What genocide really feels like, by a prospective victim

Yesterday I wrote about what genocide really means, when the word isn’t being thrown around as a simple term of abuse to hurl at anyone using brutal and excessive force to achieve military ends.

Today my blood ran cold as I heard a man facing the prospect of real genocide being perpetrated against his people, and specifically himself. He was facing that fate not at some indefinite date in the future, but within a few hours. If you’re reading this in the evening of 8 August, there’s every likelihood that the speaker is dead, killed by foes so pitiless that he would rather have the international community bomb him than die at their hands.

If he’s killed, it will not be for anything he’s done, but for what he is: a member of the Yazidi faith in Northern Iraq. 

This is my transcript of what he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning. I give it without comment: I feel it provides commentary enough in itself.

Yazidis on Mount Sinjar
Awaiting death by thirst, or by Isis

Currently our situation is very catastrophic. We don’t have any food, we don’t have any water. In the last couple of days, I’ve seen 22 children who died because of the lack of food and water, and I’ve seen  also four or five women and men who died because of the lack of supplies. We’re currently on the mountain surrounded on four different sides, and right now, while we’re speaking, there are clashes between Isis and a couple of our people. I would also like to add that maybe you will not be able to contact me again, because I will be already killed.

The clashes now are very, very close to where I stand. Now there are clashes among the final line of resistance. There is a small checkpoint inside the mountain. If Isis defeat the defending forces there and advance by night, they will kill every one of us and all this ethnicity will be wiped out

It’s a matter of hours whether they manage to capture this last checkpoint by nightfall. They will kill all of us and we don’t think we have enough time.

We already fled because they killed more than 1000 people around the area and they captured also more than 200 women and girls.

Send us urgent help and urgent rescue because we are facing our certain death. If the international community can’t help us and send us urgent rescue, I want them to bomb us and wipe us out, because we would rather that than be captured or killed by Isis. They will have to live with the guilt they have. Because our time now has reached almost the end.

Gaza: you think that’s genocide? You ain’t seen nothing yet...

It’s interesting to see people throw the word “genocide” around when talking (or ranting) about the 2000 deaths at Israeli hands in Gaza. Indefensible, unjustifiable and quite probably criminal deaths. 2000 of them.

Let’s be absolutely clear.

Genocide is the deliberate extermination of a people. In other words, it’s the resolution of ethnic conflict by one people physically wiping out the other. Usually it’s accompanied by ethnic cleansing, where you can avoid being killed if you go away, abandoning everything you and possibly several generations before you have worked for, and settle for scraping a subsistence living in some miserable refugee camp somewhere.

Precisely that is happening right now, but not in Gaza. 130,000 members of the Yazidi sect have fled their main city of Sinjar in North West Iraq. 40,000 of them are now sitting on a mountain outside the city contemplating the unappealing alternatives of coming down and being murdered by Isis, or staying there and dying of thirst.

The Middle East's latest charmers: Isis at work in Iraq,
the nation where Bush accomplished his mission

Those who remain in the city have the third option of converting to Sunni Islam. That would certainly convince me. But then I prefer living on my knees to dying on my feet, on the basis that dying on your feet leaves you permanently on your back, whereas there is a chance of getting off your knees and back on your feet if you stay alive.

Even the figures of 130,000 and 40,000, shocking through they are, are on the smaller end of the scale of genocides. In Rwanda, for instance, estimates of deaths vary between 500,000 and a million. But Isis are just getting started. They showed their mettle by killing 1500 civilians in a single day (by comparison, it took the Israelis weeks to kill their 2200), and they have plenty of enemies other than the Yazidi: Shias (fellow Muslims), Christians, basically anyone who gets in their way.

Now it’s beyond a doubt that Israel has the capacity to be as genocidally effective as Isis. But if they had been in Gaza, there would have been hugely more deaths than there were. Whatever accusation we can make against the Israeli incursion, and we can accuse it of a great deal, charging it with genocide simply means ignoring what a genocide really is and what actually happened.

The UN has rightly said that the Israeli Defence Forces may have committed war crimes. It is, as I understand it, a crime to behave recklessly so that, even if an armed force is fighting legitimate military enemies, if it kills civilians through simple failure to take sufficient care, it has committed a war crime. That means no one needs to prove that they were deliberately targeting civilians: the mere fact that they didn’t take reasonable measures to protect them is enough.

It makes sense to investigate Israel on those charges. In the meantime, it would be a good move to suspend all arms exports to Israel. That might, indeed, force them to the table and oblige them to take a less violent line with their adversaries.

