"Wells, H G - War And The Future" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wells H G)

WAR AND THE FUTURE
Italy, France and Britain at War
by H. G. Wells




Contents
The Passing of the Effigy
The War in Italy (August, 1916)
I. The Isonzo Front
II. The Mountain War
III. Behind the Front
The Western War (September, 1916)
I. Ruins
II. The Grades of War
III. The War Landscape
IV. New Arms for Old Ones
V. Tanks
How People Think About the War
I. Do they Really Think at all?
II. The Yielding Pacifist and the Conscientious Objector
III. The Religious Revival
IV. The Riddle of the British
V. The Social Changes in Progress
VI. The Ending of the War




THE PASSING OF THE EFFIGY


1

One of the minor peculiarities of this unprecedented war is the
Tour of the Front. After some months of suppressed information--
in which even the war correspondent was discouraged to the point
of elimination--it was discovered on both sides that this was a
struggle in which Opinion was playing a larger and more important
part than it had ever done before. This wild spreading weed was
perhaps of decisive importance; the Germans at any rate were
attempting to make it a cultivated flower. There was Opinion
flowering away at home, feeding rankly on rumour; Opinion in
neutral countries; Opinion getting into great tangles of
misunderstanding and incorrect valuation between the Allies. The
confidence and courage of the enemy; the amiability and
assistance of the neutral; the zeal, sacrifice, and serenity of
the home population; all were affected. The German cultivation
of opinion began long before the war; it is still the most