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MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. The word derived from two word parts that mean “cutting apart” is
a. physiology
b. homeostasis
c. anatomy
d. dissection
ANS: C DIF: Memorization REF: p. 3
OBJ: 1 TOP: Introduction
6. The relationship between the knee and the ankle can be described as
a. the knee is inferior to the ankle
b. the knee is distal to the ankle
c. the knee is proximal to the ankle
d. both a and b above
ANS: C DIF: Application REF: pp. 7-8 OBJ: 5
TOP: Anatomical directions
7. The relationship between the heart and the lungs can be described as
a. the heart is distal to the lungs
b. the heart is medial to the lungs
c. the heart is lateral to the lungs
d. both a and c above
ANS: B DIF: Application REF: p. 7 OBJ: 5
TOP: Anatomical directions
11. The relationship between the skin and the muscles can be described as
a. the skin is superficial to the muscle
b. the muscle is superficial to the skin
c. the muscle is deep to the skin
d. both a and c above
ANS: D DIF: Memorization REF: p. 7
OBJ: 3 TOP: Anatomical directions
12. A cut dividing the body into anterior and posterior portions is called a
a. sagittal section
b. frontal section
c. transverse section
d. none of the above
ANS: B DIF: Memorization REF: p. 9
OBJ: 5 TOP: Planes or body sections
13. A cut dividing the body into upper and lower portions is called a
a. sagittal section
b. frontal section
c. transverse section
d. coronal section
ANS: C DIF: Memorization REF: p. 9
OBJ: 5 TOP: Planes or body sections
14. A cut dividing the body into right and left portions is called a
a. sagittal section
b. frontal section
c. transverse section
d. coronal section
ANS: A DIF: Memorization REF: pp. 8-9
OBJ: 5 TOP: Planes or body sections
23. The left upper quadrant of the abdominopelvic cavity includes all of the
a. left lumbar region
b. left iliac region
c. left hypochondriac region
d. left inguinal region
ANS: C DIF: Application REF: p. 10 OBJ: 7
TOP: Body cavities
24. Using the maintaining of a constant temperature in a building as an example of a feedback loop, the thermometer would be an
example of a(n)
a. sensor
b. control center
c. effector
d. positive feedback loop
ANS: A DIF: Memorization REF: p. 14
OBJ: 9 TOP: The balance of body functions
25. Using the maintaining of a constant temperature in a building as an example of a feedback loop, the furnace would be an example
of a(n)
a. sensor
b. control center
c. effector
d. positive feedback loop
ANS: C DIF: Memorization REF: p. 14
OBJ: 9 TOP: The balance of body functions
26. Using the maintaining of a constant temperature in a building as an example of a feedback loop, the thermostat would be an
example of a(n)
a. sensor
b. control center
c. effector
d. positive feedback loop
ANS: B DIF: Memorization REF: p. 14
OBJ: 9 TOP: The balance of body functions
34. If this kind of section were made through the center of the head, both the right and left eyes would be on the same section.
a. Coronal section
b. Midsagittal section
c. Transverse section
d. Both a and c above
ANS: D DIF: Application REF: pp. 8-9 OBJ: 5
TOP: Planes or body sections
35. The relationship between an organ and organ system is similar to the relationship between a cell and
a. an organism
b. the cellular level of organization
c. a tissue
d. none of the above
ANS: C DIF: Synthesis REF: p. 6 OBJ: 3
TOP: Structural levels of organization
39. Which of the following terms do not refer to a part of the head region?
a. Olecranal
b. Zygomatic
c. Frontal
d. All of the above terms refer to parts of the head
ANS: A DIF: Memorization REF: p. 13 (Table 1-2)
