Now It Can Be Told Quotes

“Lip service to Christian ethics was not good enough as an argument for this. Either the heart of the world must be changed by a real obedience to the gospel of Christ or Christianity must be abandoned for a new creed which would give better results between men and nations”
― Philip Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told

“Life was good out of the line in that September of '15. The land of France was full of beauty, with bronzed corn-stooks in the fields, and scarlet poppies in the grass, and a golden sunlight on old barns and on little white churches and in orchards heavy with fruit. It was good to go into the garden of a French chateau and pluck a rose and smell its sweetness, and think back to England, where other roses were blooming. England!... And in a few days—who could say?—perhaps eternal sleep somewhere near Lens.”
― Philip Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told

“I do not blame Lord French. I have no right to blame him, as I am not a soldier nor a military expert. He did his best, with the highest motives. The blunders he made were due to ignorance of modern battles. Many other generals made many other blunders, and our men paid with their lives. Our High Command had to learn by mistakes, by ghastly mistakes, repeated often, until they became visible to the military mind and were paid for again by the slaughter of British youth. One does not blame. A writing-man, who was an observer and recorder, like myself, does not sit in judgment. He has no right to judge. He merely cries out, “O God! … O God!” in remembrance of all that agony and that waste of splendid boys who loved life, and died.”
― Philip Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told

“They were kind-hearted little sluts with astounding courage.”
― Philip Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told

“Strange words to hear in a cavalry mess! Strange turmoil in the souls of men! They were the same words I had heard from London boys in Ypres, spoken just as crudely. But many young gentlemen who spoke those words have already forgotten them or would deny them.”
― Philip Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told

“The politicians are the guilty ones," said one cavalry officer. "I am all for revolution after this bloody massacre. I would hang all politicians, diplomats, and so-called statesmen with strict impartiality." "I'm for the people," said another. "The poor, bloody people, who are kept in ignorance and then driven into the shambles when their rulers desire to grab some new part of the earth's surface or to get their armies going because they are bored with peace." "What price Christianity?" asked another, inevitably. "What have the churches done to stop war or preach the gospel of Christ? The Bishop of London, the Archbishop of Canterbury, all those conventional, patriotic, cannon—blessing, banner-baptizing humbugs. God! They make me tired!" Strange words to hear in a”
― Philip Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told

“It is a the belief of many brooding minds that almost as great as the direct guilt of the German war lords was the guilt of the whole political society of Europe, whose secret diplomacy (unrevealed to the peoples) was based upon hatred and fear and rivalry, in play for imperial power and the world's markets, as common folk play dominoes for penny points, and risking the lives of common folk in a gamble for enormous stakes of territory, imperial prestige, the personal vanity of politicians, the vast private gain of trusts and profiteers. To keep the living counters quiet, to make them jump into the pool of their own free will at the word "Go," the statesmen, diplomats, trusts, and profiteers debauch the name of patriotism, raise the watchword of liberty, and play upon the ignorance of the mob easily, skillfully, by inciting them to race hatred, by inflaming the brute-passion in them, and by concocting a terrible mixture of false idealism and self-interest, so that simple minds quick to respond to sentiment, as well as those quick to hear the call of the beast, rally shoulder to shoulder and march to the battlegrounds under the spell of that potion.”
― Philip Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told

“about the German boy's throat and tried to strangle him and to stop another dreadful cry. The second officer made haste. He thrust his revolver close to the”
― Philip Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told

“We do trust you—with some misgivings," thought the people, "and we do leave it to you—though you seem to be making a mess of things—but we want to know what we have a right to know, and that is the life and progress of this war in which our men are engaged. We want to know more about their heroism, so that it shall be remembered by their people and known by the world; about their agony, so that we may share it in our hearts; and about the way of their death, so that our grief may be softened by the thought of their courage. We will not stand for this anonymous war; and you are wasting time by keeping it secret, because the imagination of those who have not joined cannot be fired by cold lines which say, 'There is nothing to report on the western front.”
― Philip Gibbs, Now It Can Be Told