The Sequel What the Great War will mean to Australia

Name: The Sequel What the Great War will mean to Australia
Author: George A. Taylor

by George A. Taylor

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World War I Historical Novels Novels World War, 1914-1918

Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #27382.

About this book

The work is a wartime novel that blends personal memoir with speculative commentary, first appearing in the Australian weekly Construction in early 1915. It opens with a stark declaration about the devastation of cities and ships, then moves into a self‑conscious preface in which the author, George A. Taylor, frames the narrative as a series of predictions made in June 1915 for the close of 1917. He cites real‑time developments, Italy’s entry into the war, the use of thermite shells, and the study of scientific management in Australian industry, to underline the immediacy of his forecasts. The story then launches into Chapter I, recounting the narrator’s crash‑landing behind German lines in February 1915, his wounding, and his reflective turn from a peace‑society activist to a Royal Flying Corps lieutenant. The opening thus sets a tone of urgent, polemical storytelling grounded in contemporary events and maps of the Western Front.

Taylor’s voice is earnest and didactic, steeped in the rhetoric of the 1910s, with frequent allusions to biblical and literary sources to argue that war is a necessary crucible for civilization. The prose is dense, mixing reportage of aerial combat with philosophical musings on force, duty, and national destiny. Readers who enjoy early twentieth‑century war literature, particularly those interested in the evolution of military aviation, the cultural climate of Australia during the Great War, and the period’s blend of propaganda and personal narrative, will find this novel a vivid, if opinionated, window into the mindset of a soldier‑writer confronting the conflict as it unfolded.

Characters in The Sequel What the Great War will mean to Australia

George A. TaylorYoung Australian WWI pilot, short dark hair, trimmed moustache, leather flight jacket, leather cap with goggles, solemn expression

The opening · free to read

And how the scenes of battle change!

Cities are being smashed and ships are being torpedoed. Thousands of lives go out in a moment. And these tremendous tragedies pass so swiftly that it is risky to write a story round them carrying any touch of prophecy. I, therefore, attempt it, realising that risk. The story is written for the close of the year 1917. Its incidents are built upon the outlook at June, 1915.

It first appeared in an Australian weekly journal, "Construction," in January, 1915, and already some of its early predictions have been realised; as, for instance, the entry of Italy in June, the use of "thermit" shells, and the investigation of "scientific management in Australian work."

To many readers, some of the predictions may not pleasantly appeal. But it must be remembered that, being merely predictions, they are not incapable of being made pleasant in the practical sense. In other words, should any threaten to develop truth, to materialise, all efforts can be concentrated in shaping them to the desired end.

Predictions are oftentimes warnings. Many of these are.

The story is written to impress the people, with their great responsibilities in these wonderful days--when a century of incident is crowded into a month, when an hour contains sixty minutes of tremendous possibilities, when each of us should live the minutes, hours, days and weeks with every fibre strained to give the best that is in us to help in the present stupendous struggle for the defence of civilisation.

GEORGE A. TAYLOR. Sydney, Australia, June, 1915.

The map, on pages 6 and 7, shows the lines followed by the German armies through Belgium and France during August and September, 1914. The main line of the Allies' attack, through Metz, in August and September, 1915, culminating in the defeat of Germany (predicted for the purpose of this story) is also shown.

You can facilitate the early realisation of this prediction by enlisting NOW.

They often met before and fought. To gain supremacy in sport. They meet again now side by side. For freedom in the whole world wide.]

I'll not forget it in a hurry. That day I fell into the hands of the German Army. "Fell," in my case, was the correct word, for my monoplane was greeted with a volley of shots from some tree-hidden German troops as I was passing over the north-eastern edge of the Argonne Forest.

I was returning from Saarbruck when I got winged. Bullets whizzed through the 'plane, and one or two impinged on the engine. I tried to turn and fly out of range, but a shot had put the rudder out of action. An attempt to rise and trust to luck was baulked by my engine losing speed. A bullet had opened the water cooler, and down, down the 'plane glided, till a clear space beyond a clump of trees received it rather easily. I let the petrol run out and fired it to put the machine out of use. Then a rifle cracked and a bullet tore a hole through my left side, putting me into the hospital for six weeks.

That forced idleness gave me plenty of time for retrospection.

