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The Ypres' Times.
THE MIND OF THE EX-SOLDIER.
By ARNOLD WHITE.
In a little article I recently wrote on the bodily needs of Officers and Men who had survived
their experiences in the Ypres Salient, I spoke only of their bodily needs. The present
article is directed to the same objective, the welfare of Soldiers, but as body and mind are
inseparable I wish to speak frankly about the mental attitude of ex-soldiers towards
civilians, and of civilians' attitude, ruling and otherwise, towards ex-soldiers.
To begin with all the nine thousand Officers and Men survivors from the Ypres
Salient who lack justice and, accepting no charity, have been more highly educated than
any civilian who has never seen a gun fired in anger, or thought a second time about trench
feet or known the agony of first discovery of war facts in front and rear. Yet the sacrifices
of the Salient are seemingly forgotten in the Mother Country..
As to the higher education of the ex-soldier. He knows and the civilian does not
know the facts about the fighting services before the war, during the war and after the
war. Like Qesar's Gaul, this knowledge of the soldier, divided into three parts, constitutes
the soldier's education referred to above. The ex-soldier has graduated in the University
of Hell. Though acquainted with grief, he has a clear mental picture of factspast and
present. The average civilian, taught by his rulers, believes what he wishes to believe.
BEFORE THE WAR.
The ex-soldier knows that the prospect of war with Germany, right up to July, 1614,
was vigorously denied by our rulers and the party Press. Eight days before the war
broke out the Prime Minister soothed the House of Commons with language which delayed
the organisation and despatch of the Expeditionary Forcein two batches, only six divis
ions in all. The trouble with Germany would be overcome, said the present Premier.
On the 1st of January, 1914, the present Prime Minister wrote two columns in the Daily
Chronicle to prove that the reduction of the Navy could then be safely undertaken.
There was no German peril," he said.
The common sense of the common people of England told them that when the German
naval authorities built their battleships with bunker space sufficient for only three days
steaming, that the North Sea and no other sea was to be the scene of German naval opera
tions.
DURING THE WAR.
The Officers and men in the Ypres Salient had personal experience of the invariable
law operating in British military Expeditions throughout history in wars previous to the
advent of democracy.
An Expeditionary Force consisting of the flower of the Army was always sent abroad
to be cut to pieces and then reinforced by soldiers half and quarter trained. The Ypres
men knew that the provision made for the first year of trench warfare lacked vision. The
sufferings inflicted on them in the first winter were worse than the sufferings of the old
army in the Crimea.
During the War the soldiers saw that civilians, not soldiers, have ruled the roost
that civilian politicians grasped generals' authority. One commander after another
was relieved of his command because civilian politicians had their eye on the voter at
home not on the enemy across the frontier. Antwerp, Gallipoli, Salonica, Archangel,
Mermansk are facts known to soldiers remembered by few civilians.
AFTER THE WAR.
Demobilisation of the Army was neither fairly conducted nor wisely conceived. Men
were demobilised after short service in the frontwhile their comrades who had borne
the burden and heat of the day, year after year, were in many cases, left to grind their
teeth on foreign or Indian soil. The land that was to be made fit for heroes to live in