Nothing could be more necessary. That was brought home to me by an interview that John Alderdice, previously of the Alliance Party in Northern Ireland, gave to the BBC Today programme. With his experience of facilitating negotiations involving Protestant paramilitaries and the IRA in Ulster, he has no qualms about negotiating with terrorists. Indeed, he believes such negotiations are vital. He has personally held discussions, relatively recently, with Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas. Here’s what Alderdice said:

I understand the perspective that Israelis have. I would also of course say, “well there’s not much evidence that the Israeli Government’s way of working has actually helped.” And from a very early stage, one of the things that was part of the discussion, was that Hamas was saying, “look we’re prepared to engage, we’re prepared to engage in a kind of Western democratic style of things, and free and fair elections and forming governments, and even coalitions, and all of these kinds of things. If however this becomes impossible, we will not change our commitment to that, but we can let you know that there are people in our wider community who in any case want to burn the system not work the system.” So in the same kind of way as not engaging with Fatah for many years led to the rise of Hamas, trying to destroy Hamas will simply create something else.

Chilling words. And a salutary warning to us all. Israel’s decades-long attempt to crush Fatah led to the emergence of the far more vicious and dangerous Hamas. Now their long battle against Hamas may lead to something far worse still.

What might that far worse thing be?

Alderdice was in no doubt:

…and we’re seeing it developing: with Isis.

The fruits of Israel’s action is to generate the most violent and terrifying terrorist organisation the Middle East has yet seen. Israel’s action and that of the Western Powers in invading Iraq. And in time, it will be targeting the West as well as Israel.

Anyone who thinks what we’ve seen in Gaza over the last few weeks was genocide needs to think again. Because it’s going to fade into insignificance compared to what we may see in the months ahead. And let’s remember that it’s been brought into existence by Israel’s recklessness and our support for it.

That’s the biggest danger. Our task is to understand it, so that we can do something about it. And misusing terms like genocide to make them simple insults only muddies the waters.

Countdown to War, Day 39. 5 August: Britain declares war and an era ends

One hundred years ago today, on Wednesday 5 August 1914, Martin and his tracklayer mates reading the Manchester Guardian, found confirmation that the axe had finally fallen the day before. Britain was at war.

“England declares war on Germany” screamed the headline.

“Presumably it’s us too,” grumbled the Scotsman.

Great Britain declared war on Germany at 11 o’clock last night.

The Cabinet yesterday delivered an ultimatum to Germany. Announcing the fact to the House of Commons, the Prime Minister said: “We have repeated the request made last week to the German Government that they should give us the same assurance in regard to Belgian neutrality that was given to us and Belgium by France last week. We have asked that it should be given before midnight.”

Midnight German time was 11:00 p.m. in Britain.

Another article made clear why the appeal for Belgian neutrality had been made. And why it had never stood the slightest chance of being heeded.

The Prime Minister of Belgium announced in the Belgian Chamber yesterday that Belgian territory had been violated by the German forces.

The British Foreign Office was informed by the Belgian Minister in London shortly before noon that the German forces had crossed to Belgian soil

German troops occupying Ostend

“So that’s it,” said Martin, “We’re in. Like it or not. For better or for worse.”

“For worse,” said the Cynic.

“And all over Belgium!” another voice piped up.

“Nothing to do with Belgium,” said the Cynic, “it’s Germany wanting a bigger role in the world. Much bigger. And France and Russia thinking she’d only get it at their expense.”

“And the Austrian Archduke?” asked Martin.

“A pretext for Austria-Hungary to take on Serbia. And that was’s the pretext for this one.”

“I still don’t see what on earth it has to do with us.”

“It didn’t have anything to do with us but it does now.”

There was a silence as the men reflected on what the future held in store. Not that they were likely to guess the full impact the war would have.


Firstly, it would end in two separate defeats. The first would be suffered by Russia: despite the huge numbers of men it could call on, “to die in heaps” as the Guardian had said, they were hopelessly outmatched by German discipline, training and arms. Russia’s defeat led to the seizure of power by the Communists and 70 years of tension with the Capitalist world.

The second defeat was suffered by Germany and Austria-Hungary.

For the Dual Monarchy, defeat spelled dissolution. Hungary was separated from Austria, but also lost two-thirds of its territory. Austria was reduced to its German-speaking heartland. The Balkan Slavs, including Bosnia where the Archduke and his wife were murdered, merged with Serbia. That was a triumph for the Serb nationalists. The King of Serbia even took the throne of the new country, though as a sop to other groups, it was eventually given a neutral name, Yugoslavia, the land of the Southern Slavs.

