This Will Not Be Our Last Bow
Although it was not the last short story actually published, His Last Bow stands as the chronologically terminus of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. It is set on the eve of World War I and, unlike most of the Sherlock Holmes stories, it is told in the third person. The story revolves around Von Bork, a German agent who has infiltrated British high society and is finally about to finish his mission of espionage and return to the Continent. He has already sent his wife and children ahead, and he's just waiting on a last piece of intelligence before following them. The story opens with Von Bork talking languidly to his friend Baron von Herling, and they are discussing whether Britain retains sufficient will to respond to German provocations. Von Herling insists that the spirit of the Empire is spent, and that decadent England will forsake friendship and honor for a the illusion of a moment's peace:
"Your name has already been files as one of the personal suite. There will be no difficulties for you or your baggage. Of course, it is just possible that we may not have to go. England may leave France to her fate. We are sure that there is no binding treaty between them."
"And Belgium?"
"Yes, and Belgium, too."
Von Bork shook his head. "I don't see how that could be. There is a definite treaty there. She could never recover from such a humiliation."
"She would at least have peace for the moment."
"But her honor?"
"Tut, my dear sir, we live in a utilitarian age. Honour is a mediaeval conception. Besides England is not ready. It is an inconceivable thing, but even our special war tax of fifty million, which one would think made our purpose as clear as if we had advertised it on the front page of the Times, has not roused these people from their slumbers. Here and there one hears a question. It is my business to find an answer. Here and there also there is an irritation. It is my business to soothe it. But I can assure you that so far as the essentials go - the storage of munitions, the preparation for submarine attack, the arrangements for making high explosives - nothing is prepared. How, then, can England come in, especially when we have stirred he up such a devil's brew of Irish civil war, window-breaking Furies, and God knows what to keep her thoughts at home."
"She must think of her future."
"Ah, that is another matter. I fancy that in the future we have our own very definite plans about England, and that your information will be very vital to us. It is to-day or to-morrow with Mr. John Bull. If he prefers to-day we are perfectly ready. If it is to-morrow we shall be more ready still. I should think they would be wiser to fight with allies than without them, but that is their own affair. This week is their week of destiny. But you were speaking of your papers." He sat in the armchair with the light shining upon his broad bald head, while he puffed sedately at his cigar.
And indeed, the jihadist purpose today could not be more clear: the eradication of the Jewish State as the first stage of a global conflict, a conflict that will end only with the establishment of a global caliphate and the subjugation of humanity under the primitive barbarism of Sharia. And we too only hear questions occasionally, as in Sir Arthur's time, here and there - and now as then, there always seem to be "moderates" readily on hand to answer those questions. Their answers may ring hollow, but they are more than adequate to soothe those who desperately yearn to be soothed.
There is a difference today, however: our enemies are more arrogant, and less subtle, than the citizens of pre-WWI Europe. We are perhaps a little further along in our course than Holmes and Watson were along theirs. The answers we hear today are as hollow as ever, but now they have a sharp and dangerous ring. They have a threatening edge that Von Bork and Von Herling would never have betrayed in 1910s Britain. The edge comes from our own version of Von Herling's devil's brew, in the form of radical and unassimilated Muslim immigrant populations in the hearts of Old Europe's greatest cities. These populations are already well-versed in window-breaking fury, and it will not be long before we witness the stirrings of civil wars. Meanwhile, these masses seethe in resentment, acting as blackmail against any European government that tries to erect bulwarks against the rising and chaotic tide threatening Western civilization.
On the eve of this fifth anniversary of 9/11, British Prime Minster Tony Blair spoke to reporters in Israel about the jihadist threat:
I think amongst the leaders in Europe... it is clear. Amongst the people in Europe and Western opinion there is a big battle to be won... there is a desire not to face the fact that we are fighting a global struggle... there is sometimes a naivete about organizations like Hezbollah and the activities of Iran... there is a battle, and it is important that we take our case out and win that battle... Western opinion always wants to believe that it's our fault and these people want to have a sort of, you know, grievance culture that they visit upon us and say it's our fault. And so we have a young British-born man of Pakistani origin sitting in front of a television screen saying I will go and kill innocent people because of the oppression of Muslims, when he has been brought up in a country that has given him complete religious freedom and full democratic rights and actually a very good job and standard of living... the first way to win a battle is to realize you're in a battle. That's part of the trouble: We don't yet really understand this is a global movement and it requires a global strategy to beat it.