OBJ: 8 TOP: Body regions
41. The organ level of organization contains all of these lower levels.
a. The cellular and tissue levels only
b. The chemical and tissue levels only
c. The chemical, cellular, and tissue levels only
d. The chemical, cellular, tissue, and system levels
ANS: C DIF: Application REF: pp. 5-6 OBJ: 3
TOP: Structural levels of organization
42. This structure physically separates the pelvic cavity from the abdominal cavity.
a. Mediastinum
b. Diaphragm
c. Mesenteries
d. None of the above
ANS: D DIF: Memorization REF: p. 9
OBJ: 6 TOP: Body cavities
44. A scientific experiment testing a new drug used two groups, one getting the drug and one getting the sugar pill. The group getting
the sugar pill is the
a. test group
b. hypothesis group
c. control group
d. observational group
ANS: C DIF: Application REF: p. 4 OBJ: 2
TOP: Scientific method
46. A scientific experiment testing a new drug used two groups, one getting the drug and one getting a sugar pill. If the group getting
the drug did much better than the group with the sugar pill:
a. it would indicate that the drug was more effective than the sugar pill
b. a theory would be formed
c. the control group would be shown to have improved because of the drug
d. all of the above
ANS: A DIF: Application REF: p. 4 OBJ: 2
TOP: Scientific method
48. If a person lost a little more than 3 pounds on a diet, they would have lost about
a. 500 grams
b. 1000 grams
c. 1500 grams
d. 2000 grams
ANS: C DIF: Application REF: p. 4 OBJ: 2
TOP: Metric System
50. Which process is used as the principal technique used to isolate and study the structural components or parts of the human body?
a. Imaging
b. Dissection
c. X-rays
d. Resection
ANS: B DIF: Memorization REF: p. 3
OBJ: 1 TOP: Introduction
TRUE/FALSE
1. The word dissection is derived from two word parts that mean “cutting apart.”
3. An organ is defined as a group of several types of cells working together to perform a specific function.
4. The reference position for the directional terms of the body is called the anatomical position.
5. The prone position is a position in which the body is lying face down.
7. The supine position is a position in which the body is lying face up.
9. Because humans walk upright, superior and superficial mean the same thing.
13. Because humans walk upright, inferior and deep mean the same thing.
14. Because humans walk upright, ventral and anterior mean the same thing.
15. Because humans walk upright, dorsal and posterior mean the same thing.
25. The bones of the arm are superficial to the muscles of the arm.
29. A sagittal section divides the body into upper and lower parts.
30. A sagittal section divides the body into right and left parts.
31. A frontal section divides the body into front and back parts.
32. A transverse section divides the body into upper and lower parts.
33. The two major cavities of the body are the abdominal and thoracic cavities.
34. The two major cavities of the body are the dorsal and ventral cavities.
35. The diaphragm divides the thoracic cavity and the abdominal cavity.
37. The pleural cavity is in both the thoracic and dorsal cavities.
38. The brain and spinal cord are in the dorsal cavity.
39. The cranial cavity contains the brain and spinal cord.
41. The lower abdominopelvic area contains the left iliac region.
43. The epigastric, umbilical, and left lumbar regions are all in the middle abdominopelvic area.
44. Homeostasis refers to the relatively constant internal environment the body tries to maintain.
45. A negative feedback loop is one way the body tries to maintain homeostasis.
46. The sensor in a feedback loop compares the actual condition to the “normal” condition the body tries to maintain.
47. The effector in a negative feedback loop does something to move the regulated condition back to “normal.”
48. The sensor in a negative feedback loop detects a change in the regulated condition.
49. In the negative feedback loop, the effector is the link between the sensor and the control center.
51. The control of the volume of body fluid is an example of a negative feedback loop.
53. The contraction of the uterus during childbirth is an example of a positive feedback loop.
54. The arms and legs are part of the axial body portion.
55. The head and trunk are part of the axial body portion.
56. The arms and legs are part of the appendicular body portion.
59. A body in a supine position has its dorsal side to the ground.
60. A body in a prone position has its dorsal side to the ground.
61. On the compass rosettes in a figure, the letter P opposite the letter D would stand for the word proximal.
62. The thoracic cavity is divided into two parts, the mediastinum and the dorsal cavity.
63. The midsagittal and transverse sections, which divide the abdomen into quadrants, intersect at the base of the mediastinum.
64. The diaphragm divides the axial from the appendicular region of the body.
65. The word leg refers only to the part of the body between the knee and the ankle.
66. Women can have one more body function regulated by a positive feedback loop than men can.
69. When reading a compass rosette in a figure, the letter L can mean either left or lateral.
70. When reading a compass rosette in a figure, the letter P opposite the letter D stands for posterior.
71. The dorsal cavity is a made up of a single cavity containing the brain and spinal cord.
72. The abdominopelvic region is divided into four quadrants, the left and right lumbar regions on the upper part and the left and right
iliac regions on the lower part.
74. The terms ophthalmic and orbital both refer to the eye area.
76. The single method used for all scientific investigation is called the scientific method.
78. If the effects of a drug are being tested by a scientific experiment, two groups would be used: a group that gets the drug and a group
that gets an inactive substance. The group that gets the inactive substance is called the control group.
