Lay Down Your Arms

Lay Down Your Arms

By Bertha von Suttner.

Translated by T. Holmes.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Translator’s Preface to the First Edition
4. Preface to the Second Edition
5. Lay Down Your Arms
   1. I
   2. II
   3. III
   4. IV
   5. V
   6. VI
   7. VII
   8. VIII
   9. IX
   10. X
   11. XI
   12. XII
   13. XIII
   14. XIV
   15. XV
   16. XVI
   17. XVII
   18. XVIII
   19. XIX
6. Endnotes
7. Colophon
8. Uncopyright

Imprint

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Translator’s Preface to the First Edition

When I was requested by the Committee of the International Arbitration and Peace Association, of which I have the honour to be a Member, to undertake the translation of the novel entitled Die Waffen Nieder, I considered it my duty to consent; and I have found the labour truly a delight. Baroness Suttner’s striking tale has had so great a success on the Continent of Europe that it seems singular that no complete translation into English should yet have appeared. An incomplete version was published some time since in the United States, without the sanction of the authoress; but it gives no just idea of the work.

Apart from its value as a work of fiction⁠—great as that is⁠—the book has a transcendent interest for the Society with which I am connected from its bearing on the question of war in general and of the present state of Europe in particular. We English-speaking people, whether in England, in the Colonies, or in the United States, being ourselves in no immediate danger of seeing our homes invaded, and our cities laid under contribution by hostile armies, are apt to forget how terribly the remembrance of such calamities, and the constant threat of their recurrence, haunt the lives of our Continental brethren. Madame Suttner’s vivid pages will enable those of us who have not seen anything of the ravages of war, or felt the griefs and anxieties of noncombatants, to realise the state in which people live on the Continent of Europe, under the grim “shadow of the sword,” with constantly increasing demands on the treasure accumulated by their labour, and on their still dearer treasure⁠—their children⁠—drawn into the ravenous maw of the Conscription, to meet the ever-increasing demands of war, which seems daily drawing nearer and nearer, in spite of the protestations made by every Government of its anxiety for peace.

What can we expect to change this terrible condition except the formation of a healthy public opinion? And what can more powerfully contribute to its formation than a clear conception both of the horrors and sufferings that have attended the great wars waged in our times, and also of the inadequacy of the reasons, at least the ostensible reasons, for their commencement, and the ease with which they might have been avoided, if their reasons had been indeed their causes? This work appears to me of especial value, as setting this forth more plainly than a formal treatise could do, and it is towards the formation of such a public opinion that we hope it may contribute. The dawn of a better day in respect of war is plain enough in our country. We have advanced far indeed from the state of things that existed a century ago, when Coleridge could indignantly say of England:⁠—

’Mid thy herds and thy cornfields secure thou hast stood
And joined the wild yelling of famine and blood!

England since then has given and is giving many gratifying proofs of her sincere desire for peace, and her readiness to submit her claims to peaceful arbitration. Is it too much to hope that we may see our country joining in some well-considered scheme for general treaties of Arbitration and for the institution of an International Court? And may we not hope that our influence, as that of a nation not implicated in the mad race of armaments, and yet not removed from the area of European war, may avail to bring the question of disarmament before an International Conference and thus introduce the twentieth century into a world in which there will be some brighter prospect than that

War shall endless war still breed?

Let as trust that this may not be found quite an idle dream, and that we may without self-delusion look forward to a more happy era, and join the cry of Baroness Suttner’s Rudolf⁠—“Es lebe die Zukunft.”

Hail to the Future!

Preface to the Second Edition

The rapid sale of the first edition of this translation has encouraged the Association at whose request it was made to endeavour to make it more widely known to the various English-speaking populations, by printing a larger edition at a lower price. It is hoped,