It is evident that things are still 'today or tomorrow with Mr. John Bull', and, for many citizens, things are still today or tomorrow with Uncle Sam. But history will not be denied its prerogative, and this unnatural tension will snap sooner rather than later. From the distance of almost a century, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle exhorts us to convince our friends of this inevitability, and to make them see the wisdom of fighting vigorously with allies rather than desperately without them. We should spare no effort to demonstrate to Europe that their cause and their future are with us, as our cause and our past are with them. Whether they will shake their torpidity - and whether they can overcome the dangers they are nurturing within their own borders - will depend on the measure of our redoubled efforts, on the will of their better instincts, and on the disposition of history's vicissitudes.
Despair seems not unreasonable now, as we witness fickle leaders yield again and again to implacable enemies. There is certainly no comfort to be had by squinting into the future, which is an inscrutable horizon shrouded by dense fog. Examining the present provides even colder comfort. The descendents of Churchill and Napoleon and Bismarck have crumbled, and instead of defending themselves they wallow in delusions of anti-Semitism and engage in fits of self-flagellation. The legacy of Shakespeare and Descartes and Mozart is offered up in bitter abasement to those who have no place for - and who openly announce their intention to destroy - drama and philosophy and music.
While there are few causes for hope to be found in the future's mystery or the present's grimness, there may be cause for fortitude in the past's truths. We have been here before. Not once and not twice. We have fought enemies centuries more dangerous than these savages, as many of the 20th century's bloodlettings saw European blood shed by European arms. That the jihadist enemy seeks nothing less than the eradication and erasure of the West is sobering - but that we Westerners have been unable to achieve that much ourselves is in a cruel way heartening. The last century saw minds of sublime sophistication bend instruments of catastrophic force toward the single end of wiping out millennia-old European cultures. That they failed should fortify us as we confront the barbarians who are presently demanding attention at our gates.
Just as history will not be denied its prerogative, so it conspires to preserve its achievements. Athens was subjugated and Jerusalem was conquered, but we still pour over the Republic and meditate on Ecclesiastes. Rome was sacked and The Church grew decadent, but not before they bequeathed to us Ovid and Aquinas. Even the British Empire eventually saw the sun dip below the Western horizon, and witnessed with its setting the retreat of the world of Sherlock and his Watson. But they persist into our own time and take their place in the arc of the Western tradition that is our history and our birthright. His Last Bow concludes with the same unnatural prescience that marks the story's beginning, eerily describing their world's and our world's coming storm:
The two friends chatted in intimate converse for a few minutes, recalling once again the days of the past, while their prisoner vainly wriggled to undo the bonds that held him. As they turned to the car Holmes pointed back to the moonlit sea and shook a thoughtful head.
"There's an east wind coming, Watson."
"I think not, Holmes. It is very warm."
"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared."
The enemy is unable to create or produce anything of permanence or worth. He has no rhyme or reason, let alone tone or tempo. In his drive to mutilate and destroy, he is animated by something approaching a desire, but he does not desire as we desire. Despite what he claims, he does not love death as we love life. Death is certainly a relief from his joyless existence, and jihadists certainly seek death with single-minded purpose. But there is no love for death in any of the multifaceted senses that the Judeo-Christian tradition has taught us to love in life: from love for a tempestuous seductress to love for a old friend, from love for a precious child to love for a loyal pet, and even up to the love one reserves for an old, familiar book.
