There are now four hospitals here (1) a big one for native troops, (2) one for British troops which has expanded till it occupies three large houses, (3) one for British officers, which will be used for all ranks if the casualties next Saturday are heavy, (4) one for civilians.  There seems to be no lack of drugs or dressings or invalid foods.

* * * * *

AMARAH.
September 24, 1915.

TO N.B.

Two letters from you rolled up together this mail, for both of which many thanks.

Like everyone else you write under the cloud of Warsaw and in the expectation of the enemy forthwith dashing back on us in the West.  But the last two months have made it much harder for him to do that soon, if at all:  and I hope the month which will pass before you get this will have made it harder still.  I found it difficult weeks ago to explain what induced the Germans to commit themselves so deeply into the interior of Russia so late in the season, and I came to the conclusion that with each forward movement they had been much nearer to enveloping and smashing the Russians than the Reuters would have led one to suppose:  and so had been lured on.

It now looks to me as if they are playing for one of two alternatives.  If Von Below can get round their right flank he will try a last envelopment:  if that flank falls back far enough to uncover Petrograd, he will make a dash for P. But all that will mean locking up even bigger forces in the East.  Indeed it seems so reckless that I can only account for it by supposing either that they are confident of rushing Petrograd and paralysing Russia within a few weeks:  or that they are in a desperate plight and know it.

As for the future, I think it would be a mistake to expect this war to produce a revolution in human nature and equally wrong to think nothing has been achieved if it doesn’t.  What I do hope is that it will mark a distinct stage towards a more Christian conception of international relations.  I’m afraid that for a long time to come there will be those who will want to wage war and will have to be crushed with their own weapons.  But I think this insane and devilish cult of war will be a thing of the past.  War will only remain as an unpleasant means to an end.  The next stage will be, one hopes, the gradual realisation that the ends for which one wages war are generally selfish:  and anyway that law is preferable to force as a method of settling disputes.  As to whether National ideals can be Christian ideals, in the strict sense they can’t very well:  because so large a part of the Christian ideal lies in self-suppression and self-denial which of course can only find its worth in individual conduct and its meaning in the belief that this life is but a preparation for a future life:  whereas National life is a thing of this world and therefore the law of its being must be self-development and self-interest.