As for Germany, the Kaiser lost his throne and went into exile. The country felt itself betrayed not beaten, and crushed by the reparations the victors forced it to pay. The bitterness and resentment led to the Nazis taking power as a violent revanchist movement, intent on reversing the losses of the First World War by fighting a Second. Neither that war nor the Holocaust need have happened had the first war not been fought.

The Empires on the winning side lost out too. France and Britain were sucked dry by the cost of the war. Because they were victors, they clung on to their colonies for another generation, but the writing was on the wall.

Domestically, the war also brutally altered Britain’s destiny.

Asquith remained at the head of a Liberal government, the last Liberal Prime Minister, until May 1915 when he brought leading Conservatives into a coalition. A little over eighteen months later, he was unceremoniously dumped and replaced by David Lloyd George, who saw the war through to victory. The National government, as the Coalition was known, fought and won the 1918 election as a bloc under Lloyd George, with Asquith’s Liberals running against them; by 1922, the Tories had had their fill of the National Liberals and dropped them. Labour took over as the second largest party, forming its first government, as a minority, in 1924.

Liberals never again formed a government of their own.

Winston Churchill had started his career as a Conservative before holding a series of Ministerial posts in the Liberal Party; Arthur Balfour, Tory Prime Minister at the turn of the Century, just before the Liberals came to office, said “I thought Winston Churchill was a young man of promise, but it appears he is a young man of promises.” In 1925, Churchill returned to the Conservatives, a move on which he later commented “anyone can rat, but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat.”

A young man of promise or a young man of promises?

Women’s suffrage was delayed for the period of the war. In 1918, however, after a war in which women had played a crucial role in keeping the industrial machine going, they at last won the right to vote at age 30 subject to a property qualification; practically all men were given the vote at 21, as Martin had hoped. 

The suffrage was made equal between the sexes ten years later. 

We saw Irish Home Rule being put on the back burner as war broke out. It would never become an option again: the traditional Nationalists were outflanked by more committed and radical movements demanding full independence. The divisions within the island, however, were never addressed, so when the British government was at last forced to let Ireland go, it retained six of the nine counties in Ulster, where Edward Carson had raised the cry of “No Surrender” to rally the Protestant Loyalist forces.

The war cost 37 million casualties, 17 million of them dead. Was Martin one of them?

British soldiers heading off

It’s hard to say. Out of five and a half million who fought, 700,000 were killed. That he fought I have no doubt. I suspect he wouldn’t have joined up voluntarily, given his views, but in 1916 conscription was introduced and as a healthy young man in a line of work that wouldn’t have exempted him, he would certainly have been called up.

However, I’ve found no trace of him in any prominent position in the post-war National Union of Railwaymen or Labour Party. Did he merely fail in his ambitions to go into union or national politics, or was he one of the 700,000 dead? Or perhaps one of the 750,000 who were permanently disabled? There’s no way of knowing.

And then there were Martin’s more parochial hopes. On 4 August 1914, Lancashire’s arch-rivals Yorkshire notched up a commanding lead in their latest match. They wrapped up the game on the 5th, the day Martin read about the declaration of war.

The season ended with Surrey winning the County Championship. Lancashire was eleventh out of sixteen, in the bottom half of the table and well behind Yorkshire, which came fourth.

“Like I said,” explained Martin, “It turned into a lousy year, 1914.”

Countdown to War, Day 38. 4 August: German incursions in France; a fateful session of the House of Commons

One hundred years ago today, on Tuesday 4 August 1914, Martin and his mates would have discovered from the Manchester Guardian that the Continental Powers had taken another fatal step the day before.

Reuter’s Agency is informed by Prince Lichnowsky, the German Ambassador in London, that he is authorised by the Imperial Chancellor to state officially that all news about a German invasion of French soil is without foundation.... On the other hand, several official reports had been received about French troops crossing the German frontier...

Reuter’s Agency is requested by the French Embassy to deny officially German allegations of an alleged violation of German territory by French officers.

“The fog of war,” said Martin.

“Its first casualty,’ replied the Cynic and, when Martin looked blank, added, “the truth.”

Reuter’s further reported:

A German patrol entered French territory, and came into collision with a French force near Joncheray. The officer in command of the invaders killed one of the French soldiers, whereupon he himself was slain by one of the dead men’s comrades...