If death is the relief that the enemy ceaselessly and mercilessly pursues, then he is certainly welcome to it. But there is no purpose in his death, no will made manifest. Ours are the vibrant works of art and architecture, music and science. Over the jihadists' dark abysses we can build sturdy bridges, and over their destructive clatter we can play harmonious symphonies. We are the heirs and benefactors of a civilization that they cannot emulate or tolerate, and so they ignore its strength and deny its wisdom - which is why they will lose and we will win.
"Your name has already been files as one of the personal suite. There will be no difficulties for you or your baggage. Of course, it is just possible that we may not have to go. England may leave France to her fate. We are sure that there is no binding treaty between them."
"And Belgium?"
"Yes, and Belgium, too."
Von Bork shook his head. "I don't see how that could be. There is a definite treaty there. She could never recover from such a humiliation."
"She would at least have peace for the moment."
"But her honor?"
"Tut, my dear sir, we live in a utilitarian age. Honour is a mediaeval conception. Besides England is not ready. It is an inconceivable thing, but even our special war tax of fifty million, which one would think made our purpose as clear as if we had advertised it on the front page of the Times, has not roused these people from their slumbers. Here and there one hears a question. It is my business to find an answer. Here and there also there is an irritation. It is my business to soothe it. But I can assure you that so far as the essentials go - the storage of munitions, the preparation for submarine attack, the arrangements for making high explosives - nothing is prepared. How, then, can England come in, especially when we have stirred he up such a devil's brew of Irish civil war, window-breaking Furies, and God knows what to keep her thoughts at home."
"She must think of her future."
"Ah, that is another matter. I fancy that in the future we have our own very definite plans about England, and that your information will be very vital to us. It is to-day or to-morrow with Mr. John Bull. If he prefers to-day we are perfectly ready. If it is to-morrow we shall be more ready still. I should think they would be wiser to fight with allies than without them, but that is their own affair. This week is their week of destiny. But you were speaking of your papers." He sat in the armchair with the light shining upon his broad bald head, while he puffed sedately at his cigar.
And indeed, the jihadist purpose today could not be more clear: the eradication of the Jewish State as the first stage of a global conflict, a conflict that will end only with the establishment of a global caliphate and the subjugation of humanity under the primitive barbarism of Sharia. And we too only hear questions occasionally, as in Sir Arthur's time, here and there - and now as then, there always seem to be "moderates" readily on hand to answer those questions. Their answers may ring hollow, but they are more than adequate to soothe those who desperately yearn to be soothed.
There is a difference today, however: our enemies are more arrogant, and less subtle, than the citizens of pre-WWI Europe. We are perhaps a little further along in our course than Holmes and Watson were along theirs. The answers we hear today are as hollow as ever, but now they have a sharp and dangerous ring. They have a threatening edge that Von Bork and Von Herling would never have betrayed in 1910s Britain. The edge comes from our own version of Von Herling's devil's brew, in the form of radical and unassimilated Muslim immigrant populations in the hearts of Old Europe's greatest cities. These populations are already well-versed in window-breaking fury, and it will not be long before we witness the stirrings of civil wars. Meanwhile, these masses seethe in resentment, acting as blackmail against any European government that tries to erect bulwarks against the rising and chaotic tide threatening Western civilization.
On the eve of this fifth anniversary of 9/11, British Prime Minster Tony Blair spoke to reporters in Israel about the jihadist threat:
I think amongst the leaders in Europe... it is clear. Amongst the people in Europe and Western opinion there is a big battle to be won... there is a desire not to face the fact that we are fighting a global struggle... there is sometimes a naivete about organizations like Hezbollah and the activities of Iran... there is a battle, and it is important that we take our case out and win that battle... Western opinion always wants to believe that it's our fault and these people want to have a sort of, you know, grievance culture that they visit upon us and say it's our fault. And so we have a young British-born man of Pakistani origin sitting in front of a television screen saying I will go and kill innocent people because of the oppression of Muslims, when he has been brought up in a country that has given him complete religious freedom and full democratic rights and actually a very good job and standard of living... the first way to win a battle is to realize you're in a battle. That's part of the trouble: We don't yet really understand this is a global movement and it requires a global strategy to beat it.