79. The term atrophy describes a body structure that is at the peak of its efficiency.
80. The term dystrophy describes a degenerative process on a body structure due to lack of use.
81. The study of the structure of an organism and the relationships of its parts is often defined as physiology.
MATCHING
24. A hypothesis that has been supported by repeated testing and has gained a high level of confidence
25. A systematic approach to discovery
26. A group that does not get what is being tested
27. A reasonable guess based on previous informal observations
ESSAY
1. Explain the concept of homeostasis. Why is this so important to the survival of the body?
ANS:
(Answers may vary)
2. Explain a positive feedback loop. Give an example of a positive feedback loop in the body.
ANS:
(Answers may vary)
3. Explain a negative feedback loop. How does a negative feedback loop assist in maintaining homeostasis?
ANS:
(Answers may vary)
ANS:
(Answers may vary)
ANS:
(Answers may vary)
6. Develop and explain an experiment that tests the hypothesis that people with high levels of vitamin C in their diets have fewer
colds than people with low levels of vitamin C in their diets.
ANS:
(Answers may vary)
ANS:
(Answers may vary)
8. Explain how the control group is used to determine the success of the test group and the experiment.
ANS:
(Answers may vary)
ANS:
(Answers may vary)
10. Describe anatomical position. Explain the terms supine and prone.
ANS:
(Answers may vary)
ANS:
(Answers may vary)
ANS:
(Answers may vary)
ANS:
(Answers may vary)
14. Describe the parts of the dorsal cavity and explain what each part contains.
ANS:
(Answers may vary)
15. What makes up the axial portion of the body? What makes up the appendicular portion of the body?
ANS:
(Answers may vary)
Unbroken Loyalties
The “Long, long way to Tipperary” had carried our men far from
the first enthusiasm with which they had joined up as “crusaders for
civilisation.” And yet they had an instinct of loyalty in them stronger
than all their doubts, angers and ironies. Again and again, before
their battles, and at the worst time, it rose and carried them through
to desperate endeavour or frightful endurance. It was loyalty to their
own manhood, to their division and battalion, to their comrades, to
the spirit of this hellish game, and to the old, old spirit of race which
they could not deny. The orders might be wrong, but they obeyed.
The attack might be doomed before it started—and often was—but
they went over the top, all out. The battalion might be wiped out
under high explosives, but the last of the living, lying among the
dead, held on to their holes in the earth until they were relieved or
killed or captured. Comradeship helped them. It was the best thing
they had all through, and very wonderful; and, more wonderful still,
they kept a sense of humour, whimsical, ironical, vulgar,
blasphemous, and divine, which made them guffaw at any joke
suggested by a pal and laugh in the face of death itself if it were not
immediate in its menace. To the end the British Army kept that
saving grace of humour, denied to the Germans, not so common
with the French, but our most priceless gift in a world of horror. So
they went on with the job of war, while the casualties tore gaps in
their ranks.
New men came out to take their places. Fresh contingents arrived
from the Overseas Dominions. There were new and monstrous
battles. The Australians had already come to France after the tragic
epic of Gallipoli, in which they too had lost the flower of their
manhood. The Canadians had been a strong link on the British front
since the early battles of Ypres. In England conscription took the
place of recruiting. There was to be no escape from the ordeal for
any able-bodied man unless he was wanted for a home job or could
get one to save his skin or his conscience.... The war went on in
France and Flanders, in Italy, Russia, Palestine, Turkey, Africa. The
British Empire was all in, everywhere, on sea and land. The area of
destruction was widened as the months passed and the years.
Battles became more murderous because the technique of war was
becoming more “efficient,” its weapons more deadly. Guns increased
in number and in range. Poison gas supplemented high explosives.
Aeroplanes increased in size, in power, and speed of flight; in bomb-
dropping activity. Tanks arrived. The British battles in Flanders five
months long, after those of Arras and Vimy and Messines, were
more ghastly, more sacrificial, than those of the Somme. They were
fought in mud and blood. Men were drowned in shell craters.
Battalions were blotted out by machine-gun fire, high explosives and
gas shells.
The Germans gave way slowly, after stubborn defence, from every
yard of cratered earth. Their own roads were choked with the traffic
of the wounded—an endless tide of human agony. Behind them
there was a welter of death and wreckage. Their man power was
giving out on the Western Front. The collapse of Russia, stricken by
infernal losses—four million dead!—with the very machinery of its
life broken down under the weight of war, in revolt against the
corruption of its own state, enraged by treachery from within, and
weakened by a spreading anarchy among men who declined any
longer to be slaughtered like sheep, gave Germany her last and only
chance of flinging fresh forces on to the Western front and smashing
through to victory by a last prodigious effort.