This morning a fairly strong force of German cavalry advanced towards Suarée... three kilometres from the frontier...

According to official telegrams received here... German troops advanced on Herzerange and Langlaville, in the neighbourhood of Longwy.

A welcome cup of water served by a peasant woman
to French soldiers on the march

“So what’s happening?” asked a voice.

“No one seems to know,” replied the reader, and read a quotation from a French official in an article on “the spirit of France”

”The state of Franco-German relations is unprecedented. Germany has not only violated the neutrality of Luxemburg, but has also entered French territory at two points... Yet the German Ambassador remains in Paris...”

“So – are they at war or aren’t they at war?”

“Of course they’re at war,” said the Cynic, “it doesn’t suit the Germans to admit it yet so they’ve left the Ambassador in place.”

“They’re not feeling cheerful in Vienna, apparently,” went on the reader.

Government quarters here contemplate the situation as superlatively critical...

To-day everybody seems to feel that the life of Austria-Hungary as a State may depend upon the outcome of the impending struggle, and in any case the sacrifices of blood and money which it will impose on the population far exceed anything foreseen when only Servia was pitted against the Dual Monarchy.

“Yes,” said the Cynic, “Austria-Hungary’s bitten off more than it can chew, fighting Germany’s battles with France and Russia, instead of just its own with little Serbia.”

“Italy’s staying neutral,” said Martin pensively, “so it can be done.”

“What, you’re still clinging on to that hope, are you?” asked the Cynic, “here, pass me the paper.”

The Cynic leafed through until he’d found an article headlined “A Fateful Sitting of the Commons.”

Leading members of the Liberal Government but leading hawks
David Lloyd George (left) and Winston Churchill

Rather less than two hours sufficed to-day for the essential passages of the strangest, the most moving, and in every sense of the word the most fateful sitting of Parliament within living memory...

As Ministers came to their seats those whose names had been associated with rumours of resignation were greeted with general cheering. Both Mr. Churchill and Mr. Lloyd George were thus welcomed, and it was noted that the part taken in their ovation by the Opposition was particularly marked. Some time passed before Mr. Asquith joined his colleagues. Even in cheering their careworn leader members scrutinised his grave and impassive face with eager curiosity, as if in search of some sign of hope. None was visible.

Not much to smile about
The last Liberal Prime Minister,  Herbert Asquith
He would be replaced by Lloyd George at the end of 1916

The Cynic paused. 

“Churchill and Lloyd George are the war party in government. Everyone thought they’d resign if we decided on neutrality. They haven’t so now they’re being cheered by the war party in the Commons, the Tories.”

He went on.

... Sir Edward Grey rose to take the nation into the confidence of the Cabinet...

On the surface the earlier part of his statement seemed to be a justification for neutrality or relative inaction... in commenting on the obligations in honour by which France was tied to Russia in the war, Sir Edward Grey frankly admitted that such obligations could not apply in the same way to this country... Even so, our long-standing friendship with France – “And with Germany,” interjected a Liberal member – had led to arrangements which, in Sir Edward’s opinion, involved us in certain responsibilities.

Of those, the heaviest turned out to be the undefended condition of the northern and western coasts of France, due to the withdrawal of the French fleet to the Mediterranean. Here a hypothetical case was presented – the possible event of an attack on those coasts by the German fleet and of ourselves looking on as dispassionate spectators. With greater energy than he had hitherto shown, Sir Edward, raising his voice and speaking with unusual emphasis, utterly dismissed the latter hypothesis and declared that in such an event we could not possibly stand aside. Amid the general cheering evoked by this declaration the Nationalists made their voices unmistakably heard. “Hurrah for France!” shouted Mr. William Redmond...

“William Redmond?” asked Martin.

“Brother of John,” explained the Cynic, “also an MP. What? You thought the Irish were above dynastic politics? Just because they want to be rid of us doesn’t make them any better. You watch: Ireland will have just the same kind of trotters in the trough behaviour as anywhere else, in or out of the United Kingdom.”

“And now they want us in this war...” said Martin.

“It’s all going to come down to Belgium,” went on the Cynic.

... there was the more serious question of the invasion of Belgian territory – a question, as the Minister showed, which earlier in the crisis had been the subject of unsatisfactory diplomatic negotiations...

“Didn’t anybody speak out against?” asked Martin.

“Of course they did. Your mate for one,” answered the Cynic and went on reading.

Some impatience was shown while Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, in his firm yet temperate manner, was giving voice to the determination of the Labour party to have no part in a policy of war...

