THE HUMAN SLAUGHTER-HOUSE

Scenes from the War that is Sure to Come

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF

WILHELM LAMSZUS

BY

OAKLEY WILLIAMS

WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY ALFRED NOYES

NEW YORK

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

1913

INTRODUCTION

There is one thing that will certainly be said about this book by some of its readers. It will certainly be said to exaggerate the horrors of modern war; and, just as certainly, that is a thing which this book does not do. It is appallingly reticent; and, for every touch of horror in its pages, the actual records of recent warfare could supply an obscure and blood-stained mass of detail which, if it were once laid before the public, would put an end to militarism in a year. It is not the opponents of militarism who are given over to "cant" and "hypocrisy" and "emotionalism." It is the supporters of militarism who on the eve of a great war go about crying for suppression of facts, censorship of the facts not only of military plans, but of human suffering. For if there is one thing that the military journalist dreads it is the sight and smell of blood. "Let us enjoy this pleasant compaign. Let us present our readers with a little military music played upon the brass bands of the press. But for God's sake do not waft over Europe the smell of iodoform, or of the slaughter-house. Man is a fighting animal; let us enjoy the fight. And—pollice verso!"

Unfortunately for these gentlemen, whose good taste is so impeccable that they shrink from the whole truth, man is also a fighting god. 'And the next thing we are going to fight is militarism. There is hardly a great commander in the history of modern warfare who has not described his own profession as "a dirty trade" and war itself as hell. The party of "bad taste" which is going to destroy militarism is not likely to reject the testimony of Wellington, Grant and Napier in favor of the sensational journalist. This book deals chiefly with the physical and mental horrors of war. It presents just that one side of the case; but it must not be forgotten that there are vast battalions of logic and common sense on the same side. From a logical point of view a war between civilized peoples is as insane as it is foul and evil. The pacificists are fighting the noblest battle of the present day. They are not going to win without a struggle; but they will win. And they will win because they have on their side the common good of mankind, common sense, common justice, and common truth.

ALFRED NOYES.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
WILHELM LAMSZUS
LETTER FROM THE CONGRES UNIVERSEL DE LA PAIX
CHAPTER I MOBILIZATION
CHAPTER II SOLDIER
CHAPTER III OUR FATHER WHICH ART IN HEAVEN
CHAPTER IV THE LAST NIGHT
CHAPTER V THE DEPARTURE
CHAPTER VI LIKE THE PROMISE OF MAY
CHAPTER VII BLOOD AND IRON
CHAPTER VIII THE SWAMP
CHAPTER IX THE WHIRLING EARTH
EPILOGUE—WE POOR DEAD

WILHELM LAMSZUS

Few books of its size—one hundred and eleven pages in the original edition—can perhaps of recent years claim the striking and instantaneous success of Wilhelm Lamszus's "Menschenschlachthaus." In appraising this success, I am less concerned with the number of copies sold (which now, three months after publication, approximates, I believe, one hundred thousand) than with the impression it has left on the mind of its readers in Germany and elsewhere on the Continent. Within a few days of its publication the author awoke to find himself famous—or infamous, according to the point of view adopted—in his own country. The fact that his book has been, or is being, translated into no less than eight European languages is evidence that its appeal is not confined to the conditions of one country, or of a single nationality.

Its appeal is broad-based. It is addressed to the conscience of civilized humanity, and as was to have been expected, the conscience of the individual has reacted to its stimulus in various ways.

The first evidence the author received of the success of his work was drastic. By profession he is a master at one of the great German public schools. He was at once "relieved" of his duties, but has now, I understand, been reinstated. The schoolmaster in Germany, it must be borne in mind, is primarily a state official. His most important function is to educate, not only the rising generation of citizens, but the future levies of conscripts. For a schoolmaster to write a book "with a tendency" to strip the pomp and circumstance of war of its traditional glamour—an integral factor in the German educational system—must, in the eyes of the orthodox of the "State-conserving" parties, have savored of an unholy alliance between blasphemy and high treason. The sale of the book was interdicted in the town of its first publication—the "free" city of Hamburg. The interdict had the effect of stimulating its sale elsewhere. It challenged a hearing. Even the "State-conserving" journals were unable to ignore it entirely.

A short time ago, in an open letter addressed to the German press, the author replied to the criticisms and strictures of his professional reviewers. As may be conceived, these criticisms and strictures lacked nothing in virulence or acrimony. "A peril to the public safety," "an hysterical neuropath," "a morbid phantasy," "a socialist-anarchic revolutionary," "a cowardly weakling," "a landless man," "an imported alien draining the marrow of patriotic backbone," may serve as an anthology (for which I am mainly indebted to the Hamburger Nachrichten) of the compliments showered on the author and his work. As this reply discloses what was in the author's mind