Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/21

 his part he preferred German Invasion to British Finance," was the same Tom Kettle who believed it Ireland's duty in 1914 to take the sword against Germany as the Ally of England.

"This war is without parallel," he wrote in August, 1914; "Britain, France, Russia, enter it, purged from their past sins of domination. France is right now as she was wrong in 1870, England is right now as she was wrong in the Boer War, Russia is right now as she was wrong on Bloody Sunday."

In August and September, he acted as war correspondent for the Daily News, and in this capacity was a witness of the agony of Belgium. He returned to Ireland burning with indignation against Prussia. He referred to Germany as "the outlaw of Europe." "It is impossible not to be with Belgium in this struggle," he wrote to the Daily News; "it is impossible any longer to be passive. Germany has thrown down a well-considered challenge to all the forces of our civilisation. War is hell, but it is only a hell of suffering, not of dishonour, and through it, over its flaming coals, Justice must walk, were it on bare feet."

It was as an Irish soldier in the army of Europe and civilisation that he entered the war. "He was horrified," said Mr. Lynd very truly, "by the spectacle of a bully let loose on a little nation. He was horrified, too, at the philosophic lie at the back of all this greed of territory and power. He