“Well, at least we can count on Labour,” sighed Martin, “one party that’ll never take this country to war against the will of its people.”

“Probably best never to use the word never, young man,” said the Cynic.

...the House listened in sombre stillness to speech after speech from the Liberal benches, all, with scarcely an exception, severely critical of the Foreign Minister’s arguments and actions.

“A Liberal government has lost the support of Liberal MPs,” said Martin sadly.

“And has to rely on the Tory Opposition to take us into war.”

The Cynic held up the paper to show another headline:

GREAT BRITAIN TO MOBILISE

War Office announce the intended proclamation.

“We’re mobilising already,” he said, “how long can it be?”

“It’s already happening,” said a young man who’d just walked in, “it’s on the telegraph back at the station.”

“What do you mean?” asked Martin.

“The authorities are taking control of the railways. We work for the government now.”

There was a shocked silence broken by the Cynic laughing.

“So now our jobs will be to keep the cannon fodder moving round the country. Until we become cannon fodder ourselves.”

Countdown to War, Day 37. 3 August: Germany fighting Russia, Luxembourg, maybe France – and Switzerland?

One hundred years ago today, on Monday 3 August 1914, Martin and the other railwaymen in his crew would have found little to raise their spirits in the Manchester Guardian.

“German invasion of Switzerland reported”, they read.

The German army has invaded Switzerland and has occupied the Swiss station of Bale. As every tourist knows, Bale contains two stations, one German and one Swiss. Bale is now entirely in the hands of the Germany army.

“Every tourist knows?” scoffed Martin.

“Come, come, young man,” said the Cynic in a passable Southern accent, “surely you went through Bale when you did your grand tour?”

“Inexplicably,” replied Martin, “my Mum omitted to include Bale on my itinerary.”

Swiss and German border guards pose together in 1915
on the border between Basel, Switzerland and Lörrach, Germany
Switzerland was never invaded, contrary to the Guardian report

“Russians on German Soil” proclaimed an article on early clashes in the East.

Last night Russian patrols made an attack on the railway bridge over the Marthe... The attack was repulsed. Two Germans were slightly wounded. The Russian losses are not known.

In a leader entitled “On the Brink”, the paper again made the case for neutrality.

Saturday and Sunday were the fateful days of a century. On Saturday Germany declared war on Russia. Early the next morning, her troops invaded Luxemburg...

“Luxembourg?” a voice interrupted, “they declared war on Russia so they invaded Luxembourg?”

“Let him read,” came a chorus in reply.

...and in the course of the day they are alleged to have crossed the French frontier at two points not specified. The war party in England will use these facts to work up feeling against Germany as the aggressor and the violator of international law...

A lot of heads nodded. The fact of German aggression was indeed hard to deny.

... but sober Englishmen, while grieving that Germany should have thought fit to take this frightful responsibility, will not let German military opinion of what is best for Germany affect their own judgement of what is best for England. Germany was not free to choose; whether war was to come depended not so much on what she did as on what Russia meant to do.

There was some sense in that. Germany faced specific threats.

With the genius and the brilliancy of France on the one flank and the overwhelming numbers of Russia of the other she felt herself fighting against odds for her very existence...

“There’s an assessment of French strength,” said the man with the paper.

The French army, taken as a whole, has two great assets – it has a great tradition to re-establish...

“Damn right,” a voice interrupted, “after getting the stuffing kicked out of them by the Germans last time.”

...and it has had some experience in its colonial wars. The military system of the French army disposes of twenty-one army corps and a large surplus of colonial troops...

The belief of the French General Staff is that its material both in men and equipment is slightly superior to that of the German army... The French General Staff... maintain that it is the duty of the army to find and definitely establish the path which the enemy proposes to follow, and then adjust your own strategic movement so that you turn your enemy’s momentum to your advantage by refusing him in front and turning his flanks.

“It sounds hopeless for the Germans,” agreed Martin, “their Austrian allies aren’t making much headway against Serbia. The Russians have massive numbers. And the French, on their own, are stronger than the Germans. It’ll all be manoeuvre and counter-manoeuvre, turning the enemy’s flank and all that, and Germany won’t last long. So why do the French need us?”

“It won’t be that easy,” said the man with the paper. “The French have one big flaw: they’re French.”

He read on.

France, as a nation, is subject to hysterics. It is only Latin after all.

German troops on patrol on French territory
in the early days of the war

“I keep saying,” came a voice from the back, “we may be joining the wrong side.”

