Hands Across the Dead
Hands Across the Dead is an article published in the Daily Express on 4 march 1920.
Hands Across the Dead
GERMAN REPLY TO A CALL FOR EXPIATION.
SIR A. CONAN DOYLE'S SON.
"The beloved dead whom yon' have lost will stretch on their hands to the beloved dead whom I have lost, and the chorus of, the united in death shall say, 'Go ye and do likewise.'"
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has received a letter, in which this remarkable passage appears, from a German Dr. Curt Abel-Musgrave, editor of the "World of Trade," a Frankfurt-on-Main journal devoted to reconstruction. Letters of an intimate character passed between these pre-war friends. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote as follows:—
"I thank you for your letter. As I have already said I have nothing but friendly feelings towards you personally. I hope the time may come when we shall have the same towards your country, but it would be vain to pretend that it can be soon. No doubt hot words, such as those you quote from Kipling ('Only a dead German is good German') have been spoken over here, but please remember the provocation. Remember the 'Gott strafe England' campaign, the sinking of hospital ships with nurses, doctors, and wounded, the shelling of boats after they had left sinking vessels, the murders of Aerschot, Dinant, Termonde, and so many other places, the deportation of women in France and Belgium, the bombardment by air and sea of so many open towns — how can a nation do such things and expect that their neighbours will not say hot things about it! We should be more than human if we made no retort.
"WE CANNOT FORGET."
"I have very little influence, and it is, such "as it is, all against a boycott of German trade or cessation of intercourse, but we must still have reserves in our hearts, and it would be hypocrisy to pretend otherwise. We have suffered too heavily through your actions. It is true that you are not the same people who ordered the war to begin, but you are the same people who applauded it, who cursed and ill-used our prisoners, who struck and bought medals when the Lusitania was sunk, and who never protested against such crimes. We cannot forget that, nor can you expect us to.
"I wonder if you were in the fighting. I trust you were not hurt. We suffered heavily as a family. My son was badly wounded on the Somme, and died afterwards of pneumonia. My wife's brother, a doctor, died at Mons, my sister's husband, my wife's nephew, my sister's son, all dead. My only brother, a general, died of pneumonia, just after the armistice at Han."
THE REPLY.
Dr. Abel Musgrave replied thus:—
"Dear Sir, — It is with great pleasure that I recall an evening which I spent in your charming country home. You presented your son — a fine boy, tall and stalwart like his father, with a joyous light in his eyes brimful of life and pleasure, like unto a beautiful, sunny prayer. He was a boy not to be forgotten — a child whose sight called forth a silent, 'God bless you.'
"He is dead, struck to the ground by a German bullet — and his father demands expiation.
'Horrible, indeed, is the thought that a good, beloved being, whose life meant happiness, and blessing to so many, must needs die in the bloom of youth, fatally wounded by a fellow man to whom he has never brought harm, whom he has never seen.
But it seems to me more horrible still that perhaps this good, beloved being, before Fate, overtook him, by his English, bullet caused the death of many good, fine German youths, all of them full of life, all of them the pride of their parents. These others, too, never saw your son, bore him no grudge, had no reason to hear him ill-will. And their parents are crying for expiation.
"We want to turn to better counsellors. To the dead. To the Germans, Englishmen, Americans, Frenchmen.... to all the white and black men who, in the prime of life, were dragged down to the bloakness of the grave.
COUNSEL OF THE DEAD.
"Who can doubt the reply of our dead heroes? The beloved dead whom you have lost, Sir Arthur, will stretch out their hands to the beloved dead whom I have lost. And the chorus of those united in death shall say: 'Go ye and do likewise!'
"Let us follow, the counsel of the dead. Let us in this holy longing for a redeeming solution deliberate jointly; What can we do to make this most horrible of all wars bear, in the end, a fruit which will be a blessing for human development?
"There is but one reply. The fruit of reconciliation and peace can only thrive on a soil of justice and understanding. Mankind must search and finally, clearly decide who is to be charged with the crime of the world's war, who has during the war outraged humanity, following no matter whose command, no matter in what uniform Mankind is crying for a court of justice prepared to bring clear evidence, prepared to throw a searchlight into the archives of Berlin, London, Paris, St. Petersburg, Belgrade, Washington.
"When once the plain truth will be known concerning causes and guidance of this war, the scales will fall off from our blind, eyes. Then will we not be animated by a spirit of revenge, but by the cognisance, and the holy resolve that such a crime may never again defile the history of human development."