France was exhausted, but not yet spent. Her youth also had been
thrown into the furnace fires recklessly, without a chance, time and
time again, from the very beginning. Some of her generals had
blundered, quarrelled, intrigued, while the manhood of France was
bleeding to death. Battalions of young boys—as at Souchez—had
flung themselves against almost impregnable positions and had
fallen like grass before the scythe. Her coloured troops had been
slaughtered like poor dumb beasts in storms of fire. Grand offensives
in Champagne had been broken after losses hidden from the French
people, though leaking out. The defence of Verdun, saving France
from surrender, had drained it of its most precious life’s blood. There
were periods when France almost despaired, when there seemed no
hope at all of final victory, but only of gradual extermination, which
would leave France anyhow with but women and cripples and
blinded soldiers and old men, and politicians, and profiteers. At the
back there were periods of mortal depression. At the front the spirit
of the men was sullen. There was mutiny in many ranks. They
refused to be launched into another of those “grand offensives” at
the bidding of generals who wasted blood like water. The French
Army ceased fighting, while the British struggled in Flanders, at the
cost of 800,000 casualties in five months.
America Comes In
One new power was almost ready for active service on the side of
the Allies. If France could only hold out long enough, this new and
arduous weight would be bound to turn the scale at last against
German man-power, drained down to its last reserves. The United
States Army was pouring into France with great tides of men,
magnificent in physique, keen in spirit, and unscarred as yet by the
fires of the war. They were untrained, ignorant of lessons that could
only be learnt by deadly experience, and their Generals were novices
in the organisation and handling of vast masses of troops, as the
British had been. They were bound to make ghastly mistakes. They
would waste their men as ours had been wasted, by faulty staff
work; but sheer weight of numbers and the spirit of brave men
would in the long run be irresistible. Had we the time to wait for
them?...
We had been waiting long for them—too long as some thought,
not realising the diversity of racial views in that great country and
knowing little of its historical character and meaning. Vast numbers
of its people had come from Europe in the past, distant or recent, to
escape—Europe. They had wanted to get away from the very
hatreds and rivalries which had led to this monstrous conflict. They
desired to live secure, in a civilisation where the common man might
work in peace and liberty without being flagged to fight for some
Kings’ quarrel or the ambitions of diplomats, or the fever of racial
passion. Great numbers of them could not understand what the
European quarrel was about when all was said and done. Anyhow, it
had nothing to do with them, in the Middle West and the West,
though New York seemed to be worried. Many intelligent Americans,
shocked to the soul by this breakdown of civilisation in Europe,
believed sincerely that the best service they could render the world
was to stand on one side, to act finally as arbitrators between the
exhausted nations among whom neither side could win—it looked
like that—and to lead the stricken peoples back to sanity and peace.
German Americans had a natural sympathy with the old fatherland
though dismayed by its ruthlessness. Irish Americans still disliked
England too much because of bitter and traditional memories to
weep tears over her sacrifice or to glow with pride at the splendour
of her spirit. Czechs, Slavs, Swedes were utterly neutral. In any
case, apart from all racial strains, the war in Europe was enormously
distant to the souls of men on isolated farmsteads, or to the crowds
in the main streets of little towns west of New York. They elected
President Wilson to keep them out of the war, and that strange man,
with his mingling of mysticism and practical politics, his moral
eloquence, and his autocratic methods, his mental disgust at war
and violence, and his belief that the spiritual destiny of the United
States was not to be fulfilled in terms of military force, or by any
entry into the quarrels of the Old World, made them resist for a long
time the strain of almost intolerable pressures, such as the German
U-boat war and the rising passion of American opinion, in many
classes not neutral, not indifferent to the cause of France and Great
Britain, but tortured by shame, impatience, rage, because the
Government of the United States refused to call its people to a
crusade on the side of right and justice.