“The paper still reckons neither side’s right for us.” 

He read on from the editorial.

The British Cabinet sat almost all day on Sunday discussing what the policy of this country ought to be. As we write we do not know what decision has been reached. But we are, if possible, more convinced than ever that duty and interest alike demand that this country should not make itself an accessory to the crime against reason and human happiness that is now beginning.

“What, with Germany on the rampage,” someone protested, “they still want us to stay out?”

The Guardian did.

The tide of public indignation against the suggestion that this country should take part in a general European war is rising fast.

The need for giving expression to that feeling is increasingly recognised, and an organisation has been set on foot to co-ordinate and strengthen the demands that Great Britain shall take no part in such a war unless she’s directly attacked.

“That’s right, isn’t it?” said Martin, “we’re facing ‘a crime against reason and human happiness’. Why do we have to get involved?”

“We don’t,” said the Cynic, “but you watch us. We will. We’ll all be accomplices of that crime. And people like us lot will also be the victims.”

Another article carried the headline “England’s Duty”:

It is felt that it is urgent to bring home to the public the importance of showing the strength of the feeling in favour of neutrality. In the absence of such expression the agitation now being maintained in powerful quarters in favour of England’s joining the war may be accepted by the Government and by foreign nations as the general view of the country.

“Exactly,” said Martin, “lots of people want to stay out. That counts.”

“Don’t talk soft,” scoffed the Cynic, “the decision’s been taken already. We’re going in. We’ll know in a day or two.”

“What do you mean? It would be a sad day for this country when a government can take us to war against the will of the majority.”

“Then get ready for sad days.”

There was a sudden burst of laughter from the man with the paper.

“Listen to this,” he called out.

Parliament reduced to plain English Food

The French cooks employed at the House of Commons have all responded to the call to arms. There will be “only plain English fare” on the menu in the dining-room till the end of this session.

“The suffering’s already started...” said Martin.

“Yes,” said the Cynic, “and MPs are going to be taking decisions in a bad mood on unsatisfied stomachs. That’s only going to make things worse.”

Countdown to War, Day 36. 2 August: as Germany goes to war against Russia, does God require Britain to fight?

One hundred years ago today, on Sunday 2 August 1914, the Methodist Minister wore a bleak smile when he dropped in on Martin to give him his Observer. The paper confirmed the worst fears of the previous few days.

Germany has declared war with Russia, and France and Germany have both ordered a mobilisation.

Thus has vanished the last hope of European peace, for although, curiously enough, a state of war does not yet exist between Germany and France, or Russia and Austria, it must only be a question of some hours before these Powers take sides in the quarrel.

Russian trenches

The Observer didn’t share the Manchester Guardian’s commitment to neutrality. Nor did it have any ambiguity about which side to choose: the villain was Germany. 

Let us not blind ourselves for a moment by illusions. Our neutrality is impossible. It would be an act of desertion which would prevent any country from ever trusting us as an ally or a friend again... He who is no friend will have no friend. The original cause of the smaller war is nothing. That squalid and hateful pretext has been used with open eyes to force a vaster issue. The Great War is fought by the Central Powers for one object. It is fought for the mastery of Europe under conditions which, if we stood aside, would assure for Germany – by direct and indirect means – the eventual and perhaps the speedy mastery of the Low Countries and the narrow seas.

“We’re expected to fight for the Low Countries?”

“Look at the map, Martin. Belgium’s a stone throw away. That’s why its neutrality matters. We can’t have Germany encamped there.”

But Martin was irritated with the paper. In its previous issue, the Observer had argued that “the moral point to remember is that in this business Austria Hungary is fundamentally justified and Servia is fundamentally wrong.” Seven days on, it was convinced Britain should fight on the Serbian side of the dispute.

It was down to the government now. What would it choose? Again unlike the Guardian, the Observer wasn’t keen on the Liberals.

What will our statesmen do? Our leaders at the moment are the chief members of a Radical Government which, as a whole, is not the best fitted by traditional or political circumstance to uphold the vital interests of Britain with sound judgement and unwavering resolution at this hour.

If the paper felt that the Tories were better suited to take Britain into war, that only strengthened Martin’s inclination to stay well clear of it.

The US was staying out. As was Italy, and it was an ally of Germany’s and Austria-Hungary’s: “her obligations under the Triple Alliance only applying to a defensive war, Italy considers herself to be released from her engagement, the war being waged by Austria, supported by Germany, being essentially an offensive war.”

