The Spectator at war: Talk of the village

‘War and the village wives’, from The Spectator, 15 August 1914:

The men and women of the village are talking unceasingly about the war. The whole aspect of the place is changed. The English silence is broken. Even on Sunday no one lolls and smokes in speechless reflection. All the men read the newspapers; none read less than the whole of one paper every day. The women, however, do not read them, and though they talk as much, they know far less than their husbands. Indeed, if one may judge by a good many chance conversations, they may be said to know nothing at all. It is the question of alliances which has confused these goodwives. A war should be between two countries, they think. Many more than two are, they know, engaged in this war, and they are not altogether sure who is against whom. One fact stands out as a certainty – Germany our enemy, and Germany is to blame.