All the old stock in America, or nearly all, millions of people in little
American homes who read English books, whose minds were soaked
in English history, whose ancestors had sprung from English and
Scottish soil, panted for their deliverance from a neutrality which was
a fraud and a shame in their hearts. They were not neutral. They
never had been. They were all for England. Millions of others—
remembering Lafayette, and filled with a deep sentiment for France,
an enormous admiration for French heroism—enraged against
Germany for the ruin she had made in France—loathed the policy of
President Wilson, which seemed to them cowardly, selfish and
unworthy. The pressure on Wilson became stronger and more
insistent. Germany helped them in every possible way by deliberate
insult, by methods of sea warfare outside the traditional code of
common humanity; by plots, incendiarism, and sabotage within the
United States itself in order to check the supplies of stores and
ammunition addressed to England and France. When war was finally
declared by the United States in the spring of 1917, the American
people, apart from small minorities, were no longer neutral or
indifferent, and a tidal wave of enthusiasm for service swept over all
barriers and oppositions from coast to coast. It rose higher and
higher as the months passed, reaching to a spiritual exaltation,
unlike any emotion that had ever possessed that nation before. It
had different motives, different manifestations from those which
possessed the peoples of Europe engaged in the war. The Americans
were not conscious of self-interest. There was no sense of menace
against them such as Great Britain had partly felt. There was nothing
they desired to gain for themselves. It was a crusade on behalf of
civilisation. It was also unconsciously a desire in the American mind
to prove that in spite of all their material wealth, their comfort of life,
their peace and security, they were ready to suffer, to make sacrifice,
to spend their energy, and their dollars, to give their manhood and
their courage for a spiritual ideal. The United States would prove to
the world that it had a national soul. It would prove to itself that all
the different strains of race within its citizenship had been merged
and moulded into a national unity, responsive to the call of
patriotism, disciplined by a common code, obedient to the voice of
the State speaking for the whole people.
The very suspicion that certain sections of American citizens might
be cold to this enthusiasm, even disloyal to the State, made
American patriotism more self-conscious, demonstrative, and
vociferous than in European nations where it was taken for granted.
There was a spreading intolerance of the mass mind because of the
need of unity. A nonconformist to this enthusiasm was marked down
as a traitor or a shirker. Every American citizen, man, woman and
child, had to prove allegiance to the state at war by some kind of
service and self sacrifice, in work or dollars or both. Woe betide all
pacifists, conscientious objectors, or indifferentists. American
methods of work, business organisation, industrial energy, dollar
“drives,” were all diverted from peace to war. Financiers, industrial
magnates, engineers, organisers, gave their service to the State and
“speeded up” the war machine. The entire manhood of the nation
was mobilised, drilled, equipped with an utter disregard of cost, and
with driving zeal. It was a terrific demonstration of force, physical,
moral, emotional, set in motion by generous impulses and terrific in
potentiality.
In France and Flanders I saw the arrival of the first American
troops, and then the following tide of men, behind the lines of the
fighting front. It seemed to me then, as it does now, a miracle of
history. After three hundred years the New World had come to the
rescue of the Old. They marched over fields like those of Agincourt
and Crecy where our bowmen and pikemen had fought before
America was on the map of the world. And yet those men of the
United States Army, different in type from ours, belonging to a
different civilisation, spoke the English tongue, and no difference of
accent could break our sense of kinship with them. Even though
they did not all spring from our stock and blood they were in some
way heirs of our tradition, our code of law, our root ideas. We
watched them pass behind the lines with a sense of comfort and a
kind of wonderment. They were magnificent men, untouched as yet
by the strain of war, marvellously fresh, like our first youth which
was now dead. Their numbers grew and grew. One came across
their camps everywhere, but one question was like a sharp sword in
one’s brain: Had they come in time? The Germans were on the
Marne again. Paris was being shelled. Marshal Foch had no reserves.
In a few days, if the Germans made another thrust, Paris might be
surrendered and the spirit of France broken, and the British army
involved in general defeat. Such things were unuttered. They were
thrust aside even from one’s own mind. But they kept one’s brain on
the rack.
The Counter-Attack
Then Foch attacked. As rapidly as his line of blue men had come
up to strengthen the British Front after the German break-through—I
shall never forget the ride of the French Cavalry, on lean horses wet
with sweat, and the hurried tide of blue transport waggons, driven
by coal-black negroes, and the endless line of guns with dusty,
sullen gunners coming to support us when our men had fought back
for three frightful weeks—he withdrew them from our Front. They
vanished like a dream army. English and Scottish Divisions were
entrained for the French Front. Our own lines were thin and weak.
Foch was taking the ultimate risks. American infantry and American
Marines were put in at Chateau Thierry for their baptism of blood.
