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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
British writers on peace and war
John Galsworthy, 1911: Air war last and worst hideous development of the black arts of warfare
John Galsworthy: Selections on war
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John Galsworthy
From Maid in Waiting
“I sometimes wonder,” continued Hallorsen, as they reached the ducks, “whether we get our money’s worth out of speed. What do you say, Captain?”
Hubert shrugged. “The hours lost in going by car instead of by train are just about as many as the hours saved, anyway.”
“That is so,” said Hallorsen. “But flying’s a real saver of time.”
“Better wait for the full bill before we boast about flying.”
“You’re right, Captain. We’re surely headed for hell. The next war will mean a pretty thin time for those who take part in it. Suppose France and Italy came to blows, there’d be no Rome, no Paris, no Florence, no Venice, no Lyons, no Milan, no Marseilles within a fortnight. They’d just be poisoned deserts. And the ships and armies maybe wouldn’t have fired a shot.”
“Yes. And all governments know it. I’m a soldier, but I can’t see why they go on spending hundreds of millions on soldiers and sailors who’ll probably never be used. You can’t run armies and navies when the nerve centres have been destroyed. How long could France and Italy function if their big towns were gassed? England or Germany certainly couldn’t function a week.”
“Your Uncle the Curator was saying to me that at the rate Man was going he would soon be back in the fish state.”
“How?”
“Why! Surely! Reversing the process of evolution – fishes, reptiles, birds, mammals. We’re becoming birds again, and the result of that will soon be that we shall creep and crawl, and end up in the sea when land’s uninhabitable.”
“Why can’t we all bar the air for war?”
“How can we bar the air?” said Jean. “Countries never trust each other. Besides, America and Russia are outside the League of Nations.”
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