The Other Alliance

From The Sun, August 7, 1914. By McLandburgh Wilson.

Germans and Austrians turn on the world,
    Sounding their battle alarms;
English, French, Russians and Serbs are all hurled
    Crushing the others in arms.
Still is a greater alliance that sweeps
    Leading forever the van;
One that includes every woman who weeps,
    One that includes every man.

Soldiers shall rot in the land of the foe;
    Widows shall sorrow forlorn;
Babes shall come into a world full of woe
    Orphaned before they are born.
This is the triple alliance that bears
    Brunt of the carnage so wild;
Greatest, most ancient of all earth’s affairs,
    Father and mother and child.