French infantry, withdrawn from other parts of the line, left almost
without defence, were rushed to the Marne. The German salient
thrust out like a battering ram, pointing to Paris, was attacked on
both sides, at its junctions with the main line. It was pierced and
broken. The enemy was panic-stricken and thrown into a mad
disorder.
“Who attacked?” asked German prisoners.
“Foch’s Army of Reserve,” was the answer.
“He has no Reserves!” they said with rage. “It was impossible for
him to have an Army of Reserve.”
It was an Army of Reserve gathered piecemeal, flung together,
hurled forward in a master stroke of strategy, at the last minute of
the eleventh hour. It was the second “Miracle” of the Marne.
That battle broke the spirit of the German people and of the
German army. They knew that only retreat and defeat lay ahead of
them. They had struck their last great blow and it had failed. They
had used up their man-power. They, certainly, had no Army of
Reserve. They could only hope that the French and British were as
exhausted as themselves and that the Americans were still unready.
They prepared for a general retreat when the British army took the
offensive of August, 1918, and never stopped fighting along the
whole length of its line until the day of armistice, while the French
and Americans pressed the Germans on their own front.
The American army, inexperienced, raw, not well handled by some
of its generals, fought with the valour which all the world expected,
and suffered great losses and made its weight felt. The sight of the
American troops was a message of doom to the Germans. They
knew that behind this vanguard was a vast American army,
irresistible as a moving avalanche. However great the slaughter of
these soldiers from the New World, pressing on in the face of
machine-gun fire, and lashed to death, millions would follow on, and
then more millions. The game was up for Germany, and they knew
it, and were stricken. Yet they played the game, this grisly game, to
the end, with a valour, a science and a discipline which was the
supreme proof of their quality as great soldiers. It was a fighting
retreat, orderly and controlled, although the British army never gave
them a day’s respite, attacked and attacked, captured masses of
prisoners, thousands of guns, and broke their line again and again.
That sweep forward of the British in the last three months was an
astounding achievement. They were the same men who halted on
the armistice line down from Mons as those who had begun the
attack three months before. They had few reinforcements. They had
gone beyond their heavy guns, almost out of reach of their
transport. Their losses had been heavy. There was no battalion at
more than half its strength. They had been strained to the last fibre
of nervous energy. But they had never slackened up. They were
inspired by more than mortal strength, by the exultation of advance,
the liberation of great cities, the rescue of populations long under
German rule, the fever of getting forward to the end at last.
The delirious welcome of the liberated peoples awakened some of
the first emotions of war which had long seemed dead. The entry
into Lille was unforgettable. The first men in khaki were surrounded
by wild crowds of men and women weeping with joy at the sight of
them. Their buttons and shoulder straps were torn off as souvenirs.
They were kissed by old women, bearded men, young girls, babies.
Once again rose the cry of “Vivent les Anglais!” as in the beginning
of the war. Our men were glad to be alive that day to get the
welcome of these people who had suffered mental torture and many
tyrannies during those four years under German rule. The fire of
gratitude warmed cold hearts, re-lit enthusiasm, made it all seem
worth while after all. Surely the French in Lille, the Belgians in
Bruges, the people of Tournai, Cambrai, Valenciennes, Liége, have
not forgotten those days of liberation. Surely they did not join in the
cynical chorus which rose against England in France, or at least in
the French press, during the years that followed? That to me is
unbelievable, with these memories in my heart.
It was Marshal Foch himself who acknowledged with generous
warmth that in these last months of war it was the hammer strokes
of the British army which did most to break the German war
machine to bits, by enormous captures of prisoners, guns, and
ground. General Ludendorff has said so, squarely, in his books; and
history will record it, though it was quickly forgotten in some
countries and never known in others. It is only for the sake of truth
that it is worth recalling now, for there is no boast of victory in the
hearts of men, knowing its cost and its horror, and no glory left
about that war except the memory of the world’s youth which
suffered on both sides of the line.
Ten years after.... The memory of the war days is fading from the
mind of the world. The ten million dead lie in their graves, but life
goes marching on. Self-preservation, vital interests, new and exciting
problems, the human whirligig, are too absorbing for a continual
hark-back to the thought of that mortality. We are no longer
conscious of any gap in the ranks of youth, torn out by the
machinery of destruction. We do not realise the loss of all that spirit,
genius, activity and blood, except in private remembrance of some
dead boy whose portrait in uniform stands on the mantelshelf. A new
generation of youth has grown up since the beginning of the war.