It is evident that things are still 'today or tomorrow with Mr. John Bull', and, for many citizens, things are still today or tomorrow with Uncle Sam. But history will not be denied its prerogative, and this unnatural tension will snap sooner rather than later. From the distance of almost a century, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle exhorts us to convince our friends of this inevitability, and to make them see the wisdom of fighting vigorously with allies rather than desperately without them. We should spare no effort to demonstrate to Europe that their cause and their future are with us, as our cause and our past are with them. Whether they will shake their torpidity - and whether they can overcome the dangers they are nurturing within their own borders - will depend on the measure of our redoubled efforts, on the will of their better instincts, and on the disposition of history's vicissitudes.
Despair seems not unreasonable now, as we witness fickle leaders yield again and again to implacable enemies. There is certainly no comfort to be had by squinting into the future, which is an inscrutable horizon shrouded by dense fog. Examining the present provides even colder comfort. The descendents of Churchill and Napoleon and Bismarck have crumbled, and instead of defending themselves they wallow in delusions of anti-Semitism and engage in fits of self-flagellation. The legacy of Shakespeare and Descartes and Mozart is offered up in bitter abasement to those who have no place for - and who openly announce their intention to destroy - drama and philosophy and music.
While there are few causes for hope to be found in the future's mystery or the present's grimness, there may be cause for fortitude in the past's truths. We have been here before. Not once and not twice. We have fought enemies centuries more dangerous than these savages, as many of the 20th century's bloodlettings saw European blood shed by European arms. That the jihadist enemy seeks nothing less than the eradication and erasure of the West is sobering - but that we Westerners have been unable to achieve that much ourselves is in a cruel way heartening. The last century saw minds of sublime sophistication bend instruments of catastrophic force toward the single end of wiping out millennia-old European cultures. That they failed should fortify us as we confront the barbarians who are presently demanding attention at our gates.
Just as history will not be denied its prerogative, so it conspires to preserve its achievements. Athens was subjugated and Jerusalem was conquered, but we still pour over the Republic and meditate on Ecclesiastes. Rome was sacked and The Church grew decadent, but not before they bequeathed to us Ovid and Aquinas. Even the British Empire eventually saw the sun dip below the Western horizon, and witnessed with its setting the retreat of the world of Sherlock and his Watson. But they persist into our own time and take their place in the arc of the Western tradition that is our history and our birthright. His Last Bow concludes with the same unnatural prescience that marks the story's beginning, eerily describing their world's and our world's coming storm:
The two friends chatted in intimate converse for a few minutes, recalling once again the days of the past, while their prisoner vainly wriggled to undo the bonds that held him. As they turned to the car Holmes pointed back to the moonlit sea and shook a thoughtful head.
"There's an east wind coming, Watson."
"I think not, Holmes. It is very warm."
"Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age. There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less, and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm has cleared."
The enemy is unable to create or produce anything of permanence or worth. He has no rhyme or reason, let alone tone or tempo. In his drive to mutilate and destroy, he is animated by something approaching a desire, but he does not desire as we desire. Despite what he claims, he does not love death as we love life. Death is certainly a relief from his joyless existence, and jihadists certainly seek death with single-minded purpose. But there is no love for death in any of the multifaceted senses that the Judeo-Christian tradition has taught us to love in life: from love for a tempestuous seductress to love for a old friend, from love for a precious child to love for a loyal pet, and even up to the love one reserves for an old, familiar book.
If death is the relief that the enemy ceaselessly and mercilessly pursues, then he is certainly welcome to it. But there is no purpose in his death, no will made manifest. Ours are the vibrant works of art and architecture, music and science. Over the jihadists' dark abysses we can build sturdy bridges, and over their destructive clatter we can play harmonious symphonies. We are the heirs and benefactors of a civilization that they cannot emulate or tolerate, and so they ignore its strength and deny its wisdom - which is why they will lose and we will win.
