The Diary of Dorothy Priest, December 12th 1914

I heard today that I passed my First Aid exam by 64 out of 100.

[SMS] Nürnberg was sunk as well as the other three German ships and the Dresden was being pursued when last heard of.  We had only 11 casualties and they lost four ships which is pretty good for us.  Their losses must have run to thousands.  I believe things are quite satisfactory in France, Belgium and Poland, but I do not read the papers much now, they are full of all sorts of gruesome tales and descriptions.  I am glad Botha has stopped De Wit from doing anymore mischief.  It is a comfort to feel there will be no reproach for us in the Christmas message of Peace on Earth and Goodwill to Men, for strange as it may sound it is peace we are fighting for, peace for all Europe, for all the world.  I can sit here considering and theorising about the war as an abstract sort of thing because nobody I know is fighting, and I do not realise what it really means to the soldiers and sailors and their relations and friends, or any of the horrors of war.  Surely it must end soon, it can’t go on for three years as some people say it will.  And when it is over there will be peace, peace on earth and goodwill to men, such as has not been for many a year.  In Tennyson’s ‘Locksley Hall’ are some lines which refer to fighting in the air and after that a time of peace when it shall be well with all the world; it must be this war he speaks about.  We do not realise the meaning of peace till we have lived in a time of war and realised the meaning of it, and all that it entails.  Surely peace, peace with honour, is the most glorious thing in all the world, although there is a fascination about fighting, especially hand to hand fighting, but not murder by machinery which is what the chief part of modern warfare consists of.

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