Boys of ten at that time of history are now twenty, and not much
interested in that old tale. Girls who were twelve are now mothers of
babes. The war! Bother the war! Let’s forget it and get on with life.
In that youth is right. It is not in its nature nor in moral health to
dwell on morbid memories. But it is hard on those whose service is
forgotten—so soon. In England—ten years after—there are still
58,000 wounded soldiers in the hospitals—and in France great
numbers more; but they are hidden away, as a painful secret of
things that happened. Only now and again the sight of their hospital
blue in some quiet country lane, near their hiding places, shocks one
with a sharp stab of remorse. We had forgotten all that. We hate to
be reminded of it.
Fading Memories
Even the men who fought through those years seldom speak of
their experience. It is fading out of their own minds, though it
seemed unforgettable. They are forgetting the names of the villages
in France and Flanders where they were billeted, or where they
fought, or where they passed a hundred times with their guns and
transport under shell fire. Good heavens!—don’t you remember?—
that place where the waggons were “pasted,” where the Sergeant-
Major was blown to bits, where old Dick got his “Blighty” wound?
No. Something has passed a sponge across those tablets of memory
—things that happened afterwards. Now and again at Divisional
banquets officers try to revive the spirit of those days and exchange
yarns about trench warfare and days of battle. It is queer how they
remember only the jokes, the laughable things, the comradeship, the
thrill. The horror has passed.
Something else has passed; the comradeship itself, between
officers and men, between all classes united for a time in common
sacrifice and service, annihilating all differences of rank and social
prejudice and wealth at the beginning of the war. It seemed then as
though nothing could ever again build up those barriers of caste.
The muddiest, dirtiest, commonest soldier from the slums or the
factories or the fields was a hero before whom great ladies were
eager to kneel in devotion and love, to cut away his blood-stained
clothes, to dress his wounds. In the canteens the pretty ladies slaved
like drudges to give cocoa or any comfort to “the boys” from the
front. In the trenches or in ruins under shell fire young officers wrote
home about their men: “They’re too splendid for words!... I am
proud to command such a topping crowd.... They make me feel
ashamed of things I used to think about the working man. There is
nothing too good for them.” The British Government thought so too,
and promised them great rewards—“homes for heroes,” good wages
for good work, “a world safe for democracy.”
Ten years after, the classes have fallen apart again. The old
hostilities between Capital and Labour have been revived with
increasing bitterness in many minds. The old barriers have been
rebuilt in many countries. For a time, even in England, there was a
revolutionary spirit among the men who had served, and a sense of
fear and hostility against those who had said that nothing was too
good for them. “Our heroes” became very quickly “those damned
Socialists,” or those “dirty dogs” who are never satisfied, or those
lazy scoundrels who would rather live on the “dole” than take an
honest job. The men who had saved England were suspected of
plotting for her overthrow, subsidised by Russian money and
seduced by the propaganda of a secret society inspired by the spirit
of Anti-Christ.
Ten years after the closing up of ranks, the surrender of self
interest, and a spiritual union, England is again seething with strikes,
industrial conflict, political passion, and class consciousness. There
are still a million and a quarter unemployed officially registered in
Great Britain, and half a million more not on the registers and worse
off. Instead of “homes for heroes” the working people in the great
cities are shamefully overcrowded. In the agricultural districts of
England young men who fought in the Last Crusade and marched
with Allenby to Jerusalem, or those boys who left their fields in ’14
for the dirty ditches in Flanders—for England’s sake—are getting
twenty-five shillings a week, upon which a single man can hardly live
and a married man must starve. And ten years after they poured out
their blood and treasure without a grudge, without reservation, first
in the field and last out of it, the old “quality” of England or their
younger sons are selling up their old houses to pay taxes which are
extinguishing them as a class, depriving them of their old power and
prerogatives, and changing the social structure of the nation by an
economic revolution which is almost accomplished. On both sides
there is bitterness, a sense of injustice, and an utter disillusion with
the results of victory.
Or was it just one great lie to deceive the people of the victorious
nations and to keep them quiet by golden promises which the liars
knew in their hearts could never be fulfilled? One is tempted
sometimes to think so. It is now so transparently clear that not even
the richest and most powerful nation in the world of commerce—the
United States of America—could pay one tenth of the sum expected
from Germany after her overwhelming defeat, and the ruin of her
world trade, without overwhelming financial disaster, that it is
incredible that the greatest statesmen of the Allies and all their
experts and advisers could ever have believed in such mad
economics. Year after year there were assemblies of financial
gentlemen who solemnly sat round tables estimating Germany’s
capacity to pay. Year after year they reduced their estimates until
they were brought down to 6,600 millions, and then by easy stages
to 2,200 millions, while Europe sank deeper into economic misery;
while British trade declined; while Austria starved; while France grew
desperate for these payments; while Russia was famine-stricken;
while Germany poured out paper money which became worthless,
until her bankruptcy could no longer be concealed.