“We’re like the US,” Martin exclaimed, “without a treaty to oblige us to fight. Why would we?”

“Because it means defending our friends and justice. That is an obligation, Martin, whatever alliances or treaties may say.”

“So... thou shalt not kill means nothing?”

“It means a lot. But it has consequences. ‘Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in His image did God make man’. By the hand of man, Martin. For shedding the blood of other men. Sometimes the Lord requires that we shed the blood of our fellows.”

“But... what about beating your swords into ploughshares... about blessed are the peacemakers?”

“All that’s true, Martin, in the right time and place. But the Lord also said ‘Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.’ The gospel isn’t a work of milk and honey, it’s a work of fire and and iron too.”

“And you think it’s a time for fire and iron now, then?”

“I fear it may be. And don’t forget the Lord’s promise: ‘...he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it’.”

Martin looked at him steadily and saw in the Minister’s eyes a light of belief he wasn’t sure he shared. And he saw a man of – what? – fifty or more. He wasn’t likely to be called on to lose his life in this cause.

German troops in Łowicz, in then-Russian Poland
occupied soon after the outbreak of war

After the Minister had gone, Martin sighed and read on. Serbia was having a torrid time.

...the Austrians continued yesterday heavy artillery firing in the neighbourhood of Belgrade, but have not yet succeeded in crossing the Danube or Sava. Fierce fighting is stated to have occurred between Foca and Selitza, in which the Fourth Servian division and two Austrian divisions were involved...

Other longstanding problems hadn’t gone away, though it looked as though the disaster of a general European war might put them in the shade. The Observer thought that there could be some reduction in tension in Ireland, especially thanks to the attitude of the Unionists – and there were Unionists on both sides of the Irish Sea, the Opposition Conservatives (the Tories) being their British arm.

The Unionist leaders responded with that undeviating patriotism which the present Opposition has invariably shown in every issue of foreign policy...

Unionists had dropped the demand for an immediate election.

Upon the other hand, the question of presenting the Home Rule bill for the King’s signature is deferred...

Great Britain well knows the Ulster Volunteers, in face of foreign danger, to be an Army in reserve for the Union Jack. If the Nationalist Volunteers show anything like the same devotion... to the common cause of the United Kingdom, they will... open up for Ulster, for the rest of Ireland and for their ultimate reunion, hopes which even a week ago seemed unthinkable.

Would the Irish nationalists put aside their demands to make common cause with the mother country at its time of danger? He couldn’t really see it. Especially with Home Rule back off the table. Another news item suggested there would be no let up in their desire for separation from that mother:

The Irish National Volunteers, says a message from Limerick, claim to have succeed in landing 150 rifles at Foynes from an American yacht on the River Shannon, without the intervention of the authorities.

He noticed that the suffragettes, or at least those in Mrs Pankhurst’s group, were showing no inclination to ease their pressure on the authorities. Ironically, they were operating in Ireland too, and with the ferocity typical of that island’s quarrels.

The Women’s Social and Political Union contradicts the statement that instructions have been given for the cessation of Suffragette militancy during the crisis.

Early yesterday morning a charge of dynamite was exploded under the chancel window of the old cathedral at Lisburn, damaging a valuable window and masonry.

Meanwhile, just as international relations were collapsing in general, in London the Transport authorities were still doing their best to improve them.

The sixteen interpreters appointed by the London General Omnibus Company to attend at railway termini connecting with the Continent and other busy traffic centres, commenced their duties yesterday, and their services were much appreciated by foreigners arriving as strangers to London.

Across the Continent, divisions were mobilising against each other. But in London, the bus company had deployed sixteen people to make life easier for tourists. Now that was worth a smile on a sad, tense Sunday evening.

Countdown to War, Day 35. 1 August: Russian and Germany at war. Any hope still for British neutrality?

One hundred years ago today, on Saturday 1 August 1914, Martin and his tracklayer friends would have been hard put to it to find much good news in the Manchester Guardian.

“THE CATASTROPHE APPROACHES”.

At least that was a headline that didn’t mince its words.

Europe is very near war. Last night even the firmest friends of peace were almost without hope.

Little doubt remains that all Russia’s forces are being mobilised. In the House of Commons yesterday Mr. Asquith, on the authority of Berlin, announced the extension of the partial Russian mobilisation reported several days ago. He understood that Germany would issue like orders...

