troops in
England when their point of maximum effectiveness is manifestly in
France, it becomes necessary to insist upon the ability of our civilian
population, if only the authorities will permit the small amount of
organization and preparation needed, to deal quite successfully with any
raid that in an extremity of German "boldness" may be attempted.

And, in the first place, let the expert have no illusions as to what we
ordinary people are going to do if we find German soldiers in England
one morning. We are going to fight. If we cannot fight with rifles, we
shall fight with shotguns, and if we cannot fight according to rules of
war apparently made by Germans for the restraint of British military
experts, we will fight according to our inner light. Many men, and not a
few women, will turn out to shoot Germans. There will be no preventing
them after the Belgian stories. If the experts attempt any pedantic
interference, we will shoot the experts. I know that in this matter I
speak for so sufficient a number of people that it will be quite useless
and hopelessly dangerous and foolish for any expert-instructed minority
to remain "tame." They will get shot, and their houses will be burned
according to the established German rules and methods on our account, so
they may just as well turn out in the first place, and get some shooting
as a consolation in advance for their inevitable troubles. And if the
raiders, cut off by the sea from their supports, ill-equipped as they
will certainly be, and against odds, are so badly advised as to try
terror-striking reprisals on the Belgian pattern, we irregulars will, of
course, massacre every German straggler we can put a gun to. Naturally.
Such a procedure may be sanguinary, but it is just the common sense of
the situation. We shall hang the officers and shoot the men. A German
raid to England will in fact not be fought--it will be lynched. War is
war, and reprisals and striking terror are games that two can play at.
This is the latent temper of the British countryside, and the sooner the
authorities take it in hand and regularize it the better will be the
outlook in the remote event of that hypothetical raid getting home to
us. Levity is a national characteristic, but submissiveness is not.
Under sufficient provocation the English are capable of very dangerous
bad temper, and the expert is dreaming who thinks of a German expedition
moving through an apathetic Essex, for example, res