Future historians will be baffled by that psychology. They will hunt
desperately for some clue to the mystery of that amazing folly which
took possession of many people. They will call it perhaps the Great
Financial Hoax, and argue that it was a deliberate deception on the
part of the world’s leaders, afraid to confess to their nations that
after all their sacrifice there would be no “fruits of victory,” but only
heavy taxation, to pay for the costs of war which could not be
shifted on to enemy nations. I do not think it was quite as simple as
all that. I think in the beginning that sheer ignorance of the most
elementary economic laws led men like Clemenceau and Lloyd
George to over-estimate the power of a nation like Germany to
transfer wealth in money values to other nations. They did not
understand that all transferable wealth—or nearly all—can only be
obtained by a trade balance of exports and imports, and that the
potential energy of a nation, its factories and plant, its public
buildings, bridges, organisation and industry, are not transferable
except by a balance over exchange of goods. They were so
hopelessly ignorant of international finance that they actually did
believe that they could “squeeze” Germany of vast sums of money
which could be divided among the Allies for the settlement of their
immense bill of costs, without damaging their own trade or allowing
Germany to trade unduly in the markets of the world. One British
statesman promised his people that Germany should be squeezed
like an orange until the pips squeaked. French statesmen, like
Poincaré, dazzled the eyes of their people with golden visions. They
balanced their budget by the simple method of assuming that all
that war debt would be paid by Germany when pressure was firmly
applied.
It was only later, when the politicians began to get a clear notion
of economic laws, by the painful lessons of reality and disillusion,
that they began to deceive their peoples and keep up the bluff. They
were afraid to tell the truth after all those falsities. In France, long
before the entry into the Ruhr, French economists, business men and
senators confessed privately that France could never hope to get
anything like her claims against Germany, and some of them, more
candid than others, shrugged their shoulders and said: “We dare not
tell the people—the shock would be too great.” The French Press
kept up the conspiracy of this deception, audaciously and
persistently throwing the blame of delay in getting German
payments upon Great Britain who did not stand by them in exerting
“pressure.” In Great Britain, dependent upon export trade for her
main source of wealth, and seeing the deadly stagnation of Europe
and its increasing loss of purchasing power, the truth of economic
law was more quickly perceived, and its statesmen shifted their
policy and forgot their golden promises more rapidly and with more
public candour.
Looking back upon the years after the war, one sees that the
idealism, which for a little while might have changed the face of the
world if there had been great and noble leadership, fell with a crash
in many hearts because the interpreters of the Peace Treaty were
appealing not to the highest but to the lowest instincts of humanity;
to greed rather than justice; to vengeance rather than
reconstruction; to lies rather than truth. If only there had been one
great leader in the world who had cried: “We were all involved in
this crime against humanity, although Germany’s guilt was greatest;
let us in the hour of victory put vengeance on one side and so shape
the peace that the common folk of the world will have a better
chance of life,” I believe that in the time when the agony was great
and the wounds were still bleeding the hearts of people would have
leapt up to him. They would have responded if he had pleaded for
generosity to the defeated nations, if he had refused to punish the
innocent for the guilty, if he had asked them to forego the pound of
flesh demanded in the name of Justice, to forget the horror of the
past, to escape from it together, to march forward to a new chapter
of civilisation not based on standing armies, balances of powers, and
cut-throat rivalry, but upon new ideals of international law, business,
common sense, and Christian ethics.
People will say—do say—“It would have been weakness to let the
Germans off. They deserved to be punished. They would have made
a peace of terror, if they had had the chance of victory. There is
Justice to be considered. Justice demands its due, or God is
mocked.”
That is all true. It would have been weakness to let the Germans
off, but the surrender of their Fleet, the destruction of their Army,
the enormous sum of their dead was not a “let off.” They were
broken and punished, in pride and in soul. They would have made a
peace of terror? Yes, that is certain, and they would have aroused,
intensified and perpetuated a world of hate by which later they
would have been destroyed. Their war lords would have made a
worse peace than this of ours; but that is no argument why we
should have imitated their methods and morals.