The World On Fire

Another Englisher, Aleister Crowley, the Poet, Outs With It Originally published in the 1913 edition of The World on Fire or England’s Own Inferno. In point of fact, gallant little Germany is against a world in arms. Austria has been torn for many years by internal divisions; only a part of her population is of German stock. But against Germany and this one friend are arrayed Russia, France, England, Servia, Montene- gro, and Japan; and every one of these nations is throw- ing its whole diplomatic weight into the task of getting Roumania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Holland, Denmark, and the United States of America to join in. We are only about 6 to 1 at present, and feel insecure. My own view is simpler. We have waited for a long while to smash Germany and steal her goods. We have taken a first-class opportunity, and we shall never regret it. We thank God that we are not as other men. There are no stained glass windows bright enough for us. Our haloes are top heavy. We have quite forgotten that the Belgian is the most cruel, mean, and cowardly cur in Europe, that we have demonstrated till all are blue against him as assassin, torturer, mutilator, and cannibal. We have dined in our thousands to acclaim his disgrace. We heard of nothing but "Red Rubber;" of negroes with hands, and feet, and indeed all that was off-choppable, off-chopped; of rape, robbery, murder, anthropophagy, and so on, until even our sanest etymologists began to derive Belgium from Belial and Belphegor and other leading Lucifuges of the hierarchy of the Pit, and now it is Gallant Little Belgium, and les braves Belges, and enough about heroes and martyrs to make any decent man vomit!