A most serious message came yesterday from the meeting-place of the German, Russian, and Austrian frontiers. It reported on what is described as official authority the destruction by the Russians of the neighbouring bridge over the Austro-Russian frontier, between Granitza in Russia and Szczakowa in Austria...

German news is equally grave. Official announcement is made of the suspension of the international train services into the Empire; telephone communication with Denmark and Belgium has been stopped...

Our Paris correspondent, in a late message, says at a Council of Ministers yesterday orders were given for six army corps on the German frontier to mobilise...

Italy is said to have decided to remain neutral...

German troops heading to attack the Russians

“It’s all falling apart,” said Martin.

“Oh, don’t be so gloomy,” exclaimed one of his friends, “It’s time to get stuck in. We’re going to show them who’s boss and we’ll have some fun. It’ll be over by Christmas.”

“Get stuck in?” asked another, “which side would you like us to join?”

“Why – the Germans of course. They’ve got proper soldiers.”

“You haven’t been listening, have you? Ours is the other side. With the Frogs.”

Martin intervened. “Neither side’s our side. The whole thing’s nothing to do with us. We need to stay neutral just like Italy.”

“We’re nothing like Italy,” said the Cynic, “you watch. We’ll go in. It won’t be over by Christmas. And it won’t be fun.”

The Guardian wasn’t yet prepared to give up on British neutrality.

Evidence grows that public opinion is becoming shocked and alarmed at the thought that this country could be dragged into the horrors of a general European war, although she has no direct interest in it and is admittedly bound by no treaty obligations to take part in it.

Martin found it hard to take much encouragement from these words. He was beginning to suspect that the Cynic might be right: the government wanted to go in, and no amount of opposition was going to stop it. Indeed, elsewhere in the Guardian journalists seemed close to that position themselves. The leader writer, in particular, argued that:

... there is in our midst an organised conspiracy to drag us into the war should the attempts of the peace-makers fail. “Conspiracy” we say because it is disloyal to Parliament, which is the constitutional guardian of the national interests in times of crisis. The conspirators prefer the confidence of selected newspaper editors to that of the representatives of the people. The objects of the conspirators are now openly avowed. We are to join in, not under certain conditions or in defence of this or that British interest which may happen to be threatened, but in any case.

Against the conspirators, the Socialist movement on which Martin had counted had taken a serious blow. The Frenchman Jean Jaurès had been one of its most prominent leaders internationally, and a major opponent of war, like Ramsay MacDonald in the British Labour Party. But fate had been less kind to him. There was a report from Paris:

The Government has decided to placard the following proclamation on the walls of Paris:

“Citizens, – An abominable attack has just been made on M. Jaurès. The great orator, who was such an ornament of the French public platform, has been basely assassinated. Personally, and in the name of my colleagues, I bow before the fall, so premature, of the Socialist Republican who fought for such a noble cause, and who in these troublous days has, by his authority, supported the action of the Government in the interests of peace.”

Jean Jaurès at his best

Jaurès had been a leading contender for socialist collaboration between the peoples of France and Germany to prevent the war.

“Just when we needed him most, he’s been bumped off,” said Martin.

“Because you thought he was getting somewhere? The people rising? Stopping the war?” asked the Cynic.

In any case, however clear the question of which side Britain was on might be to some people, it really wasn’t that obvious. The leader writer quoted with approval the nineteenth-century politician John Bright, who referred to the long-term objective of British foreign policy, the “balance of power”, as a “will o’ the wisp”. However inappropriate that balance was as a goal, a supposed ally of Britain’s might well overthrow it in the coming war, while the likely enemy might reinforce it.

If Russia wins there will be the greatest disturbance of the balance of power that the world has ever seen. The whole conditions of our continued existence as an Asiatic Power will have be revised, and all over the world, wherever we come into contact with Russia, we shall have a repetition of the self-effacement which we have witnessed in Persia. The victory of Germany, on the other hand, would in effect be a victory for the principle of the balance of power. If we believed in this principle – which we do not, – then we might be for intervention on the side of Germany.

Those urging war seemed particularly concerned with the notion of the “neutrality of Belgium”, now “it is assumed, ... in danger from Germany, and from her alone.”

“I don’t give a damn about the neutrality of Belgium,” declared an older tracklayer in the crew, “just the neutrality of Britain.”

Martin agreed. And it felt to him as though that neutrality wouldn’t be guaranteed for long.

And on top of all that? Another headline proclaimed “Lancashire outplayed by Warwickshire.” The match ended as a draw but only because time ran out. Lancashire had been heading for disaster otherwise.

What a year.