I lived the previous energetic five months over and over again. I had little time before to think of anything but my job and its best possibilities, but the quietness of the hospital at Aix la Chapelle made the previous period of activity seem a nightmare of incident.

I remember how surprise held me that I should be lying wounded in a German hospital--I, a lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps, who for years before the war, had actually been a member of an Australian Peace Society!

Zangwill's couplet had been to me a phrase of force:--

"To safeguard peace--we must prepare for war. I know that maxim--it was forged in Hell!"

I remembered well how I had hung on the lips of Peace Advocate Doctor Starr Jordan during his Australian visits, and how I had wondered at his stories that Krupp's, Vicker's, and other great gun-building concerns were financially operated by political, war-hatching syndicates; that the curse of militarism was throttling human progression, and that the doctrine of "non-resistance" was noble and Christianlike, for "all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword."

I remembered how in Australia I had grieved that aviation, in which I took a keen interest as a member of the Aerial League, was being fostered for military purposes instead of for that glorious epoch foretold by Tennyson:--

For I dipped into the future far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world and all the wonders that would be, Saw the heavens filled with commerce, Argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales.

I remembered I felt that the calm of commerce held far more glories than the storm of war; that there was no nobler philosophy than:--

"Ye have heard it said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but I say ... resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. If any man take thy coat, let him have thy cloke also."

Then came the thunderclap of war; and in the lightning flash I saw the folly of the advocacy of peace. I felt that I, like others, had held back preparation for this great war, that had been foreseen by trained minds. I felt that extra graves would have to be dug, because dreamers--like myself--had prated peace instead of helping to make our nation more secure.

"Non-resistance" may be holy, but it encourages tyranny and makes easy the way of the wrongdoer. If every man gave his cloak to the thief who stole his coat, there would be no inducement for the robber to lead an honest life. Vice would be more profitable than virtue.

"Non-resistance" may be saintly, but it would make it impossible to help the weak or protect the helpless from cruelty and outrage.

All law, all justice, rests on authority and force. A judge could not inflict a penalty unless there were force to carry it out.

Creeds, after all, are tried in the fires of necessity. "They that take the sword shall perish by the sword." Well, the Kaiser had grasped the sword. By whose sword should he perish except by that of the defender?

Christ's teachings are characterised by sanity and strength. He speaks of His angels as ready to fight for Him; He flogged the moneychangers from the temple: He said that no greater love can be shown than by a man's laying down his life for his friend; and the Allies fighting bravely to protect the oppressed, were manifesting to the full this great love. Germany's attack on a weaker nation, which she had signed to protect, called for punishment from other nations who had also pledged their honor.

Unhappy Belgium called to the civilised world to check the German outrages on its territory and people.

My peace doctrines went out like straw before a flame. I was a "peace-dove" winged by grim circumstance; and that is how I became a man of war.

England to Belgium, in 1870: "Let us hope they (Germany) will not trouble you, but if they do--"

(Tenniel, in "London Punch," at the time of the Franco-Prussian War.)]

I was in England when the war cloud burst, having just completed a course of aviation at the Bristol Flying Grounds; so I volunteered for active service; and, after a month's military training, was appointed a lieutenant in Number 4 Squadron of the R.F.C.

I remember how the first crash of war struck Europe like a smash in the face. How armies were rapidly mobilised! How the British Fleet steamed out into the unknown, and Force became the only guarantee of national safety!

It is hard to write of these things now that many days have passed between, for events followed each other with the swiftness of a mighty avalanche.

How Germany thrilled the universe by throwing at Belgium the greatest army the world had ever seen. An awful wave of 1,250,000 men crashed upon the gate of Liege.

How the great Krupp siege guns slowly crawled up, stood out of range of the Liege forts, and broke them at ease.

How through the battered gate a flood of Uhlans poured to make up for that wasted fortnight, preceded by their Taube aeroplanes spying out the movements of the Belgium army; the German artillery following, and smashing a track through France!

How that fortnight gave France and England the chance to interpose a wall of men and steel, which met the shock of battle at Mons, but was pushed back almost to the gates of Paris.

It was at the battle of Mons that the squadron to which I was attached went into active operation, reconnoitring the battle line on our left flank. It was my first taste of battle, but I do not remember any strange feelings.

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