tell our readers that well authenticated rumour puts their number at a double figure. Most of them are at present serving in the army, but they have every prospect of immediate release.
The expectation of news of the Armistice on the morning of November nth culminated at a quarter past twelve in the approach of an aeroplane. It was felt that on this occasion the familiar throbbing of its engine portended the news of victory. The pilot was surely the herald of a noisy world, for whom we had all longed. Excitement in the class-room and among those at physical training grew intense, when, instead of the aeroplane passing us by, as so many have done of late, it began a series of stunts. Work spontaneously ceased, and for ten minutes we were thrilled by spiral glides, looping the loop and swoops, in all of which the pilot displayed a familiarity with his surroundings and the points of vantage which made us suspicious that he was an old boy. Suddenly he turned towards the cricket field, and shutting off his engine made a beautiful landing. Within three minutes Captain Basil Collison was surrounded by masters and boys from both schools cheering lustily the news of the Armistice and its bearer. Captain Collison was the first: airman to land on our cricket ground, and assuredly he could not have chosen the occasion more happily. In the afternoon we gave him the good send-off he had deserved of us. Not only had he brought good news, but he had scattered work and ushered in a day and half’s recreation.
On the night of the 11th a solemn Te Deum was sung in thanksgiving for the Victory. On the following day High Mass was attended by all the School, and Father Abbot preached upon the lessons of the War.
On the 12th we prepared a huge bonfire, crowned with an effigy of the Kaiser, on the top of the Beacon, and within a few hundred yards of the Prisoners’ Camp. As the flames mounted on high we sang 'God save the King,' cheered vociferously and generally gave free vent to our feelings. On our way home we caused the welkin to ring with choruses and songs, the volume and variety of which were no small cause of joy to the country side. The knowledge of a prospective addition of an extra week to the Christmas vacation tended to heighten our hilarity.